Regina, or the Sins of the Fathers Part 21

"But what do you do in the evening, when it's dark?"

"I sit by the fire and sew, till my fingers get quite stiff."

"Then you have a light?"

"I burn fir-cones."

He was silent; he gnawed his under-lip, and hesitated as to what he should say next. Then he took courage.

"Regina, if you like you may bring your sewing into the sitting-room, after supper," he said.

She grew pale, and stammered out, "Yes, _Herr_."

He thought her wanting in grat.i.tude.

"Of course, if you'd rather not--" he said, shrugging his shoulders.

"Oh, _Herr_--I should like to come."

"Very well, then, come; but you must make yourself look respectable.

Why have you given up wearing your new clothes?" Since that evening she had taken to s.h.i.+vering about in the cotton jacket again.

"I thought it would hurt them."

"Hurt them! How?"

"I mean," she said incoherently, "that when you are angry with me,-- such as I, am not fit----"

"Nonsense!" he interrupted quickly, feeling that if she went on he would be angry with her again.

After supper she appeared in some trepidation at the door. Snowy linen s.h.i.+mmered in her hand. She remained standing till he had impatiently invited her to sit down.

"You want people to stand on ceremony with you, as if you were some fine lady," he said.

She laughed in confusion.

"I am only nervous, _Herr_, because I am not quite sure--how to behave." And she turned to her work.

No more pa.s.sed between them that evening, and it was more than a week before they broke into conversation again.

He sat brooding over his yellow papers, and she let her needle fly through the crackling calico. When the clock struck eleven, she gathered up her sewing, and whispering "Good-night," slipped out on tiptoe without waiting for an answer.

"What are you working at so industriously?" he asked her one evening, after he had watched her intently for some minutes.

She looked up and pushed a curl off her forehead with damp fingers.

"I am making s.h.i.+rts for you, _Herr_," was the answer.

"So you undertake that too?"

"Who else should do it, _Herr_?"

A short silence; then he questioned her further.

"Who taught you all you know, Regina? Your mother?"

She shook her head. "My mother died very young, _Herr_. I can hardly remember her. People say my father beat her to death."

He thought of the thin pale face and tired eyelids in the picture-gallery, of which the last trace had perished in the great fire.

"Can you remember what your mother was like?" he demanded again.

"She had long black hair, and eyes like mine, at least, so I have heard people say; and I can remember her hair, for she often wrapped me in it when I was undressed. I used to sit in it as if it were a cloak, and laugh; and when father--" She stopped in sudden alarm. "But you won't care to hear more, _Herr_?"

"Go on, tell me the rest," he exclaimed.

"And when father came home and wanted to beat me, because he was drunk, you know, she stood in front of me, and told me to get under her dress; and inside her dress it was like being in a cave, quite dark and still, and father's swearing sounded a long, long way off. And then she died.

It was on a Sunday--yes, it was on a Sunday. For I was standing by the hedge and wondering whether she'd have a beautiful coffin--a green one, like the coffin on the trestle in the garden--when you, _Herr_, went by on your way to church. At that time you were little, like me, and you had on a blue coat with silver b.u.t.tons, and a little sword at your side; and you stopped and asked me why I was crying, and I couldn't answer, I was so frightened, and then you gave me an apple."

He had not the smallest recollection of the incident, but he remembered how he had taken the young sparrow away from her, and related the story. She had not forgotten it. Her eyes became illumined, as if lost in contemplation of some blissful sight.

"I wonder, now, that you gave it up so meekly," he said.

"How could I have done otherwise?" she answered.

"You might easily have refused," he said.

She bent over her work. "I was only so glad for you to have it," she said, in a low soft voice. "It's not often that a poor little village girl gets the chance of giving anything to a rich young n.o.bleman."

He bit his lips. Truly he had taken more from her since than his pride and manliness should have permitted.

"And besides," she went on, "even if I hadn't wanted to give it to you, it was yours by right. You were the _Junker_."

How perfectly natural the argument sounded from her lips.

"Regina, tell me honestly," he said, "if you haven't entirely forgotten the days when you ran wild in the village."

"Oh no, _Herr_; indeed I haven't," she replied, with an almost roguish smile. "For instance, I remember a great many things about the _gnadiger Junker_."

He withdrew far back into the shadow of the lamp-shade. "What splendid stuff she has in her!" he thought, and devoured her with his eyes. And then he made her relate all her reminiscences of him at that time. He did not appear in a very amiable light. Once he had pushed her into a duck-pond; another time sent her floating down the river in a flour-vat, till her cries of terror had brought people to the bank with life-saving apparatus; when she had on a new white frock, given her by the Castle housekeeper, he had painted her hands and face with white chalk, and told her to stand motionless like one of the statues in the Park. She had submitted meekly till the chalk got into her mouth and eyes and made them smart, and then she had burst out crying and run away.

She recalled all this with beaming eyes, as if his pranks had been a source of infinite happiness to her. Although when reminded of such and such an escapade he recollected it perfectly, he could not remember that it was Regina who had been the victim of his caprice. A sensation of shame rose within him. Instead of the dreamy, generous young cavalier he had been in the habit of picturing himself, he saw a cruel little village tyrant, who exercised his power over his small contemporaries with a relentlessness that was almost vicious.

"And did I make no amends for my wicked deeds?" he inquired, hoping to hear he had at least been capable of doing good sometimes.

"Oh, you used to give us things," she answered. "'Divide that,' you used to say, and scatter on the ground either apples and nuts, or broken tin soldiers, or a handful of counters. But, of course, the strongest and biggest got everything. Felix Merckel was the best at a scramble; the girls only had the leavings."

"And did you ever get anything from me, Regina?" he asked.