Read CHAPTER XVII of The Black Cross , free online book, by Olive M. Briggs, on ReadCentral.com.

“Is it only a week that I have been ill, Marta? It seems like a month.”

“A week and a day, Fraeulein; but you are better now, and to-morrow, the Doctor says you shall go out on the promenade and smell of the rose buds.”

Kaya was half lying, half seated on the pallet, with her hands clasped behind her head; she was dressed in a blue gown, worn and shabby but spotlessly neat, and her throat and her arms were bare. “But how soon can I sing, Marta? Did he say when? Did you hear him?”

The old nurse sat by the bed-side, knitting and counting her stitches aloud to herself from time to time.

“One two four seven!” she mumbled, “Sing, Fraeulein? Ah, who can tell! You are weak yet.”

“No,” said Kaya, “I am strong; see my arms. I can stand up quite well and walk about the room with the help of your shoulder; you know I can, Marta.”

The old woman gave her a glance over her spectacles: “Seven ten!” she repeated, “If it were your spirit, Fraeulein, you would be Samson himself; but your body ” She shook her head: “Na, when the master comes, ask him yourself. It is he who has talked with the Doctor, not I.”

“He is coming now,” said Kaya. “I hear his step on the stairs, quick and firm like his beat. Don’t you hear it, Marta? Now he has stopped and is talking with the miller.” She leaned back on the pillows and her eyes watched the door.

“Eh, Fraeulein! Nein, I hear nothing! What an ear you have keen as a doe’s when the wind is towards her! At home, in the forest, where the deer run wild and they come in the dawn to the Schneide to graze whischt! The crackle of a leaf and they are off flying, with their muzzles high and their eyes wild. Na! I hear nothing but the wheel below grinding and squeaking, and the splash of the water.”

“He is coming up the stairs,” cried Kaya, “Open the door for him, Marta, and let the Kapellmeister in.”

The old woman rolled up her knitting slowly: “It was just at the turn of the chain,” she grumbled, “and I have lost a stitch in the counting. The master can come in by himself.”

Kaya gave a gleeful laugh like a child, and slipped her feet to the floor: “Oh, you cross Marta, you dear humbug!” she cried, “As if you wouldn’t let the master walk over you and never complain! Go on with that wonderful muffler of his, and I will let him in myself. No, don’t touch me! Let me go alone and surprise him.”

She steadied herself with her hand to the bed-post, then caught at the chair: “Don’t touch me Marta! I am quite strong now, and able to walk!”

A knock came on the door, and she made a little run forward and opened it, clinging to the handle.

“Du himmlische Guete!” exclaimed the Kapellmeister, “If the bird isn’t trying its wings! Behuete, child!” He put a strong arm about her, looking down at her sternly and shaking his head: “Do you call this obedience?” he said grimly, “I thought I told you not to leave that couch alone eh?”

“Don’t scold me,” said Kaya, “I feel so well to-day, and there is something leaping in my throat. Herr Kapellmeister it is begging to come out; let me try to sing, won’t you?” She clung to his arm and her eyes plead with him: “Don’t scold me. You have put ‘Siegfried’ off twice now because you had no bird. Let me try to-day.”

The Kapellmeister frowned. Her form was like a lily swaying against the trunk of an oak.

“Tschut ” he said, “Bewahre! Marta, go down and bring up her soup. When your cheeks are red, child, and the shadows are gone from under your eyes, then we will see.”

Kaya pushed away his arm gently, and there was a firmness about her chin as of a purpose new-born. “You have paid for my lodging and my food, Herr Kapellmeister,” she said proudly, “You have sent me your own servant, and she has been to me like a foster mother. You have cared for me, and the Doctor and the medicines are all at your cost.” She steadied herself, still rejecting his hand, “And I ” she said, “I have earned nothing; I have been like a beggar. If you will not let me sing, Herr Kapellmeister, then ”

He looked at her for a moment in a wounded way and his brow darkened: “Well ?” he said.

“Then you must take away your servant and the Doctor, and and your kindness,” said Kaya bravely, “and let me starve again.”

“You are proud eh? You remember that you are a Countess?” The Kapellmeister laughed harshly.

“I am not a Countess any more,” said Kaya, “but I am proud. Will you let me sing?”

“When you are strong again and your voice has come back,” he returned dryly, “you can sing, and not before. As for paying your debts There is time enough for that. Now will you have the goodness to return to the couch, Fraeulein, or do you prefer to faint on the floor?”

Kaya glanced at the stern face above her, and her lip quivered: “You are angry,” she said, “I have hurt you. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“The Doctor will be in presently,” continued Ritter coldly, “I daresay he can restore you, if you faint, better than I. Perhaps you will obey his orders as you reject mine.” There was something brutal in the tone of his voice that stung the girl like a lash. She turned and tottered back to the couch, the Kapellmeister following, his arms half extended as if to catch her if she fell; but she did not fall. He was still frowning, and he seemed moody, distraught. “Shall I cover you?” he said.

Kaya put out her hand timidly and touched his: “You have been so kind to me,” she whispered, “Every day you have come, and when I was delirious I heard your voice; and Marta told me afterwards how you sat by the bed and quieted me, and put me to sleep. Don’t be angry.” All of a sudden she stooped and put her lips to his sleeve.

He snatched his hand away roughly. “You have nothing to be grateful for,” he cried, “Pah! If a man picks up a bird with a broken wing and nurses it to life again for the sake of its voice, is that cause for gratitude? I do it for my own ends, child. Tschut!” He turned his back on her and went over to the window. “If you want to know when you can sing, ask the Doctor. If he says you may ”

“You are still angry,” said Kaya, “Don’t be angry. If you don’t want me to sing, I will lie here as you tell me and try to get stronger.” She moved her head restlessly on the pillow, “Yes I will!”

Ritter began to strum on the window-panes with his strong fingers: “The Doctor is here,” he said, “ask him. I don’t want you breaking down and spoiling the opera, that is all. The rest is nothing to me. Come in!” There was a certain savageness in his tone, and he went on strumming the motive on the panes. “Come in, Doctor.”

The door opened and a young man came forward. He was short of stature, and slight, with spectacles, and he stooped as if from much bending over folios.

“My patient is up?” he said.

“Walking about the room!” interrupted the Kapellmeister curtly.

The Doctor sat down by the pallet and took the girl’s wrist between his fingers: “Why does it throb like this?” he said, “What is troubling you?”

“I want to sing,” persisted Kaya defiantly, “If I sit in the flies with cushions behind me, and only a small, small part couldn’t I do it, Doctor?”

The young man glanced at the Kapellmeister’s rugged shoulders, and shrugged his own: “Why should it hurt you?” he said, “You have a throat like a tunnel, and a sounding board like the arch of a bridge. Your voice should come tumbling through it like a stream, without effort. Don’t tire yourself and let the part be short; it may do you good.”

Kaya’s eyes began to glisten and sparkle: “It is only the bird’s part!” she cried, “and I am hidden in the flies, so no one can see me. Ah I am happy! I am well, Doctor you have made me well!”

Presently the old woman brought in the soup and the Doctor rose: “Will you come with me, Herr Kapellmeister?” he said, “We can smoke below in the mill, while the Fraeulein eats. I have still a few minutes.”

Then the Kapellmeister left the window, and the two men went out together.

“Marta!” cried the girl, “I can sing! Did you hear him say it? Give me the soup quickly, while it is hot. I feel so strong so well!”

She began taking the soup with one hand, and rubbing her cheek with the other: “Now, isn’t it red, Marta? Look tell me! Nurse, while you knit, tell me did you see how angry he was, and how he went out without a word? It is he himself who asked me to sing, so why should he be angry now?”

The old woman clicked her knitting needles: “How do I know!” she said, “He lives alone so much, and he is crusty and crabbed, they say. I nursed him when he was a child, just as I nurse you now. He has a temper Jesus-Maria the master! But his heart is of gold. His wife ” she hesitated, “She was a singer, and she ran away and left him. They say she ran away with the famous tenor, Brondi, who used to sing Tristan. Since then the master has been soured-like!”

“That is strange,” said Kaya dreamily, “to run away from some one you love, when you can be with him night and day and never leave him! Sometimes there is a curse, and you are torn by your love, whether to go or stay. But if you love him enough, you go and that is the best love to save him from the curse and suffer yourself alone. Perhaps there was a curse.”

“What are you saying?” cried the old woman, “When you were delirious, it was always a curse you raved of, and stains on your hands. Mein Gott! My blood ran cold just to hear you, and the Kapellmeister used to come ”

Kaya turned white: “He came?” she said, “and he heard me? What did I say, Marta, tell me! Tell me quickly!” She caught the old woman’s hands and wrung them between her own.

“Jesus-Maria! My knitting! What you said, Fraeulein? How do I remember! Stuff and nonsense mostly! You were crazy with fever, and your eyes used to shine so, it made me afraid. Then the Kapellmeister would come and put you to sleep with his eyes. Let go of my hands, Fraeulein, you are crushing the wool! Is it the fever come back? Oh Je!”

“No,” said Kaya, “No. You don’t remember, Marta, whether I said any name any particular name? I didn’t did I?”

The nurse pondered for a moment, then she went on knitting: “I can’t remember,” she said, “There was something you used to repeat, over and over, a single word it might have been a name. Won’t you finish your soup, Fraeulein?”

“No,” said Kaya, “I am tired. Will you go down, Marta, and ask the Kapellmeister if he will come for a moment? I have something to ask him.”

The nurse rose: “They are smoking still,” she said, “Yes, I smell their cigars! If you have finished the soup, I will take the tray. Jesus-Maria! You are flushed, Fraeulein, and before you were so white! You are sure it is not the fever come back?”

“Feel my hands,” said Kaya, “Is that fever?” Then she shut her eyes. She heard clumsy footsteps descending the stairs, and then a pause; and after a moment or two steps coming back, but they were firm and quick, and her heart kept time to them.

“What did I say in my ravings?” she cried to herself, “What did he hear?”

“Nun?” said the Kapellmeister.

“I see now what hurt you,” said Kaya, without raising her eyes, “You thought I wanted to repay your kindness that can never be repaid; that I was narrow and little, and was too proud to take from your hands what you gave me. Forgive me.”

The Kapellmeister crossed the room and sat down on the chair that the nurse had left. He said nothing, and Kaya felt through her closed lids that he was looking at her. “How shall I ask him?” she was saying to herself, “How shall I put it into words when perhaps he understood nothing after all?”

“If you think your voice is there,” said the Kapellmeister, “fresh, and not too strained for the high notes, why you can try it now. If it goes all right, I daresay we could announce ‘Siegfried’ for the end of the week.”

“Will you give me the note?” said Kaya, “Is it F#, or G, I forget?”

“I will hum you the preceding bars where Siegfried first hears the bird.” Ritter began softly, half speaking, half singing the words in his deep voice, taking the tenor notes falsetto. “Now on the F#. The bird must be heard far away in the branches, and you must move your head so as it flutters from leaf to leaf.”

Kaya lifted herself from the pillows until she sat upright, supporting herself with one hand. She began to sing, and then she stopped and gave a cry. “It is there!” she said pitifully, “I feel it, but it won’t come! I can’t make it come! It is as if there were a gate in my throat and it was barred!”

Tears sprang to her eyes. She opened her lips farther, but the sound that came was strange and muffled; and she listened to it as if it were some changeling given to her by a mischievous demon in exchange for her own.

“That isn’t my voice,” she said, “You know as well as I it never sounded like that before! What is it? Tell me ”

The Kapellmeister laughed a little, mockingly: “I told you, child,” he said, “I warned you. Don’t look like that! When you are stronger, it will come with a burst, and be bigger and fresher than ever before. Siegfried must wait for his bird, that is all.”

Kaya clasped her throat with both hands as if to tear away the obstruction: “I will sing I will!” she cried, “It is there I feel it! Why won’t it come out?” She gave a little moan, and threw herself back on the pillows.

The Kapellmeister stooped suddenly; a look half fierce, half pitying came in his face. He bent over her until his eyes were close to hers, and he forced her to look at him:

“What is that word you say? When you were raving, you repeated it again and again: ‘Velasco Velasco.’ There is a violinist by that name, a musician.”

“A musician!” stammered Kaya. She was staring at him with eyes wide-open and frightened.

“His name is Velasco.”

“Ve las co?”

The syllables came through her lips like a breath. “No no!” she cried suddenly, hoarsely, “I don’t know him! I I never saw him!”

She struggled with the lie bravely, turning white to the lips and gazing. “It was some one I knew in Russia; some one I I loved.” She sat up suddenly and wrung her hands together: “You don’t believe me?”

“No,” said the Kapellmeister, “You can’t lie with eyes like that.”

Kaya gazed at him desperately: “Don’t tell him,” she breathed, “Ah don’t let him know I implore you!”

Ritter gave a sharp exclamation and caught the little figure in his arms. “She has fainted!” he cried, “Potztausend, what a brute I was!” He laid her back on the pillow and stood staring down at her, breathing heavily and clenching his hands.

“If I were Velasco!” he muttered, “Ah Gott I am mad! Marta Marta!”