On the Night of the Seventh Moon Page 10

  I wrote to the aunts and in time received letters from them.

  By that time I had been in Denkendorf for six weeks. Each day was much the same. Ernst paid occasional visits; I learned to embroider and do tapestry work—very fine petit point—on which we could only work by day. In the evenings we did ordinary sewing or embroidery. I read a great many books on German history and I was particularly interested in the ancestors of Carl, Duke of Rochenstein. It was astonishing how quickly the time was passing.

  Aunt Caroline wrote of the affairs which concerned her; how much strawberry jam she had put down; how many jars of blackcurrant jelly; she implied that she expected me soon to be coming home. She could not understand why I had wanted to go gadding about in the first place. Aunt Matilda wrote of the strange wheezing Aunt Caroline had developed. She got quite breathless; and there was mention of Mr. Clees’ solitary kidney which had to do the work of two; and Amelia Clees was looking a little pale; Aunt Matilda hoped she was not going into a decline as, she had gathered, her mother had. There was a great deal about Mr. Clees in Aunt Matilda’s letter. It seemed that a man who had had a wife in a decline and himself possessed only one kidney was very attractive. I heard from Mrs. Greville too. They missed me and wondered when I planned to come back. She and Mr. Greville might manage a trip out so that I could come back with them. Anthony had said only the other day that it didn’t seem the same without me there.

  I reread the letters. That life all seemed so far away. The thought of going back there and trying to pretend that everything was the same as it always had been did not attract me.

  Ilse came in suddenly. She had a way of gliding about as though not to disturb me.

  “What’s the matter, Helena?” she asked. “You are looking . . . lost.”

  “Letters from home,” I explained. “I was thinking of going back there.”

  “You’re not ready yet, are you?”

  “I don’t think I could face them.”

  “No, not just yet. It’ll change. But there is nothing to worry about. You must stay here with us until you are ready to go.”

  “Dear Ilse,” I said, “what should I have done without you?”

  She turned away to hide her emotion. She always liked to keep her feelings in check.

  Several more weeks passed. Perhaps I was becoming reconciled. But I seemed to grow more listless; it was as though I had changed my personality. I smiled rarely and remembering the old days when I had been so often unable to restrain my laughter I was astonished. And yet I suppose what I had endured—whichever was the truth—would most certainly change one.

  As time passed everything seemed to point to the fact that those six days had been spent in my bed. I continued to hope that Maximilian would come for me. I used to look at faces in the streets of the little town and every time I saw a tall man in the distance my heart would leap with hope. Each passing day meant that a little of my hope must fade. If there had really been a marriage, where was my husband? Surely he would have come to claim me?

  I suppose when I had seen that shell where the lodge had been I had begun to accept the truth of what Ilse, Ernst, and Dr. Carlsberg had told me. But I felt as though a part of me had died. I knew I should never be the same insouciant girl I had been before.

  Ilse appeared to have no friends in the place so there was no visiting. She explained that she and Ernst had only recently come to live in Denkendorf and the people being rather formal would take some time before they accepted them.

  I tried to interest myself in the vegetables she bought in the market or the skeins of silk we chose for our embroidery; but I simply did not care whether we ate carrots or onions or chose purple or azure blue for the flowers we were working.

  I went about my days mechanically. I was once more in limbo, waiting . . . I was not sure for what.

  In the shops we visited, people often mentioned Count Ludwig’s attempted coup. They all seemed delighted that it had failed. I often saw pictures similar to that which Dr. Carlsberg had pointed out in the hall of the house in Lokenburg. There was the same face and the inscription, Carl Ludwig Maximilian, Seventh Duke of Rochenstein and Dorrenig Count of Lokenburg.

  Maximilian, Count of Lokenburg. Those were the words on which my eyes lingered.

  It is a strange feeling to know that a part of your life is wrapped in mystery, and that you have been unconscious of what happened to you during that period. You feel apart from your fellow human beings. You are both a stranger among them and to yourself.

  I tried to explain this to Ilse, for I was talking to her very freely and intimately now; she said she understood and she knew that in time I would grow away from this.

  “Never hesitate to talk to me,” she said, “that is if you wish to do so. The last thing I want to do is force confidence, but I want you to know that I am here if you should need me.”

  “I shall have to think about going home soon,” I told her.

  “Not yet,” she begged. “I want to wait until you are quite recovered before you leave us.”

  “Quite recovered. I don’t think I shall ever be that.”

  “You think so now because it is so close . . . later you will see.”

  Oh yes, she comforted me a great deal.

  Yet each day I awoke I said to myself: I must go home. It was only to be a short visit and it was two months since I had left England.

  One morning I woke up feeling ill. I was frightened because I remembered waking in my bed and learning that what I believed had happened had been only in my imagination.

  I got out of bed and felt dizzy.

  I sat on the edge of the bed wondering whether I had been unconscious for another six days. This time there were no pleasant memories.

  I was still sitting there when there was a knock on the door and Ilse looked in.

  “Are you all right, Helena?” she asked anxiously.

  “Yes, I think so. I just felt a little dizzy.”

  “Do you think I should get the doctor?”

  “No . . . no. It’s passing. You are not going to tell me that I have been in bed for days and didn’t go to the town with you yesterday?”

  She shook her head. “No. No. Dr. Carlsberg has not been treating you since you have been here. But I’m sorry you feel dizzy. I wonder whether you ought to see a doctor.”

  “No, no,” I insisted. “It is already passing.”

  She looked at me intently, and I said I would get up.

  We went into the town and it was just such another day as those which had preceded it.

  It suddenly occurred to me that if I went home I would be able to think more clearly. I would be able to assess my adventure against the reality of home. Here I still sensed the bewitchment. The very cobbled streets and gabled shops with their creaking signs were like the settings of the old fairy stories. I could not get out of my mind the belief that here, the home of trolls, hobgoblins, and the ancient gods, nothing was too fantastic to happen. At home among the towers and spires of Oxford where I might listen to the prosaic talk of the aunts and enjoy the friendly atmosphere of the Grevilles’ home, I would reason clearly. I would begin to understand what had happened to me.

  One morning I said to Ilse: “I think I must get ready to go home.”

  She looked at me anxiously. “Do you really want to?”

  I hesitated. “I think it would be better to.”

  “This decision surely means that you are beginning to accept what has happened. You are getting over the shock.”

  “Perhaps. I know that I have to come out of the strange state into which I have fallen. I’ve got to go on living. I would do it best where I belong.”

  She touched my hand gently. “My dear child, you are welcome to stay here as long as you wish. You know that. But I feel that you are right. In Oxford resuming your everyday life you will come to terms with what has happened to you. You will realize that it is not the first time a young girl has been so cruelly awakened to the cruder aspects of life.�
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  “It is perhaps the first time a girl has believed herself to have been married and discovered that she has lost six days of her life.”

  “Of that I am not sure. But I am firmly of the opinion that what Dr. Carlsberg did was right and the only thing to do in the circumstances. He had blotted out an evil thing and replaced it by something beautiful.”

  “But, according to you all, the evil was the truth and the beauty a dream.”

  “Alas . . . but the memory of evil has been obliterated. While you have suffered, my dear, you have the consolation of knowing that you have been of great help to Dr. Carlsberg. You have proved his experiment to be so successful that you cannot even remember the brutality you suffered and you still persist in believing the dream. It is only the force of tangible evidence against it that has made you accept it; and I believe that deep in your heart you still believe that you married this man.”

  How well she had summed up my feelings.

  “So I have been a kind of guinea pig in Dr. Carlsberg’s researches.”

  “Only because the circumstances were as helpful to you as they were to him. But tell me, Helena, do you still believe in this marriage?”

  “I know everything is against it, but it is as clear in my mind as it ever was. And I believe it always will be.”

  She nodded. “And I believe that is what Dr. Carlsberg would wish.” She paused for a moment. “Helena, I want you to know that as soon as you wish to go I shall take you back. Will you see Dr. Carlsberg once more? I should like you to see him before you go.”

  I hesitated. I felt a sudden revulsion for the man which I had not felt before. It was wrong. He had been kind to me; he had, according to himself, Ilse, and Ernst, saved my reason. Yet I did not want to see him again. I wondered whether if I had faced the truth in the first place I might not have been better able to cope with the situation. Bluntly, I had been assaulted in the most cruel and brutal way. If I had come back that night knowing this how should I have reacted? I was not sure. But there was one thing of which I was certain. The man whom I had met on the Night of the Seventh Moon was the same one who had found me in the mist. If he had been the cruel ravisher of that night would he have hesitated when I was in his lodge? I thought of the door handle slowly turning. The door was bolted. But would that have been any real deterrent to a man determined to have his way?

  If they had let me face the truth I believed I would have done so with courage. I could not believe I had nearly lost my reason. I had been frivolous and impulsive but never hysterical. How could I be sure what I would have been like suffering under such an outrage? We do not really know ourselves and it is only when we face a crisis that unexpected facets of our characters are betrayed.

  Ilse went on: “I should feel so relieved if he could see you as an ordinary physician this time. I know that he greatly wishes it and I should like to have his advice about your going home.”

  I said I would see him, and she wrote to him that day. His reply came. He would be with us in two days’ time.

  I had had a few more dizzy spells on rising and I was wondering if I was going to be ill. Ilse asked how I was solicitously every morning; she seemed very concerned.

  “I think I ought to get home soon,” I said. “Everything will be different then.”

  I was thinking that if Maximilian had really married me he would have come to claim me by now. Each passing day was confirmation that the marriage had never taken place.

  If I could get away I would perhaps forget. Home seemed so remote from all that happened; so presumably when I was home, this would be remote.

  I could start again.

  I wrote to Aunt Caroline and Mrs. Greville to tell them I should be coming home shortly. The evenings I had spent at the Grevilles’ house had been the most enjoyable of that period. I remembered how amused I had been because of their admiration for Anthony and how Anthony talking above our heads had a pleasant way of assuming that we understood. It was all so cozy—the last word I could apply to this place—and I was beginning to see the virtues of that coziness from which I had wanted to escape.

  Dr. Carlsberg came as arranged. I was in the little garden when he arrived and did not hear him come. He must have been with Ilse for a quarter of an hour when I walked into the house and found him there.

  When he saw me his face lit up with pleasure. He rose and took both my hands in his.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  When I told him that I felt I was getting back to normal he smiled with pleasure and gratification. Ilse left us together and he wanted to know every detail of what had happened. What dreams had I had? Had I suffered from nightmares? Every little item seemed of the utmost importance to him.

  Then he asked about my physical health and I told him that I often felt unwell on rising.

  He said he would like to examine me. Would I agree?

  I did.

  I shall never forget what followed. It was one of the most dramatic moments in my life.

  “I have to tell you that you are to have a child,” he said.

  TWO

  I was deeply moved by the manner in which Ilse received the news. She was stricken with horror and dismay.

  “Oh God!” she cried. “This is terrible.”

  I found myself comforting her, for to tell the truth I could only feel exultation. I was to have a child—his child. I was not mad. He had existed. From the moment I realized this I started to emerge from the depth of my unhappiness.

  My own child! I did not think of the difficulties which must inevitably lie ahead simply because I could see nothing beyond the wonder of having our child.

  I knew then that deep in my heart I must always believe that Maximilian had loved me. I could not associate him with a criminal in the forest; the prospect of bearing his child could do nothing but fill me with a fierce exhilaration.

  When the doctor had gone Ilse said to me: “Helena, do you realize what this means?”

  “Yes, I do.” I could not help it if my delight was obvious. I had possessed what my father called a mercurial temperament. “Up and down,” said my mother. “Irresponsible,” Aunt Caroline called it. And I was sure Ilse thought me odd and illogical. I had been sunk in depression when I had had every chance of putting an ugly incident behind me and starting a new life; and now that that would be impossible because there would be a living reminder, I was rejoicing. I couldn’t help it. The wonder of having a child subdued all else.

  “This is shattering,” said Ilse at length. “That this should have happened as well as everything else . . . ! What can we do now? You can’t go back to England. Helena, have you thought of what this is going to mean?”

  But all I could think was: I am going to have a child.

  “We must be practical,” she warned me. “Can you go back to your aunts and tell them that you are going to have a child? What will they say? You would be disgraced. They might not even receive you. If I wrote to them and told them what had happened . . . No, they would never understand. You will have to stay here until the child is born. It’s the only way. Yes, we shall have to arrange that.”

  I had to confess I had not given much consideration to the months between—only the arrival of the child. I should like a boy but I would not think about that until it came. If it were a girl I should not wish her to think that I was not completely delighted with her.

  But I was right. I must try to be practical. What was I going to do? How was I going to keep the child, educate it, bring it up in the best possible way? It would have no father. And what should I do while I waited for the child to be born?

  The first exultation had passed.

  Ilse seemed to have come to a decision. “You must stay with us, Helena, and I shall look after you. I shall never forgive myself for going out that night without Ernst and then losing you in the crowd. Yes, we will arrange something. You’ll be all right. You can trust us.”

  She seemed to have grown calmer; the first horror had passed
and characteristically she was making plans.

  The first feeling of triumphant joy had passed. I had had a glimpse of how I should have felt if I had been truly married to Maximilian and he had been with me so that we could have shared the joy of prospective parenthood. I asked myself if there was not something I could do to find him. He was the father of my child. Yet what could I do? If I talked this over with Ilse I would see that sad patient look come into her face. I had given up trying to make her understand that no matter what evidence they showed me I could never believe that I had dreamed my life with Maximilian. I began to make wild plans. I would travel the country looking for him. I would call at every house seeking information concerning him. Now that I was going to have a child I must find him.

  I said to Ilse: “Could I put an advertisement in the newspapers? Could I ask him to come back to me.”

  Ilse looked horrified: “Do you believe that a man who did that would answer such an advertisement?”

  “I was thinking . . .” I began; and saw how hopeless it was to talk to Ilse, for she insisted that the Maximilian I had known had never existed.

  She was patient with me. “Suppose you mentioned Count Lokenburg. You would be deemed mad. There could even be trouble.”

  So whichever way I looked I could do nothing.

  I knew that she was right about my not going home. The aunts would be horrified at the prospect of sheltering an unmarried pregnant niece. I could imagine the scandal. No one would believe the story of the attack in the forest any more than they would believe that other version of my unusual marriage.