Sophie and the Sibyl

by Patricia Duncker

  ‘I bid you goodnight.’

  She rustled away down the paths between the renegade box hedges, the dark triangle of her moving form becoming one with the deeper darkness of the autumn garden. Max stood, truly speechless at last, gasping in the sudden night cold, his white breath booming in the damp air. The pain of her departure hung round him like a shroud. He stared at the muted shapes of greening statues, withered roses and clever blocks of yew, subdued into twilight animals with raised heads. The fountain, now mute, lay damp and fetid, blackened with dead leaves. The distant door banged shut as she entered the house, and he beheld his heaven, empty of a god.

  END OF CHAPTER TWELVE

  END OF PART ONE

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  in which the Reader bears witness to various irrevocable steps taken by Characters we already know. Herr Klesmer and Miss Arrowpoint accompany the Singer.

  Meanwhile, Wolfgang and the Count von Hahn remained blissfully oblivious of the Stuttgart catastrophe, or even of the company’s presence at the victorious performance of The Flying Dutchman. But news of that event reached Berlin, where the evening, now described as ‘a riot’ from start to finish, made the headlines. Wagner and his music were blamed for everything. His dissolute tonalities spurred on his equally unbalanced followers to initiate skirmishes in the theatre, which spilled into the streets and led to drunken running battles far into the night. George Henry Lewes, the famous English scientist and distinguished biographer of Goethe, we are amazed to learn, took the side of Herr Klesmer, who directed the orchestra. Mr. Lewes was seen bleeding from the temple and wielding his shoe as a weapon in the battle for Wagner. But who could resist Herr Süßmann’s affecting performance as the doomed sailor, etc. etc. Wolfgang fired off an anxious letter to the Leweses, enquiring after their injuries, and hoping that Max had acquitted himself well in the fray that ensued. Should he send a telegram? The Count advised against this. After all, nobody was actually killed in the riot. And if any of our people were seriously hurt we would have heard from Max by now.

  And so those undaunted romantic conspirators, the Count and his Publisher, bent on engineering a satisfactory reconciliation between the estranged young lovers, and convinced that a discreet and gentle push would overcome all opposition, plunged into a campaign of unfortunate arrangements. The Count took the lead. Everything is decided! We’ll hold a smashing mid-season ball on New Year’s Eve. Sophie will come thundering back from the country, well before Christmas, and desperate to dance. Lots of handsome young fellows and some of the old guard to give us a bit of ballast. All our set from the Journal and any elderly female relatives we can winkle out from behind the ovens. Then the intelligence services can’t accuse us of organising a radical gathering. It’s a family celebration! What do you think, Wolfgang? Clever, eh?

  But the whole thing had to be scaled down to the size of the large drawing room in Wilhelmplatz. An early bout of cold, snowy weather and blizzard winds destroyed a tree and part of the roof on the garden side of the ballroom. The repairs, costly and slow, forced the Count to draw in his horns. A New Year’s party, intimate sort of thing, just fifty guests, lots of singing and music – Klesmer on the piano, of course – have you heard that he’s engaged to an English heiress, money not blood, I gather, and that the family won’t have it because he’s a Jew? Well, he may be very famous, but he’s still a Jew, and you can’t change that. Actually, I think he’s already married her. She was one of his pupils and a very gifted pianist. My dear, can you find out what her name was? We must invite the entire family. Then after supper and the midnight fireworks, that’s all in hand, I’ve got an expert Chinaman who knows how to put on a bit of a show, without setting fire to the summer house, we can roll back the carpets and pound these fine old boards. Now what do you say to that, Wolfgang old chap? The Count insisted on paying for everything, including Klesmer’s fee. After all, she’s our little girl, and we want the misunderstanding between her and Max cleared up as soon as we can. No point being young, in love, and miserable.

  Wolfgang, who had apparently never suffered from any of these things, agreed.

  Max slunk back to Berlin and rendered himself invisible in archaeological museums, archives and consultations with Professor Marek in the nether bowels of the university. He took no strong drink, deserted Hettie’s Keller and his old army comrades, rarely joined Wolfgang for dinner, and slept little. His steps could be heard, circling his father’s library like a caged vampire. This kind of behaviour tallied perfectly with that of a man who has been disappointed in love.

  But what has Sophie been doing all this time? She has taken up hunting and archery. She is even learning how to shoot and cuts a very fine figure before her elderly uncle, the retired colonel, and her father, the Count. Here she is, clad in Lincoln green, with a ruffled white shirt, the sleeves folded back, poised, turned sideways towards her target, her loaded pistol raised. Aim, relax, don’t tug at the trigger, squeeze, balance, Sophie, balance, even out your weight, don’t lean, steady now, – FIRE! Good heavens, the girl’s sliced his head off. The target was a paper pheasant taking off, coloured in by her younger sisters, stuck to a broomstick, lodged on top of a plinth. Admittedly the thing wasn’t actually moving, but Sophie’s accuracy unsettled both gentlemen. The shredded pheasant’s head could not be found.

  The New Year’s party plans blossomed and flowered despite the winter weather, and in mid-December the Count published an invitation programme: order of music on the front, supper menus on the back, with a list of the wines to accompany each course, and a special mention of the midnight fireworks.

  The household disagreed on the domestic arrangements.

  ‘We’ll perch the orchestra here, my love, on a small stage between the great folding doors.’

  ‘So everyone will have to troop out into the hall first, dearest, to seek out their supper. If you put the musicians at the other end the guests will just walk directly through the small salon.’

  ‘But what should we then do about the fireplace? I’ve ordered large logs and holly surrounding the portraits.’

  Julius Klesmer came round with his new wife, Miss Arrowpoint as was, to introduce her to the old Countess, who had sent a charming note of congratulations, wishing them every conceivable happiness. The Countess received the couple very graciously, tuning her excessive welcome to a higher pitch. She had never knowingly thought of Herr Klesmer as a Jew and did not intend to do so now. The Maestro inspected their rooms and fussed about the acoustics. Sophie gazed at Miss Arrowpoint, who bowed and smiled. Here was a plain, solid, amiable woman who had opposed her family in dramatically romantic terms and married for love. In fact, faced with an obstinacy equal to their own and a music tutor whose name was hardly ever out of the newspapers, the family had caved in and produced marriage contracts, dowry, trousseaus, carriages, a rural residence in Gloucestershire with stabling for eight and a town house in London, both free of mortgages. None of this figured in Sophie’s imagination. Miss Arrowpoint stood statuesque and proud, a heroine who had leaped o’er the traces of convention, and galloped free.

  ‘Will you help me prepare my ballad for the New Year’s concert?’ ventured Sophie, clutching her little sheaf of music. ‘Mother says you have a great talent.’

  ‘If I am worth anything at all on the piano,’ smiled the heiress, in flawless German, ‘it is thanks to Julius. He was, and is, my most exacting Professor of Music!’

  ‘Oh,’ gulped Sophie. Miss Arrowpoint instantly became even more glamorous and interesting. There she sat, plump and luminous on a silk sofa, her whole body diffused with satisfied love.

  I want to be as happy as she is, thought Sophie, and hatched a plan.

  The two women ordered their hot chocolate and fresh candles in the music room. Miss Arrowpoint worried about the proximity of the piano to the fire and pattered up and down the keys listening for heat-induced imperfections. Sophie cast off her shawls and stood, ferociously erect, before the mu
sic stand.

  ‘I want to sing this.’

  Miss Arrowpoint unfolded ‘The Ballad of Tam Lin’.

  ‘Ah.’

  She nodded at the music that accompanied the traditional Scottish Border ballad, collections of which were all the rage across the drawing rooms of Europe, and immediately wondered if it was quite suitable for an unmarried girl of eighteen to sing in mixed company. No doubt about it – Berlin society, unbuttoned, easy-going and more open to difference and debate than her usual provincial circles in England – would probably sit listening to a tale of maidenheads and seduction in the open air without batting an eyelid. Miss Arrowpoint gazed at the vivid young girl before her, who stood loosening her tight knitted jacket and taking a sequence of deep breaths.

  ‘I tried the Schubert arrangement. And I didn’t like it. The traditional one is really the best. I can vary the characters and make it more dramatic.’ Sophie had placed her bets and was going for bust.

  A ballad always tells a story. And the themes are usually tragic: unrequited love, betrayal, sudden death, murder, jealousy, revenge. Fairies and ghosts dispute the terrain with mortal souls. Evil often goes unpunished. Cunning and trickery win the day. This amoral world, lavish and enticing, lurks at our fingertips. ‘The Ballad of Tam Lin’ bears a dangerously accurate message, destined for the hearts of all maidens: women, beware women. At first this is not clear. Maidens are confronted with the usual threat of predatory, but in this case fatally enchanted, knights.

  Janet, our feisty and intrepid heroine, goes to Carterhaugh, where two rivers meet, although this secret, sacred place is expressly forbidden.

  ‘O I forbid you, maidens a’

  That wear gowd on your hair,

  To come or gae by Carterhaugh

  For young Tam Lin is there.’

  The price of passage demanded by the enchanted knight, should it still be yours to give up, is your maidenhead. Oh well, thought Miss Arrowpoint, feeling her way into the rippling introduction, if she sings it in Scottish dialect it may well be unintelligible to large parts of the company.

  Janet goes out alone to Carterhaugh, suggestively dressed, in other words, asking for it, and plucks a double rose. Tam Lin immediately appears and threatens her. She stands her ground. Her tone is defiant throughout.

  ‘Carterhaugh, it is my ain,

  My daddie gave it me;

  I’ll come and gang by Carterhaugh,

  And ask nae leave at thee.’

  Upon which he rapes her. Miss Arrowpoint remained fairly clear concerning the sequence of events, but wondered if Sophie had grasped the significance of raising her skirts a little ‘aboon her knee’. Janet returns to her father’s castle ‘as green as onie glass’. The ghostly knight has planted his seed in her womb. But, marvellous to relate, she faces down the court and declares her love for Tam Lin.

  ‘If that I gae wi child, Father,

  Mysel maun bear the blame;

  There’s neer a laird about your ha

  Shall get the bairn’s name.

  If my love were an earthly knight,

  As he’s an elfin grey,

  I wad na gie my ain true-love

  For nae lord that ye hae.’

  And off she goes to Carterhaugh to find out who her lover actually is. All is revealed. He is the grandson of Lord Roxborough, so far, so respectable, who came a cropper while out hunting and fell into the claws of the Queen of the Fairies. But his time in the lascivious glades of Fairyland is almost up. Sophie sang the knight’s voice with genuine tragic conviction. He is the Queen’s lover, but she is perfectly willing to hand him over to the Devil as her usual seven year’s due tithe to Hell, on the grounds that what makes him delicious to the Fairy Queen – I am so fair and full of flesh – will also appeal to the satanic underlord.

  ‘But the night is Halloween, lady,

  The morn is Hallowday;

  Then win me, win me, an ye will,

  For weel I wat ye may.

  Just at the mirk and midnight hour

  The fairy folk will ride,

  And they that wad their true-love win,

  At Miles Cross they maun bide.’

  Sophie fluffed the words while attempting to convey a scary atmosphere with a dramatic gesture. She had begun to perform to the empty music room. Miss Arrowpoint as was paused on a trill and suggested a return to the mirk and midnight hour.

  ‘I’ll have it by heart for the next rehearsal,’ cried Sophie. ‘I won’t have the music in front of me on the night. It’s too distracting. I want the audience to see me becoming one character after another.’

  Miss Arrowpoint found herself already very fond of this young woman and her unhesitating, strident innocence. Tam Lin rode past on the milk-white steed and Janet pulled him down. The magic is unleashed as Tam Lin writhes in the grip of the Fairy Queen’s power. He is translated into a lion, a bear, a serpent and a red-hot band of iron, a burning gleed! But Janet, alone at midnight on the crossroads, clings fast to the man she loves.

  ‘Again they’ll turn me in your arms

  To a red het gaud of airn;

  But hold me fast, and fear me not,

  I’ll do to you nae harm.

  And last they’ll turn me in your arms

  Into the burning gleed;

  Then throw me into well water,

  O throw me in wi speed.

  And then I’ll be your ain true-love,

  I’ll turn a naked knight;

  Then cover me wi your green mantle,

  And cover me out o’ sight.’

  Victory! The tables are turned on the Fairy Queen, for she has lost the most handsome knight in all her train of mortals held in thrall. For the story doesn’t end with the lovers, rejoicing in one another’s arms. Sophie turned upon Miss Arrowpoint, her eyes ablaze. She is transformed into her arch enemy, the older magic woman, the wise Queen of Shadows, who consumes men, any man, but preferably beautiful young men, at her pleasure.

  ‘Out then spak the Queen o’ Fairies,

  Out of a bush o’ broom:

  Them that has gotten young Tam Lin

  Has gotten a stately groom.’

  The accompaniment really does remind me of the ‘Erl-King’, thought Miss Arrowpoint, as she exploded, arresting, sinister, into the major key.

  ‘Out then spak the Queen o’ Fairies,

  And an angry woman was she:’

  Chin up, Sophie! Chest out! Breathe! This is the best bit. Fling it in their faces, no holds barred. Become the Queen. That’s it! That’s it!

  ‘Shame betide her ill-far’d face,

  And an ill death may she die,

  For she’s taen awa the boniest knight

  In a’ my companie.’

  Sophie drew her breath from her very bowels for the last verse.

  ‘Had I known, had I known, Tam Lin,

  That I would lose thee,

  I would have taken out your heart,

  And put in a heart of stone!’

  For the heart is the rapacious betrayer. Tam Lin spent seven years in the Queen’s train, wreaking her evil vengeance on mortal women. Tam Lin, the rapist and the seducer, bound to this task until he saw the maiden in the green mantle, who risked her life to save her lover, the father of her son. His human heart secured his salvation. Had I known, had I known, Tam Lin – all the ferocious menace of the older woman, tricked and abandoned, surged forth from Sophie. She played both parts with equal conviction: the courageous maiden in the green mantle and the ancient witch with her white face of damnation. Miss Arrowpoint slammed out the triumphant conclusion.

  ‘Bravo, Sophie,’ she exclaimed, and burst into solo applause. Sophie, pink with effort and relief, surged round the piano in a flurry of lace and kissed the English lady with passionate gratitude. The applause continued in the doorway.

  ‘My dear,’ exclaimed Julius Klesmer, ‘what follies are you tempting the Countess to commit? And who has chosen this seditious little ballad? Charming, and very dramatic. But it will not
do. Not yet. We will go over the whole thing again. From the beginning.’ Klesmer gently moved his wife further down the settle and commandeered the piano.

  When the invitation to the New Year’s ball, addressed to both Duncker brothers, arrived in the Jägerstraße, Wolfgang found himself able to pretend that while of course he was aware that a ball, party, or entertainment, something of that sort, was in the offing at the von Hahns’, he had taken no part in any kind of romantic-reparation conspiracy. Holding the card at arm’s length he nerved himself up to play the responsible older brother. The scene took place at breakfast. Max, his face pinched and his hair in need of scissors, nibbled his toast, expressionless.

  ‘I’ll reply for us both, shall I?’

  Max grunted.

  ‘They’ll be very offended if you don’t go, Max.’

  Max shrugged.

  ‘The Count is not only our father’s oldest friend; he’s our best-selling author. Right up there alongside Mrs. Lewes.’

  Max swallowed his coffee and looked straight through Wolfgang, as if he hadn’t spoken. Wolfgang felt his blood pressure beginning to rise.

  ‘Look, Max, I have no idea what has happened between you and the von Hahn girl, but I can see that something has discomposed you entirely. Ever since you came back from Stuttgart you’ve been a bear in the house. I’m not prying into your personal affairs. I can see you’re upset and I’ve left you to it. But you can’t live like St Jerome for ever. People are asking for you. And damn it, I miss your company. Come on, old chap. Chin up. You can put things right. ‘

  Max studied the empty coffee cup and said nothing. Wolfgang decided to take the risk and confront his brother directly.