Уилки Коллинз - Jezebel's Daughter

These were the thoughts that troubled me on my return to the house. When we met at supper, some hours later, my worst anticipations were realized. Poor innocent Mr. Engelman was dressed with extraordinary smartness, and was in the highest good spirits. Mr. Keller asked him jestingly if he was going to be married. In the intoxication of happiness that possessed him, he was quite reckless; he actually retorted by a joke on the sore subject of the employment of women! "Who knows what may happen," he cried gaily, "when we have young ladies in the office for clerks?" Mr. Keller was so angry that he kept silence through the whole of our meal. When Mr. Engelman left the room I slipped out after him.

"You are going to Madame Fontaine's," I said.

He smirked and smiled. "Just a little evening visit, David. Aha! you young men are not to have it all your own way." He laid his hand tenderly on the left breast-pocket of his coat. "Such a delightful letter!" he said. "It is here, over my heart. No, a woman's sentiments are sacred; I mustn't show it to you."

I was on the point of telling him the whole truth, when the thought of Minna checked me for the time. My interest in preserving Mr. Engelman's tranquillity was in direct conflict with my interest in the speedy marriage of my good friend Fritz. Besides, was it likely that anything I could say would have the slightest effect on the deluded old man, in the first fervor of his infatuation? I thought I would give him a general caution, and wait to be guided by events.

"One word, sir, for your private ear," I said. "Even the finest women have their faults. You will find Madame Fontaine perfectly charming; but don't be too ready to believe that she is in earnest."

Mr. Engelman felt infinitely flattered, and owned it without the slightest reserve.

"Oh, David! David!" he said, "are you jealous of me already?"

He put on his hat (with a jaunty twist on one side), and swung his stick gaily, and left the room. For the first time, in my experience of him, he went out without his pipe; and (a more serious symptom still) he really did not appear to miss it.

Two days passed, and I perceived another change in Mr. Engelman.

He was now transformed into a serious and reticent man. Had he committed indiscretions which might expose him to ridicule if they were known? Or had the widow warned him not to be too ready to take me into his confidence? In any case, he said not one word to me about Madame Fontaine's reception of him, and he left the house secretly when he paid his next visit to her. Having no wish to meet him unexpectedly, and feeling (if the truth be told) not quite at ease about the future, I kept away from Minna and her mother, and waited for events.

On the third day, an event happened. I received a little note from Minna:—

"Dear Mr. David,—If you care to see mamma and me, stay at home this evening. Good Mr. Engelman has promised to show us his interesting old house, after business hours."

There was nothing extraordinary in making an exhibition of "the old house." It was one among the many picturesque specimens of the domestic architecture of bygone days, for which Frankfort is famous; and it had been sketched by artists of all nations, both outside and in. At the same time, it was noticeable (perhaps only as a coincidence) that the evening chosen for showing the house to the widow, was also the evening on which Mr. Keller had an engagement with some friends in another part of the city.

As the hour approached for the arrival of the ladies, I saw that Mr. Engelman looked at me with an expression of embarrassment.

"Are you not going out this evening, David?" he asked.

"Am I in the way, sir?" I inquired mischievously.

"Oh, no!"

"In that case then, I think I shall stay at home."

He said no more, and walked up and down the room with an air of annoyance. The bell of the street-door rang. He stopped and looked at me again.

"Visitors?" I said.

He was obliged to answer me. "Friends of mine, David, who are coming to see the house."

I was just sufficiently irritated by his persistence in keeping up the mystery to set him the example of speaking plainly.

"Madame Fontaine and her daughter?" I said.

He turned quickly to answer me, and hesitated. At the same moment, the door was opened by the sour old housekeeper, frowning suspiciously at the two elegantly-dressed ladies whom she ushered into the room.

If I had been free to act on my own impulse, I should certainly (out of regard for Mr. Engelman) have refrained from accompanying the visitors when they were shown over the house. But Minna took my arm. I had no choice but to follow Mr. Engelman and her mother when they left the room.

Minna spoke to me as confidentially as if I had been her brother.

"Do you know," she whispered, "that nice old gentleman and mamma are like old friends already. Mamma is generally suspicious of strangers. Isn't it odd? And she actually invites him to bring his pipe when he comes to see us! He sits puffing smoke, and admiring mamma—and mamma does all the talking. Do come and see us soon! I have nobody to speak to about Fritz. Mamma and Mr. Engelman take no more notice of me than if I was a little dog in the room."

As we passed from the ground floor to the first floor, Madame Fontaine's admiration of the house rose from one climax of enthusiasm to another. Among the many subjects that she understood, the domestic architecture of the seventeenth century seemed to be one, and the art of water-color painting soon proved to be another.

"I am not quite contemptible as a lady-artist," I heard her say to Mr. Engelman; "and I should so like to make some little studies of these beautiful old rooms—as memorials to take with me when I am far away from Frankfort. But I don't ask it, dear Mr. Engelman. You don't want enthusiastic ladies with sketch-books in this bachelor paradise of yours. I hope we are not intruding on Mr. Keller. Is he at home?"

"No," said Mr. Engelman; "he has gone out."

Madame Fontaine's flow of eloquence suddenly ran dry. She was silent as we ascended from the first floor to the second. In this part of the house our bedrooms were situated. The chamber in which I slept presented nothing particularly worthy of notice. But the rooms occupied by Mr. Keller and Mr. Engelman contained some of the finest carved woodwork in the house.

It was beginning to get dark. Mr. Engelman lit the candles in his own room. The widow took one of them from him, and threw the light skillfully on the different objects about her. She was still a little subdued; but she showed her knowledge of wood-carving by picking out the two finest specimens in the room—a wardrobe and a toilet-table.

"My poor husband was fond of old carving," she explained modestly; "what I know about it, I know from him. Dear Mr. Engelman, your room is a picture in itself. What glorious colors! How simple and how grand! Might we——" she paused, with a becoming appearance of confusion. Her voice dropped softly to lower tones. "Might we be pardoned, do you think, if we ventured to peep into Mr. Keller's room?"

She spoke of "Mr. Keller's room" as if it had been a shrine, approachable only by a few favored worshippers. "Where is it?" she inquired, with breathless interest. I led the way out into the passage, and threw open the door without ceremony. Madame Fontaine looked at me as if I had committed an act of sacrilege.

Mr. Engelman, following us with one of his candles, lit an ancient brass lamp which hung from the middle of the ceiling. "My learned partner," he explained, "does a great deal of his reading in his bedroom, and he likes plenty of light. You will have a good view when the lamp has burnt up. The big chimney-piece is considered the finest thing of that sort in Frankfort."