The Wild Girl (8 page)

‘We’ll need to be quick – it’s getting very cold,’ Hanne said, clapping her mittened hands together.

‘How I wish I had a muff,’ Lisette cried. ‘And new fur-lined boots. These are practically worn through and my feet are frozen solid.’

‘I’d rather have some new dancing slippers,’ Gretchen said. ‘Canary yellow, with silk rosettes and high heels.’

‘As if,’ Hanne scoffed.

‘Where would you wear them?’ Lisette asked. ‘Father never lets us go dancing.’

‘When I am married, I shall have a dozen pairs of dancing slippers, in every colour of the rainbow,’ Gretchen said. ‘And fur-lined winter boots.’

‘Maybe we’ll get some new boots for Christmas,’ Mia said.

‘I showed Father my boots last week and told him it was a scandal that we should be seen on the streets with holes in our shoes. You know how Father hates not to look respectable. I’m sure that I, at least, will get new boots,’ Gretchen said.

‘Here’s a fine sturdy tree,’ Rudolf called.

‘Let me see,’ Lisette cried, rushing forward, but Rudolf was already hacking at the tree trunk with his axe. Chips of wood flew up and the air was filled with the fresh, resinous scent of pine.

‘You should’ve waited – we would have found a better tree further in,’ Lisette said.

‘I haven’t got all evening to waste – I’m going to a cockfight tonight,’ Rudolf answered. ‘This one is just dandy. Besides, a big tree would just annoy Father. You know he only lets us have one under sufferance.’

Dortchen wandered away into the forest. The sky was a curious colour, like light shining through pale-green glass. Near the horizon a star was just trembling into being. She breathed deeply, the air hurting her lungs. Behind her she heard the smashing of branches as the pine tree hurtled to the ground, and the crash of its impact. She winced and lay down in a bank of snow, spreading out her arms and waving them up and down as though she were flying.

‘Dortchen,’ Lisette called. ‘Where have you got to?’

Dortchen did not reply, looking up at the sky again through the white-furred pine branches.

‘Dortchen!’

Lisette followed her footsteps through the snow and found her, still lying in the snow. ‘Aren’t you cold, little love?’ She held out a mittened hand and pulled Dortchen to her feet.

‘It looks like an angel was lying there – see?’ Dortchen pointed to the shape her body had left in the snow, with outstretched wings made from the motion of her arms.

‘You are an angel,’ Lisette told her, hugging her. ‘A very cold little angel. Look, you’ve snow all down the back of your dress. You’ll be freezing by the time we get home.’ She brushed the snow away.

Rudolf hoisted the tree into the buggy, tying it to the rail with rope. He then climbed up and unhitched their horse, Trudi, smacking her ample rump with the reins. Trudi huffed out a great blast of frosty air and began to clip-clop her way along the white road. The girls walked behind in the wheel tracks, singing once more.

Some way down the road, they came up behind a group of dark-clad figures, wrestling a tree along the wintry track. One stopped to bend over and cough, a wet hacking noise in the bell-clear air, and another rubbed his back. As the buggy came up behind them, they pulled their tree off to the side of the road to let the horse and its cargo pass. Dortchen glanced at them curiously and recognised Lotte’s unruly dark hair curling from under her knitted cap.

‘Lottechen!’ she cried.

‘Dortchen!’ Lotte called back, and the two girls ran together and hugged as if they had not seen each other only that morning.

‘What are you doing?’ Dortchen asked.

‘We wanted to cut ourselves a tree but we didn’t realise it’d be so heavy. It feels like we’ve been dragging it along for hours. My arms are about to fall off.’

‘Why don’t you tie it to our buggy? There’s plenty of room.’

‘Could we really? That would be such a help.’ Lotte skipped back to her brothers, calling the news to them, and Dortchen followed close behind.

‘Good evening, Dortchen,’ Wilhelm said, pausing to cough again. ‘It’s a lovely clear night.’ His voice was hoarse and his face very pale, with a sheen of sweat on his brow.

‘So you’ve been cutting yourself a tree too?’ Karl asked. ‘May we really tie it to your buggy?’

‘Thank you for your kind offer, but there are six of us – we’ll manage,’ Jakob said.

‘It’s no problem, we have room,’ Dortchen responded. ‘And we’re going straight past your door, so it’s not as if we’d have to go out of our way.’

Dortchen’s sisters came hurrying up, warmly seconding her suggestion and calling out to Rudolf to stop. Rudolf jumped down and helped hoist the Grimm family’s tree onto the buggy. The light from the buggy lantern cast a golden radiance over his hair. Although he was only two years older, Rudolf was a head taller and considerably broader in the shoulder and chest than Jakob. Jakob scarcely looked at him, only muttering his thanks and moving away.

Jakob is proud
, Dortchen thought.
He must find it hard to accept help
.

‘Would you like to ride up here with me?’ Rudolf asked him as he vaulted back up onto the driving seat.

‘Oh, no, thank you,’ Jakob said. ‘Maybe Lotte …’

‘I’d rather walk with Dortchen,’ his sister said.

‘Then perhaps Wilhelm could ride,’ Jakob said. ‘He’s not well.’

‘I’m fine, really I am,’ Wilhelm said, but his brother insisted and gave him a boost up to the driving seat, next to Rudolf. Even that small exertion made Wilhelm catch his breath and cough. ‘It’s the cold,’ he said, seeing Dortchen’s anxious eyes upon him. ‘It makes my asthma worse.’

She wanted to tell him to drink tea made from rosehips and elderflowers, but Rudolf had clicked his tongue and the buggy had moved on, leaving Dortchen to slog along in its wheel ruts.

The other Grimm brothers fell into place behind the buggy, walking along with the Wild sisters. After a moment, Hanne began to sing again.
To Dortchen’s surprise, Jakob joined in. He had a fine, deep voice. Wilhelm turned about so he could join in too. Even Rudolf sang. Overhead, the sky was one vast spread of stars, rimmed with dark spires of trees.

Many other families had gone to the forest to cut Christmas trees, this being the only time of year that the law against cutting wood was relaxed. Many carts and buggies and wheelbarrows laden with snow-spangled trees lined the road, but everyone sang or chatted companionably, and so nobody minded the slow progress in the cold.

Inevitably, the talk turned to the war.

‘So there will be peace? Austria will sign the treaty?’ Rudolf asked Jakob, who now worked in the War Office and so had all the news first-hand.

Jakob nodded. ‘They’ll sign this week. The terms are so harsh, though, that the Kurfürst thinks the Austrians will be unable to endure for long. He believes it is Napoléon’s intention to force Emperor Francis to abdicate.’

‘To abdicate,’ Rudolf said slowly. ‘You mean …’

Jakob nodded. ‘Yes. It’ll be the death knell for the Holy Roman Empire.’

‘But the Empire has been in place since Charlemagne …’ Rudolf said.

‘A thousand years,’ Wilhelm said.

Jakob looked tired. ‘France wants forty million francs in compensation. Emperor Francis will be beggared. France and her allies have taken Württemberg, Baden, the Tyrol, Venetia, Istria, Dalmatia …’

Nobody spoke. It seemed impossible to believe.

‘What about Russia? Is no one to stand up to Napoléon?’ Rudolf demanded.

Jakob said, ‘The Tsar has retreated to Russia—’

‘His tail between his legs,’ Karl interjected.

‘—and though England still fights the French on the seas, they’ve made no move to send an army to Austria’s defence,’ Jakob concluded.

‘Our only hope is Prussia,’ Wilhelm said.

‘Yet Prussia and Austria have always been enemies,’ Hanne said. The men shot her a look of surprise, but she forged on eagerly. ‘Surely the King of Prussia would be glad to see Emperor Francis so humbled?’

‘But surely not glad to see Napoléon ruling half of Europe,’ Wilhelm pointed out. ‘It won’t be long before Napoléon seeks to conquer Prussia too.’

‘Impossible,’ Rudolf said. ‘The Prussian army is the best in the world. They’ll stop the French in their tracks.’

Jakob shook his head. ‘Haven’t you heard the news? The Prussian king has sent his warmest congratulations to Napoléon and signed a treaty with him. He’s given him great swathes of land so that he will keep away; in return, Napoléon has said the Prussians can occupy Hanover.’

‘But Hanover belongs to the British,’ Wilhelm said.

‘Yes – so the British have declared war against Prussia, too. They are now the only ones standing against Napoléon.’

‘Can nothing stop him?’ Gretchen cried.

Everyone was silent.

At last they made it back through the broken medieval walls, leaving the forest behind them. The streets of Cassel were lit with golden lanterns, and people in heavy coats and mufflers called ‘Merry Christmas!’ to each other as they hurried through the snow. A group of carollers stood on the church steps, singing to the crowds. The air smelt deliciously of woodsmoke and roasting chestnuts. As they walked towards the Old Town, the strip of stars overhead narrowed as the crooked, overhanging roofs and gables of the houses grew ever closer together, till it was almost like walking through a tunnel.

‘I’m glad we ran into you,’ Lotte whispered to Dortchen, pressing her arm between both hands.

‘Me too,’ Dortchen whispered back.

Rudolf pulled up the horse and buggy in the alley between the Grimm and Wild houses, and the young men began untying the Christmas trees. Dortchen hurried into the kitchen to ask Old Marie for some spiced wine. While Marie heated it by thrusting a hot poker into the jug, Dortchen ducked into the stillroom and scooped out some dried flowers from one jar and some dried leaves from another. She put them in a small muslin bag, thrust it in her pocket, then hurried to collect the tray of pewter tankards,
which she carried out into the frosty night. Everyone was glad to accept a cup.

‘What do you want the Christ child to bring you this year?’ Wilhelm asked Dortchen, as she passed him a steaming tankard.

‘Peace,’ she said.

He smiled wearily. ‘Apart from peace.’

She thought for a moment. ‘I’d like a rocking horse,’ she said. ‘And a storybook with beautiful pictures. Oh, and a new doll to play with – one that is mine, all mine. All of our dolls are so old and battered, and Hanne chopped all their hair off. But Father thinks that we are too old for toys and must not waste our time playing.’

‘I suppose there must be a lot of hand-me-downs, in a family of six sisters,’ Wilhelm said.

She nodded. ‘I’ve brought you something for your asthma.’ Shyly, she showed him the small muslin bag. ‘Put some honey in it and drink it before you go to bed. You’ll feel much better in the morning.’

He gazed at her in surprise. ‘Is that one of your father’s remedies? I’m sorry, but I cannot pay you …’

‘My father didn’t make it, I did,’ Dortchen said, which was true enough. She had indeed made it, but from her father’s recipe. Wilhelm did not need to know that, however. ‘It’s a gift,’ she went on quickly. ‘It is Christmas, after all.’

‘Well, then, thank you,’ Wilhelm said, and stowed the muslin bag away in his coat pocket.

‘I hope it helps,’ Dortchen said. ‘In summer, I will make you tea with linden blossoms. It helps with coughs, and reduces fever, and helps you sleep,’ she added, afraid that he might know that the linden was called the tree of lovers, for its heart-shaped leaves and its intoxicating sweet smell.

‘You’re very kind,’ he said.

Dortchen blushed.

Lotte ran up and grabbed her hand. ‘What are you having for supper tonight?’

‘Roast goose,’ Dortchen replied.

‘Mmm, that sounds good. Aunt Zimmer gave us a chicken, but it’s rather scrawny.’

‘There won’t be much left of ours but a pile of bones,’ Dortchen said apologetically, ‘or I’d bring you some leftovers. We’ll be making soup from the carcass, though. I could bring you some tomorrow.’

‘Lottechen, do you ever think of anything but your stomach?’ Wilhelm asked.

She hugged her thin belly. ‘It won’t let me stop thinking about it.’

Karl bent and scraped up a handful of snow, which he flung at Ferdinand. His brother retaliated, and Ludwig ran to join in. A moment later snowballs were flying everywhere. Lotte and Dortchen joined in enthusiastically, while Lisette and Gretchen squealed and ran for the gate to their back garden. Mia crouched down behind the buggy and waited till Röse took shelter there, then shoved a handful down the neck of her dress. Röse screeched. Her brother laughed and scooped up a snowball, which he threw with deadly aim straight at Jakob’s face. Jakob wiped it away, his back stiff, and stalked inside. Wilhelm looked rueful. ‘Come on, boys,’ he called. ‘Let’s get the tree inside and decorated, or else we’ll be late for church.’

‘What a dull dog,’ Rudolf said, and he sent a snowball whizzing towards Wilhelm. Wilhelm ducked and caught up a handful, which he flung back rather wildly. Rudolf laughed and sent a barrage of snowballs in return, each finding their mark. Ludwig and Karl ran to their brother’s rescue, and soon Rudolf was seeking shelter behind the buggy, jeering and catcalling.

A window crashed open above them. ‘Stop that noise,’ Herr Wild’s voice shouted, ‘or I’ll call the town watch.’

Everyone froze. Nobody spoke until the window was slammed shut again, then the Grimm brothers quickly dragged their tree inside, with Lotte giggling after them.

‘Goodnight,’ Wilhelm mouthed. ‘Thank you for the wine.’

Rudolf made a face at his father’s window, muttered something under his breath and took Trudi back to her stable. The girls gathered the tankards and, trying to keep them from clanking together, hurried back inside.

‘I hope Father didn’t realise it was us,’ Dortchen said.

‘It was fun, though,’ Mia said. ‘I can’t remember the last time we had a snowball fight.’

Rudolf came in with the tree over his shoulder, and they set it up in the front parlour. Old Marie had kindled a fire, and with the lamps on the mantelpiece reflecting in the tall mirror, it looked as warm and welcoming as Dortchen had ever seen it. They decorated the tree with red ribbons and gold-painted pine cones, and Lisette and Hanne carefully affixed candles to the boughs. It was Dortchen and her little sister’s job to hang the gilded tin angels, Rudolf lifting Mia to hang one at the very tip of the tree.