Books: Jezebel

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"Minna is not in very good spirits this morning," he said. "I am going to
take her out for half an hour to look at the shops. Can you come with
us?"

This invitation rather surprised me. "Does Minna wish it?" I asked.

Fritz dropped his voice so that the clerks in the room could not hear his
reply. "Minna has sent me to you," he answered. "She is uneasy about her
mother. I can make nothing of it--and she wants to ask your advice."

It was impossible for me to leave my desk at that moment. We arranged to
put off the walk until after dinner. During the meal, I observed that not
Minna only, but her mother also, appeared to be out of spirits. Mr.
Keller and Fritz probably noticed the change as I did. We were all of us
more silent than usual. It was a relief so find myself with the lovers,
out in the cheerful street.

Minna seemed to want to be encouraged before she could speak to me. I was
obliged to ask in plain words if anything had happened to annoy her
mother and herself.

"I hardly know how to tell you," she said. "I am very unhappy about my
mother."

"Begin at the beginning," Fritz suggested; "tell him where you went, and
what happened yesterday."

Minna followed her instructions. "Mamma and I went to our lodgings
yesterday," she began. "We had given notice to leave when it was settled
we were to live in Mr. Keller's house. The time was nearly up; and there
were some few things still left at the apartments, which we could carry
away in our hands. Mamma, who speaks considerately to everybody, said she
hoped the landlady would soon let the rooms again. The good woman
answered: 'I don't quite know, madam, whether I have not let them
already.'--Don't you think that rather a strange reply?"

"It seems to require some explanation, certainly. What did the landlady
say?"

"The landlady's explanation explained nothing," Fritz interposed. "She
appears to have spoken of a mysterious stranger, who had once before
inquired if Madame Fontaine was likely to leave the lodgings--and who
came yesterday to inquire again. You tell him the rest of it, Minna."

Before she could speak, I had already recognized the suspicious-looking
personage whom Mr. Engelman and I had some time since encountered on the
door-step. I inquired what the man had said when he heard that the
lodgings were to let.

"There is the suspicious part of it," cried Fritz. "Be very particular,
Minna, to leave nothing out."

Fritz's interruptions seemed only to confuse Minna. I begged him to be
silent, and did my best to help her to find the lost thread of her story.

"Did the man ask to see the lodgings?" I said.

"No."

"Did he talk of taking the lodgings?"

"He said he wished to have the refusal of them until the evening," Minna
replied; "and then he asked if Madame Fontaine had left Frankfort. When
the landlady said No, he had another question ready directly. He wanted
to know in what part of Frankfort Madame Fontaine was now living."

"And the old fool of a landlady actually told him the address," said
Fritz, interrupting again.

"And, I am afraid, did some serious mischief by her folly," Minna added.
"I saw mamma start and turn pale. She said to the landlady, 'How long ago
did this happen?' 'About half an hour ago,' the landlady answered. 'Which
way did he turn when he left you--towards Mr. Keller's house or the other
way?' The landlady said, 'Towards Mr. Keller's house.' Without another
word, mamma took me by the arm. 'It's time we were home again,' she
said--and we went back at once to the house."

"You were too late, of course, to find the man there?"

"Yes, David--but we heard of him. Mamma asked Joseph if anyone had called
while we were out. Joseph said a stranger had called, and had inquired if
Madame Fontaine was at home. Hearing that she was out, he had said, 'I
think I had better write to her. She is here for a short time only, I
believe?' And innocent Joseph answered, 'Oh, dear no! Madame Fontaine is
Mr. Keller's new housekeeper.' 'Well?' mamma asked, 'and what did he say
when he heard that?' 'He said nothing,' Joseph answered, 'and went away
directly.' "

"Was that all that passed between your mother and Joseph?"

"All," Minna replied. "My mother wouldn't even let me speak to her. I
only tried to say a few words of sympathy--and I was told sharply to be
silent. 'Don't interrupt me,' she said, 'I want to write a letter.' "

"Did you see the letter?"

"Oh, no! But I was so anxious and uneasy that I did peep over her
shoulder while she was writing the address."

"Do you remember what it was?"

"I only saw the last word on it. The last word was 'Wurzburg.' "

"Now you know as much as we do," Fritz resumed. "How does it strike you,
David? And what do you advise?"

How could I advise? I could only draw my own conclusions privately.
Madame Fontaine's movements were watched by somebody; possibly in the
interests of the stranger who now held the promissory note. It was, of
course, impossible for me to communicate this view of the circumstances
to either of my two companions. I could only suggest a patient reliance
on time, and the preservation of discreet silence on Minna's part, until
her mother set the example of returning to the subject.

My vaguely-prudent counsels were, naturally enough, not to the taste of
my young hearers. Fritz openly acknowledged that I had disappointed him;
and Minna turned aside her head, with a look of reproach. Her quick
perception had detected, in my look and manner, that I was keeping my
thoughts to myself. Neither she nor Fritz made any objection to my
leaving them, to return to the office before post-time. I wrote to Mr.
Engelman before I left my desk that evening.

Recalling those memorable days of my early life, I remember that a
strange and sinister depression pervaded our little household, from the
time when Mr. Engelman left us.

In some mysterious way the bonds of sympathy, by which we had been
hitherto more or less united, seemed to slacken and fall away. We lived
on perfectly good terms with one another; but there was an unrecognized
decrease of confidence among us, which I for one felt sometimes almost
painfully. An unwholesome atmosphere of distrust enveloped us. Mr. Keller
only believed, under reserve, that Madame Fontaine's persistent low
spirits were really attributable, as she said, to nothing more important
than nervous headaches. Fritz began to doubt whether Mr. Keller was
really as well satisfied as he professed to be with the choice that his
son had made of a portionless bride. Minna, observing that Fritz was
occasionally rather more subdued and silent than usual, began to ask
herself whether she was quite as dear to him, in the time of their
prosperity, as in the time of their adversity. To sum up all, Madame
Fontaine had her doubts of me--and I had my doubts (although she _had_
saved Mr. Keller's life) of Madame Fontaine.

From this degrading condition of dullness and distrust, we were roused,
one morning, by the happy arrival of Mrs. Wagner, attended by her maid,
her courier--and Jack Straw.

CHAPTER XXIII

Circumstances had obliged my aunt to perform the last stage of her
journey to Frankfort by the night mail. She had only stopped at our house
on her way to the hotel; being unwilling to trespass on the hospitality
of her partners, while she was accompanied by such a half-witted fellow
as Jack. Mr. Keller, however, refused even to hear of the head partner in
the business being reduced to accept a mercenary welcome at an hotel. One
whole side of the house, situated immediately over the offices, had been
already put in order in anticipation of Mrs. Wagner's arrival. The
luggage was then and there taken off the carriage; and my aunt was
obliged, by all the laws of courtesy and good fellowship, to submit.

This information was communicated to me by Joseph, on my return from an
early visit to one of our warehouses at the riverside. When I asked if I
could see my aunt, I was informed that she had already retired to rest in
her room, after the fatigue of a seven hours' journey by night.

"And where is Jack Straw?" I asked.

"Playing the devil already, sir, with the rules of the house," Joseph
answered.

Fritz's voice hailed me from the lower regions.

"Come down, David; here's something worth seeing!"

I descended at once to the servants' offices. There, crouched up in a
corner of the cold stone corridor which formed the medium of
communication between the kitchen and the stairs, I saw Jack Straw
again--in the very position in which I had found him at Bedlam; excepting
the prison, the chains, and the straw.

But for his prematurely gray hair and the strange yellow pallor of his
complexion, I doubt if I should have recognized him again. He looked fat
and happy; he was neatly and becomingly dressed, with a flower in his
button-hole and rosettes on his shoes. In one word, so far as his costume
was concerned, he might have been taken for a lady's page, dressed under
the superintendence of his mistress herself.

"There he is!" said Fritz, "and there he means to remain, till your aunt
wakes and sends for him."

"Upsetting the women servants, on their way to their work," Joseph added,
with an air of supreme disgust--"and freezing in that cold corner, when
he might be sitting comfortably by the kitchen fire!"

Jack listened to this with an ironical expression of approval. "That's
very well said, Joseph," he remarked. "Come here; I want to speak to you.
Do you see that bell?" He pointed to a row of bells running along the
upper wall of the corridor, and singled out one of them which was
numbered ten. "They tell me that's the bell of Mistress's bedroom," he
resumed, still speaking of my aunt by the name which he had first given
to her on the day when they met in the madhouse. "Very well, Joseph! I
don't want to be in anybody's way; but no person in the house must see
that bell ring before me. Here I stay till Mistress rings--and then you
will get rid of me; I shall move to the mat outside her door, and wait
till she whistles for me. Now you may go. That's a poor half-witted
creature," he said as Joseph retired. "Lord! what a lot of them there are
in this world!" Fritz burst out laughing. "I'm afraid you're another of
them," said Jack, looking at him with an expression of the sincerest
compassion.

"Do you remember me?" I asked.

Jack nodded his head in a patronizing way. "Oh, yes--Mistress has been
talking of you. I know you both. You're David, and he's Fritz. All right!
all right!"

"What sort of journey from London have you had?" I inquired next.

He stretched out his shapely little arms and legs, and yawned. "Oh, a
pretty good journey. We should have been better without the courier and
the maid. The courier is a tall man. I have no opinion of tall men. I am
a man myself of five foot--that's the right height for a courier. I could
have done all the work, and saved Mistress the money. Her maid is another
tall person; clumsy with her fingers. I could dress Mistress's hair a
deal better than the maid, if she would only let me. The fact is, I want
to do everything for her myself. I shall never be quite happy till I'm
the only servant she has about her."

"Ah, yes," said Fritz, good-naturedly sympathizing with him. "You're a
grateful little man; you remember what Mrs. Wagner has done for you."

"Remember?" Jack reported scornfully. "I say, if you can't talk more
sensibly than that, you had better hold your tongue." He turned and
appealed to me. "Did you ever hear anything like Fritz? He seems to think
it wonderful that I remember the day when she took me out of Bedlam!"

"Ah, Jack, that was a great day in your life, wasn't it?"

"A great day? Oh, good Lord in Heaven! where are there words that are big
enough to speak about it?" He sprang to his feet, wild with the sudden
tumult of his own recollections. "The sun--the warm, golden, glorious,
beautiful sun--met us when we came out of the gates, and all but drove me
stark-staring-mad with the joy of it! Forty thousand devils--little
straw-colored, lively, tempting devils--(mind, I counted them!)--all
crawled over me together. They sat on my shoulders--and they tickled my
hands--and they scrambled in my hair--and they were all in one cry at me
like a pack of dogs. 'Now, Jack! we are waiting for you; your chains are
off, and the sun's shining, and Mistress's carriage is at the gate--join
us, Jack, in a good yell; a fine, tearing, screeching, terrifying, mad
yell!' I dropped on my knees, down in the bottom of the carriage; and I
held on by the skirts of Mistress's dress. 'Look at me!' I said; 'I won't
burst out; I won't frighten you, if I die for it. Only help me with your
eyes! only look at me!' And she put me on the front seat of the carriage,
opposite her, and she never took her eyes off me all the way through the
streets till we got to the house. 'I believe in you, Jack,' she said. And
I wouldn't even open my lips to answer her--I was so determined to be
quiet. Ha! ha! how you two fellows would have yelled, in my place!" He
sat down again in his corner, delighted with his own picture of the two
fellows who would have yelled in his place.

"And what did Mistress do with you when she brought you home?" I asked.

His gaiety suddenly left him. He lifted one of his hands, and waved it to
and fro gently in the air.

"You are too loud, David," he said. "All this part of it must be spoken
softly--because all this part of it is beautiful, and kind, and good.
There was a picture in the room, of angels and their harps. I wish I had
the angels and the harps to help me tell you about it. Fritz there came
in with us, and called it a bedroom. I knew better than that; I called it
Heaven. You see, I thought of the prison and the darkness and the cold
and the chains and the straw--and I named it Heaven. You two may say what
you please; Mistress said I was right."

He closed his eyes with a luxurious sense of self-esteem, and appeared to
absorb himself in his own thoughts. Fritz unintentionally roused him by
continuing the story of Jack's introduction to the bedroom.

"Our little friend," Fritz began confidentially, "did the strangest
things when he found himself in his new room. It was a cold day; and he
insisted on letting the fire out. Then he looked at the bedclothes,
and----"

Jack solemnly opened his eyes again, and stopped the narrative at that
point.

"You are not the right person to speak of it," he said. "Nobody must
speak of it but a person who understands me. You shan't be disappointed,
David. I understand myself--_I'll_ tell you about it. You saw what sort
of place I lived in and slept in at the madhouse, didn't you?"

"I saw it, Jack--and I can never forget it."

"Now just think of my having a room, to begin with. And add, if you
please, a fire--and a light--and a bed--and blankets and sheets and
pillows--and clothes, splendid new clothes, for Me! And then ask yourself
if any man could bear it, all pouring on him at once (not an hour after
he had left Bedlam), without going clean out of his senses and screeching
for joy? No, no. If I have a quality, it's profound common sense. Down I
went on my knees before her again! 'If you have any mercy on me,
Mistress, let me have all this by a bit at a time. Upon my soul, I can't
swallow it at once!' She understood me. We let the fire out--and
surprised that deficient person, Fritz. A little of the Bedlam cold kept
me nice and quiet. The bed that night if you like--but Heaven defend me
from the blankets and the sheets and the pillows till I'm able to bear
them! And as to putting on coat, waistcoat, and breeches, all together,
the next morning--it was as much as I could do, when I saw myself in my
breeches, to give the word of command in the voice of a gentleman--'Away
with the rest of them! The shirt for to-morrow, the waistcoat for next
day, and the coat--if I can bear the sight of it without screaming--the
day after!' A gradual process, you see, David. And every morning Mistress
helped me by saying the words she said in the carriage, 'I believe in
you, Jack.' You ask her, when she gets up, if I ever once frightened her,
from the day when she took me home." He looked again, with undiminished
resentment, at Fritz. _"Now_ do you understand what I did when I got into
my new room? Is Fritz in the business, David? He'll want a deal of
looking after if he is. Just step this way--I wish to speak to you."

He got up again, and taking my arm with a look of great importance, led
me a few steps away--but not far enough to be out of sight of my aunt's
bell.

"I say," he began, "I've heard they call this place Frankfort. Am I
right?"

"Quite right!"

"And there's a business here, like the business in London?"

"Certainly."

"And Mistress _is_ Mistress here, like she is in London?"

"Yes."

"Very well, then, I want to know something. What about the Keys?"

I looked at him, entirely at a loss to understand what this last question
meant. He stamped his foot impatiently.

"Do you mean to say, David, you have never heard what situation I held in
the London office?"

"Never, Jack!"

He drew himself up and folded his arms, and looked at me from the
immeasurable height of his own superiority.

"I was Keeper of the Keys in London!" he announced. "And what I want to
know is--Am I to be Keeper of the Keys here?"

It was now plain enough that my aunt--proceeding on the wise plan of
always cultivating the poor creature's sense of responsibility--had given
him some keys to take care of, and had put him on his honor to be worthy
of his little trust. I could not doubt that she would find some means of
humoring him in the same way at Frankfort.

"Wait till the bells rings," I answered "and perhaps you will find the
Keys waiting for you in Mistress' room."

He rubbed his hands in delight. "That's it!" he said. "Let's keep watch
on the bell."

As he turned to go back again to his corner, Madame Fontaine's voice
reached us from the top of the kitchen stairs. She was speaking to her
daughter. Jack stopped directly and waited, looking round at the stairs.

"Where is the other person who came here with Mrs. Wagner?" the widow
asked. "A man with an odd English name. Do you know, Minna, if they have
found a room for him?"

She reached the lower stair as she spoke--advanced along the
corridor--and discovered Jack Straw. In an instant, her languid
indifferent manner disappeared. Her eyes opened wildly under their heavy
lids. She stood motionless, like a woman petrified by surprise--perhaps
by terror.

"Hans Grimm!" I heard her say to herself. "God in heaven! what brings
_him_ here?"

CHAPTER XXIV

Almost instantaneously Madame Fontaine recovered her self-control.

"I really couldn't help feeling startled," she said, explaining herself
to Fritz and to me. "The last time I saw this man, he was employed in a
menial capacity at the University of Wurzburg. He left us one day, nobody
knew why. And he suddenly appears again, without a word of warning, in
this house."

I looked at Jack. A smile of mischievous satisfaction was on his face. He
apparently enjoyed startling Madame Fontaine. His expression changed
instantly for the better, when Minna approached and spoke to him.

"Don't you remember me, Hans?" she said.

"Oh, yes, Missie, I remember you. You are a good creature. You take after
your papa. _He_ was a good creature--except when he had his beastly
medical bottles in his hand. But, I say, I mustn't be called by the name
they gave me at the University! I was a German then--I am an Englishman
now. All nations are alike to me. But I am particular about my name,
because it's the name Mistress knew me by. I will never have another.
'Jack Straw,' if you please. There's my name, and I am proud of it. Lord!
what an ugly little hat you have got on your head! I'll soon make you a
better one." He turned on Madame Fontaine, with a sudden change to
distrust.

"I don't like the way you spoke of my leaving the University, just now. I
had a right to go, if I liked--hadn't I?"

"Oh, yes, Hans."

"Not Hans! Didn't you hear what I mentioned just now? Say Jack."

She said it, with a ready docility which a little surprised me.

"Did I steal anything at the University?" Jack proceeded.

"Not that I know of."

"Then speak respectfully of me, next time. Say, 'Mr. Jack retired from
the University, in the exercise of his discretion.' " Having stated this
formula with an air of great importance, he addressed himself to me. "I
appeal to you," he said. "Suppose you had lost your color here" (he
touched his cheek), "and your color there" (he touched his hair); "and
suppose it had happened at the University--would _you"_ (he stood on
tip-toe, and whispered the next words in my ear) "would _you_ have stopped
there, to be poisoned again? No!" he cried, raising his voice once more,
"you would have drifted away like me. From Germany to France; from France
to England--and so to London, and so under the feet of her Highness's
horses, and so to Bedlam, and so to Mistress. Oh, Lord help me, I'm
forgetting the bell! good-bye, all of you. Let me be in my corner till
the bell rings."

Madame Fontaine glanced at me compassionately, and touched her bead.

"Come to my sitting-room, Jack," she said, "and have something to eat and
drink, and tell me your adventures after you left Wurzburg."

She favored him with her sweetest smile, and spoke in her most
ingratiating tones. That objectionable tendency of mine to easily suspect
others was, I suppose, excited once more. At any rate, I thought the
widow showed a very remarkable anxiety to conciliate Jack. He was proof,
however, against all attempts at fascination--he shook his head
obstinately, and pointed to the bell. We went our several ways, and left
the strange little man crouched up in his corner.

In the afternoon, I was sent for to see my aunt.

I found Jack at his post; established in a large empty wardrobe, on the
landing outside his mistress's door. His fingers were already busy with
the framework of the new straw hat which he had promised to make for
Minna.

"All right, David!" he said, patronizing me as indulgently as ever.
"Mistress has had her good sleep and her nice breakfast, and she looks
lovely. Go in, and see her--go in!"

I thought myself that she looked perhaps a little worn, and certainly
thinner than when I had seen her last. But these were trifles. It is not
easy to describe the sense of relief and pleasure that I felt--after
having been accustomed to the sleepy eyes and serpentine graces of Madame
Fontaine--when I looked again at the lithe active figure and the bright
well-opened gray eyes of my dear little English aunt.

"Tell me, David," she began, as soon as the first greetings were over,
"what do you think of Jack Straw? Was my poor dear husband not right? and
have I not done well to prove it?"

I could, and did, honestly congratulate her on the result of the visit to
Bedlam.

"And now about the people here," she went on. "I find Fritz's father
completely changed on the subject of Fritz's marriage. And when I ask
what it means, I am told that Madame Fontaine has set everything right,
in the most wonderful manner, by saving Mr. Keller's life. Is this true?"

"Quite true. What do you think of Madame Fontaine?"

"Ask me that, David, to-morrow or the next day. My head is muddled by
traveling--I have not made up my mind yet."

"Have you seen Minna?"

"Seen her, and kissed her too! There's a girl after my own heart. I
consider our scatter-brained friend Fritz to be the luckiest young fellow
living."

"If Minna was not going to be married," I suggested, "she would just do
for one of your young-lady clerks, wouldn't she?"

My aunt laughed. "Exactly what I thought myself, when I saw her. But you
are not to make a joke of my young-lady clerks. I am positively
determined to carry out that useful reform in the office here. However,
as Mr. Keller has been so lately ill, and as we are sure to have a fight
about it, I will act considerately towards my opponent--I won't stir in
the matter until he is quite himself again. In the meantime, I must find
somebody, while I am away, to take my place in the London house. The
business is now under the direction of Mr. Hartrey. He is perfectly
competent to carry it on; but, as you know, our excellent head-clerk has
his old--fashioned prejudices. According to strict rule, a partner ought
always to be in command, at the London business--and Hartrey implores me
(if Mr. Keller is not well enough to take the journey) to send Mr.
Engelman to London. Where is Mr. Engelman? How is it that I have neither
heard nor seen anything of him?"

This was a delicate and difficult question to answer--at least, to my way
of thinking. There was little prospect of keeping the poor old
gentleman's sad secret. It was known to Fritz and Minna, as well as to
Mr. Keller. Still, I felt an unconquerable reluctance to be the first
person who revealed the disaster that had befallen him.

"Mr. Engelman is not in good health and spirits," I said. "He has gone
away for a little rest and change."

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