by Eva Ibbotson
‘I hope you’ve tightened the girths properly,’ said Hermann. ‘And where’s my whip?’
‘You don’t need a whip,’ said Zed.
Hermann glared at him, but he said nothing and dug his heels into Rocco’s flank.
‘Forward!’ he commanded. ‘Come on, you lazy brute.’
But it wasn’t till Zed gave Rocco a firm slap on his rump and told him to move that he set off reluctantly towards the field where Hermann liked to practise what he called his riding drill.
Zed went back to the farm; he couldn’t bear to watch, but Annika stood patiently at the edge of the field. Hermann was her brother and she wanted to be fair.
But after half an hour she too returned to the house. You did not have to know anything about riding to see that what was going on in the field was both dangerous and wrong.
The following day the first letters came from Vienna. There was one from Pauline, one from Stefan and one from Ellie, which Sigrid too had signed.
Pauline wrote that they had tried to go to the hut without her and it had been no good. Stefan had brought his brother Ernst and Pauline had found a really good story called ‘Androcles and the Lion’.
It’s about a lion who was put in an arena in ancient Rome to eat Christians, but when the first Christian came in the lion recognized him because he had once taken a thorn out of the lion’s paw and he refused to eat him or anybody else, and the emperor was furious and there was a riot. You’d think it would have worked, wrote Pauline. The story, I mean, but it didn’t and we’ve decided to give up acting and just use the hut as a meeting place.
Stefan’s letter was very short. He missed her and so did his mother. The baby was teething and cried a lot. They kept asking about her at school . . . everyone thought she should come back . . .
Then Ellie’s letter. Everything was fine, and they were sure she was having a lovely time. Professor Emil had tried to give up chocolate for Lent, but the doctor had said this was a mistake because he needed the iron for his blood. Professor Gertrude had ordered a new concert-grand harp from Ernst and Kohlhart and was very excited. Loremarie’s governess had said she would rather beg her bread in the streets than look after Loremarie one minute longer and had gone back to England. The flower lady said to tell Annika that the first gentians had come from the mountains . . .
She read Pauline and Stefan’s letter twice and Ellie’s over and over again. She had just finished when her mother came in.
‘I saw you had letters from Vienna. Is everything all right there?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘They don’t mention anything that has come for you? Anything that needs to be sent on?’
Annika shook her head. ‘I don’t think there’ll be anything. Ellie got my other coat back from the cleaners just before I left.’
‘No . . . I just thought . . . Well, never mind. If there is anything, be sure to let me know.’
Annika had got used to the sound of Uncle Oswald shooting at dawn, but the noise that woke her the next morning was a different one. It had rained again in the night and what she heard was the sound of drops of water plopping from the ceiling.
They were not plopping fast but they were plopping steadily, and a small puddle had formed on the floorboards by the window.
She looked about for something to catch the water and remembered a large Chinese vase which had been on a shelf inside the lacquered tallboy, but the vase had gone. It had definitely been there the day she came, but it was not there now, so she washed quickly, and carried her bowl over to the place where the crack in the ceiling had formed.
Her shoes were still wet from the day before, but she forced her feet into them and went down to the dining room, where she asked her mother if she could fetch a bucket from the scullery to take to her room.
‘Oh no!’ said Frau Edeltraut dramatically, passing her hand across her forehead. ‘Will it never stop?’
‘You know it will stop, Edeltraut,’ said Uncle Oswald under his breath. ‘And you know when. If you don’t weaken.’
It was still raining when Annika got down to the farm. She found Zed in the little house, whittling a new bolt for the barn door, and as she came in he looked at her sharply. Her clothes were soaked – one pigtail had escaped from under her hood and turned from gold to a sodden brown. He could hear the water squelching in her shoes, and she looked tired.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said. ‘It’s just . . . I had letters from home. I mean from Vienna – and they went round a bit in my head in the night, you know how they do.’
Zed, who never got any letters, said he did know. Then he put down his knife and said, ‘Come on, we’ll see what sort of a mood Hector is in.’
‘Hector? The Trojan warrior?’
‘That’s right. Hermann likes heroes. Wait here.’
He went out of the door at the back, and returned with the dog he had stolen from Hermann.
They came slowly because Hector, in spite of Zed’s hand on his collar, was not certain whether he felt sociable or not. The hero of the Trojans walked with an irregular gait, a kind of lurching movement, and the reason for this was simple. He only had three legs; the back leg on his left-hand side was missing. His tail was missing too and the jagged stump which was all that remained did not, at this moment, feel inclined to wave. As he turned his head, growling softly in his throat, Annika saw that one of his eyes was useless, filmed over and completely blind.
She looked at him in silence.
Then, ‘You’re wrong,’ she said angrily to Zed. ‘You’re completely wrong.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You said I wouldn’t want him. You said I wouldn’t want a dog like that.’
Zed was stroking Hector’s back. ‘I didn’t know you then,’ he said.
The dog had stopped growling and positioned himself so that he could see Annika clearly. She put her hand up very slowly, and he allowed her to scratch his head before flopping down on the floor.
‘Please tell me what happened to him,’ said Annika. ‘I won’t say anything . . . I won’t even think anything. But I’d like to know.’
Zed had squatted down beside the dog. When he spoke he did not look at Annika.
‘Hermann wanted a dog, so the Master went to choose one. It was his last present to Hermann before he had his stroke. He went to see a friend who bred water-spaniels – the ones that come from Ireland. They’re marvellous swimmers and . . . well, they’re wonderful dogs. I was there when he brought the puppy home for Hermann. He was six weeks old and he had this tight woolly coat all over and black eyes and his tail never stopped going . . . About a week later the old man had his stroke and Bertha and I were kept busy nursing him, and Hermann looked after the dog.’
Zed stopped and stared in front of him, but his hands went on rubbing Hector’s back. ‘At first it was all right, when the puppy was small, but then Hermann began to train him. He wanted him to be a proper army dog who wasn’t afraid of gunfire – you know what he’s like about being a soldier. At first he just blew up paper bags and exploded them in the puppy’s ear – well, they do that sometimes to gun dogs so that they won’t be gun-shy. Then he wanted him to do more and more tricks . . . and then he thought he should be trained so as not to mind explosions and . . . fire. So he waited till everyone was out and then he tied firecrackers to his tail and his leg. He thought they would just go off like ordinary fireworks, but something went wrong . . . Water-spaniels have very tufty tails; the tail caught fire and it spread down his leg and then a spark went into his eyes. Hermann threw a jug of water over him and ran away; he didn’t come back till after midnight. Your mother thought we should have the dog put down, it seemed the kindest thing, and she told her brother-in-law to come and shoot him, but Bertha and I brought him down here . . . and as you see, he lived. Only you can’t rely on his temper. Mostly he’s fine, but when he gets nervous he begins to shiver and then he bites.’
Annik
a was silent. Hermann was her brother; he had been much younger then, only a little boy. Boys did these things. She tried to imagine Stefan or any of his brothers tying fireworks to a dog’s tail – and failed miserably.
‘Can he swim still – with three legs?’
‘Like a fish. And he’s a marvellous beachcomber. He’s got quite a collection; he’s got the head of a decoy duck and half an eel trap and a sock-suspender which was washed up from the lake. He keeps them in his kennel and if anyone touches them he turns quite nasty – especially the sock-suspender. I try to see that he gets to the water for a time every day. You wouldn’t notice there’s anything wrong with him when he’s swimming.’
Annika looked down at the dog, now lying on his side and permitting Zed to scratch his stomach.
‘There isn’t anything wrong with him,’ said Annika staunchly. ‘He’s beautiful.’
Annika was on the terrace, looking at the lake, when her mother came out of the house to stand beside her. At once the wind felt gentler, the mournful stretch of water became interesting and romantic and a skein of geese flew in from the north. It was always like that when her mother stood beside her. She could turn night into day.
‘I came to tell you that we’re going into Bad Haxenfeld tomorrow. My uncle lives there in the Hotel Majestic and he’s asked us to lunch. You’ll like it; there’s plenty to see.’
‘I’m sure I will.’ She hesitated. Then, ‘Do you think we could get a pair of rubber overshoes when we’re there? Galoshes? For the mud . . . You said—’
‘Oh, I know! I know I said I was going to dress you as my daughter should be dressed! There’s nothing I want to do more than make you comfortable and pretty. And it will come – all of it – everything you want!’ She gathered Annika into her arms and Annika smelt the special perfume her mother always wore. ‘You shall have a pony of your own, and parties, and a governess. But this is a waiting time for all of us. Trust me, Annika. Be patient and trust me and I will fulfil your wildest dreams.’
‘Of course I trust you,’ said Annika, blissful in her mother’s embrace. ‘Of course I trust you!’
As they were making their way back to the house her mother said, ‘There’s just something you and I have to do when we’re in Bad Haxenfeld. We have to go to a lawyer and sign some papers.’
‘Me too? Am I allowed to sign?’
‘Yes, you are. The laws of Norrland allow children over the age of ten to sign in the presence of their guardian. It’s only a formality, but I want everything to be done properly. I want to make absolutely certain that you are registered as my daughter and a von Tannenberg. And not just a von Tannenberg – that your full name is on all the documents: Annika von Tannenberg-Unterfall; my married name.’ She moved closer and put an arm round Annika’s shoulders. ‘You see, if anything happened to Hermann, which God forbid, you would have to step into his shoes. You would have to run Spittal.’ She turned her face to her daughter’s. ‘There have been von Tannenbergs at Spittal for 500 years – and I want you, my darling child, to be properly one of us too.’
Annika was overwhelmed. Not only did her mother want her to belong to the family absolutely, but she trusted her to look after Spittal.
How could she have been so feeble as to ask for waterproof shoes?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
HEALING WATERS
Bad Haxenfeld was one of the most famous spas in Europe. The mineral springs that gushed out of the rock at a temperature of fifty degrees Celsius were supposed to cure almost every illness in the world. Heart disease and liver failure, rheumatism and bronchitis, anaemia and dropsy and gout – all of these and many more, said the doctors at the spa, could be successfully treated.
When the hot springs had first been found, many years ago, engineers had pumped the water into pipes and conduits and fed it into pools where the patients could bathe, and into treatment rooms where they could be squirted, and into fountains and taps in the pump room where they could drink.
Things were done to people in Bad Haxenfeld which you might think people would pay not to have done to them. They were dipped into very hot water and very cold water, so that they turned from pink to blue and back again. They had steam blown over their bodies; they were pummelled and massaged and lowered into tubs of evil-smelling mud – and every year the doctors invented new treatments like blowing hot smoke into the patients’ mouths to cure them of toothache, or fixing air pumps on their bodies to extract the rheumatism from their joints.
You might imagine therefore that people would stay away, but you would be wrong. Rich people flocked to the place. They seemed to love being bullied by the doctors, and whether they got better or not, they certainly thought they did because they had paid such an amazing amount of money.
And round the baths with their smell of hydrogen sulphide and clouds of steam, there sprang up luxury hotels and casinos and ballrooms and tennis courts and bandstands. Parks were planted with rare trees; winter gardens were built; fabulous shops and cafes opened, and at night music was played in the hotels and in the pump room, where people paid all over again to drink the water which tasted so disgusting that it had to do them good.
And it was here, in the largest and most expensive hotel of all – the Hotel Majestic – that Frau Edeltraut’s old uncle, the Baron Conrad von Keppel, now lived.
Annika sat beside her mother in the carriage, with Hermann on the other side. Hermann hated missing his routine, but he wanted to practise shooting at the Bad Haxenfeld rifle range.
There had been a surprise when the carriage clattered into the courtyard to pick them up. Instead of Wenzel driving, it was Zed. He got down to open the door for Annika and her mother, but he wouldn’t touch his cap to Hermann and Hermann started to grumble as soon as they were on the road.
‘He ought to treat me with proper respect,’ he said angrily to his mother.
‘Hermann, leave it. I told you it won’t be for long,’ she said under her breath. And to Annika, ‘Zed helps my uncle when his own servant has a day off. He wheels him to the bathhouse and he makes himself useful in the hotel.’
When they had driven for nearly an hour the countryside began to change: there were hills now, and the colours of the ground grew richer. Ten minutes later they had reached the town.
Annika turned her head from right to left and back again, taking in the large exotic trees that lined the road; the luxurious villas and stately hotels. They passed a building with a brilliantly gilded roof and a flight of steps leading up to an ornate door, but when Annika asked what it was, her mother shuddered.
‘It’s the casino,’ she said. ‘It’s a dreadful place. People go there and gamble away all their money and when they lose they borrow more and start again.’
‘There’s a clump of trees at the back where people go to shoot themselves when they’re ruined,’ said Hermann gleefully.
But the people passing by in the promenade did not look at all as though they were going to shoot themselves; even the ones in wheelchairs or walking with sticks seemed to be enjoying themselves. They passed chauffeurs washing limousines and a uniformed porter crossing the road to the park with five dogs of assorted sizes on a long lead. No one at Bad Haxenfeld had to walk their own dogs or look after their own motors.
Then they drove through an archway and into the courtyard of the Hotel Majestic, and while Zed saw to the horses, they made their way into the building.
Waves of warm air from the steam heating wafted towards them. There was the scent of pot pourri from porcelain bowls in the hall. An orange tree grew in a tub by the reception desk. Winter was not allowed to trouble the guests of the Majestic.
‘Baron von Keppel is expecting you,’ said the head porter at the desk, and clicked his fingers for an underling to take them to the lift.
The Baron did not get up when they came in; getting up was something which took him a long time because his joints were crippled and bent with arthritis, but he welcomed them jovially and insisted on kissing not on
ly his niece, but Annika.
‘Well, well, a pretty little thing, isn’t she?’ he said. ‘You’ve done well, Edeltraut. Don’t know why you kept her hidden all these years.’
Conrad von Keppel was the brother of Edeltraut’s mother; even before he was struck down by illness he must have been smaller and slighter than the von Tannenbergs. His hair was white, he smelt strongly of toilet water and his blue eyes were keen and alert. He offered them wine and biscuits, but Frau Edeltraut said that she would go with Hermann to the rifle range and come back to the hotel in an hour to pick up Annika and take her to the lawyers.
‘Don’t hurry back,’ said Uncle Conrad. ‘Annika can come with me to the baths; I like to be accompanied by pretty girls. You’ve brought the boy, I take it?’
‘Yes. He’s downstairs. But don’t keep her; our appointment is at eleven.’
Zed was waiting with the wheelchair, wearing an armband with the name of the hotel on it. Though he had refused to touch his cap to Hermann he saluted the Baron respectfully, tucking a rug round his knees, and it was clear that he was used to working in the spa.
He began to push the chair along the promenade towards the big bathhouse, and Annika walked beside him. Uncle Conrad seemed to know a great many people and they stopped again and again while he was greeted by ladies in enormous hats, or men on horseback or other invalids on their way to the baths who stopped their chairs beside him.
‘That was Lady Georgina Fairweather,’ he said after a very tall willowy woman with a huge muff had greeted him. ‘You wouldn’t think it, but her kidneys are in dreadful shape – completely covered in fungus. They’re putting her on to thermal effervescence. And that man there in the bowler hat, he used to be the Dutch Ambassador to the Solomon Islands, and when he was out there he got an enormous tapeworm in his gut. They’re trying to draw it out with hydro-suction, but pieces keep breaking off.’