Part 44 (2/2)
”Ludwig!” she almost screamed, and the next moment she was clasped in his arms.
And then came the 'little ones' with the dogs and a light, to see what was the matter. Their shouts brought the rest of the family. There were delight, surprise, tears, and laughter. Dear Dr. Werner was conducted to the drawing-room in triumph, and there he sat beneath the hanging-lamp, to be gazed at by all. How brown he had grown! and how much darker were his hair and beard! His eyes, on the contrary, looked lighter. Sanna asked if the Indian sun had not faded them a little.
How strange that he had been in India, and yet here he was in Hanover, sitting at their little round table just as he had sat there three years ago! Thus the 'little ones' chattered on, learning, in answer to their questions, that he had just come from London, and was going to spend his Christmas at Lindenbad, whilst the older sisters consulted as to what should be served for supper in honour of their guest, and regretted that this was their father's glee-club evening. The poor mother's thoughts were filled with her lost darling, and Lisbeth stood in the background, with her arm about Johanna's neck, eying with some suspicion this stranger who called her sister 'Johanna' and seemed so glad to see her.
She would have remained at her post when Frau Rupprecht called her children from the room to give the foster-brother and sister an opportunity for a quiet talk, but Jetta carried her off without more ado.
”At last!” cried Ludwig, holding out both hands to Johanna, and then words seemed to fail him for what he wanted to say.
After a pause, Johanna asked, ”Did you come to see me or the Rupprechts?
I mean, did you know that I was here?”
”Yes, I have known it for a few days,” he replied; and he added, with a gloomy air, and in his old harsh tone, ”Bad enough it was to have to hear it from strangers. Why did you never write to me?”
”I could not!”
”You could not!” he repeated, and his lips quivered. Neither spoke. How they had longed for this meeting, and now----What still separated them?
Suddenly Ludwig laughed derisively: ”A game of hide-and-seek. I sit, absorbed in my work in London, supposing you married, and asking no further questions, and Johann Leopold imagines I know everything from yourself. And did you never write to Lindenbad?”
She shook her head. ”My correspondence with Mathilde had languished for a long time, and I do not like to complain,” she said. He took her words as a hint, and said, evasively, ”Let me tell you how I discovered you.
On a visit to a patient--I do not practise usually, but I could not refuse the urgent request of a few of my countrymen--I found her full of delight in a German book which she had just read. She showed me the t.i.tle-page. The odd motto reminded me of you: 'Do thou but begin the weaving, G.o.d the yarn will aye be giving.' Do you remember how we quarrelled over it once? As I was recollecting this, I turned over the leaves mechanically. I seemed to recognize your manner of speech, your way of looking at men and things. Yes, there was Lindenbad, and even the garden-gate from which we have so often watched the sunset with my blessed mother. I took the book home with me, and read it steadily until I had finished it--_I reading a woman's romance!_ And as I laid it aside I said to myself, 'Either she wrote it, or there exists somewhere her twin mind.' This was interesting psychologically. You can guess the rest. Day before yesterday I received an answer from your publisher. And now it is your turn to tell what you wish to. Only what you wish to,” he added, with some bitterness. ”I know that the old right is no longer mine, and I do not lay claim to it.”
His last sentence hurt Johanna, and closed her heart and her lips. She gave him only the outlines of all that she had pa.s.sed through. Ludwig supposed that it pained her too much to dwell upon it. Thus they still played 'hide-and-seek' with each other, and when they were no longer alone, Johanna scarcely knew whether to rejoice in their meeting again.
The next morning Ludwig was to leave Hanover: he was expected in Lindenbad; but he came early to Terrace-Cottage, knocked at Johanna's door, and found her alone.
”Now it is your turn to give an account of yourself,” said Johanna, after the first salutations. And he told her, in his old, familiar way, of his travels, his researches, his work and its results. More than all it seemed to delight him that he had lately been proffered a chair in a German university. Johanna asked if he should accept it.
”I do not know; it depends,” he replied, with some hesitation. ”But enough of myself. I think you are changed; it strikes me to-day, by daylight, for the first time. You are pale, you look weary. Have you been ill?”
She shook her head.
”Then you work too much, you take too little exercise.” And, with a glance toward her writing-table, he added, ”How did you happen upon authors.h.i.+p? I cannot understand it.”
”Recollect how I always loved to 'make up' stories,” Johanna replied.
”The love grew with my years. Thank G.o.d that it was so! My desire to go upon the stage was only a misconception of my task.”
”Task?” he repeated. ”You do not believe that anything, save the force of outward circ.u.mstances, drove you to write? Do not deceive yourself----”
”Most a.s.suredly I do believe it!” she interrupted him, and her eyes sparkled with pleasure. ”The longing for some little corner of the earth in which I could plant my flowers was there long before necessity forced me to labour; and then, when the crash came both in my outward and my inner life, the talent which I possessed supplied the place of home and friends and love, or rather, let me say, restored them to me; for all of these that I had ever possessed came back to me in the creations of my imagination.”
Ludwig sat with downcast eyes, silent, his forehead contracted in a frown.
”Do not look so stern!” Johanna said. ”I am my father's daughter; and if I have inherited only an atom of his grand artistic gift, I must receive it as the one talent intrusted to me, and trade with it as did the servant who was faithful in a few things.”
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