Читать книгу Too Rich - Streckfuss Adolf - Страница 5

Table of Contents

"You really are too severe with poor Nanette," Fräulein Aline von Schlicht said to the young heiress.

Eva Schommer was conscious that there was justice in her friend's reproof. Her impulsive temperament often led her to make use of hasty expressions which she regretted afterwards, especially if she had been actuated by anger, and she frequently seemed to show an insensibility to the feelings of others which was by no means part of her character. When she was irritated she would rebuke any omission of duty upon the part of her servants with an undeserved severity, and she admitted to herself that this had just been the case with Nanette. She had reproved the girl upon mere suspicion as sharply as if the fault had been proven. She was vexed with herself for her hastiness, but the dislike with which Nanette's whole conduct had inspired her, and her conviction that the girl had actually tried to play the part of eavesdropper, were by no means weakened.

"You are right, Aline," she said, sadly; "I am ashamed of myself, but I could not help it. The girl is so odious to me that I cannot conceive how I came to take her into my service. I really think it would be best to give her a quarter's or even a half-year's wages, and dismiss her."

"Do not be unjust, Eva. Has she given you any good reason to send her away? Have you any right to break the contract which you tacitly concluded with her when you engaged her as your maid?"

"But I will not break it. I will indemnify her duly."

"With money? Can it be done? If you send her away after three days in your service, will it not be thought that she has been guilty of great misconduct, perhaps even of dishonesty? Can money repair the harm done to the girls reputation? How often you have told me how you despise the wretched dross, and yet you propose to atone with money for the wrong you will do poor Nanette by suddenly dismissing her from your service without reason!"

"I will not do it, my dear, good Aline!" Eva cried, kissing her friend tenderly. "You are my good angel," she continued; "you are always right; I see how unjust I should be. I was wrong to take the girl into my service simply upon Frau von Sturmhaupt's recommendation and Wilhelm's request, when, in spite of her pretty face and figure, I was not at all prepossessed by her, but now that I have made the mistake I must bide by the consequences. I should have trusted my first impressions and not taken her into the house. My dislike to her, which increases daily, may easily make me unjust to her. Her affected smile, her hypocritical humility, and her whole manner, indeed, confirm my want of confidence in her. I do not believe her even when she is telling the truth. I suspect her always of some sly ulterior motive in all she says."

"Are you not unjust again, Eva dear? You are prejudiced against the girl, and see faults in her which I fail to discover. To me she seems amiable and willing. I have not known her to tell a falsehood. She is neat, capable, and industrious, pleasant in her manner, and in short, so far as I can judge from the few days she has been in your service, she possesses all the qualities of an excellent lady's-maid. That she is honest and trustworthy is proved by the excellent character she brought you from Frau von Sturmhaupt, with whom she lived several years."

"Why did she leave if Frau von Sturmhaupt was satisfied with her?"

"Nanette told you herself that as she has an old mother dependent upon her, she was obliged to ask higher wages than Frau von Sturmhaupt--who is by no means wealthy--felt herself justified in giving. I cannot see that we have any reason to doubt the truth of this explanation. Is it not natural that a poor girl should try to improve her condition?"

"I cannot argue the matter, Aline. All that you say is perfectly correct, and nevertheless something that I can neither explain nor contend with convinces me that Nanette is false, that her amiability is hypocrisy, and that she returns with interest my dislike. I know she hates me, and that she will show me that she does so as soon as she has the opportunity."

"You will not allow such a vague 'something' to influence you?"

"No, Aline; I will follow your advice. I will try to conquer my prejudice--for I confess that my dislike of Nanette is prejudice--but I cannot promise more. I will not testify towards her the dislike with which she inspires me, but I cannot command my confidence, and I cannot pretend to show her any."

"She has no right at present to ask that you should. Your confidence in her must be the result of faithful performance of her duties; and I hope she will succeed in winning it, for you are too dear and good not to resign a prejudice as soon as you know that it is unjust."

"I will try, my darling Aline," said Eva, taking her friend's hand and tenderly kissing it, "I will try, and perhaps I shall succeed since you are with me, for you are, as I said, my good angel. When I look into your kind, loving eyes, and hear your gentle words, I think I can be better; my wild, impulsive nature grows calm. I am not dear and good, as you call me, Aline. I know I am not, but I want to be so. When I see your heavenly gentleness and repose, I feel how hateful are my hasty judgments, my sharp hard words, my unfeminine obstinacy. I long to be like you, but I cannot; I forget all my good resolutions as soon as I am provoked. I know how odious this is, and, when I think of it, I cannot conceive how you, who are so infinitely better and gentler than I, can love me. Oh, if I could only be like you!"

Aline returned her friend's kiss, and said, with a smile, "Who would believe that the charming Eva could be guilty of such folly, that the proud beauty whom all adore could wish to resemble poor insignificant me, whom no one cares for except the friend whose affection blinds her? No, stay as you are, dear, for as you are you conquer every heart."

The lovely, gentle smile that had transfigured Eva's face as she had caressed her friend vanished at Aline's last words, her dark eyes flashed, and the lines about her mouth grew hard. "Yes," she said, bitterly, "as I am I conquer the hearts of all the men who have set their hearts on my wretched millions, the most unfortunate inheritance which my good father could have bequeathed to me. He never dreamed, while he laboured night and day to give wealth to his darling child, that this miserable money would be the curse of her existence, poisoning her very soul!"

Aline looked at her, with a smile. "If your wealth is your greatest misfortune," she said, gayly, "I am afraid you will find but little sympathy for it among your heartless fellow-mortals, and that you will be obliged to learn to endure with stoicism the burden of your millions."

"You too, Aline!" Eva cried, reproachfully. "Can you consider wealth a blessing? I know perfectly well that others envy me, but if they dreamed what misery this wretched money has brought me, how it daily embitters every enjoyment of life, filling my mind with distrust and suspicion, making me despise those about me, they would give me pity instead of envy. Wherever I go I am received with delight and loaded with courtesies. I? No, my millions! I represent to these sordid souls their idol,--wealth. I am nothing to them but the heiress, and as such beautiful, lovely, talented, fêted and caressed wherever I go. Have I not known this from my earliest childhood? Gray-headed servants cringed and yielded to every wish of the spoiled wayward child, finding all that she did charming and attractive because she was an heiress. Can I be happy in kindness shown not to me but to my money? As soon as I appear in society all the men vie with each other in doing me homage. One flatters me, another exerts all his wit to entertain me, a third sighs and languishes at my feet,--and it is all a lie, all wretched hypocrisy! These very men who flatter and woo me would never accord me a moment's notice if I were poor. Oh it is hard to be obliged to repeat over and over to one's self, 'You yourself are nothing; these wretches adore your millions, not you!' What do they care although I treat them with the greatest arrogance and contempt? I am rich, and all I say and do is charming, and would be although I united in my one character every possible vice. I despise them and show them that I do so, and they adore me! They sue for my hand and not one thinks whether I can be a faithful, loving wife. I bring the man whom I marry millions, and who cares whether a heart accompanies them? The more persistently they pay court to me the more I am humiliated in my own eyes, the more thoroughly I hate these miserable, sordid men! Yes, I hate them so thoroughly that even that vain aristocrat, Count Waldheim, and that blasé fop, Paul Delmar, seem delightful to me, only because I know that they never think of marrying me; they at least are not to be bought with my money. Waldheim's pride of birth protects him from such degradation, and Delmar is richer than I; he wants none of my fortune."

"Poor child!" Aline said, sadly.

"Yes, you are right now!" Eva continued, with emotion. "I am poor, terribly poor; in the midst of my wealth I am destitute of everything that constitutes happiness. It is a sad fate, indeed, never to be loved for one's self alone!"

"Never, Eva?" Aline asked, reproachfully. "Do you mistrust me?"

"No, never!" the girl cried. "You and dear old Uncle Balthasar are the only people in the whole world whom I really love and trust with my whole heart,--you two, and perhaps Aunt Minni, who, I think, gives me as much affection as she can spare from her lap-dog Azor. If it were not for you I should be desperate indeed in this cold heartless sordid world!"

"Because you see the world much more cold heartless and sordid than it really is,--because you regard men with a suspicion that they do not deserve. I cannot comprehend how you can be so mistaken as to believe that every one who comes near you to show you kindness or preference thinks only of your fortune,--that every man who wooes you desires your money only. Look in your mirror, and if you are not blind it must tell you that your beauty----"

"Not another word, Aline! You argue against yourself. Is all their homage paid to my beauty? Why, this is almost worse than if it were paid to my wealth. How can beauty without mind and heart attract any man of genuine worth? Because they all praise my beauty I despise them the more. Has one of the crowd about me ever had an opportunity of discovering whether I possess either heart or intellect? I scarcely reply to their flatteries; I treat them with the cold contempt that they merit, but they cringe all the more. Remember that fête at Schönsee. I was in the worst of humours, and intentionally as disagreeable as possible; you, on the contrary, were as charming, as lovely, as--well, as you always are. You are much handsomer than I."

"But, Eva----!"

"Let me finish. You have brought this on yourself. I know that I am not ill-looking, but I am not so conceited as to compare myself with you. And that day you looked so lovely that I was positively enchanted with you. The air had deepened the colour on your cheeks, your glorious blue eyes were sparkling with pleasure, and as the wind played among the golden curls on your forehead you looked like some angel just flown down from heaven."

"Oh, Eva, Eva!"