On the Night of the Seventh Moon Page 22

  “Can I, miss. Who says . . . ?”

  “I say,” I said firmly.

  In some way I had won his confidence. He believed me. I stayed by his bed until he fell into a peaceful sleep which was in a very short time.

  Then I went back to my room and tried to sleep.

  I must be ready for the battle which would surely come the next morning.

  . . .

  I watched the Count and his party riding up to the Schloss, and steeling myself went down and out of the fortress to the Randhausburg. Dagobert was already there in his riding outfit.

  As he was greeting his father I slipped inside and waited in the Rittersaal. My battle with the Count must take place unobserved; I should never win if we had spectators because he was the sort of man who would never concede if observed.

  He had seen me enter and, as I knew he would, he quickly followed me there.

  “Good morning, Miss Trant,” he said. “How gracious of you to come down to greet my party.”

  “I did so because I wanted to speak to you about Fritz.”

  “The boy, I suppose, is waiting to leave with us.”

  “No. I have told him to stay in bed for the morning. He was chilled last night.”

  He stared at me in astonishment. “Chilled!” he cried. “In bed! Miss Trant, what do you mean?”

  “Exactly what I say. Last night Fritz walked in his sleep. I gathered he does this when he is disturbed. He is a sensitive child, studious rather than athletic.”

  “That seems to me all the more reason why he should take more physical exercise. Pray tell him to get up at once and that I am angry because he was not ready and eager to go to hunt the boar.”

  “Would you have him pretend to feel something he doesn’t?”

  “I would have him hide his cowardice and pretend to a little courage.”

  “He is no coward,” I said fiercely.

  “No? When he cowers behind the skirts of his teacher?”

  “I must make this clear. It was on my orders that he stayed in bed this morning.”

  “So you give orders here now, Miss Trant?”

  “It is essential for the teacher to tell her pupils what to do.”

  “Even when it is to disobey a parent?”

  “It did not occur to me that any parent would want to drag a sick child from his bed.”

  “How dramatic you are, Miss Trant! I did not think that an English characteristic.”

  “I daresay it is not, but I must make you understand that Fritz is different from Dagobert. Now he will enjoy the hunt and he will not be tortured by an overactive imagination. You can make of him the sort of man you admire—someone in your own image.”

  “Thank you for that assessment of my character, Miss Trant.”

  “I think you understand perfectly that I would not presume to assess your character on such a short acquaintance, or, in fact, at all. I came here to teach children English and . . .”

  “And their father how to treat his children. His idiosyncracies are no concern of yours, you say. Yet you belie this. Because now you are telling me how wrong my attitude is toward my son.”

  “Will you do this for me?” I asked. His expression changed. He came closer. I held up a hand as though to ward him off and I went on quickly: “Do not insist that Fritz go to this hunt today. Please give me a chance with him. He is nervous and the way to disperse that nervousness is not to aggravate it, but to soothe it, to show him that a great deal that he fears lies only in his mind.”

  “You talk like one of these new-fangled doctors one hears of nowadays. But you’re a good advocate. What has Fritz done to deserve such concern?”

  “He is a child who needs understanding. Please, will you allow me to have my way over this?”

  “I’ve an idea, Miss Trant, that you are a young woman who often gets her way.”

  “You are wrong in that.”

  “Then you should be grateful to me.”

  I was suddenly thinking happily of Fritz’s relief when he heard the party riding away into the forest.

  “You are charming when you smile,” he said. “It gives me pleasure to be responsible for such charm.”

  “I am grateful,” I said.

  He bowed. He took my hand then and kissed it; I took it from his grasp as soon as possible and he was laughing as he went out.

  I went up to Fritz’s room. He started as I entered.

  I said, “The party is just leaving. Would you like to see them go? We can watch from the window.”

  He looked at me as though I were a magician.

  He stood at the window and watched the cavalcade ride out of the Schloss grounds down the slopes into the pine forest.

  I sat by Fritz’s bed and gave him a lesson in English. He sneezed once or twice and I went down to Frau Graben to tell her I thought he had a cold. She brought up her own remedy—a cordial she made herself. She smacked her lips as she took a spoonful of it.

  “Lovely!” she said, beaming.

  Fritz knew the cordial well and took it with relish. It made him sleepy, so I left him and went for a walk in the woods, but not very far from the Schloss. I had no desire to run into the hunting party.

  It was a lovely afternoon. I came back and went to sit in the garden to prepare next day’s lesson; it was peaceful there, shut in as it was by the short thick firs.

  One of the two girls, Ella, who looked after us in the fortress, came down to tell me that Frau Graben had sent a message over to ask me to go to her sitting room.

  I went; she had a little spirit lamp which she used in the summer and the kettle was boiling.

  “Tea,” she said once again, as though I were a small child to whom she was offering a treat.

  I noticed the new addition to the room—a blue gilded cage in which was a canary.

  “Look at my little angel,” she said. “ ‘Angel,’ that is his name. Tweet, tweet. Isn’t he a little treasure? I saw him in a shop in the unterer Stadtplatz yesterday. I couldn’t resist buying him and bringing him home. They say some of them can talk. Wouldn’t I love to hear him talk? Come, little Angel. Say ‘Frau Graben . . .’ Say ‘Hello, miss.’ Stubborn, eh? Well, my little man, we’ll see.”

  “You like . . .” I was going to say animals, but I suppose one could not call canaries or spiders animals . . . I substituted “living things.”

  Her eyes sparkled. “I like to know what they’ll do. You can never be sure. I like to see for myself.”

  “What happened to your spiders?”

  “One killed the other.”

  “And then?”

  “I let the winner go. It seemed only right. I guessed that’s what would happen but you never know . . . with living things they can do just the opposite to what others in the same case have done before them. Tweet, tweet, my Angel. Come on, talk for Frau Graben.”

  The canary gave voice to a few notes which delighted her. “More!” she cried. “But what I really wanted my pet was for you to talk.” She smiled at me. “Well, if he won’t that doesn’t mean we can’t. There. The kettle’s boiling. I’ll make the tea and we’ll get cozy.”

  Over the cups she said: “Well, so Fritzi didn’t go. You could have knocked me down with a feather. What did Fredi have to say to you?”

  “I told him that Fritz was a sensitive child. This sleepwalking worries me. It happens when he is disturbed. He was worried last night about this hunt . . . so he walks in his sleep. He is a very clever boy. We don’t want him upset.”

  “And you told Fredi all this?”

  “I did.”

  “And he gave way! It’s a bad sign. It shows that he likes you.”

  “Is it so bad to be liked by the Count?”

  “If you’re a young woman, it’s tricky. He’s a libertine of the first degree. It’s a way of life with them. They’ve heard the stories of their parents and grandparents. We’re a lusty nation, Miss Trant; and we’re divided into these states which seem small to you but the heads of them have
great power . . . they and their families. It’s not good for young men. In the past they’ve had their pick of the village maidens and took it as a right. The boys have been brought up to this. The history of our reigning families is one of seduction in various ingenious forms. The most popular through the last century or so was the mock marriage. There’s our legend here of the haunted room that you decided to unhaunt. You see what I mean about taking the Count’s fancy? A young woman’s not safe when she does that.”

  “I am not a particularly young woman.”

  “Now, Miss Trant, you’re not old. And if you are somewhere up in the twenties you’ve gained something on the way. But I must warn you about some of our gentlemen.”

  “I think I know how to deal with them.”

  “Fredi can be forceful.”

  “I think I shall know how to behave.”

  Frau Graben seemed satisfied. She beamed and handed me the spiced cakes. I took one and nibbled at it. It was very rich.

  “Well,” she said, “he’ll soon be on duty at the Duke’s Schloss. The Prince is coming home. There’ll be a special procession to the church to welcome him back. I think it will be in a week or so.”

  “Where has he been?” I asked.

  “He’s been to Berlin to take part in a conference there. There’s talk about the French getting very obstreperous.”

  “And Rochenstein would fight with Prussia?”

  “If the French attacked us, all true Germans would stand together. So that’s what the Prince has been doing. You’ll see him ride to the thanksgiving service. That’ll be a day.”

  “Very soon, I suppose.”

  “As soon as he gets home the Chamberlain will arrange it. You’ll see some crowds then. You’ll want to see the procession from the palace in the town to the church and back to the palace.”

  “Is the Prince very popular?”

  “You know how it is with royalty. Sometimes they’re popular, sometimes not. You’ll see them riding through the streets and people shouting for them and the next day they have a bomb thrown at them.”

  “Does that often happen?”

  “Shall we say it happens. They’re not safe. I was always terrified when my boys used to go out with their parents. In the first carriage would be the Duke and his lady and their son the Prince and in the next the Duke’s brother Ludwig and Fredi. Of course Ludwig was a traitor and came to his end; Fredi swore loyalty but I reckon the loyalty of most people is to one person—themselves. You’ll have to go and see the thanksgiving service. They’ll get the Processional Cross out, and as you know that’s quite a ceremony.”

  “It was indeed and I thought what a lot of trouble they had gone to just to show me. I shall never forget how they guarded it. There was a very pleasant soldier—Sergeant Franck I believe he was called. Someone must have mentioned his name.”

  “Oh, I know Sergeant Franck. A pleasant fellow. He was put to soldiering when quite a boy and I remember how proud his family were of him when he got into the Duke’s Guard. Then he married that wife of his. She’s changed. It just shows you what can happen. She was a poor frightened little thing when she married Franck. There’d been some sort of past . . . but he took care of her and now she’s got two children and is very pleased with herself. The change in people! It always makes me laugh. There they are and then life picks them up and puts them somewhere with someone else and you watch what happens from there.”

  “Like spiders,” I said.

  “Oh people are a lot more interesting than them.”

  I agreed.

  “I’m glad he’s coming home when he is—the Prince I mean,” she went on. “It’s the right time, when you come to think of it. Oh, he’s a one, he is. Fredi always declares he was my favorite. ‘I never had a favorite,’ I said. But that wasn’t really true. Thunder and Lightning, I said. I couldn’t imagine one without the other. The flash and the roar. That’s how they always seemed to me. I’d like to be back in the days when they were little. The joy of my life they were! Of course Ludwig, the Duke’s younger brother, wanted young Fredi brought up in the palace. Secretly he thought he had as much right there as the Duke. Fredi’s Ludwig all over again. He always wanted to excel in everything and just as Ludwig wanted to outshine the Duke so Fredi wanted to do better than his cousin the Prince. What the Prince had, he wanted—all their toys I mean. It frightened me then. Toys when they’re young, and when they grow up, I used to say, what then? It’ll be more than toys then. But you won this morning, didn’t you? You got your way about young Fritzi. My goodness, you’ve done something for that child. You understand children. That’s strange really because there you are a spinster . . .” Her smiling eyes were intent on my face. “. . . and never having had one of your own.”

  I felt a slow flush creep into my cheeks. I couldn’t help it. She had conjured up so clearly a vision of that nursing home—the pregnant women chatting on the lawn—the poor girl who had died—Gretchen I think her name was, Gretchen Swartz.

  I had hesitated a second too long; those bland smiling eyes missed very little I was sure.

  I said: “Understanding children is something one is born with, perhaps.”

  “Oh yes, of course, that is so. But when a woman has a child something happens to her, I think. I’ve seen it happen.”

  “Perhaps,” I said coolly.

  “Well, the Prince will be home in time for our great night. Oh you wouldn’t know about this. We’re regular ones for celebrations. This is Loke’s land here. The Lokenwald you see. And in two weeks’ time the moon will be full. That’s the night for mischief. Loke was the God of Mischief and he’s abroad that night. I shan’t let you go out on that night, Miss Trant.”

  I shivered a little; memories were unbearable.

  She leaned toward me and took my hand in her rather damp hot one.

  “No, I wouldn’t let you go out. It’s not safe. Something gets into people on that night. It’s Loke’s moon—the seventh of the year; and there are people here who will be good Christians every night of the year, except the Night of the full Seventh Moon. Then they’re pagan again just as they were centuries ago before Christianity came to tame them down. Why, miss, I believe I’ve frightened you.”

  I tried to laugh. “I’ve heard of it, you know. I’ve read of the gods and heroes.”

  “So, you do know something about our Night of the Seventh Moon after all?”

  “Yes,” I said, “I know something.”

  The afternoon was hot and sunny.

  “We’ll all go down together,” said Frau Graben, “there’ll be such crowds I don’t want anyone to get trampled to death.”

  “Surely it’s not as bad as that,” I protested.

  “They’re all excited to know he’s back.”

  We drove down into the town through the mountain roads which never failed to delight me. The orchids and gentians were in bloom, brightening the mountain slopes; every now and then we came upon a plateau with a small farmhouse and heard the familiar tinkle of the cowbells. Down in the town the sun was shining on the mellowing rooftops; the bells were ringing and as we came into the oberer Stadtplatz we were greeted by the gay sight of flags fluttering from every place where it was possible to put them. The men and women were in their native costumes and I guessed that hundreds of them had come in from the neighboring countryside.

  I was glad we had Frau Graben with us, for the children were very excited and I should have been afraid that they might stray away and get hurt in the crush.

  We drove to the inn where we had stabled our horses on another occasion and there a window looking onto the square in which was the church had been kept for us. From there we should be able to see the procession undisturbed.

  The innkeeper treated Frau Graben with great respect. She evidently knew him well for she asked after his daughter. His eyes lit up at the mention of her and he clearly doted on her. “The prettiest girl in Rochenberg,” commented Frau Graben, and I was aware of the sly speculative lo
ok in her eyes and wondered what it meant.

  Wine and little spiced cakes, at the sight of which Frau Graben’s eyes glistened, were brought out and there was some sweet drink for the children.

  Frau Graben was clearly as excited as the boys and Liesel. Dagobert kept telling me what everything signified; Fritz, now completely devoted to me, kept near me and I was delighted because this was a spectacle he was going to enjoy. Liesel could not keep still, but Frau Graben seemed absorbed in some secret mirth which delighted her to such an extent that I got the impression that she was debating whether she would be more amused to share her mirth or keep it entirely to herself.

  Everywhere was an air of expectancy; people called excitedly to each other. The flags gaily fluttered at the windows. I recognized that of Rochenstein of course and the Prussian flag but most of the Austrian and German states were represented. A band started to play. In the oberer Stadtplatz a choir was singing. I recognized the words which began:

  Unsern Ausgang segne Gott . . .

  “God bless our going out nor less our coming in.” My mother had taught me this. They sang it, she said, when they moved into a new house. I suppose it could now refer to the Prince’s visit to Prussia and his return home.

  In the distance I could hear the military band.

  “They’ll be coming from the palace now. You’ll see the Processional Cross, Miss Trant,” chortled Frau Graben.

  “I daresay there was a big ceremony getting it out of the crypt.”

  “Yes, and taking it to the palace. Sergeant Franck was telling me about it.”

  “I shall look forward to seeing it in use. I hope nobody tries to steal it.”

  Dagobert looked excited. “If they did I’d run after them. I’d kill them. I’d get it back.”

  “Singlehanded?” I asked.

  “All by myself,” went on Dagobert. “Then the Duke would send for me and he’d say you’re my true son and you’ll come before Carl . . .”

  “Poor Carl!” I said lightly. “It’s hard on him. After all to be set aside because he didn’t recapture the Cross. Is that fair?”

  “Nothing’s fair,” said Dagobert. “My father could be the Prince . . .”