Authors: Donna Lea Simpson
“No! Do as I say this minute.” Adele was a force not to be resisted, and Charlotte caught Cesare’s eye, then turned and fled the room.
Melisande ran after her and Adele, with a stifled exclamation, left, too.
“My goodness,” Gerta said, primly. “Such hysteria this morning.”
Bartol Liebner nodded. “Something is wrong with that girl, but I do not know what.” He sat back down and finished his meal in silence.
Elizabeth was no longer hungry, though, and left the room. Looking for her one friend in the castle, she was unlucky; Frau Liebner, it appeared, had been recruited by Countess Adele to try to talk to the girl about England and why it was not such a terrible place to go. Since Charlotte’s primary objection did not seem to be so much to the country itself but to her marital prospects and the anticipation of being separated from her brother, Elizabeth did not see what good it could do, but it was their business not hers, and as she had been reminded so often, she should stay out of that which did not concern her. She was not on terms with Charlotte that would make her interference of any help, anyway. Disconsolate and at loose ends, she wandered up to Countess Uta’s suite, not sure what to do with all that she had seen, heard, and learned in the last day or two.
The old lady was, as usual, avid for gossip, but Elizabeth had already determined not to mention what she had seen the night before. What point could there be in disturbing the poor old lady’s peace when she could do nothing about it? Nor would she have any answers to Elizabeth’s many questions.
Instead, Elizabeth spoke of her life in England and how much she enjoyed teaching eager young minds. At the end of her cheery speech, the old lady sat silent. Mina had made her comfortable and then had gone off on some errand Uta had initiated with a series of hand gestures.
“All very pretty,” the old lady finally said. “But I think dis is not what is in your mind and heart, ja? You are gifing prepared speech, rehearsed and prettily said. What is wrong, Elizabeth?”
“Nothing, ma’am.” .
“What is wrong?” Her blind eyes staring into space, she reached out and touched Elizabeth’s face, her knobby fingers caressing the curves, touching her mouth.
Elizabeth submitted patiently, but she was not prepared for what Uta said.
“You are fearing very much dat you are falling in love, and dat the gentleman is unworthy or… or unable to reciprocate.”
“What nonsense! I’m sorry, ma’am, but you have been misled by someone into believing—”
“Do not speak so hastily, and do not get up.” She put out one strong hand to stay Elizabeth, who had indeed begun to rise. “I do not hear dis from anyone but only speak what I haf been thinking. Why do you fear men so? Is it the nature, the physical part only?”
Elizabeth, fretful and anxious but held firm by the old woman’s grasp, said, “No, there is just nothing—”
“Haf you ever been in love before?”
“I thought I was.”
“Ach, gut, tell me of dis.” She released Elizabeth and settled back down in her swaddling wraps. “Dis is what I want to hear, not such nonsense about how much you love the teaching and how you love castle and how you love Germany. Tell me things about you, about your heart.”
As harsh and grating as the old woman’s voice was, Elizabeth felt a tug at her heartstrings.
Even Frau Liebner, who knew everything, had not been willing to speak of it, and the past lived still, shameful, hurting, aching in her heart. Shivering, she whispered, “Please, ma’am…”
“Just tell me. It is like telling wall, or whispering to pillow, for as much as I like to hear, I do not tell.”
Elizabeth felt the truth of it and started, faltering at first, but becoming stronger and more determined. “Before coming here I was a governess in a great house, the home of my distant relatives.” She stopped, and then said, “I suppose I should say, first, that my mother and father died when I was young. They were very gay, very happy. My mother was the daughter of a viscount, but my father… he was somewhat beneath that rank, and yet he loved my mother, and she him. Or so I was told anyway. There were many arguments and many tears, but always they made up their quarrels afterwards. However, when they died together in an accident, it was discovered that as much as they loved each other—and despite my mother’s many complaints about my father’s treatment of her, it seems that they loved each other very much—it appeared they had failed to love the progeny of their union as much, for no provisions had been made for me, and I was penniless. They had squandered Mama’s dowry.”
“Dat is not love of each other, for if a man loves the mother of his child he provides for dere baby. Dat is selfish love of oneself only, dat sees reflected in one’s wife or husband’s eyes only the youthful, undying vision of yourself.”
Elizabeth frowned down at her skirt and plucked at the fabric. Perhaps the countess was right, and it was not that she had been innately unlovable, but that both her mother and her father were just too wrapped up in themselves to truly care even for each other. It would explain much, she thought, about their arguments and her mother’s histrionics. “As a result,” she went on, “I lived during my youth as the charity child of some cousins. When I grew, and it was clear that there was no money to launch me on society, much talk was expended on what to do with me until some kindly third cousins offered to give me a home in exchange for the tutelage of their spoiled and despicable little brats.”
Elizabeth swallowed back the bile of her humiliation at the hands of that family. With the approbation of their church commending them for their kindness in giving her a home, they had been firm in treating her as something below a chambermaid in importance, all the while paying her only in pin money and her clothes—made over from the mistress of the house’s wardrobe—and food.
“You did not like your little cousins.”
“For the most part they were foul little beasts, and they were allowed—nay, encouraged—to treat me badly. Every attempt at discipline I made was countermanded by their doting mama and papa, to my detriment, for the children soon learned that even the butler must be listened to before me.”
“Why was dat? Did you whine? Did you grovel?”
The lady’s harsh words brought Elizabeth back to earth with a thud, and she laughed. She reached over and squeezed the old woman’s hand. “How clever you are, Countess. I believe I did, rather, at first. I had not developed the firmness of mind to deal with the problem. I was very young, just eighteen when I went there. I expected my cousins to support me in what I wished to do with their little girls. I thought that naturally they would want well-disciplined and well-behaved young ladies for daughters.”
“All parents want dat, or so dey say, but not all know how to accomplish it. Some have too much pride and mistake poor behavior in dere children to be a sign of precocity.”
“You are wise, Countess Uta.”
“Go on. What did you do?”
“Well, nothing for a few years; I suffered and did my best, becoming more… more beaten down, more unhappy as the children became more insolent. But then I did something calculated to horrify my employers; I fell in love with the master of the house’s younger brother.”
Uta snickered. “Understandable reaction to rejection and frustration, dat was. Go on. Did the young man return your affection?”
“He certainly gave every appearance of it. He said tender words, squeezed my hand, and gazed at me longingly. He made every effort to find me alone. He begged me to meet him in the hedgerow.”
“Ach, yes, certain signs of love… the love of a spoiled young gentleman, anyway. And what happened?”
“The age-old song, ma’am. I thought myself in love, thought that I was certainly the first and only to feel that tingling in the limbs when one’s beloved is near, and that singing is in the heart. His soft words and fond gazes captured me completely, and when he wrote me a sonnet, I was utterly bewitched.”
One knobby hand covered hers. “Do not think yourself too foolish, Elizabeth, for many a girl has been captured so.”
“Oh, I was more than captured, I was seduced. Or… to be fair, he did not have to ask me a second time to meet him in the attic, where a deserted divan became our haven. My life was so miserable, and in his arms I found happiness, however brief it was. I was ready and willing, and… and I capitulated utterly, giving even my maidenhood as a sacrifice at the altar of my love.”
If she expected a gasp of shock, she was to be disappointed. Uta merely said, “And was the joy of such a union worth the illicitness of it?”
“No. At least… not the first time.” It was terribly odd to discuss the affair so coolly, with so little emotion. “But John was a considerate lover, and I came to enjoy it. Somewhat.”
“You did not get with child?”
“No,” Elizabeth said, feeling the heat rise in her face. “I… there are certain things he taught me…”
“He was experienced in debauchery.”
“Odd how that didn’t occur to me at the time, how he had learned such things. I was just grateful that he seemed to care for me so much.”
“You were very fortunate, for such means are not foolproof, young lady. In future, you must be more careful.”
“There will be no ‘future’ to take care in, ma’am,” she said, drawing herself up. “You cannot think me so foolish as to be taken in by a man’s blandishments again?”
A half smile lifted Uta’s wrinkled mouth. “Are you saying you will never fall in love again?”
Elizabeth was silent. No, she couldn’t say that. She had proven to be surprisingly susceptible to a certain gentleman even now. “No, I suppose I can’t say that. But if I have learned anything, it is that men are not to be trusted.”
“How did the affair end? Badly, I suppose?”
“Yes. Oh, yes. He had promised me marriage, and I do believe he thought he was being honest when he offered it. But he apparently raised the specter of such a misalliance to his parents, and he was forbidden and then enticed with the offer of independence from the parental purse if he allied himself with a certain young lady of good birth and better dowry.”
“So he abandoned you?”
Elizabeth nodded, feeling the pain, but noting that it was considerably dulled. It was now more allied with her stupidity in believing him than anything. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, he abandoned me with some blithe words. He wished me well and hoped I found a husband, but it would not be him.”
“Good. Would you be happy in dat marriage?”
“Ma’am,” Elizabeth said, shocked. “It was certainly
not
good ! When he abandoned me he confessed everything to his brother, over whose children I had governance. So shocked were the little darlings’ parents that I was not only dismissed, but I was warned that if I ever tried to get a position teaching children I would be exposed as a whore across the whole of England!
After five years of service, that was their treatment of me. Any marriage would certainly have been better than the degradation, humiliation, and utter shame I suffered at their hands.”
“I suppose. But you would be married to a man of such terrible lack of strength. Would be a sorry life for a woman of your character, to find such a thing.”
Elizabeth fell silent again as she considered it all. It had been a terrible time, but thinking about it now, she could not imagine being married to John. With the mist of love receded she could see his vanity, his want of intelligence, and, of course, his weakness in the face of threats from his family. Marriage to such a man would involve many compromises, and he would have soon resented her for the sacrifices of worldly wealth he had made to wed her.
Ridiculous to even think of such an eventuality, of course; he had never truly intended marriage, and it occurred to her then that he may have been using her to try to wrench his independence from his clutch-fisted parents’ hands with the threat of an unsuitable alliance.
When she looked up it was to see that Uta had fallen asleep and Mina was coming back in.
With a gesture, the fierce maid indicated that Elizabeth should leave. She obeyed, laying one soft kiss on the old woman’s forehead under her lacy cap. When Elizabeth looked up she noticed a softer gleam in the maid’s gray eyes, though it vanished in a heartbeat.
And after that she wandered, depressed somewhat by her recitation of her sad little tale. It had been a blow, being dismissed, but worse was the hatred in her cousin’s face as he accused her of seducing his younger brother, just so she could marry into the family. And then he had said some vile things to her, ending with a disgusting offer to take care of her if she would make herself available to him. She had slapped him, and she still did not regret that.
Her employment there was over and she was discarded with no notice and no care. What was worse was that she had just been learning that with growing confidence and stronger behavior she was actually beginning to make some progress with her charges, especially with the eldest girl in her care, a child of thirteen years who was beginning to show promise.
Frau Liebner had been a visitor to the house often, as she was a distant relation of the mistress of the house; that woman disliked her, so Elizabeth had often been sent for to make conversation with the older lady. They had discovered a kinship of sorts, a meeting of minds.
She hadn’t realized it at the time, but Frau Liebner had been set the task of finding a tutor for Charlotte and had been considering Elizabeth as a possibility, which accounted for her frequent visits in the last month. On the very day she was being dismissed, Frau Liebner was coming, she said, to offer her the position, though she did not have much hope of success, at that point, until she learned of the trouble.
Elizabeth drifted to the yellow parlor and opened the drapes on the prospect of snow blowing around the house. She remembered that day; it was October, and the wind had turned chill…
or what she considered chill at the time. She had never experienced the cold of a German winter before. She had burst into tears when Frau Liebner had offered her the position, mostly because of the lady’s kindness, and because she had just been wondering where she would go with out a recommendation to help her to another position. She had felt compelled, though, to tell the lady the truth, sparing no detail, for she did not want the story to reach Frau Liebner’s ears from the poisonous tongue of her cousin.