The Wild Girl (15 page)

Herr Wild frowned, hesitating.

‘They’ll be announcing the new laws in French,’ Lisette pointed out.

‘Very well,’ her father answered reluctantly. ‘But you must be back before dark.’

‘Thank you, Father.’ Before he could say another word, Hanne opened the door and hurried out into the Marktgasse. Dortchen and Mia scrambled after her, with Lisette, Röse and Gretchen only steps behind. The five young men of the Grimm family were waiting for them impatiently, badly knitted scarves bundled about their throats. As soon as the Wild sisters had joined them, they began to hurry down the narrow street, Jakob leading the way.

They heard the roar of the bonfire and smelt the smoke long before they reached the Königsplatz. Soldiers were unloading a wagonload of scrolls and manuscripts, shouting, ‘No more privileges for nobles! Equality for all! No more feudal dues! Liberty for all! Long live the Revolution!’

‘Long live the Revolution!’ shouted a young man with disordered chestnut hair and a faded red scarf loosely tied about his neck.

Hanne caught the young man by the sleeve. ‘Is it true? A new constitution? What does it say?’

‘All men are now free, regardless of their birth or their wealth,’ the young man told her, his golden-brown eyes glowing with excitement. ‘The serfs are all to be liberated.’

Hanne clapped her hands together.

Dortchen was amazed and thrilled and frightened all at once. She had always felt so sorry for the serfs working in the fields. They were often dressed in little more than smocks, their feet wrapped in rags. Sometimes, if one of their children was desperately sick, they would come begging to the apothecary’s shop, offering turnips or a handful of eggs in return for medicine. Herr Wild would always take the exchange, even if the turnips were half-rotten.

What are the serfs to do now?
she wondered.
Where will they go? How will they live? Will they own the land they have slaved on for so long?
It seemed impossible.

‘People are free to worship as they choose – or even not worship at all,’ the young man went on. ‘Best of all, the nobles have lost all their privileges. They’ll have to pay taxes like the rest of us.’

‘Women too?’ Hanne demanded. ‘Are women to be given the same rights?’

A soldier nearby laughed and threw up his hands. ‘Women? What need does a woman have of rights when she has a man to look after her?’

Hanne stamped her foot. ‘Just as much need as a man.’ But the soldier was busy throwing old title deeds onto the bonfire and paid her no heed.

The young man in the red scarf shook his head regretfully. ‘I’m sorry, Fraülein. It is, as far as I can see, the one great flaw of the Emperor’s vision. Women cannot vote, they cannot own property, they cannot be a guardian to their own children—’

‘It’s so wrong,’ Hanne said. ‘I swear I am twice as smart as those bone-brained French lawyers. If I were allowed to go to university and study law, I’d show them so, too.’

‘I’m sure you would, Fraülein,’ the young man said admiringly. ‘Listen, he is reading the new constitution out now.’

A man in a white wig and gold-frogged coat stood on the steps, reading aloud from a scroll of paper. Dortchen listened carefully, but with the noise of the crowd, the roar of the bonfire and her own inadequate French, she caught only a few words. Jakob and Wilhelm were listening closely, both frowning.

‘Well, at least we’re casting off the chains of oppression,’ Hanne said. ‘We’ll be the first country in any of the German states to have a constitution. This is a landmark day.’

Jakob turned on her angrily. ‘Do you realise this so-called “constitution” was thrown together in Paris by a mob of half-drunk revolutionaries with blood on their hands? They fought and bickered over every single article, each pushing his own barrow, and paying no heed at all to centuries of tradition and custom. Not one of these articles has been tested in a court of law.’

‘Fuddy-duddy,’ Hanne said.

The young man in the red scarf laughed.

THE MERRY KIN

December 1807

Herr Wild was in a rage.

Glass shattered. Metal crashed. Pots smashed.

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Dortchen whispered to Lisette, anxiety a cold stone in her gut.

‘It’s the new weights and measurements,’ Lisette whispered back. ‘The King has ordered all shopkeepers and tradesmen to adopt them. All of father’s old jugs and scales and spoons are useless. He has to order in all new things, and it’ll cost a lot. He still hasn’t been paid for all the drugs the soldiers took when they first invaded. And, of course, it is the French who are selling the new measuring tools.’

‘Confounded parasites,’ Herr Wild shouted. ‘Sucking my lifeblood away.’

‘I don’t think it’s a good time to ask him about the ball,’ Gretchen said.

‘It’s never a good time to ask him about anything,’ Hanne said.

‘Girls,’ Frau Wild called in a low voice from the top of the stairs. ‘Come away. Don’t let him hear you.’

Disconsolately, the sisters trailed upstairs to the drawing room, where they took up their sewing and knitting. Outside, stray flurries of snow drifted down out of a pewter-grey sky, but it was warm and cosy inside. Frau Wild was lying on the couch, a small table crowded with drops and smelling salts and pillboxes at her elbow, and so Dortchen and Mia had to sit on the hearth rug with cushions behind them.

‘Mother, won’t you speak to him?’ Gretchen wheedled. ‘He’ll listen to you.’

‘I don’t know why you think so,’ Frau Wild said.

‘But how are we supposed to meet any eligible gentlemen if we’re never permitted to go anywhere?’ Gretchen pleaded. ‘Mother, you must appeal to him. I don’t want to be left on the shelf like Lisette.’

‘I’m only twenty-five,’ Lisette protested.

‘Only,’ Gretchen shuddered.

‘Please, girls, not so vulgar,’ Frau Wild said.

‘Tell him you fear Gretchen will form a
mésalliance
with that boy next door,’ Hanne suggested, squinting as she rethreaded her needle.

‘I am not so foolish,’ Gretchen replied angrily. ‘I admit that Wilhelm is very handsome, but have you seen his clothes? How could he afford to set up a house?’

‘No prospects,’ Frau Wild said.

‘Exactly,’ Hanne said. ‘Father will be so horrified at the idea that he’ll start looking around for alternatives at once. And what better place to meet suitable young men than at a ball at the King’s palace?’

‘I must say, it sounds so much nobler to talk of going to a ball at the King’s palace instead of at a mere Kurfürst’s palace,’ Gretchen said.

‘You shouldn’t speak so,’ Lisette chided her.

‘The poor Kurfürst,’ Dortchen said, remembering the stout man in the shabby clothes and powdered wig who had called her pretty.

‘You should not be so lacking in taste,’ Frau Wild said. ‘It is most unbecoming.’

Gretchen tossed her head. ‘Well, it’s true. And you all must admit that the palace is a far merrier place now. It’s been one ball after another. And we’re invited to this one.’

‘I can’t believe Rudolf managed to secure us invitations,’ Hanne said. ‘Who would have thought any good would have come out of him going out carousing all night with those new cronies of his?’

‘He’s hardly showing up in the shop at all any more,’ Lisette said. ‘And when he does he’s like a bear with a sore head.’

‘Well, that’s not surprising.’ Gretchen giggled. ‘Did you hear him trying to get up the stairs last night?’

‘Last night? This morning, more like it,’ Röse said. ‘I thought we
were being invaded by intoxicated soldiers. I was most discomposed.’

‘Father is giving me more and more responsibility in the shop,’ Lisette said.

‘Who’d have thought?’ Frau Wild said.

‘I know! To think how reluctant he was to let me serve at all. He’s always made me stay in the stillroom before. Yet with Rudolf always off at the theatre and the races …’

‘And at gambling dens,’ Hanne said with relish. ‘I do wish we were allowed to go too. I’d love to see a gambling den. It sounds so decadent.’

‘Not at all the thing,’ Frau Wild said.

‘Well, I’m glad Father doesn’t let me serve in the shop,’ Gretchen said. ‘All those squalling babies and suppurating boils – I can’t imagine anything more horrid.’

‘You aren’t allowed to serve in the shop because your French is so bad,’ Mia pointed out.

‘I don’t think serving in a shop is at all ladylike,’ Gretchen said, putting her nose in the air. ‘Really, Lisette, I don’t know how you stand it.’

‘Father doesn’t let me actually
serve
the soldiers,’ Lisette said. ‘I have to sit behind the counter and tell him in a low voice what they asked for and then fetch it from the stillroom for him. He handles all the weighing and wrapping, and the money. I’m supposed to pretend I’m invisible.’

‘Pride is hard to swallow,’ Frau Wild said.

Sometimes their mother’s pronouncements were hard to decipher. Dortchen thought she must be trying to say that Herr Wild’s pride was bruised by needing his eldest daughter’s assistance, and that was why she had to pretend to be invisible. Hanne and Gretchen giggled and rolled their eyes, and Mia looked perplexed, but Lisette smiled gently at her mother. ‘Yes, I know,’ she answered.

‘Anyway, what does it matter? All that matters is that Rudolf has got us invitations to the ball, and we have to convince Father to let us go,’ Gretchen said. ‘Surely he could not be so cruel and heartless as to forbid us?’

‘Yes, he could,’ Hanne said.

‘Father won’t like it,’ Frau Wild agreed.

Frau Wild must have taken some opportunity to drop a hint in her husband’s ear, because the next morning, at breakfast, he put down his coffee cup and said, ‘What’s this about a ball?’

The elder sisters exchanged nervous glances. ‘King Jérôme is holding a Christmas ball, Father,’ Lisette answered meekly. ‘Many of the girls in town have been invited, including us.’

‘Ridiculous,’ he said. ‘There’s no reason for you all to go off hobnobbing with that Corsican tomfool.’

Gretchen and Hanne exchanged agonised glances.

‘Not at all,’ Rudolf said, looking up from his paper. He was looking rather rumpled, with his golden locks in disarray and his eyes bloodshot and heavy-lidded. ‘It’s good business practice, Father, to cultivate contacts at court.’

‘Don’t preach good business practice to me, you insolent pup,’ his father roared. ‘Is it good business practice to be out carousing instead of getting a decent night’s sleep and being at work at a godly hour?’

‘It is when you’re carousing with the King’s quartermaster,’ Rudolf replied, pouring himself more coffee. ‘He’s promised to look into that debt you’re still owed, Father.’

Herr Wild had begun to answer angrily, but at that he paused. ‘What was that? My debt is to be repaid?’

‘Perhaps,’ Rudolf said. ‘If we stay on the King’s good side. King Jérôme is most generous to those he likes, and he certainly seems to have plenty of money to throw around. It’s a great honour for the girls to be invited, and it would be short-sighted, not to say rude, to refuse his invitation.’

No one spoke, their eyes fixed on their plates. Herr Wild was scowling, but at least he was not yelling.

Frau Wild cleared her throat. ‘A good chance for the girls, dear. To meet new people.’

Greatly daring, Hanne said, ‘Yes, really, the only people we ever meet are those who go to church or those who live across the street.’ She turned to Gretchen. ‘Which reminds me, Gretchen, what about that handsome Grimm boy? Is he still pretending to write down any old tales you know, to have an excuse to spend an hour in your dazzling presence?’

Gretchen laughed and tossed her ringlets. ‘Poor boy. He’s so eager. Have you seen his coat, though? It’s the shabbiest thing.’

Dortchen wanted to defend Wilhelm but did not dare.

Herr Wild’s scowl deepened. ‘Those Grimm fellows are a disgrace. Five of them, and only one has a job. Plenty of opportunities around for up-and-coming young fellows, but all they do all day is scribble, scribble, scribble, and go about looking like scarecrows.’

Dortchen could keep quiet no longer. ‘But, Father, it is not their fault they are poor.’

‘No? Then whose is it? Can’t they get a job?’

‘They’re scholars,’ she said. ‘They’re collecting old stories to make into a book.’

‘Faugh,’ Herr Wild said with the utmost contempt. ‘Waste of paper.’ He eyed Dortchen and she quickly looked down at her plate, biting her lip.

‘It’s a shame,’ Frau Wild said.

‘I’ll not have it,’ Herr Wild said. ‘No more running over there at any time of day or night.’ He stared hard at Dortchen, and she felt herself beginning to burn a fiery red.

‘But what of our reading circle?’ Lisette interjected.

‘It will look very odd,’ Hanne said. ‘The Grimms are well connected, you know.’

‘Their aunt is in exile with Princess Wilhelmine,’ Gretchen said. ‘And they know the von Arnims.’

Herr Wild frowned. ‘Rackety lot they are too. Isn’t he the fellow who eloped with that girl?’

‘That was Herr Brentano,’ Dortchen said.

‘The poet,’ Herr Wild said with the utmost disgust.