Irretrievable (8 page)

“Sit down, Asta,” said Petersen. “I had just fallen asleep. At my age, sleep no longer goes by the clock. At night it refuses to come and then in the middle of the day it comes and takes you by surprise. Elizabeth is over at Schünemann's to take some grapes she picked this morning to the poor old lady who, I fear, is not long for this world. But she will be back immediately. Hanna is lending a hand in the fields. And now you must have a glass of Malmesey with me. That is a proper ladies' drink.”

So saying, he pushed his open Bible away to the right, a box of archaeological specimens to the left—for like most Schleswig-Holsteiners, he was a keen antiquarian—and placed two wine-glasses on his desk.

“Let us drink a toast. What shall we drink to? Shall we say a happy Christmas?”

“Oh, that's a long way off.”

“For you it is but my way of counting is not the same as yours …. So I drink that Christmas will see all your wishes come true.”

As they touched glasses, Elizabeth came in and said: “I must drink as well, even if I don't know what you are drinking to.”

The two girls greeted each other affectionately and Asta handed over the music-case, telling her at the same time how much her mother thanked her for her beautiful song of the other evening. She said all this rather absent-mindedly because her attention had already been caught by the various objects, all numbered, which littered the specimen box. One of them seemed to be of gold wire, formed into a large spiral.

“Why is it made of gold?” inquired Asta. “It looks rather like a sofa-spring.”

The old man smiled at this and explained that it was something rather better than that, a sort of bracelet which a previous young Asta had worn two thousand years ago.

Asta nodded delightedly at this and Elizabeth who knew more about such things than she would have liked, since she was more or less the custodian of the collection, added: “And if your horseshoe brooch is found in another two thousand years from now, I can assure you that it will also give rise to all sorts of suppositions and theories …. But come now, Asta, we must not disturb grand-papa any more.”

She took Asta's arm and led her across the hall to a door leading directly out into the churchyard. A few paces further on there was a broad path which ran diagonally between the tombs to the old stone church, an early Gothic building that could easily have been mistaken for a barn except for the pointed windows over which small-leafed ivy was climbing thickly right up to the roof. The bell hung down from some weather-boarding on one side of the church gables while on the other side there stood a low brick pent-house building with small windows, each protected by two iron bars. Some of the graves, particularly near the church, had their headstones right against this pent-house vault and on one of these Asta climbed to peer curiously through the small grilled window. To do this she had to lean against a loose brick which slipped backwards, loosening another half-brick which crashed noisily down into the vault.

Asta started back and jumped down from the tombstone on which she had been standing. Elizabeth was equally scared and it was not until they had run quickly away from the eerie vault and out of the churchyard that they recovered their courage and were able to speak. Outside along the cemetery wall lay great heaps of cut planks and baulks of timber, because parallel to the wall and separated from it only by a broad lane, there lay a long carpenter's yard overgrown with short grass where Norwegian timber was always being cut. At this very moment a roughly hewn tree-trunk was lying on two tall wooden trestles and two carpenters, one standing above and the other below, were sawing along the trunk with a saw that became brighter and brighter as they worked. Both girls looked eagerly towards them and the presence of the men and the lively sound of the sawing cheered them up after the chill of horror that they had felt beside the crumbling vault.

It was an attractive spot because the nettles, so thick and high everywhere else, had been trodden down and so the two friends could sit comfortably and cosily on the high pile of planks, using the baulks as a footstool and the cemetery wall as a back-rest.

“You know,” Asta said, “Mama is right to have nothing to do with the vault and to be afraid of going down into it. Almost every stone is loose and it all seems ready to collapse at any minute. However, twice a year she does go there to lay a wreath on the coffin, on his birthday and on the day he died.”

“Can you still remember your brother?”

“Oh, certainly I can. I was already seven years old.”

“And is it true that he was called Adam as well as Estrid?”

“Yes. Mama really wanted him to have Helmut as his second name, like Papa, Estrid Helmut—Aunt Julie has often told me about it; but Papa insisted on Adam because he had heard that children with that name never died, and then Mama said—all according to Aunt Julie—that such ideas were pagan and superstitious and they would be punished because God would not allow himself to be dictated to and it was blasphemous and wrong to try to do so.”

“I can just imagine your mother talking like that. And the punishment did come, too. But Asta, I still feel that your mother is too strict about that sort of thing. Even Grandpa, who really loves her very much and married her—which is supposed to have upset the vicar of Arnewieck very much, by the way—and who cannot imagine anyone nicer than his ‘dear Christine,' as he always calls her, and who knows your father very well too—even Grandpa says that she is too sure of herself and too strict towards other people …”

“Yes, everybody says that, your grandpa and Principal Schwarzkoppen and Uncle Arne. And even if Axel and I ought not to listen, we still do and so we talk about it between ourselves …”

“And whose part do you take?”

“Always Mama's.”

“That surprises me rather. I thought that you were your father's darling and loved him best of all.”

“Oh, I do love him very much; he's so kind and lets us have everything we want. But it is still Mama who thinks of our real good and because of that, she's stricter. Just because she loves us.”

“That's not what you always say, Asta. Only a week ago you were complaining bitterly and saying that it was hardly possible to live with your mother any more, she kept on saying ‘no' to everything and everything always seemed so important for her just as if life and death and salvation depended on it.”

“Yes, I may have said that. But everyone complains sometimes! And then it's often so quiet here and that makes you sad and you want something else. You see, I look at it like this. Mama often scolds us but she does care for us whereas Papa is amusing all the time but he doesn't really trouble himself about us very much. He's always thinking of something else and Mama is always thinking of us. If things were to go on as Papa wanted, then everything would go gently on until someone came along and wanted to marry me. Asta Holk, auburn hair, no physical defects, some money—I think that is all he has in his mind and he thinks that everything will turn out for the best. He doesn't stop to imagine that I have a soul as well, perhaps he doesn't even think that I have.”

“What awful things you say! He must surely think that you have a soul.”

“Perhaps he does, I don't know. But that is the difference between him and Mama. She
definitely
thinks that I have and wants me to learn things and have firm beliefs, ‘an anchor for the storms of life' as she puts it, and I should be very happy about it if it didn't mean leaving you. I shall never find a friend like you again.”

“But surely you don't want to go away, Asta, do you? What will you gain? Surely Fräulein Dobschütz is clever as well as being good and kind? And you can
parlez-vous fran
ç
ais
so well that it's a pleasure to listen to and Strehlke has won two prizes, one in Copenhagen on coastal plants in North Schleswig and one in Kiel on jelly-fish and starfish. And I am sure he knows all about geography because quite recently he knew what the summer castle of the king of Naples was and even your uncle Arne congratulated him. What more do you want to learn? It's really not kind of you to want to learn so much more than me and when you come back you'll not want to see me any more. And I do so want to see you because I'm so fond of you. And your mama, if she does send you away, will certainly send you to some big Swiss boarding-school.”

“No, to quite a small Herrnhuter school.”

“Ah, that's different, Asta. I know the Herrnhuters. They are good people.”

“I think so, too. Mama went to a Herrnhut school.”

“Has it already been decided?”

“As good as decided. Papa has given in and in any case he is going off tomorrow to Copenhagen to the Princess, which was quite unexpected, and Mama will certainly take advantage of that to have everything arranged as quickly as possible. I imagine in a fortnight or less …”

“Oh Asta, if it weren't for Grandpa, I should ask your mama to let me go with you. What shall I do here when you have gone away?”

“I'm afraid I have to go, Elizabeth, and I shall go. It will be hard for me as well. And Mama will be all alone, too, with nobody here but Aunt Julie, and in spite of that she is sending me away. And Axel is going too. What Mama was saying yesterday is right: we must not live for our own pleasure and enjoyment but to do our duty. And she begged me always to remember that, because in that way we shall always be happy and blessed.”

“All that is true, Asta, but it doesn't help me very much.” Elizabeth's eyes were glistening as she said this. “I cannot just keep on walking up and down the beach looking for amber and making lists and copying numbers. And just think of the winter when everything is covered in snow and the crows are sitting on the crosses and then at twelve o'clock the clock strikes …”

And at that very moment the bell started striking. The two girls jumped up. Then they laughed and realized that it was time to go.

“When are you coming again?”

“Tomorrow.”

They parted and as Asta was passing the place where the bell hung, it struck for the last time and the little boy who was tolling it raised his cap and disappeared among the graves.

After
Holk had left Asta by the cricket pitch, he went to the nearest greenhouse in front of which his gardener was hard at work. Holk greeted him and then, tearing two leaves out of his memorandum pad, he wrote a couple of telegrams to Pentz and Frau Hansen, announcing to both his arrival in Copenhagen the following evening. “Ohlsen, these telegrams must be sent from Glücksburg or from Arnewieck, if you like. You may take the brake.”

The gardener, a lout like most of his kind, was plainly annoyed, so Holk added: “I'm sorry to have to interrupt your work, but I need Philip to help me pack, and your wife's brother, who seems quite promising, doesn't know his way about yet, and anyway I'm not sure that he is reliable enough.”

At this the gardener quite recovered his good humour and said that if the count did not mind, he would prefer to go to Glücksburg: his wife had such an itch all over her body, which certainly must come from her spleen, because she lost her temper so easily, and so he would like to go to the doctor's for a prescription.

“All right,” said Holk. “And while you are there, will you at the same time make sure that the ship definitely calls here tomorrow morning, as once or twice it has failed to put in here. And also ask whether the King has already arrived in Glücksburg and how long he is expected to stay.”

The count then returned to the castle, where Philip had not only got out all the trunks but had also started packing.

“Excellent, Philip. I see that your mistress has already told you that I have to leave. Well, you know what I need; but not too much because the more you take the more you need. If you take a full trunk, in the end you expect to have everything that you have at home. Don't forget one thing—my fur boots and galoshes. You lumber about in them like an elephant but they warm the cockles of the heart and that is the main thing. Don't you agree?”

Philip did agree, whereupon the count, visibly pleased, sat down at his desk and wrote a few letters, including one to Arne, while the old servant continued packing his bags.

“What books does the count require?”

“No books. The ones we have aren't suitable for Copenhagen; but put in a couple of Walter Scott's; one never knows and he is always suitable.”

At noon, while Asta was still down in the village, Baron Arne came over from Arnewieck and as they were chatting with the ladies in the hall, Holk handed him with a laugh the letter he had written him that morning. “There, Alfred; but read it when you're at home. There is no hurry about it and I think you probably know what is in it. It is the old, old story: I'm handing over Holkenäs castle and all its arrangements to you, as I have already done so often, and I appoint you major-domo for the period of my absence. Advise your sister, discuss with her” (he added in an undertone) “the building of a new chapel with a vault or anything else she wants, and have plans drawn up for the cow-sheds. Do the one for the shorthorns first. Ask the advice of the homoeopath of whom you were telling me such extraordinary things the other day and send the drawings over to Copenhagen. Pentz also knows something about it and the much-travelled Bille even more; after all, his measles cannot” (he turned back to the ladies) “go on for ever. When he has peeled—it's funny to think of him in an isolation hospital—I shall go and see him and show him the plans. Invalids are always glad to hear something more than the tinkle of a medicine spoon or the sound of a doctor's stick.”

Holk continued to speak in this tone, leaving no doubt as to his very great pleasure at being able to go away from Holkenäs for three months. It was, indeed, somewhat offensive for the countess and she would certainly not have failed to mention the subject had she not detected a rather similar feeling in herself. The Holks were like many other married couples. When they were not together, they felt closer to each other, for then not only did all their differences of opinion and bickering disappear from their memories but they also found themselves recovering their former feelings of affection for each other and even used to write each other loving letters. As no one knew this better than the brother-in-law, he now began to pass a few jocular remarks on this subject, which were not well received; apt though they were, his sister had no desire to hear any reference, however slight, to such matters at this moment. Observing his wife's hauteur, Holk invited Julie to come for a walk in the park, as “he had one or two things still to discuss with her.”