Authors: Donna Lea Simpson
Again that censure, Elizabeth thought. The countess seemed to censure everyone who was not German. Perhaps she felt the same way about Elizabeth’s nationality. “Is that all in my section?”
“No. Gerta and her children’s suite of rooms takes up the rest of that end of the house. Above you is… well, let us go and see the others.”
Rapidly, the countess traversed the main section and up a set of stairs to the new section above Elizabeth’s rooms. It seemed there was no old section; the fourth floor was new section only. “Aunt Katrina’s rooms are here,” she said, passing a door. “And then there is Uta.”
“Uta?”
Adele’s face cracked in an odd expression, and Elizabeth realized it was the first time she had seen a smile on the woman’s hard face.
“Uta. Come.”
She rapped loudly on the door but didn’t pause as she pushed it open. The room was gloomy, but as her vision adjusted Elizabeth saw that despite the early hour there were several people there. Charlotte must have made her way there by another passage, because she sat by another girl. Frau Liebner was there, and Elizabeth thought she had never been so happy to see another person in her life as she was to see that dear, familiar, obstinate face. But in pride of place by the fire, in an enormous, shabby old chair, was a woman… or what was likely a woman. She was wrapped in voluminous blankets and her white hair was topped by a lace cap. Her face was like that of a wrinkled apple doll, with eyes set deep in folds of skin and wrinkles creasing her cheeks.
“
Wer ist da
?” she said, her voice surprisingly hale for such a tiny apple-doll character.
“It is Elizabeth Stanwycke, of whom I was just speaking,” Frau Liebner said, getting up with difficulty and making her way across the room to her protégé. “Come, Elizabeth,” she said, taking her hand and leading her over to the old woman. “Kneel!”
Surprised, Elizabeth knelt where Frau Liebner indicated, finding that a stream of light from the one window in the room touched her face. The old woman in the chair leaned forward and peered closely at her. She took Elizabeth’s face in her hands and stared, turning it this way and that, her crooked fingers feeling Elizabeth’s skin and the contours of her cheeks. The old woman’s eyes were milky and her sight clearly very poor, but there was a stubborn and proud look in her expression that Elizabeth was riveted by.“ ‘a, a beauty. Too bad. We vill haf to see, Katrina, how dis all turns out.”
Her English was good though her accent was strong, most words affected by it, and yet her diction was clear. The w’s sounded like v’s and the
d’s
a little like f’s. But what did she mean, that it was too bad she was pretty and they would have to see how it turned out? Elizabeth scrambled back onto her feet and met Frau Liebner’s gaze, but her friend merely shrugged.
“This is Miss Melisande Davidovich,” the Countess Adele said, indicating the girl sitting beside Charlotte.
The girl rose and shook Elizabeth’s hand. “Bonjour, Mademoiselle Stanwycke. I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“And I, yours, mademoiselle,” Elizabeth said, taking her hand. The young woman’s politeness was a pleasant contrast to Charlotte’s sulky behavior so far. Mademoiselle Davidovich was a very pretty girl; her dark blond hair was streaked with gold and was as fine as cobweb, and she had a pale, lightly freckled complexion, blue eyes, and a pink bow mouth. And yet, with so much beauty around her—for Charlotte was lovely, Melisande pretty, and Countess Adele striking—it was to the oldest woman’s face that Elizabeth’s gaze returned. If her life was represented on that face, then it had been hard, but had had its rewards.
“Uta is my great aunt,” the countess said. “She is my grandfather’s youngest sister. She—”
The countess’s explanation was interrupted when a serving woman came into the room and gestured. Adele moved toward her, watched her gestures, and nodded.
“I must go for one moment, so please remain here, Miss Stanwycke.”
“She will have tea with us,” Frau Liebner said. “Mina,” she continued, addressing the woman who had just approached the countess, “bring another cup.” She turned back to Elizabeth. “Sit with us. I was just catching up with Uta, for we are old friends.”
Bewildered, Elizabeth took a chair, which happened to be near the old woman who sat listening and catching the movement around her. Should she speak to her? Should she address only the others?
Her dilemma was solved by Uta herself.
“
Elizabeth;
dat is good name. Is it family name?”
“No. My mother thought it pretty, and she liked pretty things.”
They spoke on innocuous subjects for a few moments, but then Uta, with a sly expression, said, “I hear, girl, dat you had frightening time on the road.
Ja
? Woman ran out, overturned carriage?”
Elizabeth glanced at Frau Liebner in surprise, but she just shrugged and smiled, as if to say no one kept anything from Uta.
“Well, it didn’t exactly happen like that; we had our little accident first, and then I saw the woman… or girl. But it was upsetting,” Elizabeth said with an uneasy look at the two girls, who whispered to each other on some intense topic. They spoke in German; Melisande seemed fluent in it, as did her uncle Maximillian, Elizabeth remembered, from the night before. She would have to learn, too. “I told the count about it, and he said he would look into it for me.”
“But you…” the old woman said, poking at her with one crooked finger. “You were going into forest after the woman?”
“I didn’t like to see her chased,” Elizabeth said sternly, perturbed by the hint of laughter in Uta’s voice and irked by the poke in the ribs. “The poor lady! What if the brute was going to hurt her? What if—”
“What if she was going to enjoy it, eh?” the old women erupted in gales of laughter, her blankets shivering and her lace cap falling askew.
Both girls were now watching and listening, and Elizabeth had to assume they had heard some of the story of her journey to the castle the previous night. As her dour maid, Mina, brought Elizabeth a cup of tea, Uta settled herself and straightened her cap.
“You must excuse,” she said, “an old woman’s laughter. I haf not much to laugh about. Your coachman was right to pull you back from going in woods. Danger is dere.” She dropped her voice and leaned forward. “Danger. Bad things. I who haf lived here my whole life through tell you dis.”
The two girls were still listening.
“What kind of things, Countess Uta?” Melisande asked in English.
“Terrible things. I will tell you story dat happened to me. Once, when I was young, I was walking in forest.”
“You said the forest was dangerous and one should never go in,” Elizabeth interjected, setting her cup aside on a table.
“But I was foolish maiden, you see.
Toericht
… most foolish, dat means, Miss Stanwycke. I walked in the light of the full moon to meet a lover, you know.”
Charlotte giggled, but then covered her mouth.
Uta was good-humored even at her great-niece’s rudeness. “
Ach
, I know, so old as I am now, who would want me? But I was pretty den, prettier dan you, Charlotte,” she said, waggling a bony finger. “And with better breasts, ja? Bigger ones dan yours.
Sei still, maedchen
. So, I was going to meet my lover. He was not good enough for me, my father said, and he was right, but the fellow was a strong lad, and I liked him. So I was going to meet him. I thought if I got with child my father would let me marry Siegfried, so I was going to get with child.”
Both girls gasped, but Elizabeth watched, noting that their shocked reaction was just what Uta was hoping for. Frau Liebner was silent, watching, too.
“It was dark, near midnight, and cold. I was wrapped in cape and walked quickly, trying to get warm. When out of nowhere big, big wolf leaped into the path!”
Both girls jumped and shrieked. Uta laughed.
“He was big, gray… a handsome, shaggy beast,” she continued. “But terrible to see,” she said, dropping her voice to a hoarse whisper, “for his mouth was dripping with blood, fangs three inches long and red blood dropping onto fresh snow from dem!” The sunlight touched Uta’s wrinkled face and she turned toward it and continued her tale. “I backed one step and he followed. I backed more, and still he followed, just one step at a time.”
Elizabeth stole a look at Charlotte and Melisande; both girls were listening openmouthed, their expressions fearful.
“And den he leapt!” Uta cried, flinging her hands up, shaping them like claws.
The girls shrieked again and clung to each other.
“I turned and ran, tripping; I was thinking, you see, every step I took would be last, dat I would fall and wolf would be on me and do awful things, rip into my—”
“What absolute rubbish,” Elizabeth said, her voice deliberately loud, not liking how Uta was relishing frightening the two girls. “I don’t believe that ever happened to you.”
Frau Liebner cried out in horror, “Elizabeth! You should not—”
“No, Katrina, no. Let her speak,” Uta shouted, her hoarse old voice crackling with either laughter or anger.
Again, her impertinence was about to get her in trouble, Elizabeth thought, scanning the room. Well, better here than in front of the count or countess, she supposed. But still she hesitated.
“Speak, Fraulein Stanwycke,” the old woman commanded.
Charlotte and Melisande watched, wide-eyed, their gazes flicking between Uta and Elizabeth.
Folding her hands in her lap, Elizabeth said, “I do not believe that any girl, no matter how foolish, would go into the woods at night in winter for… for the purpose you described.”
“Ah, but Siegfried and I were to meet and go to cottage he knew of in woods.”
“Then I think he would have come closer to the castle to accompany you. You said he was of a lower station than you. You would have made him meet you, not waded through the snowy forest on a cold night. You would have met him nearer the castle.”
“I was very young, and my father—”
“Then you would have arranged something else, but I still will never believe you went calmly walking through the forest in the middle of a snowy night to meet a man.”
Uta’s rheumy eyes sparkled with humor. “Katrina,” she said, reaching out for Frau Liebner’s hand. “You did not tell me dis one was so quick… and so bold.
Was kann Ich sehe, aber Ich
war zehr jung und toericht
? Dat means, young miss, what can I say, but dat I was very young and foolish?”
“Then a girl so foolish would have been caught by the wolf and devoured, I think,” Elizabeth said. She glanced over at the two girls and both were calmer; Charlotte was gazing at her with a measure of speculation.
A nice-looking, very proper gentleman wearing spectacles entered the room just then and glanced around the gathering. “Good day, ladies. I have come to find Miss Stanwycke.” His gaze settled on Elizabeth and he moved in front of her and bowed, taking her hand. “Miss Stanwycke; I am Cesare Vitali, the count’s secretary. Countess Adele sent me to retrieve, you, miss, for she wishes to continue your tour of the castle.”
Elizabeth rose, curtseyed to the gathering, and said to Frau Liebner, “May I visit you later?”
Frau Liebner nodded.
Uta, still grinning, said, “Come back and see me. I miss speaking to dose with any brain, for dey are few in dis dull house.”
NIKOLAS trudged through the huge double doors of the castle and knocked snow from his boots. His vision was blurred and his whole body ached with weariness. If he did not find his bed soon, he would drop where he was.
Two servants approached and he gave them his snow-covered cloak and gloves and related his desire for something hot to drink once he reached his own rooms. There were things he should have been doing, plans he should have been making, but he had to sleep before he did anything else.
He trudged into the great hall, the sound of his hobnailed boots echoing off the vaulted ceiling.
“Nikolas!”
He looked up. Adele gazed down at him from the gallery, her gaunt face pale in the dim upper reaches of the hall above him. Glancing swiftly around and seeing several servants, he decided it was too risky to impart his awful news in German, for they would understand him and he didn’t wish to alarm them a second before he needed to, so in English he said, “Adele, something terrible has happened. Young Magda Brandt, Wilhelm Brandt’s daughter… they found her on the edge of von Wolfram property, attacked by wolves… they don’t know if she will live.”
He heard a gasp, but it was not from his imperturbable sister. A figure moved from behind Adele, and he saw Miss Stanwycke appear at the high carved railing.
“You should have warned me that she was there,” he said to Adele in German, his stomach clenched as though by a fearsome fist.
“A wolf attack?” Elizabeth Stanwycke said. “How terrible!”
Her face in the gloom of the gallery was pallid, her expression concerned, but she didn’t swoon, nor did she cry out, scream, or in any other way demand attention for her own shocked sensibilities. He headed for the stairs and strode up them two at a time, forgetting his weariness.
“I am sorry, Miss Stanwycke,” he said when he stood before the two ladies. “I should not have spoken so abruptly, but I thought Adele was alone, and—”
“No need for an explanation, Count,” she said, the whole line of her body stiffening. “I was shocked but I will not wilt, I promise you.”
They stared at each other for a moment, and he remembered coming upon her in the night in the library, where she had no real right to be. The proud tilt of her chin was familiar to him already from that encounter, and the determined set of her lips. He supposed he should be happy she was no swooning lily overcome by every shock, but he was not sure so much strength and resolution was best suited to his own purposes, or whether a more timid sort who would stay in her room and hide would have been better. Too late now, anyway. They would have to see.
Adele said, “We were just on our way to meet Charlotte in the yellow parlor. Is Magda Brandt really so bad? What can we do?”
He struggled with what to say, in the company of his niece’s new tutor. There was much going on that he would need to keep from her. In fact, there was much that he kept from everyone, and even some from Adele. “I have not seen her, but her father says—”