On the Night of the Seventh Moon Page 16

  Dagobert started to run round the room shouting “God Save the Queen” but I shut the door firmly on him and said: “In English we don’t say Fräulein, Fritz. We say Miss. I’m Miss Trant, you see.”

  “Miss,” said Fritz.

  I nodded. “Come on, Liesel. You say it too.”

  “Miss,” said Liesel, and laughed.

  “We shall have a short lesson every day,” I told them, “and when we are together we will speak in English. We will surprise your father with your progress. Now you will tell me about the Schloss. It is castle in English. Can you say castle?”

  They both said it to my satisfaction and their own intense delight. I contemplated that it would have been easy without Dagobert.

  They showed me the rooms in the fortress—all with their embrasures in which were the long narrow windows. They took me up to the tower and Fritz told me that the tower was called the Katzenturm, the Cats’ Tower, because the falling missiles which they used to throw down on the invading forces sounded like the screeching of cats. We stood up there looking down on the town and across the mountains and Fritz pointed out the Duke’s castle high on the slope. Could I see the long buildings on the eastern side? They were the barracks and there the Duke’s Guards lived. It was fun to see them standing there.

  “They guard it all the time,” said Fritz. “Don’t they, Liesel?”

  Liesel nodded. “They have blue coats.”

  “Dark blue coats, with gold on their sleeves and they have shining helmets. Sometimes they have feathers in them. They stand so still you think they’re not real.”

  “I should like to see them.”

  “We’ll show you, won’t we, Liesel?”

  Liesel nodded.

  I felt I was getting on very well. Liesel was ready to go with whoever was the leader, I could see that. Fritz was quite different from Dagobert. He was much smaller but then he was several years younger. His eyes were dark whereas Dagobert’s eyes were light blue; his hair was brown and straight, Dagobert’s waved about his head like a glistening gold cap. Dagobert was the handsome one but Fritz interested me. He had a sensitive face and I remembered Frau Graben’s saying that he missed a mother. I could well believe it. Dagobert would be self-sufficient; Fritz less so. I was sure though that Fritz was going to prove the better pupil.

  I thought: He would be a year older than my own child. And I thought fleetingly how wonderful it would be if she had lived and all had gone as in those magic three days I had believed they would. Suppose this were my home—suppose instead of these children I were here with my own . . .

  I shook myself free of fancies. I must be firmly realistic—I must not allow the pine forests to put their spell on me.

  “We’ll go to the town together,” I said, “and I’ll tell you what everything is in English. That will be a lovely and easy way to learn.”

  “Will Dagobert come?” asked Liesel.

  “If he wants to.”

  “Shall he be whipped if he won’t?” asked Fritz. “Would you whip him?”

  I could not see myself so engaged so I smiled faintly. “I shall just ignore him. If he doesn’t want to learn he will be ignorant and when the Count comes he will say: ‘Well, what English have you learned?’ And you and Liesel will speak to him in English and he will be pleased. Dagobert will know nothing.”

  Liesel laughed. “It’ll serve him right,” she commented.

  They took me down into the Randhausburg. This was of much later period—sixteenth or seventeenth century, I believed. It consisted of several turreted buildings on the mountain plateau above which the fortress rose. The sleeping quarters of the rest of the household were in one of these and in another was the Rittersaal which would be used for ceremonial occasions. Beyond this was the stone-floored kitchen with its roasting spits and cauldrons. It smelled of sauerkraut and onions. During our tour we met one or two of the servants who bobbed curtsies at me when Fritz told them who I was.

  It was in the Rittersaal that Dagobert appeared; he stood quietly listening to what I had to say and he was trying to pretend I could see that he had been with us all the time.

  “This was where the knights used to be,” Fritz told me.

  Dagobert said: “Look at all the swords on the wall.”

  “That one’s the Count’s,” said Fritz.

  “No, that one,” contradicted Liesel. “That’s the biggest.”

  “They’re all the Count’s, sillies,” declared Dagobert.

  Liesel put out her tongue. “We’re going to speak English and you’re not going to know any. Fräulein Trant said so.”

  “No that’s not right, Liesel,” I corrected. “What I said was that if Dagobert didn’t want to be with us when we learn he would know nothing and then your father would wonder why he couldn’t speak English like you and Fritz.”

  “I’ll speak English best of all,” said Dagobert.

  I smiled inwardly. This was early victory.

  “Can he?” asked Fritz almost anxiously, and I knew then that Fritz was hoping for an opportunity to excel the half brother who beat him at almost everything he did.

  “The one who works the hardest will be the best,” I said. “It’s as simple as that.”

  Victory indeed! I had instilled in my pupils a determination to apply themselves and succeed.

  After we had examined the Randhausburg we went back to the fortress, and the children showed me the hunting room. The ceiling of this room was decorated with groups of animals and there were some stuffed heads on the walls among guns of various kinds.

  “We practice shooting,” Dagobert told me. “I’m a good shot. Bang! Bang! I shoot to kill.”

  “You couldn’t,” said Fritz. “The cartridges are all blank.”

  “Yes, I could,” insisted Dagobert. “Bang.”

  “We have archery lessons too,” Fritz told me.

  “We practice in the courtyard,” add Dagobert. “I hit the target every time.”

  “You don’t,” Fritz disagreed.

  “I could if I wanted to.”

  “Well, I shall see,” I said. “Now we’ll go to the schoolroom and I’ll see the Pastor.”

  “The Pastor doesn’t come today,” Dagobert said, scornful of my ignorance.

  “Then I shall tell you what I hope to do about our daily lesson. Then I can arrange the time with the Pastor when he does come.”

  We were mounting the staircase and came to a passage. I could turn right or left. One way led to my room, so I took the other and found myself at the foot of a spiral staircase. I started up this when Fritz called to me urgently: “Fräulein Trant . . .”

  I was about to say: “It’s Miss Trant in English,” when I turned and saw the fearful expression on his face. He was standing at the bottom of the staircase.

  “What’s wrong, Fritz?” I asked.

  “You mustn’t go up there.”

  The other children came up. Their faces bore the same excited yet frightened look.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “The haunted room’s up there,” explained Fritz.

  “Haunted? Who says so?”

  “Everybody,” answered Dagobert. “Nobody goes there.”

  “The servants go to dust it,” contradicted Fritz.

  “Never by themselves. If you go there by yourself something terrible will happen to you. You’d die and stay there forever to haunt people.”

  Fritz had turned very pale and I said sharply: “That’s nonsense. What could be in there?”

  “The ghost,” said Fritz.

  “Has anyone seen it?” I asked.

  There was silence. I walked up a step or two then Fritz said: “Come back, Fräulein, Miss . . .”

  I said: “There’s nothing to be afraid of, I’m sure.”

  An irresistible urge forced me to go on and besides I did not want the children, on whom I had made a good impression, to think me afraid, particularly Dagobert who, as I advanced, crept up behind me.

  All the chi
ldren were watching me.

  The staircase ended in a small landing on which was a door. I went toward it and took the doorknob in my hands. I heard the gasp behind me.

  I turned the handle.

  The door was locked.

  The rest of the day passed as though I were in a dream; I had to keep reminding myself that I was really here. I took luncheon with Frau Graben in a little room in the Randhausburg which she said was her sanctum. Her delight in my presence was very gratifying but I was a little afraid that I might not live entirely up to expectations. I had not had a great deal to do with children; yet although I had never thought to teach, when I had realized that I might have a child dependent on me and Ilse had suggested that I teach in the Damenstift, the idea had seemed possible. I had thought of Ilse quite often since I had known I was coming here and of how strange it was that after we had been so close during my months of waiting for the birth of my child she should have faded out of my life. For I really had no idea where she was now.

  In the afternoon of that day I met Pastor Kratz, a shriveled little man with very bright sparkling eyes. He thought it an excellent plan, he said, that I had come to teach the children English. He himself had toyed with the idea of introducing it into the series of lessons he gave, but his accent was not good, nor was his English, and there was no one who could teach a language like a native of the land to which it belonged, and when that teacher had a good command of the pupil’s language also, then it was ideal.

  I was to give the children half an hour’s lesson each morning and another half hour’s session in the afternoons, but I set greater store on what they would learn through conversation with me.

  “The Count will expect quick progress,” said the Pastor, his eyes twinkling. “He is a very impatient man.”

  Frau Graben confirmed this. “He was always like that, even worse than his cousin.”

  “Who was his cousin?” I asked.

  “The Prince, the Duke’s only son and heir. They were brought up together as boys. What a handful! I can tell you all about that. I was nurse to them both.”

  The Pastor invited me to call at the church when he would show me the Processional Cross. The church was well worth a visit, he told me. The stained-glass windows were famous throughout Europe. I must come and see them. The Cross itself was kept strongly guarded in an oak chest which dated back to the twelfth century. Notice had to be given if one wished to see it, for the keys of the chest were locked away in a secret place and only the current pastor knew where; it was a secret passed on from pastor to pastor, a custom which had gone back all those years, for the Cross, with its lapis lazuli and chalcedony, its rubies, pearls, and diamonds, was priceless.

  I said I should love to see it.

  “Then you must let me know when and it shall be brought out for you. Two of the Duke’s guards will be on duty at the church while we look at it.”

  “So it is as priceless as that?”

  “It’s an old custom really. The church has always had to be guarded when the Processional Cross was brought out. Old customs die hard in these parts.”

  I thanked the Pastor and was sure that we were going to get along well. He was an unworldly little man but his zest for enjoyment was clearly great and both these qualities I found endearing.

  In the afternoon the children took me for a little walk round the plateau on which the castle had been built. The scenery was magnificent. I was fascinated as always by the tall straight pines and firs and the little streams. We wandered a little downhill from the plateau, and the castle was soon hidden from our view by the trees; I loved it all—the sudden rush of a waterfall—the silver and spruce firs—the occasional woodcutter’s hut; the sight of a little village below us and the sudden tinkle of bells which the cows wore about their necks to guide the cowherds in which direction to go to find them when the mist descended. I talked to the children as we went, giving them the English names for what we saw. They seemed to find this an exciting game and Dagobert was on his mettle trying to show that he could play this game so much better than the others. Fritz, however, seemed to learn more easily and I was secretly glad about this. I felt drawn strongly toward the quiet dark boy.

  When we returned Frau Graben was waiting for us rather anxiously.

  “I was afraid they would have taken you too far,” she said. “Now, children, you just go off and Ida will give you your milk. Miss Trant, you come with me. I have a treat for you.”

  The treat was tea. “We know what you English are for tea,” she said, beaming, and I felt I could not have been made more welcome.

  It was very pleasant to sit in Frau Graben’s little room which looked onto a tiny cobbled courtyard.

  “It’s worked out so very well,” she said.

  “It’s so strange,” I replied. “If I hadn’t happened to be in the shop that day . . .”

  “Don’t let’s think of anything so disastrous,” she cried. “You are here and that makes me happy. What do you think of the children?”

  “They are interesting.”

  “They’ve all had such unconventional beginnings. Dagobert is the son of the Count and a lady of high quality. He would have married her but Count Ludwig, his father, wouldn’t give his permission. It was not the match he wanted for Frederic, and Frederic is near enough to the dukedom to have to obey orders. So he made the right marriage and now he has a fine boy of eight. He sets great store by him and I know he hoped he’d inherit the dukedom one day, because the Prince was so reluctant to marry.”

  “So this boy is the heir.”

  “Not he. And that’s a sore point with Master Count. The Duke insisted the Prince, his son, marry and he couldn’t hold out forever. It was a necessary marriage; one of the terms in a treaty Rochenstein made with Klarenbock. So the Prince married Princess Wilhelmina. That was five years ago. There’s a child—a boy; he’s three years old, a son and heir. So our Prince has done his duty.”

  “I suppose I shall learn the country’s politics in due course.”

  “They’re frequently discussed. In a little country like this the reigning family lives close to the people.”

  “Shall I see the Prince and Princess?”

  Her expression was suddenly enigmatical; she seemed to be suppressing secret mirth.

  “Oh, our ruling family’s seen,” she said. “Not like England royalty, you know. We hear about England. It’s because of our close ties since the Queen’s marriage with one of our Princes. I hear she shuts herself away since she lost him. She goes around in her widow’s weeds and won’t give up mourning, though it must be . . . how long since he died?”

  “It’s nine years,” I said. “She was absolutely devoted to him.”

  “Well, our Duke isn’t allowed to shut himself away. He comes down from the castle into the town to attend certain functions; he hunts in the forests. The Prince is away at the moment. He’s in Berlin at the Court of Prussia representing his father at a conference. Count Bismarck is constantly summoning heads of state to Berlin. I think he’s of the opinion that we’re all vassals of great Prussia. He is apt to forget that we are independent states and that is what the Prince is no doubt telling him now.”

  “You know the Prince well, I suppose.”

  “I should do. I was his nurse. He and the children’s father were brought up together. And what a task to keep those two in order. The spirits! They were always fighting, those two boys. What a pair. The Prince is sure of himself, playing the Grand Duke almost in the nursery and Count Frederic determined to show he was as good as his cousin. They’ve been behaving like that ever since. But I’ll have none of their old tantrums—I’ve told them both. I still think of them as my boys in the nursery and however grand they may think they are to others they’re just my two boys to me.”

  I asked if the children were like their father.

  “There’s a resemblance,” she said. “Dagobert’s got a look of him. That affair was more serious than the others. Liesel was the daughter
of the sewing woman whom the Count took a fancy to.”

  “And Fritz?” I asked.

  “Fritz was two and a half when he came here. His mother had died, they said. She’d been a lady of quality and when Fritz was conceived she had disappeared. The Count was frantic for a while, but you know how these men are. He was quickly on with the next. Then the woman who had been Fritz’s foster mother died. I knew her; she was once one of the nurses under me. I had him brought here to be brought up with Dagobert. But Fritzi was old enough to remember that he wasn’t always here; I think it upsets him a bit. The woman who cared for him was like a mother to him and he missed her.”

  “This Count seems to be very careless as to where he fathers children.”

  “My dear Miss Trant, he’s only following the tradition. They’ve always been for the women. They see them, they fancy them and there’s no holding them back. If there are results they don’t mind and nor do the women. Take Liesel. She’s well looked after, she’s being educated, a good marriage will be made for her. That wouldn’t have happened to her if her mother had married a woodcutter, say. The child would be wandering the forest gathering sticks and not being sure where her next meal was coming from.”

  I was silent for a while; then I said, “I think I shall be able to teach them something. I want to be with them as much as possible. I’m already looking forward to the time when we converse in English.”

  “It’ll come. You’re going to succeed. I’m sure the Count will be pleased.”

  “If he isn’t,” I said, “I shall go back to England.”

  Then I thought of it: the shop, working for the parish, gradually clinging to the comfort which Anthony was offering. But at the moment I was in revolt against all that, for something told me that I was on the verge of discovery, that life was going to be exciting, though perhaps not happy—for happiness and excitement did not always go together.

  Not yet, Anthony, I thought, and then I realized that although I had relegated him to the back of my mind I liked to think of him there.

  “Don’t say that, when you’ve only just come. What do you think of Klocksburg?”