On the Night of the Seventh Moon (32 page)

She said, her eyes gleaming with delight: “I've brought you these. I thought you'd be hungry. Well, Master Lightning,” she went on. “You can't say you're not old Graben's favorite now, can you?”

“I never did,” he replied.

She set the tray on the table. She said: “Oh, Miss Trant, I knew how he was fretting for you. I could tell. He was never the same again. He used to be so gay, and then suddenly he changed. It's a woman, I said. Then poor old Hildegarde Lichen told me. She turned to me. We'd worked at the
Schloss
together in the nursery. She was my under nurse. She thought the world of the boys and in particular Lightning here. And she told me all—about how the little English girl came to the lodge one night and how he was never the same since. It was such a romantic
story and how they blew up the lodge so that it would look as though she had died there.”

“Hildegarde told you that?” cried Maximilian. “Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you?”

“It was a secret, Hildegarde insisted. She told me with her dying breath. And she said, ‘Tell no one unless it's necessary to his happiness for it is better that he should think her gone.' ”

“You were always an old meddler,” said Maximilian. “But how dared you keep this from me?”

“Now don't scold me. I brought her back, didn't I? I planned it all. I went and found her and played the tourist looking for books and making it all seem so natural. All the time I was thinking, I'll surprise Master Lightning, and how right it was that he should have his surprise on the Night of the Seventh Moon. I'll have a glass of wine with you, shall I?”

She did not wait for the invitation; she filled three glasses and sat down, sipping, and nibbling one of her spiced cakes.

She talked of how poor Hildegarde had worried about what had taken place in the hunting lodge. She had made Hildegarde tell her all she knew—and Hildegarde knew a great deal. She had been as interested in everything concerning the Prince as Frau Graben herself. She had kept her eyes open. She knew that the young lady was a pupil in the
Damenstift
when she first came to the lodge, and that when she returned she had been brought out by Ilse and Ernst and that her father had kept a bookshop in Oxford. She knew her name.

“I noted that,” said Frau Graben. “I liked to know what my boys were up to and this was no ordinary affair. Hildegarde knew that it was different right from the start, she said. That was why she was so upset. She didn't like it. And that ceremony she didn't like at all. She said it wasn't right. The girl was so innocent that she believed it was a true marriage.”

“It
was
a true marriage,” said Maximilian.

Frau Graben stared at him and then at me.
“Mein Gott,”
she cried. “It's not true. It's one of your larks. I know you, Master Lightning.”

“Dear Graben,” he said solemnly, “I swear to you that I was married to Lenchen in the hunting lodge nine years ago.”

She shook her head and then I saw her lips begin to curl.
She
had brought me here;
she
had presented me to him. This was the kind of high drama she liked to provoke. But if we were truly married! I could imagine her delight in the possibilities this was suggesting to her, and for the first time since Maximilian had walked into the room I was fully aware of the complicated situation which confronted us. Until that moment I had thought of little but the fact that Maximilian had come back to me. My reason was vindicated; I had been the victim of a wicked plot but I was not unbalanced. I had imagined nothing and I had regained my husband.

Frau Graben was saying: “It is so then?”

“It is so,” answered Maximilian.

“And Miss Trant is your wife.”

“She is my wife, Graben.”

“And the Princess Wilhelmina?”

A shadow crossed his face. I believed he had forgotten her existence until that moment.

“She cannot be my wife since I have been married to Lenchen for nine years.”

Frau Graben said: “
Mein Gott!
This will shake the dukedom. What have you done, Maxi? What will happen to us all now?” She chuckled not without a degree of delight. “But you don't care, do you? You're bemused, both of you. You don't see anything but each other. Oh Maxi, you love her, don't you? It does me good to see you together, that it does. Don't forget I found her—I brought her to you.”

“You meddling old woman,” he said, “I'll never forget you brought her back to me.”

“Tomorrow,” she said, her eyes sly, “that'll be the time to face the music.” She laughed. “Tonight is the Night of the Seventh Moon. We mustn't forget that, must we? Oh, you're going to be grateful to me, Maxi . . . and you too, Miss Trant. All these years, fancy! And you two pining for each other. I said to Hildegarde, ‘You tell me about that room in the hunting lodge' and she told me, for she knew every piece that was in that room. So I said to myself: I'll make another room here in
Klocksburg and tonight we shall put the clock back. We'll bring the lovers together again. The bridal chamber awaits you, my chicks. You can't say that old Graben doesn't look after you.”

“You brought Lenchen here, Graben,” said Maximilian, “and I shall bless you forever for that. But now we want to be alone.”

“Of course you do, and you're going to be. I've got the bridal chamber ready myself.” She grimaced and tiptoed to the door, looking back as though loath to leave us. “We always got on like a house afire, didn't we Miss Trant. We'll have some talks . . .”

She shut the door on us and we were in each other's arms. I knew that he was, as I was, recalling those days in the lodge and the intensity of our need for each other was unendurable.

“Tomorrow we can talk,” he said. “We will make our plans. We have to consider very carefully what we must do. Of one thing I am certain. We shall never be parted again, whatever may come. But that is for tomorrow . . .”

He opened the door. Frau Graben was waiting there with a candle. We followed her down the stairs and she opened a door. The full moon shining through the window showed me the fourposter bed. It was a faithful reproduction of the room we had shared in the hunting lodge during our honeymoon.

And now, after nine long and weary years, we were together again.

The great moon hung heavy in the sky and I was happy as I had never thought to be again.

 

When the dawn was in the sky we were both awake. I knew that he felt as I did. We did not want a new day to come for we knew that it must bring with it problems. I kept thinking of the cold proud face of the woman who believed herself to be his wife.

But no matter how we wished it, the magic night was over and the day had begun.

“Lenchen,” he said, “I shall have to go back to my father's
Schloss.
”

“I know.”

“But tonight I will come here.”

I nodded.

“If I had not allowed them to persuade me to this marriage with Wilhelmina it would have been so much easier. I shall have to tell her.” He frowned. “She will never understand.”

“You can prove it to her,” I said.

“I have our marriage lines. Do you remember. There was one set for you and one for me. I can produce the priest.”

“They took my lines from me,” I said.

“It will not be easy, Lenchen. There is my father who is very sick. I don't think he has long to live and this could hasten his death.”

“I begin to see what it will mean. How I wish that you had been—say a lawyer, a doctor, or a woodcutter in your little cottage. How happy I should have been then!”

“Ah, Lenchen, how fortunate these people are!
They
are not watched at every turn. Their actions are not the spark that sets off mighty conflicts. This is the worst possible time. Klarenbock will consider this an insult to the ruling house. It could mean war with them . . . at a time when the French are threatening to march against Prussia which would involve the entire German states. I must have time to think. I can only be sure of one thing. I love you, Lenchen. You have come back to me and we shall never be parted again.”

“As long as you tell me that, as long as I may be with you, I am content.”

“It must be settled soon, my dearest. I can't bear the uncertainty. Whatever happens we must be together, and not in secret. But I must go. They will be missing me.”

I went with him out into the early morning and watched him ride away.

As I came back into the fortress and mounted the stairs to my bridal chamber I heard footsteps behind me and I guessed who it was. Frau Graben's hair was in iron curlers under a sleeping cap; her eyes were sparkling and she was smiling secretly, delighted with herself, with me and her Master Lightning. I thought fleetingly that she must
always have lived vicariously through her boys, and therefore this must be one of the most exciting occasions of her life.

She said: “So he's gone.”

She followed me into the room. I sat on the bed while she settled comfortably into a chair. “Well,” she said, “he's happy again, happy as he hasn't been for nine years. You have a big responsibility, Miss Trant. Oh, I mustn't call you that now, must I—but just for old times sake until your title's known. Well, you've got a lot to answer for. You've got to keep him happy.” She laughed. “My goodness, I've never seen him so pleased with life. Fancy that!”

“And you knew who I was all the time.”

She was overcome with secret mirth. “You must admit I did it well. I said, ‘I want a phrase book, something to help me along with the language.' And you hadn't a notion. And weren't you frightened, eh, when you thought I wasn't going to ask you to come along and teach the children!”

“Yes,” I agreed.

“And when you came I was hard put to it not to confide in you. And he was away in Berlin! I couldn't wait for him to come back. Mind you, it's a bit more than I bargained for. Hildegarde thought it was a mock marriage and it would have been a lot easier if it had been. That's something people understand. But married to the Duke's heir and him having made a state marriage to a princess that's brought us closer to Klarenbock and that being so important . . . well, I don't know!” Then she laughed as she studied me. “But you can't think of what's to be, can you? You can only think of him and that you're together again. Well, that's how it is. But the reckoning has to come. What a man our Lightning is! They still talk about his great-great-grandfather, Maximilian Carl. He was a great duke and a great lover, too. He's a legend in these parts and I used to say to Hildegarde when Maxi used to go off riding in the forest or practicing his archery and shooting in the courtyard, I'd say; ‘Look at him, Hildegarde. There's another Maximilian Carl. A legend, eh?' And so will he be. The Duke who found a schoolgirl in the forest and married her. What a story! And that's not the
end, eh? We've got to wait for that. Now what's going to happen?” Her eyes sparkled at the prospect. “We shall see, in time. But my word, this is going to take a bit of untangling.”

The thought of the tangles stimulated her, though. I had never seen her quite as excited as she was on that night.

“You won't sleep, will you?” she went on. “No more will he. No more will I. In any case, it's morning. They'll see him riding back to the
Schloss
—some of them. ‘Oh,' they'll say. ‘His Highness has been out for the night!' And they'll laugh and nudge each other and they'll say ‘Another Duke Maximilian Carl, he is.' They won't know, will they, that he was with his wife.”

I tried to speak calmly. “We must wait, and Maximilian will know what is the best thing to do.”

“Well,” she said, “it could be your secret, you know. You could live here, or in one of the castles, and he could call on you. Very romantic like. And no one need ever know that you were the true Duchess . . . because that's what you'll be soon. The old Duke is failing fast, believe me, and soon our Maxi will be in his shoes. And what of you then, eh? And what of Wilhelmina?”

“We shall have to see,” I told her. “Now I think I should try and sleep for an hour or two.”

She took the hint and left me. I did not sleep, of course. I lay awake thinking of the wonder of that night just passed and of the undecided future.

 

As soon as I was up Frau Graben was knocking at my door. Her hair was out of its curlers and was now crimped about her head; her rosy cheeks shone and she was as lively as ever.

“I didn't think you'd sleep long,” she said with a chuckle. “I've got something for you. A message from him. My word, he
is
impatient. Always was when he really wanted something.” She handed me the note as though I were a child and she a benign nurse offering a special treat.

Eagerly I took it.

“Read it,” she said unnecessarily. I knew she had already.

My darling Lenchen,
I'll be in the forest at eleven o'clock at the first copse
from Klocksburg by the stream. M.

It was like a command; but then, I supposed indulgently, he was accustomed to giving commands.

“You've got two hours,” beamed Frau Graben.

“What of the children's lesson?”

Frau Graben flapped her hand at me. “Bah! The old pastor can take them through their history.” She laughed like a conspirator.

Not that I wanted to make excuses. The thought of seeing him again was an intoxicating one.

I dressed with care, realizing that this would be the first time he would see me in daylight for nine years; but the prospect of seeing him made me radiant.

I saddled my mare and rode out. I found him waiting at the appointed spot on a white horse and I was taken back all those years when he had loomed out of the mist.