CHAPTER V
Changes
Dick Ashton's laughing wish that his sister Betty were a little less pretty was not so unreasonable as you might suppose, had you seen her on this particular late June afternoon as she ran down the narrow, ugly hall of the German pension to greet her brother and sister.
She had on a pale blue muslin dress open at the throat with a tiny frill of lace. Her red bronze hair had coppery tones in it as well as pure gold and was parted a little on one side and coiled up in the simplest fashion at the back of her head. The darkness of her lashes and the delicate lines of her brows gave the gray of her eyes a peculiar luster like the shine on old silk. And this afternoon her cheeks were the deep rose color that often accompanies this especial coloring.
She put one arm around Esther, drawing her into their sitting room, while Dick followed them. It was an odd room, a curious mixture of German and American taste and yet not unattractive. The ceiling was high, the furniture heavy and dark, and the walls covered with a flowered yellow paper. But the two girls had removed the paintings of unnatural flowers and fruits that once decorated them, and instead had hung up framed photographs of the famous pictures that had most pleased them in their visits to different art galleries. There was Franz Hals' "Smiling Cavalier" gazing down at them with irresistible camaraderie in his eyes which followed you with their smile no matter in what portion of the room you chanced to be. On an opposite wall hung a Rembrandt painting of an old woman, and further along the magical "Mona Lisa." In all the history of art there is no more fascinating story than that relating to this great picture by Leonardo da Vinci. For the woman who was the original of the picture was a great Italian princess whom many people adored because of her strange beauty. She had scores of lovers of noble blood and lowly, but no one is supposed to have understood the secret of her inscrutable smile, not even the artist who painted it. This picture was first the property of Italy and then carried away to hang for many years in the most celebrated room in the great gallery of the Louvre in Paris. From there it was stolen by an Italian workman, taken back into Italy and later restored to the French Government. But before Mona Lisa's return to her niche in the Louvre she made a kind of triumphal progress through the great cities of her former home, Rome, Florence and Venice. And in each place men, women and little children came flocking in thousands to pay their tribute to beauty. And so for those of us who think of beauty as a passing, an ephemeral thing, there is this lesson of its universal, its eternal quality. For the smile of one woman, dead these hundreds of years, yet fixed by genius on a square of canvas, can still stir the pulses of the world.
Betty happened to be standing under this picture as she helped Esther remove her coat and hat. And though there was nothing mysterious in her youthful, American prettiness, there is always a poignant and appealing quality in all beauty. Esther suddenly leaned over and placing her hands on both her sister's cheeks, kissed her.
"What have you been doing alone all day?" she asked. "Was your mother well enough to go out with you?"
Betty shook her head without replying and, though Esther saw nothing, Dick Ashton had an idea that his sister was merely waiting for a more propitious time for the account of her own day. For she asked immediately after: "What difference in the world does it make, Esther Crippen, what I have been doing? The thing I wish to know this instant is whether Professor Hecksher has asked you to sing at his big concert with his really star singers? And if he has asked you what did you answer?"
"So that was what was worrying you, Esther?" Dick said and walked over to the high window, pretending to look out.
For Esther was beginning to grow as pale and wretched as she had been an hour before and was once more twisting her hands together like an awkward child.
Betty caught her sister's hands, holding them close. "Tell me the truth," she insisted.
First the older girl nodded, as though not trusting herself to speak and then said: "Yes, Professor Hecksher has asked me. He wants me to make my musical début even though I go on studying afterwards. But I can't do it, Betty dear. I wish you and the Professor would both understand. I appreciate his thinking I can sing well enough, but it is not true. I should break down; my voice would fail utterly. Oh, I am sorry I ever came abroad to study. I have been realizing for months and months that my voice is not worth the trouble and expense father and the rest of you have taken. I am simply going to be a disappointment to all of you."
"Esther, you are a great big goose!" Betty exclaimed indignantly. "I thought we ended this discussion last night and you decided to let Professor Hecksher judge whether or not you could sing. One would think he might know, as he is the biggest singing teacher in Berlin. And certainly if you don't sing I shall die of disappointment. And I shall believe that you are ungrateful to father and to – to all of us."
She was obliged to break off, for Esther had left the room.
Then Dick swung around, facing his sister. "Look here, Betty," he began more angrily than she had often heard him speak. "Has it ever occurred to you that you may all be forcing Esther into a life for which she is not fitted, which will never make her happy? Of course there is no denying her talent; her voice is wonderful and grows more so each day. But she is intensely shy. She hates notoriety and strange people – everything that a musical life must mean. I don't think that you ought to insist upon her singing at this special concert if she does not wish it. You do not understand her."
Utter amazement during her brother's long speech kept Betty silent. For it was too absurd that any one should seriously suggest Esther's turning her back on the big opportunity for which she had been working for the past two years. Why, for what other purpose had they come to Germany? And for Esther to be invited to sing at Professor Hecksher's annual autumn concert was to have the seal of his approval set upon her ability. For of course the great man selected from his pupils only those whose appearance in public would reflect credit upon him. And often an appearance at one of these much-talked-of recitals meant the beginning of a musical reputation in the outside world. So Betty stared at her brother curiously, at loss to appreciate his point of view. She felt offended, too, at the tone he had just taken with her.
"So you think you understand Esther better than I do, Dick?" she answered slowly. "I suppose you and Esther must have talked this matter over on your way home. Certainly it is Esther's own choice and I shall say nothing more about it. And I'll ask mother not to mention the subject either." Betty picked up a small piece of embroidery lying on a table near by and began sewing industriously, keeping her face bent over it so as to hide her flushed cheeks and the light in her eyes. For Betty had not forgotten her Camp Fire training in self-control. Besides, she did not like quarreling with her brother. Dick was ordinarily so reasonable, she felt even more mystified than hurt by his behavior. It was so unlike him to argue that one should turn back from a long-sought goal just because there were difficulties to be overcome. Had he not fought through every kind of obstacle for the sake of his profession?
The silence in the room was interrupted only by the ticking of a Swiss clock, until finally a deep gong sounded from below stairs. It might easily have given the impression that the house was on fire, but as neither Dick nor Betty appeared surprised, it was plainly a summons to the early dinner, which is so important a feature of German pension life.
Folding up her work Betty moved quietly toward the door. But she had only gone a few steps when she heard Dick coming after her. Then in spite of trying her best to hurry from the room, he caught up with her, putting his arms about her.
"Tell me you are sorry, Princess, or you shan't have any dinner," he demanded. For it had been a fashion of theirs years before when they were children to have the offender pretend to demand an apology from the offended. But Betty did not feel in the mood for jesting at present and so shook her head.
Then Dick met her gaze with an expression so unusual that Betty instantly felt her resentment fading.
"Perhaps I was wrong in what I said just then, little sister, I don't feel sure," he apologized. "But at least I realize that you wish Esther to gain fame and fortune for her own sake and not for yours. I was only wondering which makes a woman happier in the end, a home or a career? Now please relate me your day's experience, which you have been keeping such a profound secret, so that I may know I am forgiven."
"It is too late now," Betty returned, slipping away from his grasp. "I must find out whether mother is coming down to dinner. Perhaps I may tell you afterwards."
CHAPTER VI
A Cosmopolitan Company
Sitting opposite Betty at the dinner table were the two German youths to whom Dick most objected. And yet they were totally unlike both in appearance and position. For one of them was apparently a humble person, with long light hair hanging in poetic fashion below his shirt collar, a big nose and small, hungry, light-blue eyes that seemed always to be swimming in a mist of embarrassment. He was a clerk in a bank and occupied the smallest room on the highest floor of the pension. So it would have been natural enough to suppose from his manner and behavior that he was of plebeian origin. But exactly the opposite was the case. For the landlady, Mrs. Hohler, who was herself an impoverished gentlewoman, had confided to Mrs. Ashton that the strange youth was in reality of noble birth. He had an uncle who was a count, and though this uncle had one son, the nephew Frederick stood second in the line of succession. To Richard Ashton, however, this added nothing to the young man's charms, nor did it make him the less provoked over Frederick von Reuter's attitude toward Betty. Nevertheless he rather preferred Frederick, who seemed utterly without brains, to her second admirer, Franz. For Franz was dark and aggressive and had an extremely rich father, a merchant in Hamburg. Also Franz hoped to be able to purchase a commission in the German army, so that already he was assuming the dictatorial, disagreeable manner for which many German officers are unpleasantly distinguished.
However, neither young man had ever done anything in the least offensive either to Betty or to any member of her family, so that Dick Ashton's feeling was largely prejudice. And although Esther shared his point of view, Mrs. Ashton was somewhat flattered at the amount of admiration that Betty's beauty had excited ever since their arrival in Europe. As for Betty herself, she gave the whole question very little attention. All her life she had been accustomed to attention. Now and then her two suitors amused her and at other times she was bored by them. Notwithstanding she did not find it disagreeable to be able to tease her serious-minded brother. Moreover, the widow with her two daughters, about whom Betty and her mother had been making guesses for several years, continued making her home at the pension, and without a shadow of a doubt one of the girls regarded Dick with especial favor.
So tonight Betty, who had not yet entirely recovered from her irritation, was unusually gracious to the two young Germans. She even lingered downstairs in the small, overcrowded parlor after dinner with her mother, allowing Dick and Esther, who were not so friendly with the other boarders, to go up alone to their private sitting room.
"Fritz and Franz," as Betty's adorers were called, although Herr von Reuter and Herr Schmidt were their proper titles, were regarded with a good deal of quiet amusement by their fellow boarders. While this filled the autocratic soul of Franz with a variety of suppressed emotions, the gentle Fritz seemed totally unaware of it. He was content to sit silently on one side of the schönes Fräulein, even when she devoted the greater part of her attention to his rival. This evening, without openly flinching, he overheard her accepting with her mother's approval an invitation from the wealthy Franz for both of them to attend a performance at the Royal Opera House the next evening. Then, although Frederick's eyes grew mistier and his figure more dejected in consequence, he did not leave the parlor until Betty and her mother had gone up stairs. Late into the night, however, had anyone been in the German youth's neighborhood, strains of exquisitely melancholy music might have been heard drifting forth from a fifth floor back room. It was the music of the oboe.
Even after Betty Ashton had seen her mother in bed, helping her undress for the night, she did not immediately join Esther and Dick, although Mrs. Ashton had asked her to explain to them that she was not well enough to remain up any longer. Instead Betty went first into her own bedroom and there re-read the two letters which she carried in her pocket. For if Dick and Esther were of so much the same opinion in regard to her sister's refusal to sing in public, it was best that they be allowed to discuss the matter without interruption from her. For although she had promised not to speak of it again to her sister, Betty felt that it would be impossible for her to disguise how she actually felt. It was wicked of Esther, utterly foolish and unreasonable, to intend surrendering to her own shyness and lack of self-confidence, as with Dick's abetting she evidently intended doing. Why, Esther might have a truly great future! Professor Hecksher had assured Mrs. Ashton that she only required time, training and more self-confidence. For, although when Esther was finally under the sway of her music, she was able to throw her whole force and fervor into it, in the beginning of any performance she was often awkward and shy, alarming her audience with the impression that she might break down. Professor Hecksher had even suggested that Esther's voice might be beautiful enough for grand opera when she grew older and had more experience.
With this last thought still in mind, Betty finally returned to the sitting room to spend the rest of the evening with her brother and sister. Often she had thought of how curious it was that she could speak of Dick and Esther in this fashion when they bore not the slightest relation to each other!
She found them sitting on opposite sides of a small table, a complete silence pervading the room, although neither one of them was reading. Esther's face was flushed and Dick's a little pale. As Dick rose to give his chair to the newcomer, Esther spoke:
"Please don't go, Dr. Ashton," she said. And Betty wondered idly why Esther should suppose that Dick intended leaving the room. More often than not he spent his evenings at home with them. "I only want to tell you, Betty dear," she continued, "that you were quite right this afternoon in saying that I was wrong in refusing this chance to sing at Professor Hecksher's concert. Of course I am not going to give up my work now, when I have been struggling and struggling to learn even the little bit I know. Then if I never sing in public how am I ever to earn that fortune which I have promised to bestow on you, Princess?"
Esther laughed, but Betty frowned with an expression unusual to her.
"I don't want you to keep on with your singing, Esther, for my sake," she protested. "Mother and I are accustomed now to being poor and don't mind it. So if there is anything else you would prefer to do with your life, please don't waste a thought on me."
Esther shook her head reproachfully. "Don't be silly and don't be cross, Princess," she pleaded. "You know perfectly well that I can no more help thinking about you than I can help breathing. But so far as my keeping on with my music is concerned, I can't see that I shall ever have the right not to do that. So I am going to make the biggest effort I possibly can at the concert, and then if I fail, why at least I shall have been true to 'the Law of the Fire.'"
At this Betty's face softened, but Dick Ashton marched abruptly out of the room.
Neither of the two girls, though far away from their old Camp Fire circle now for two years, had ever forgotten its purposes and teaching. So often when they were lonely the three Wohelo candles were lighted and the old ceremony followed, usually ending by Esther's singing a Camp Fire song.
Tonight Betty walked over to a kind of shrine or shelf which they had erected in one corner of their room. German houses have queer stoves and no fireplaces. There she lighted three tall white candles. The long northern twilight was fading and the room had become almost dark.
A moment after, Betty came and sat down on a stool at Esther's feet.
"I had a letter from Polly today," she began. "She and Miss Adams have landed and are in England. They want to join us later if – if – "
"If what, Betty?" Esther demanded. "Surely you and Polly are not to be disappointed in being with each other!"
"Well, it is just this that I have been dying to tell you ever since you came home," Betty protested, her words now running over each other in her effort to tell all her story at once. "Polly wrote that Miss Adams would love to come and spend a part of the summer near us if we were only in some place in the country. But she is too worn out from her work last winter to feel that she can endure the city for any length of time. And you know mother and I have been getting pretty tired of Berlin ourselves lately, since the warm weather has come and you and Dick are away so much of the day. So this morning while you were out I got one of the maids to go with me and we went for miles into the country until we came to an enchanting place, all forests and brooks, near the village of Waldheim. I can't tell you all that happened to me or the queer experience I had, only that I found a delightful place where we may live. It is near enough for you and Dick to come back and forth into town. And it is so still and cool with such wonderful green hills behind it that somehow it made me think of Sunrise Mountain and our cabin and the girls and – " But in a sudden wave of homesickness Betty's voice failed and she dropped her face in her hands.
Esther's own voice was unsteady. "Then we will move out to this spot at once, Betty. And don't you ever dare tell me that I am not to think of you in connection with my music, when I realize how much you have given up for me. Oh, yes, I know you have enjoyed Europe and Berlin and all of our interesting experiences. Yet somehow I don't believe that you will ever be so fond of any place in the world as you are of your old home in Woodford. You see that is the way I comfort myself and Dr. Ashton about your new foreign admirers. You wouldn't, Betty, ever seriously care for anyone who lives in Europe, would you?" Esther asked so anxiously that her sister laughed, refusing to make a reply.
CHAPTER VII
Das Rheingold
A girl sat on a flat rock beside a small stream of water, evidently drying her hair in the rays of the sun, for it hung loose over her shoulders and shone red and gold and brown, seeming to ripple down from the crown of her head to the ground. She was entirely alone and a close group of trees formed a kind of green temple behind her. It had been an extremely warm day so that even the birds were resting from song and from labor.
Suddenly the girl tore into small pieces the letter that she had been writing, tossing them into the air like a troop of white butterflies.
"There is no use of my trying to do anything sensible this afternoon," Betty Ashton sighed, "I am so happy over being in the country once more with nothing to do but to do nothing. I was dead tired of all those people at the pension, of Fritz and Franz and all the rest of them. It is lovely to be alone here in the German forests – "
Then unexpectedly Betty Ashton straightened up, looking about her in every possible direction in a puzzled fashion while hurriedly arranging her hair. For although she could see no one approaching, she could hear an unmistakable sound, a kind of mellow whistling, then flute-like notes and afterwards a low throbbing, as though the wings of imprisoned things were beating in the air.
Betty stared through the open spaces between the trees, since from that direction the sound was now approaching. But when and where had she heard that peculiar music before? However, the Germans were such a strangely musical race that probably any one of her neighbors could play.
Then with a smothered expression of vexation, the girl got up on her feet and took a few steps forward. There was no mistaking the figure slowly advancing, the long light hair, the mild eyes and timid though persistent manner. But how in the world had Frederick von Reuter found her, when she had been careful not to mention where they were going in saying farewell at the pension?
"Why, Herr von Reuter," Betty exclaimed, divided between vexation and the thought that she must not be rude, "what are you doing in this part of the world and how did you happen to discover me?"
At this question the young man abruptly ceased his sentimental playing, though instead of answering Betty in a sensible fashion, he pointed first toward her hair and then toward the water behind her and the circle of hills.
"I haf come in search of 'Das Rheingold,'" he murmured in his funny, broken English, "and I haf found a Rhein mädchen, nicht wahr?"
Betty bit her lips. She was not in the mood for nonsense and it was difficult to conceive of her present companion as the hero of Wagner's great opera.
"Let's not be absurd," she returned coldly. "And please answer my questions." Betty did not mean to be disagreeable, for she did not actually dislike this young man – he was too queer and apparently too simple. Nevertheless it was impossible for her to appreciate how unlike she was to any other girl with whom the young German had ever associated. Her frankness, her self-possession, her brightness and of course her beauty, all of which were ordinary characteristics of most American girls, were a kind of miracle to Fritz.
"I haf come into this place that I may see you," he replied. "And your Mutter has told me where I must come to look. But this neighborhood I know sehr wohl. It is the castle of my uncle which you may haf seen on a hill not far away. It is of stone with a high wall around it – "
But Betty's expression had now changed, her eyes were sparkling and her color rapidly changing. How could poor Fritz have guessed that no higher emotion than curiosity stirred her? She now pointed invitingly toward a fallen tree, seating herself on one end of it.
"Do tell me more about the places near here, if you know about them," she suggested. "I was perfectly sure that they had strange and romantic histories. I think I can guess which is your uncle's estate. Has it a long avenue of linden trees and a lodge covered with ivy and a lake with a waterfall?"
Betty hesitated, for even Fritz was looking somewhat startled at her knowledge of details.
"And it may all be yours some day!" the girl added, hoping to change the current of her companion's thoughts.
But the young man shook his head. "No," he returned honestly, "I haf in my heart no such idea. My cousin is younger than I am, stronger – "
Betty glanced over toward the blue rim of hills. "Is your cousin a girl?" she queried softly.
Young Herr von Reuter was again surprised. "I thought I haf told you. No, he is a man, like me. Oh, no, not like me," he added sadly. "My cousin is tall like me, but he carries of himself so otherwise." Fritz touched his own shoulders, owing their stoop perhaps to the long hours spent in going over his accounts in the bank. "And his hair it is light and his eyes blue. And there is a shine on his hair that makes it so golden as Siegfried's. And when he laughs!" Poor Fritz's face now wore the same expression of mild adoration which he had oftentimes bestowed upon Betty.
"But if you are so awfully fond of your cousin and he is a count living in that old stone castle, why does he not do something for you? I should think your uncle – "
"You do not verstehen, you Amerikaner" Fritz answered. "My uncle is sehr poor himself. It is hard to live as he must. Some day my cousin must marry a rich girl with his title and his good looks."
Betty laughed. "Oh, that's the plan, is it? Well, let us walk on back to the cottage and find mother. I am sure she will enjoy talking to you."
Again Betty Ashton's manner had changed to its original indifference.
Fritz seemed bewildered and a little depressed. "It is schöner here," he replied. However, he got up and obediently followed Betty out of her retreat. She was more than half a mile from the cottage which they had secured for the summer time. And they were compelled to pass out of the woods and walk along a country lane for a part of the way. There were few persons using this lane at four o'clock on a hot July afternoon, and so Betty had felt that she would be perfectly safe from observation. She had left home with her hair still damp from washing and simply tucked up under a big summer hat.
Now she was feeling disheveled and uncomfortable and most devoutly anxious not to meet anyone on their return journey. It had been tiresome of her mother to have revealed her whereabouts.
Then all at once Betty found herself blushing and wishing that she could hide somewhere along the road. For there advancing toward them was a handsome riding horse. Could it be possible that Herr von Reuter's cousin was seeking him? She must not meet him under the present conditions, not if what she believed were true.
But the horse kept moving toward them with greater rapidity, while Fritz plodded on slowly at her side, telling her some story of the history of the neighborhood and not understanding that for the time being she had lost interest in it.
Betty glanced about her. There was no place where she might hide herself without being seen in the act; besides her companion could never be made to understand her behavior and would be sure to reveal his bewilderment. No, she must simply continue walking on with her head averted and her attention too concentrated upon Herr von Reuter's information to be conscious of anything else.
Now the low voice at her ear abruptly ceased, and turning in surprise to glance at him, Betty beheld Fritz's ordinarily placid countenance crimsoning with what certainly looked like anger instead of pleasure at the appearance of his admired cousin.
"Ach Himmel!" exclaimed poor Fritz, "is one never to lose him?"
Betty would have liked to stamp her foot with vexation. For the figure on horseback was wholly unlike the German knight whom her companion had recently described. Here was no Siegfried with shining hair and armor, but a small dark person whom she had hoped never to see again. He reined up his horse, slid off, and after a surprised scowl at Fritz, greeted Betty as though she could hardly fail to be gratified by his appearance.
"You had neglected to tell me where I might find you, but Frau Hohler was kinder," Franz Schmidt declared at once.
Surely Betty's manner might have discouraged almost anyone else, but not so pompous and self-satisfied a character as Franz. Money appeared to him as the only really important thing in the world and he had an idea that Betty Ashton had but little of it. Therefore she must be impressed by his attentions. Notwithstanding he decided at this moment she would soon have to choose between him and the ridiculous Fritz.
Franz was now walking along by the other side of Betty, leading his horse. And all the time the girl kept wondering what she could do or say to get rid of one or both of her escorts. Fortunately she would find no one at home except her mother. Esther's and Dick's train did not arrive for another hour. They doubtless would have been amused and Dick very probably angry. How nonsensical she must appear marching along in such a company!