or Clara, but bounced back to her, clear and aired, like coins rung upon a counter for what they might be worth. She answered as she had not meant to speak, "I am afraid. Of the very thing you implied, I'm afraid of what it may be to him. You must know that Jules is not the best man to bring up someone."
Jeanne said, "A son will change him."
In a voice strong with revulsion, Caroline said, "Am I to provide him with a lost brother?"
Jeanne saw much of it, if not all. She recognized the cry from the heart and she effaced herself. She waited till the sound of the young woman's words had faded, then she said, "Jules loved Henrietta as his child."
"While she was a child."
"She is still that."
"Not in his eyes. And there is what they've made of her."
Jeanne said, "There were circumstances. . . ."
"I know. Money; Jules's own queer position; the girl's future."
"That seems assured now."
"It had better. After no childhood and no parents, and being shut up in a stuffy house for fourteen years. . . . She ought to live with Jules."
"Friedrich says they still would not let her go."
"Not out of Berlin?"
"No; they only have this feeling about abroad."
"That's what / thought," said Caroline.
"Do you know one thing, my dear, you will soon be committed to so much thought about yourself— cela change les idees."
"That's the nicest way I've ever heard it put," said Caroline.
Jeanne said, "Things have not been very happy for you lately."
"Well, no."
The elder woman opened her arms. Gratefully, naturally, Caroline gave herself to the embrace.
In the door she said, "I know now what we're going to do. I've just made up my mind." "Don't make it up too fast." "Dear Jeanne. Plans always make me cheerful/*
One day all things have an end, and when autumn had set in and the holidays were over and the Reichstag met again, the Reduced-Military-Service Bill was not passed and the budget was, the new Secretary of State was dun-coloured, there seemed to be threatening once more a deal of trouble in Morocco, a mysterious crime had taken place at Hanover, the Kaiser and the Kaiserin announced a Court Ball, and there was after all a brand new battleship. Putnitz was farming, and so was Faithful George; the colonel, some majors and a brigadier were in retirement; Corporal Schaale remained unfound; the papers, and so perforce the public, dropped their interest in the Feldens and their connections and concerns; the Merzes' house was like any other house, people came and went, and the passers-by went by.
Caroline wrote and answered letters; went here and there; travelled South, found Gustavus knowledgeable, saw at last what she wanted.
"You are decided?" Sarah said, a week later.
"Absolutely."
"It will be a tie."
"What is not? One might as well have a home."
"At the border of Alsace? The world is larger."
"Not for me," said Caroline.
Sarah shifted her ground. "If you will sell out all your capital—"
"Not all. Just a few shares. They won't let me touch my trust fund. I shall have to raise something on the income."
"It'll cripple you."
Caroline shrugged.
"Jules hasn't even seen it." Sarah shifted her ground again.
"He can't help liking the house. I do. You will." She smiled.
But a month later everything was still unsigned; Caroline ought to have gone to England, and the house was certainly not ready. "Now I shall have to leave it all till afterwards," she said; "I knew it."
"The first house is always the hardest," said Sarah.
"Those poor animals arriving from Spain almost any day now."
"Who?"
"The horses. I had so hoped to have everything ready for them. You know what Gustavus said to me, the booby, 'You and Jules are not thinking of riding?' Sarah, you have no idea what it's like down there, their lives—total gloom. I sat through one meal. Bernin behaves as if he hadn't turned a hair; but he's desperate, so bored. There's talk of his going to South America. Do you think he will be Emperor of Brazil after all? Clara moves among her poor; Gustavus used to go into Karlsruhe every week to help make people's family trees, he's been pushed to give that up; now he hardly stirs. Yet everybody in those parts seems as friendly as can be, if a bit curious."
"Your chosen neighbours," Sarah said.
"My dear, not at all, it's hours and hours in a very slow train from the Bernins' place. Seeing that neither Gustavus nor Jules will take a train lightly—"
"You'll have Clara on your neck."
"She is my sister-in-law. Clara's had a good deal to put up with."
"Caroline, don't snap. Edu used to say / did."
"I must have got it contradicting Gustavus. You haven't heard the half of it yet. He suggested—I admit he hummed and hawed—that we should call the boy Landeney, that's a title they have, at least during his minority, and as we were about it I was to change my name, too; he said I
ought to call myself Baroness Landeney. He said I would find it more comfortable."
"A pity he can't offer it to Edu," said Sarah.
"I don't think I'll let the horses go to Sigmundshofen."
At the end of the week, she said, "Have you ever heard of lawyers as slow as mine?"
Sarah said, "I still don't see why my father-in-law—"
"You know there can be no question of that," said Caroline.
"Then I wish you would let me"
"There seems to be a run on buying a place for Jules. My turn."
"At least, let me do some investing for you. Try a few thousands, I'll double them for you in a month. I could— oh never mind."
Caroline said, "I am grateful. Very. But again it has to be no."
"And I'm so good at it," said Sarah.
Instead, Caroline let her find them a flat.
"Here? Yes, I suppose so. Why not? No point in moving to anywhere in particular now. I have to think of Jules, he doesn't know I'Affaire is over. Nobody knows how to tell him. Darling, do get us something quick."
After Caroline's child was born, Jeanne went in to her. "Do not upset her," said Jules. "Try not to let her talk," said Sarah. Caroline said weakly, "Is it all right?"
"Yes," Jeanne said, pianissimo.
"Yes?"
"Shsh . . . Yes."
"Ten toes and all?"
"Yes, yes."
"It was a boy?"
"No. Yes."
"Which?"
"You must rest, dear," said Jeanne.
"It is alive?"
"Oh yes."
"oh my god, what is it?" "A girl." "Rather a mercy?" said Caroline.
Ten minutes later she opened half an eye. "We won't have to call it Julius Augustus then," she said.
At the end of a few weeks, she said, "This place is not one of your best efforts, Sarah. And look at these." The sofa was covered with estimates. "They are waiting for the spring to look at the roof, it beats English workmen. Meanwhile we'd better all move back to the fleshpots."
"Can you bear that?"
"It'll please the old things to have us a bit longer. One really couldn't do less after the way they stuck to us."
By the time their own place was ready, Julius had procured a motor-car, and Caroline an English nanny.
"They're pretty good sport," Edu said.
"I think of it more for travelling," said Julius.
"My dear chap, you won't find the time."
This was of little moment in the years that followed, and Julius was able to keep to his original idea. During the whole of its existence this car had no function other than that of conveying Julius, and Julius and his man alone, bi-annually, to and from Voss Strasse and his country home. In the intervals between this accomplishment the vehicle was out of mind, indeed of sight, resting on its elegant high wheels on the premises of a mechanic at Colmar.
Caroline and the two chi
ldren always took the train.
When she had begun to think of Henrietta's coming out and her own baby was just under three, Corporal Schaale suddenly turned up and was rearrested. His story was simple. He had not been spirited away. Terrified by the prospect of his trial he had broken out of the cells he knew quite well, having guarded them himself, and skipped into Switzerland where under another name he found employment and obscurity. His return was a visit due to homesickness. He was tried by the military at once, almost overnight. Putnitz again denied having cried out for help ("I cried out because I was startled"), Faithful George was a very damaging witness ("The Captain never hurt a fly"), there was no evidence that Johannes had been dangerous, indeed, no doctor having seen him, no proof of his insanity, and Schaale was sentenced to death.
There was an immediate flare-up. The story was revived, and for a week emotion blazed again. Caroline was in Berlin then; she was driving out with her small daughter and the nurse, in the Lenee Strasse crowds recognized her coupe and some stones were flung at them. Two days later the Kaiser reprieved Schaale by commutation.
The Corporal was taken to the fortress where he was to serve a life sentence. Popular conscience was appeased.
Schaale's parents, some private advocates and the League for Human Rights tried for an appeal. Disliked by the authorities, suspected by the people and their fellow champions, bereft of aid or comfort from their husbands, Clara and Caroline joined them.
It looked rather hopeless from the first. They were kept dangling; nothing new was coming up about the case. As reasonable people put it—a man had got rattled and shot another, it was pretty certain that that man had been a lunatic, even so, if it was not exactly murder, it was hardly a reaction to be condoned altogether by society; the man who had pulled the trigger was a soldier and ought to have known better, besides detention in a fortress was not the same as penal servitude.
Sarah rather subscribed to that opinion, but she gave a cheque to Caroline.
After two years the appeal was finally turned down.
"We can never drop it," Caroline said to Clara. "That man is still in prison."
"That is not for us to think of. We cannot know the reason. It may preserve him from great temptation. It is our duty to work for his remission. We need not decide about the result."
Gradually the revisionists lost heart. The Corporal's parents refused to sign any more papers, the advocates dropped out. At last only a bishop—a man of charity who trusted Clara, a clerk in the office of the League, Kastell-Aniline money, Caroline and Clara kept the movement going; Caroline with almost superstitious fervour.
"I believe I am supporting the entire League for Human Rights," said Sarah; "they cannot remember having ever been so prosperous."
"Well, good,'* said Caroline.
"It comes expensive," said Sarah.
"Darling, go and play the market," said Caroline.
"I could just as well have paid Edu's debts; it might have come cheaper."
"I suppose one could manage an escape?" said Caroline.
"I shouldn't advise it."
"It wouldn't be the same."
"A pardon," said Jeanne.
"What I want is full legal release," said Caroline.
Jeanne said, "The papers are your only hope. Couldn't you get them to take it up again?"
"There's nothing new. Clara tried the Swiss doctor he lived with for some time; he's dead. One of his daughters remembers something about it."
"That's not enough," said Sarah.
"Get them to stir up something," said Jeanne.
"With Quintus Narden for our Zola!"
"I would go to Narden, if it were any good," said Caroline.
"My dear," Sarah said, "the Felden Scandal is as dead as mutton."
"That's rather a long story, duck," my mother said. "Perhaps one day— Some of it— I'm afraid I don't come out of it very well."
Part Five
A REPRIEVE
At the end of our sixth winter at Voss Strasse, Grandpapa Merz died. He died in his sleep. In the morning knowledge of it seeped throughout the house in the same soft stealthy way. My mother was sent for. The house was full of women; governesses, the companion, housemaids, nanny, Henrietta, Marie, but as it happened my mother was the only grown-up woman of the family. She went in alone to the old man and his wife, into the ground floor bedroom none of us had ever seen.
Later on we were all bidden to go downstairs. But first my mother came to me in the nursery. Henrietta was with
her in a tight dark dress; she looked frightened. I was already in my hat and overcoat.
"It is sad, duck," my mother said, and kissed me. "One always feels it is. But he had a long life and liked it."
"That is good?" I said.
"For some people."
"We are going to spend a nice long day at Frau Edu's, ma'am," nanny said. "I telephoned."
"Her father is already there."
"Won't the garden be lovely!"
"I don't see any need for that," my mother said. "Come down and sit with your Grandmama Merz, duck; she's specially asked for you."
I turned to nanny. "Will I have to say anything to her?"
"You'd better look after Henrietta, nanny," my mother said, "she says she has a headache. Would you like to stay here?"
"Yes please, Caro," Henrietta said.
Grandmama was in her drawingroom, sitting in her usual chair, wearing her usual garb. Her hands were in her lap, but there were thick, slow, round tears rolling down her face, seemingly without her knowledge as she did nothing to wipe or stop them, and the spectacle fascinated me. I settled on the floor.
"Something young is best," she said, patting my cheek but looking at my mother.
After a while, she said, "Where are the gentlemen?" My mother signed me to ring the bell.
Gottlieb came in, his eyes were swollen and his voice was unrecognizable. "The gentlemen are breakfasting with the mourners, ma'am.
"Ah yes."
After another while she said, "Bring your chair a little nearer, dear." My mother obeyed.
"You are fidgeting," my mother said to me.
"Yes."
"Didn't you bring a toy?"
"In the Presence of Death?'* but I did not say it aloud.
"Here we are all three and none of us has been taught to knit," my mother said. "I've often regretted it. Have you?"
"Knitting is very dull," said Grandmama.
"It's not too late for you to learn, duck," my mother said.
"Too late," said I.
"Shall we try a hand of demon?" My mother had introduced this briefer game some years ago.
"Not before luncheon, dear," said Grandmama.
Later on, I managed to slip out. The Herrenzimmer was filled with people. Most of them were men, and many of them were crying. They were sitting round Friedrich who was hunched on a chair, weeping bitterly into a handkerchief. Emil and Cousin Markwald were sitting next to him, and Markwald also was convulsed with sobs. Gottlieb stood by the door, announcing more people.
"Herr Kommerzienrat Veilchenfeldt!"
"Herr Doktor Herzberg; Herr Prokurist Stern!"
"Herr Schiffahrts-Direktor Warburgl"
"Herr Rechtsanwalt Wolff!"
"Herr und Frau Schwabach; Herr Bank-Direktor Reichenheim!"
"Herr Sanitatsrat Goldschmitt!"
The newcomers all made straight for the son of the house, shook hands and spoke something. Edging near, I caught it. "Beileid — herzlichstes Beileid."
A footman and my father's young Alsatian, Plon, were handing trays with coffee, port, sandwiches and cake.
The anterooms were filling too; I went out and took up a stand in the hall.
"Frau von der Waldemar!"
"No, no—I am sure they do not wish to see me today, I only came to put my name down."
But Gottlieb firmly propelled her in. I followed the lady; and saw my mother come out of the inner drawing room to speak to her.
At noon a very old gentleman appeared. He wore a fur-lined coat with silk lapels. He was led straight into Grand-mama's.
"Herr Handelskammer-Prasident Simon!"
"Mein ergebenstes Beileid."
Grandmama said, "Someone had to go first."
It was a free day and at one point of it I found myself in the kitchen. Cook, too, had been crying, but she said it was a time to rejoice. I felt doubtful. As doubtful as I had been feeling all day. "You do know where your grandpa is now?" "Yes," I said, pretending to be interested in the flour bin. I did not say that the answer in my mind was Purgatory.
In the Herrenzimmer once more, a grownup turned me round. "What are you doing here, little girl," he said, "in a blue frock?"
Emboldened, I said, "In the Presence of Death?" aloud this time.
"Why, you wicked child—!"
I fled to my post in the hall.
But when I saw Edu and Sarah coming up the stairs, I hid behind a hanging. Sarah was wearing a short black veil; she was walking very straight; Edu was behind her. He stopped. Gottlieb stepped forward with outstretched hand. Edu seized it in both of his. "Innigstes Beileid," he said. The two men broke down. Sarah walked on.
In the afternoon I met my mother in a passage. "What do you think of it all, duck?" she said.
I thought. "I like it," I said. "I think it is nice. I like the crying. Everybody is kind today."
My mother looked at me. "You're not so wrong," she said.
"Is it always like that?"
"Not at all. And sometimes people aren't there."
"Like if we had been in our other house and only heard by post? Is that more sad?"
"Different."
I usually knew when my mother had done with me, but
now I was too full of it. "Sarah didn't cry. Was she cross?"
"It is not unlikely," said my mother.
"Mummy—"
She waited.
"Henrietta says one death brings on another."
"What rot. She hasn't been reading statistics?"
"Papa told her."
After tea I hoped to unburden myself to Plon. But the day had gone to Plon's head.
I said, "He died without the sacraments."
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