by Celia Hayes
“Auntie said I was being bad,” Dolph said, from behind his mother, “and that I should bring Porfirio out to the dancing.”
Porfirio bowed gallantly to them all. “I am to be a good example to the young Patrón, and show him how it is done,” he said. “You also should also be guided by your lady mother, who has the care of your household and long knowledge of your qualities when it comes to selecting the woman you would wish to honor with your name, your property and the upbringing of your sons.”
“Make Auntie Liesel happy,” Dolph answered with a careless wave toward the dancers. “Go and dance with someone. That waltz is finished but they’ll start up another in a minute.” He pulled a chair from another table and sat himself on it, backwards, with his arms and chin resting on the spindly back. “Don’t worry, I’ll watch from here.”
Peter sat back in his own chair, grinning under the drooping mustache that he still wore. “Oh, Cuz,” he drawled, “watching doesn’t get you anywhere!” He turned towards Magda, adding, “Ma’am? You must promise me, that when you have selected the proper matrimonial candidate among young ladies for my cousin here, please let me know, for I intend to tease and chaff and torment him until his life is a misery for love!”
“And why would I do that?” Magda asked, hugely amused.
“For his coldness and lack of sympathy for me, when I was tangled deep in the coils of unrequited and tragic affection—I owe him much for that!”
“You also owe me a dance, husband,” Anna remarked, and although her voice held the satiric edge of old, her eyes were soft with affection.
Peter laughed and rose from his chair, holding out his hands for her. “Dance with me then, my lady wife! Let us show our dear Cuz the fruits of connubial bliss!”
“Humph,” Hansi remarked as Peter and Anna went to the dance floor. “I’d have expected such of those two little bratlings of theirs, being afraid to set foot on the dance floor for fear of not having the nerve to speak to a pretty girl. But for a grown man to act that way!”
“Onkel Hansi?” Dolph said very sweetly and when Hansi looked at him, Dolph uttered one of Hansi’s favorite directional obscenities. Hansi roared with laughter while Magda thought, Honestly—men!
Meanwhile, almost unobserved, Porfirio had claimed the next dance with Hannah. Magda would not have noticed, but that her eyes followed Peter and Anna, their hands intertwined as they walked towards the dance, her hand curled so casually around his wooden one. She saw how, with loving and unobtrusive grace, Anna deftly bent the wooden joints of wrist and fingers, before he set it around her slender waist. They swung into a lively waltz, seemingly without a care, the tall man with the grace of a horseman and the tiny woman in rose-bud pink, the top of whose head scarce came up to the stick-pin in his fine cravat.
Her eyes were on the dancers and her grave and graceful daughter just beyond Anna and Peter, as Porfirio came up and bowed with such elaborate courtesy! It caught her eye, Hannah’s face with a look of happy welcome upon it. Porfirio was someone she was glad to see, a welcome partner in the dance. But as Magda realized upon closer look—not a suitor. Well thank God for that. He was easily twice her age, had tickled her feet as an infant, guided her staggering steps as a toddler, and was married besides. No, Porfirio was as much the indulgent and loving uncle as Hansi ever was. He held Hannah’s hand respectfully—the hand on her waist was as kindly and as devoid of courtly intent as an uncle’s or a brother’s would be. And they talked as they danced, Hannah asking something of him and he responding with careful courtesy—no, he was surprised by what she had asked, shocked even, although he hid it well.
“What are you watching?” Dolph asked with sober amusement. “The bride you would have picked out for me, according to Tito Porfirio’s instruction?”
“No, your sister,” Magda answered without thinking.
Her son’s gaze followed hers. “I am only glad that he is following Auntie Liesel’s instructions,” her son observed wryly, “with a demonstration and not an actual candidate for marriage. Marrying sisters and cousins is ill-advised and usually illegal, according to what I have been told.”
“The children of such usually turn out to be idiots,” Magda observed with austere authority.
Dolph laughed. “Like royalty and dogs bred too close,” he agreed. “Nice conversation for a wedding party, Mama!”
“You should consider Porfirio’s advice,” Magda stated. “He only says what your aunt has been deafening my ears about for the last five years.”
“Auntie Liesel has seen all of her children wed but Elias and Grete,” Dolph answered. “And she adores a party and wants the excuse to plan another. I don’t see the need of getting married just to satisfy Auntie Liesel’s social calendar. I’ll wed when I’ve met a nice girl who doesn’t mind dogs and cows—and not a minute before. Besides, it’s the bride’s family who has the biggest to-do over the wedding. If you follow her example, you should be pushing Hannah towards every eligible and well-led suitor there is at this ball.”
“There is a very ugly word used towards mothers who do such to their daughters,” Magda replied. “Your sister has such fine qualities; I do not need to hunt a husband for her. But you should—when this dance is done, ask her to dance. She should not be embarrassed by a lack of partners tonight.”
“Yes, do so,” Hansi interjected as he rose from the table. “It is a party; we should dance. As for me, I go in search of my own beloved wife. I think we should dance at least once, if I may tear her away from the demands of a hostess!”
“Good luck with that, Onkel,” Dolph said, with very real affection.
“My house, my party . . . I pay the bills, why not?” Hansi said. He rose from his chair with some difficulty. He had grown a little stouter with prosperity—and also had drunk more freely than usual. But he stepped up the stairs briskly enough and vanished into the house.
“Dolph,” Magda asked, as a sudden thought occurred to her, “do you know if your sister has any particular favorite among the young men who pay suit to her?”
Dolph frowned thoughtfully, as if this were the first time he had considered the idea. At last, he said, “From what I have observed, Mama, she does not seem to favor any one over another. And she does have admirers, just that they are not the flashy and reckless young sports. Mostly of an amiable and responsible sort, and of a temper complimentary to hers; she takes a mild enjoyment in their company, but nothing more. She is not like Marie,” and his voice dropped sadly, “or like Auntie Rosalie—with no eyes for anyone else in the room save that favored one. Anyone could tell, save for maybe a blind man or someone like Mr. Berg, who cares more for his mechanicals than any living human. When I take the next dance with her, Mama, I will ask her. No, I will not press her hard, I will merely ask as a brother. She will tell me, and if she will not, she will have told Sam. They were ever close.”
And with that, Magda was content, being not all that concerned in the first place. Hannah was no flighty and romantic girl, given to reckless impulse and unsuitable affections. Dearest Vati had never had worries on that score about Magda herself; Hansi had never entertained such fears regarding Anna.
Sometime after midnight, with the orchestra still playing cheerfully away, she thought to take Lottie back to the cottage. She tracked Lottie and Grete down in the little parlor, each of them picking unenthusiastically at a plate of cake. Both girls were drooping like cut flowers and Grete couldn’t stop yawning.
“Oh, Mama, please! We want to stay awake for breakfast at sunrise,” Lottie pleaded, but the shadows underneath her eyes looked like bruises. “We’re not the least bit tired, aren’t we, Grete?” she appealed to her almost-twin cousin, who stoically shook her head.
Magda easily saw through them. “No, Lottie, you are beyond tired. You are exhausted, both of you. You’re only fourteen, there’ll be parties enough and dancing until dawn when you’re older—especially if your aunt Liesel has anything to say about it! I’ll strike a bargain with you,
Lottchen; you may spend the night here, rather than come back to the cottage. That way, you may listen to the music for a little while—and if you lie down and sleep now, you may rise with the sun and attend the breakfast. Do we have a bargain?”
“Mama!” Lottie began to protest, but then her own face was split with an enormous yawn. Both she and Grete came, unresisting, when Magda led them upstairs. She helped them out of their outfits, those ruffled pink dresses that Liesel had taken such care over, and unpinned the circlets of silk rosebuds from their hair. She was quite sure that Lottie was half asleep even as she pulled the nightgown over her head. Grete certainly was; she crawled into bed as soon as she had divested herself of stays and petticoats, leaving them in a heap on the floor as if they were the discarded skin of a snake. Magda stayed long enough to comb out Lottie’s straight fair hair and braid it loosely for the night, thinking fondly how long it had been since she had done this for her child.
“Good night, my dears,” Magda added tenderly as Lottie pulled the light coverlet over herself. She stooped to pick up Grete’s petticoats, wondering if the girl’s carelessness of her clothing was something left over from her captivity, or merely that she had become accustomed to Liesel’s lady’s maid picking up after her. She draped the discarded clothing over the bedroom chair, blew out the lamp flame and went downstairs again.
“I’ve put the girls to bed, upstairs,” she told her sister when she found her. Liesel stifled a yawn herself, but her eyes still sparkled hectically. “Lottie insisted that they would awake early and come down for the dawn breakfast, but I doubt it. I doubt that even I will, Lise. I’m exhausted also. Would you and Hansi miss me if I take refuge in my own feather bed?”
“Of course not!” Liesel reached up and kissed her swiftly on her cheek, “You were so kind to oversee matters all this morning. I am not tired—I confess I went and rested in my room on occasion. And once,” she giggled knowingly; “I made Hansi come with me! I don’t think anyone noticed!”
No, thought Magda in resignation, only anyone in the next room, like your maid! Or anyone who saw you coming downstairs again with your dress all rumpled and Hansi five minutes later trying to saunter as if he had just gone out on the balcony to smoke. That act may very well have fooled me before I married—but it has not fooled me since! Out loud, she said, “I think if I had someone I loved to dance with, as we used to do for the Fourth of July dances, I would easily manage the night. I will tell Sam and Hannah and Dolph that I am going—and not to make much noise when they come to bed.”
That was the thing about widowhood, she thought to herself, slipping as unnoticed as a shadow around the edge of the dance floor—no one to dance with. This was one of those nights that she particularly missed the company of her husband. The Fourth of July dances in Friedrichsburg had always extended until dawn. She had loved to dance with him, a man all grace and power on horseback, and grace and assurance moving through the complicated steps of a schottische or a country-dance. She had loved the feel of his hands on hers, on her waist, and then afterwards . . . no, she wrenched her mind away from that, the memory of the little Sunday house on their own wedding night, and he as beautiful as a Greek statue, naked in the golden candle light. No, best not to think on that.
The little cottage had a small kitchen, with a new patent stove which heated water in a small reservoir built into it. The fire was burned down to coals, but the water was still hot. She took some and made herself a small bedtime tisane of chamomile and honey, then lay in bed and listened to the pleasantly distant sound of music, floating through the night air, until she fell asleep with the half-drunk cup of tisane at her elbow.
When she woke, the sky behind the filmy curtains was pale grey. The air was cool in a way that never lasted long after sunrise, once out of the high green hills. Her oldest son was shaking her elbow, his eyes shadowed with worry.
“Mama, where is Hannah gone?” he asked.
She sat up; she had fallen asleep with her wrapper still on. She clutched it around herself and answered, “Is she not here? In her room?”
“No, Mama—did she say anything to you last night?”
Magda clutched at her son’s hands, stabbed to her very heart with a sudden memory of the morning she’d looked down from Vati’s sickroom and saw John Hunter on a lathered horse, bringing the news to Hansi and his sons and nephews that Rosalie and the children had been taken.
“Not here!” she managed to say. “Not Indians, not here in the very heart of the city!”
“No, Mama, not Indians.” Dolph shook his head, but his face still looked grave, “We were partaking of breakfast, not fifteen minutes ago, she and I with Sam and Onkel Hansi. She finished and left us, saying she was going to come here and sleep for a few hours, then she would return and begin helping Auntie Liesel with sorting out the wedding gifts and receiving calls. You’d better get dressed, Mama—she came and changed out of her gown, but her bed is empty. Not even crumpled the counterpane.”
“Go tell your uncle,” Magda gasped, bringing her feet to the floor. A look into Hannah and Lottie’s bedroom was enough to convince of what her son said; the pink dress, the pretty dance slippers that matched it were all neatly put away. The circlet of pink silk rosebuds lay carelessly discarded on the dressing table, with a set of long gloves and an ivory fan which had been a Christmas present from Sam. Hannah had been carrying that fan at the dance, Magda recollected now. The bed had not been slept in, the coverlet still smooth, the fine linen pillow shams uncreased by the weight of a head.
Why would Hannah lie to her brother? Magda’s heart hammered in her throat. Why would she tell him she was going home to sleep, then change clothes and leave? Perhaps she had gone back to Hansi and Liesel’s?
“Go see if she went to the house,” she gasped to her son. “Perhaps she changed her mind, decided to go and begin with . . .” But she knew, as soon as the words were out of her mouth, that it was ridiculous. She and Hannah had been awake at the break of day on the day before, preparing for the wedding. Hannah would have been exhausted attending on the bride, then the wedding and dinner to follow, the ball and dancing all night through. Only a matter of urgency would have kept her from doing as she had told her brother that she would do—especially since Liesel would doubtless sleep the day away, not minding whether she had help with wedding presents and calls or not. There was a jangling wrongness about all of this; she could feel it in her bones. It was too much like the day when news was brought to them about Rosalie and the children, or much like the morning after the Hanging Band had visited the stone house with the bird and apple bough carved over the door, the morning when her husband’s body was brought home, lying bruised and already cold in the back of the Browns’ farm wagon.
She dressed hastily with trembling fingers, an old loose dress she used to garden in, not wanting to call for one of Liesel’s maids to do up her stays and button her into one of her fashionable black dresses. She thrust her feet into shoes, did up half the buttons, and snatched a shawl from her chest of drawers without looking at it. Ah, the certain freedom of being a widow and always wearing black; everything always matched. Dolph met her halfway across the lawn as she ran panting through the detritus of the ball, past the deserted dancing floor, the pavilion with its ornaments and flowers already hanging limp and discouraged, as if they knew their hour was long past.
“She did not come back to the house,” he reported. “Uncle Hansi has already looked. And he sent the maid to look again, but she’s nowhere to be found in the rooms she’s like to be; not in the bedrooms, not with the girls, and not in the parlor. He went to the stable to harness the trap himself, no time to wait on the coachman.”
As they came up the steps to the terrace, where they had sat and watched the dancers just a few hours before, Sam emerged from the dining room, yawning between bites of a piece of toast spread with butter and jam.
“’Morning, Mama,” he said cheerfully. “Sorry I didn’t make it back to the cottage, seem
ed easier to just make camp on Auntie Liesel’s parlor sofa. Now, that was a proper shindig—makes all the dime dance halls in Kansas seem awful pale, next to Auntie Liesel’s hospitality.” For the first time, he saw Magda’s haphazard dress and Dolph’s grim expression, and started up short. “Why, what’s the matter? Who died?”
“No one yet,” Dolph said. “Something’s happened. Where’s Hannah?”
With considerable difficulty, Sam appeared to either wake up or come down from his cloud of post-celebration elation.
“She left with Porfirio, about five minutes ago. Pulled up to the porte-cochere in his two-horse, she got in and off they went.” A bit of the good-morning cheer vanished from his face as Dolph swore viciously. “Look, there’s no need for talk like that, Dolph, not in front of Mama! This is Porfirio! It’s like thinking ill of Onkel Hansi or Captain Nimitz!”
“You didn’t see them dancing together last night.” Dolph’s face was cold, angry, like his father’s on those certain rare occasions when Magda had been reminded of what Carl Becker had been and seen, reminded anew of that soldier’s steel hidden under the gentle manner.
“No,” Magda cried, “you are wrong! There was nothing amorous in his address to her! They danced, but it was no more than a family friend dancing with a young daughter—it was if I had danced with Pastor Altmueller, dearest of Vati’s friends! Surely there was no ill in that, no intention as what you think! Nothing but proper familial affection! Surely, you cannot believe . . .” Magda choked on her own words, aghast that anyone—least of all her own son—would believe that Porfirio, who had buried her husband and sworn an oath of vengeance on his murderer, who had sent her money when her family was exiled, impoverished, and thrown on the charity of their true friends and Vati—No, this was too vile for belief, that he would seduce his Patrón’s oldest daughter.