a bit, to rest and be able to think quietly. You’ll see she will listen to reason then. I can’t leave, and the holidays are almost over. But there is no need for us to go. Yesterday old Schwarzkopf from Travemünde was here, and I spoke to him. He said he would be glad to take the child for a while. I’d give them something for it. She would have a good home, where she could bathe and be in the fresh air and get clear in her mind. Tom can take her – so it’s all arranged. Better to-morrow than day after.”
Tony was much pleased with this idea. True, she hardly ever saw Herr Grünlich, but she knew he was in town, in touch with her parents. Any day he might appear before her and begin shrieking and importuning. She would feel safer at Travemünde, in a strange house. So she packed her trunk with alacrity, and on one of the last days in July she mounted with Tom into the majestic Kröger equipage. She said good-bye in the best of spirits; and breathed more freely as they drove out of the Castle Gate.
5
THE ROAD TO Travemünde first crosses the ferry and then goes straight ahead. The grey high-road glided away under the hoofs of Lebrecht Kröger’s fat brown Mecklenburgs. The sound of their trotting was hollow and rhythmical, the sun burned hot, and dust concealed the meagre view. The family had eaten at one o’clock, an hour earlier than usual, and the brother and sister set out punctually at two. They would arrive shortly after four; for what a hired carriage could do in three hours, the Kröger pair were mettlesome enough to make in two.
Tony sat half asleep, nodding under her broad straw hat and her lace-trimmed parasol, which she held tipped back against the hood of the chaise. The parasol was twine-grey with cream-coloured lace, and matched her neat, simply cut frock. She reclined in the luxurious ease proper to the equipage, with her feet, in their white stockings and strap shoes, daintily crossed before her.
Tom was already twenty years old. He wore an extremely well cut blue suit, and sat smoking Russian cigarettes, with his hat on the back of his head. He was not very tall; but already he boasted a considerable moustache, darker in tone than his brows and eyelashes. He had one eyebrow lifted a trifle – a habit with him – and sat looking at the dust and the trees that fled away behind them as the carriage rolled on.
Tony said: “I was never so glad to come to Travemünde before – for various reasons. You needn’t laugh, Tom. I wish I could leave a certain pair of yellow mutton-chops even further behind! And then, it will be an entirely different Travemünde at the Schwarzkopfs’, on the sea front. I shan’t be bothered with the Kurhaus society, I can tell you that much. I am not in the mood for it. Besides, that – that man could come there too as well as not. He has nerve enough – it wouldn’t trouble him at all. Some day he’d be bobbing up in front of me and putting on all his airs and graces.”
Tom threw away the stub of his cigarette and took a fresh one out of the box, a pretty little affair with an inlaid picture inside the lid, of an overturned troika being set upon by wolves. It was a present from a Russian customer of the Consul. The cigarettes, those biting little trifles with the yellow mouthpiece, were Tom’s passion. He smoked quantities of them, and had the bad habit of inhaling the smoke, breathing it slowly out again as he talked.
“Yes,” he said. “As far as that goes, the garden of the Kurhouse is alive with Hamburgers. Consul Fritsche, who has bought it, is a Hamburger himself. He must be doing a wonderful business now, Papa says. But you’ll miss something if you don’t take part in it a bit. Peter Döhlmann is there – he never stops in town this time of year. His business goes on at a jog-trot, all by itself, I suppose. Funny! Well – and Uncle Justus comes out for a little on a Sunday, of course, to visit the roulette table. Then there are the Möllendorpfs and the Kistenmakers, I suppose, in full strength, and the Hagenströms –”
“H’m. Yes, of course. They couldn’t get on without Sarah Semlinger!”
“Her name is Laura, my child. Let us be accurate.”
“And Julchen with her, of course. Julchen ought to get engaged to August Möllendorpf this summer – and she will do it, too. After all, they belong together. Disgusting, isn’t it, Tom? This adventurer’s family –”
“Yes, but good heavens, they are the firm of Strunck and Hagenström. That is the point.”
“Naturally, they make the firm. Of course. And everybody knows how they do it. With their elbows. Pushing and shoving – entirely without courtesy or elegance. Grandfather said that Hinrich Hagenström could coin money out of paving-stones. Those were his very words.”
“Yes, yes, that is exactly it. It is money talks. And this match is perfectly good business. Julchen will be a Möllendorpf, and August will get a snug position –”
“Oh, you just want to make me angry, Tom, that’s all. You know how I despise that lot.”
Tom began to laugh. “Goodness, one has to get along with them,” he replied. “As Papa said the other day, they are the coming people; while the Möllendorpfs, for example – And one can’t deny that the Hagenströms are clever. Hermann is already useful in the business, and Moritz is very able. He finished school brilliantly, in spite of his weak chest; and he is going to study law.”
“That’s all very well, Tom, but all the same I am glad there are families that don’t have to knuckle down to them. For Instance, we Buddenbrooks –”
“Oh,” Tom said, “don’t let’s begin to boast. Every family has its own skeleton,” he went on in a lower voice, with a glance at Jock’s broad back. “For instance, God knows what state Uncle Julius’ affairs are in. Papa shakes his head when he speaks of him, and Grandfather Kröger has had to come forward once or twice with large sums, I hear. The cousins aren’t just the thing, either. Jürgen wants to study, but he still hasn’t come up for his finals; and they are not very well satisfied with Jacob, at Dalbeck and Company. He is always in debt, even with a good allowance, and when Uncle Justus refuses to send any more, Aunt Rosalie does – No, I find it doesn’t do to throw stones. If you want to balance the scale with the Hagenströms, you’d better marry Grünlich.”
“Did we get into this wagon to discuss that subject? – Oh, yes, I suppose you’re right. I ought to marry him – but I won’t think about it now! I want to forget it. We are going to the Schwarzkopfs’. I’ve never seen them to know them: are they nice people?”
“Oh, old Diederich Schwarzkopf – he’s not such a bad old chap. Doesn’t speak such atrocious dialect, unless he’s had more than five glasses of grog. Once he was at the office, and we went together to the Ships’ Company. He drank like a tank. His father was born on a Norwegian freighter and grew up to be captain on the very same line. Diederich has had a good education; the pilot command is a responsible office, and pretty well paid. Diederich is an old bear – but very gallant with the ladies. Look out: he’ll flirt with you.”
“Ah – well, and his wife?”
“I don’t know her, myself. She must be nice, I should think. There is a son, too. He was in first or second, in my time at school, and is a student now, I expect. Look, there’s the sea. We shall be there inside a quarter of an hour. ”
They drove for a while along the shore on an avenue bordered with young beech-trees. There was the water, blue and peaceful in the sunshine; the round yellow light-house tower came into view, then the bay and the breakwater, the red roofs of the little town, the harbour with its sails, tackle, and shipping. They drove between the first houses, passed the church, and rolled along the front close to the water and up to a pretty little house, the verandah of which was overhung with vines.
Pilot-Captain
