But
they were confined to the girls. Charming and graceful as the old lady
was, it was evident that if above the arrogance of her German husband
she was afflicted with the intense conservatism of her own race. It had
taken Aimee, the oldest of the girls, three years of persistent begging,
nagging, arguments, tears, and threats of abrupt demise, to obtain
permission to move her piano--a present from relatives who occasionally
came to the rescue--a bookcase and three chairs up to the garret and
have a room she could call her own. Frau von Erkel was scandalized that
a French girl (she systematically ignored the German infusion in her
daughters) should wish for hours of solitude. But Aimee had the national
genius for pegging away, and her mother, who came in time to feel that
one nerve was being gnawed with maddening reiteration, finally
succumbed; relieving her mind daily.
After that it was comparatively easy, although there were several
notable engagements, for Heloise to become secretary to Gisela Doering.
She never dared admit that she received a generous monthly cheque for
her services, but Gisela was a favorite with the old lady (always
sitting placidly in her chair, with her hands in her lap, a faint ironic
smile on her still pretty face), and as her literary style was extolled
by her exacting daughters (Frau von Erkel never read even a German
newspaper, but subscribed for _Le Figaro_), and as she knew Gisela to
be a member of her own class, the new connection was harmonious; and
Heloise at last experienced something like real liberty in the tiny
garden house of the parterre apartment of Gisela Doering on the
Koeniginstrasse.
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