Linda Tressel

"No, Linda; I am sure it will not. Providence has been pleased to put me in the place of both father and mother to you. I will not say that I have done my duty by you – "

"You have, aunt, always," said Linda, taking her aunt's hand and pressing it affectionately.

"But I have found, and I expect to find, a child's obedience. It is good that the young should obey their elders, and should understand that those in authority over them should know better than they can do themselves what is good for them." Linda was now altogether astray in her thoughts and anticipations. Her aunt had very frequently spoken to her in this strain; nay, a week did not often pass by without such a speech. But then the speeches would come without the solemn prelude which had been made on this occasion, and would be caused generally by some act or word or look or movement on the part of Linda of which Madame Staubach had found herself obliged to express disapprobation. On the present occasion the conversation had been commenced without any such expression. Her aunt had even deigned to commend the general tenor of her life. She had dropped the hand as soon as her aunt began to talk of those in authority, and waited with patience till the gist of the lecture should be revealed to her. "I hope you will understand this now, Linda. That which I shall propose to you is for your welfare, here and hereafter, even though it may not at first seem to you to be agreeable."

"What is it, aunt?" said Linda, jumping up quickly from her seat.

"Sit down, my child, and I will tell you." But Linda did not reseat herself at once. Some terrible fear had come upon her, – some fear of she knew not what, – and she found it to be almost impossible to remain quiet at her aunt's knee. "Sit down, Linda, when I ask you." Then Linda did sit down; but she had altogether lost that look of quiet, passive endurance which her face and figure had borne when she was first asked to listen to her aunt's words. "The time in your life has come, my dear, when I as your guardian have to think whether it is not well that you should be – married."

"But I do not want to be married," said Linda, jumping up again.

"My dearest child, it would be better that you should listen to me. Marriage, you know, is an honourable state."

"Yes, I know, of course. But, aunt Charlotte – "

"Hush, my dear."

"A girl need not be married unless she likes."

"If I were dead, with whom would you live? Who would there be to guard you and guide you?"

"But you are not going to die."

"Linda, that is very wicked."

"And why can I not guide myself?"

"Because you are young, and weak, and foolish. Because it is right that they who are frail, and timid, and spiritless, should be made subject to those who are strong and able to hold dominion and to exact obedience." Linda did not at all like being told that she was spiritless. She thought that she might be able to show spirit enough were it not for the duty that she owed to her aunt. And as for obedience, though she were willing to obey her aunt, she felt that her aunt had no right to transfer her privilege in that respect to another. But she said nothing, and her aunt went on with her proposition.

"Our lodger, Peter Steinmarc, has spoken to me, and he is anxious to make you his wife."

"Peter Steinmarc!"

"Yes, Linda; Peter Steinmarc."

"Old Peter Steinmarc!"

"He is not old. What has his being old to do with it?"

"I will never marry Peter Steinmarc, aunt Charlotte."

Madame Staubach had not expected to meet with immediate and positive obedience. She had thought it probable that there might be some opposition shown to her plan when it was first brought forward. Indeed, how could it be otherwise, when marriage was suggested abruptly to such a girl as Linda Tressel, even though the suggested husband had been an Apollo? What young woman could have said, "Oh, certainly; whenever you please, aunt Charlotte," to such a proposition? Feeling this, Madame Staubach would have gone to work by degrees, – would have opened her siege by gradual trenches, and have approached the citadel by parallels, before she attempted to take it by storm, had she known anything of the ways and forms of such strategy. But though she knew that there were such ways and forms of strategy among the ungodly, out in the world with the worldly, she had practised none such herself, and knew nothing of the mode in which they should be conducted. On this subject, if on any, her niece owed to her obedience, and she would claim that obedience as hers of right. Though Linda would at first be startled, she would probably be not the less willing to obey at last, if she found her guardian stern and resolute in her demand. "My dear," she said, "you have probably not yet had time to think of the marriage which I have proposed to you."

"I want no time to think of it."

"Nothing in life should be accepted or rejected without thinking, Linda, – nothing except sin; and thinking cannot be done without time."

"This would be sin – a great sin!"

"Linda, you are very wicked."

"Of course, I am wicked."

"Herr Steinmarc is a most respectable man. There is no man in all Nuremberg more respected than Herr Steinmarc." This was doubtless Madame Staubach's opinion of Peter Steinmarc, but it may be that Madame Staubach was not qualified to express the opinion of the city in general on that subject. "He holds the office which your father held before him, and for many years has inhabited the best rooms in your father's house."

"He is welcome to the rooms if he wants them," said Linda. "He is welcome to the whole house if you choose to give it to him."

"That is nonsense, Linda. Herr Steinmarc wants nothing that is not his of right."

"I am not his of right," said Linda.

"Will you listen to me? You are much mistaken if you think that it is because of your trumpery house that this honest man wishes to make you his wife." We must suppose that Madame Staubach suffered some qualm of conscience as she proffered this assurance, and that she repented afterwards of the sin she committed in making a statement which she could hardly herself have believed to be exactly true. "He knew your father before you were born, and your mother; and he has known me for many years. Has he not lived with us ever since you can remember?"

"Yes," said Linda; "I remember him ever since I was a very little girl, – as long as I can remember anything, – and he seemed to be as old then as he is now."

"And why should he not be old? Why should you want a husband to be young and foolish and headstrong as you are yourself; – perhaps some one who would drink and gamble and go about after strange women?"

"I don't want any man for a husband," said Linda.

"There can be nothing more proper than that Herr Steinmarc should make you his wife. He has spoken to me and he is willing to undertake the charge."

"The charge!" almost screamed Linda, in terrible disgust.

"He is willing to undertake the charge, I say. We shall then still live together, and may hope to be able to maintain a God-fearing household, in which there may be as little opening to the temptations of the world as may be found in any well-ordered house."

"I do not believe that Peter Steinmarc is a God-fearing man."

"Linda, you are very wicked to say so."

"But if he were, it would make no difference."

"Linda!"

"I only know that he loves his money better than anything in the world, and that he never gives a kreutzer to any one, and that he won't subscribe to the hospital, and he always thinks that Tetchen takes his wine, though Tetchen never touches a drop."

"When he has a wife she will look after these things."

"I will never look after them," said Linda.

The conversation was brought to an end as soon after this as Madame Staubach was able to close it. She had done all that she had intended to do, and had done it with as much of good result as she had expected. She had probably not thought that Linda would be quite so fierce as she had shown herself; but she had expected tears, and more of despair, and a clearer protestation of abject misery in the proposed marriage. Linda's mind would now be filled with the idea, and probably she might by degrees reconcile herself to it, and learn to think that Peter was not so very old a man. At any rate it would now be for Peter himself to carry on the battle.

Linda, as soon as she was alone, sat down with her hands before her and with her eyes fixed, gazing on vacancy, in order that she might realise to herself the thing proposed to her. She had said very little to her aunt of the nature of the misery which such a marriage seemed to offer to her, – not because her imagination made for her no clear picture on the subject, not because she did not foresee unutterable wretchedness in such a union. The picture of such wretchedness had been very palpable to her. She thought that no consideration on earth would induce her to take that mean-faced old man to her breast as her husband, her lord – as the one being whom she was to love beyond everybody else in this world. The picture was clear enough, but she had argued to herself, unconsciously, that any description of that picture to her aunt would seem to suppose that the consummation of the picture was possible. She preferred therefore to declare that the thing was impossible, – an affair the completion of which would be quite out of the question. Instead of assuring her aunt that it would have made her miserable to have to look after Peter Steinmarc's wine, she at once protested that she never would take upon herself that duty. "I am not his of right," she had said; and as she said it, she resolved that she would adhere to that protest. But when she was alone she remembered her aunt's demand, her own submissiveness, her old habits of obedience, and above all she remembered the fear that would come over her that she was giving herself to the devil in casting from her her obedience on such a subject, and then she became very wretched. She told herself that sooner or later her aunt would conquer her, that sooner or later that mean-faced old man, with his snuffy fingers, and his few straggling hairs brushed over his bald pate, with his big shoes spreading here and there because of his corns, and his ugly, loose, square, snuffy coat, and his old hat which he had worn so long that she never liked to touch it, would become her husband, and that it would be her duty to look after his wine, and his old shoes, and his old hat, and to have her own little possessions doled out to her by his penuriousness. Though she continued to swear to herself that heaven and earth together should never make her become Herr Steinmarc's wife, yet at the same time she continued to bemoan the certainty of her coming fate. If they were both against her – both, with the Lord on their sides – how could she stand against them with nothing to aid her, – nothing, but the devil, and a few words spoken to her by one whom hitherto she had never dared to answer?

The house in which Linda and Madame Staubach lived, of which the three gables faced towards the river, and which came so close upon the stream that there was but a margin six feet broad between the wall and the edge of the water, was approached by a narrow street or passage, which reached as far as the end of the house, where there was a small gravelled court or open place, perhaps thirty feet square. Opposite to the door of the red house was the door of that in which lived Fanny Heisse with her father and mother. They indeed had another opening into one of the streets of the town, which was necessary, as Jacob Heisse was an upholsterer, and required an exit from his premises for chairs and tables. But to the red house with the three gables there was no other approach than by the narrow passage which ran between the river and the back of Heisse's workshop. Thus the little courtyard was very private, and Linda could stand leaning on the wicket-gate which divided the little garden from the court, without being subject to the charge of making herself public to the passers-by. Not but what she might be seen when so standing by those in the Ruden Platz on the other side of the river, as had often been pointed out to her by her aunt. But it was a habit with her to stand there, perhaps because while so standing she would often hear the gay laugh of her old friend Fanny, and would thus, at second hand, receive some impress from the gaiety of the world without. Now, in her musing, without thinking much of whither she was going, she went slowly down the stairs and out of the door, and stood leaning upon the gate looking over the river at the men who were working in the front of the warehouses. She had not been there long when Fanny ran across to her from the door of her father's house. Fanny Heisse was a bright broad-faced girl, with light hair, and laughing eyes, and a dimple on her chin, freckled somewhat, with a pug nose, and a large mouth. But for all this Fanny Heisse was known throughout Nuremberg as a pretty girl.

"Linda, what do you think?" said Fanny. "Papa was at Augsburg yesterday, and has just come home, and it is all to come off the week after next."

"And you are happy?"