Walls of Ash

by Amber Newberry

  “You would rather have Leo, then? It is so obvious. He carries that handkerchief with your initials in his pocket... Or didn’t you know that he’s in love with you? Was it your plan all along?” He was shouting at me, and I was shocked at what he said and the intensity in his voice. He was so close to me that I could feel his breath hot against my skin.

  “You would promise yourself to a man who can’t even hear you speak your vows?”

  He stopped.

  That last statement wounded me, and I believe Julian saw the folly in his words. We stood there in silence for a long while, my back against the wall, Julian standing before me looking down. I began to walk toward the end of the hall where my room was. He ran up and stood in front of the door.

  “Let me by,” I said softly, not looking at him.

  “Please, Tamsin. I did not mean that. My brother...”

  “He is a good man, but he is not meant for you. Leo is kind and he is gentle. You are too free for him, you are like fire. You and I, we are the same. Don’t you feel that there’s something between us?” He grabbed my shoulders and my heart was beating so hard that I could hear it banging against my chest.

  “Let me by,” I said coldly. He was still holding my shoulders. My voice became harsh.

  “You have no right... Not after what you have said to me today.” He dropped his hands from my shoulders, stunned, but he still blocked my door.

  “Let me by.” I said again, softly this time. He stepped away from the door, and I watched him walk the length of the hallway to the stairs. He did not look back.

  Julian left Stuttgart without a word.

  Chapter 7

  I was glad that Julian was gone before tea time. The tenseness between us made it hard for me to adjust to this new place. I even slept better that night, knowing he was no longer under the same roof. Maybe I was being too hard on him, but his feelings for me were intense and almost frightening. What did I know about love? Furthermore, was he right about my feelings for Leo? I was not even sure of that.

  That afternoon, Celia introduced me to her brother Conrad and his wife Sieglinde. Sigi’s hair was bright blonde and it was tied into a tight knot at the back of her head, creating a very severe look. She spoke with authority and seemed discouragingly stern. She said that she remembered my mother staying at Anbetung a short time after her marriage to Conrad. Her husband was a decade older than Celia, and he was a large man with dark hair that was greying at the temples. Celia explained that her father was French and while blonde was the prominent hair color in Germany, dark hair integrated itself into their family line through their French blood.

  They told me that their daughter, Liesl, was my age and would also be attending school at the convent. She spent the summer with Sigi’s parents in Cologne along with her brother Kurt, who was only 4 years old. I would be meeting them just a day before leaving Anbetung, but they hoped that we would be good friends. We discussed what holidays were like there and how they differed from the English customs, and I looked forward to experiencing them for myself. They seemed kind enough and graciously welcomed me to stay at Anbetung any time.

  Celia’s mother became ill just a day after my arrival and I did not see her again before I went to the convent. It was surely improper of me, but I was relieved that I did not have to interact with her after that first night.

  Their father met Liesl and Kurt in town, and I was having an amusing tea time with Celia and Sigi when they arrived. Liesl was tall like her mother, but she was a bit stout and had frizzy, dark blonde hair, and you could see that Sigi was hard on her about her waist line. Kurt was a chubby little boy with the same blonde hair as his mother. He said my hair looked like it was on fire and it reminded me of my fight with Julian only a few days before.

  “You are like fire...” he had told me and I laughed to myself thinking how my anger had burned him.

  Liesl was an affable companion. Her mother was constantly telling her to sit up straight, and when she reached for a tea cake, her mother slapped her hand. Despite the way her mother treated her, she had a wonderful sense of humor about the way she looked and was often making jokes about her little brother, about Stuttgart and Anbetung, and especially about her mother when she was not in ear shot.

  We packed our things together that night, and Liesl told me that she was her mother’s daughter from a first marriage. Her father was a great war hero who died before she was given the chance to really know him, which was something we had in common. She had never been outside of Germany. Liesl also knew Julian and Leo well, but she had not seen either of them in several years because she spent so much time with her mother’s family. She often missed Leo on his visits, and Julian rarely came to Anbetung.

  Liesl became a great friend to me, and we seemed to share a special bond. It was not long before she took to calling me “Tam” and I was calling her “Li.” It felt good to have an ally so far away from home, knowing that I would not have Celia for very much longer.

  * * *

  The journey to the convent took half a day. The path led mostly up hill, deep into the Black Forest. The incline tired the horses, and they were stopped to rest often. Celia and Sigi came along to see us off, while Conrad drove the landua, our carriage, which I was told was named for the German city in which it was invented. Li and I were both relieved that her cantankerous little brother would be staying home.

  As we came around a corner, the convent swelled up from the trees. Although the building was the same that was once used for worship, the kloster, as it was called in German, was no longer an active convent, as it had been used as a school for many years. The generations of nuns who ran the kloster allowed the place to be used as a hospital during the Napoleonic war and this would be their first time accepting young ladies into their care since then. Celia informed us that truly, there were only a few nuns still teaching at the school, and many of the women who taught there were previously governesses or well educated young women who fell on hardship.

  Li and I shared a room together, and I was thankful for that. It was awfully small, with only one window, but the students were allowed to wander freely on the property as long as we did not venture off into the woods or out of the view of the watchful nuns. However, on occasion, Li and I would sneak into the trees and read to one another from books that were forbidden to us. Luckily, Celia came to our rescue and often sent books with which she would cleverly change out the covers so they would appear as something more acceptable to the nuns.

  On one of these days, Li heard a rustling sound and we both sat silently, listening. I was expecting a rabbit or a squirrel to dart by, but we saw a man’s figure coming up the hill from the thickness of the forest, a hound at his side and a gun in his hand. As he got closer, I was surprised to see that it was Eckhardt, and I remembered that his family was from Stuttgart.

  “Eckhardt, good day!” I called to him, and then looked behind me realizing I might have alerted one of the nuns to our whereabouts, but there was no one.

  “Miss Rhineholt, what a delightful surprise!” he called and came up to where we sat. He explained that his family owned a small hunting lodge deep in this forest and he was out searching for game. Li and I petted his dog, and I explained that I was attending school at the convent.

  “I did not even know I was so near the convent.” He said, “It is so well hidden in these woods. We only recently bought the lodge, and I am the first of the family to make use of it. Perhaps you will see it someday, though I’m sure that the nuns would not allow an excursion with a strange gentleman through the woods.”

  “I daresay they would be disgustingly shocked at the idea of us simply standing here talking,” I said, and I wondered that he happened upon us on chance.

  “I do not wish to get you scholarly young ladies into any trouble, so I’d best be on my way but...” Eckhardt was looking down at his hound, but he took a moment to think about what he was about to say.

  “Would it be strange if I wrote to you
? I am to leave for London in a week’s time. I should like to keep in touch with you, if you are not opposed to my doing so?” he asked shyly.

  “Of course! We certainly need something to keep from being bored. Letters are a welcome diversion,” I said, and Li nodded in agreement. Eckhardt had appeared rather boring on our first meeting, perhaps it was just the fact that there was a shortage on amusements at the convent, but he now seemed much more interesting to me.

  “You will write me back?” he asked, and I assured him that I was a good correspondent.

  “Very well. I will leave you before I get you both into trouble.” He tilted his hat before turning to go back through the forest with his companion and his rifle.

  “What an odd coincidence that he should show up like that!” I said to Li and explained how I knew him.

  “Do you think he will ask you to marry him?” she asked boldly.

  “I do not know. Aunt Emmaline says it would be a good match. His father is a Baron and he does business with my uncle.” I said.

  “Then you do not care for him?” she asked.

  “I do not know. He just seems so... curious.” I said and we laughed.

  * * *

  At the convent, I excelled in music and my language courses, while Li had an eye for the drawing pencil and it turned out that she was a respectable artist. Her art instructor was appalled that she “wasted” so much time drawing absurd pictures of the nuns, and had it not been for her prominent family, she might have wound up in much more trouble for a rather torrid piece involving bloomers.

  When we received mail, which was fairly frequently as letters were coming from Li’s family and mine, and now Eckhardt, we shared our letters. We would read them aloud to one another in our room and laugh over the ones her little brother would send, which were usually heavy on pictures and short on depth. At one point, Li got a letter with a strange postmark. She blushed when she saw the name on it, and said she would save the it to read another day. She never brought the letter out again.

  Our time in school passed quickly with our holidays spent at Anbetung, and our first summer spent apart, myself at Rhineholt and Li in Stuttgart. She wrote to me when Celia’s mother, was taken very ill. For this reason I went back to Stuttgart with Celia, several weeks before my second year at the kloster began, so that I might be of some help to her and so I would have a proper chaperone back to Germany.

  We arrived at Anbetung the day after Celia’s mother passed. Li was very distraught, although the woman had only been her Step-Grandmother, she had been very close with her. Leo was also at Anbetung upon our arrival. He spent most of the summer, upon his return from India, staying with his Grandmother in her final days. Li did not mention Leo in her letter, but I also did not receive many letters from her in the summer months. Leo stayed only for the funeral and he went to London immediately after that. We did not see one another alone and he did not speak of Julian to me. Eckhardt sent his condolences, as well.

  The family wore black for a long time, and it was not until Christmas that it was proper for the colorful fabrics to be brought out again. Li and I were back at Anbetung for the holiday and while there, it was decided that we would share a season in London as Celia and my mother did when they were our age. I was glad that we would be together after our time at the kloster and even more so that we would have our season together since we were both not really looking forward to it.

  Leo and Celia came from Hilbourne to spend the holidays, and I was relieved to find that Julian was still in India. It would be nearly two years since our last encounter. Leo said that he had not been back to Punam since his last visit there before the death of his grandmother. Li and I often spent time together in the library, and Leo was usually with us. One morning after breakfast, Li was called away to her mother and I went into the library on my own. There was a book that I was extremely interested in and did not expect to be allowed to take back to school with me, so I was rushing to try to finish it before the sessions began again.

  Leo came in and sat next to me. It was the first time we found ourselves alone together since he was accidentally pricked by my embroidering needle. He pointed to the book in my hands.

  “It is intriguing. I’m quite consumed,” I said holding it up.

  He responded, “A favorite of mine,” then smiled. We fell quiet again and after a moment I finally broke the silence.

  “Leo, may I ask you something? You do not have to answer if you don’t want to talk about it.” He nodded.

  “When you were in France--” He stopped me by putting a hand up and I said, “It’s alright, you do not have to speak of it, I understand.”

  After a pause he said, “I was hit... by a bullet.” He placed a hand over his left shoulder to indicate where he was struck.

  “It was days on the field before I was found and cared for. I fell asleep for a long time. When I woke up,” he cupped his hands around his ears as if to shield from noise, “nothing.” He shook his head. We were quiet again for a short while.

  “Do you know what I miss the most?” he asked. I didn’t bother guessing because there were so many things that came to mind. I was sad for him.

  “Beethoven,” he said, and he smiled even though I knew it hurt to say it. I could not imagine being without music. I tried to think what it might have been like if Hilda had not taught me how to play the spinnet, the emptiness it would have left.

  * * *

  Our last months at the convent were bittersweet. Many of the classes Li and I previously enjoyed, like Literature and History, were changed out for time spent learning to walk and speak as a lady of high society should. It was something we loathed equally. We would often escape to the woods in our free time and laugh over being forced to walk with books stacked on our heads while reciting nursery rhymes with perfect diction.

  One of these days near the end of April, we sat giggling hysterically over an impression of one of the nuns that Li was over-animatedly performing. In only a month, we would leave the kloster for good. When the laughing finally ceased we leaned against each other back to back to watch for authority figures, as we often did.

  “I don’t want to have a season,” Li said, suddenly.

  “I don’t believe that the season appeals to either one of us,” I replied.

  “Yes, Tam, but it’s not that I don’t want the balls or gowns or even to be married...”

  “Hm?” I said looking up into the tree branches above waving with the wind.

  “I do want to be married, someday.” She paused for a long time and said, “Mother says my waist is too large and that I’ll be lucky to take any hand that is offered.”

  “Sigi!” I blurted out with a grunt. “I despise that woman. What does she know about men, anyway?”

  “She probably thinks I’ll bite any hand that is offered before accepting it.” She laughed, but I turned and looked her in the eye.

  “Li, your waist is much smaller than it was two years ago, and anyway, you are lovely. One of those empire waist gowns will look marvelous on you, in a very light blue, I think! It will hide whatever thickness your mother seems to find so unbecoming, though I don’t see it at all,” I said with a smile.

  She sighed and responded, “My waist is smaller, I suppose... but my hair...” She held out a frizzy curl to me. I twirled the curl around my finger.

  “Then we shall find you a fashionable hat, my dear!” I pulled her to her feet and we waltzed together, beneath the trees.

  Chapter 8

  Li and I were waiting for Celia to come to Anbetung and whisk us away to Paris for the shopping and many gown fittings that awaited us there. We would begin planning our coming out balls for when we arrived in London, where my Aunt and Uncle would be waiting for us.

  Li’s parents would join us a few weeks after our own arrival in London, and Sigi was trusting Celia to have her properly dressed when we left Paris. We were beyond relieved that Li’s mother knew her sense of fashion would not be proper for a young
lady’s debut. Sigi dressed in muted tones and sensible garments, but sensible was not fashionable. If Li was worried about finding a husband, her mother’s fashion sense would’ve left her a spinster, for sure.

  Post-Napoleonic Paris was a strange place, indeed. It reminded me of the fairy tales I read in the schoolroom at Rhineholt. Celia warned that we must be wary of the people on the streets, and she called on a seamstress to come to us at her cousin’s home, where we were staying. When the woman arrived, Li looked sideways at me in fear. She was plump, short woman with small eyes who always seemed to be waving a needle in one hand. She cooed over my orange hair.

  “Verte!” she exclaimed, holding up a light green fabric. She spoke quickly so I had a difficult time keeping up with her, and Li seemed especially uncomfortable when the woman began to look her over.

  “Bleu clair... Non non! Juane!” She clapped her hands together and held out Li’s hand. We both smiled at the eccentric old woman.

  By the time we finished in Paris, Li and I both owned an entirely different wardrobe than when we first arrived.

  “We shall buy gloves in London,” Celia said, “and I know where there are the most divine hats, my darlings!” Our time in Paris was done before we truly had time to enjoy it.

  * * *

  It was surreal to be back in the bustling streets of London. Li had never been to England before, and I delighted in showing her all of my favorite things as we passed them by on our way home. When we arrived, my Aunt and Uncle met us at the door asking after our stay in Paris and our coach from Dover to London. We were all exhausted and declined the offered tea to wash up and nap before dinner.

  As I mounted the stairs with Li behind me, I heard my Aunt say to Celia, “Your sons arrived yesterday, and they have agreed to join us for dinner.” Li heard it too and ran into me when I stopped on the stairs above her. We would both be happy to be sharing the company of Leo, but I was not looking forward to seeing Julian, who I had not seen since our encounter at Anbetung. I never even told Li of the incident.