The Lightstep

by John Dickinson

  Her eyes widened. She was astonished – astonished, and also angry. And still she did not understand, because she never could. She would imagine that she had offered him a courtesy, and the chance to start again as if that ugly scene in the library had never happened. Now he had flung it in her face.

  'Sir,' she said deliberately. 'I believe

  And then she hesitated, with her colour rising and her tongue lost for words. He glared at her, daring her to rebuke him. The thought niggled at him that perhaps he had gone too far. Perhaps he had. But he would not show it. And in a few moments, now, he would be leaving. He would take his hat, cloak, gloves and be gone; and he would never look back.

  'Sir,' she began again. 'I think it is the custom, in any house or place . . .'

  But she had to break off again, dropping her eyes and tightening her jaw in frustration. For with another plaintive cry of 'Maria' the caller from the corridors shambled in to join them.

  He was a young man, perhaps a few years older than either Albrecht or his sister, with the same fine face that Wéry was coming to associate with Adelsheim. He wore a fashionable coat of dark blue buttoned down to his waist, complemented by yellow trousers and a white open-necked shirt. Oblivious to the anger around him, he leaned on the mantelpiece. His face was a picture of woe.

  'She doesn't like me any more,' he said to the flames.

  His sister glanced up at him and sighed. 'She is upset, Franz,' she said. And looking at Wéry she added,'I believe we all are.'

  Surprised, Wéry swallowed. He managed a curt nod in reply. Then he remembered to rise to his feet, out of courtesy to the newcomer.

  The man's face had fallen further, as if he had just remembered why everyone was miserable today. 'I want to go riding,' he said.

  Riding? thought Wéry.

  'It will be dark soon, Franz,' said his sister.

  'But I want to go riding!' said the man, kicking at the fender.

  I want. I want. This must be Franz, the older brother, the heir to the Knight. And with his brother dead, and his mother in hysterics, he could do no more than march in on his sister and say I want, as if he were a child!

  Indeed, Wéry saw, he was very much a child, although in an adult's body. Like his father, he must be afflicted in his mind. Father has a good heart . . . Franz is a dear. Albrecht had never said that his family had an inherited condition. In all the words he had let fall, in all his dreamy fondness for his house and family, he had never spoken of this. And yet his brother was a poor, stupid fellow who at this moment could no more grasp the thoughts or feelings of those around him than – than . . .

  . . . than he himself, Michel Wéry, who was so wrapped in himself that he could be rude to a family that had lost its last sane son?

  The thought hit him so hard that he grunted aloud.

  'You should not ride in the dark,' the sister was saying. 'It is not safe. And the horses have been ridden today already. But – but why not go down to the stable anyway, and talk to them? They will like that, won't they?'

  Misery sat on Franz's face.

  'They will like to see you, Franz,' she said, coaxing.

  He frowned, and curled his lower lip. 'Can I go now?'

  'So long as the stable-boy is there with you. You know that, don't you?'

  'Yes,' said Franz. 'Yes. And can I have Dominus? Alba won't want him any more, will he?'

  'Oh Franz . . .'

  Dominus,Wéry realized, would be Albrecht's horse.

  'I'm – I'm sure you can, Franz. We'll speak to Mother when she is feeling better, shall we? Now do go and see they are all right.'

  'Yes, yes.'

  The heir of Adelsheim left at last. His feet clattered across the hall, suddenly eager at the thought of a new horse. He had never even looked at Wéry, standing beside him in the room.

  There was silence as Wéry lowered himself into his seat.

  'Lady Maria,' he said formally. 'I must beg your pardon. I have spoken very badly today. I – I do not know what is the matter with me.'

  (Dear God! What kind of man behaved as he had done when bringing news of a death to a house? He could scarcely have been more offensive – or more ridiculous – if he had started to sing the Marseillaise!)

  She sighed. 'You have hurt your hand,' she said.

  He looked down. He was still holding the handkerchief around it, pinning it into place with his thumb. A trickle of blood had escaped the inefficient bandage and run down one finger.

  'It is nothing,' he said, embarrassed.

  'You must show me.'

  He almost put his hand behind his back again. But after what had passed between them, he could not refuse. He held it out, and allowed her to remove the handkerchief. His skin throbbed and felt hot, and the touch of her fingers was cool as she turned his wrist gently to see what he had done.

  The bite-marks were plain. There was no disguising what they were.

  'Why did you do this?' she murmured.

  'I – was upset. As you said.'

  'With Mother?'

  'No. Well, yes. But also with myself, you see. I . . .'

  Someone was crossing the hall. She looked up.

  'Hans!' she called.

  The rat-faced servant, caught as he hurried from somewhere to somewhere else about the house, looked in through the door.

  'The gentleman has hurt himself,' she said. 'Please bring water and a clean bandage.'

  The man Hans hurried away to juggle this with whatever other errand he had been sent on.

  She released his hand. He grimaced. 'I am not normally this stupid,' he said.

  But she would have seen the other marks, the old white scars. She would know that it was not the first time.

  'What makes you so angry?'

  He gave a helpless gesture with his good hand. 'Many things.' He smiled, ruefully 'Your mother was right about that. It is a weakness I have.'

  He added, 'I was a revolutionary once,' as if that might explain something.

  'I have been told so. You are Captain Michel Wéry are you not? That was the name you gave at the door.'

  'Yes.'

  It was the first sign that any of them knew who he was.

  'My brother wrote so much about you. Yours is an exceptional story.'

  He nodded. Suddenly, he felt relieved – relieved that someone in this house had at last acknowledged his link with Albrecht, and therefore his right to have come to them. And triggered by his relief, he felt also an urge to explain himself. He wanted her to understand why he, a sane, thinking and compassionate man, could have been moved to behave as he had done in her home. If he could do that, he might also be relieved of his shame at the things he had said here.

  But she had not come to listen to him speak of himself.

  'What seems to me to have been most exceptional, Lady Maria,' he said, 'was the generosity of an Erzberg officer who made an enemy into a friend.'

  When she did not answer, he added, 'I may say that your brother saw fit to call me "Michel".'

  She nodded, slowly. But she did not answer, because at that moment the servant Hans reappeared with a bowl and rags. Wéry held out his hand to be cleaned and dressed. As he watched the little man fussing over his marks he was aware of the woman beside him.

  He was very strongly aware of her, sitting there, studying him with eyes that might have been her brother's. 'Hey, Michel! Have you ever looked at somebody? No, I mean, truly looked at them? Look at old crook Bannermann there, dishing out the schnapps ration. Go on, look your hardest. Tell me his past, his hopes, his fears, if you see them. And I'll tell you if I think you're right . . .'

  What did she see?

  An unlovely thing, surely: a story of so many failures that they might almost have been crimes. He winced inwardly. And he realized that he had committed yet another offence, even as he had tried to undo his earlier one. Of course no woman in her position could call him 'Michel', whether at the first meeting or at their fifty-first. It must always be 'sir' or 'Captain' o
r 'Count' or what-have-you. It must always be that polite, protected distance. Her brother had been free to condescend – free to step out of his aristocratic skin into that of a petty gentleman and revolutionary; free, even, to imagine himself as a fat and corrupt quartermaster's assistant, if the whim took him. For her, it would never be allowed.

  He risked a quick glance from the corner of his eye – quick, and away at once, as though his attention had never left the dressing of his hand.

  That was Albrecht's Maria, there: his sister, of whom he had spoken often. Strange! His stories had been of a mischievous childhood – of shared adventures, tree-climbing, stealing sweetmeats and smuggling hurt wild animals into the house. He had talked of a laughing, witty little sprite, who had stolen his spurs so that he could not be cruel to the horses. Wéry had never imagined this solemn figure, pitched abruptly into the world of full adulthood. He had never been told how she could address idiot brothers and rude strangers with a patience that neither deserved.

  Tell me her past, her hopes, her fears . . .

  He stole another glance. She was no longer watching him. She was waiting, with her eyes on the fire. So now he could look at her, spying on her from the corner of his eye, while keeping his chin pointed firmly at the servant who was dressing his hand.

  In profile her face had the same delicacy about the nose and eyes as those of her mother and brothers, although there was a slight heaviness to her jaw, he thought, that dulled the effect. She was taller than her mother by a head, but the muted colours she wore, in contrast to Lady Adelsheim's bold pinks, had made her almost invisible when he had first stepped into the library. Now that he looked more closely he saw that the dress was old, a little short for her, and the lace that trimmed the skirts and sleeves was tinged with yellow. An orange-gold ribbon drooped where the overdress joined across her breasts. Her skin was powdered, and so was her hair – piled and powdered as her mother's had been. At another time, Wéry thought, looking at her would have been pleasing enough – although he would also have liked to have seen her wearing the new classical styles of France, with her hair left its natural dark colour and done in ringlets.

  But before all that, she should have been happy.

  She was doomed from birth: doomed into her narrow degree, here in this house between that lightning-witted mother and her father and brother who had no wits at all. All her growing life she must have watched Adelsheim decay: debts and misfortunes, exacerbated by the tolls of war. Now, without warning, she was mourning a loved brother who should have lived. And the hopes of her house were in ruins around her, and she herself must be the last asset left: the marriageable daughter who could offer to her husband the Adelsheim pedigree – the full sixteen quarterings on the coat of arms, which would open so many doors among the exclusive aristocratic castes of the Empire. Wéry had an idea that her hand had already been claimed by some cousin.

  Perhaps marriage would change her life for the better. Who knew?

  The servant rose, and Wéry remembered to thank the little man as he departed. Now they could both look at one another. And now he saw, as if for the first time, the heaviness of shock in her eyes – the shock that he had brought to her. The white powder on her cheeks was still pure and unmarked. Soon, when the world would permit her privacy, it would be tracked with the tears she held inside her. He could do nothing for her, except to make her misery complete.

  'We had thought him safe,' she said.

  She sounded very tired.

  'The last we had from him was a letter that reached us only late last month, almost the same day as news of the peace. He said nothing was happening and that it was all very dull. Then he told us about driving pigs through a Cravatier officer's tent.'

  Wéry smiled grimly. 'Yes, he did. The Cravatiers were not pleased with us.'

  'Was it a duel, then?'

  'A duel? No.'

  How little they had grasped of what he had said to them!

  'It was the French,' he said. 'They crossed the Rhine the day after his letter was sent.'

  He drew breath. 'They were in great strength, and they had a new commander, Hoche. We suffered losses, and fell back. Albrecht was unhurt, then, because his battalion was not engaged. We joined the retreat towards Frankfurt.'

  (Retreat! How could he describe the chaos – the orders that came from the Imperial headquarters, urging them to do this, do that – and none of it either possible or meaningful? Some regiments refused to obey commands. Others were not supposed to be where they were, or, when you reached them, proved to be nothing but a handful of men with a banner. Officers shot at their own men, and men murdered their officers and left their bodies by the road.)

  'Hoche pressed us hard. We were very nearly trapped. We were at risk of being cut off and caught with the rest of the Imperial army. But the Erzberg commanders saw that if we could gain the crossings at Hersheim we would have a safe road home – for ourselves and maybe for the rest of the army too. So they changed route.'

  She was listening, but she did not look at him as he spoke. She had gone back to watching the embers as if she could follow there the last acts of her brother and his friends, as if she could see the small, massed columns, many-legged, marching into the fire.

  'The French reached the crossings first – only a battalion, with some guns, sent ahead of their main body to cut us off. But they were digging earthworks, and of course they could have been reinforced at any moment. Count Balcke-Horneswerden ordered the infantry to attack. They had to cross the open ground down to the banks, wade the river and climb the far side, with the enemy's cannon firing all the time. Some of the men lost their nerve and tried to shelter under the far bank. Albrecht rode into the water to encourage them. That was when he was struck – by canister, I think . . .'

  Now she stirred.

  'Canister?'

  'A case of musket-balls, about so big.' He made a round with his hands. 'It is fired from cannon at close range, to kill many people at once . . .'

  She was looking at his fingers, measuring their circle with her eye. He could see she was trying to imagine the weight of the shot. She was picturing how they might smash into a man's body. He saw her bite her lip.

  'You said – his servant also died,' she said.

  'I am sorry. Yes.'

  'We will have to tell his family how.'

  'It was shot from the same battery. He was trying to reach your brother.'

  'Then – my brother was still alive?'

  'The men he was rallying pulled him to the bank. They were able to bring him in when the enemy position was overrun. But – the surgeons could not help him.'

  There was no point in trying to explain the dilemmas of the surgeons, working into the night on whomever they thought they might save while more and more shattered men were laid around them.

  'Was he in much pain?'

  (Don't lie. It will hurt her worse if you lie, and she sees it.)

  'I fear he must have been. But it would not have been for long.'

  'Were you there?'

  'No.'

  She looked away.

  'I had been sent to the Imperial headquarters to inform them of what the Erzberg troops were doing,' he said. 'I did not return to the camp until that evening, carrying news of the armistice. When I heard he had been wounded, I went straight to the surgeons' tents. But he was already . . .'

  He broke off. She had put her hand to her mouth in a sudden gesture. Her lips had formed a silent 'Oh!' Her pale skin now seemed white in the gathering evening.

  Heavens! Was she about to faint?

  'Was it really that close?' she asked, in a voice that almost cracked. 'He need only have lived one more day?'

  'I fear that is true.'

  'So – it was needless, then! It should not have happened!'

  It should not have happened. That was true, of course. That was the devil of it. Wéry spread his hands, helplessly.

  'Our attack, or theirs?' he said. 'We all knew the negotiations ha
d started. But nothing might have come of it. And one side cannot stop fighting if the other does not.'

  She was not satisfied. Of course she was not . . .

  But once again they were interrupted. Once again he must climb to his feet. Standing in the doorway was a lady in middle age, with close brown hair and a dress rather duller and less elaborate than the girl at Wéry's side. She did not seem to be a servant – there was no air of officiousness or function about her – but there was a diffidence in the way she held herself which said that she was not a full member of the family either.

  'Anna!' exclaimed the girl.

  'Forgive me, my dear. She is asking for you again.'

  'Oh – dear Virgin!' Maria groaned.

  But in a moment she gripped the arms of her chair. 'Yes, of course,' she said. 'I will come. Anna, this is Captain Wéry. You remember, in Alba's letters. . . Captain, let me introduce to you Madame Anna Poppenstahl, who has been a lifelong friend and companion to my mother, and even more than that to my brothers and me.'

  Anna Poppenstahl, thought Wéry, bowing over the woman's hand. So this shy, plain creature was the beloved Anna, Albrecht's governess.

  And this was the woman who, all unknowing, had been the link of fate that had brought him to Erzberg: to Albrecht, to his commission, to his place in the struggle against France. 'My cousin was his governess,' Maximilian had said in the dusk of the ramparts of Mainz. 'She still lives in their house!

  She still did.

  'Madame,' he said. 'It is a sad day, and nothing will change that. Nevertheless, I am glad to have met you. I made the acquaintance of your cousins, the Jürichs, in Mainz some years ago. I owe them a debt of gratitude to this day.'

  Madame Poppenstahl's face was drawn, and her fingers worked together as she stood before them. She bobbed at his words, but did not answer him.

  'Maria,' she said anxiously. 'Please.'

  'Yes, yes. At once. Perhaps you would be so good as to remain with Captain Wéry until . . .'

  Wéry read the exchange of glances. The governess was distracted and unwilling: the shy product of a sheltered life. Strange captains, even ones who claimed the acquaintance of her cousins, were more than she knew how to deal with. And the daughter was also distracted, and yet felt herself to be in sole charge of the house. She was determined, even now, that their guest should be shown some courtesy.