Sophie and the Sibyl

by Patricia Duncker

  ‘I’ll let them loose in the meadows this morning and ride her tomorrow. I have to get a wider side saddle that fits. Herr Halmers keeps his horses shut up in boxes. But they are like us. They need to gallop and roll in the sunshine.’

  Max concluded that Sophie would hate to be shut up in crinolines and drawing rooms. What could he offer this Daughter of Artemis? A wave of doubt almost drowned his restored confidence. He acknowledged himself a man of hesitations, while Sophie glowed with decisiveness. Here she stood, gloating over the magnificent bay and her foal, stroking their black manes and surging shoulders as they danced about her, the mare nuzzling Sophie’s fingers, eagerly pulling on the rope, their breaths generating huge gusts of steam. The groom threw open the gates and Sophie slipped the rope from the mare’s halter, turning her loose. The two horses, freed at last, raised their heads high, and clattered forth into the meadows, their excitement palpable with every stride. They felt the soft earth beneath them and shuddered. And then they were galloping, tails raised like streaming flags, calling to each other, away down the slopes to the river, a straight trail charted their course through the damp grass, their dark forms sharp against the silver of the willows.

  Sophie swung on the gates, crying out with excitement.

  ‘Look, Max! Look at my horses. Even I – and I chose them – hadn’t thought they were so beautiful.’

  Her green eyes filled with tears and she snatched at his shoulder for balance with her gloved hand. This utter abandonment to the moment enchanted Max. The girl galloped with her horses, unaware of his presence, lost in the glamour of their excitement, power and joy. He stood beside her, steadying the gate.

  ‘Wouldn’t your father have bought them for you?’ The Count granted his daughter’s every wish, like an elderly djinn in a lamp.

  ‘Oh yes, but then they wouldn’t have been mine. Really mine. And I wanted them so much. And I thought I had to get the money from somewhere. Then I saw women playing in the Spielsaal. And the idea came to me. I could win what I needed at the tables.’

  ‘But what if you had lost all your savings?’ Max prompted carefully; the origins of her original stake remained her secret, and his.

  ‘I won. And I’ll win again,’ retorted Sophie, jumping off the gate. Her spurs rattled on the cobbles.

  Max strolled back into town, wondering if his smart coat smelt of horse and needed to be brushed. He promised himself an emergency dose of cologne when he reached the hotel. His last glimpse of Sophie, disappearing at a brisk, dusty trot down the lanes, filled him with determination. He would court her, win her, earn her confidence, and deserve her love. He wished to see her always, coming towards him, her green eyes filled with the same passion that had possessed her when she beheld her horses. Max saw something tangible and precious in her face, and he wanted that ardour for himself. No man could ever desire a more potent reward – that love poured out unmeasured, profligate. But first he must persuade her, and himself, that he was a serious man, capable of genuine scholarship and distinguished achievements. He settled in the hotel library to peruse the most recent issues of the Edinburgh Review.

  He was dozing comfortably over an article on natural history in a quiet armchair by the window, when he received a note from the Sibyl, delivered in hushed tones.

  My Dear Max

  Thank you for your kind enquiry. My husband is much recovered this morning, but we have consulted Dr. Schöngraben who has advised a mild water treatment in addition to the mineral tonics we are both already taking. We have every confidence in him, as he was a pupil of the famous Dr. Gully at Malvern, who worked such wonders for Mr. Darwin some years ago, and whose treatments were not ineffective when we tried them in the past. Would you be so kind as to call upon us this evening? My husband is anxious to finalise the proposals for subsequent reprints and publications with your brother’s house.

  Affectionately

  M. E. Lewes

  PS. I trust there have been no difficult repercussions with our gambling belle, and that she has received our little packet. I confess I am eager to hear more of her adventures. She is a young lady who interests me greatly.

  Max decided to draw a veil over Sophie’s horse-trading. Her motives still appeared obscure, unintelligible. He could not understand her need to act independently of her father. The Count’s famous generosity overflowed; his household, family and friends lived brimful with comfort and riches in the wake of his excess. The hotel staff flung themselves into action whenever he appeared and fought over his gratuities. Had she so wished, Sophie von Hahn could have demanded an entire stable of racehorses. This complex doubleness in his fiancée-to-be troubled him greatly. Was she in fact a reckless, headstrong girl, capable of impatience, temper and deceit? Was her affectionate and docile obedience to her father merely a calculated performance? And were all those kisses and caresses a way of blinding the old gentleman to her real aims and purposes? And what on earth did she actually want? Most men think they want a wife with spirit. But the challenge, usually unacknowledged, is to break that spirit, and bend her will to his own, for the real issue, as Humpty Dumpty so eloquently put the case, is this: who is to be master?

  Max replied at once to the Sibyl’s message, adding that the package was received at breakfast with baffled embarrassment, but that Herr Wiener could rest assured that the matter would go no further. Privately, he doubted that the bumptious Mr. Lewes would be up to any robust discussion of figures and reprints after the fearsome ordeal of the water treatment. Hydrotherapy and its sister cure, thalassotherapy, commonly known as sea bathing, had both gained a terrific reputation, in the 1840s and ’50s, for miraculous improvements, no matter what the ailment; the Homburg cure followed the English model. Each patient was placed on a strict regime of copious vegetables, little meat and no alcohol, which purged the body of all noxious toxins. Then, a pattern of soaking and washing different parts of the body, to awaken sluggish organs within, would be prescribed, depending on the seriousness of the complaint. Lewes was diagnosed as ‘liverish’, and therefore wrapped in wet sheets for hours, then ‘sweated’ with a lamp under a blanket. But his nervous system was considered by the resourceful Schöngraben as too sensitive to be plunged under a douche. The douche consisted of a huge tank of icy water, suddenly released upon the patient from a great height. The resulting shock worked wonders apparently, both for the circulation and for anyone with a delicate digestion, and had been known to ease the suffering caused by dreadful, persistent vomiting.

  Max, like all young men blessed with good health, mistrusted all drugs and doctors, and put his faith in two things: eating less and going for walks. He was proved right about the water treatment. The unfortunate Mr. Lewes, flattened by the sweating and the wet sheets, proved quite incapable of receiving visitors that evening.

  Nothing for it then, but to scrub himself down and dress himself up, trim his fashionable moustache into points, wax his opulent curls, cram himself into a fresh white shirt, stiff-starched white collar and cuffs, a deep white waistcoat decorated with tiny gold studs, and determine, well beforehand, to ask the Countess Sophie von Hahn for the first dance. Max checked the visitors’ list at the hotel. There were no very dangerous virgins of his acquaintance, accompanied by their mothers, married sisters, cousins or aunts, lurking in Homburg, attempting to get the season off to a flirtatious start. Had the Countess von Hahn returned from her ride? Yes, the young lady, ensconced in her suite, had already sent down to the kitchen for copious refreshments. As the lamps came on in all the houses, the hotel braced itself for the evening’s festivities. Much rearrangement of furniture and decorating of tables went on during the day, and now came the time for lighting the gaseliers in all the hallways and down the main corridors. The ballroom, famed as a Prunkkammer, shimmering with gilt and mirrors, remained golden in candlelight, untouched by modernity, and, as yet, empty of music, satin slippers and leather soles. The parquet smelt strongly of beeswax.

  Years later, people in Homburg still r
ecalled that evening of celebration, which became known as the Architect’s Ball. Schloss Homburg vor der Höhe, once the residence of the ruling Landgraf von Hessen-Homburg, now belonged to Kaiser Wilhelm I, whose grandson Kaiser Wilhelm II became cheerfully known to the British at a later date as Kaiser Bill. He decided to make Schloss Homburg his regular summer residence, and after perusing various estimates and proposals, transformed the Königsflügel into luxurious modern living apartments, with English water closets discreetly hidden in cupboards. The town, already galvanised out of its medieval torpor by its position as a fashionable Kurort, now prepared itself for royal visits. Great expectations were entertained on all sides: fresh stables, horses, hunts, hotels, building projects, a new brewery, landscaped gardens, parks laid out in the English style, lakes dug, new housing, roads relaid, an extension of the gas streetlighting, clinics, quacks and haberdashery, dressmakers, jewellers, tailors from Berlin and full employment. Upholsterers from Frankfurt arrived in full cry; surely there would be an orgy of refurbishment, a great measuring for new curtains and a rising middle class, bellowing for fine porcelain?

  The extension of gas lighting in the town proved uncontroversial. The Kurverwaltung had already built a gas factory on the Frankfurt Landstraße near Gonzenheim; all the streets and squares glowed brightly at dusk and the Kurhaus sported gas lights in every room. Sophie von Hahn repeated her mother’s views on gas lighting. She wouldn’t have it in the house, because all the dirt she had been scraping from side to side over the years with the aid of the housemaids would suddenly become visible. The Count, all in favour of every modern development, no matter how outlandish, grunted, and folded his arms. All the English households took gas light for granted. Even in the kitchens.

  The Architect and the Baumeister from Darmstadt visited the Schloss, to draw up preparatory studies for the Kaiser’s state apartments. The Court comes to Homburg, and these fine, anticipated visitors will leave a trail of wealth in their wake, rich pickings for all, an earthly abundance of prosperity and happiness. The invitations arrived, printed on ivory cards. You are cordially invited by the Town Council to a formal dinner and a ball at the Grand Continental Hotel (Louisenstraße 12). But an undercurrent of anxious desperation simmered beneath these bright declarations of confidence. Spare the Spielsaal, wailed the Council, smelling disaster; but there was no reprieve for the gambling. The Großer Spielsaal would be closed by the end of the year. The town lived in terrible fear of the consequences. The number of visitors would probably halve in one season. The Architect’s Ball was a last-ditch attempt to salvage the town’s economy from the jaws of the oncoming Prussians.

  A select number of guests, Sophie and the Count included, attended the dinner, but invitations to the ball were less exclusive, and all manner of men and women sauntered through the doors of the Grand Continental. Several decorated doxies, unaccompanied, excessively rouged, skimmed past and made straight for the ladies’ dressing room. Max, lurking in the lobby, and hoping to apprehend Sophie, ran into an acquaintance; the artist arrived in acceptable, if slightly shabby clothes, curls tied well back, no hat.

  ‘Meyrick! How are the fairies?’

  ‘Capital!’

  They shook hands.

  Hans Meyrick looked startlingly young and scrubbed. Max noticed, disconcerted, that he appeared to know everyone who came through the doors. The painter stood in a little swirl of dead leaves, surrounded by happy smiles of greeting.

  ‘I’ve been very fortunate,’ confessed the artist, leaning against the very marble table upon which Sophie had banged down her gambling gains. ‘Mrs. Lewes has agreed to sit for me, but only for a series of portraits in chalks and silverpoint. Her husband does not consider her strong enough to endure the lengthy studio sittings necessary for a portrait in oils. Nevertheless, it’s an important commission and I shall do my best. However, the Count von Hahn is not at all satisfied with the photographs recently taken of his daughter. All of which, he says, fail to capture the dynamic energy of her glance. And so I am to paint her portrait, in her blue riding habit, with whip, boots and spurs visible, in a style that radiates her vivacity –’

  But at that moment the lady herself interrupted him. She pounded towards them, holding her skirts high above her dancing shoes. Sophie had discarded Fräulein Garstein in the dressing room and now stood her ground on the flagstones, fabulous in pale green, the controversial necklace at her throat, her hair dressed in a massive cascade of curls, a starched green waistband with large ribbons magnificent in her wake. She thrust her face up to Max, indignant with bottled rage and disappointment.

  ‘She is here, here in Homburg! The author of Middlemarch! You knew and you didn’t tell me. My spoken English and French are quite good enough for me to be introduced. I’ve read every word she’s ever written, and you haven’t. You must have been visiting her and you could have taken me with you. Mama’s silly prohibitions count for nothing when we’re not at home.’

  ‘Good evening, Countess,’ said Meyrick diplomatically, snatching up her hand and kissing her white-gloved fingers. The young lady nodded, but concentrated on her quarrel with Max.

  ‘Your mother may not be here, Sophie,’ he replied, with no intention of humouring this fresh outburst of folly, ‘but your father is. And he would not approve of you calling upon Mrs. Lewes if your mother did not wish it.’

  ‘Oh, you take their part against me!’ Sophie chewed her thumb through her glove. ‘Why should I care what is proper or not? And in any case, if any one of my actions was improper of course I should know, for I should feel no pleasure in doing it. Hans is going to take her likeness, you are able to call upon her every day and I am not even allowed to shake her hand, or to tell her what joy she brings to our house. Nothing could be more morally uplifting and improving than her books. They are proof of her nobility, and the greatness of her soul.’

  Max decided instantly that they proved nothing of the sort, but did not choose to take the argument in that direction. He did not think that the Sibyl needed defending on moral grounds, but he saw, quite clearly, that despite her avid consumption of the novels, Sophie and her beloved author occupied different worlds. He could not even imagine them sitting opposite one another. And he did not like to hear Mrs. Lewes discussed in a public place, as if she were common property. The moment of absolution in the forest haunted his unconscious mind. This writer moved in a sphere beyond the petty judgements of ordinary men and women. No words could contain the Sibyl. He had fallen under her spell.

  The great world surged past them, and some, who had witnessed the gambling belle in action at the tables, paused to enjoy the argument. The hotel manager, in charge of the ball, and clearly overtaken by the magnitude of events, had already settled the musicians, ready for the first set, and they were tuning up as the guests poured in. Max, Meyrick, and the explosive little Countess, still standing in the foyer, were objects of amusement and remark.

  An evil pause settled over all three. Meyrick gazed longingly in the direction of the ballroom. Sophie fingered her necklace, scanning the crowd. She’s watching out for him, thought Max, the man who redeemed her jewels. She is wearing the necklace as a signal. He squinted at her dance card, which dangled from her wrist, and saw to his alarm that several names were already entered in a cheerful scrawl. The orchestra, now perfectly audible above the turbulence in the hallway, contained both a trombone and a tuba. A bandstand thump could be heard from the far end of the ballroom.

  ‘I hope you’re not already engaged for every dance.’ Max tried to sound conciliatory.

  ‘Not quite.’ She glared at him for a moment, then suddenly relented and smiled broadly. She held out her hand. The full-length gloves covered her elbow, but above that her upper arms, soft, unmarked, vanished into the green lace of her sleeves, only to emerge again, her white shoulders rising to her naked throat, the jewels warm against her skin. Max had never seen so much of her uncovered. He caught his breath.

  ‘I’m sorry I shouted at you. It�
��s very rude. I’m just so frustrated. Mrs. Lewes seems so near to me and yet withheld – like a god, whose presence is everywhere, but never seen.’

  She looked at the dance card. ‘Good heavens, Hans. I’m engaged to dance with you!’

  Meyrick held out his arm to her and grinned apologetically at Max. ‘The Countess is doing me the honour of the first quadrille.’

  Sophie called over her shoulder, ‘Come and ask me in the refreshment interval. You used to be brilliant at the waltz. My dancing master, who was also yours, said you had real grace.’

  And away they went, the obsequious Meyrick bowing to right and left.

  Max realised that he could not enter the ballroom and avoid dancing. Too many young ladies wanted partners, and so, rather than risk incivility, he stepped outside into the dusk and the flare of the gas. All the hotels in the Louisenstraße gleamed in the dark, yet all the carriages and walkers headed fiercely through the windy damp towards the Grand Continental. The Architect’s Ball sucked everything towards it, a tornado with the dancing at the core. He stepped down one of the side streets into the dark, under the eaves of a large house with carved doors, and vanished.

  Max’s temperament, actually so far distant from that of the Countess von Hahn and her impetuous rapidity as to suggest an incompatible gulf, demanded time, not only to think, but also to feel. Max stood smoking in the dark, safely out of range of the hotel steps and the faint drizzle. He had imagined married life as a coronet of smiles, sexual convenience, and excellent domestic organisation. Children would appear from time to time, washed and diffident, respectfully addressing him as ‘Papa’. They would then be swept away to the nursery, awaiting a suitable moment to be reintroduced. Calm reigned throughout an orderly house, a port of still waters, and at the core, gardening, supervising, decorating and managing the kitchens, but above all smiling, stood the little Countess, her wonderful golden hair secured beneath a modest cap. This conventional fantasy, no sooner conjured up, was just as rapidly dismissed. A quite different Sophie von Hahn stood before him in his mind, her brows drawn together and her head thrown back. This apparition showed no signs of settled calm. Nor did obedience to her father and mother appear to figure very strongly in her moral landscape. In a mere two days Sophie von Hahn had undergone a startling metamorphosis. Max had never envisaged marrying a woman already so firmly wedded to her own opinions, still less one that proved more fortunate than he was at roulette.