Valeska Bethusy-Huc - The Eichhofs - A Romance

Adela was silent, evidently a prey to a conflict of feeling.

"I was your mother's friend," Frau von Rosen continued, gently, "and when I hear you utter such sharp, decided opinions upon matters of which you are, perhaps, incapable of judging, I cannot help fancying what your mother would feel if she heard you. Do you think she would be pleased with you at this moment?"

The tears started from Adela's eyes, and she hastily, almost passionately, pressed Frau von Rosen's hand to her lips.

"Oh, if my mother were only living!" she exclaimed. "Everything at home would be so different!"

Frau von Rosen clasped her in her arms and kissed her. "You have a tender and loving father," she said, softly: "be to him a good daughter in the true sense of the word."

Adela dried her tears, and smiled at the remembrance of her father. "Oh, yes, he is very, very kind," she said. "I know he is, even when he pretends to be angry. I know, too, that he will always do what I want in the end, if I do not contradict him. He has given me leave to ride with Walter again if I will only tell him when and where we are going, and I always like to do that. And then, too, he has let me wear long dresses at last. Yes, he is the dearest old papa, – but indeed Hugo spoils him!"

Frau von Rosen was rather shocked at the conversation's taking this turn, but when she looked into Adela's honest eyes-now gazing so frankly into her own-she found it impossible to be angry with the child. She thought it best to take no notice of her last words, and only said, "Remember, then, always that it is your first duty to requite your father for all the care and kindness he has lavished upon his children."

"Oh!" cried Adela, "if papa should ever have a fall from his horse, and break his leg or anything, I would nurse him day and night, and never leave his side; but then," she added, rather ruefully, "nothing of that sort ever happens to him."

Frau von Rosen smiled involuntarily. "There is no need, dear, of any extraordinary occasion for testifying affection," she said. "The greatest proof of love lies in overcoming one's self for the gratification of others. Think of this, Adela dear; you are quite old enough and sensible enough to know of yourself everything that I can tell you. Promise me to reflect upon it all. Will you try?"

Adela promised, with a mixture of emotion and of satisfaction with her own good sense.

Thea and Alma, who had withdrawn to the other end of the room during this conversation, now came forward and begged Adela to go with them into the garden.

Frau von Rosen nodded kindly, and the three girls went off together, at first somewhat embarrassed, but soon talking and laughing together as usual. The Easter holidays were indeed a fruitful theme for conversation, and the name of Eichhof occurred very frequently in their talk.

"Only think," said Alma Rosen, "Lothar told me that Walter wanted to be a doctor!"

Adela burst into a laugh. "Walter a doctor!" she exclaimed. "What a delightful idea of Lothar's! Walter a doctor? It is too comical!"

"Only ask Thea; she knows about it too," said Alma.

And her sister added, "Yes, it is true; Walter did get such an idea into his head, but he has given it up, and there is to be no more said upon the subject."

"Now I know why Walter has been so queer all through these last holidays," said Adela. "It is perfectly odious in him not to tell me a word of it. I will tease him well about it to-morrow if we ride together."

"Do you often ride together now?"

"Oh, yes. That was a perfectly ridiculous idea of papa's; I soon talked him out of it. He had consented to our rides even before we went to the ball at Eichhof. There's one good to be gained from Hugo's being at home, papa is so full of business at such times that he will almost always say 'yes' just to be rid of me. I take very few lessons now with Mademoiselle Belmont, and the good soul is being gradually transformed from a governess into a companion. I got papa to tell her that she might look upon herself as rather occupying the latter position. The only thing to do is to take papa just when he happens to be in a good humour; but-" She suddenly clapped her hand upon her mouth. "There, I promised your mother that I would not speak of that. I should like to know what kind of girls we should all be if I had a mother and you had a couple of brothers."

"Well, Bernhard soon will be my brother," said Alma.

"Oh, that's very different," rejoined Adela; "made-up brothers like that never do anything to vex you. I know all about that, for I look upon Walter Eichhof as a kind of brother, and-but I forgot," she interrupted herself, hesitating, – "he does vex me sometimes. I'll have my revenge to-morrow at all events, and I wish to-morrow were here."

Twenty-four hours later this wish of Adela's was fulfilled, and Walter and she were slowly riding towards the forest, followed at a discreet distance by the groom with a taste for sandwiches.

"I have been hearing sad tales of you, Walter," Adela began her attack, "and the saddest part of them is that you never, by word or look, confided anything with regard to your evil schemes to your faithful comrade."

"My evil schemes?"

"Yes. Would you not, if you could, torture poor mortals, cut off their arms and legs, and heaven knows what besides that is horrible and cruel?"

"Since you call that cruel, you certainly must admit that I was perfectly right not to mention to you the profession at which you jeer, but which I consider the noblest that can be embraced."

The gravity with which he spoke made some impression upon Adela. She looked at him almost timidly, and said, shyly, "Were you really in earnest, then, about being a doctor?"

"I have found it very hard to relinquish the idea, – for the present at least. But why should we speak of all this? Rather let us admire the exquisite beauty of the afternoon, and of the woods and trees. Shall we canter?"

Strangely enough, Adela instantly forgot all her vexation and her determination to be revenged upon Walter. She saw that he refused her his confidence, and, instead of being angry that this was so, she became very sad.

"You are very fond of that Doctor Nordstedt of whom you were telling me awhile ago, are you not?" she asked, suddenly reining in her mare after a long canter.

Walter turned and looked her full in the face. "I thought you had forgotten all that," he said. "I certainly thought that my comrade had grown to be altogether too much of a fine lady, too much taken up with dressing and visiting, to feel any interest in what I could tell her."

Adela blushed. Certainly she did very much desire to be a fine lady, but she could not give up her comrade. She replied, "Well, and what now, when you find that in spite of dressing and visiting I still have time to think of Dr. Nordstedt?"

"Now I tell you that I certainly honour and love him, and that I am proud to consider myself his friend."

"It is his fault, then, that you want to be a doctor?"

"On the contrary, it is he who is always pointing out to me all the difficulties of the profession."

"Good heavens! how did you ever come to make such an acquaintance? Your sight was always good. Certainly you had no need for consulting an oculist-the man is an oculist, is he not?"

"Yes; and I never went near him on account of my eyes. But, as I told you before, he is my aunt's family physician, and it was through her that I became acquainted with him and with his family."

"Oh, yes, – his family! And of whom does this family consist?"

"This family consists of the father, Herr Nordstedt, – a self-made man, sprung from the people, – of his wife, and of their son, my friend. They are charming people; you ought to know them, Adela."

"Do they speak the Berlin patois and mix up their parts of speech?" Adela asked, slightly turning up her pretty little nose.