by Celia Hayes
“Oh, you know, being presented at Court . . .all the balls and events and that. Mama insisted.”
“It was that awful?” Dolph asked, sympathetically.
Isobel made it sound like a prolonged round of torture. “Picture me, in a white dress with three plumes on my head, being brought into court, before her Majesty,” she explained. Dolph could; it was like imagining an ungainly young heifer being dressed up in a ball gown. He did not have to imagine the sneers and the sniggering behind raised hands. He had put up with a sufficiency of that over the last six months. Isobel continued with determined cheer, “I endured for imagining coming home and Fa’s promise of a horse of my own and being able to play with the dogs and go out among Fa’s tenants. It almost made up for Mama not being able to marry me off and have a grand society wedding at the end of it.”
Dolph couldn’t think of much to say to that save, “We don’t do much of that where I come from. I have two sisters and I can’t imagine my mother doing that to them.”
“How lucky!” Isobel sounded deeply envious. “Where is that—you must tell me more, Mr. Becker. It sounds like paradise!” The young groom led away the limping Thistle, leaving the two of them momentarily alone in the stableyard. Isobel smoothed back her hair again and brushed nervously at a patch of mud on her skirt, venturing as she did so, “You’ve been very kind. Fa was fearfully impressed—the dogs usually don’t take to people so readily. Quite honestly, they terrify most. He so wanted to speak to you, you should know—he had ever so many questions!”
“Your butler didn’t know that,” Dolph observed wryly and Isobel clapped her hand to her mouth, horrified.
“Oh! You went to the front door and Spencer sent . . . .”
“He said that servants and trade went around to the back,” Dolph answered.
To his horror, Isobel looked about to weep with embarrassment. “I am so sorry,” she blurted. “Sometimes I think Spencer takes more care for propriety and the honor of the house than we do. Certainly more than Fa or I do. I am so sorry,” she said again and Dolph regretted saying anything at all about his reception.
“Think nothing of it, Miss Isobel,” he said, taking her hand. “I didn’t—except for the inconvenience.” And he kissed her hand as elegantly as they did in Germany although Isobel’s hand wasn’t elegant at all; just capable, with sturdy, blunt fingers, slightly callused and fairly dirty. “Besides, I was promised another look at the dogs. Wolfhounds, your father said. I suppose they were used to hunt wolves with. Are there even wolves left in England?”
“Yes . . . and no,” Isobel colored. “They were once used so. They’re an ancient breed, nearly extinct. The dogs, I mean. The wolves are extinct. Fa adores them—the dogs, not the wolves! He and some of his friends are trying to revive the breed. I adore them because . . . .”
“Because dogs are trustier than most people you know?” Dolph ventured and Isobel cried, “Exactly! Oh, you should come and see Deirdre’s puppies—Deirdre’s the dam, you know. They all have Irish names.”
“Only logical,” Dolph observed. Isobel grasped his fingers in the hand that he had not let go of, and led him through another gate beyond the stable into a farther, smaller courtyard. This yard was swept and clean, but still smelled faintly of dog dung. A number of small ornate houses stood elevated on pilings a little distance from the ground. Isobel went to the nearest of them and knelt on the ground by the doorway, which was tall enough for a child to walk through without stooping.
“Deirdre,” she crooned, lovingly. There was a scrabbling sound within; the shaggy head of the wolfhound bitch emerged warily. “Come and pay your respects, dear pretty girl!” Deirdre emerged all at once; obviously reassured by the presence of one person that she knew, not terribly apprehensive of the one she did not. She licked Isobel’s face and came to sniff with immense dignity and care at Dolph, who went to one knee; dogs always seemed to be reassured by someone who took the trouble to approach on their level. The pups also emerged from the kennel-house, tumbling over each other in their eager curiosity; grey and brindle, sand-colored and brown.
“How old are they?” Dolph asked; being larger than any other breed that he had experience with, size was of no use in gauging age.
“Six months,” Isobel answered. “They really are not quite fully grown until over a year old. Fa says it’s because they are so clever. I do so like dogs!” She sighed happily. Incredibly, she had gathered Deirdre into her arms, as she sat with her legs curled under her, on the cobbles of the dog-kennel yard. The great ungainly wolfhound bitch curled lovingly into her lap, looking with adoration into Isobel’s face as if she were as dainty as one of Princess Cherkevsky cherished little pets. Poor Isobel, muddy, awkward and disheveled, devoted to dogs and horses. She belonged in this place, or at least the front aspect of it, as much as he did.
Dolph looked at her, as two of the pups engaged in playing tug-of-war with the sleeve of his coat. He cleared his throat and asked, “Miss Isobel, if I might ask—how well do you like cows?”
Her answer pleased him very much. Three days later, when he returned to London, wanting to tell Onkel Hansi of it and about her, his cousin Anna looked up from the floor of their living room suite. She was engaged in rolling clothes in layer upon layer of tissue paper, packing them into a steamer trunk. Like his mother, she did not like being fussed over by maids.
“Oh good,” she said. “You’ve returned just in time. We’re going home.”
“We are?” he asked, puzzled. “Not to Italy for Christmas?”
“No,” Anna shook her sleek head. “Papa received a telegram. My brother Willi is alive. He has been recovered from the Indians.”
Chapter Twenty-Two: Llano Estacada
“So we came home,” Lottie shook her head. “Our departure was so very abrupt, Mama. I confess I was most distraught, thinking I was deprived of Sebastian’s company forever—only eighteen months, but it seemed forever at the time! It meant so much to me. He had lingered in Capri quite purposefully, and not only to see to his uncle’s affairs and property. Auntie Liesel’s joy just seemed like turning the knife in the wound!”
“And she was joyful,” Magda allowed. “She could think of nothing else—her child was restored to her and she to her former spirits! It seemed like a miracle, of course. She insisted upon leaving at once; we would have departed the very day that Cousin Peter arrived with the good news, save for the difficulty of making arrangements!”
It was a hurried and harried Christmas, for they were now to depart during the week after. Hansi had arranged for passage from Hamburg on the regular packet steamship, and to meet them there with Anna and the children. Magda felt she was being tugged in all directions; her usually sunny-tempered daughter moped and sulked in corners, Liesel was over the moon with excitement, chattering exuberantly of the miracle of Willi’s return and her plans for when he was restored to the loving arms of his family, and Peter fretted impatiently, eager to be reunited with Anna and the boys.
“I am sorry that we are all become such uncongenial company,” she lamented to Irina on Christmas Eve. At the Princess’ direction she set out the Christmas presents in the tiny parlor, with the tall window that looked towards the swallows nest houses clinging to the cliffs that fell straight to the harbor below. “I know you had planned such delights on our behalf, now all that effort is come to naught!”
“No matter,” Irina shrugged, carelessly. “Such is life, my dear—that which happens when you have made plans!” She rummaged through the pile of brightly wrapped gifts in her lap. The two maids had carried in a wicker laundry hamper packed with larger parcels. “At least the girls will have a pleasant Christmas Eve!”
“You think?” Magda sighed. “Lottie is upstairs crying her eyes out.”
“Pish!” Irina said, shrugging eloquently. “She is merely a girl in love for the first time. It is like one of those tiresome children’s ailments; once recovered, one doesn’t catch it so badly again. Either young Bertrand will co
me to Texas when he turns eighteen and they will still fancy themselves in love, or not. I think,” she added with a shrewd look at Magda, “that you have another worry. Is it your niece? She fares well, does she not?”
“No, she is marvelously well,” Magda answered. “It was her idea to send Peter to shepherd us all back to Hamburg to take the packet home. My son was taken with a fit of wanderlust, otherwise he would have come in his stead.”
“Pity,” Irina said with a sparkle. “And a pity again that I am not thirty years younger! It is your sister then, about whom you are fretting, my dear Magda?”
“Yes,” Magda nodded somberly. “She is ecstatic with joy. I know that may seem a trifle strange.”
“She is intemperate in her moods,” Irina agreed. “So you have said often and so have I observed. Surely this is nothing new. After a time, she will be as melancholic as she has been happy. So what do you so fear about this inevitable descent?”
“You have not listened to her talk of her son as I have,” Magda explained. “She speaks of Willi as if he were a child still.”
“All children remain children to their parents,” Irina answered. “My stepson has grey hair and a mustache like a walrus—yet to his dying day, my husband thought of him always as a boy.”
“It’s not like that.” Magda hung the last of the small presents from the branches of a small cedar pine which had been set in a corner of the parlor. She sat on her heels at the base of the tree and explained, “Willi was a child of six when he was taken by the Indians. He turned seven a few short months afterwards. Grete was taken also. She was four, but she was recovered from them almost at once, within a year or two.”
“Oh, my!” Irina clapped her hands almost with excitement. “Grete! Your niece, Grete? The quiet little thing who hardly has a word to say for herself? How terribly interesting that is, Magda! You had never spoken of this to me before!”
“My sister and brother-in-law did not wish it to be known,” Magda answered, with slight reproof. “They wanted her to forget that ghastly experience as thoroughly as possible and for other people to forget it as well. There can be a considerable scandal attached, especially for older girls taken captive and later recovered to their families. It is always feared that they have been made,” Magda searched for the right word, “into concubines. And our younger sister and her husband were most piteously murdered when Willi and Grete were taken. They would have witnessed that horror, you see.”
“I see.” Irina sighed regretfully. “And I quite agree. Poor child! I will govern my terrible curiosity for her sake. But why do you fear for your sister? Surely it is cause for rejoicing to have her son restored to her, at last?”
“Yes, but it has become plain to me that she is thinking of him as a child, a child only a little older than when he was taken captive. Irina,” Magda knotted her hands in her lap, hardly aware that she did so, “that happened almost ten years ago, in the first year after the war ended! He will not be a child, he will be nearly a man grown!”
“Surely your sister can count the months and years.” Irina’s eyebrows lifted. “She is surely aware of how much time has passed, and that children grow!”
“I am sure she is aware of that,” Magda answered. “For she and Hansi have seven still living, of whom Grete is the youngest. But she persists in this odd delusion! She talks of school and toys and amusements more fitting for a child, and—”
“You fear that she may be disillusioned.” Comprehension dawned on Irina’s countenance. She nodded slowly. “Once she comprehends the reality, you fear another descent into sorrow.”
“She almost went mad, when they were taken,” Magda whispered, for she could hear Liesel’s voice and step on the stairs. “I do not think she would be so afflicted by this new disappointment. But she has truly been almost made well again. I dread anything that may disturb the balance of her mind.”
“Perhaps she will come upon the realization slowly,” Irina suggested.
“So I hope,” Magda whispered, as the parlor door opened.
Liesel called cheerfully within, “Are the presents ready? May I call in the girls now?”
“Yes of course, my dear,” Irina answered. “And call everyone—it is my great joy, you see, to see all their faces when they behold their gifts. I have had a care with yours, knowing that you were going to be traveling; they are small and portable. It is my hope that you will think of me whenever you gaze upon them.”
“I am sure we shall,” Magda answered. “I only hope that such gifts as we have brought for you will do the same!”
“Think nothing of it,” Irina answered, her wise old eyes alight with mischief and vitality. “You have already given me a gift of inestimable value—companionship and amusement for the most of this year. I vow I have not been bored for more than two or three minutes at a time.”
When they departed the island, only Magda and her daughter looked back. Sebastian Bertrand waved sadly across the widening water. Princess Cherkevsky had said her farewells at the villa, as she was too old and frail to be carried by her menservants all the way down the winding hill to the quay more often than absolutely necessary. She and Magda had exchanged promises to write; Magda was already forming the sentences of her first letter to Irina before Capri dissolved into the mist behind them.
“And now,” Liesel clasped her hands with joyous fervor, “we are going home!”
It wasn’t until much later that Magda realized how very peculiar that sounded, especially from Liesel. Home, as they had spoken of it for so long, was no longer Germany, no longer Vati’s house in Albeck. Home was in Texas, home was Hansi’s sprawling mansion, or the stone house on the Guadalupe ranch. Home was there, where their hearts were, and where were buried so many of those whom they had loved. Albeck was the place they had outgrown, as a bird first outgrows an eggshell and then the nest it was laid in. They could no more constrain their wings and return to it than a bird could return to an egg. A week later, they watched Hamburg diminish in the distance behind the swift steamship that would bear them home.
To Magda’s initial puzzlement, Dolph remained behind, in England.
“He’s finishing up the business of acquiring blood-stock for the ranch,” Hansi said when he met them at the Hamburg main station. He kissed Liesel enthusiastically once again, and explained to Magda, “He will return as we originally planned, once he has arranged passage for the cattle and horses.”
“Not to mention one particular filly,” Peter added slyly. “No great beauty for looks, Cuz says, but much to his taste and very spirited, with a stout heart and good bloodlines.”
“A horse?” Magda looked from Hansi to Peter as they both laughed in the superior way of men who know something. “I have brought him a horse, as a present from Princess Cherkevsky!” That was a little bauble, beautifully carved out of quartz with bright eyes in some dark brown gem. True to her promise, Irina’s Christmas presents had all been small things, in exquisite workmanship and taste: for Liesel, a rock-crystal vase with a sprig of an orange tree, the flowers and fruit in enamel and gold, with leaves of green nephrite; and for Anna a sprig of enamel and gold forget-me-nots in a similar vase. The girls were gifted with parasol handles, beautifully worked in enamel and gold. Magda had a little dog, carved in stone, which looked so like Mouse; so spry and lifelike that she laughed in affectionate amusement every time she looked at it. For Hansi, being expected for Christmas, Irina had bought a cow, also carved out of quartz, from the same atelier and artist.
“Carry her gift home with you,” Hansi chuckled. “You may give it to him as a wedding present, perhaps!”
Aggravating man, he said no more. Magda went below to her cabin, reflecting upon the mixed emotions attending on their first departure, so many years ago. Only Hansi and Vati had been eager to shake the dust of the old country off their boots, then. Now they were all quite cheerful at departing for home, all but poor Lottie, still moping after Sebastian.
At least, this time they travele
d in very much more comfort. It was the same journey in reverse, although through Galveston rather than Indianola. It astounded Magda how swiftly they arrived in San Antonio, barely four weeks after departing from Hamburg, their passage by steamer, train and coach seemingly greased by Hansi’s generosity and repute.
Fredi and Porfirio waited upon their arrival at Hansi’s house; along with Liesel’s household staff. All were made welcome. Another reason to be glad to be rich, Magda reflected; it made arrival after so long a time away so easy, even though they had outdistanced the wagon which carried their heavy trunks. Porfirio had a cup of coffee in his hand as he came out to the porte-cochere. Fredi held a piece of Mexican flatbread rolled around scrambled eggs and sausage, and he crammed it into his mouth at the last minute before embracing Liesel and Magda, and all the rest. They were caught in a happy clamor for quite some time.
“I hear that the young Patrón has been courting.” Porfirio kissed Magda’s hand with all due gallantry. “Does the young lady meet with your approval, Madame Becker?”
“I can hardly say,” Magda answered, “for I only know what my son wrote to me, before we sailed from Germany. He is most hopeful as regards his suit. The young lady’s family looks upon him with favor—all but the distance that she would be removed from them.”
“Ah,” Porfirio patted her hand, consolingly, “I see. That is an obstacle that may be overcome with time and persistence. One hopes that her family may prefer to see her married to a fine young man like the young Patrón, rather than a wastrel close at hand.”
“We had them put on late breakfast for you all,” Fredi said. “Ah, good to see you all! My God, it’s good to see you safely home. You would not believe what has been happening all this time!”