Love by the Morning Star

by Laura L. Sullivan

  “And even that is not so surprising anymore,” she said. “That is the worst sign. Those things should always shock, completely and absolutely. If I, a victim, am hardly surprised, only think what most common people in Germany, in England, feel. Oh, another twenty professors fired for being Jewish? Another thousand people rounded up and sent to labor camps? The paper says it every day and it becomes commonplace. Then the paper stops saying anything, and no one cares.”

  At last, with dawn creeping closer, Teddy said, “These have been among the most delightful moments of my life.”

  He heard a little catch of breath from inside the tree’s hermit hole. Then, softly, shyly: “And mine.”

  “I have to hurry or I’ll miss my train. I’ll be back for Christmas, though, and the Servants’ Ball afterward. Will you give me the first dance?”

  To dance again! She could waltz, of course, and knew some country dances, but what she really loved were the smoky golden nights in jazz clubs. She danced the Lindy, the shag, the Balboa—all kinds of swing—and in the Berlin clubs even the old Charleston and Black Bottom could still be found. It had all come from America, and officials had been looking at it with suspicion for years. Do they still swing in Berlin? she wondered.

  “I would love to dance with you,” she said from her hiding place.

  “And may I write to you?”

  “Yes, please,” she said, feeling happy, giddy. She thrust her hand out of her burrow, reaching for him.

  Teddy clasped the hand in his. She had removed her gloves at last!

  It was such a little thing, but so firm, so strong. Other hands he’d held lay still and placid in his, but hers was a living creature, scampering over his knuckles, feeling him, learning him. The world was lighter now, the sky grown pearly, sending all the stars scurrying except the bright morning star. He could just see the little paw that played in his, the neat, clipped nails with their large moons, a little scar at the slim waist of her thumb. He ran his hand over that scar, wondering at the story behind it, reveling in the delightful knowledge that this was one of the ten thousand other things he would learn about her when he returned home.

  He kissed the scar and released her hand. It hovered midair for a moment, then fled back into the cavern. Almost . . . almost he reached for her, for all of her, to take her in his arms and claim her mouth, her throat. But there was no time for that. He knew, from that brief conversation, that this was a woman he would not grow tired of.

  “Auf Wiedersehen, my morning star,” he whispered.

  To which Hannah replied, “No, you ass, a native would say tschuss unless he was being formal.” Then she added very tenderly, “We are no longer formal.”

  Hannah Utterly Fails at Domestic Service

  PLEASANT AS THAT PREDAWN ENCOUNTER had been—and she called it only pleasant in an unsuccessful attempt to take away some of its intimidating gravity and the odd ecstatic joy it had engendered—Hannah regretted it almost immediately.

  As soon as Teddy had gone far enough away not to be reasonably recalled, she remembered her parents and had to pinch herself quite hard for forgetting them even for an instant. Being with him had temporarily driven away all of her varied fears, but as soon as he was gone they all rushed back. He’d said he would make inquiries about her parents. She had slapped him afterward, but still, he had said it. She knew now that she had been dreadfully mistaken in his intentions. Even though they’d not talked about that, what they did talk about had been enough to make it patently obvious that he was not the sort of fellow to blackmail a girl for her favors. What he had wanted her to do for him, the personal thing, she didn’t know, but it was not that.

  I should have given him their address, told him the name of the cabaret, she thought. I should have told him again and again how very important it is that they get out of Germany. All he had were their names. Would it be enough? Of course, if all went well, they would follow her easily to England very soon, but if all did not go well . . .

  She would get a letter from them shortly, she knew. Soon there would be a note from her parents bearing happy news, and one from Teddy, in which she would be very curious to see the word that came before his signature. Yours would do, but there were several others that would be better. Then, depending on the contents of her parents’ letter, she could write back to Teddy and urge him to help.

  They’ll be safe, she told herself. Her mother would see to that. Aaron might persist in staying in Berlin out of some perverse stubbornness and hope, but Cora would convince him. As a last resort, she’d make him leave for her sake.

  But it was not only for neglecting to press her parents’ cause that she regretted talking to Teddy for so long. As soon as she crept back into the kitchen, she realized she desperately needed a few more hours’ sleep. Even romance cannot keep me awake today, she thought, stifling a yawn before tying on her apron. She’d been up late, slept badly, and risen early. Now she faced her list of chores.

  “‘Number one,’” she read. “‘Tend the cooker.’”

  Well, that at least was easy. “Tending has such a pastoral feel,” she said as she looked around the kitchen trying to figure out exactly which piece of equipment was the cooker. “Perhaps I can make believe I am tending sheep. Not,” she added rather sadly, “that I know anything about tending real, actual sheep. I probably would not enjoy it. I’m sure they smell, and not like alpine flowers or new hay. Still, I will name the oven and pretend it is a sheep. Thank goodness no one is awake to hear me.”

  Nothing looked at all like the svelte electric oven and range at Der Teufel, on which their chef had prepared all of his brisk and simple masterpieces. There was a roast warmer and a squat, wood-burning cast-iron dwarf that looked so archaic, she was sure it must be strictly decorative. There was a sort of electric heating cupboard for sauces. Ah, there it was. With its cream-colored enamel front and little square doors, it looked more like an old-fashioned icebox than an oven. It was also already warm. There didn’t seem to be much to tend, so she wiped its surface with a cloth and slid her finger down to the next item on the list: Light the kitchen fire.

  She found a stack of newspaper in the butler’s pantry and crumpled it all into a ball, then tossed it into the hearth. She struck a long match, and the flame crept and then caught in a cheerful blaze. She had never started a fire herself and was rather proud of its vigor.

  Next came the kitchen floor. After a little rummaging she found a broom in the scullery and swept the odd orts and leavings of last night’s meal into a neat little pile. She couldn’t find a dustpan, and didn’t want to sweep them outside in case the food scraps attracted hedgehogs, so she guided her pile through the kitchen, past the cook’s office, the butler’s pantry, and the scullery, and left it just inside the door leading to the patch of lawn connecting the kitchen and the laundry. (A servant’s lawn, ill kept, it was cut off from the garden by a tall, thick hedgerow, as the kitchen itself was cut off from the rest of the house by stairs and twisting corridors, so the masters need never see or smell the staff.)

  “‘Sweep and scrub the floor,’” she read with a sigh. The floor looked perfectly clean to her already, but she wearily found a bucket and strong soap, then searched for a mop. There was none, but she did find what looked like a minuscule mop on a hairbrush.

  “I don’t mind hard work,” she told herself for the hundredth time as she sank onto her knees and began to scrub. “Really I don’t. But they are doing it to humiliate me, to punish me for my mother’s misdeeds, which were not even misdeeds.” The mortar ridges between the slate pushed crisscross patterns into her legs, and her thin dress was soaked.

  She scrubbed until her fingers were pruned and her hands began to cramp, then used the broom to push as much water as she could down the hall and out the door. The floor was still quite wet, and she considered using some of the stacks of pristine white towels to dry it, but thought this might be frowned upon. Besides, she vaguely remembered it was more sterile to let things air-dry.
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  She took up the list again with hands that shook and ached, resolutely not feeling sorry for herself, thinking with all her might of where she could be instead. In Buchenwald it would be this and worse. Here there were beds, no rats, no guards, no fists, no whips, no guns. I am lucky, she told herself. Tonight I will get more sleep, and tomorrow this will all be second nature. Then soon it will be over.

  She looked down at the hand that held the list. And in the meantime, she thought, there is that little piece of me there. That place that he kissed. Feeling foolish, she kissed the scar herself. No trace of his lips remained—her skin was puckered from scrubbing with water and smelled of lye—but the spirit of him lingered there, reminding her of that surprising way life has of being desolate and grand in quick succession and sometimes all at once. Throughout the day she returned to the scar he kissed, like a pilgrim to a shrine, finding comfort in the personal altar of her body. His lips were there. His lips will return.

  Then she laughed and called herself a fool and went to scrub the front steps and polish the brass on the door, the next things on her list.

  SALLY SLEEKED HER GINGER HAIR with water as soon as she entered the kitchen. It was already tied into a tight knot at the back of her head in a most unflattering position, but she needed to make sure that not a single solitary hair entered the food. The kitchen maids had to wear their caps, but when she graduated from under-cook to Cook, uppercase, she threw away all of those ugly white monstrosities. She always thought of them as a sort of combined dunce’s cap and slave collar, and though lesser female servants were obliged to wear them, Sally took immediate advantage of her rank and swore she’d never wear one again. She remembered hearing a story about a husband who asked his wife to dress up as a maid to titillate him. She thought at the time that being asked to wear a servant’s cap counted as marital cruelty and grounds for divorce.

  She was unusually happy that morning. Her world seemed to be falling into place. With three kitchen maids she could do her job properly. Certainly only two of them were trained, but they would direct the new girl, Hannah. Glenda and Judy would have gotten up early enough to guide her. For the first time in weeks, Sally had allowed herself a bit of a lie-in.

  It was just as she was meditating on the miraculous emotional benefits of being able to loll in bed for an extra twenty minutes that she noticed that something was drastically amiss. Some many things, in fact.

  “Hannah!” she bellowed, then for good measure shouted for Judy and Glenda, too. They rushed in, disheveled, Glenda still in curling papers. Sally glared at them. “The stove’s not hot,” she said, pounding it with her fist. “And the fire—just look at it!” In the hearth, a tiny crimson rill of flame ate through the last bit of newspaper, gobbling up the headline about Mussolini flexing his muscles at France. Then it died, leaving only ashes. “And what did she use for . . . ?” Fearing the worst, she dashed into the butler’s pantry, where each morning the newspapers waited to be ironed. Every one was gone for kindling.

  It could not get worse, she thought, yet even as she did so, Hardy the under-gardener came cheerfully in through the back door, bearing a cluster of late chrysanthemums (ostensibly for everyone in the kitchen but really for Hannah) and some sprigs of hothouse tarragon for His Lordship’s eggs. Looking up—looking for Hannah—he kicked the pile of crumbs and dust, sending them showering across the still-damp floor.

  “Oh, my floor!” Sally cried. Though she was perfectly comfortable with blood and drippings and feathers and flour marring her kitchen as the day progressed, she insisted that her work-space at least begin the day like a sterile surgery.

  She threw her hands over her face, not knowing whether to scream or laugh. And to think, not a minute before she’d been thanking her lucky stars Their Lordships had seen fit to authorize the expense of another girl to help her.

  “Breakfast is impossible now,” she said. “If no one put more coal in the Aga it will never heat enough to so much as boil an egg, and Himself wanted kedgeree and breakfast buns and streaky bacon, none of which can be made in a lukewarm cooker. Hasn’t the girl ever used an Aga? Where is she?”

  No one knew. They searched the logical places but couldn’t find her. Run away, Glenda thought. Drowned herself in the lake after last night’s to-do, Judy was sure. Hardy searched the shrubbery, but she was nowhere to be found. Sally stoked the Aga with lumps of coal and prayed it would heat up enough to cook something. (The beautiful part of a coal Aga is that it is always hot. The terrible part is that it takes hours to get hot enough.)

  Hannah was found at last by an early-morning caller who stopped on his way between Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace to borrow a book his mother had requested from Lord Liripip. Seeing the little maid asleep on the front step with her cheek against the Brasso rag, he scooped her up, jerked the bell-pull with his teeth, and when Coombe opened the door, carried her in with a proprietary air. “Don’t bother the family, I know they’re still in bed. I, on the other hand, am still awake. I’ll show myself to the library, and in the meantime, where shall I put this?” He looked down at the fetching little face pressed against his lapel, some happy dream curling the corner of her mouth.

  “Sir, I . . . I . . .” Coombe began. Had he been of a different nationality he might have ritually opened his veins at the shame.

  Behind him, Waltraud (who refused to give up lipstick no matter what Mrs. Wilcox, the housekeeper, said, and who besides had shortened her skirt by two inches and manipulated her cap into something Coco Chanel might covet) gave a little gasp and swore in German before Coombe shooed her away.

  “I say,” the dashing, disheveled man said delightedly when he glimpsed Waltraud, “old Peregrine picks the prettiest staff. Here, in the parlor?” He set Hannah down gently on a chaise.

  Her eyes fluttered open and, hardly awake, she said, “Oh, you’re Noel’s pretty friend. He showed me your picture when I was a little girl.”

  The handsome young man flushed and said, “I’ll get that book now,” and retreated posthaste.

  “Young woman,” Coombe said with deepest gravity, “do you know whom you have just imposed upon?”

  Hannah loosed a deeply satisfying yawn. “When I first woke up I was sure he must be a friend of a friend. Noel, you see, once visited my family in Germany and I remember he had a little picture in a silver filigree frame of a man who looked exactly like that. He let me carry it around all day, and I fell violently in love with that face, though from what Waltraud explained to me later I imagine any man who was deeply admired by Noel would not be likely to succumb to my advances, though perhaps after all his tastes are varied, as so many are. But young girls are always falling for someone unsuitable.” She shook her head in faintly maternal exasperation. “I still am, in fact,” she added, thinking of Teddy. “Just because we know our proclivities doesn’t mean we can control them. That is depressing, but also rather reassuring, don’t you think?” She cocked her head at the dignified butler in her pert, birdlike fashion. “It gives us so much latitude.” Her inclusive pronouns made Coombe feel quite the conspirator, and he was not happy with what he would have to do next.

  “You fell asleep,” he pronounced grimly.

  “Oh, yes. Another one of those proclivities we can’t avoid. You see,” she said as if she were giving a quite reasonable explanation of her abominable behavior, “I was so very sleepy.”

  A great deal of the improving literature Coombe received biweekly by post from the Untangled Ganglions correspondence course dealt with philosophy and logic. He puzzled through her statement. Sleepiness, he thought, is a biologic fact. If I had told her to fetch something from a high shelf and she was too short to reach it, would I fire her for her lack of stature? Then is it fair to punish someone for a fault of nature? The human body, pushed to certain extremes, must sleep.

  But then he remembered the fundamental fact of life in service: servants aren’t human.

  Then too there was the circumstance of her discovery. If he, or
Mrs. Wilcox, or the postman had discovered her asleep at the front door, it might all have been hushed up (after a fitting punishment, perhaps the loss of an afternoon off so she could catch up on her sleep instead of going to a village dance). But to have been found by him!

  “Hannah, do you have any idea who discovered you asleep like a puppy on the doorstep?” No, puppy had been an error—the comparison made her seem that much more endearing, made what must come next that much more difficult.

  “I told you, I thought it was—”

  “You were in error,” he said with the utmost butlerish severity. “Your rescuer, if I may so style him, was His Royal Highness Prince George Edward Alexander Edmund, Duke of Kent, Earl of St. Andrews and Baron Downpatrick, Royal Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, Order of the Thistle, Order of the . . .”

  Almost any other maid would have fainted or—for maids are notoriously archaic in their gesticulation—thrown her apron over her face. But Hannah did not seem at all impressed to have been scooped up by the third in line to the throne. “Then he really must be Noel’s Georgie. Funny, I always imagined he was taller.”

  Something clicked in Coombe’s head, a half-remembered bit of gossip. “Noel . . . Coward?”

  “Yes, he and my father hit it off right away, though I think he stole some of my father’s best jokes for his next play. Still, no hard feelings.”

  “You know Noel Coward?” he asked.

  “Well, I don’t know if he’d remember me—it was a while ago.”

  “Who exactly are you? No, never mind. I’m afraid it won’t do. Whoever you were, what you are now is a servant. I am in charge of the smooth running of this household, and I simply cannot permit such disruptions as you have caused. We were prepared to overlook last night’s debacle as sheer ignorance, but to fall asleep, in public!”