Adelsverein

by Celia Hayes

  “I have the use of a cart for your luggage,” Hansi said, exuberantly. “But there is no room for more than the girls. We should walk anyway; the way is short and there is much to see. Who was that who talked so serious with you, lad?” he added to Dolph.

  “Lawyer Maverick and his wife,” Dolph answered with a careless shrug. “They said they were old friends of Papa’s when he rode with Captain Hays’ Rangers.”

  “Indeed,” Magda sniffed. She glanced across the crowded square, where the man in the barouche and his lady still looked after Dolph, their heads close together as if they were speaking about him. “I think not. All of your Papa’s true friends came to the funeral—like Porfirio and Mr. Meusebach. Let us be away, Hansi—the girls are tired after today.”

  “He was a decent old stick,” Dolph protested mildly. “I think after a bit he rather had me mixed up with Papa. He kept saying I ought to settle into a profession, and did he want Mary—Mrs. Maverick—to take me in hand and find a nice girl to marry?”

  “I have only a day to spend here,” Hansi interrupted good-naturedly. “Here, little one, ride on my shoulder, hey?” He lifted Lottie onto his shoulders and took Magda’s elbow with the other hand. “Fredi and young Vining have gone ahead with the cattle herd and Dolph and I, we have two loads of hides. Oh, the stink of them! You would not find it endurable, all the way to the coast. So we shall depart in the morning, and in four days you should follow us by stage.”

  Anna bubbled over with excitement as she took Dolph’s formally proffered arm. “Four days! Will that be enough time? We shall need to see all the shops and consult with Mr. Guenther.”

  “He is a sharp fellow.” Hansi lifted their bags into a small cart, and nodded to the man who drove it. “He saw all the possibilities here, after he moved from Live Oak; a mill and a fine big house for his family. He introduced me to many men of business! I have gotten more contracts from two days spent here than a month anywhere else. And the acquaintance of those I wish to do business with! Nothing like meeting face to face, to get an idea of true measure. Thank God that wretched war is over! In short order, all shall be as it was before—or nearly so,” he said as he looked sideways at Magda. With quiet sympathy he added, “Alas, much was lost that can never be replaced . . .but this venture! Such opportunities, as we never saw back in Albeck!”

  “What about these contracts?” Anna said, as suddenly alert as a farmyard hen when a hawk flew overhead. “You kept careful notes, I hope!”

  “Of course,” Hansi waved expansively and Lottie squealed as his rippling shoulders threatened to toss her off her perch. “Careful, Lottchen, that was Onkel’s nose!” he said as Lottie clutched at his head in fright. “Yes, I kept most careful notes, although we should go over them tonight, you, me and Guenther. What would I do without my careful secretary, then!”

  “I am sure I don’t know, Papa,” Anna sighed. Hansi grinned and led them away, striding energetically along the busy street, pointing out establishments here and there with many a tantalizing comment about what they had to offer, or firms they could possibly do business with. He had not wasted his time while in San Antonio or his long friendship with the Guenthers.

  “I am thinking, it also might serve to establish a presence here. San Antonio is at the center of matters to do with trade, you see—being at a crossroads; the old road between Nacogdoches and the west meets here with the trade route into Mexico—so Guenther and his business friends have advised me. He says we isolate ourselves too much in the hills.”

  Magda thought of the cool green valleys, the water tumbling over limestone falls, and the meadows of wildflowers; and compared that in her mind to the bustle and the dust of the city around them, the unfamiliar babble of Spanish and English talk all around them—and the strangers, the constant stream of strangers. But then, she told herself, there are constantly strangers in the shop. And if they were truly in business, they might have to consider living in a place that would help it prosper.

  She and Anna and the girls stayed for three days with the Guenthers. Their splendidly comfortable house was in the newest part of town, a neighborhood built on the banks of a placid clear river to the south of the settlement. It was a neighborhood of large and comfortable houses built by those German settlers who had done very well in various business enterprises.

  “They live as well as if they were still living in Germany,” she commented to Anna, on the day that they took the stage to the south. “But for nicer weather in the winter.”

  “They say in summer everyone swims in the river.” Anna looked at the gentle green meadows flashing past the state windows. “And the finest mansions have bathhouses at the bottom of their gardens, and in the evening everyone sips iced drinks and listens to music. There is always someone interesting come to town. I don’t think I would mind living here in the least, Auntie.”

  “There is music and there are interesting people in Friedrichsburg,” Magda pointed out chidingly.

  “Yes, but more of them and a greater variety here, Auntie!”

  The road to the south unreeled like a white ribbon before the coach-team. The countryside undulated gently and gradually flattened into an endless green meadow, as even as a tea tray, with cloud shadows drifting across it. They stayed a night in Victoria, which Magda recalled—from that first slow journey years before—had been a scattering of log huts and rambling walls of plastered Mexican mud-brick. Now it boasted many tall buildings of sawn wood planks, painted cheerful colors and trimmed in white wooden fretwork as delicate as lace.

  The next morning they set out again, accompanied in the coach by a pair of young men who vied with each other to be of chivalrous assistance to her and Anna. She took little note of them, thinking that it was probably Anna who held their interest.

  Hannah leaned dozing against her shoulder, and Lottie slept at her other side with her head in Magda’s lap. Her attention was drawn to the scenery outside, especially whenever the road veered close to the riverbank. She did not share with her niece or daughters, her reason for paying such close attention fearing to be thought a sentimental fool—and she could not in truth be entirely sure she would ever be able to recognize the place she was looking for. There must have been a million spots along the lower Guadalupe where the river made a gentle bend around willow thickets, where a clump of cypress trees dipped knobby knees into the water, where the birds made a cheerful racket and the setting sun painted slanted shadows on the meadows.

  “A green meadow by the river, with the birds singing all around,” said Anna suddenly.

  Magda, startled out of countenance, looked at her niece. “You remember,” she said with surprise. “You were very small at the time—I didn’t think you would.”

  “I remember the ship,” Anna answered calmly. “And the storm. You promised that we would sit by the river in a green field and watch ducklings and dogs and deer and never set foot on a ship again. And so we did, and it was a dream that came true.”

  “Do you remember playing with Fredi and Johann, by the river, and how they built a raft?” Magda’s lips felt suddenly dry, but not from dust. She moistened them with her tongue as Anna frowned, thoughtfully.

  “I actually don’t think so, Auntie. I have been told of it many times, about how the current carried the raft away and how Uncle Carl and Colonel Hays came at that moment and stopped you from going into the water and they rescued me, but I cannot really remember it for myself. It happened somewhere along here, did it not?”

  “Yes,” Magda answered.

  Anna gently squeezed her hand, properly gloved like a lady for traveling, and smiled. The elusive dimples she had inherited from her mother danced merrily in her cheeks. “Any man who rescued—oh, Lottie, for instance—and me from a raging river? I think I would fall in love at once and forever—and beyond!”

  “Oh dear,” Magda observed after a quiet glance across the coach at their traveling companions, who now appeared completely smitten, “I think those two may be terribly di
scouraged to hear that.”

  “You never know.” Anna lowered her eyes slyly and tilted her head so that the brim of her bonnet hid her face. “They might find such a challenge to be irresistible!”

  This time when they reached their destination, Indianola, Hansi met them immediately at the stage. He assisted Magda and her daughters down from the tiny metal step, while Dolph held up his hands for Anna and impishly kissed her cheek as she descended.

  “What was that for?” she asked suspiciously. Magda noted the fallen faces of the two men who had ridden with them from Victoria.

  Dolph laughed. “Oh, either to spare you the trouble of unwanted attentions, or your gentleman companions the pain of a snub! I haven’t decided.”

  “What? I do not have a chance to be the outraged Papa?” Hansi demanded, as the coach-driver and his assistant handed down their luggage.

  Anna said, laughing, “I will not put you to the trouble of attending to such little matters, Papa—not when you have important business affairs at hand!”

  “A nice sense of priorities,” Hansi proclaimed in approval, “but no talk of business, until we are settled. I have rooms for you at a hotel, a very nice comfortable one, too, with a private sitting room; nicer than Charley Nimitz’s, although I would not say so to his face. The Casimir House and it is quite splendid, with every modern convenience! We have a wonderful view of the bay from our rooms! Would you not agree, this place is much improved from the time we first came upon it?”

  Magda looked around, shaking her head in disbelief. “I would not have known it, except for the harbor.”

  She could scarcely credit that this busy portside town, full of trim wooden buildings with galleried balconies and raised sidewalks lining the street, could have sprung up on the selfsame spot where she, Vati, and Liesel had landed from the sloop Adeline. This place had been called Karlshaven then, named for the foolish Prince Solms who had been the first Verein commissioner in Texas.

  There had been nothing much but tents and brush arbors, a shoal of abandoned furniture rotting away among the salt-brush along the shore, an evil smell hanging over little clusters of huts where the Verein had unaccountably dumped thousands of immigrants on a desolate shore. Here they had found Rosalie, a nameless orphan scarcely old enough to walk, weeping by the bodies of her dead parents. They had mercifully stayed here only a few weeks, living in a cave hollowed out from a sandy bank, until Mr. Meusebach had come with a party of Verein soldiers and a great train of wagons (and Hansi with his two trusty carts brought from Albeck). They had taken the immigrants away, up to the limestone hills where they had made their home ever since.

  Its main avenue was the heart of Indianola, a promenade that stretched the length of town, parallel to the shoreline. In those places where there were gaps between buildings, and where the streets ran down to the strand, the sea was a constant presence. Grey-green, blue-green, or merely plain grey, a thousand silver sparks danced and glittered across the tops of a thousand incessantly moving little waves. The wind, when it blew from the sea, brought a constant salt and sea-weed smell and the mewing of gulls circling over the masts of ships that were moored against the docks. The entire town looked upon the sea. No place in it was very far from water; either the harbor or the rush-rimmed lagoon behind. The clamor in its streets never ceased, pausing only in the depths of the night.

  Hansi had rented them rooms with windows facing the sea. A constant breeze ruffled the long gauzy curtains hanging on either side. Anna and Magda set aside their bonnets, washed, and came to the private parlor. The room was strewn with a miscellany of merchants’ circulars in untidy stacks, crumpled newspapers, and dirty plates that had not moved from where Hansi and the boys had left them. Anna made a ‘tsk’ sound between her teeth and began to set things in order. Dolph and Hansi already had their heads bent over a new pile of correspondence.

  “Well, shall we be tedious and talk of business matters first?” Hansi asked. “Or wait until after dinner?”

  “Business is what we came here for,” Magda answered as Dolph pulled out chairs for her and for Anna. “Where are Fredi and Mr. Vining? Were they delayed upon the road?”

  “They are bringing a surprise for you,” Hansi said with a smug voice.

  Dolph sighed, in no mood to play games. “They were at the stock-buyers. They will be here presently. Mama, there is not good news as regards cattle prices.”

  “Bad?” Anna raised her eyebrows.

  Dolph nodded. “The wretched things abound, everywhere. We brought a herd of the fattest and best-conditioned beasts and barely got five dollars each—just about enough to cover expenses and a little over.”

  “Don’t look so discouraged, lad,” Hansi said kindly. “It is only that demand here has been met, and met several times over, leaving us with a veritable Alp of beef! Our only hope would be for someone to start a fashion for beef at every meal and every course—beef eggs, beef bacon, beef puddings and beef sweets.”

  “Onkel Fredi says there might be a market driving a herd north to Missouri,” Dolph mentioned, “but for the folk there being so feared of the cattle-fever. No farmer along the way that you must trail a herd will countenance passage of a herd of Texas cattle.”

  “What about California?” Hansi asked thoughtfully.

  Dolph shook his head. “Too long and dry. He’d not chance it the way the Indians are raiding again. He says there are easier means of killing yourself or going bust. Or both.”

  “Ah, well,” Hansi brightened, “at least I got a damn good price for the hides—well worth putting up with the smell, too. What with the year’s profits from the store, we can buy stock here for the next two years, if we feel so inclined. And thanks to Guenther’s friends in San Antonio, I have the assurance of contracts all this summer. So, on to cheerier business then! Where shall we go first tomorrow? Annchen, did you remember our lists?”

  Anna replied with brisk affection, “Of course, Papa. Auntie Magda has them in her valise.”

  Magda unsnapped the catches on the little leather valise that she carried everywhere when removed from all of the business-related necessities neatly arrayed in her little office behind the store.

  “That reminds me, Hansi,” Magda said, “you owe me a desk, a proper desk, mind you!”

  “So I do,” Hansi laughed. “Well, if you do not see anything that suits your fancy at Seeligson’s, then draw up something for Mr. Tatsch and have it made to order. Come along, my little nun—we’re planning our grand strategy! I have secured space in a warehouse and the use of stables and yard for our wagons, through the offices of one of our old friends! Do you remember Schmidt, who came no farther than here, declared himself finished with the Verein and all its works and ways, and built a house for himself? Took root like an oak tree, he did—and now he is as rich as one of the Firsts! We are invited to dine at his house tomorrow evening, by the way. Ah-ha, there’s Fredi and young Vining, at last! Sit, sit, sit! Everyone will have a task and a budget. The firm of Steinmetz, Becker and Richter is poised on the edge of great things!”

  There was something different. Magda could not see what it was at first, but she knew there was something. Hansi watched hers and Anna’s faces expectantly as Fredi and Peter lingered a moment in the doorway, then joined them around the table. Trail-dusty and in their plain work clothes—at first she thought that was it, for Hansi and her son were wearing more formal dark coats, proper for town and doing business. Peter set down a sheaf of newspapers on the parlor table. Fredi tugged Hannah’s plaits and ruffled Lottie’s fair head playfully, kissed Anna with the affection of a brother—which he all but was, due to the closeness of their ages and upbringing.

  “Well, what do you think?” he asked.

  “Of what? The market price of beeves?” Anna asked, much puzzled.

  “No, not that!” Fredi answered. “And it’s not to do with that, it’s something about . . . well, us.”

  Magda’s eyes went from her son—smiling triumphantly as if he had
just unveiled a grand surprise of a Christmas tree—to Fredi, who truth to tell looked about the same as always, only somewhat dirtier—and finally to Peter, who hung back with uncharacteristic bashfulness.

  She realized what the difference was in him, just as Anna exclaimed, “Oh, dear, Mr. Vining! There goes the cost of your shirts, again!” Peter laughed a hearty and uninhibited laugh as he held up his left arm. It appeared whole; the shirt-cuff was buttoned around his wrist, not turned back and pinned up. But that he wore a dark leather glove over his fingers, one would have thought his hand entirely restored.

  “Old Berg, with his gadgets!” Fredi exclaimed, not able to contain himself any longer. “You know how he has the gift for building what is needful? He came to help with the house, but first he went straight back to his workshop and whittled an arm for Peter!”

  Hansi sat back in his chair and slapped the table top, pleased with their reaction, and admiring the new arm all over again. “Now that does beat, does it not? I tell you, it looks nearly real! I could not tell the difference myself, at first! Isn’t Berg the clever chap?”

  “I can’t do conjuring tricks,” Peter said modestly, although he looked quite pleased. “The fingers are jointed, so they can be bent to hold any position, and there is a spring to hold the thumb closed against the first finger. I can set it to grip, as long as I don’t need to hold things too tight. And it looks . . .well, it looks so real that most people do not think anything of it.”