Jezebel's Daughter Read online

temper was not excited) of speaking sensibly and strongly on any subject

  in which he was interested. Mr. Engelman, short and fat, devoted to the

  office during the hours of business, had never read a book in his life,

  and had no aspiration beyond the limits of his garden and his pipe. "In

  my leisure moments," he used to say, "give me my flowers, my pipe, and my

  peace of mind--and I ask no more." Widely as they differed in character,

  the two partners had the truest regard for one another. Mr. Engelman

  believed Mr. Keller to be the most accomplished and remarkable man in

  Germany. Mr. Keller was as firmly persuaded, on his side, that Mr.

  Engelman was an angel in sweetness of temper, and a model of modest and

  unassuming good sense. Mr. Engelman listened to Mr. Keller's learned talk

  with an ignorant admiration which knew no limit. Mr. Keller, detesting

  tobacco in all its forms, and taking no sort of interest in horticulture,

  submitted to the fumes of Mr. Engelman's pipe, and passed hours in Mr.

  Engelman's garden without knowing the names of nine-tenths of the flowers

  that grew in it. There are still such men to be found in Germany and in

  England; but, oh! dear me, the older I get the fewer I find there are of

  them.

  The two old friends and partners were waiting for me to join them at

  their early German supper. Specimens of Mr. Engelman's flowers adorned

  the table in honor of my arrival. He presented me with a rose from the

  nosegay when I entered the room.

  "And how did you leave dear Mrs. Wagner?" he inquired.

  "And how is my boy Fritz?" asked Mr. Keller.

  I answered in terms which satisfied them both, and the supper proceeded

  gaily. But when the table was cleared, and Mr. Engelman had lit his pipe,

  and I had kept him company with a cigar, then Mr. Keller put the fatal

  question. "And now tell me, David, do you come to us on business or do

  you come to us on pleasure?"

  I had no alternative but to produce my instructions, and to announce the

  contemplated invasion of the office by a select army of female clerks.

  The effect produced by the disclosure was highly characteristic of the

  widely different temperaments of the two partners.

  Mild Mr. Engelman laid down his pipe, and looked at Mr. Keller in

  helpless silence.

  Irritable Mr. Keller struck his fist on the table, and appealed to Mr.

  Engelman with fury in his looks.

  "What did I tell you," he asked, "when we first heard that Mr. Wagner's

  widow was appointed head-partner in the business? How many opinions of

  philosophers on the moral and physical incapacities of women did I quote?

  Did I, or did I not, begin with the ancient Egyptians, and end with

  Doctor Bernastrokius, our neighbor in the next street?"

  Poor Mr. Engelman looked frightened.

  "Don't be angry, my dear friend," he said softly.

  "Angry?" repeated Mr. Keller, more furiously than ever. "My good

  Engelman, you never were more absurdly mistaken in your life! I am

  delighted. Exactly what I expected, exactly what I predicted, has come to

  pass. Put down your pipe! I can bear a great deal--but tobacco smoke is

  beyond me at such a crisis as this. And do for once overcome your

  constitutional indolence. Consult your memory; recall my own words when

  we were first informed that we had a woman for head-partner."

  "She was a very pretty woman when I first saw her," Mr. Engelman

  remarked.

  "Pooh!" cried Mr. Keller.

  "I didn't mean to offend you," said Mr. Engelman. "Allow me to present

  you with one of my roses as a peace-offering."

  _"Will_ you be quiet, and let me speak?"

  "My dear Keller, I am always too glad to hear you speak! You put ideas

  into my poor head, and my poor head lets them out, and then you put them

  in again. What noble perseverance! If I live a while longer I do really

  think you will make a clever man of me. Let me put the rose in your

  buttonhole for you. And I say, I wish you would allow me to go on with my

  pipe."

  Mr. Keller made a gesture of resignation, and gave up his partner in

  despair. "I appeal to _you,_ David," he said, and poured the full flow of

  his learning and his indignation into my unlucky ears.

  Mr. Engelman, enveloped in clouds of tobacco-smoke, enjoyed in silence

  the composing influence of his pipe. I said, "Yes, sir," and "No, sir,"

  at the right intervals in the flow of Mr. Keller's eloquence. At this

  distance of time, I cannot pretend to report the long harangue of which I

  was made the victim. In substance, Mr. Keller held that there were two

  irremediable vices in the composition of women. Their dispositions

  presented, morally speaking, a disastrous mixture of the imitativeness of

  a monkey and the restlessness of a child. Having proved this by copious

  references to the highest authorities, Mr. Keller logically claimed my

  aunt as a woman, and, as such, not only incapable of "letting well

  alone," but naturally disposed to imitate her husband on the most

  superficial and defective sides of his character. "I predicted, David,

  that the fatal disturbance of our steady old business was now only a

  question of time--and there, in Mrs. Wagner's ridiculous instructions, is

  the fulfillment of my prophecy!"

  Before we went to bed that night, the partners arrived at two

  resolutions. Mr. Keller resolved to address a written remonstrance to my

  aunt. Mr. Engelman resolved to show me his garden the first thing in the

  morning.

  CHAPTER X

  On the afternoon of the next day, while my two good friends were still

  occupied by the duties of the office, I stole out to pay my promised

  visit to Minna and Minna's mother.

  It was impossible not to arrive at the conclusion that they were indeed

  in straitened circumstances. Their lodgings were in the cheap suburban

  quarter of Frankfort on the left bank of the river. Everything was

  scrupulously neat, and the poor furniture was arranged with taste--but no

  dexterity of management could disguise the squalid shabbiness of the

  sitting-room into which I was shown. I could not help thinking how

  distressed Fritz would feel, if he could have seen his charming Minna in

  a place so unworthy of her as this.

  The rickety door opened, and the "Jezebel" of the anonymous letter

  (followed by her daughter) entered the room.

  There are certain remarkable women in all countries who, whatever sphere

  they may be seen in, fill that sphere as completely as a great actor

  fills the stage. Widow Fontaine was one of these noteworthy persons. The

  wretched little room seemed to disappear when she softly glided into it;

  and even the pretty Minna herself receded into partial obscurity in her

  mother's presence. And yet there was nothing in the least obtrusive in

  the manner of Madame Fontaine, and nothing remarkable in her stature. Her

  figure, reaching to no more than the middle height, was the well-rounded

  figure of a woman approaching forty years of age. The influence she

  exercised was, in part, attributable, as I suppose, to the supple grace

  of all her movements; in part, to the commanding composure of her
r />   expression and the indescribable witchery of her manner. Her dark eyes,

  never fully opened in my remembrance, looked at me under heavy

  overhanging upper eyelids. Her enemies saw something sensual in their

  strange expression. To my mind it was rather something furtively

  cruel--except when she looked at her daughter. Sensuality shows itself

  most plainly in the excessive development of the lower part of the face.

  Madame Fontaine's lips were thin, and her chin was too small. Her profuse

  black hair was just beginning to be streaked with gray. Her complexion

  wanted color. In spite of these drawbacks, she was still a striking, I

  might almost say a startling, creature, when you first looked at her.

  And, though she only wore the plainest widow's weeds, I don't scruple to

  assert that she was the most perfectly dressed woman I ever saw.

  Minna made a modest attempt to present me in due form. Her mother put her

  aside playfully, and held out both her long white powerful hands to me as

  cordially as if we had known each other for years.

  "I wait to prove other people before I accept them for my friends," she

  said. "Mr. David, you have been more than kind to my daughter--and _you_

  are my friend at our first meeting."

  I believe I repeat the words exactly. I wish I could give any adequate

  idea of the exquisite charm of voice and manner which accompanied them.

  And yet, I was not at my ease with her--I was not drawn to her

  irresistibly, as I had felt drawn to her daughter. Those dark, steady,

  heavy-lidded eyes of hers seemed to be looking straight into my heart,

  and surprising all my secrets. To say that I actually distrusted and

  disliked her would be far from the truth. Distrust and dislike would have

  protected me, in some degree at least, from feeling her influence as I

  certainly did feel it. How that influence was exerted--whether it was

  through her eyes, or through her manner, or, to speak the jargon of these

  latter days, through some "magnetic emanation" from her, which invisibly

  overpowered me--is more than I can possibly say. I can only report that

  she contrived by slow degrees to subject the action of my will more and

  more completely to the action of hers, until I found myself answering her

  most insidious questions as unreservedly as if she had been in very truth

  my intimate and trusted friend.

  "And is this your first visit to Frankfort, Mr. David?" she began.

  "Oh, no, madam! I have been at Frankfort on two former occasions."

  "Ah, indeed? And have you always stayed with Mr. Keller?"

  "Always."

  She looked unaccountably interested when she heard that reply, brief as

  it was.

  "Then, of course, you are intimate with him," she said. "Intimate enough,

  perhaps, to ask a favor or to introduce a friend?"

  I made a futile attempt to answer this cautiously.

  "As intimate, madam, as a young clerk in the business can hope to be with

  a partner," I said.

  "A clerk in the business?" she repeated. "I thought you lived in London,

  with your aunt.

  Here Minna interposed for the first time.

  "You forget, mamma, that there are three names in the business. The

  inscription over the door in Main Street is Wagner, Keller, and Engelman.

  Fritz once told me that the office here in Frankfort was only the small

  office--and the grand business was Mr. Wagner's business in London. Am I

  right, Mr. David?"

  "Quite right, Miss Minna. But we have no such magnificent flower-garden

  at the London house as Mr. Engelman's flower-garden here. May I offer you

  a nosegay which he allowed me to gather?"

  I had hoped to make the flowers a means of turning the conversation to

  more interesting topics. But the widow resumed her questions, while Minna

  was admiring the flowers.

  "Then you are Mr. Wagner's clerk?" she persisted.

  "I _was_ Mr. Wagner's clerk. Mr. Wagner is dead."

  "Ha! And who takes care of the great business now?"

  Without well knowing why, I felt a certain reluctance to speak of my aunt

  and her affairs. But Widow Fontaine's eyes rested on me with a resolute

  expectation in them which I felt myself compelled to gratify. When she

  understood that Mr. Wagner's widow was now the chief authority in the

  business, her curiosity to hear everything that I could tell her about my

  aunt became all but insatiable. Minna's interest in the subject was, in

  quite another way, as vivid as her mother's. My aunt's house was the

  place to which cruel Mr. Keller had banished her lover. The inquiries of

  the mother and daughter followed each other in such rapid succession that

  I cannot pretend to remember them now. The last question alone remains

  vividly impressed on my memory, in connection with the unexpected effect

  which my answer produced. It was put by the widow in these words:

  "Your aunt is interested, of course, in the affairs of her partners in

  this place. Is it possible, Mr. David, that she may one day take the

  journey to Frankfort?"

  "It is quite likely, madam, that my aunt may be in Frankfort on business

  before the end of the year."

  As I replied in those terms the widow looked round slowly at her

  daughter. Minna was evidently quite as much at a loss to understand the

  look as I was. Madame Fontaine turned to me again, and made an apology.

  "Pardon me, Mr. David, there is a little domestic duty that I had

  forgotten." She crossed the room to a small table, on which

  writing-materials were placed, wrote a few lines, and handed the paper,

  without enclosing it, to Minna. "Give that, my love, to our good friend

  downstairs--and, while you are in the kitchen, suppose you make the tea.

  You will stay and drink tea with us, Mr. David? It is our only luxury,

  and we always make it ourselves."

  My first impulse was to find an excuse for declining the invitation.

  There was something in the air of mystery with which Madame Fontaine

  performed her domestic duties that was not at all to my taste. But Minna

  pleaded with me to say Yes. "Do stay with us a little longer," she said,

  in her innocently frank way, "we have so few pleasures in this place." I

  might, perhaps, have even resisted Minna--but her mother literally laid

  hands on me. She seated herself, with the air of an empress, on a shabby

  little sofa in the corner of the room, and beckoning me to take my place

  by her side, laid her cool firm hand persuasively on mine. Her touch

  filled me with a strange sense of disturbance, half pleasurable, half

  painful--I don't know how to describe it. Let me only record that I

  yielded, and that Minna left us together.

  "I want to tell you the whole truth," said Madame Fontaine, as soon as we

  were alone; "and I can only do so in the absence of my daughter. You must

  have seen for yourself that we are very poor?"

  Her hand pressed mine gently. I answered as delicately as I could--I said

  I was sorry, but not surprised, to hear it.

  "When you kindly helped Minna to get that letter yesterday," she went on,

  "you were the innocent means of inflicting a disappointment on me--one

  disappointment more, after others that had gone bef
ore it. I came here to

  place my case before some wealthy relatives of mine in this city. They

  refused to assist me. I wrote next to other members of my family, living

  in Brussels. The letter of yesterday contained their answer. Another

  refusal! The landlady of this house is an afflicted creature, with every

  claim on my sympathies; she, too, is struggling with poverty. If I failed

  to pay her, it would be too cruel. Only yesterday I felt it my hard duty

  to give her notice of our departure in a week more. I have just written

  to recall that notice. The reason is, that I see a gleam of hope in the

  future--and you, Mr. David, are the friend who has shown it to me."

  I was more than surprised at this. "May I ask how?" I said.

  She patted my hand with a playful assumption of petulance.

  "A little more patience," she rejoined; "and you shall soon hear. If I

  had only myself to think of, I should not feel the anxieties that now

  trouble me. I could take a housekeeper's place to-morrow. Yes! I was

  brought up among surroundings of luxury and refinement; I descended in

  rank when I married--but for all that, I could fill a domestic employment

  without repining my lot, without losing my self-respect. Adversity is a

  hard teacher of sound lessons, David. May I call you David? And if you

  heard of a housekeeper's place vacant, would you tell me of it?"

  I could hardly understand whether she was in jest or in earnest. She went

  on without waiting for me to reply.

  "But I have my daughter to think of," she resumed, "and to add to my

  anxieties my daughter has given her heart to Mr. Keller's son. While I

  and my dear Minna had only our own interests to consider, we might have

  earned our daily bread together; we might have faced the future with

  courage. But what might once have been the calm course of our lives is

  now troubled by a third person--a rival with me in my daughter's

  love--and, worse still, a man who is forbidden to marry her. Is it

  wonderful that I feel baffled, disheartened, helpless? Oh, I am not

  exaggerating! I know my child's nature. She is too delicate, too

  exquisitely sensitive, for the rough world she lives in. When she loves,

  she loves with all her heart and soul. Day by day I have seen her pining

  and fading under her separation from Fritz. You have revived her hopes

  for the moment--but the prospect before her remains unaltered. If she

  loses Fritz she will die of a broken heart. Oh, God! the one creature I

  love--and how I am to help her and save her I don't know!"

  For the first time, I heard the fervor of true feeling in her voice. She

  turned aside from me, and hid her face with a wild gesture of despair

  that was really terrible to see. I tried, honestly tried, to comfort her.

  "Of one thing at least you may be sure." I said. "Fritz's whole heart is

  given to your daughter. He will be true to her, and worthy of her,

  through all trials."

  "I don't doubt it," she answered sadly, "I have nothing to say against my

  girl's choice. Fritz is good, and Fritz is true, as you say. But you

  forget his father. Personally, mind, I despise Mr. Keller." She looked

  round at me with unutterable contempt flashing through the tears that

  filled her eyes. "A man who listens to every lie that scandal can utter

  against the character of a helpless woman--who gives her no opportunity

  of defending herself (I have written to him and received no answer)--who

  declares that his son shall never marry my daughter (because we are poor,

  of course); and who uses attacks on my reputation which he has never

  verified, as the excuse for his brutal conduct--can anybody respect such

  a man as that? And yet on this despicable creature my child's happiness

  and my child's life depend! For her sake, no matter what my own feeling