Chapter VII: Winnie's confession

Wilhelm Kalbfleisch, the butcher's boy, was one of the most uninteresting specimens of humanity that I have ever seen. That any of us would ever give him even a passing glance seemed quite beyond the range of probability, and yet Wilhelm's stolid, good-natured face haunted Winnie's dreams like a very Nemesis, and came to acquire a new and singular interest even in my own mind.

We passed a little Catholic church on our way to the boarding-school.

"We are early," said Winnie. "Let's go in."

It was Lent, and the altar was shrouded in black, and only a few candles burning dimly. We stood beside a carved confessional. A muffled murmur came from the interior, and the red curtains pulsated as though in time to sobs.

"Let us go out," whispered Milly; "I am stifling."

She looked so white that I was really afraid she was going to faint. "I feel better," she gasped, when we reached the open air.

"It was frightfully close," Winnie said, "and the air was heavy with incense."

"It was not that," said Milly, "it was the thought of it all; that there was a poor woman in that confessional telling all her sins to a priest. I never could do it in the world."

"It would be a comfort to me," said Winnie, fiercely. "I only wish there was some one with authority, to whom I could confess my sins, that I might get rid of the responsibility of them."

"There is," I said, before I thought; "'He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.'"

Winnie gave me a quick look. "You don't usually preach, Tib," she said, and burst into a merry round of stories and jokes, which convulsed the other girls, but did not in the least deceive me. I could see that she was troubled, and was trying to carry it off by riding her high horse. "Girls," she said, "I want you to come around to the butcher's with me. They have such funny little beasts in the window. I mean to get one, and the butcher's boy, Wilhelm, is such a princely creature--just my _beau ideal_--I want you to see him."

The funny little beasts proved to be forms of head-cheese in fancy shapes. Strange roosters and ducks, with plumage of gayly colored sugar icing, and animals of uncouth forms and colors. Winnie bought a small pig with a blue nose and green tail, all the while bombarding the butcher's boy, who was a particularly stupid specimen, with keen questions and witty sallies. He was so very obtuse that he did not even see that she was making sport of him.

As we hurried home to make up for our little escapade, Winnie amused us all by asking us how we thought Wilhelm would grace a princely station. "Just imagine, for an instant, that he was the lost Prince Paradiso! What a figure he would cut in chain armor, or in a court costume of velvet and jewels! Did you notice the elegance of his manners and the brilliancy of his wit?"

"Winnie, Winnie, have you gone wild?" Adelaide asked. "Why do you make such sport of the poor fellow? He is well enough where he is, I am sure."

"Is he not?" Winnie replied, a little more soberly; "I was only thinking what a mercy it is that people are so well fitted for their stations in life by nature. Now, think of Jim as a butcher, growing up to chop sausage-meat and skewer roasts!"

"Jim never could be a butcher," Adelaide replied; "even if Miss Prillwitz's dreams do not come true, the education she is giving him will do no harm. He will carve a future for himself."

We went into the house, and the subject was dropped. The next morning a message came from Miss Prillwitz that one of the Hetterman children was sick. It was the fever, contracted in their old home, and we were told that our botany lessons must be interrupted for the present. We heard through Mrs. Hetterman that the child was not very sick. It was one of the chubby little ones that had looked so well. She was quarantined now in Jim's room, the green one up under the roof, and had a trained nurse to care for her. Mrs. Hetterman did not see the child, but talked with her daughter Mary in the basement every evening She thought it was a great mercy that they had completed their moving before the child was taken sick. This did not seem to me to be exactly generous to Miss Prillwitz, but I could not blame the mother for the feeling, for under the careful treatment the child speedily weathered the storm, and came out looking only a little paler for the confinement. We were expecting a summons to return to our lessons, when Mrs. Hetterman told us that Jim was sick. We were not greatly alarmed, for the little girl's illness had been so slight that we fancied we would see our favorite about in a fortnight.

Milly sent in baskets of white grapes and flowers, and Adelaide carried over a beautiful set of photographs of Italian architecture. "It may amuse him to look them over," she said, "and it is just possible that his ancestral palace figures among them."

Adelaide hoped to go to Europe as soon as she graduated. "If Jim is established in his rights by that time, I shall visit him," she said, "so, you see, I am only mercenary in my attentions to him now."

Winnie looked up indignantly, "Then you deserve to be disappointed."

Adelaide laughed merrily. "I thought you knew me well enough, Winnie, to tell when I am in fun. I like Jim so much, personally, that I would do as much for him if he had no great expectations; but I do not see that there is any harm in thinking of the kindnesses which he may be able to do me."

"If you don't count too surely on them. Miss Prillwitz has had time to notify his relatives, and they do not seem to take any interest in him."

It is the unexpected that always happens. That very evening Mrs. Hetterman brought us this note from Miss Prillwitz. She wrote better than she spoke, for on paper there was no opportunity for the foreign accent to betray itself:

"MY DEAR YOUNG LADIES:

"The elder brother have arrived, and I fear you will have no more
opportunity to see little Giacomo, for I think he will take him
away very shortly to his father's house.

"You must not be too sorry, but think what a so great thing this
is for poor little Giacomo, to be called so soon to his beautiful
estate; no more poorness or trouble, in the palace of the King.
Giacomo desire me to thank you for all you kindness to him. He hope
some time you will all come to him at his beautiful country of
everlasting springtime, and the elder brother invite you also. Mrs.
Halsey is here. She is much troubled. She forget that Giacomo was
not her very own, and the pain of parting from him is great. She
can not rightly think of the good fortune it is to him. She wish to
go with him, but that is not possible for now. Giacomo hope you
will comfort her. He hope, too, we will continue our care to the
children Hetterman. Come not to-night, dear young ladies, to bid
him farewells; I fear you to cry, and so to trouble his happiness.

"Your at all times loving teacher,

"CELESTINE PRILLWITZ."

"The idea of our crying, like so many babies!" said Emma Jane Anton; "why, it's the best thing that possibly could happen to him, and I, for one, shall congratulate him heartily."

"I suppose so," Milly assented, doubtfully, "but I shall miss him awfully, he is such a nice little fellow."

"So much the better," said Adelaide; "how glad the prince must be to find that his little brother is really presentable. As Winnie was saying, 'Fancy his feelings if he had found him a coarse, common creature like Wilhelm, the butcher's boy!' And now, Winnie, what do you say to my being too sure about visiting him some day? Here is the invitation from the prince himself. I wonder just where in Italy they live!"

So the girls chatted all together, but Winnie was strangely silent.

"I ought to see Miss Prillwitz at once," she exclaimed, suddenly.

"It's too late, now," replied Emma Jane; "there! the retiring-bell is ringing, and if you look across the square you can see that Miss Prillwitz's lights are all out; besides, she particularly requested us not to come until morning."

"Then I must run over before breakfast," said Winnie, "for it is very important."

She set a little alarm-clock for an hour earlier than our usual waking-time; but she was unable to sleep, and her restlessness kept me awake also. She tossed from side to side, and moaned to herself, and at last I heard her say, "Oh! what wouldn't I give if some one would only show me the best way out of it."

"Winnie," I said, softly, "I am not asleep. What is the matter? Are you in trouble?"

"Yes, Tib."

"Do you need money?"

"No."

"Are you in love?"

"The idea! A thousand times no."

"Are you going to be expelled?"

"Not unless I tell on myself; perhaps not even then. But oh, Tib, I told you I was in for a scrape. I thought I could stick it through, but it's worse than I thought. I can't keep the secret; I've got to tell."

"I would, and then you'll feel better."

"No, I will not, for telling will not do any good. I'm not sure but it will do harm."

"You poor child, what can it be?"

"Just this--Jim is _not_ the prince."

"I don't see how you know that, or, if you do, what business it is of yours."

"Because I deceived Miss Prillwitz, and got Jim in there by making her think he was the boy she had heard about, while the real boy is somewhere else. I've _got_ to tell her before his friends take him away, and before that other boy disappears from view entirely."

"That is really dreadful, but if you know where the true prince is, it can't be quite irreparable. What ever made you do such a thing? and how did you manage to do it?"

"Why, you see, I hadn't any faith in this story of a lost prince at all. I thought that Miss Prillwitz was just a little bit of a crank, who had been imposed on by designing people and I was sure, when I saw the woman at the door who came to tell Miss Prillwitz that her boy had a situation and could not come, that she had been in league with the person who had told Miss Prillwitz about the lost prince, but had backed out of the plot because she was afraid. Miss Prillwitz had evidently not suspected that she knew anything of the boy's supposed expectations, for she had merely promised to take him to board, teach, and clothe, for whatever the mother could give her, the woman having said that she was going into a family as German nursery governess, and agreeing to send a trifle toward her boy's support whenever she received her salary. It was just the time that Mrs. Halsey was looking for a place for Jim. It was so easy to have him come at the time agreed upon and take the place of the other boy. I was afraid, at first, that Miss Prillwitz would be surprised by the regularity of our payments and the amount we sent, but she didn't seem to suspect anything, and she is so fond of him, and he deserves it all--and everything worked so well up to the coming of the prince."

"But, Winnie, why didn't you tell her the whole story at first? I think she would have taken him, all the same, and then you would not have got things into this awful muddle."

"Indeed she would not have taken him, a mere pauper out of the slums, unless she had thought that he was something more. She is a born aristocrat, and she never could have taken Jim to her heart so if she had not believed that he was of her own class--of her family, even. Why, even Adelaide would never have seen half the fine qualities in him which she thinks she has discovered if she had not thought him a noble; and it has thrown a fine halo of romance over him for Milly; and even Emma Jane, who was hard to convince at first, is firmly persuaded that he is made of a little finer clay than the rest of us. And you, Tib, confess that you are disappointed yourself."

"I am bitterly disappointed," I admitted; "but that is nothing to the extent that Miss Prillwitz will feel it. I wouldn't be in your shoes, Winnie, for anything."

"I know it; I know it. I have been wicked, but I had no idea that the family would ever look him up. I hardly believed the story that there had been any prince lost. And, Tib, if there had not been, where would have been the harm in what I did?"

"It would have been wrong, all the same, Winnie, even if it had seemed to turn out well. Deception is always wrong, and I did not think it of you. But there, don't sob so, or you will make yourself sick, and you need all your wits and strength to carry you through the ordeal of setting things straight to-morrow. I'll stand by you. I'll go with you if it will be any help."

"No, you shall not; Miss Prillwitz might think you were implicated in the affair. The fault was all mine, and I will not have any one else share the blame; only be on hand at the door, Tib, with an ambulance to carry away the remnants, for I shall be all broken into smithereens by the interview."

I tried to soothe the excited girl, and fancied that she had fallen asleep, when she suddenly began to laugh hysterically.

"I haven't told you who the real prince is," she said. "Aren't you curious to know?"

"Have I ever met him?"

"Yes, indeed; it's Wilhelm the butcher's boy."

"Impossible!"

"Isn't it too absurd for anything? That was the situation which his mother, or foster-mother, preferred to Miss Prillwitz's care. What will Adelaide say now about blue blood telling even in low circumstances? There is _blood_ enough about Wilhelm if that is all that is desired. And won't that foreign prince be just raving when he is introduced to his long-lost brother! But poor Miss Prillwitz!--that's the worst of all. No doubt she has been writing with pride and delight the most glowing letters in reference to Jim's fitness for his high position. How chagrined and mortified the dear old lady will be! Tell me now, Tib, that things were not better as I managed them."

"It does seem as if there must be a mistake somewhere. Still, the truth is the truth, and I believe in telling it, even if the Heavens fall. This matter is all in the hands of Providence, Winnie, and I believe you got into trouble simply by thinking that you knew better than Providence, and that the world could not move on without you."

"I must say you are rather hard on me, Tib, but perhaps you are right. Do you suppose that if I hand the tangle I have made right to God, he will take it from my hands and straighten it out for me? I should think He would have nothing more to do with it, or with me."

"That is not the way our mothers behave when we get our work into a snarl."

This last remark comforted her. She laid her head upon my shoulder and prayed:

"Dear Heavenly Father, I have done wrong, and everything has gone wrong. Help me henceforth to do right, and wilt Thou make everything turn out right. For thy dear Son's sake, I ask it. Amen."

Then trustfully she fell asleep, her conscience relieved of a great weight, and with faith in a power beyond her own.