They did not want to go back by the same route and Eduard suggested a cliff-path on the other side of the stream from which you could have another view of the lakes, although some effort was needed to go up it. They now made their way through intermittent woodland and looking towards the open country saw villages, plots and dairy farms in green fertile fields. They came to a farmstead lying hidden among the trees on the hillside. The opulence of the region before and behind them could be seen at its best from the gently rising hill. From there they made their way to a pleasant little coppice and when they came out of it they found themselves on the heights facing the mansion.

This prospect, at which they had as it were arrived unexpectedly, gave them great pleasure. They had walked around a little world and were standing on what was to be the site of the new building and looking again into the windows of their own house.

They climbed down to the moss-hut and for the first time all four sat in there together. It was natural they should all want the route they had that day walked slowly and with difficulty built up so that it could be walked in companionable ease and comfort. Everyone offered suggestions and it was calculated the path which had taken them several hours must, if properly laid down, lead back to the mansion in no more than one hour. They were already in their minds constructing a bridge below the mill, where the stream flows into the lakes, to shorten the route and add beauty to the landscape when Charlotte called a halt by reminding them of the cost such an undertaking would involve.

‘There is a way of meeting that,’ Eduard replied. ‘We only have to sell that farmstead in the wood that looks so well situated and brings in so little and employ the proceeds on this new enterprise: thus we shall have the pleasure of enjoying on an incomparable walk the interest from well-invested capital from which, when we come to reckon up at the end of the year, we now discontentedly draw a very meagre income.’

Charlotte could not as a good housekeeper find much to say against this proposal. The matter had been spoken of before. Now the Captain wanted to draw up a plan for parcelling out the ground among the peasantry but Eduard thought he knew a quicker and more convenient way of disposing of it. The present tenant, who had already produced ideas for improving it, ought to keep it and pay for it by instalments and they would undertake the new project also by instalments, one stage at a time.

So reasonable and cautious an arrangement could not be objected to, and they all were already seeing the new paths in their mind’s eye and thinking of the agreeable resting-places and vantage-points they would discover along it and near it.

To picture it all in more detail, at home that evening they straightway took out the new map. They inspected the route they had covered and considered how it might perhaps in this or that spot be redirected to better advantage. Their earlier ideas were discussed again and coordinated with the latest ideas, the site of the new pavilion over against the mansion was again approved and the circle of paths leading to it settled on.

Ottilie had stayed silent during all this. Eduard finally moved the plan, which had been lying in front of Charlotte, over to her and invited her to offer her opinions, and when she hesitated, gently encouraged her to say whatever she had to say, for the whole thing, he said, was still only at the stage of discussion.

‘I would build the pavilion here,’ said Ottilie, laying her finger on the highest level place on the hill. ‘You could not see the mansion, I know, for it is concealed by the little wood; but to make up for that you would find yourself in a new and different world, since the village and all the houses would also be hidden. The view of the lakes, of the mill, of the heights, and out towards the mountains and the countryside is extraordinarily fine; I noticed it when we went past.’

‘She is right!’ cried Eduard: ‘How is it we did not think of that? This is where you mean, isn’t it, Ottilie?’ – and he took a pencil and drew a thick black rectangle on the hill.

The Captain felt a stab of pain when he saw this. He did not like to see a carefully and neatly drawn plan disfigured in that way. But he contented himself with a mild expression of disapproval and acquiesced in the idea. ‘Ottilie is right,’ he said. ‘Food and drink taste better after a long walk than they would have tasted at home. We want variety and unfamiliar things. It was right for your forefathers to build the house over here, for it is sheltered from the wind and within easy reach of all our daily requirements; on the other hand, a building intended more for pleasure trips than as a house would be very well placed over there and during the fine seasons would afford us the most agreeable hours.’

The more they talked the matter over the better it seemed and Eduard could not hide his elation that the idea had been Ottilie’s. He was as proud of it as if it had been his own.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE first thing the next morning the Captain inspected the site and sketched out a rough plan and then, when they had all again agreed on the spot, a detailed one together with an estimate and everything else necessary. There was no lack of preparation. The business of selling the farmstead was taken up again straight away. The men found fresh opportunity for being busy together.

The Captain suggested to Eduard it would be courteous – that it was virtually their duty – to celebrate Charlotte’s birthday by the laying of the foundation-stone. It did not need much effort to overcome Eduard’s old aversion to such celebrations because it came into his mind that Ottilie’s birthday, which was later in the year, could be celebrated in a similar solemn manner.

Charlotte, who took the new arrangements with the utmost seriousness, and was indeed almost suspicious of the facility with which they were being carried through, busied herself with checking the estimates and the apportionment of time and money on her own account. They saw one another less often during the day, so they sought one another out with the greater eagerness in the evening.

Ottilie had meanwhile become altogether mistress of the household.