by Wendy Teller
He listed the horrors: money spent, blackmail, disease.
Ella heard voices on the front stairs. Had they come home already? She grabbed her books, dusting off crumbs, and rushed to her room, closing the door. She heard her family in the entry hall, Mother scolding Clara for getting her good dress dirty.
Ella placed her books and shawl in their hiding place, the loose board in the floor that Ede had discovered so long ago. But where was Ede's essay?
She had left it on the kitchen work table.
Mother Finds the Essay
Therese's face was flushed when she entered the room. Maybe it was the wine. She held up a little bundle. "I've brought you something from the festivities. You must be hungry."
"Thank you!" Ella was ashamed of all her unkind thoughts. She bit into the apricot pinwheel, realizing that the dried bread, milk, and honey hadn't satisfied her.
"And next time," Therese said, "you can try on the dress a few days before an event. I can alter a dress easily enough."
"That is kind of you!" Ella looked at the frail woman, shorter than her and slight, her usually pale complexion rosy. "Very kind!"
"It's not that hard, and that way you don't have to miss the party." Her lips curved in a pretty smile, "Or dinner."
Ella nodded. Maybe this French companion, who she had thought of as a jailer, might turn out to be a friend. Maybe not a confident, not like Alexa, but at least she seemed to want to make Ella's life pleasant.
Before Ella could say thank you one more time, Clara came rushing into the room.
"It was so much fun, Mimi.” Clara always called Ella Mimi, though Ella didn’t know why or even when she started. “Oh, the dancing! The food! They even had a Csárdás band and dancers, and one of the dancers showed me some of their steps!"
Clara looked at Therese and pulled Ella down to her level, whispering in her ear.
"And I danced with Ede!" She pushed Ella back a little, smiling broadly, the whisper again, "and he said not to worry, that he would see you before he leaves."
Clara jumped up. "Let me show you the Csárdás steps."
As she carefully placed her left foot in front of her right, Mother swept into the room.
"Out, Clara." Mother's face was flushed too, but Ella knew it wasn't wine. Her brow had gathered in a threatening cloud.
"Out, Clara. Time for bed!"
Ella saw Ede's pages in Mother's hand. Oh, this would be a gale.
"Therese, see to the kitchen. Her ladyship...." Mother waved her fingers in Ella's direction. "Didn't obey me. She has left dirty dishes and crumbs all over the table, and Cook is not here to clean up."
"Yes ma'am," Therese's knees dipped in a cursory curtsy before she rushed out.
Mother closed the door behind Therese. "So, what am I to do with you?" She leaned against the door. "You think you don't need to obey to me?"
Ella stared unblinkingly into her mother's eyes and didn't say a word.
"Leaving food in the kitchen, dirty dishes, milk, honey, all left out." Mother glowered at Ella. "I do believe you did that just to let me know you had disobeyed!"
Ella tried not to smile, but apparently failed.
"You think that is funny?"
Ella fixed her eyes on her mother.
"And then!" Mother lifted the hand that held Ede's paper and shook it. "And then! What do I find on the table, next to the crumbs and the dripped honey?"
Ella reached for the papers, her hand gripping one end, pulling. But her mother held tight and the sound of tearing roared in Ella's ears. The ripped pages fell to the floor.
"So, you didn't mean to leave this little piece of...." Mother looked at the sheets scattered at her feet. "This filth. How could you bring this filth into my house?"
Ella stared at the floor too. She wanted to gather up the pages, hoping to put them together. How could she have been so careless with Ede's work?
"How did this filth get into my house?"
Heat rose in Ella's cheeks. She wanted to scream at her mother, but she held her tongue.
"Was Ede here?"
Ella balled her hands and pressed her nails into her palms.
"I asked you a question Ella. Was Ede here?"
Ella did not move.
The sting of her mother's slap across her face felt good. She had provoked her mother to the slap. She had won.
"Answer me!"
"Yes." Ella smiled. "Yes, he was here."
Her mother sighed. "I think the only solution is a nunnery. You will come to no good unless you are kept under control. Obviously I cannot control you."
Her mother paced. "You are to stay in this room, until further notice." She stopped and turned on her heel and looked at Ella. "Do you understand?"
She nodded.
"And Ede." Her mother resumed her pacing between the window and the bed. "You are not permitted to see him." Again she turned to her daughter, hoping, Ella supposed, to see some anger or remorse, some indication she had broken her daughter's will. "Do you understand?"
Ella understood but she did not agree. She would find a way to see him.
Mother went back to her route between the window and the bed. "Maybe it is my fault. I should have never let him into this house, but I thought poor motherless child. I should have banned him after his blasphemy."
Mother stared at Ella. "Or was it your blasphemy? You were so young, not even confirmed yet. I suppose I can't blame you. But Ede knew exactly what he was doing. I should have banned him right then. Your father wouldn't hear of it, Ede's father being who he was. Your father told me it would cause a scandal. But what have we got now?" Her hollow laugh rang out as she nodded her head. "A scandal!"
She faced Ella, her finger pointing at the floor. "Pick up those dirty pages."
Ella did as she was told.
"Now hold them toward me."
Ella held them to her breast.
"Hold them toward me, unless you want me to burn you as well as that filth.
Ella clutched Ede's essay.
"Very well." As Mother found some matches next to the oil lamp on the bed cabinet, Ella slid a few of the scraps into her pocket. Mother turned and struck a match, pushing it through the distance between them. Her mother lit the pages, the yellow flame grew and scorched Ella's arm. Without thinking she dropped the papers and touched her burnt skin. She stared at her mother, unable to believe what she had done.
Mother snatched up the pages, holding a corner, and watched as the red-yellow tongue ate the white paper, curling the flimsy residue and turning it black. A smile flickered on her lips as she dipped the last of the flame in the water basin at the wash stand. Her skirts swished as she turned on her heel and left the room, pulling the door closed behind her.
Ella sank to her bed. She needed to see Ede. To explain what happened to his work. To find out what was wrong. To get him to stay in Nagykanizsa.
Needlecraft with Zsuzsi
The next day Ella watched Zsuzsi's fingers push the tatting scuttle over and under the thread held in her left hand, pulling it tight now and again. Zsuzsi might not be good at languages or math, but her fingers were clever, much smarter than Ella's.
Ella sighed. She had to find a way to see Ede.
"When you visit my house, I'll show you what Mutti gave me for my trousseau."
Ella wondered how her friend could talk while her hands performed their complicated ballet, the lace emerging from that dance. Her hands had a brain all their own.
"Oh darn." Ella dropped her knitting. "I see a mistake and it's a thousand rows back.
Zsuzsi looked up from her work. Placing her lace on her lap, she reached for Ella's knitting.
"See?" Ella pointed an inch below her current row.
"Ah, yes." Zsuzsi pulled a crotchet hook from her needlework kit and allowed the column of stitches above the mistake to unravel. "I'll fix it, no problem."
"Thanks."
"I saw Mother Mary Theresa at the wedding."
At the mention of the mother superior of
the convent, Ella’s stomach constricted. During her time at the convent school, Ella had spent some uncomfortable hours with Mother Mary Theresa. She had said something, she didn't remember what, that gave her teacher the impression she did not believe in God. Probably she had asked one too many questions. She was sent to Mother Mary Theresa, who used various methods to subdue the curious child. After that experience Ella had been careful not to ask questions and always to give the required answers. Rebelling against Mother was easy. Rebelling against the church, at least letting the sisters know of her rebellion, was much more work and much less fun.
"Mother Mary Theresa asked after you."
"She did?" Maybe Ella had played the good little girl too well.
"Yes. Sent her blessings."
Ella sat in silence while Zsuzsi worked. Ella thought that if she was confined to the house, without any books, at least it allowed her to make some progress on the trousseau. Or allowed Zsuzsi to help her make progress. Mother insisted on it, insisted that the things be made by Ella. How else would she know how to make these things when she had her own house to run?
The current project was a baby blanket. Ella didn't want a baby blanket. She didn't want a trousseau. She didn't want to get married. She didn't want to have a baby. She only wanted to see Ede.
Zsuzsi used the crochet hook to make the errant knit into a purl. "Did you hear? Father Joseph died?"
"Really?" Ella hated Father Joseph. Just as with Mother Mary Theresa, she had strategies for avoiding him.
"Uh-huh." Zsuzsi inspected the knitting. "It goes knit, knit, purl. Right?"
"Yes." Ella pointed to the pattern to help Zsuzsi.
Having determined the proper stitch sequence, Zsuzsi chattered on. "Anna says that maybe someone killed him." Anna was the cook at Zsuzsi's house.
"Are you serious?"
"Very." Picking up the next stitch she looked up from her work. "Anna's from Kiskanizsa and she says Dragica...."
"Dragica?" Ella had heard the name discussed by Maid and Cook. She had even once overheard Mother whispering the name to one of her friends.
"Dragica." Zsuzsi smiled knowingly. "The Croat herbalist said that Father Joseph did unnatural things. Evil things."
"What things?"
"She didn't say. But Dragica said that God wanted him dead because of those things."
Ella shrugged. Zsuzsi liked to talk about the result of others' sins. Ella thought she made most of it up and she wanted to talk about something else. She knew just the thing. "You were saying you got something new for your trousseau?"
"Oh yes! Mutti bought me the most exquisite sugar shaker."
"That's kind of her."
"It's silver, with etched patterns."
"It must be beautiful." Ella thought it must have been expensive – expensive, and the etchings would make it hard to keep clean.
Zsuzsi completed the repair and handed the knitting back to Ella.
"It is beautiful." She took up the lace and the scuttle. "Mutti thinks I have everything I really need now. So, she's getting these beautiful extras."
"Mmmm." Ella was sure she didn't have everything she needed. Father had provided the everyday linens, dishes, the crystal, and the silver utensils, but Mother refused to get any extras until Ella had completed all kinds of needlecraft projects, the baby blanket being one of them.
"Now all I need is a husband!" Zsuzsi giggled. "By the way, I danced with Ede at the wedding. He's handsome, but too young, don't you think?"
Ella's knitting dropped to her lap, several stitches slipping off the needle. She cleared her throat, pushing the thought of Ede married to Zsuzsi out of her mind. Would he like talking about babies, silver, weddings and funerals?
"He's too young."
Most men didn't get married until they were in their thirties. Ella had asked her father why. He said a man had to be established, had to make enough money to be able to support a family before he could marry. It meant that girls like Zsuzsi and Ella would marry disgusting old men.
"Mutti had Mrs. Farkas visit the other day. I had tea with her."
Mrs. Farkas, a small slight woman with a disdainful look, was the matchmaker. Ella thought the name appropriate. Farkas, wolf, cunning, dangerous. But she was really more like a fox than a wolf. Her red brown hair was the color of fox fur and she came sniffing around, like a fox tracking his prey.
"What was that like?"
"Nothing special. We talked about normal things: church, who's getting married, who had babies...."
Zsuzsi was being put through her paces. The matchmaker wanted to make sure she was a proper young woman.
"But Mutti said that maybe they would look in Vienna."
That would make sense, Ella thought. Zsuzsi's German was much better than her Hungarian, but she wouldn't say so.
"Would you like living in Vienna?"
Her friend shrugged. "Why not?"
Didn't it matter what Zsuzsi would like? They worked on their projects in silence.
"Why didn't you come to the wedding?"
Ella considered telling Zsuzsi the truth. That was not a good idea; the whole town would know five minutes after she left.
"I wasn't feeling well."
"What? Was it your time?"
Ella nodded and smiled. That was as good a lie as any.
"Too bad. It was fun. Lots of people asked where you were." She grinned. "Ede asked where you were."
Ella's Discovery
Ella fished the scraps of Ede's paper from her pocket. Just three. She studied the words, but there was not a complete sentence to be had on them. She closed her eyes. Did he have a copy or had her mother destroyed the only one? How could she have been so careless? Yes, her books were precious, but there were other copies of those books. But this paper, which Ede had written, and no matter how strange – Ella stopped herself from agreeing with her mother, that Ede was strange – it was far more valuable.
She leaned on the bed and looked at the floor, remembering how the black ashes of what had been Ede's words, his words of anguish, had lain scattered. Her eye swept back and forth, wishing she could undo the fire, that she could hold those pages in her hand. Her eye stalled on a white corner peeking out from under the bed cabinet. Was that a page that escaped? She picked it up.
Instead of Ede's manuscript, Ella held a design, drawn on heavy card stock and done in black ink and watercolor, the paint blending shades of blue, from the lightest sky to midnight so dark it was almost black. She recognized the work. Miklos drew the most beautiful designs and this was one of his, graceful arcs of stems with flowers and hearts, all resting in a vase. Ella marveled at its simple elegance.
Even with Miklos's anger, nastiness, teasing, he could melt her heart with his designs. Why was this one in her room?
She turned the card over and read:
Ma chère T,
Avec toi, je suis mois.
Je t'aime.
M
Ella laughed. Her brother was taking French lessons from Therese! Maybe he was learning more than French? They said the best way to learn a language was from a lover. Maybe that flush on Therese's cheek was more than wine?
Ella slid the card and the remains of Ede's paper into her pocket. What would Mother say to those goings on? She knew the routine. Therese would be dismissed, as if the affair were her fault. No one would say a word about Miklos or even why Therese was let go.
She fingered the card in her pocket. As far as she knew, there was no affair. Perhaps Miklos was just trying to seduce Therese, and she was trying to keep her distance. The blush after the wedding might have been suppressed anger at having been accosted by her employer's son.
But if Therese were angered by Miklos's approach, she would have destroyed the note. She would never have brought this piece of evidence into the house. No. Ella was sure. Therese and Miklos were doing something that should not be done. Maybe Therese hoped to change her role from servant to mistress.
What would that mean for Ell
a?
Not good. Newly minted mistresses were notorious for being mean to spinster sisters-in-law. Ella planned never to marry. Never to become like Mother. She hoped to somehow wheedle her way into the business, maybe by making herself indispensable. Helping Father with the books. She had asked to see the books, but so far Father had refused with a "Don't worry your pretty head with such things. It will make you ugly."
How Ella wished she had been born a boy. If she were a boy, she would understand all the things Miklos and Father discussed at the dinner table. She would know how to design tools, she would understand why the drills her father made were superior, and how the Wright brothers could make planes fly. If only she were a boy!
She smiled inwardly. Father had said it was a pity that she was not a boy, because she would have been a great help in his business, with her handle on math and her practicality. When he had said that, she had asked him why she couldn't be a partner in his business. He had laughed, shook his head and patted her hair. Proper ladies, he told her, had families and raised children. They did not run businesses.
But this was no time to dream about impossibilities. Best to think about the current problem. Best to nip Therese in the bud, before she could rise. Miklos was young to be marrying, just like Ede. But sometimes men married that young, if their livelihood was assured. Miklos would inherit the family business, so if he really "t'aimed T", he might marry. She must tell Mother and get rid of Therese. That way no one would be available to mind her. That way she would find a way to see Ede.
The door creaked open and Therese appeared, her face pale. "Ma'am is in such a mood!"
Ella nodded.
"Again she was raging about Ede, how you are not to see him."
Ella nodded again.
Therese looked into Ella's eyes. "Is he your sweetheart?"
"No, just a friend." The only true friend she’d ever had. The only truthful friend she’d ever had.
"Why does your mother not want you to see him?"
"Mother gets into these strange moods."
This was true. Some of Mother's actions seemed random. This particular one had its reasons, but Ella wouldn't explain and she was sure her Mother wouldn't either, not wanting the world to know that Ella had seen such, as her mother put it, filth.
