“And that will be quite sufficient,” cried Elsa; “a carriage would not be at all suitable for shipwrecked people. And now, Herr Pölitz, do you be as good and wise as your good, wise little wife!”
She gave her two hands to the farmer. There was a strange quiver in the man’s sunburnt face.
“You are a good young lady,” he murmured, as he tightly pressed the little hands that lay in his.
The President had already taken a leaf from his pocketbook, and sat down at the farmer’s little desk to write his announcement.
“What did you say was your name, Captain?” he asked over his shoulder.
Reinhold was no longer in the room; he must just have left it. The maid who came in with the coffee told them that the gentleman had put on his macintosh in the outer-room, and said that he must see what had become of the steamer.
“A true sailor!” said the General. “He cannot rest in peace; it would be just the same with me.”
“I suppose we must include him? what do you think?” asked the President in a low voice of Elsa.
“Certainly!” said Elsa, with decision.
“Perhaps he does not wish it?”
“Possibly; but we must not leave the decision to him. His name is Schmidt.”
“Classical name,” murmured the President, bending over his paper.
The messenger was sent off; the farmer came in to keep the gentlemen company, while Elsa went back to the wife in the smoky little kitchen to tell her what had been arranged.
“I must thank you,” said the woman; “but it is hard, very hard—” She pressed the corner of her apron to her eyes, and turned away to the fire. “I do not mean about thanking you,” she continued; “but I am sorry for my husband; it is the first time I am sure that he ever allowed guests to leave his house in this way.”
“It is only on account of the children,” said Elsa.
“Yes, yes,” said the woman; “but we have had the children ill before, without being obliged to trouble other people about it. That was when we lived at Swantow, three miles from here; that is the Count’s property too. We married there six years ago, but times were too hard, and the rent too high.”
“Could not the Count have helped you?”
“The Count?”
The woman looked up with a sad smile on her worn face. She seemed about to say something, but left it unsaid, and busied herself silently over her pots.
“Is not the Count a kind man?” asked Elsa.
“He is not married,” answered the woman; “he does not know what a father and mother feel when they must leave the house and farm where their first children were born, and where they had hoped to see them all grow up; and we should have got on here, though the rent is too high here also, if it had not been for the war. My husband had to go out with the Landwehr, and our two best men as well. I worked hard, even beyond my strength, but what can a poor woman do? Ah! my dear young lady, you know nothing of such trouble, and God grant that you never may!”
Elsa had seated herself on a stool, and was gazing into the flames. If she had known this before! She had thought that the Count was married. Strange, strange, that she had not asked about it; that the others had not mentioned it! If he should be at the castle, she was with her father and the good President certainly; but when Aunt Sidonie heard of it she would think it very improper; and if only he were a nice man, so that she could say on meeting him that she had already heard so much good of him from his tenants—it was most vexatious. Was it too late to change?
One of the children in the room next to the kitchen began to cry loudly; the farmer’s wife hastened away.
“It is most vexatious,” repeated Elsa.
A pot on the fire threatened to boil over; she moved it on one side, not without blackening her hands with soot. The wind, which roared down the chimney, drove the smoke in her face. The ill-fitting window rattled; the child in the next room cried more pitifully.
“Poor woman,” sighed Elsa; “there is something terrible in being poor. I wonder whether he is poor? he does not seem rich. How does a merchant captain like that live when he is not at sea? Perhaps after all he is married, as the Count is unmarried; or does he love someone in a distant country, of whom he thinks while he paces the deck so restlessly? I must find that out before we part; I shall find an opportunity. And then I shall ask him to congratulate her from me, and to tell her that she will have a husband of whom she may be proud, of whom any girl might be proud. I mean a girl in his own station. For instance I—absurd! one does not marry for a pair of honest eyes, particularly when disinheritance would be the result of such a mésalliance! It is a curious arrangement, but Schmidt is not a pretty name: Frau Schmidt!”
She laughed, and then suddenly her heart softened strangely, and tears came into her eyes. She felt for her handkerchief, and found something hard in her pocket. It was the little compass which he had given to her in the boat, when she was sitting by him and wanted to know the direction in which he was steering. She opened the case and looked inside. On the cover was prettily inlaid in gold letters the name, Reinhold Schmidt; and the needle trembled and pointed away from her, and always quivered in the same direction towards the name, however often she turned and twisted the case in her hands.
“As if it were seeking Reinhold Schmidt!” said Elsa; “how faithful it is! And I would be faithful if I once loved, and would stand
