The Benefactress. Elizabeth von Arnim

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СКАЧАТЬ uncles, and Anna's sparkling face could only have one meaning.

      "Uncle Joachim was our mother's only brother–"

      "I know, I know," interrupted Susie impatiently.

      "—and was the dearest and kindest of uncles to me–"

      "Never mind what he was," interrupted Susie still more impatiently. "What has he done for you? Tell me that. You always pretended, both of you—Peter too—that he had miles of sandy places somewhere in the desert, and dozens of boys. What could he do for you?"

      "Do for me?" Anna rose up with a solemnity worthy of the great news about to be imparted, put both her hands on Susie's little shoulders, and looking down at her with shining eyes, said slowly, "He has left me an estate bringing in forty thousand marks a year."

      "Forty thousand!" echoed Susie, completely awestruck.

      "Marks," said Anna.

      "Oh, marks," said Susie, chilled. "That's francs, isn't it? I really thought for a moment–"

      "They're more than francs. It brings in, on an average, two thousand pounds a year. Two—thousand—pounds—a—year," repeated Anna, nodding her head at each word. "Now, Susie, what do you think of that?"

      "What do I think of it? Why, that it isn't much. Where would you all have been, I wonder, if I had only had two thousand a year?"

      "Oh, congratulate me!" cried Anna, opening her arms. "Kiss me, and tell me you are glad! Don't you see that I am off your hands at last? That we need never think about husbands again? That you will never have to buy me any more clothes, and never tire your poor little self out any more trotting me round? I don't know which of us is to be congratulated most," she added laughing, looking at Susie with her eyes full of tears. Then she insisted on kissing her again, and murmured foolish things in her ear about being so sorry for all her horrid ways, and so grateful to her, and so determined now to be good for ever and ever.

      "My dear Anna," remonstrated Susie, who disliked sentiment and never knew how to respond to exhibitions of feeling. "Of course I congratulate you. It almost seems as if throwing away one's chances in the way you have done was the right thing to do, and is being rewarded. Don't let us waste time. You know we go out to dinner. What has he left Peter?"

      "Peter?" said Anna wonderingly.

      "Yes, Peter. He was his nephew, I suppose, just as much as you were his niece."

      "Well, but Susie, Peter is different. He—he doesn't need money as I do; and of course Uncle Joachim knew that."

      "Nonsense. He hasn't got a penny. Let me look at the letters."

      "They're in German. You won't be able to read them."

      "Give them to me. I learned German at school, and got a prize. You're not the only person in the world who can do things."

      She took them out of Anna's hand, and began slowly and painfully to read the one from Uncle Joachim, determined to see whether there really was no mention of Peter. Anna looked on, hot and cold by turns with fright lest by some chance her early studies should not after all have been quite forgotten.

      "Here's something about Peter—and me," Susie said suddenly. "At least, I suppose he means me. It is something Dobbs. Why does he call me that? It hasn't been my name for fifteen years."

      "Oh, it's some silly German way. He says the geborene Dobbs, to distinguish you from other Lady Estcourts."

      "But there are no others."

      "Oh, well, his sister was one. Give me the letter, Susie—I can tell you what he says much more quickly than you can read it."

      "'Unter der Würde einer jünge Dame aus guter Familie,'" read out Susie slowly, not heeding Anna, and with the most excruciating pronunciation that was ever heard, "'sich ewig auf den Federn, mit welchen die bürgerliche Gans geborene Dobbs Peters sonst mangelhaftes Nest ausgestattet hat, zu wälzen.' What stuff he writes. I can hardly understand it. Yet I must have been good at it at school, to get the prize. What is that bit about me and Peter?"

      "Which bit?" said Anna, blushing scarlet. "Let me look." She got the letter back into her possession. "Oh, that's where he says that—that he doesn't think it fair that I should be a burden for ever on you and Peter."

      "Well, that's sensible enough. The old man had some sense in him after all, absurd though he was, and vulgar. It isn't fair, of course. I don't mean to say anything disagreeable, or throw all I have done for you in your face, but really, Anna, few mothers would have made the sacrifices I have for you, and as for sisters-in-law—well, I'd just like to see another."

      "Dear Susie," said Anna tenderly, putting her arm round her, ready to acknowledge all, and more than all, the benefits she had received, "you have been only too kind and generous. I know that I owe you everything in the world, and just think how lovely it is for me to feel that now I can take my weight off your shoulders! You must come and live with me now, whenever you are sick of things, and I'll feel so proud, having you in my house!"

      "Live with you?" exclaimed Susie, drawing herself away. "Where are you going to live?"

      "Why, there, I suppose."

      "Live there! Is that a condition?"

      "No, but Uncle Joachim keeps on saying he hopes I will, and that I'll settle down and look after the place."

      "Look after the place yourself? How silly!"

      "Yes, you haven't taught me much about farming, have you? He wants me to turn quite into a German."

      "Good gracious!" cried Susie, genuinely horrified.

      "He seems to think that I ought to work, and not spend my life talking Klatsch."

      "Talking what?"

      "It's what German women apparently talk when they get together. We don't. I'd never do anything with such an ugly name, and I'm positive you wouldn't."

      "Where is this place?"

      "Near Stralsund."

      "And where on earth is that?"

      "Ah," said Anna, investigating cobwebby corners of her memory, "that's what I should like to be able to remember. Perhaps," she added honestly, "I never knew. Let me call Letty, and ask her to bring her atlas."

      "Letty won't know," said Susie impatiently, "she only knows the things she oughtn't to."

      "Oh, she isn't as wise as all that," said Anna, ringing the bell. "Anyhow she has maps, which is more than we have."

      A servant was sent to request Miss Letty Estcourt to attend in the drawing-room with her atlas.

      "Whatever's in the wind now?" inquired Letty, open-mouthed, of her governess. "They're not going to examine me this time of night, are they, Leechy?" For she suffered greatly from having a brother who was always passing examinations and coming out top, and was consequently subjected herself, by an ambitious mother who was sure that she must be equally clever if she would only let herself go, to every examination that happened to be going for girls of her age; so that she and Miss Leech spent their days either on the defensive, preparing for these unprovoked assaults, or in the state of collapse which followed the regularly recurring defeat, and both found their lives a burden too СКАЧАТЬ