by Rose Tremain
Marcus sleeps in Emilia’s room.
To her surprise, the boy seems strangely glad to see his father and begins to talk to him in the language he has shaped for himself, a language made up of different voices, as though he did not merely observe the things he talks about but became them. Sometimes, he is the rain.
Emilia explains to Johann: “Marcus sees the world from the inside out. He can imagine what it is to be a fly, a bird, a feather. This is why he cannot concentrate for long. He is always and always starting anew from the thing he has decided to become.”
If this does not seem logical to Johann, he nevertheless decides to follow Emilia’s advice that the way to help Marcus learn is not through written words or mathematical calculations on paper but through pictures.
In Johann’s library is a big volume compiled by a Danish zoologist, Jacob Falster, who had travelled to the Americas and made drawings and engravings of the creatures he found there, and of their habitations. It is entitled Pictures of the New World. Johann lays the heavy book on his knee and draws Marcus to him and, in a new contentment, the two of them turn the pages and talk about what they find there:
“The Thylacine wolf. You see his bright eye, Marcus?”
Marcus nods.
“He lives in the mountains, called the Appalachian Mountains.”
“What are those?”
“Mountains?” Johann raises both his hands. “Land. Rocky land that rises up, much higher than the hills, and where nothing grows and the snow falls all the year long.”
“Cold wolf I am cold in those mountains.”
“No, you’re not. For you have this thick coat of fur, you see? Your fur keeps you warm.”
Marcus snuggles inside his father’s arm. He strokes the picture of the wolf with his finger. Then he turns the page.
“Grasshopper,” he says.
“No,” says Johann. “A locust. Like the grasshopper, but much hungrier. And the American locust travels in swarms, hundreds and thousands of them in a great green cloud. And then they may come down where a farmer has planted his corn or his beans. And what do you think would happen then?”
“Hopping and hopping in the beans ...”
“Yes. And what else?”
“Making too much noise in the beans.”
“Yes. Too much noise. But something worse. Remember how hungry the locust is? Do you not think he would be happy to have landed in a bean field?”
“Eating up the beans eating them all one two three four five six seven?”
“Yes. And so the poor farmer—”
“Oh, crying.”
“Yes, crying. All the beans gone.”
Marcus covers his face with his hands. Johann goes hastily on. On the next page is a picture of a salamander. When Johann tells Marcus that this is a lizard who can live in fire, he goes very silent and, holding him, Johann can feel the heat of his body intensify for a period of several minutes.
The American book preoccupies Marcus. He asks to see it every day. And with Emilia, he begins to make his own drawings, just as he did in the Insect Room at Boller, of the creatures that he likes the best—the bristle-worm, the ichneumon wasp, the stick insect and the scorpion. And the idea of the scorpion’s sting seems to fascinate him more than almost anything else. He draws the sting as an arrow flying through the air or sometimes as a star. That he is told there are no scorpions in Denmark does not prevent him from searching for them. When he and Emilia go for walks in the meadows, to watch the spring arrive, Marcus is for ever looking for stones to turn over, convinced he may discover a scorpion underneath. And he calls to the invisible scorpions: “Come to me and be very quiet in my hand and I will take you there.”
“Where is ‘there’?” asks Emilia.
“Magdalena’s eye,” he replies.
Seeing the spring arrive reminds Emilia that, although her life has returned itself to the place where it started, time goes secretly on.
She can imagine the gardens at Rosenborg emerging from the long winter and knows how fast summer can follow spring, so that days identical to the ones she used to spend there with Kirsten could soon arrive and by the aviary other lovers might look at the darting birds and exchange kisses of the kind that are not easily forgotten.
She tells herself that if she is not to suffer beyond endurance, she must try to imagine that her time at Rosenborg did not exist. She must pretend that she dreamed it. For what, when a thing is past, differentiates it, in the reality of the present, from an illusion or fantasy? It had existence, but has none now except in memory. If the memory were to fail, then would it not be as though it had never ever been there at all? So this is what Emilia strives for—for her remembrance to fade, for everything that had to do with Peter Claire to grow cloudy and darken.
Her father is courteous to her, even affectionate from time to time, as he used to be before Karen died. And one afternoon, when Marcus is out riding with Boris and Matti, and there is no sign of Magdalena and Wilhelm, she takes her clock to Johann.
She keeps it clean and polished. It looks like a clock in perfect working order, except that the hands have not moved from ten minutes past seven. This is the time that it will always tell.
Johann looks at the clock and smiles and nods. Emilia waits. Then, in a hesitant voice, asks: “What happened at ten minutes past seven?”
“That is the hour,” he says, “when you were born.”
So then she thinks, It was I who was buried in the wood. Not out of any desire to remove me, but, rather, from my mother’s will to keep me here with her for ever. She did not want time to take me away.
And so, a kind of acceptance of her lot begins to grow in Emilia. In her sleep, she no longer dreams of Peter Claire or of any future in which he is present. She returns instead to her dreams of Karen, and they are so real to her that when she wakes she can almost believe she is a child again, singing her peculiar little songs, while her mother smiles and puts a gentle hand on her hair.
'^fat is the sky made of I do not know Sometimes it is made of dancing snow.
KIRSTEN: FROM HER PRIVATE PAPERS
I am alone.
In the kitchens and corridors of Boller, the Servants scuttle about their tasks, but they are like Mice that the eye does not see, but only comes upon the things they have made or unmade, and so concludes that a merry Troupe of them has been secretly at work. Even those People who are visible to me, such as those who wait on me at table or upon whom I prevail with some futile Errand, do behave towards me like Ghosts, as though I had some Disease which could communicate itself to them just by being near me, and flee from my side as fast as they can.
And so I find myself in a House of Shadows, with only the Furniture to talk to, but even this, and all the World of Inanimate Things, seems to have risen up against me, to mock my plight and to vex me. The floors make themselves very Slippery, so that I have twice now fallen flat on my face at the entrance to the Diningroom; the fires begin to send out smoke into all the rooms to choke me and blind me. But Worst and rudest of these Things are the Mirrors on the walls. Whenever I pass by one, it contrives to Distort me, so that instead of seeing myself as I know I am—Almost Queen and Mistress of Count Otto Ludwig of Salm—what I am shown is a Scowling and Plump Object that I do not recognise at all. And my Dressing glass, a day ago, hatched a Treason so pernicious that I was forced to smash it to pieces with my bronze Statuette of Achilles. It revealed to me a Hair growing out of my chin. The Hair was black. Had I seen a Serpent on me, I declare I would have been no more Appalled than I was to see this foul Hair sprouting out of my Face. I screamed for a Maid and with some metal pincers she wrenched it away by the Root. But what if a Plague of these things should begin to sprout, as sometimes you glimpse on old wizened Crones near death? I declare, I am tortured by what shall now happen to my body. If I had never been Beautiful, then the Loss of it would be no Loss and I would not mourn its passing so. But my Beauty was a Thing that none could overlook. With it, I ensnared a king
. In the garden at Rosenborg, he used to show me to the Flowers.
Now a letter comes from King Christian, saying that he wishes to Divorce me.
He declares that only his former Love for me prevents him from bringing me to a Trial for Treason and that there are many in Denmark who believe that I should be Bound upon a Wheel for my misdeeds.
He sets them out before me in his still-marvellous Hand (in case I had clean forgotten them), and to read the List of them, as though it might be a List of Filthy Garments to be delivered to the Washerwoman, discomfits me so far as to induce in me a heavy feeling of Shame. I have never understood why my Nature was so prone to wickedness. And always and still, I do not understand it. My Mother is a Schemer, but my Father was an honest man. Wherefore could I not have been like him and still Succeed in the World, and not lose all that I had and discover my hand empty of Every Thing except a Catalogue of my Transgressions?
And these are they:
That I betrayed the King my husband by fornicating with Count Otto Ludwig
That I baked Aphrodisiac cakes at Werden to lure the Count to my bed
That I gave away the King’s Gold and the King’s finest Linen to Count Otto
That I stole jewels belonging to the King’s First Wife, to get money to purchase all manner of Gifts for my Lover
That I rejoiced when the King was ill
That I danced, once, when the King fell down with his Stomach pains
That I was most frequently Blasphemous against the King and rolled upon the Log Pile in the Hall at Rosenborg calling out Obscenities
That I lied to All and Sundry about the Parentage of my child Dorothea
That I treated my Other Children with cruelty and pulled them about the Nursery by their hair
That by my Wantonness and Scheming, I brought the King to a Great Melancholy, which did threaten His Majesty’s Life
And none of these Things can I deny.
Indeed, I could add More that the King does not include. But I declare I cannot, alone, be held responsible for these Crimes. Life itself brings us to Transgression because it is so very Bitter and Ugly and full of Sorrow. To stay Alive, we are forced to Scheme. To have any Joy, we must Steal like Magpies from the Pitiful Store of it. Were it more in abundance and God much more benign than He does seem to be, why then I think I should have been a Good Woman and in all my mirrors I would see the face of an Angel. But even God has been turned against me. The King reports that from all the Nation’s Public Prayers, the name of Kirsten Munk is now excluded.
Where once I stood in wait, impatiently, for the Letter-carrier, now I pray that he does not come to Boller, but passes invisibly by, carrying all his Words elsewhere, to strike at other Hearts than mine. For I receive no Letter in this time that brings me aught but Fury and Disappointment.
Today, very fast upon the heels of my Husband’s Letter, comes another from King Gustav of Sweden. And this Document is as a Prison that builds itself around me as I read. For it informs me that I cannot leave Boller to come to my Lover in Sweden, no matter what Papers I might come by nor what Intelligence of the King’s affairs I might offer to his ancient Enemy.
I marvel at the cowardliness of King Gustav. Were his Seal not upon the Letter, I would think that Others had written it. For what inconvenience would my Little Presence in his Kingdom cause him when compared with the Great Advantages I offered him? But he repudiates me utterly: I cannot so Offend the King of Denmark as to accord you any Safe Passage into Sweden.
But Oh, the Hypocrisy of this! He (who has a thousand times “offended the King of Denmark” by complaining about the Sound Tolls and by waging bitter fights and Wars against this land) pretends he must remain white and unstained in this matter, but I say that he is not white, but Yellow, and I spit upon him. Were I the Absolute and not the Almost Queen, I would sell all that remains to me to buy ships and men, and I would begin a New War upon the Kingdom of Sweden and strive to take from Gustavus Adolphus all that he possesses, just as God took everything from His Servant Job, so that he might know what it is to be Scorned and to have Nothing, and know no Pleasure and be mired up in a lonely house with fires that belch and looking-glasses that break apart with laughter.
I have quite run out of Stratagems. Life is a blank, a nought, a minus.
I sit down at my escritoire and beg the King, as one last favour to me, whom once he called Mouse, to send me my Black Boys. For they know Magic, I am sure of it. They are the Children of Sorcerers. And this is all I can think of: that I may come to some Resurrection in the World through the dangerous study of Enchantment.
THE SEA-BLUE BOUDOIR
The date of Charlotte Claire’s wedding to Mr. George Middleton has been set for the third of May.
Seamstresses are even now at work upon the wedding dress and upon the cloaks, dresses, petticoats and undergarments set out in the lists drawn up by Charlotte and her mother. To the items chosen by them, George has added the requirement of “one black mourning gown” and refused to be moved by Charlotte’s protestation that nobody they knew seemed likely to die just at present. “Daisy,” he said, taking her hand in his, “your ‘just at present’ is not a fixed entity. It is not the sundial, my dearest, but the moving shadow cast by the sun.”
She goes frequently to Cookham, where the cold of winter still lingers in the morning frosts and in the furious winds that intrude upon the peace of the Norfolk night. She does not tire of walking with George round and round the house and its garden, its outhouses and its park. She feels—when she contemplates the fine arrangement of these buildings, the unimaginable expanse of green that surrounds them—as if she is about to become heiress to the whole of England.
Within Cookham Hall, a large upstairs room which looks west over the Cookham woods has been designated “Charlotte’s Boudoir.” Though she and George have laughed at the term (“Does it not mean sulking room, George? And wherefore should I have anything to sulk about?”), Charlotte is secretly enraptured by it and has no difficulty imagining herself within it, writing letters signed Mrs. G. Middleton, practising her dance steps, planning elegant supper parties, entertaining her friends or her mother to tea and cakes, or merely sitting and looking at the fire and dreaming of all the days and nights yet to come.
She has instructed the wall-painters to paint the boudoir blue. It is the blue of air and sea that she wants, which is neither deep nor pale, which is sweetly susceptible to light. And now this blue is going on, and Charlotte stands in the middle of the room and looks at it and discovers, in the midst of her enthusiasm for the choice of it, that it suddenly reminds her of her brother, of those luminous eyes of his which she has not seen for such a long time. And she feels her happiness falter.
Too content with her own lot to think of him very often, Charlotte Claire is now filled with an inexplicable panic on his behalf. Something desolate, something terrible, is about to happen to him. Of this she is suddenly certain. And so she cannot move. She clutches the lace at her throat. She knows why the black mourning gown has been ordered: it is for Peter.
The two wall-painters, seeing her go pale, set down their brushes and come to her side. The room is empty except for their ladders and she is helped to sit down on the low step of one of these, while Mr. Middleton is urgently sought.
He runs all the way from the stables and bursts in, panting. He kneels at her side and grasps her hand. “Daisy dearest, what is the matter? Oh, my darling girl, how pale you are. Charlotte, speak to me . . . ”
“Oh, George, something has—”
“Is it the blue? Do you detest it after all? Only say and it shall be instantly altered . . .”
“No, not precisely the blue, but rather the thing which came to me when I contemplated the blue . . .”
The wall-painters, wiping the paint from their hands with rags, leave George and Charlotte alone, and his arms go round her and hold her tightly to him while she tells him now, on the instant, a certainty has invaded her: her brother is in danger.
If the admirable George Middleton has any faults, it is perhaps that he lacks curiosity and therefore has no tolerance for the things of the mind that he does not understand. The notion that his fiancée could “know” something that was occurring hundreds of miles away or indeed might not yet have occurred at all strikes him as so improbable as to be positively annoying and thus, without meaning to be harsh, he exclaims: “Tosh, Daisy!”
And this word “tosh” (that Middleton did not exactly intend to utter, but which came out all the same) is all that Charlotte needs to break down in tears. How terrible it is, she thinks, to live in a world where she can see tragedies and calamities in her mind, indeed feel the nearness of these things in her body, so that it grows cold and can hardly move, and yet not be believed by the man she loves. She pulls away from the warmth of George’s arms and staggers to the window, where she lays her head upon the glass and sees, in the acres of parkland, only desolation.
Still kneeling by the wall-painters’ ladder, George Middleton feels at a loss. He cannot leave his darling Daisy weeping at the window, yet what words can he find which will, at one and the same time, convince her she is deluded in her premonition and bring her the comfort that she needs? It is wretched, he thinks, when a person goes into realms of fancy. It disturbs the temperature of the air. It makes complicated things which should not be complicated. And he sincerely hopes that Charlotte will not do this very much once she is married.