The Wild Girl

by Kate Forsyth

  ‘What about your mother’s bedroom?’ Dortchen knew that Frau Grimm’s room had remained unchanged since the day she had died. Once her body had been carried out, Jakob had shut the door and no one had been in since.

  ‘But we couldn’t! Mother died in there.’

  ‘All the best houses have beds that people have died in,’ Dortchen said. ‘Herr von Arnim needn’t be afraid. It’s not as if your mother would come back and haunt him. She was far too well behaved.’

  Lotte couldn’t help giggling. ‘Can you imagine it? Mother in her old nightgown and cap, asking him what he was doing in her bed!’

  Dortchen was glad that she had made Lotte laugh. Her friend had hardly smiled in months. ‘Do you think Herr von Arnim would shriek and run down the stairs in his nightgown?’

  Lotte smiled faintly. After a long moment, she said, ‘I suppose there’s no harm in giving him Mother’s bedroom. We can’t let him sleep in the kitchen. But it will need to be cleaned out. And all our sheets are almost worn through.’

  ‘I’ll see if I can get away for an hour or two,’ Dortchen said. ‘You must ask Jakob for some real help, though, Lottechen. Get a woman to come in for the afternoon and do all the heavy work. You want Herr von Arnim to think well of you all, and you must admit the house has run to wrack and ruin lately.’

  ‘I’m just so tired all the time,’ Lotte said. ‘I work from dawn till dusk, with scarcely a bite to eat, yet the house just seems to get dirtier and messier. At least I don’t have Karl to pick up after any more.’ Dortchen nodded. Karl had moved to Hamburg to try to find work. ‘I could scarcely bear to get out of bed this morning,’ Lotte went on. ‘I knew there was nothing to get up for but housework.’

  ‘It’s hard in winter,’ Dortchen sympathised. ‘I had to crack the crust of ice on the water in my jug this morning, it was so cold.’

  ‘I’m just so tired of it all,’ Lotte continued. ‘They expect me to cook and clean and iron and sew. I never get any fun.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Dortchen replied. Both girls sighed and said no more. There was no use in complaining. Housework was a woman’s lot.

  Achim von Arnim arrived in early December, bringing gifts of wine and muslin-wrapped fruitcake and a parcel of books tied up with twine. Dortchen watched from the drawing-room window as he stepped down out of his well-sprung travelling coach, elegantly dressed as always in a snow-white cravat and a greatcoat with a multitude of capes on the shoulder. Jakob, Wilhelm and Ferdinand were waiting to greet him. They shook his hand warmly, took his gifts and led him inside the tall, narrow house.

  Dortchen leant her forehead against the cold windowpane. She would have loved to have packed a basket with some goodies and gone over to visit. She knew her father would be watching and listening, however, and she dared not take the risk.

  Dortchen felt a shadow come over her spirit at the thought of her father. For months, she had kept out of his way, keeping her eyes lowered and her voice silent, working diligently in the kitchen and garden, places he never went. He watched her, though. She could feel the heavy weight of his eyes at mealtimes and on the way to church. She had no way to know why he regarded her with such frowning intensity. Was he sorry for beating her? Did he miss the old, light-hearted Dortchen, who sang and skipped and pretended to be a knight or a princess or a bird? Or was he pleased that she was growing into the silent, meek girl he seemed to want?

  She could not lift her eyes to examine his face, to try to understand the forces that moved him. Dortchen was frightened of her father now.

  After a long moment, she turned away from the window and went down to the kitchen to help begin supper.

  The next day, at breakfast, Herr Wild was going through the mail when he gave a grunt of surprise. ‘It’s something for Dortchen,’ he said, and opened it with his butter knife. ‘From that Grimm family. They’ve asked her to go to the theatre. Apparently, that nobleman is taking them all, as a Christmas gift.’

  ‘Dortchen has been asked to go to the theatre?’ Gretchen cried. ‘With Herr von Arnim? But Father, that’s not fair …’

  ‘Oh, Father, may I go? Please?’ Dortchen pressed both her hands together and gazed at him pleadingly.

  ‘Impossible,’ Herr Wild said. ‘Go to the theatre with those rackety young men? If their mother were still alive …’

  ‘But Lotte will be there,’ Dortchen protested.

  ‘Dortchen will need a chaperone, of course,’ Hanne said. ‘I’ll go with her.’

  Gretchen stared, her mouth hanging open, then shut it with a snap. ‘If Hanne’s going, I’m going.’

  ‘Dortchen doesn’t need two chaperones,’ Hanne responded. ‘But it will be quite unexceptional for her to be accompanied by her elder sister.’

  ‘Surely they’re still all in mourning?’ Gretchen laid one hand on her chest in exaggerated astonishment. ‘How shocking that they should wish to go to the theatre.’

  ‘It’s been more than six months,’ Dortchen said.

  ‘What shall we wear?’ Hanne said. ‘We haven’t an evening frock between us.’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ Herr Wild said, looking up from his newspaper. ‘I do not think you are at all suitable as a chaperone, Hanne. Dortchen will decline the invitation.’

  There was a long, depressed silence.

  ‘I’ll go with Dortchen,’ Frau Wild said.

  Everyone stared at her in utter stupefaction. No one could remember their mother ever going out in the evening.

  She smiled faintly. ‘I used to love the theatre.’

  Dortchen wanted to fling her arms about her mother’s neck and dance for joy. Instead, she merely whispered, ‘Thank you, Mother.’

  Herr Wild frowned, tossed the invitation towards Dortchen and got up from his chair. ‘It’ll be cold out,’ he said to Frau Wild. ‘You’d better wrap up warm.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  It felt strange to be the centre of attention for a change. Lisette lent Dortchen her best gown, in pale-blue flowered cotton, with the waist high up under the arms in the very latest fashion. Hanne lent her a pair of long white evening gloves, and Gretchen did her hair in a mass of tight ringlets, caught into a knot at the back of her head and allowed to tumble down onto her neck. Dortchen could scarcely wait for Wilhelm to see her. He had been away, looking for tellers of old tales at Allendorf, a town not far from Marburg, so she had not seen him in some weeks.

  That evening, however, she was shocked at the sight of him. He was white-faced, with feverish eyes set in dark hollows. He smiled when he saw her, though with an obvious effort, and said, ‘What a pretty dress. The colour suits you.’

  Dortchen smiled and thanked him. ‘Are you not well?’ she asked him in an undertone, as they walked along the lantern-lit streets towards the theatre.

  He shrugged, not looking at her. ‘I’m having trouble sleeping.’

  ‘Still?’

  He nodded his head. ‘I mean, I drift in and out, but often I’m awake well before dawn. I cannot tell you how much I hate the sound of your quail crying in the dawn. I cannot hear it without shuddering.’

  ‘It does make a large noise for such a small creature,’ Dortchen said. ‘Father hangs it outside the shop’s window so it will cry an alarm if anyone tries to break in during the night. People do try, you know, to steal medicines.’

  ‘Has he not heard of a watchdog?’

  Dortchen smiled. ‘Another mouth to feed. A quail eats spilt seeds and insects, and provides eggs and meat for the table. Far more practical.’

  Wilhelm smiled in genuine amusement. ‘I think we need some of your family’s good sense. That would never have occurred to me.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you’ve been in such pain? Father might have a draught that could help.’

  ‘Nothing helps. Besides, you’ve done far too much for us already.’

  ‘I’ve done nothing.’

  He cast her an amused look. ‘You’ve been a good friend, Dortchen. Believe me, we know it.’

&nb
sp; She cast her eyes down in sudden confusion. Did he somehow know about the lucky spell, and how she had risked her father’s anger to do it? He couldn’t possibly, she told herself. He means the herbal teas and the gifts of food.

  ‘We can never thank you enough,’ he went on. ‘Without you, I think Lotte could well have gone half-mad with grief.’

  She shook her head. ‘Asking me to the theatre is thanks enough. I’ve never been before.’

  ‘Well, I hope you enjoy it,’ he answered with a faint smile.

  At that moment, Herr von Arnim turned and asked him a question, and he moved away from her side. Dortchen tried not to follow him with her eyes, aware that both her mother’s and Lotte’s gazes were fixed on her face.

  Instead, she looked about her. The streets seemed so different at night. Lanterns hung before each shop, illuminating the wares inside. Dortchen had never seen so many beautiful and luxurious things. Cassel had changed greatly in the year that Napoléon’s little brother had been their king. The shops along Königstrasse had once been simple – chandlers and barrel-makers and sellers of vegetables – but now all sorts of new shops had opened up, milliners and corsetières and makers of boots, sellers of Oriental porcelain, hand-woven rugs from Bruges, and spices from the Levant. Where once there had been the occasional tavern, now there were dance halls and gambling dens and a barouche manufacturer.

  A group of bearded Jewish men in long black coats and white prayer shawls walked past on their way to Friday-night worship, long ringlets hanging down beside their ears. They stopped at the kerb to wait for a sedan chair, in which reclined a voluptuous woman dressed in an almost transparent dress, her bare chest and upper arms glittering with jewels.

  ‘That’s the King’s actress,’ Lotte whispered to Dortchen. ‘She’s in the play tonight.’

  Frau Wild drew her shawl tighter about her shoulders and looked away. ‘What is the world coming to?’ she murmured.

  ‘Did you know,’ Jakob was saying to Herr von Arnim, ‘that Polish Jews believe that they can bring a figure made of mud to life if they speak the divine name over it? They call it a golem and use it as a servant in the house. Is that not fascinating?’

  ‘Indeed it is,’ Herr von Arnim said. ‘Is that what you’re working on now, Jakob? You must write an article on the subject and send it to me.’

  ‘I shall,’ Jakob replied, and went on to tell their visitor more of what he had discovered. Wilhelm walked beside them, listening quietly, his shoulders stooped with weariness.

  After a while, Herr von Arnim turned and asked, ‘What about you, Wilhelm – what have you been working on?’

  ‘Almost all my work in recent times has been a translation of old Danish heroic ballads,’ Wilhelm replied.

  ‘Ah, like those ones you sent me for the Journal for Hermits. They were magnificent.’

  ‘They have such poetic depth and grandeur, don’t they? I feel convinced that Herr von Goethe must have been inspired by them. The rhythm and sense of menace in “The Erl-King”, for example.’ He quoted, with one hand flung out dramatically,

  ‘“My son, why do you seek your face to hide?

  Father, cannot you see the Erl-King rides by our side?

  The Erl-King with his crown and train?

  My son, it’s just a wisp of rain.”’

  He sensed Dortchen’s gaze on him and smiled at her, but she could not smile back. Goosebumps had risen on her arms. She felt a cold shiver down her spine.

  The theatre was crowded. Women in pale satin gowns with sweeping trains moved past, jewels glittering on their bare necks and gloved arms. Men in white waistcoats and dark coats escorted them, their chins resting on high starched cravats. Above, great oil lamps were suspended from the roof, casting a golden radiance over the lobby. Dortchen had never seen any light so bright and steady.

  Frau Wild found the steps hard to climb, so Lotte and Dortchen fell behind the men as they climbed up to their box. Dortchen felt that her eyes were not large enough to take everything in. She heard the scrape of bows over violins and shivered with delight.

  At the top of the stairs, Achim, Wilhelm and Ferdinand were clustered around a small, slight figure in an extraordinary gown of heavy crimson velvet, with dramatic long sleeves. The gown was trimmed with black lace, and the woman wore a matching mantilla on her head. She looked like some exotic bloom – a crimson dahlia – among a meadow filled with common white cow’s parsley. All Dortchen’s pleasure in her dress was lost.

  ‘Is that Bettina?’ Lotte asked incredulously.

  ‘It is!’ Dortchen cried, as the girl in the crimson velvet turned her head of thick dark ringlets to reveal a small, pointed face, laughing above a fan of black Spanish lace.

  ‘I heard she was in Cassel,’ Lotte said. ‘Staying with her elder brother, who is now banker to the King.’

  Dortchen whispered in Lotte’s ear, ‘I wonder if that is why Herr von Arnim has come to visit you? I’m sure he’s in love with her.’

  ‘Well, then, I feel very sorry for him,’ Lotte said waspishly. At Dortchen’s look, she said, ‘I don’t mean to be unkind. You must admit she would not make a very good wife.’

  ‘She’d be an unusual one,’ Dortchen admitted. ‘But one is never bored when she’s around.’

  Bettina saw them approach and came forward with a few dancing steps, her crimson skirts swaying. ‘How good to see you. You both look so pretty. Dortchen, you’ve grown so tall I’ll get a crick in my neck looking up at you. Tell me, what do you think of my dress? Are you very shocked?’

  ‘It’s gorgeous,’ Dortchen said. ‘I’d love one just like it.’

  ‘It’s all the rage. The Maid of Zaragoza, you know. They call these long flowing sleeves à la Mameluke. It’d make Napoléon gnash his teeth to see me. He likes women to wear only white, you know. I wonder if his little brother is the same? Will he be here tonight? Shall I cause a great scandal? My sister-in-law tells me so.’ She inclined her head towards a rather sour-faced woman in a slim white dress with tiny puffed sleeves and diamond bracelets clasped above her elbows.

  ‘My brother is banker to the little King, you know,’ Bettina went on, in the same laughing fashion, making no effort at all to lower her voice. ‘She thinks it her duty to be as French as she possibly can. Hence the hideous dress. She’s far too old to wear white.’

  Her sister-in-law cast her a look of fury.

  ‘But come, join us. Wilhelm was just telling us about poor Augusta. He saw her, in Allendorf, you know. Apparently, she’s as mad as ever.’

  Wilhelm cast her a look of laughing reproof. ‘Bettina, I never said so. She was just … very dramatic. She wept and swooned when Clemens tried to leave her, and said she was sure they would never see each other again. Clemens had to run and jump the fence, for fear she would pursue him, wailing.’

  Everyone laughed – even Frau Wild, who did not know who they were talking about.

  Dortchen whispered to her quickly, ‘Augusta is married to Bettina’s brother Clemens, Mother. She is rather prone to melodramatics. Lotte thinks it won’t be long before they’re divorced.’

  ‘Shocking,’ Frau Wild said in a faint voice.

  ‘You know Clemens wrote to me to join him in Allendorf, so I could meet the Mannels, the family with whom Augusta is staying?’ Wilhelm said to Bettina, his eyes bright with fervour. ‘He thought Friederike, the daughter there, could give me some stories for our collection. She was a very pleasant girl.’

  ‘Friederike gave us quite a few songs for The Boy’s Wonder Horn,’ Herr von Arnim interjected. ‘A most respectable family. Her father’s a pastor, you know. They take in guests to try and raise a little money for her brothers’ education. It’s not a good time to be in the Church.’

  ‘No, not at all,’ Frau Wild said politely. ‘Very sad.’

  ‘I think she can help us,’ Wilhelm said eagerly. ‘She’s promised to ask around and transcribe any old stories she can find.’

  ‘That’s wonderful news,’ Bettina
said warmly. ‘Come on, admit it, you made her fall in love with you, Wilhelm.’

  He flushed. ‘Not at all. She’s engaged to be married. I simply told her we’re trying to save something of the true German folk spirit, and she was enthused with the importance of the task.’

  ‘I’m sure she must be half in love with you,’ Bettina teased. She looked towards Lotte and Dortchen for support, and his sister joined in teasing him. Dortchen stood stiffly by her mother’s side, trying to keep her face from betraying her. She was sure everyone must guess the hot tumult of jealousy, anguish and despair that gripped her at the thought of this ‘very pleasant girl’, Friederike.

  ‘Did you hear that Herr van Beethoven has been offered a post here in Cassel by the King?’ Lotte said to Bettina.

  ‘He won’t take it,’ Bettina said with authority. ‘Beethoven despises Napoléon for making himself emperor.’

  ‘Shh, Bettina,’ Herr von Arnim said. ‘Have some discretion.’

  Bettina just dimpled at him. ‘Do you not know Herr van Beethoven dedicated his Eroica symphony to Napoléon, but then when he heard the news that Napoléon had crowned himself, he crossed out the name with such vigour that he tore a hole in the sheet of music?’

  ‘How can you know such a thing?’ Lotte demanded.

  ‘Oh, I know,’ Bettina answered with utter certainty.

  Dortchen and Lotte could only gaze back at her, convinced.

  ‘I must tell you the funniest story about Herr van Beethoven,’ Bettina went on. ‘Did you know his younger brother was an apothecary?’

  ‘Like my father,’ Dortchen said in surprise.

  Bettina paid her no mind. ‘Well, his brother made a fortune selling drugs to the army and bought himself an estate. He wrote to tell his brother and signed himself most pretentiously “Johann van Beethoven, owner of land”. Herr van Beethoven responded by signing “Ludwig van Beethoven, owner of brains”.’

  Everybody laughed.

  A man in an ornately frogged coat and a white wig came out and began to ring a large brass bell. The crowd began to surge to their seats. ‘Jakob,’ Wilhelm called. His brother had been standing at the rail, his hands tucked under his coat-tails, observing the crowd. He turned at Wilhelm’s voice and came towards them, a frown on his face.