Adelsverein

by Celia Hayes

  “Roasted acorns?” The Princess’ painted eyebrows arched in astonishment. “How extraordinary—you must tell me more, Madame Becker! Where did you spend those years? In the South, as it was? Was your husband away in the fighting or were you . . .” she hesitated and phrased it with careful delicacy, “already bereft of his company and affections?”

  “He was taken from us in the second year of the fighting,” Magda answered steadily, “and my children and I went to Friedrichsburg to live with my own father.” Much later in their acquaintance she would tell Irina the whole story, of the Hanging Band, of poor Trap Talmadge and J.P. Waldrip. But that first morning, she only spoke of the small things, the deprivations and how Liesel and the children had brought food to Hansi by stealth, how they had hidden him on Christmas Eve under the very nose of the provost marshal. Irina listened intently, exclaiming with deep interest or pity. Magda thought the maids, for all their attention on their mistress, listened also. The hour passed very quickly. At the end of it, Irina pressed Magda’s hand fondly in hers, and asked her to call again the next day at the same time. And so the habit was established, of rising early and accompanying Liesel to the spa-bath, then returning to Princess Cherkevsky’s rooms at mid-morning. Sometimes Grete and Lottie came with her, entranced by the darling little golden lion-dogs.

  Late in summer, Anna and Peter went on a Rhine excursion with their sons. When they returned, Hansi was afire with a restless intention to depart from Baden. He was bored, Magda perceived, bored with the amusements that Baden had to offer, ready to return to work. In this case, ready to go to England to survey and purchase blood-stock for the ranches. Peter and Dolph were also more than ready to go with him. This would be a project of months. They had thought of spending the winter and Christmas in Baden, assuming that Liesel would not countenance much travel or separation from her husband, but by fall she seemed much recovered, even daring to walk by herself outside in the Stephanienbad gardens.

  Princess Cherkevsky impulsively invited Magda to spend the winter with her in Italy. “The girls and your sister, of course,” she waved her hand airily. “I have a villa on Capri, with plenty of room for you all. Tell your buccaneer of a brother to come and spend Christmas in Italy.”

  “That is most generous of you,” Magda began, but Irina only waved her hand again.

  “Not generous, my dear, only to relieve my own boredom. I merely think of myself and how best to be amused! Christmas is supposed to be amusing, but it is usually only boring, unless there are children to take pleasure in their presents. And speaking of presents, it would please me to present you with one. Bella’s puppies are ready to be weaned, and your handsome young son suggested that I gift you with a pair. They make the dearest little pets, you know.”

  Magda winced, hoping that Irina did not see. “Not more than one—I don’t think I could endure the noise!” she pleaded and Irina laughed like a girl.

  “Very well, then. Your knees are in better condition than mine. Kneel down and see which one you would favor.” She patted Bella on her golden head, speaking soothing words as the little dog watched Magda with worried eyes.

  There were six puppies, lively squirming little balls of fur; four of them gold like their mother, one black, and one piebald white with brindle spots. That one seemed to be more sedate, not as excitable as the others. Magda put her fingers around the pup—it was heavier that it appeared, no fragile little handful of bones and fur. It looked at her with curious eyes, as she said, “This one, Irina.”

  “Very good,” Princess Cherkevsky nodded, regally. “That is a boy. Your son already brought a little collar and a bed and dish for you.”

  “You and he plotted behind my back,” Magda exclaimed. She sat back on her heels, with the puppy cradled in her lap. “I know he loves dogs, but this is not a dog, it is more like a mouse!” And thus did the pup receive its name.

  Lottie made much of it, of course. So did Liesel. Magda soon became accustomed to either carrying Mouse or having him sit quietly at her feet, intently watching her every move. He did not fuss much at being removed from his littermates or his mother. Eventually, Magda became quite attached to Mouse, and to his successors. Those little Pekinese dogs did indeed have the soul and heart of much larger dogs.

  Anna took the boys to England with Peter, Dolph and Hansi. “I would adore staying at a villa on Capri,” she said to Magda, “but I do not wish to be separated from Peter, or keep the boys with me and away from him. And anyway, Papa will need me to write letters and make all the suitable arrangements. You do understand, Auntie?”

  “I do,” Magda answered. “I would not have wanted to be apart from my husband for any length of time, or for any reason.”

  “You miss him dreadfully, still, don’t you Auntie?” Anna’s dark brown eyes were gentle with sympathy. “Now that I am acquainted with the married state, I find that I have a clearer understanding. Sometimes now, when I meditate on such a loss, I am amazed that you did not go insane with grief in the early months.”

  “I did, a little,” Magda answered. Her hands moved, absentmindedly petting Mouses’s head as he lay in her lap, snoring slightly, “until I came to realize that other women had the same grief, had suffered the same agonizing loss. And I had to see to the children, you know. One goes on living, Annchen. Go to England with Peter and the children—enjoy their company while you have it.”

  “Well, you and Mama should have fun,” Anna remarked. “Mama is over the moon with excitement—traveling to Italy with a Princess. She is truly much improved in her mind now, isn’t she, Auntie? I did not think that the water cure could have such good effect!”

  “They made her stop taking so many of those dreadful tonics,” Magda said, “which I think may have helped more than the baths. And with so many happy distractions, she has not had one of her crying fits for at least a month. This was an excellent stratagem of your father’s!”

  “And when we return in spring,” Anna brightened, “there will be the Centennial exhibition and all those celebrations. Papa has a mind to attend them.”

  “He does think to go home, eventually?” Magda asked with some anxiety and Anna laughed merrily.

  “Oh yes, laden with gifts and goods and all manner of marvelous things for his and Mama’s house. We will go home as we planned, Auntie!”

  “Good,” Magda said. In her heart she was beginning to think of home, the stone house in the valley of the Guadalupe, of swathes of spring wildflowers and the look of the sky, of endless depths of clear light blue sky during the day and the way it was gloriously strewn with brilliant stars at night. Here, the sky seemed a dimmer blue during the day, the night’s pageant not nearly so generous. Now that it was coming on to autumn, it was colder than she was accustomed to. Yes, Italy would be a good choice, now that Liesel was better.

  They departed a week later, their own belongings barely to be noticed among the cavalcade of the Princess’ luggage, servants and dogs. They traveled by sleeper coach, made up into luxurious little bedrooms at night. Lottie and Grete were glued to the windows all during the journey, marveling at the scenery, the mountains and lakes. Even Liesel took an interest. Princess Cherkevsky insisted on stopping over in Florence for several days, to show them the glories of that city, and again in Rome for the same. It seemed that cold winter followed them. Magda longed to fall asleep in a bed that didn’t constantly move.

  On a brilliant autumn morning, they took a steam ferry from Naples to the enchanted island, to Capri, where the Princess had her winter home. It proved to be a place of cliffs and grottos, and vine-hung pergolas, open to the soft sea breeze and a view of the blue Mediterranean, a place of narrow footpaths and stone staircases rather than roadways and sidewalks. Only a tiny fraction of it could be described as level ground; like swallows’ nests, all the buildings clung tightly to slopes that sometimes achieved nearly vertical, the windows of a house looking down on the mellow terracotta roof tiles of its next door neighbor. The Princess’ pocket-villa was do
wn a little side street by the main town square, the Piazzetta. Her house seemed hardly larger than the stone house that Berg had built on the Becker lands, but vertical rather than horizontal. Magda felt at home almost at once for that very reason. There was a tiny paved courtyard behind an iron gate that was a miracle of iron latticework, a miniscule garden with a fruit tree neatly pleached against a sunny wall. The Princess’ housekeeper had all in readiness for their arrival, beds made and lamps filled, everything scoured clean and vases filled with late wildflowers in every room.

  “We are cut off by storms, now and again,” Irina said comfortably. “But who would mind, when we have four strong walls and a sturdy roof? I have books enough, who would need a newspaper from the mainland? Of all my homes, this is the one I love the best. I know you think it plain . . . quite spartan by comparison, but there are so many interesting people here,” and her tilted eyes sparkled with lively interest, “so many of them artistic! Some of them a little strange, even. But never boring, my dear!”

  “I do not think anyone you have anything to do with could ever be boring, Irina,” Magda said affectionately.

  “You should not be bored, either,” Irina said. “When you take the little Mouse for a walk tomorrow, go to the café on the Piazzetta. Sit at a table which overlooks the Marina Grande and enjoy your coffee. They say that if you sit there long enough on a fair day you will see everyone you know on Capri.”

  “But I don’t know anyone on Capri but for you,” Magda protested.

  Irina waved her hand airily. “Oh, you will before the week is out. You were attending to your sister all summer—now you should have a little of your own amusement. I think you will enjoy meeting the people here. Most of them are terribly amusing and very original, not ordinary in the least.”

  In the morning she did as Irina said; she took Mouse, who bounced from excitement at the end of his leash, and walked up the tiny alley towards the Piazzetta. It seemed to hang in the air like a balcony, open on one side to a view of the sapphire blue Mediterranean and a vertical drop below, straight down to the stone jetties of the big harbor where they had arrived. Just coming up to mid-morning, with the sunshine ameliorating the chill, there were plenty of people at the spindly little tables set out at the edge of the Piazzetta. She took a place at an empty table, mesmerized by the view; the two ends of the island rose up like the pommel and cantle of a saddle, the village spilling over the comparatively level land in between. Of course, since most of the island was vertical cliff, level meant anything less precipitous than that.

  She asked the hovering waiter to bring her coffee and, daringly, an almond biscuit. Two gentlemen sat at the table next to her; they acknowledged her with a brief, polite nod. She thought they might be English; the older one had a heavy cane leaning against his chair. His companion was quite young, about Horrie’s age. They had a resemblance about the face, the same wiry build and lively blue eyes. Sunlight was spilling over the tops of the buildings, and the young one shifted his chair to avoid having it fall into his eyes. Mouse, peacefully curled up like a dropped muff at Magda’s feet, was startled awake at the scrape of his chair and began to bark shrilly. Magda picked him up, attempting to shush him into quiet, but from this higher vantage he perched with his forepaws on the table and barked even more loudly.

  “I am sorry,” Magda said to them in English. “My dog is … uncontrollable. I shall take him home.”

  “Worry not, Madame,” said the older gentleman, with humor and in the same language. “That is no dog, but rather a barking rat with long fur. My nephew and I will endure.”

  “Thank you.” Magda sat down again, still attempting to hush Mouse. He had calmed down, settling himself onto her lap, when the waiter brought her coffee and biscuit, which set him off again. Embarrassed, she bolted the coffee and put the biscuit in her reticule for later.

  The following morning she returned. This time Mouse behaved, sitting alertly at her feet, while she drank her coffee and enjoyed the achingly beautiful vista spread out before her. The old Englishman and his nephew were not there on that morning, but they were on the following day.

  On the fourth day, when she approached with Mouse, the old man struggled to his feet, removed his hat and sketched a bow.

  “Madame,” he said, “might you permit me the liberty of assuming that the roof, such as it is, constitutes a proper introduction, after three days? Colonel Roland St. John Bertrand, at your service—Rollie, to m’friends. M’nephew, the Honorable Sebastian Bertrand.”

  “Mrs. Carl Becker,” Magda allowed him to bow over her hand. “We are guests of Princess Cherkevsky for the winter.”

  “Ah, the lovely Irina—she was a pip in her day.” Colonel Bertrand’s face lit up. “Knew she had houseguests—no secrets on Capri, y’know. The bush telegraph had it that her guests were Americans, but you sound like a German. Rather like Her Majesty, matter of fact. Friend of mine got seconded as the Prince’s ADC, way back in the day, that’s how I came to be reminded of that.”

  Magda tried to explain, as the nephew shyly bowed over her hand, “We are—German, that is. We emigrated many years ago.”

  “If you would join us,” Colonel Bertrand urged her, gallantly pulling out a chair for her with a smile, “and your dear little rat-dog as well.”

  “Not a rat,” Magda said, “a Mouse. His name is Mouse.”

  “Is it, by Jove!” and Colonel Bertrand laughed cheerfully. While he gestured to the waiter, Magda wondered why he seemed so familiar, with his weather-burnt face and bright blue eyes. It came to her that he reminded her of Charley Nimitz; irrepressible Charley with his magic tricks and outgoing charm, who never met a person he didn’t like at once. They enjoyed their coffee and biscuits together and, when Magda took her leave, both of them rose and bowed again over her hand.

  “Tomorrow, my dear Madame Becker?” Colonel Bertrand rumbled. “Same time, same table?”

  “Of course,” Magda answered, surprising herself. The next day, she brought Lottie with her; she supposed afterwards that it was some kind of unspoken instinct and defense. Young Sebastian Bertrand blushed as deeply as a girl himself upon being presented to her, but Lottie soon had him laughing and chattering away, as any girl having the same easy familiarity with brothers and male cousins would know how to do.

  “Lovely gal,” Colonel Bertrand observed, across the table. “Put the lad right at ease. He’s a good lad, too. Family sent him to me—got thrown out of school. Doesn’t know what to do with himself. But he’s a good lad. He’ll come up with something.”

  “Do you have children, Colonel?” Magda asked. He seemed so very fatherly; affectionate yet realistic with his nephew. Oddly enough, that casual question put a shadow over his face.

  “I did, Madame Becker,” he answered at last. She thought his eyes had the bright appearance of tears subdued and unshed. “Two sons and a little daughter, just a babe she was. They and their mother, my dear Molly—her name was Mary, but we called her Molly—were taken by the cholera in ’56. All my little chickens and their dam!”

  “I am so sorry,” Magda said, in a rush of apology, horrified that she should have inadvertently trodden on a painful subject.

  “No, Madame Becker, for I came to see the loss of my dear ones in that year as a mercy. We were stationed at Cawnpore then and the very next year the pandies rebelled. Molly and the babes—if they had still been living!—would have gone into Wheeler’s encampment with all the other families. Their end would have been doubly, triply as agonizing. I was on detachment when word was sent to me that they had sickened. Came back long enough to see them buried, then back to the frontier. I was safe enough—had some dicey moments here and there. Would have given up my own existence to have seen them safe, though,” he added, with some little difficulty, as if he struggled with some deep and awful emotion.

  Magda confessed, “My own husband did so, to ensure my safety and that of our children.”

  “Stout fellow.” Colonel Bertrand seemed to have r
ecovered some of his cheerful spirit. “A proper officer, was he?”

  “A sergeant of Rangers,” Magda replied, “one of Jack Hays’ men. That is something to be reckoned with, where we live!”

  “Rightfully so, I daresay,” Colonel Bertrand answered with restored cheer. “Backbone of the Army, the sergeants are. What hey, I think they only let the officers go ahead of all in order to be shot at first. Couldn’t run the show without them, o’course. I’d not heard of the Rangers, or your Jack Hays, though—would that be like the Guides, maybe?”

  “Something like that,” Magda answered.

  Colonel Bertrand smiled, his whole face lighting up. “I wish you would tell me of that, Madame Becker—I always like to hear of mad adventure and daring in far places.”

  “I thought at first,” Lottie ventured, as she and her mother sat in the parlor, late at night during the fall of the plague year, “that you had fallen in love with him, or he with you. But it was not like that, was it, Mama? Dear lovely Auntie Irina told me that I should have no fear of that, that you only cared for each other as fond friends.”

  “So we did,” Magda answered. “I could not love another man as I loved your father, but Rollie became very dear to me.”

  “A regular beau,” Lottie nodded, “someone to escort you to parties and dances.”

  “More like walks and picnics,” Magda corrected her daughter, “or even just long evenings in Irina’s drawing room. He offered nothing more complicated than undemanding friendship.”

  “And laughter,” Lottie added. “He made you laugh. I think he rather cared for you in the same way. Sebastian has often reminded me of that time, saying that your company was good for his uncle, giving him an interest. Otherwise, he hibernated in the winter like a grouchy old bear.”

  “He was rather gruff, sometimes,” Magda allowed, “but always considerate, and he took such joy from the smallest things. Every day was an adventure; every walk to the Villa Jovis was a marvelous expedition! And he was one of those men who are in no doubt of their own qualities. Such men have the strength to be as tender and sentimental as women on occasion and feel no embarrassment over it. He took me to see the grotto, on one sunny day when the sea was calm. Such a beautiful, ethereal sight, but on our return the sea became rough and I caught the worst of it. I was wetted all through, but nothing would stop him from wrapping me in his own coat, and then insisting that the boatman give up his as well! I fretted all the way back to the villa that he might take harm from being so chilled, but he insisted that no harm would come to him. ‘I’m as tough as old boots, Maggie. I went all the way from Peshawar to Landi Kotal in m’shirtsleeves once and never took harm. Well, sniped at by a Shinwari deserter, but he missed clean. Rotten shot!’ That was all he said, but Irina had her cook make us both some sort of herb brew and drink it down as a sovereign preventative and remedy.”