On the Night of the Seventh Moon

I wished that I had bought them both one.

“Why is it a present day?” asked Liesel.

“Oh, just because I felt like it,” I told her.

“Do they have present days any sort of time in England?” asked Fritz.

“Well, yes, any time can be present-giving time.”

“I want to go to England,” announced Dagobert.

I was at the turret window watching for Maximilian to come. Across the valley I could see the lights of the ducal schloss, and I thought of that woman who, legend had it, had thrown herself from this window because she had discovered that she had been tricked into marriage and could not bear to go on living since she had been so deceived. How different was my position! I glowed with exultation because he loved me so much that he had jeopardized his future for my sake. I had lived in this community long enough to realize the feudal state of life here. The people’s rulers belonged to them; they were powerful overlords yet they existed in power only through the approbation of those they ruled.

I knew that I could never allow Maximilian to suffer through me.

When he had married me (and I shuddered to think how easily he could have followed the custom of his ancestors and gone through a mock ceremony, for how should I have known the difference? ) he had proved his all-embracing love for me. I was determined to show mine for him.

At last I saw him. He came alone without attendants. I leaned from the window and caught my breath because of the sheer drop below, and again I was thinking of the desperation of that sad woman who had been less fortunate.

I could hear his footsteps on the stair. I was at the door to greet him and we were in each other’s arms.

In the early morning before he left, we talked again of our future. ‘ He had wondered whether to tell Wilhelmina and had come to the conclusion that his father should be the first to know.

“Again and again I am on the point of telling him. I want to take you to him. I want to tell him everything that happened. Yet I fear the effects of the shock.”

“And Wilhelmina?” I said.

“I think a great deal of Wilhelmina.”

“It was a union of convenience. Since the birth of the child we have lived apart. I was grateful for that reason when the child came so was she because it meant that we need not live together.”

“I had forgotten the child.”

“The complications are so great,” went on Maximilian.

“It maddens me.

It might have been so different. I was once on the point of telling my father what had happened to try to make him understand that I had met the only woman I could love and had married her. He could have borne it then. There would have been trouble and because I believed you dead I saw no point in raising it. These people had lied to me. I shan’t rest until I know why. I shall have Ilse brought here. I shall discover from her what it all meant and why she and Ernst interfered in my life. “

“You had commanded them to interfere in the first place.”

“I had commanded them to bring you to me. They were the witnesses of our marriage. But they lied to you and to me. Why? I shall soon know, for she is to be brought here. We will confront her and have the truth.”

“Do you think she will come?”

“My cousin has to visit Klarenbock on state business. I have told him that I want Ilse, if still living, to be brought here.”

“Your cousin?”

“Count Frederick.”

I felt uneasy. The Count always made me feel so.

“Does he know the reason for which you want Ilse?”

“Good God no. I wouldn’`t trust Frederick with that. Heaven knows what use he’d make of it. He’s getting as troublesome to me as his father was to mine.”

“And he is the one whom you have asked to bring back Ilse!”

“She would know she must obey him. She might even think it is her half-sister Wilhelmina who wishes to see her. I have not specifically said it is I.”

“How I wish she were here now! I should like to meet her face to face.

There is so much I want to ask her. She seemed so kind to me. I don’t understand why she should have tried to ruin my life. “

“We will discover,” said Maximilian.

The dawn was with us and it was time for him to leave. How happy we could be even though we could not look more than a day or so ahead and had come no nearer to finding a solution to our problem.

The next day Frieda, the wife of Prinzstein, the coachman, who had joined the two maids we already had in the fortress, brought in letters from England-one from Anthony, one from Aunt Matilda and one from Mrs. Greville.

Anthony wanted to know how I was faring. It was a long time since he had heard.

“Is everything well there, Helena? If not, give it up and come back. I miss you very much. There’s no one to talk to as I can talk to you.

The parents are very good of course, but it isn’t quite the same.

Every day I look for a letter from you which will tell me that you have had enough of it. Come home. I do understand that you are restless. What happened to you there makes that very understandable.

Don’t you think that dwelling on the past only keeps it alive?

Wouldn’`t it be better to try to forget it? Do come home, where I shall do everything possible to make you happy.

My love as ever, Anthony.

What peaceful calm that conjured up: the new vicarage with those lovely green lawns which had been maturing for more than two hundred years; the lovely house which was Elizabethan and built to represent the letter E as so many had been during that Queen’s reign. A fascinating house with its buttery and stiUroom, its walled garden, its little orchard which would be a glory of pink and white blossom in May. How far away it seemed from the schloss in the mountains!

Suppose I wrote to Anthony and told him I had found Maximilian.

Perhaps I owed that to him. I did not want him to go on thinking that one day I would return to him. But I must not do so yet. Maximilian’s father must be the first to know.

There was a letter from Aunt Matilda too.

“How are you getting on, Helena? Have you had enough of that teaching job yet? Albert says he reckons you’ll be back before the summer’s over. The winter wouldn’`t be good there. I believe they have a lot of snow. Take care of your chest. There are some that say mountains are good for chests, but chests are funny things. We miss you in the shop. On busy days Albert says “We could do with Helena, particularly in the Foreign Department.” He works like a slave, which isn’t right with one kidney a’

How those letters brought it all back I And Mrs. Greville’s:

“We miss you very much. When are you coming back? It’s been such a lovely spring. You should see the shrubs in the vicarage garden. And now the lavender’s a picture. The grass was a bit trampled by people at the fete, but it was a great success. Anthony is very popular.

There are so many willing helpers. A very nice lady, a Mrs. Chartwell, has come to live close by. She has a pleasant daughter who is being so useful in the parish. Anthony was saying what a great help she is.

She’s quite nice-looking too, is Grace Chartwell, gentle personality, gets on with people . “

I smiled. In other words, a perfect vicar’s wife. I understood Mrs. Greville was telling me: Come back before it’s too late.

A hush had fallen over the town, over the schloss and over the mountains. The Duke was very ill.

There was a note from Maximilian for me which told me that he was unable to leave the schloss. The doctors were in attendance on his father and it was feared that the end was not far off.

Frau Graben couldn’'t hide her excitement.

“Our Maxi will soon be Duke,” she whispered to me.

I avoided her eyes.

The children were affected by the general solemnity for a short while, but they soon forgot it.