The Wild Girl (28 page)

July 1810

‘Mother, we’re going to the pastor’s house now,’ Dortchen said, standing in the hot, gloomy bedroom, her hands clenched together. ‘We won’t be long.’

Her mother stared at her from beneath the heavy mound of eiderdown, a faint sheen of sweat on her skin, her eyes glazed and unfocused. ‘But what if I need something …’

‘Röse will stay,’ Dortchen said. ‘She’ll be here if you need her.’

‘I shall enjoy some hours of silent contemplation,’ Röse said, settling herself in a chair by the window with a book in her hands.

‘We’ll be home in time to help with supper, as usual,’ Dortchen said.

‘Well, then, I suppose so.’ Frau Wild turned her face away.

Dortchen, Hanne and Mia went downstairs.

‘Do you think Mother is really ill?’ Mia asked.

‘Of course not,’ Hanne said. ‘It’s just those drops of hers. She’d be much better if she gave them up.’

‘She looks so pale and thin,’ Dortchen said. ‘She didn’t touch the soup I took her at midday.’

‘She should get up to eat,’ Hanne said. ‘No one feels hungry if they spend all day lying in bed.’

After putting on their bonnets and gloves, they went out the garden gate and down the Marktgasse towards the pastor’s house. It was hot, and
the streets smelt of horse dung, rotting cabbages and refuse. Many shops had closed, ruined by King Jérôme’s profligacy, and there were beggars on every corner. The girls kept their heads down, their bonnets shading their faces. They had no coins to spare.

‘I’ll leave you here,’ Hanne said, after a while.

‘Be careful,’ Dortchen said. She dreaded what would happen if their father ever found out that Hanne went wandering the streets alone, going who knew where, to do who knew what.

‘I will,’ Hanne responded, laughing. ‘Give my respects to Frau Ramus.’

She waved and turned to hurry down a little alleyway.

‘Where does she go?’ Mia asked. ‘Does she have a lover?’

Dortchen nodded. Hanne’s recklessness both frightened and electrified her. Was she kissing in a dark alleyway somewhere, her lover’s hand rucking up her skirts? Or did the young man with the red scarf have a bed somewhere where they lay together in a tangle of hot, damp flesh? The thought made Dortchen feel rather hot and damp herself. She shook out the little fan she had made from folded paper and fanned herself, hoping Mia would not comment on her flushed face.

As always, the sick, fizzling feeling in Dortchen’s stomach increased as she approached the pastor’s house, knowing that her father was at the church for his weekly meeting of the elders. What if he saw her and Mia in the street? Perhaps the pastor would mention that his wife was expecting them for tea. Would her father be angry? They had been meeting now for several months, without Herr Wild being aware of it, and Dortchen was sure their luck must run out soon.

The door was opened by the pastor’s housekeeper, a portly woman in an apron and cap. Dortchen and Mia gave her their bonnets and gloves and were shown into the parlour, a room with a great many little tables, lace mats, fringes and dried ferns. Frau Ramus greeted them warmly and led them towards the fireplace, where an arrangement of dried flowers filled the hearth. Her two daughters sat before it, talking eagerly with Lotte and the Hassenpflug sisters. Louis Hassenpflug stood with Jakob on the hearthrug, their backs to the fireplace. Wilhelm sat at the table, a sheaf
of paper, an inkpot and quills before him. Dortchen and Mia came to sit beside him, smiling shyly.

Greetings were exchanged and coffee was poured. All the talk was of the Kingdom of Holland. Napoléon had thrown his younger brother Louis off the throne and annexed the country.

‘It was only ever meant to be a puppet kingdom,’ Jakob said. ‘But I suppose Louis Bonaparte did not do his brother’s bidding.’

‘I’ve heard that Holland is practically bankrupt,’ Dortchen said. ‘Is that true, Jakob?’

‘I believe so. The economy was ruined by the blockade, of course, as much as by Louis Bonaparte’s ineptness. It’s a country that relies on its trade.’

‘Will we be annexed too?’ Mia asked.

‘Oh, I hope not,’ Malchen cried. The youngest of the Hassenpflug sisters was perched on a low, cushioned stool, squinting around at everyone’s faces.

Jakob shrugged his thin shoulders. ‘King Jérôme is far more inept than even Louis was, so it’s a possibility. You should see the letters Napoléon sends him. They’re practically smoking with rage.’

‘Father says Napoléon took Holland away from his brother because King Louis refused to introduce conscription,’ Jeannette said. ‘I wish King Jérôme had refused to do so here. I dread the day our Louis is called up and sent to fight.’

‘I’m still too young,’ her brother replied. ‘And you mustn’t call me Louis any more. I don’t want to sound French. Call me Ludwig.’

‘All our names are too French,’ Jeannette said. ‘I shall change my name to Johanna.’

‘And I shall be Maria,’ her older sister said, ‘and not Marie.’

‘Is your ancestry not French?’ Frau Ramus asked. ‘I had thought—’

‘Not for a very long time,’ Jeannette answered earnestly. ‘Mother’s ancestors fled France after the Sun King made martyrs of the Protestants. It must be a hundred and fifty years ago, or more.’

‘We don’t want to be French,’ Malchen asserted robustly.

‘Nor do I want to die fighting for them,’ Louis said.

‘We’ve been lucky,’ Wilhelm said. ‘All five of us Grimm brothers have escaped being called up so far. What are the odds? I dread Ludwig or Ferdinand having to fight. Or any of us, for that matter. I don’t think I could kill a man.’

‘Where is Ferdinand?’ Dortchen asked. ‘I thought he was to join us.’

A shadow crossed Wilhelm’s face. ‘He’s not well.’ He hesitated, then said in a low voice, ‘I’m worried about him, Dortchen. He’s not come out of his room in two days. He just sits there, with the shutters drawn, staring at nothing.’

‘Has he a fever? Spots?’

‘I can see nothing wrong with him,’ Wilhelm said. ‘I called the doctor and he said it was a preponderance of black bile. He bled him but that only made him worse.’

‘The tea I made him has not helped?’

Wilhelm shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t think he drank it.’

Lotte drew a letter from her reticule. ‘I must read you the latest letter from Bettina,’ she said. ‘She is so funny. She has no shame at all.’

‘What has she done now?’ Jakob asked in a tone of resignation.

‘She went to call on Herr van Beethoven, without an introduction or anything. Simply because she thinks they should be friends.’ Lotte unfolded the letter, written on fine pressed paper in violet ink. ‘She says: “Herr van Beethoven and I are kindred spirits. Do you know how I know? I went to visit him, to sing to him. He did not hear me come in. He’s almost deaf, you know. So I crept up behind him and put both my hands on his shoulders. He turned to me in rage, but I smiled at him and told him who I was. He knew my name, of course. He showed me the song he was composing. It was none other than Herr von Goethe’s song for Mignon. Who else could he be writing that for but me? Even though he did not know me yet. It was Fate.”’

‘Only Bettina would do such a thing,’ Dortchen said. ‘If I crept up behind Herr van Beethoven and put my hands on his shoulders, he’d have me thrown into the street as an impertinent minx.’

‘I wonder she dared,’ Marie said, wide-eyed.

‘Bettina Brentano would dare anything,’ Wilhelm said, a note of admiration in his voice.

‘She sounds like a most forward young lady,’ Frau Ramus said in a disapproving tone.

‘Perhaps we should hear some stories,’ Jakob said. ‘That is, I believe, the reason for this gathering, not to gossip about Bettina Brentano.’

‘Can I tell the first story?’ Malchen cried. She was sitting bolt-upright on her stool, her cheeks flushed with excitement. ‘I know such a spooky tale, about a blood sausage.’

‘It’s a good story,’ Jeannette said. ‘If Malchen tells it wrong, Marie and I can correct her.’

‘I won’t tell it wrong,’ Malchen protested. ‘You two just shush and let me tell it.’

‘Let’s close the shutters so it’s dark,’ Louis said. ‘It’s much better when everything is all shadowy and scary.’

‘I need the light to write by,’ Wilhelm apologised.

‘That’s all right,’ Malchen said. ‘We’ll pretend it’s dark.’

Wilhelm dipped his quill in the ink, writing swiftly as Malchen told her story.

‘A blood sausage and a liver sausage had been friends for some time, and the blood sausage invited the liver sausage for a meal at her home. At dinner time the liver sausage merrily set out for the blood sausage’s house. But when she walked through the doorway, she saw all kinds of strange things. There were many steps, and on each one of them she found something different. There were a broom and shovel fighting with each other, a monkey with a big wound on his head, and more such things.’

Malchen spoke at breakneck speed, barely pausing for breath, and Wilhelm’s quill scratched as he did his best to keep up.

‘The liver sausage was very frightened and upset by this. Nevertheless, she took heart, entered the room and was welcomed in a friendly way by the blood sausage. The liver sausage began to enquire about the strange things on the stairs, but the blood sausage said it was nothing and shifted the topic to something else.’

Wilhelm held up his spare hand for her to pause; Malchen waited reluctantly, bouncing up and down in her impatience. When he nodded at her to continue, she again launched herself at the tale at full speed.

‘Then the blood sausage said she had to leave the room to go into the kitchen. She wanted to check that everything was in order and nothing had fallen into the ashes. The liver sausage began walking back and forth in the room and kept wondering about the strange things until someone appeared – I don’t know who it was – and said, “Let me warn you, liver sausage, you’re in a bloody murderous trap. You’d better get out of here quickly if you value your life.”’

Malchen spoke the words with immense relish, and her brother laughed. Charlotte and Julia Ramus pretended to be shocked at the word ‘bloody’.

‘The liver sausage did not have to think twice about this. She ran out the door as fast as she could. When she looked back, she saw the blood sausage standing high up in the attic window with a long, long knife, which was gleaming as though it had just been sharpened. The blood sausage cried out, “If I had caught you, I would have had you!”’

Frau Ramus looked shocked and said, ‘Dear me, Malchen, what a bloodthirsty story.’

Louis laughed, and repeated, ‘If I had caught you, I would have had you!’

Wilhelm waved his writing hand up and down, then made his hand into a fist and released it, while gently blowing on the page to quicken the drying of the ink.

Then Marie offered to tell a story. Jakob took Wilhelm’s place at the table, picking up a freshly sharpened quill.

The story Marie told was one of the strangest and most beautiful that Dortchen had ever heard.

‘A king and queen had no children at all,’ she said. ‘One day the queen was bathing, and a crab told her that she would soon have a daughter. And so it happened, and the king in his joy held a great celebration. But, because he had only twelve golden plates, he did not invite one of the thirteen fairies in the land. She cursed the baby princess, saying that on her fifteenth birthday she would prick herself on a spindle and die. The other
fairies wanted to avert this curse, but the best they could do was make the princess fall asleep for a hundred years instead of dying.’

Jakob wrote steadily, his eyes on his page, his handwriting neat, firm and precise, as Marie told him that the king ordered all the spindles in the land to be burnt, but his daughter was pricked by a spindle on her fifteenth birthday and fell asleep.

‘And this sleep spread throughout the entire castle,’ Marie said. ‘Even the flies on the wall fell asleep.’

Nobody stirred or spoke as Marie told her tale. It was as if she had cast a spell on them. She was so delicate and pretty, heavy dark ringlets falling down on either side of her face, and finely marked dark brows over black eyes that seemed full of sombre mystery.

‘Roundabout the castle a thorn hedge began to grow, till it finally covered the entire castle. A legend circulated throughout the land about the beautiful sleeping Dornröschen, for so the princess was called.’

Little Thorn-Rose. Such a beautiful name
, Dortchen thought.
It almost sounds like mine.

She looked at Wilhelm, and saw his eyes were fixed on Marie. Jealousy stabbed her, as sharp as one of the thorns in the hedge. It was all she could do to keep still. Dortchen twisted her handkerchief in her hands, keeping her head bowed so no one could see her face.

‘After a long, long time, a king’s son came into the land,’ Marie said. ‘He heard the tale and went riding up to the thorn hedge. All the thorns parted before him and seemed to be flowers, and behind him they turned into thorns again. He kissed the sleeping princess and everything awoke from its sleep, and the two were married. And if they are not dead, they are still living.’

Marie had finished her tale. She smiled, her eyes downturned, while everyone congratulated her.

‘It is a beautiful story,’ Jakob said, wiping his quill on a rag. ‘But it’s French. We cannot include it in our collection.’

‘Oh, no,’ Marie cried out, distressed. ‘But it’s my favourite story. It’s not French – my mother told it to me.’

‘It’s from Monsieur Perrault’s collection,’ Jakob said. ‘Wilhelm, you must’ve read it – “La Belle au Bois Dormant”.’

‘Well, yes,’ Wilhelm agreed. ‘But there are significant differences too. In Monsieur Perrault’s version, there are only eight fairies, not thirteen. And the princess bears him two children and the prince’s mother tries to eat them. Surely Marie’s tale has as many echoes of Brynhild and the Völsunga epic as it does of Perrault’s story?’

‘The maiden asleep in a remote castle, you mean?’ Jakob said.

‘Yes, until the right man comes just at the right time to awaken her. And surely the wall of thorns in Little Thorn-Rose’s story is analogous to the wall of fire in Brynhild’s story?’