Garman and Worse | Page 2

visits he paid to his home were generally
coincident with some remarkable event or another. Thus it was when,

as a young student, he was present at his mother's funeral; and even
more so when he came at a break-neck pace from Paris to the death-bed
of the old Consul, in a costume and with an air which took away the
breath of the ladies, and caused confusion among the men. Since then
Richard had been but little seen. Rumour, however, was busy with him.
At one time some commercial traveller had seen him at Zinck's Hotel at
Hamburg; now he was living in a palace; and now the story was that he
was existing in the docks, and writing sailors' letters for a glass of beer.
One fine day Garman and Worse's heavy state carriage was seen on its
way to the quay. Inside sat the head of the firm, Consul C.F. Garman,
and his daughter Rachel, while little Gabriel, his younger son, was
sitting by the side of the coachman. An unbearable curiosity agitated
the groups on the quay.
The state carriage was seldom to be seen in the town, and now at this
very moment the Hamburg steamer was expected. At length an
_employé_ of the firm came to the carriage window, and, after a few
irrelevant remarks, ventured to ask who was coming.
"I am expecting my brother the _attaché_, and his daughter," answered
Consul Garman, while with a movement peculiar to himself he adjusted
his smoothly shaven chin in his stiff neckcloth.
This information increased the excitement. Richard Garman was
coming, "the mad student," "the _attaché_" as he was sometimes called;
and with a daughter, too! But how could they belong to each other?
Could he ever have been really married? It was hardly likely.
The steamer came. Consul Garman went on board, and returned shortly
after with his brother and a little dark-haired girl, who doubtless was
the daughter.
Richard Garman was soon recognized, although he had grown
somewhat stouter: but the upright, elegant bearing and the striking
black moustache were still the same; while the hair, though crisp and
curling as in the old days, was now slightly necked with grey at the
temples. He greeted them all with a friendly smile as he passed to the

carriage, and there was more than one lady who felt that the glance of
his bright brown eye rested smilingly on her for a moment.
The carriage rolled off through the town, and away down the long
avenue which led to the large family mansion of Sandsgaard.
The town gossipped itself nearly crazy, but without any satisfactory
result. The house of Garman took good care of its secrets.
So much was, however, clear: that Richard Garman had dissipated the
whole of his large fortune, or else he would never have consented to
come home and eat the bread of charity in his brother's house.
On the other hand, the relation between the brothers was, at least as far
as appearances went, a most cordial one. The Consul gave a grand
dinner, at which he drank his brother's health, adding at the same time
the hope that he might find himself happy in his old home.
There is nothing so irritating as a half-fulfilled scandal, and when
Richard Garman a short time afterwards calmly received the post of
lighthouse-keeper at Bratvold, and lived there year after year without a
sign of doing anything worthy of remark, each one in the little town felt
himself personally affronted, and it was a source of wonder to all how
little the Garmans seemed to realize what they owed to society.
As far as that went, Richard himself was not perfectly clear how it had
all come about; there was something about Christian Frederick he could
not understand. Whenever he met his brother, or even got a letter from
him, his whole nature seemed to change; things he would otherwise
never have thought of attempting appeared all at once quite easy, and
he did feats which afterwards caused him the greatest astonishment.
When, in a state of doubt and uncertainty, he wrote home for the last
time, to beg his brother to take charge of little Madeleine, his only
thought was to make an end of his wasted life, the sooner the better,
directly his daughter was placed in safety. But just then he happened to
get a remittance enclosed in an extraordinary letter, in which occurred
several puzzling business terms. There was something about
"liquidation," and closing up an account which required his presence,

and in the middle of it all there were certain expressions which seemed
to have stumbled accidentally into the commercial style. For instance,
in one place there was "brother of my boyhood;" and further on, "with
sincere wishes for