by Graeme Davis
So it was decided; and, after all, for one night, what did it matter? For one night? that was for me the question! The supper was really not bad; but the look, and still worse the smell, of the room where it was served, joined no doubt to our excessive fatigue, made it impossible for me to eat anything. My friends were sorry, and I felt ashamed of myself for being so easily knocked up or knocked down. How thoroughly I entered into Frau von Walden’s honestly-expressed dislike to “roughing it”! Yet it was not only the uncivilised look of the place, nor the coarse food, nor the want of comfort that made me feel that one night of Silberbach would indeed be enough for me. A sort of depression, of fear almost, came over me when I pictured the two children and myself alone in that strange, out-of-the-world place, where it really seemed to me we might all three be made an end of without any one being the wiser of it! There was a general look of squalor and stolid depression about the people too: the landlord was a black-browed, surlily silent sort of man, his wife and the one maid-servant looked frightened and anxious, and the only voices to be heard were those of half-tipsy peasants drinking and quarrelling at the bar.
To say the least, it was not enlivening. Yet my pride was aroused. I did not like to own myself already beaten. After supper I sat apart, reflecting rather gloomily as to what I could or should do, while the young men and the children amused themselves with the one piece of luxury with which the poorest inn in Thuringia is sure to be provided. For, anomalous as it may seem, there was a piano, and by no means an altogether decrepit one, in the sandy-floored parlour!
Herr von Walden was smoking his pipe outside, the hay being by this time housed somewhere or other. His wife, who had been speaking to him, came in and sat down beside me.
“My dear,” she said, “you must not be vexed with me for renewing the subject, but I cannot help it; I feel a responsibility. You must not, you really must not, think of staying here alone with those two children. It is not fit for you.”
Oh, how I blessed her for breaking the ice! I could hardly help hugging her as I replied—diplomatically—
“You really think so?”
“Certainly I do; and so, though perhaps he won’t say so as frankly—so does my husband. He says I am foolish and fanciful; but I confess to feeling a kind of dislike to the place that I cannot explain. Perhaps there is thunder in the air—that always affects my nerves—but I just feel that I cannot agree to your staying on here.”
“Very well, I am quite willing to go back to Seeberg to-morrow,” I replied meekly. “Of course we can’t judge of the place by what we have seen of it to-night, but no doubt, as far as the inn is concerned, Seeberg is much nicer. I daresay we can see all we want by noon to-morrow, and get back to Seeberg in the afternoon.”
Kind Frau von Walden kissed me rapturously on both cheeks.
“You don’t know, my dear, the relief to my mind of hearing you say so! And now I think the best thing we can do is to go to bed. For we must start at six.”
“So early!” I exclaimed, with a fresh feeling of dismay.
“Yes, indeed; and I must bid you good-bye to-night, for after all I am not to sleep in your room, which is much better, as I should have had to disturb you so early. My husband has found a tidy room next door in a cottage, and we shall do very well there.”
What sort of a place she euphemistically described as “a tidy room” I never discovered. But it would have been useless to remonstrate, the kind creature was so afraid of incommoding us that she would have listened to no objections.
Herr von Walden came in just as we were about to wish each other good-night.
“So!” he said, with a tone of amiable indulgence, “so! And what do you think of Silberbach? My wife feels sure you will not like it after all.”
“I think I shall see as much as I care to see of it in an hour or two to-morrow morning,” I replied quietly. “And by the afternoon the children and I will go back to our comfortable quarters at Seeberg.”
“Ah, indeed! Yes, I daresay it will be as well,” he said airily, as if he had nothing at all to do with decoying us to the place. “Then good-night and pleasant dreams, and—”
“But,” I interrupted, “I want to know how we are to get back to Seeberg. Can I get an Einspänner here?”
“To be sure, to be sure. You have only to speak to the landlord in the morning, and tell him at what hour you want it,” he answered so confidently that I felt no sort of misgiving, and I turned with a smile to finish my good-nights.
The young men were standing close beside us. I shook hands with Trachenfels and Lutz, the latter of whom, though he replied as heartily as usual, looked, I thought, annoyed. George Norman followed me to the door of the room. In front of us was the ladder-like staircase leading to the upper regions.
“What a hole of a place!” said the boy. “I don’t mind quite a cottage if it’s clean and cheerful, but this place is so grim and squalid. I can’t tell you how glad I am you’re not going to stay on here alone. It really isn’t fit for you.”
“Well, you may be easy, as we shall only be here a few hours after you leave.”
“Yes; so much the better. I wish I could have stayed, but I must be back at Kronberg to-morrow. Lutz could have stayed and seen you back to Seeberg, but his father won’t let him. Herr von Walden is so queer once he takes an idea in his head—and he won’t allow this place isn’t all right.”
“But I daresay there would be nothing to hurt us! Anyway, I will write to reassure you that we have not fallen into a nest of cut-throats or brigands,” I said laughingly.
Certainly it never occurred to me or to my friends what would be the nature of the “experience” which would stamp Silberbach indelibly on our memory.
We must have been really very tired, for, quite contrary to our habit, the children and I slept late the next morning, undisturbed by the departure of our friends at the early hour arranged by them.
The sun was shining, and Silberbach, like every other place, appeared all the better for it. But the view from the window of our room was not encouraging. It looked out upon the village street—a rough, unkempt sort of track—and on its other side the ground rose abruptly to some height, but treeless and grassless. It seemed more like the remains of a quarry of some kind, for there was nothing to be seen but stones and broken pieces of rock.
“We must go out after our breakfast and look about us a little before we start,” I said. “But how glad I shall be to get back to that bright, cheerful Seeberg!”
“Yes, indeed,” said Nora. “I think this is the ugliest place I ever was at in my life.” And she was not inclined to like it any better when Reggie, whom we sent down to reconnoitre, came back to report that we must have our breakfast in our own room.
“There are a lot of rough-looking men down there, smoking and drinking beer. You couldn’t eat there,” said the child.
But, after all, it was to be our last meal there, and we did not complain. The root coffee was not too unpalatable with plenty of good milk; the bread was sour and the butter dubious, as Ottilia had foretold, so we soaked the bread in the coffee, like French peasants.
“Mamma,” said Nora gravely, “it makes me sorry for poor people. I daresay many never have anything nicer to eat than this.”
“Not nicer than this!” I exclaimed. “Why, my dear child, thousands, not in Germany only, but in France and England, never taste anything as good.”
The little girl opened her eyes. There are salutary lessons to be learnt from even the mildest experience of “roughing it.”
Suddenly Nora’s eyes fell on a little parcel in blue paper. It was lying on one of the shelves of the stove, which, as in most German rooms, stood out a little from the wall, and in its summer idleness was a convenient receptacle for odds and ends. This stove was a high one, of black-leaded iron; it stood between the door and the wall, on the same side as the door, and was the most conspicuous object in the room.
“Mamma,” she exclaimed, “there is the parcel you
brought away from the china place. What is it? I wish you would show it me.”
I gave a little exclamation of annoyance.
“Frau von Walden has forgotten it,” I said; for my friend, returning straight to Kronberg, had offered to take it home for me in her bag for fear of accidents. “It does not matter,” I added, “I will pack it among our soft things. It is a very pretty cup and saucer, but I will show it to you at Kronberg, for it is so nicely wrapped up. Now I am going downstairs to order the Einspänner, and we can walk about for an hour or two.”
The children came with me. I had some trouble in disinterring the landlord, but at last I found him, of course with a pipe in his mouth, hanging about the premises. He listened to me civilly enough, but when I waited for his reply as to whether the Einspänner would be ready about twelve o’clock, he calmly regarded me without speaking. I repeated my inquiry.
“At twelve?” he said calmly. “Yes, no doubt the gracious lady might as well fix twelve as any other hour, for there was no such thing as a horse, much less an Einspänner, to be had at Silberbach.”
I stared at him in my turn.
“No horse, no carriage to be had! How do people ever get away from here then?” I said.
“They don’t get away—that is to say, if they come at all, they go as they came, in the carriage that brought them; otherwise they neither come nor go. The lady came on foot: she can go on foot; otherwise she can stay.”
There seemed something sinister in his words. A horrible, ridiculous feeling came over me that we were caught in a net, as it were, and doomed to stay at Silberbach for the rest of our lives. But I looked at the man. He was simply stolid and indifferent. I did not believe then, nor do I now, that he was anything worse than sulky and uncivilised. He did not even care to have us as his visitors: he had no wish to retain us nor to speed us on our way. Had we remained at the “Katze” from that day to this, I don’t believe he would have ever inquired what we stayed for!
“I cannot walk back to Seeberg,” I said half indignantly, “we are too tired; nor would it be safe through the forest alone with two children.”
The landlord knocked some ashes off his pipe.
“There may be an ox-cart going that way next week,” he observed.
“Next week!” I repeated. Then a sudden idea struck me. “Is there a post-office here?” I said.
Of course there was a post-office; where can one go in Germany where there is not a post and telegraph office?
“The telegraph officials must be sadly overworked here,” I said to myself. But as far as mine host was concerned, I satisfied myself with obtaining the locality of the post-office, and with something like a ray of hope I turned to look for the children. They had been amusing themselves with the piano in the now empty room, but as I called to them, Reggie ran out with a very red face.
“I wish I were a man, mamma. Fancy! a peasant—one of those men who were drinking beer—came and put his arm around Nora as she was playing. ‘Du spielst schön,’ he said, and I do believe he meant to kiss her, if I hadn’t shaken my fist at him.”
“Yes, indeed, mamma,” said Nora, equally but more calmly indignant. “I certainly think the sooner we get away the better.”
I had to tell them of my discomfiture, but ended with my new idea.
“If there is a post-office,” I said, “the mail must stop there, and the mail takes passengers.”
But, arrived at the neat little post-house—to reach which without a most tremendous round we had to climb up a really precipitous path, so called, over the stones and rocks in front of the inn—new dismay awaited us. The postmaster was a very old man, but of a very different type from our host. He was sorry to disappoint us, but the mail only stopped here for letters—all passengers must begin their journey at—I forget where—leagues off on the other side from Silberbach. We wanted to get away? He was not surprised. What had we come for? No one ever came here. Were we Americans! Staying at the “Katze”! Good heavens! “A rough place.” “I should rather think so.”
And this last piece of information fairly overcame him. He evidently felt he must come to the rescue of these poor Babes in the wood.
“Come up when the mail passes from Seeberg this evening at seven, and I will see what I can do with the conductor. If he happens to have no passengers to-morrow, he may stretch a point and take you in. No one will be the wiser.”
“Oh, thanks, thanks,” I cried. “Of course I will pay anything he likes to ask.”
“No need for that. He is a braver Mann, and will not cheat you.”
“We shall be here at seven, then. I would rather have started to walk than stayed here indefinitely.”
“Not to-day anyway. We shall have a storm,” he said, looking up to the sky. “Adieu. Auf Wiedersehen!”
“I wish we had not to stay another night here,” I said. “Still, to-morrow morning will soon come.”
We spent the day as best we could. There was literally nothing to see, nowhere to go, except back into the forest whence we had come. Nor dared we go far, for the day grew more and more sultry; the strange, ominous silence that precedes a storm came on, adding to our feelings of restlessness and depression. And by about two o’clock, having ventured out again after “dinner,” we were driven in by the first great drops. Huddled together in our cheerless little room we watched the breaking loose of the storm demons. I am not affected by thunder and lightning, nor do I dread them. But what a storm that was! Thunder, lightning, howling wind, and rain like no rain I had ever seen before, all mingled together. An hour after it began, a cart, standing high and dry in the steep village street, was hidden by water to above the top of the wheels—a little more and it would have floated like a boat. But by about five, things calmed down; the few stupid-looking peasants came out of their houses, and gazed about them as if to see what damage had been done. Perhaps it was not much after all—they seemed to take it quietly enough; and by six all special signs of disturbance had disappeared—the torrents melted away as if by magic. Only a strange, heavy mist began to rise, enveloping everything, so that we could hardly believe the evening was yet so early. I looked at my watch.
“Half-past six. We must, mist or no mist, go up to the post-house. But I don’t mind going alone, dears.”
“No, no, mamma; I must go with you, to take care of you,” said Reggie; “but Nora needn’t.”
“Perhaps it would be as well,” said the little girl. “I have one or two buttons to sew on, and I am still rather tired.”
And, knowing she was never timid about being left alone, thinking we should be absent half an hour at most, I agreed.
But the half hour lengthened into an hour, then into an hour and a half, before the weary mail made its appearance. The road through the forest must be all but impassable, our old friend told us. But oh, how tired Reggie and I were of waiting! though all the time never a thought of uneasiness with regard to Nora crossed my mind. And when the mail did come, delayed, as the postmaster had suspected, the good result of his negotiations made us forget all our troubles; for the conductor all but promised to take us the next morning, in consideration of a very reasonable extra payment. It was most unlikely he would have any, certainly not many passengers. We must be there, at the post-house, by nine o’clock, baggage and all, for he dared not wait a moment, and he would do his best.
Through the evening dusk, now fast replacing the scattered mist, Reggie and I, light of heart, stumbled down the rocky path.
“How pleased Nora will be! She will be wondering what has come over us,” I said as the “Katze” came in view. “But what is that, Reggie, running up and down in front of the house? Is it a sheep, or a big white dog? or—or a child? Can it be Nora, and no cloak or hat? and so damp and chilly as it is? How can she be so foolish?”
And with a vague uneasiness I hurried on.
Yes, it was Nora. There was light enough to see her face. What had happened to my little girl? She was white—no, not white, ghastly. Her eyes lo
oked glassy, and yet as if drawn into her head; her whole bright, fearless bearing was gone. She clutched me convulsively as if she would never again let me go. Her voice was so hoarse that I could scarcely distinguish what she said.
“Send Reggie in—he must not hear,” were her first words—of rare unselfishness and presence of mind.
“Reggie,” I said, “tell the maid to take candles up to our room, and take off your wet boots at once.”
My children are obedient; he was off instantly.
Then Nora went on, still in a strained, painful whisper—
“Mamma, there has been a man in our room, and——”
“Did that peasant frighten you again, dear? Oh, I am so sorry I left you;” for my mind at once reverted to the man whom Reggie had shaken his fist at that morning.
“No, no; not that. I would not have minded. But, mamma, Reggie must never know it—he is so little, he could not bear it—mamma, it was not a man. It was—oh, mamma, I have seen a ghost!”
PART II
“A ghost,” I repeated, holding the poor trembling little thing more closely. I think my first sensation was a sort of rage at whomever or whatever—ghost or living being—had frightened her so terribly. “Oh, Nora darling, it couldn’t be a ghost. Tell me about it, and I will try to find out what it was. Or would you rather try to forget about it just now, and tell me afterwards? You are shivering so dreadfully. I must get you warm first of all.”