Castle of the Wolf

by Sandra Schwab

  Cissy blinked.

  “A double entail?” Dorinda gave an artful little laugh, which did little to hide the scorn underneath. “How very curieux.”

  A worried frown creasing his smooth forehead, George leaned forward. “Surely there must be a mistake? I have never heard of this Wolfenbach before.” He turned to his sister. “Have you heard of it, Cis? Surely you cannot want a place we have never heard of?”

  Cissy blinked again, while Dorinda managed a shrill giggle that had even the stout Mr. Weatherby wincing. “Wolfenbach? As in the novel? So it must be a joke, I assume? A very étrange homme, your father, Hailstone, full of peculiar jokes like the double entail, pour exemple, n’est-ce pas?”

  Mr. Weatherby adjusted his glasses. “I assure you, my lord, my lady, Miss Fussell, that Wolfenbach does indeed exist, and that I here have the papers, drawn up in Miss Fussell’s name, to prove it. Miss Fussell?” He cleared his throat and lowered his head so he could peer over the rims of his spectacles at Cissy. “Would you like me to read out the accompanying letter?”

  “But…but…” George spread his arms wide, a picture of genuine puzzlement. “Where exactly is this place? Surely our father would not want my sister to own a place we have never heard of?”

  “Exactement.” Possessively, Dorinda settled her hand on George’s arm. “If there is another estate, it is only right and proper that it should go to dear Hailstone.”

  Mr. Weatherby looked on the couple and sighed, as if the continuous interruptions in the proceedings finally began to annoy him. “Wolfenbach is situated, quite nicely as I have been assured, in the Great Duchy of Baden. In the Black Forest, to be more precise. The letter, Miss Fussell?”

  Yet Dorinda was not yet finished. “The Noire Forêt?” She shuddered delicately and quite suddenly seemed to have lost interest in acquiring the property after all. “What an odious place! I have heard it is barely civilized. Whatever did your père think of, my dear Hailstone, to purchase a house somewhere like that in the first place?”

  Mr. Weatherby gave her a bland smile. “Then you should consider yourself lucky, my lady, that the castle has been deeded to your sister-in-law. Miss Fussell?” His kind, watery eyes turned to Cissy once more.

  A castle?

  Who would have thought that her father owned a castle in Baden? He had friends there, for sure, living somewhere near Freiburg, where, as he had told her, small, man-made streams ran through the streets and filled the town with their faint babbling. Each year her father had received a carefully wrapped and boxed bottle of kirsch from the Black Forest. On the cold days of autumn and winter, he had liked to put a glass of kirsch in his cocoa—“To warm my old bones,” as he had said. Yet her father had not been that old, or so it had seemed to her. Surely not old enough to die…

  “Miss Fussell?”

  Cissy shook her head to clear the cobwebs from her brain.

  A castle in the Black Forest.

  “The…” She forced herself to concentrate. It would not do to live in the past. If you lived in the immediate past, her father used to say, it was escape. But if you lived in ages long gone, then it was called studies. At the memory, she almost felt like smiling. Almost. “The letter.”

  “Yes, Miss Fussell.” She could hear concern in the lawyer’s voice. “Do you wish me to read it out aloud?”

  A castle in the Black Forest.

  For me?

  “To my only daughter, Miss Celia Fussell, I bequeath the estate of Wolfenbach…”—it seemed to Cissy as if she could hear her father’s voice, slightly rough and raspy with tobacco smoke—“under the conditions as explained in the letter enclosed.”

  What conditions?

  Cissy met the lawyer’s gaze. Worry had darkened his eyes. Did he know what the letter contained? She moistened her lips and shot a look at the piece of folded paper he held out to her. Suddenly, her mouth went dry. “If you would be so kind,” she managed.

  Mr. Weatherby nodded, then broke the wax seal. Carefully, he opened the letter and smoothed out the paper with long swipes of his hand. His eyes flitted over the page, darting back and forth as if caught in the web of her father’s spiky handwriting. After a moment, the lawyer cleared his throat delicately, adjusted his glasses once more, and looked up. “Lord Hailstone wrote this letter a few years prior to the existing will. The date given is the twenty-fourth of August, 1820.”

  “But…but…” Agitation made George splutter. “That’s your birthday, Cis!”

  Her twentieth birthday. The day she had resigned herself to the fate of being on the shelf forevermore. For a moment, the memory hurt. Even now. Even after all these years.

  “Why would Papa write such a letter on your birthday?” George sounded puzzled.

  “Très morbidé,” Dorinda commented, obviously piqued because so much attention was focused on her sister-in-law.

  Mr. Weatherby chose to ignore her remark. His eyes remained fixed on Cissy. “Miss Fussell? Do you wish me to continue?”

  She gave herself a mental shake and straightened her shoulders. “Of course.” Pleased, she noted how calm her voice sounded. As if nothing fazed her, not even the memory of that summer after her one and only season in London. Twenty years of age and no hopes for the future. How strange that it had not seemed to matter these past seven years. And how strange that it mattered now, more than ever.

  Cissy folded her hands in her lap to prevent them from shaking while she listened to the even voice of the lawyer reading out her father’s last wishes:

  “‘My dearest daughter, when I am no longer among the living and this comes into your hands, I would want you to know how much I have loved you. Indeed, you have brightened my days since the day you were born. Therefore, it particularly pains me that by that day’s twentieth return I have not been able to provide for you fittingly, as I strongly fear there will be no more chance for you to mingle with the rich and the wealthy in some fashionable town or other.’”

  Cissy blinked, surprised that her father had seen her situation, after all. But she did not want his guilt, had never wanted his guilt, for she, in turn, had understood the family’s economic situation.

  “How very touching this all is.” Dorinda sniffed. “Is this the reason, peut-être, for the double entail?”

  Mr. Weatherby paused and looked at the new Lady Hailstone as he would at a particularly nasty insect under a microscope. Suddenly, a thin smile lifted his lips. “I believe, my lady, my late client chose that later date in 1825 to rework some points of his will.” For a moment his eyes glittered, before he abruptly turned back to Cissy, his face blank once more. “Shall I continue?”

  Flabbergasted, she stared at their family solicitor. She could have sworn that for a moment something very much like malicious joy had lit his eyes. As if he held the new baroness in deep disdain. As if her father had indeed changed his will because of George’s wife. Cissy swallowed. “Please do.”

  “‘Several years ago, when I still could do my friends financial favors, I purchased a most beautiful castle in the midst of the Black Forest. I had intended to give it back to my very good friend Wolfenbach upon my death, yet now I give it to you as I am sure you will treasure it just as I did. A castle fit for a princess, a castle fit for my own daughter. And still, it might fall back into the hands of the Wolfenbachs, for I give it to you upon one condition: that if Wolfenbach’s son is still unwed you will give him your hand in marriage. Wolfenbach has always been the most decent of men, and I have no doubt that he raised his son to be an equally honorable man. Be happy, my dear. With deepest affection, your father.’”

  As he ended the letter, Mr. Weatherby carefully removed his spectacles and set them aside on the desk. “With this, I believe,”—his gaze settled warmly on Cissy—“he thought to secure you a suitable husband after all.”

  Chapter 2

  The tiled stove, a baroque monstrosity in white and gold, filled the sitting room with pleasant heat, while outside the wind howled around the snug little v
illa at the edge of the small town. Uneasily, Graf von Wolfenbach shifted on his worn armchair.

  “Trouble, my dear?” came the soft voice of his wife. Immediately, the knot of anxiety in the pit of his stomach eased. Strange how, even after all these years, her sweet voice affected him, calmed the worst anger or soothed the deepest despair. His little siren, he had called her since the earliest days of their courtship so many years ago. In another lifetime, or so it seemed.

  He looked up from the letter he had been reading to where she sat at the window, which overlooked the prosperous valley all the way to the dark sweep of the hills beyond. She dyed her hair black—in order to please him, he knew. Yet even with gray hair, white hair, with no hair at all, she would have been the most beautiful woman to him. The only one he had ever loved. The only one who had ever gifted him with children, fine sons, so a part of themselves would live on. He had always hoped the kind of love he and his wife shared would blossom for his sons, too. Yet it seemed as if that was not going to be.

  “Ferdl?” A faint line appeared between her brows, and she put her embroidery aside. Her tone and the fact she had used her pet name for him betrayed her worry.

  “It’s nothing,” he hastened to reassure her. “I …” He took his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose. At her sound of distress, he smiled apologetically. “I am sorry, Anna. It’s just… I have just received news that my dear friend Hailstone passed away last month.”

  “Oh, my dear.” She rose and hurried to his side, her movements slowed by aged bones and muscles. And yet, when he rested his head against her soft breasts and her hand tenderly stroked what was left of his hair, it seemed as if the years slipped away. And like the first time he had found this heavenly place God had created for him on earth, a warm flood of gratitude and well-being filled his body.

  His hand slipped around her waist, while he turned to rest his forehead against the warm flesh of her upper chest. He inhaled her familiar scent, letting it take the sharp edge off his grief. “Do you remember the provisions of the will?” he murmured against her skin.

  Her hand on his hair momentarily stilled. She cupped his skull, and he felt the subtle pressure of her fingers. “The mad scheme the two of you cooked up all those years ago? Oh dear.” Her fingers relaxed. Her hand glided down to rest on his neck in an oddly protective gesture. “He will not like it. He will not like it at all.”

  And in accord, both of them turned to look out the window to the hill where the castle nestled amidst the dark trees, the crumbling tower to them a symbol of dying hope and shattered dreams.

  ~*~

  “I still don’t think this is a wise idea.”

  Instead of answering, Cissy carefully wrapped one of her tea dresses around her copy of the Lyrical Ballads so the leather-bound volume would not come to harm in the travel chest during her journey. She had sent her maid away because the girl had kept blubbering into her big white hankie. That Evie accompany Cissy to Germany was out of the question—a journey to Newcastle would have been enough to make Evie perish on the spot. Yet the thought of losing her mistress seemed equally disconcerting for the poor thing. Well, I wouldn’t cherish the thought of working for Dorinda, either. Cissy sniffed.

  “Have you listened to me at all?” George asked.

  Cissy threw a look over her shoulder at her brother, who sat at her desk and looked mournful.

  “Dorinda and I, we would have been perfectly happy if you had decided to continue living at Badford Park. You know that, don’t you? We still would. You could still stay here and—”

  Her back to him, Cissy rolled her eyes. “We have been through this numerous times in the past three weeks. You will not persuade me, George.” She prodded her dress-wrapped book of poetry to find out if it needed more padding. Satisfied, she put it into the chest and reached for the next book and the next dress.

  “I cannot imagine what you want to do in Baden.” Wood creaked as George shifted on the chair. “There is nothing for you there.”

  There is nothing for me here. For a moment, Cissy had to close her eyes. Then she shook her head and busied herself with wrapping her book and putting it away. “I am going to have a castle.” Just imagine: a castle! Like a princess! She took up another tome.

  “And marry a man you have never seen in your life.” Suddenly George sounded aggressive. “How our dear father could have come up with such a harebrained scheme is quite beyond me, I swear!”

  Distracted, Cissy frowned and rubbed a thumb over a scratch in the blue leather cover of her book of German fairy tales, a present from her father for her nineteenth birthday. With her forefinger she traced the golden lettering: Kinder- und Hausmärchen gesammelt durch die Brüder Grimm. “Wolfenbach’s son will surely be already married and bouncing his little ones on his knee,” she murmured.

  “And if not?” George jumped up. Before she had time to react, he was at her side and wrenched her around, hands like iron bands on her shoulders. “What will you do then, Cis? You know nothing of… You cannot know what…” Hot color suffused his face.

  His vehemence surprised her, yet she managed a small shrug, even though his hands weighed her shoulders down. “You have heard what Papa wrote. That Wolfenbach is a decent man, and that Papa was convinced his son—”

  “For heaven’s sake, Cis!” George shouted. “A man might be the Archangel Michael personified, and yet his son might grow into a good-for-nothing! A…a rakehell.” His voice rose even more. “Dammit, Cis, this is not one of your blasted fairy tales!” He grabbed the book she still held in her hands and flung it across the room. With a dull thud, it hit the wall and fluttered to the floor, rustling like a bird with broken wings.

  For a moment, nobody spoke.

  Then another kind of hot color filled George’s face. “I beg your pardon.”

  “What for?” Her face expressionless, Cissy stared at her book. “For swearing or for ruining my book?” Slowly, she raised her eyes to his face, the same apple-cheeked face she had loved all her life. Now it seemed the face of a stranger.

  “I do apologize,” George said stiffly. “But still, just because Father left you a castle doesn’t mean that life has turned into a fairy tale. Life is not a fairy tale, Cis.”

  A harsh laugh escaped her. “And yet you want me to turn into Ashputtel?”

  “What?” A puzzled frown marred his smooth forehead.

  Of course he would not know. For a moment, she felt tempted to tell him: reduced to a servant in her father’s house, to sleep in the ashes of the hearth. Dorinda would love that.

  Cissy shook her head. “It’s nothing.” She brushed past him to retrieve her fallen book. “You will not change my mind in this,” she said, her back to him. She lifted the once beautiful book and tried to smooth the crumpled pages with the flat of her hand.

  “Cis…” he began.

  She looked up. Apple cheeks and soulful brown eyes, and yet the face of a stranger. “Go, George. And tomorrow I will go, too.”

  Another scratch in the blue leather, one corner bumped. No longer fine and new, but a relic from golden times never to be retrieved.

  The door closed with a click.

  She was alone.

  ~*~

  The next day, for the first time in weeks, the sun broke through the thick, gray clouds and tinted the world in his early-morning hue. Shades of orange and pink touched the trees, the grass and the house, and the road appeared to be strewn with gold. Jubilant birds rose up into the sky to greet the new day.

  Standing on the drive in front of the manor, Cissy took a deep breath to draw it all in—memories that were made of familiar sights and sounds, the smell of damp air that mingled with the rich scents wafting up from the kitchen where Cook was preparing breakfast.

  “M-miss?”

  Cissy looked around.

  Evie stood on the front steps, shuffling her feet and twisting her fingers in her apron. “M-m-m…” The maid snuffled. “M-mi-miss…yer b-b-b…” Her lower lip trembl
ed and then she burst into tears. “Oh, Miss Celia!” she wailed. “How can ye leave an’ go to ‘em barbarians?”

  Cissy sighed. “Evie—”

  “Oooh!” The girl sank down on the cold stone of the steps and buried her face in her apron. Big sobs wracked her plump little body, and the sounds she emitted reminded Cissy of the elephant she had seen at a Covent Garden pantomime all those years ago.

  “They are not exactly barbarians.” Cissy walked back to the front entrance and gently patted Evie’s bent shoulders. “Really, you shouldn’t take this so hard, my dear.”

  Raising her head from her now crumpled apron, Evie blinked up with bloodshot, redrimmed eyes. “Oh, miss…” She reached for Cissy’s hand. “Can ye not stay?” she whispered.

  “Oh, Evie.” Cissy sat down on the stairs next to her maid. “You know I cannot. I…” She looked down on their linked hands: Evie’s pink and plump, her own slender and almost white. “I have this one chance to be something more than mere Miss Celia Fussell, Lord Hailstone’s spinster sister.” She rubbed her thumb over the girl’s knuckles. “Just that one chance, Evie. I cannot forsake my father’s gift.”

  The maid sniffled. “I’ve always liked ye fine as ye are, miss.”

  Cissy felt a smile tug at her lips. The girl had a good heart. “And I thank you for it, Evie.” She looked up to meet the girl’s tear-filled gaze. “But being the baron’s spinster daughter was one thing. I could not stand being the baron’s spinster sister.”

  A large tear rolled down Evie’s cheek. “I understand, miss. It’s just tha’ I will miss ye so.”

  “My dear, sweet Evie.” Impulsively, Cissy gave her maid a hug. “I will miss you, too, you know.” She sighed. “I wish things would have been different…” Releasing the girl, she stared down the drive toward the street. On and on it went, a gravelly band through meadows and fields. Soon, it would take her away from all that was dear to her, would carry her far away into a new life.