Yes, Herr Geheimrat Horst-Heinz von Teschow was just in the right mood to write this letter to his son-in-law. It must, of course, be restrained, concise and businesslike, as suited the matter, for one ought not to mix family feeling with financial arrangements.
“Extremely sorry, but the increasingly more difficult conditions on the money market force me, etc. etc. Enclosed statement. With best regards, Yours, H. H. von Teschow.” There! That would do it! Finished! Elias could take the letter across first thing tomorrow morning. Then the gentleman would find it on his return from Berlin. The hangover which he was sure to have brought with him from that place would help in rubbing him up the wrong way.
Herr von Teschow was about to ring for Elias when the organ pealing from below reminded him that devotions were still under way; Belinde was going it tonight very thoroughly. Undoubtedly she had a black sheep in her flock, one who must be guided to penitence before bedtime. He could not call Elias, then. And yet he would very much have liked to see the letter on its way.
As a matter of fact, he knew, of course, who the black sheep was—the little poultry witch, Amanda, with the shining red cheeks. She and Meier with the blubber lips. Recommended as an engaged couple. Well, they’re long past the engagement stage, and well into the marriage bargain. Well, what did it matter?
The Geheimrat grinned a little, and it occured to him that it would be much better to hand the letter to Meier for delivery. That would annoy his son-in-law acutely, for he knew quite well that the old gentleman was fond of an occasional chat with the bailiff. And when he got such a letter through such a go-between he would think, of course, that his father-in-law had already discussed its contents with him. But he would be much too grand to ask his employee right out, naturally, and that again would add to his annoyance.
The old gentleman put the letter in his shooting jacket, took his stick and shaggy hat and went slowly downstairs. The evening devotions seemed to be over; two of the maids passed him on their way upstairs, looking very amused—not at all in a pious mood—rather as if some comic incident had occurred. Von Teschow was about to inquire but changed his mind. If Belinde heard him talking on the stairs she would possibly come out and ask him where he was going, and offer to accompany him. No, better not.
He stepped out into the park, now fairly dark, just made for his purpose. He knew, of course, exactly where his wife’s geese always discovered a hole in the fence, since only the day before yesterday he had stopped it up at her request. But what is shut can be opened, he told himself, and cautiously rattled at the fence. He must find a loose stake which could be broken away.
Suddenly, while he was so employed, he had the feeling that somebody was watching him. Quickly he turned round, and something like a human form did indeed stand near the shrubs. The old gentlemen’s big bulging eyes still saw quite well, even in the dusk. “Amanda!” he called.
But nobody answered, and when he looked more closely there was no human form at all, only the rhododendron and jasmine in the background. Well, never mind. If she had been there it need not and it must not matter to her; he had only been looking to see whether the stakes were firm. But for that evening he refrained from loosening them, and went instead to the staff-house and Meier.
But he preferred not to enter the place; unlike his wife, the old Geheimrat had not the slightest inclination to see things which violated a sense of decorum. With his stick he knocked at the open window. “Hi, Herr Meier! Kindly stick your esteemed nut out of the curtains,” he shouted.
VI
Amanda Backs, the poultry maid, would have preferred to cut evening prayers as she had often enough done before, usually for the more general reason of boredom and of previous engagements, but this time because she could guess at whom madam would be praying and preaching. The fat cook and Black Minna, however, did not allow her out of their sight.
“Come, Amanda, we’ll help you count the hens, and then you can help us with the washing up.”
“I seem to hear the word scram,” said Amanda, meaning by that just what her mother had meant with her “Make yourself scarce.”
But the pair never left her a minute—it was obvious that they were dancing to madam’s tune.
“Always the same,” said Amanda Backs, scolding the few belated hens who, with agitated cacklings, hurried from the meadow to the coop. “You wait, I’ll close the shutter before your very beaks and then you’ll find out how the fox says ‘Good Night.’ You oughtn’t to behave so foolishly, Minna. The cook weighs at least two hundredweights, and so it’s difficult enough for her to get a man—you can’t blame her for standing about like an angel made of soft soap. But you with your six ragamuffins with at least ten different fathers!”
“Indeed, Amanda! Don’t be so low,” protested Black Minna. “Madam means well.”
“I seem to hear the word scram,” said Amanda Backs again, breaking off the discussion. That the old lady should have appointed Black Minna as spy was really too ridiculous. But everyone knew how childishly she fussed over that aged slatternly female. Whenever Minna got into trouble again—and the old lady noticed it only when the midwife arrived, although with such a scraggy, bony woman it had long been apparent to everyone else—then the mistress flew into a passion, abused the woman and once again cast her off forever and ever, telling her to remove from the almshouse where she lived, as utterly incorrigible.
Then Minna would shriek and carry on terribly. Sobbing, she would load her possessions on a little handcart—not everything, however, only enough to impress madam, but not forgetting a single one of her many children—and march through the village howling, and singing hymns. For the last time she would call at the Manor, push the brass bell-knob and ask Elias with many tears to give the dear good lady her blessings and gratitude. And could she be allowed to kiss her hands in farewell?
Thereupon Elias, who knew this play by heart, would say “No.” Whereupon Black Minna wept even more bitterly and departed with her fatherless children into the cold wide world, as far away as the curbstone at the Manor gateway. There she sat and wept and waited and, according to the extent of her mistress’s anger, had to sit one, two, or even five hours, and sometimes as long as half a day.
But she knew she would not wait forever, and if she had not known by experience, she could always tell by the curtains in the house. For the old lady opened and closed them with her trembling hands and could not refrain from gazing on her erring sheep.
But if the scandal happened to be a bad one, and Frau von Teschow had learned from the village magistrate via her husband that this time three men were definitely involved and perhaps even five—not to mention those who were shielded out of “sympathy,” for in her relationships Minna distinguished between “sympathetic” men and casuals—then madam hardened her soft, worldly-unwise heart, thought over all this Sodom and Gomorrah business and remembered how often Black Minna had promised to mend her ways.
Then she would let fall the curtain and say to her friend, old Fräulein von Kuckhoff, who lived with her: “No, Jutta, this time I won’t relent. And I won’t look at her out of the window.” And old Fräulein von Kuckhoff, with the black velvet ribbon round her neck, would energetically nod her little vulture-like head and remark in her flowery but precise manner: “Certainly, Belinde—constant dropping wears away even a stone.”