VII.
A woman without love is like an author without ideas; it is impossible to imagine one without the other. And jusst as a bad author is sure to fail in literature, so does an unloved and unloving woman fail in accomplishing the end of her existence, and spends her days uselessly on the stage of life.
Jenny Kuc̓erová had never loved before she came to Labutín. Some ideal fancies of her girlish days, in the dawn of ripening womanhood, while she was still completing her education at the various higher schools in Prague, do not count here. They were only like the blush of the morning, glowing for the moment, but airy and transient. Her mother had died when she was ten years old, and though her father had never married again, till the young girl had lost much of the poetry and—what is more important—much of the necessary preparation for the battle of life, which only the watchful care of a loving mother can teach her child. No education, however good and thorough it may be, can ever make up to a young girl for the loss of such a mother’s training and example; and often, in decisive moments, the want of it turns out to be the stumbling-block that matters her whole future welfare.
Mr. Kuc̓era, Jenny’s father, was a grave, earnest man, who always kept watchful guard over his own honour and good name. Being a conscientious official, he devoted all his faculties, and nearly all his time, to the duties of his office; but he also tried faithfully to take good care of his numerous family. As a practical man he tried in the first place to provide for his children’s future. The cares of the household he gave over to his sister, an old maiden lady of a very managing disposition who was a good housekeeper, and kept his home in the very best order; but her rather rough nature was not capable of gaining the love and confidence of her brother’s children.
At school Jenny displayed cleverness and ability, and as her practical father thought that to look for a good match for a portionless girl in these days was even more uncertain than to expect to draw a prize in the lottery he decided to spend as much as was possible on his daughter’s education, so that she might acquire all the accomplishments necessary to fit her for earning her bread independently as a governess in a wealthy family. He explained all this thoroughly to the sensible girl of fourteen, before he sent her to Prague, to one of his cousins, in whose house she was to prepare herself for her life’s task.
Jenny was glad to get away from home, where, under the hard rule of her aunt, she did not feel particularly happy.
Her Prague aunt—as she called her father’s cousin was the wife of a railway official, and was an energetic practical woman, but entirely devoid of all the feminine gentleness, so beautiful in every woman who possesses it and by which she can radiate so much happiness around her.
It was greatly to be regretted, on Jenny’s account, that her father was so burdened with cares as to overlook this dark side of the guardian of his daughter. Mrs. Knír̓ová had only one boy of her own, and was not fond of children. The daughter of her cousin Kuc̓era she received very readily into her house, for it brought her some little emolument; and besides, she would have in her somebody ways near, to whom she could enlarge upon her own views of the world, and things in general. And she imposed the tender mind of Jenny with principles which she herself considered infallible, but which were downright dangerous for the young girl. For instance, she would cry to her—
“One woman adorns her head with some striking style of frisure, or bonnet; another decks herself out with shopfuls of jewellery; a third sweeps the streets with her a train of silk or satin;—and all this, only to attract the attention of men, and to catch a husband, and to provide comfortably for themselves. And the girl who has no money for ostrich-feathers, or for jewels, or silks, must check herself out with knowledge, science, art; with all sorts of accomplishments, in short, in order to attain the same end in that way. So it has always been in the world, and so it will be to the end. Look at the actresses—they are all poor, portionless girls. Do you think that they trouble themselves with learning and practising for years only to get applause in the theatre, or praise in the newspaper? Not at all; to catch some nobleman is their chief aim. And there are examples of some of them having got even princes of reigning houses! Many one, whose father could hardly find means enough to buy her a calico dress, now orders robes for hundreds of florins from the first magasins in Paris every month. And what does she require to have in order to accomplish all this? Only a pretty face and figure, and some cleverness! If a woman is naturally pretty, if she knows how to enhance her charms with tasteful dress, and understands how to show them off properly, and if she keeps her five senses together, so as to have them at hand the moment they are wanted, I tell you she must win. There’s hardly one sensible man in a dozen, and, as far as their relation to women goes, even that sensible one is sure to be caught in the net, if it is only not spread to clumsily. If I was your father I’d make an actress you!”
“Father would never allow that,” said Jenny.
“That’s what I say! But even as a governess you may have good luck. You are pretty even now, and if you don’t get the small-pox, you’ll be a fine woman in a few years. Learn, my dear girl; cram your head as fast as you can with all sorts of knowledge. If you are able to play the piano well, and to sing coquettishly; if you can speak French fluently, and know how to converse pleasantly about everything; if you will understand how to humour the one that holds the reins of the house, and to find out the foibles of important persons, and to work upon them for your own advantage; if you will know how to be virtuous at proper times, and again to be more accessible at other suitable times, and—above all—if you have a determined will and know how to carry your own point;—the deuce must be in it if you, as a governess or companion in a nobleman’s family, do not succeed in catching some fine baron, or even a count!”
Jenny’s innate girlish feelings naturally revolted at first against such barefaced principles and doctrines as these. But her disposition was not at all inclined be romantic, and her delicacy of feeling, which had not been fostered by a careful mother’s hand, did not imbue her mind so completely as to prevent the vicious seed, scattered by her aunt’s dangerous words, from taking spot and growing there. Whenever, in leisure moments, she pondered more particularly over what her aunt had said, she could not help thinking that it was all true. Add to this the natural vanity of a young girl’s head and heart, uncontrolled as yet by either sense or experience, which carried her away in giddy flight to splendid castles, where she strutted about on Persian carpets as their dependent mistress and lady; or into costly carriages, where, by the side of a husband, she drove luxuriously to concerts and theatres through the streets of the capital;—and you will not wonder that, in some measure at least, Jenny became the willing pupil of her teacher.
Time, common sense, and experience, of course, gradually cooled down these wild imaginations, so that her splendid hopes and expectations seemed by degrees become mere empty fancies, which with increasing years faded away into airy nothings. But when she came from Prague to Labutín, to enter upon her new situation in an aristocratic house, the dreams which had been put aside and almost forgotten again rose up and filled her mind. From the warning words of the baroness at their first interview she had come to the conclusion that the young baron must be a libertine; but she soon found reason to reject this idea. Edmund did not seem to belong to the category of young noblemen such as she had imagined them to be; on the contrary, as has been already mentioned, he called forth her sympathies by everything he said or did.
Miss Kuc̓erová had now been one year and a half at Labutín Castle, without any apparent change having taken place in the position or circumstances of the various persons we have become acquainted with in this story. Everything went on smoothly, like a train on the rails. Beneath the surface, perhaps, new events may have been preparing, and changes taking place; but if so, there was nothing of it to be observed.
Carefully evading the watchfulness of the castle ladies and their menials, Jenny seized every opportunity she could of observing very closely all Edmund’s movements. If his voice changed in the least from its usual tone, she perceived it at once, and tried to find out the cause and to discover what was passing in the speaker’s mind. For many long months Edmund’s manner to her was always that of the measured gentleman. He never went out of her way, but never tried to meet her either. Whenever he addressed her before his mother or sister, he always spoke with that polished indifference which only gentlemen and men of mental superiority, well versed in society, know how to employ. She watched the expression of his eyes with the greatest attention, and it seemed to her as if they shone with a brighter gleam when looking at her, and as if he regarded her to say the least—with less indifference than other ladies. But this was nearly all the result of her first observations, and even this was doubtful.
It happened, of course, that they met now and then alone, in the castle, or the park, or in other places, and had longer talks with each other; but even on these occasions Baron Mundy never overstepped the bounds of a formal politeness; and though his voice at times betrayed some fervency, he never allowed himself any familiarity with her.
How great, then, was her wonder and surprise, when, the evening in the beginning of June, the second year of her stay at Labutín, on returning to a favourite place in the park, where she had forgotten her book, she found a little note in it! It was addressed to her by the baron’s hand, and sealed with his ring, which she knew very well.
Jenny spent a restless, sleepless night; her mind filled with anxious, contending thoughts. She had a presentiment, she even felt almost certain, that she was launched by that letter upon a stormy sea, where either the happiness or misfortune of her future life would be decided. But she did not belong to the weak , helpless class of women. She called upon all the good spirits to help and strengthen her mind, and finally resolved to quench the strife within her by taking a decided step. She did not open the baron’s letter, but wrote to him, saying she returned his note unread, because she had—at least, tacitly—promised his anxious mother, on first coming to Labutín Castle, that she would carefully avoid anything like flirtation or coquetry. But she sweetened this bitter pill a little by adding she was convinced the baron did not, and could not, ask anything wrong from her, but that she felt obliged to act as she now did, for her own peace of mind as well as for his, and out of regard for the whole noble family, under whose friendly roof she had found, and still enjoyed, the comfort of a home, and protection in the battle of life. At the same time, she begged that the whole affair of the letter might be buried in oblivion, and their intercourse continue on the same polite footing as before.
This answer she delivered herself, as soon as an opportunity offered, into the baron’s own hand. She did not trust herself to utter a word , or even to raise her eyes but her hand trembled as she gave it to him.
The baron was much disturbed for some time after this occurrence, and in spite of all his efforts to conceal it, the old baroness remarked that he seemed put out. However, there was, fortunately, a good excuse at hand—his favourite hound, Nero, was dangerously ill just at this time!