Oh Fritz, my son! I prayed: “Let me be in time to save him.”
I did not ask myself how I could save him from a man who had determined to kill him. I only thought that I must be there. If Maximilian had not gone to the Landhaus . . . if he had waited, but how could he wait when he believed me to be in danger?
I had reached the lake. There were no boats there. I stared in desolation at the Island. Then I saw Charon emerge from his house.
“Franz!” I called. “Franz!”
He heard me and shaded his eyes to look. I waved frantically. He got into the boat and—slowly it seemed—rowed toward me.
“Why,” he said, “it’s Miss Trant.”
“I must get to the Island quickly,” I said.
He nodded. “Where are the boats?” he said. “There is generally one here. They must all be on the other side. One should always be there. But few are in a hurry to get to the Graves.”
Oh hurry, Charon, I thought. He sat there bent over the oars, his dark robes falling about him, eyes peering out from under the gray straggling brows.
“Why are you in a hurry, Fraulein?” he asked.
I replied impatiently: “Did you see Fritz?”
He shook his head. “There are people on the Island today. I don’t see them come but I know. I sense them. Sometimes there is the peace . . . the quiet of the dead . . . and then it changes and though I see no one I know, I never fail to know. Today there is no peace. Perhaps because tomorrow it is a burial day.”
“Someone is to be buried tomorrow?”
“The daughter of the innkeeper. She killed herself, poor soul, but she’s entitled to a place in the burial ground. She carried a child, a child of the Family.”
“Poor girl,” I said.
“She’s past all earthly suffering now. She will lie in her grave and I will plant a flower for her. A rosemary because someone will remember her.”
We had reached the shore. I leaped out of the boat.
“I am going to look for Fritz,” I said by way of explanation; and I ran as fast as I could to the burial ground and that spot where the new grave had been dug. The planks were still across the dark hole.
I called: “Fritz! Where are you, Fritz? I have come for you, Fritz!”
There was no answer. Could it be that he had disobeyed the Count’s orders and not come? He would not dare. Besides he would want to prove that he was not afraid.
“Fritz, where are you? Fritz!”
No sound at all. Nothing! I could not see Charon now. He must have gone into his little house. I felt as though I were alone on this island of the dead.
I did not know which way to turn and I stood for a few seconds staring down at the grave in which tomorrow a young girl would be laid to rest.
And then I knew that I was not alone. I turned sharply. The Count was standing a few paces from me. It flashed into my mind that he had been watching me from behind one of the bigger tombstones.
“Where is Fritz?” I demanded.
“Do you expect me to know?”
“He was told to meet you here.”
“Who told you that?”
“Dagobert. You told Fritz to come here alone. I want to know where he is.”
“That is what we should both like to know. The little coward didn’t come. Of course, he wouldn’t. He was afraid to.”
“He was more afraid of you than of the dead. I believe he is here somewhere.”
“Where? Please tell me.”
“I should think you would be better able to tell me.”
“Why should we concern ourselves with the tiresome child? Here we are together—you and I. So quiet it is. No one on the island except the old man and he does not count. A strange meeting place, but at least we shall be undisturbed. Old Franz is half dead in any case.”
“I came here to look for Fritz.”
“And you’ve found me. Much more interesting, I do assure you.”
“Not for me. I ask you again, where is the child?”
“And I tell you again I have no idea. Nor do I care. I was going to teach him a lesson. I would rather teach you one.”
I started to walk away, but he was beside me. He caught my arm.
“I have grown weary of the chase,” he said. “It ends here.”
I tried to wrench my arm free but I could not. His evil laughing face was close to mine.
I said: “I know you lured my child here.”
The change in his expression was obvious. The lust was tinged with a certain apprehension.
I went on: “I have learned this day who Fritz is. I know what is in your mind. You want Maximilian’s heritage. You are hoping to discredit him because of his marriage to me. But you can’t discredit his son. You have lured him here. What have you done with him? I have come here to take him away to safety. I am his mother.”
“You are hysterical,” he said.
“I want my son.”
“And I want you. I wonder who is going to be satisfied. There seems to be scarcely a doubt. Do you realize, my dear Duchess, that you are alone with me on this Island for as I said we cannot count that feeble old man. I would throw him into the lake if he dared interfere.”
“I despise you,” I said.
“That is of no consequence. You are caught. There is no escape for you. You are wise enough to know that.”
“Please keep away from me.”
“Why, when I am pleased to be near you.”
“You are wicked. Do you know for whom that grave has been dug? For a girl who trusted you, whom you have betrayed, a girl who has taken her life because you have made it intolerable for her. How dare you. How can you . . . Here . . . beside her very grave.”
“Don’t you see, it adds a touch of piquancy?”
“You disgust me.”
“I find that amusing too.”
I was trembling. I looked toward the shore. There was no sign of anyone. I knew that if I attempted to run he would overtake me. There would be a struggle and although I should employ every bit of strength I possessed, I knew that he would overcome me.
I cried out: “I want Fritz. What have you done with him?”
“Now you are being tiresome.”
“I insist . . .”
“You insist? You are in no position to insist. Come, let us be friends before you die.”
“Before . . . I die.”
“You are not your usual clever self today. You have accused me of treason. The penalty for treason is death. I do not want to die. So I cannot allow you to live after making such an accusation against me.”
“You are mad,” I said. And then I cried out in sudden fear: “You have killed my son.”
“And now you are going to force me to kill you. I shall not enjoy that one little bit. I shall hate killing a woman whom I admire, especially one whom I have never really known and who has not become tiresome to me.”
“You have no regret for the death of those who have become tiresome, I see. Tell me,” I cried. “Have you killed Fritz?”
He kept his grip on my arm and forced me toward the grave.
“You are a fool after all,” he said. “Perhaps I should have tired quickly of you. You need never have died. You could have lived in retirement with Max. I should have allowed that.”
“You are mad,” I said.
I could see that this was so. He was mad with ambition, with the love of power and the burning desire to take from his cousin all that he had ever had.
“You will not live to see me rule Rochenstein, but before you die I am going to show you what kind of lover you turned your back on. Then I shall kill you and you shall join your son.”
“Where is Fritz?” I cried.
Still gripping me he kicked aside one of the planks. I looked down into the grave. Fritz was lying there.
“Oh God,” I cried, trying to struggle free. I wanted to go down there, to bring him up . . . my own son who had been taken from me at his birth and now that he had come back to me wa
s in the grave.
I heard a shout from the bank then. “Lenchen! Lenchen!”
“Oh thank God,” I cried. “It’s Maximilian.”
“Too late, cousin,” muttered the Count. “By the time you are here I shall have been both your wife’s lover and murderer. Then I shall be ready for you. A triple funeral with some honors . . . and in the royal avenue I suppose.”
He had seized me. I fought with all my might. And then suddenly a shot rang out. The Count’s hold on me was relaxed. I sprang back in time to see him stagger like a drunken man before he fell. Then I saw the rich red blood staining the grass.
“Maximilian,” I whispered, “you have killed him.”
I ran as fast as I could to shore. Maximilian was getting out of the boat. I fell into his arms and he held me against him. I stayed there only a second. I heard myself babbling something about Fritz, my son lying in a grave.
It is difficult to remember clearly what followed. I think I was in too great a state of shock to realize exactly what was happening. Maximilian had descended into the grave; he held up Fritz; and another man had appeared on the scene. He carried a gun which he laid on the grass while he took Fritz from Maximilian.
He set him down gently on the ground and then Maximilian was beside me and we were kneeling down beside our son.
I was suddenly aware that the man who had joined us was the innkeeper.
“He’s not dead,” said Maximilian. “We’ll get him back to Klocksburg without delay.”
“We’ll make a stretcher for him,” said the innkeeper. “I’m glad I was there.”
“You shot him through the heart,” said Maximilian.
“And I’d do it again,” replied the innkeeper. “I meant to get him and I did.”
We took Fritz back. Thank God it had not been the Count’s intention to kill the boy outright, for he could so easily have done so. He had knocked Fritz unconscious and thrown him into the grave, to be discovered the following day when the coffin of the innkeeper’s daughter was brought for burial. By that time Fritz would have died of his injuries, exposure or fear; and if he were not quite dead the Count’s spies would have found some way of killing him. It would appear of course that the boy had fallen into the grave and injured himself in the fall.
I would not let him out of my sight and I was at his bedside when he regained consciousness so that I was the first person he saw when he opened his eyes. I put my face close to his and whispered: “Fritz. I am here with you. We’re going to be together forevermore.” He stared at me wonderingly and I went on: “You always wanted a mother, Fritz. Now you have one. I am your mother.”
I don’t think he understood, but my words had a comforting effect on him. I longed for the day when he would be well enough to understand fully the wonderful thing that had happened to us.
The day after that on which the Count had been murdered the French declared war on the Prussians and all the German states were involved.
These events dwarfed everything else into insignificance. As the Commander-in-Chief of the army Maximilian had to prepare immediately to leave for the front. I was left behind, and nursing Fritz back to health gave me something to work for during those dark days. I think the fact that I was his mother was such wonderful news that it speeded his recovery.
The Prince of Klarenbock, to whom Maximilian had told the whole story during his visit there, behaved magnanimously. He said his daughter must return to Klarenbock; and this she did in the company of Ilse. I heard later that Wilhelmina had entered a convent where she hoped to expiate the sin of attempted murder.
Soon after the outbreak of war the innkeeper was tried for the murder of the Count. Maximilian had asked for special leniency to be shown, for as the father of a girl whom the Count had seduced and deserted and who had killed herself because of this, he had committed the act under great provocation.
There was a war, said Maximilian, and all good men were needed at the front. He would personally vouch for the innkeeper.
And this he did.
While I was nursing Fritz back to health I talked to him of the wonderful time we would have when the war was over and he, I and his father were all together.
We used the Landhaus as a hospital and those were grave and anxious days when it was good to have plenty to do; but when the terrible casualties started to come in I was filled with terror lest one day they should bring in Maximilian. I don’t know what I should have done without Frau Graben. I have since discovered that I owe that woman a great deal.
At last came news of the great victory, the bells rang out from the Pfarrkirche. The French were in retreat and the Emperor, Napoleon III, was cornered at Sedan.
What joy there was on the day Maximilian came marching home.
We were together again. I was the first to greet him openly now. No more secrets. The story of our marriage, the death of the Count, the retirement of Wilhelmina into a convent, the discovery of our son—these were legends of the past. They had been swallowed up in the great event of war.
Maximilian was home! There was the great joy of bringing him and Fritz together. My son not only had a mother but a father whom he could love and respect.
The day I was able to say to my son: “Fritz, this is your father!” and I saw how it would be with them, I said: “This is the happiest day of my life.”
“So far,” added Maximilian.
1901
What followed the battle of Sedan is well known history. The French were utterly defeated; and the result was the unification of the German states as the German Empire under the leadership of the King of Prussia who had become the Emperor. He lived only a few months as Emperor and then his son William took the imperial title. The little principalities and dukedoms were absorbed in that great Empire. There were no longer rulers of small territories; a duke in his Schloss was of little more importance than an English country squire.
This is what happened to Maximilian and that was years ago.
As I write this we are in mourning for the death of Queen Victoria, for we have strong ties with England. It is over thirty years since the Battle of Sedan and I am no longer a young woman. I have my family around me. The eldest is Fritz, nearly a dozen years older than Max. Then I have my two daughters and another son. A big family which gives me great satisfaction.
Fritz is a gentle boy and clever too; he lectures at Bonn University. The others are married now, with the exception of William, my youngest. Dagobert and Liesel joined us and when Princess Wilhelmina of Klarenbock left for her own country her son—who is Maximilian’s too—came to live with us. Dagobert climbed rapidly in the army, and Liesel is happily married.
Frau Graben naturally remained with us. She bullied us, watched over us and now and then would try to embroil us in those dramatic situations which so delighted her. We grew so accustomed to her as part of our household that when she died at the age of eighty it was like losing part of ourselves. She had had a good life.
Several years after Maximilian returned from the front, Anthony Greville came to see us with his wife Grace—a pleasant, mild woman, a typical vicar’s wife. She was devoted to Anthony and it was not difficult to see why. He was so kind and considerate to everyone. When I saw them together I wondered whether I should have been like Grace if I’d married Anthony, living an easy pleasant life where the great moments of decisions were whether the mothers’ meeting should be held on Mondays or Wednesdays and who should have which stall at the sale of work.
Anthony looked at me a little wistfully when I took him round the Schloss garden.
“Are you happy, Helena?” he asked.
And I replied fervently: “I could never have been completely happy in any other life.”
And when I look back I know that to be true. I have had my fears and anxieties; there have been differences between us and great difficulties to overcome; Maximilian had known what power meant and it had left its mark on him forever; he was born to dominate and I don’t think I was bor
n to be dominated. But whatever our differences we knew that we belonged together, that there was no true happiness apart from each other. I was right when I told Anthony that I could never have experienced those moments of complete and utter happiness in any other life. I have known great joy, perhaps I should say fulfillment—those moments when one realizes that anything that has gone before is worth while to achieve them.
So here I am an old woman, yet I can still recall that terrifying day on the Island of Graves where I looked straight into the face of death and learned then how precious life was. I am immersed in the affairs of my home, not the political affairs which are no longer our concern but the domestic ones of those who farm and live on our estate. I have my family; I have Maximilian—I never quite got used to the diminutive form of his name, for to me he was always the hero of the forest, and he never has lost that magic quality which enchanted me on our first meeting.
In January of this year Queen Victoria died and this is the Night of the Seventh Moon. Since the unification more than thirty years ago, the ceremony has not been celebrated, though many remember it and tell their children of it, and are afraid to go out on that night in case the God of Mischief should be abroad.
What a beautiful night! With the full moon high in the sky paling the stars to insignificance and throwing its calm brilliance over the mountains.
I was at my window watching it, when Maximilian came and stood by my side. We are two who will never forget the Night of the Seventh Moon and we shall continue to celebrate it as long as we both shall live.
On the Night of the Seventh Moon Page 33
