The Wild Girl (12 page)

Old Marie came hurrying in just as Dortchen was dunking the boiled eggs in cold water. ‘Green sauce?’ she asked, smelling the crushed herbs. ‘Is there time?’

‘There has to be time,’ Dortchen answered.

Old Marie looked at her questioningly but said nothing. Together they peeled the eggs at top speed, then mashed them with vinegar and sour cream and herbs. Dortchen rang the bell and they whisked the meal onto trays and carried it to the dining room.

‘Would you take the rest of the sauce over to Lotte?’ Dortchen pleaded. ‘Tell her I’ll be there just as soon as I can.’

Old Marie nodded, though her wrinkled face was anxious.

At last the meal was done, and Dortchen was able to slip away under pretence of checking the livestock.

The Grimms’ kitchen was hot and noisy. Frau Grimm and Lotte were juggling pots of boiling potatoes and pans of frying fish on the tiny fireplace, while Ludwig was sprawled at the table, drawing a caricature of Napoléon as a dwarf in military uniform with a dozen crowns on his head. He was trying to stack one more crown on but his arms were not long enough. At his feet lay a dozen toppled monarchs, looking dazed.

‘Dortchen – thank heavens you’re here.’ Lotte’s face was flushed, beads of sweat standing out on her brow. She tested the potatoes in the pot with a fork.

‘Who’s here?’ Dortchen asked, hanging up her shawl. ‘Do you think they can really help your brothers be published?’

‘It’s the authors of
The Magic Horn
– you know, that collection of old German songs,’ Lotte answered. ‘They’ve had other books published too.’

‘One is Herr von Arnim,’ Frau Grimm said, turning the fish in the frying pan. ‘A very old noble family from Prussia.’

‘His father is the director of the Royal Berlin Theatre,’ Lotte put in. ‘Or he was. I don’t know if he still is, now that Berlin is occupied by the French.’

‘They’re Catholics!’ Frau Grimm exclaimed. ‘I never thought I’d see the day.’

‘The other is the poet Clemens Brentano,’ Ludwig said. ‘He’s here with his new wife. Apparently they eloped.’

‘And his old wife in her grave only a few months, and her poor little baby with her,’ Frau Grimm said, shaking her head in disbelief.

‘She says he abducted her,’ Lotte said, making a shocked face at Dortchen. ‘The new wife, I mean.’

‘It all seems rather irregular,’ Frau Grimm said. ‘I wasn’t at all sure that I should receive them.’

‘Except they might help the boys get jobs.’ Lotte turned to Dortchen. ‘Herr Brentano’s sister Kunigunde is married to Professor von Savigny, who took Jakob to Paris last year, and his other sister, Ludovica, is married to the banker Herr Jordis, who employs Karl. So, you see, they are very well connected. Oh, if only they could help us some more. I don’t know how we’ll survive otherwise.’

Ludwig frowned at her. ‘Lotte, you shouldn’t say such things. Dortchen doesn’t need to know all our problems.’

‘I haven’t any secrets from Dortchen,’ Lotte replied impatiently. ‘She’s like a sister to me, isn’t she, Mother?’

‘Indeed, yes,’ Frau Grimm said, poking at the fish in the pan with a fork. ‘If I was ever to have another daughter, I’d like her to be just like Dortchen, the sweet girl that she is.’

Dortchen smiled at her. ‘Well, if I was ever to have another mother, I’d like her to be just like you too.’

‘Except hopefully a better cook,’ Frau Grimm said. ‘Oh, Dortchen, is the fish ready? I never can tell.’

Dortchen took her place at the fire. ‘Only a little bit scorched,’ she replied, skilfully turning the fish out onto a platter. ‘I’m sure no one will mind.’

‘I think my potatoes are overdone too,’ Lotte said, prodding them doubtfully.

‘Let’s mash them,’ Dortchen said. ‘I brought some butter.’

‘Bless you,’ Lotte said.

OLD TALES

October 1807

The sitting room was full of people. Dortchen put the tray down on the big table in the middle of the room and looked around curiously.

Apart from the four eldest Grimm brothers, there were two men. One was thin and dark and serious-looking, very elegantly dressed in a starched cravat and a well-cut coat of dark-blue superfine over a snowy-white waistcoat. His hair was cut short à la Brutus, a few curls allowed to fall on his broad, pale forehead.

The other man could not have been more different. He was closer to thirty than twenty, and was broad-chested and heavy-jowled. Deep lines of dissipation ran from the corners of his loose-lipped mouth to his chin. His eyes were heavily pouched, his forehead marked with scowl lines. He did not wear the dark coat and intricate starched cravat of a man of fashion, but a loose emerald-green robe like a medieval scholar, with a bright-orange scarf wrapped loosely about his throat. His hair was short and messy, but – unlike the nonchalant disorder of his companion’s – it looked as if he had not bothered to run a comb through it in some time.

The women were as strangely dressed as he was. One was little more than a girl, dressed all in black, from hem to collar to fingertip to bonnet. Her dress was made of muslin, however, not bombazine, and it looked as if it had been dyed in a hurry by an amateur, for the hue was patchy.
Her bonnet, too, had been inexpertly dyed, and Dortchen could see where flowers had been ripped away and replaced by swathes of black veiling. She sat by herself in a corner, though her eyes busily flicked from one person to another. Her face was a constant parade of emotions – anger, scornful disbelief, outrage, wistful longing – which crossed her face in moments as she listened to the ebb and flow of the conversation.

‘She’s wearing mourning for her lost innocence,’ Lotte whispered to Dortchen. ‘She and Herr Brentano’ – she indicated the man in the orange scarf – ‘were married this week.
She
says he abducted her.
He
says he came to Cassel to escape her, but found her in his carriage dressed in a wedding gown, and what else was he to do?’

‘How old is she?’ Dortchen whispered back.

‘Sixteen.’

Only two years older than she was, and married to this world-weary man with the scowling eyes. Dortchen felt sorry for her. The girl in black must have seen her quick glance, for she stood up and pointed. ‘Look, Clemens, there’s a girl even younger and fresher than me. We’ve been married but a week. Time enough. Divorce me and you can carry her off in your carriage and ravish her like you ravished me.’

‘Augusta,’ her husband said warningly.

‘Don’t call me that any more,’ she proclaimed in a trembling voice. ‘Augusta Busmann is dead.’

‘Oh, stop being so tiresome,’ the other young woman said. ‘You jump into Clemens’s carriage and beg him to take you away. What did you expect him to do?’

‘You have no heart, Bettina Brentano,’ Augusta said, turning her face away.

‘No, no, I am all heart,’ Bettina cried. ‘That’s your problem, Augusta. You say you want to live a life of romance and danger and passion, but you’re only pretending. If you truly want to be alive, you’ve got to feel it all – the pain, the guilt, the desire – all of it.’

Dortchen could not help staring at Bettina, who was the most extraordinary-looking creature she had ever seen. Aged in her early twenties, she was as small and delicate as a child, with large, dark eyes,
pale skin and a riot of dark curls that hung all around her face in tight ringlets. She wore a white poet’s shirt with billowing sleeves and a flowing collar, tied with a crimson sash over flowing purple silk. A bracelet of coins hung about one wrist. They chimed with every move she made.

‘Supper’s ready,’ Lotte cried.

Karl and Ferdinand came and took up their plates, crowing with delight. ‘It’s a feast! Mother, you’ve done wonders.’

‘Oh, it was Dortchen and Lotte.’ Frau Grimm smiled comfortably.

Karl opened the wine and splashed it into pewter goblets, and Ferdinand passed them around.

‘The poor fish,’ Bettina said. ‘I wish that I had been there when he was caught, so I could ransom him and set him free.’

‘Do you not want yours?’ Karl demanded. ‘Because I’ll take it gladly.’

‘I suppose one must eat,’ Bettina said, and she took a plate and fork back to the armchair by the fire, where she sat with her legs curled up under her. Dortchen, passing out forks and napkins, was surprised. That was Jakob’s chair. The eldest Grimm brother seemed content to sit at the table and eat, however; he was deep in conversation with Wilhelm and the elegant young man in the white waistcoat, who must be Achim von Arnim.

‘I have brought some stories to show you,’ Achim was saying. ‘They were collected by the painter Philipp Otto Runge. He heard them from some fishermen and did his best to write them down word for word. Oh, Jakob, they are real folk tales, free from artifice and preciousness.’

Achim put down his fork and pulled a sheaf of paper from his coat pocket. It was closely covered with beautiful handwriting. ‘This one is very funny, about a fisherman and his wife. He catches a flounder that is really an enchanted prince, and so lets him go. The wife is angry and tells him he should have asked the enchanted prince to give them a cottage to live in instead of their filthy old shack. So the fisherman asks the fish and is given a lovely little cottage, but the wife is not satisfied. First she wants a palace, then she wants to be king, then emperor, then pope—’

‘It sounds like Napoléon,’ Wilhelm interjected. ‘It wouldn’t at all surprise me if
he
ends up wanting to be pope as well as emperor.’

‘Is the Pope not his puppet anyway?’ Jakob said, scooping up a mouthful of fish.

‘Well, let us hope Napoléon ends up like the fisherman and his wife in this story, back in the filthy old shack where they belong,’ Arnim said.

‘Are you going to publish it in
The Boy’s Wonder Horn?
’ asked Jakob.

‘We’ve decided to focus only on songs and poetry in
The Wonder Horn
,’ Clemens said, bringing his plate over to join them.

‘We’ve published the other story, “The Juniper Tree”, in the magazine we’ve put together,’ Arnim said. ‘It’s a sad, strange tale about a boy who is slaughtered by his mother and eaten by his father, but he comes back as a singing bird to take his revenge.’

‘It sounds very old,’ Wilhelm said. ‘Like a Greek tragedy. May we make a copy of the stories? We’re interested in old tales. Jakob is writing an article about Minnesingers, and I’m working on one about the Lay of the Nibelungs.’

‘Why don’t you send us your articles?’ Arnim said. ‘They sound just the sort of thing we’re looking for.’

‘We’ve called the magazine
Journal for Hermits
,’ Clemens said with a laugh. ‘Perfect for you two.’

‘We’ve copied down quite a few old tales from manuscripts and books,’ Wilhelm said. ‘Would you be interested in publishing any of those as well?’ He looked at Jakob with excitement gleaming in his dark eyes.

‘Perhaps,’ Clemens answered. ‘Though maybe you should think of putting a book together, as we have done with
The Boy’s Wonder Horn
.’

‘We could write down any old stories that we hear,’ Jakob said, his fork hovering above his plate. ‘We could try to capture the simple, natural tone of the storyteller.’

‘I’m sure such old stories have very deep roots,’ Wilhelm said. ‘They go far back into the past. It would be fascinating to collect them and save them from disappearing.’

Bettina had been sitting in her chair, gazing dreamily into the fire, her plate on her lap untouched.

‘Aren’t you hungry?’ Dortchen asked shyly.

Bettina shrugged and took a mouthful. Suddenly, she cried out and thrust her plate away from her, and it crashed down onto the hearth rug. ‘Green sauce,’ she sobbed. Tears rose up in her great, dark eyes and flooded down her face. ‘Oh, how cruel.’

At once people rushed to comfort her. Clemens sat on the arm of the chair and put his arm about her, and the Grimm brothers crowded close, asking questions. Wilhelm went down on his knees to scrape up the splattered meal. Achim passed her a snowy handkerchief, which she took, blowing her nose fiercely.

‘But, my dear, whatever is wrong?’ Frau Grimm said, sounding bewildered. ‘Is the sauce too strong?’

‘No, no,’ Bettina sobbed. ‘It is just … I have not eaten it since … we used to have it at the convent, you see, and it reminds me … my dear friend Karoline.’

‘Ah,’ Clemens said, drawing his sister’s head against his sleeve. ‘Her friend stabbed herself last July,’ he explained. ‘She was a poetess.’

‘A great poetess,’ Bettina declared, lifting her face from her brother’s sleeve. ‘She was broken on the wheel of life.’

‘Had an affair with a married man,’ Clemens said.

‘We had planned to travel Europe together,’ Bettina said. ‘We were going to dress like men so that we were free to go wherever we pleased. Instead, Karoline is being eaten by worms and I am stuck with Kunigunde and her deadly boring husband.’

‘You must not speak that way,’ Jakob said. ‘Professor von Savigny is a great man. You are lucky indeed to have been given a home with him.’

‘Oh, I know,’ Bettina replied. ‘I should be grateful, shouldn’t I? It is just that I cannot bear being surrounded by people who are happy in domesticity.’