The Wild Girl

by Kate Forsyth

  ‘I think all the endless worry about the wars, and our financial situation, was just too much for her,’ Wilhelm said in a leaden tone. He began to cough again and had to stop once more, one hand on his heart, his breath wheezing.

  ‘Your cough had seemed so much better,’ Dortchen said. ‘I thought the teas had been helping.’

  ‘Mother’s death brought it all on again. I find it hard to walk far, or to climb stairs. There’s a constant piercing pain in my chest. And lately it’s been getting much worse. I get these … attacks. My heart …’ He looked away, embarrassed.

  ‘Tell me about it – perhaps I know something that could help.’

  ‘The doctor’s given me some remedies. I take a large dose of mustard seeds in the morning, and then in the evening I have to breathe in the fumes of burning mercury.’

  ‘Mercury?’

  ‘Yes. It’s that silver stuff they use in thermometers – have you ever seen it?’

  ‘You mean quicksilver?’

  He nodded.

  ‘You breathe it in?’

  ‘I burn it and breathe in the smoke. It makes me cough and cough, but afterwards my chest does seem clearer.’

  Dortchen frowned. She had seen quicksilver once, when the thermometer at school had been broken by one of the boys. It had seemed wild, volatile, magical. ‘But … your heart,’ she ventured.

  ‘My heart beats so fast that I can feel it pounding in my chest. Sometimes it lasts for hours. I cannot sleep, or hardly breathe … Oh, Dortchen, I’m afraid I’m going to die too. I feel as if my heart will simply burst. What am I to do?’

  Her anxiety for him was acute but she tried to calm herself, thinking of what she could do to help him. ‘Yarrow is said to be good at slowing down the heart. It’s easy enough to find – you could gather some every day on your morning walk and then make a tea with it. Otherwise, there’s monkshood … Father makes heart medicine with it but I’d be afraid to try. It’s poisonous.’

  ‘We might stick with yarrow then,’ Wilhelm said.

  ‘Motherwort and hawthorn are good for the heart too. I could try adding a few leaves to the linden blossom tea I make for you.’ Dortchen hesitated. ‘Are you sure it’s a good idea to breathe in the quicksilver fumes?’

  ‘Well, it’s what the doctor told me to do, that time he came to bleed Mother just before she died. We used the last of our money to buy it from him.’

  It occurred to Dortchen that putting leeches on Frau Grimm’s breast had not helped her in any way, so it was possible that breathing mercury fumes was not of much use either. Many of the things the doctors and apothecaries did seemed strange and unhealthy to her. Dortchen thought that walking out in the fresh air and the sunshine, and eating and drinking the good things grown in the garden, was far more likely to heal illness than making people vomit, or cupping them, or giving them drops that made them sleep all day, like her mother did. She was only a girl, though, and not very well educated. The doctors had studied and had degrees, so surely they knew what they were doing. Uneasiness filled her, nevertheless, and she examined Wilhelm’s face closely, noting the dark shadows under his eyes, the deepening hollows under his cheekbones.

  ‘I don’t have much mercury left and no money for any more,’ Wilhelm said. His shoulders were slumped under his shabby black coat. ‘So I guess I won’t be able to carry on for much longer anyway.’

  ‘Well, yarrow grows wild in the roadside ditches, so it will cost you nothing at all,’ Dortchen comforted him. ‘And I can give you a bag of lavender to put under your pillow. It might help you sleep.’

  ‘I’m willing to try anything,’ Wilhelm replied. His breath was short, and Dortchen could clearly hear his chest wheezing. She stopped, pretending to turn and gaze away into the forest, so that he might have a chance to catch his breath. Far away, on the horizon, she could see the twin spires of Martinskirche rising above the trees, and pointed them out to Wilhelm.

  ‘Look how far we’ve come! With the spires to guide us home, we’d never need to leave a trail of breadcrumbs behind us.’

  ‘Breadcrumbs?’

  ‘Do you not know that story? It’s about a little brother and sister who get lost in the forest, and find a witch’s cottage made all of gingerbread. I’ll tell it to you, if you like.’

  She told him as much as she could remember of the story as they climbed the road through the trees, each bend bringing them higher up the hill. Wilhelm was able to save his breath for climbing, and Dortchen walked slowly, pretending to be absorbed in the tale. Wilhelm did not much like the parents, who so readily abandoned their children once times grew hard, but he very much liked the way the brother and sister outwitted the witch. ‘If only I had some paper and my quill,’ he lamented. ‘I shall try to remember it all when I get home.’

  ‘I can always tell it to you again,’ she said.

  The road levelled out into a wide, sunny clearing, with a view up to Herkules at the peak of the hill. Before them stood a tiny stone castle, lifting innumerable mismatched spires and turrets into the sky.

  ‘There it is,’ Dortchen said.

  ‘It’s like something out of a story,’ Wilhelm said. ‘I can imagine magical things happening there.’

  He was looking flushed and his breath came too fast for Dortchen’s liking. ‘Come and sit down in the shade,’ she said. ‘Would you like some water?’

  He nodded, and she led him to sit down on the grass in the shade of a sprawling elder bush. Dortchen drew a corked jug of water out of her basket, and gave it to him to drink. ‘It’s too late to gather any elderflowers and too early for elderberries,’ Dortchen said, looking up into the tangle of grey branches overhead. Unripe berries were clustered on every twig. ‘I’ll come back in August and gather a basketful to make elderberry cordial for you. It’ll help your cough.’

  ‘You know so much about trees and flowers and herbs,’ Wilhelm said in wonder. ‘How ever did you learn?’

  Dortchen shrugged her shoulders uncomfortably. ‘It’s about all I know. We learnt practically nothing at school, except how to recite our catechism and how to knit. I wish I had your book learning.’

  ‘It’s not much use to me, is it? I spend all day poring over old manuscripts and trying to ignore the ache in my fingers, while you make bread out of acorns and tea out of linden blossoms. What you do is at least helpful to people.’

  ‘Stories are important too,’ Dortchen said. ‘Stories help make sense of things. They make you believe you can do things.’ Once again she felt a sense of frustration at not knowing the right words to express what she meant. ‘They help you imagine that things may be different, that if you just have enough courage … or enough faith … or goodness … you can change things for the better.’

  Wilhelm turned and reached out his hand to her, clasping hers warmly. ‘You’re a good little soul, Dortchen. You always talk sense to me.’

  She sat there motionless, her hand in his, unable to move or speak, unwilling to even breathe, in case it should break the spell of this moment. The Lion’s Castle basked in the early-morning sunshine, a fine, smoky haze hung above the green woods, and a bird was singing in the tree above them. Then, with a rueful smile, Wilhelm let her hand go and turned back to the view.

  Below them, small parties of people sat about on the hillside, sharing picnics, listening to the musicians or weaving daisy chains. Gretchen sat on an old tumbled stone, her white skirts arranged like a flower about her, her bonnet discarded so the sun shone on her golden head. Two young men sat beside her, and another lay on the grass at her feet. Hanne and Lisette sat nearby, but everyone’s eyes were on Gretchen, for she was laughing and teasing the young men by trying to choose which one deserved the nosegay she had tucked in her bodice.

  Nearby, Frau Wild was fussing over the picnic basket. Röse sat in the buggy, squinting over a book, and Mia was gathering wildflowers, though a wreath was already on her head and her basket was overflowing. Frau Wild kept stopping and looking around anxiously. Dortche
n rose to her feet and stepped out of the shade, waving to her mother. Frau Wild’s face brightened. She waved in response and turned back to her basket.

  ‘My storytelling collection seems to have ground to a halt,’ Wilhelm said, his eyes on the little group on the grass. ‘Gretchen has given me a few stories, about cats and mice and dogs and sparrows. I really love one she gave me, about a golden bird and the youngest brother who must do all sorts of impossible tasks before he can win the hand of the princess.’ He sighed.

  ‘I know another story you might like,’ Dortchen said. ‘It’s about three little men in a wood and the magical gifts they give a girl … a girl who is good and gentle and loving and kind.’

  ‘Like you?’ he teased, and she flushed bright red.

  ‘I … I didn’t mean—’ she stammered.

  ‘I know, I was only joking. What does this good, kind, gentle girl do?’

  Dortchen could not look at him as she told the story, though it was one she had often told by the fire as she and her sisters sat sewing on wintry evenings. It was about a girl whose stepmother hated her and sent her out into the snow to find strawberries, dressed only in a paper frock. She came upon a cottage where three little men lived, and she was kind to them and shared her piece of old, hard bread with them. They then told her to sweep the back steps, and she obeyed.

  ‘Under the snow were red, ripe strawberries,’ Dortchen said, ‘and what’s more, the three little men decided to reward her for her kindness. One said she would grow more beautiful every day, the other that gold pieces would fall from her mouth every time she spoke, and the third that she would marry a king.’

  When the girl went home, Dortchen continued, her stepmother was furious that it was her stepdaughter who had received all these gifts, and not her own daughter. She wrapped her daughter in furs and gave her cake and soft bread with butter, then sent her out to find the three little men. However, the stepsister was so rude and haughty that the three little men decided to punish her. The first wished that she would grow uglier every day, the second that a toad would leap out of her mouth at every word she said, and the third that she should die a miserable death.

  ‘And so it was,’ Dortchen finished. ‘The stepsister grew uglier and meaner every day, and the house filled with hopping toads so that you squelched one underfoot at every step. At last the stepmother turned her out and she perished for cold in the forest. The kind girl married a king, and all her words were turned to gold coins so that everyone in the kingdom was well fed and prosperous, and everyone lived happily ever after.’

  ‘It’d be a handy skill,’ Wilhelm said. ‘Spitting gold coins every time you spoke.’

  ‘I should think it would be most uncomfortable,’ Dortchen replied, thinking to herself, Does he not understand? His eyes turned to Gretchen again. Quickly she said, ‘Though not as uncomfortable as coughing up toads.’

  OAK MOSS

  June 1808

  The next morning, Dortchen rose well before dawn and dressed in the darkness.

  She kept to the shadows as she crept through the sleeping town. The air still smelt of smoke from the midsummer bonfire that had been lit in the Königsplatz. Once she had to crouch in a doorway to avoid the patrolling night watch – one of Napoléon’s innovations. The watchmen did not see her and she was able to hurry on, although her pulse was thudding so loudly in her ears that she was amazed they did not hear it.

  By the time she reached the Schlosspark, light was fingering the top of the Herkules statue and painting the ruffled leaves of the trees with gold. The grass was silvered with dew. Dortchen put down her basket and brushed her fingers through the cool wetness, rubbing it all over her face. Midsummer dew made you beautiful, as everyone knew. And how Dortchen wished she was beautiful.

  Refreshed, and laughing a little at herself, she hurried on, flitting from tree to tree, glad she was wearing her old green gown and brown shawl. She had to take care here. There would be soldiers patrolling the Schlosspark, guarding the sleep of their dissipated young king.

  Every time she passed an oak tree, Dortchen gathered with trembling fingers the moss that grew on its rough grey bark. She plucked what acorns she could reach, and a handful of fresh green leaves, and went on.

  The park had suffered under the French occupiers. Marble statues had been toppled and smashed, or used for bullet practice. The beautiful stone arches of the aqueduct were broken. Trees had been hacked down for firewood, and the meadows churned up by galloping hooves. Dortchen had always loved the beautiful park, with its sparkling cascades and fountains, and its stands of ancient trees. As a child, she had loved to run across the Devil’s Bridge, hanging high above the mossy gorge, the waterfall foaming down to fall into Hell’s Pond. She and her sisters had played hide and seek in the groves, and made daisy chains in the meadows. It hurt her to see the Schlosspark’s wild beauty so damaged.

  A small grove of linden trees grew on the far side of the lake, below the palace. Dortchen made her way there carefully, not wanting to be seen so close to the King’s residence. The trees were in full blossom, bees reeling drunkenly from the pale-yellow flowers that hung down in clusters below the heart-shaped leaves. Dortchen harvested what she could reach, breathing the sweet scent deeply, then picked handfuls of the wild roses that grew in a tangled hedge along the path. She would crystallise the petals with sugar when she got home, or make rose water to sell in her father’s shop.

  She plucked some dandelions she found growing wild in a clearing, and then some meadowsweet, and at last reached the ancient old oak tree she knew from her last foray into the royal park. Here she found handfuls of the sparse grey moss, and she hid it deep within her basket, beneath the flowers and herbs and leaves.

  By now, it was fully light. Old Marie would be awake, stoking up the fire, putting on the kettle to boil. Soon she’d be panting up the stairs, a heavy tray of tea things in her hands, to wake the girls of the house. ‘Be quick, now, the cows are already out.’

  ‘Is the goatherd out too?’ Hanne would mutter, turning her cheek deeper into her pillow.

  ‘Come, girls, up, up,’ Old Marie would call, before taking the tea to Frau Wild, lying drowsily in her bed, while her husband was already up and calling for his shaving water. Dortchen knew the routine of her house so well that she knew the exact moment she would be missed, and what Old Marie would say to cover her absence.

  Hurrying back towards the town, Dortchen tried to think of excuses. Would the herbs and acorns be enough?

  She came in the back door and met Old Marie’s worried eyes. Mozart chirped at her noisily. ‘I have acorns,’ she said.

  ‘Plucked on Midsummer’s morning,’ Old Marie said in a resigned tone. ‘Let me guess what else you have in there.’

  ‘Dandelions and linden blossoms and wild roses.’

  ‘All very useful. Your father wants to see you.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In his study.’

  Dortchen went through to the pantry and unpacked her basket, hiding the oak moss in an old ceramic jar. Then, holding the bunch of leaves and flowers before her like an offering, she went through to the study. Her father was there, smoking a pipe, his teeth clamped about the stem.

  He spoke not a word, but pointed his finger at the floor. Dortchen went and knelt before him, still holding the bunch of wild herbs. With a violent gesture, he dashed them from her hands. Dortchen flinched back and the flowers were scattered on the floor. He knocked out his pipe with a savage tap in the hearth and seized his switch, which had been lying ready across his knee.

  In a low, shaking voice, her father began to speak. She heard only a phrase here and there, for terror was like a white sea roaring in her ears. ‘We must kill sin at the root … We must know which are the master roots and mortify them …’ All she could see was his long black boots, and the switch that he smacked continually against them, and his large hand with dark hairs springing out around white-clenched knuckles. He began to rock back and forth, swaying to
wards her. The switch flew out and struck her on the shoulder. She flinched, trying to bite back her cry, and he struck her again.

  ‘Evil appetites … The worm that never dies, the gnawing worm …’

  Unable to help herself, Dortchen bowed lower, protecting her face with her hands. He caught at the back of her neck, pushing her face-down against his thigh, striking at her back and buttocks while she was bent before him. Dortchen could not breathe. Small, sharp cries broke from her as the switch fell again and again.

  Then there was the quick sound of boots on the floor, and Rudolf’s voice. ‘Enough,’ he said. ‘Father, there are customers who need you.’

  Herr Wild froze, his switch raised high, and Dortchen’s face still crushed into his thigh. She managed to gulp a breath, smelling old wool and tobacco smoke – and something else she could not identify, something dank and dark.

  Her father pushed her away and she fell on her hands and knees before him. Pain roared in her ears. Her breath sobbed in her throat.

  ‘It’s a French soldier who wants a measure of mercury to treat syphilis, but for the life of me I cannot remember what the dose should be. Will you come?’ Rudolf said in a bored tone.

  ‘Ignorant fool,’ Herr Wild said, adjusting his frockcoat. Once the door had banged behind him, Rudolf held down his hand for Dortchen.

  ‘You shouldn’t anger him,’ he said. ‘What a wild little thing you are, sneaking out in the dawn. What did you want to do, wash your face in the dew?’

  Dortchen went scarlet.

  ‘Well, you’re a little idiot. You must have known Father would be furious. Go on, get out of here before he comes back. I have to go and spend the next few hours being lectured on correct dosages for syphilis. Just how I want to spend my day.’

  Although his voice was rough, his hand was gentle in the small of her back as he guided her from the study. Dortchen kept her hand on the wall to steady herself as she sought the refuge of the kitchen. Old Marie was ready with a handkerchief soaked in lavender water and some healing salve.