On the Night of the Seventh Moon (14 page)

When the doctor had gone Ilse said to me: “Helena, do you realize what this means?”

“Yes, I do.” I could not help it if my delight was obvious. I had possessed what my father called a mercurial temperament. “Up and down,” said my mother. “Irresponsible,” Aunt Caroline called it. And I was sure Ilse thought me odd and illogical. I had been sunk in depression when
I had had every chance of putting an ugly incident behind me and starting a new life; and now that that would be impossible because there would be a living reminder, I was rejoicing. I couldn't help it. The wonder of having a child subdued all else.

“This is shattering,” said Ilse at length. “That this should have happened as well as everything else . . . ! What can we do now? You can't go back to England. Helena, have you thought of what this is going to mean?”

But all I could think was: I am going to have a child.

“We must be practical,” she warned me. “Can you go back to your aunts and tell them that you are going to have a child? What will they say? You would be disgraced. They might not even receive you. If I wrote to them and told them what had happened . . . No, they would never understand. You will have to stay here until the child is born. It's the only way. Yes, we shall have to arrange that.”

I had to confess I had not given much consideration to the months between—only the arrival of the child. I should like a boy but I would not think about that until it came. If it were a girl I should not wish her to think that I was not completely delighted with her.

But I was right. I must try to be practical. What was I going to do? How was I going to keep the child, educate it, bring it up in the best possible way? It would have no father. And what should I do while I waited for the child to be born?

The first exultation had passed.

Ilse seemed to have come to a decision. “You must stay with us, Helena, and I shall look after you. I shall never forgive myself for going out that night without Ernst and then losing you in the crowd. Yes, we will arrange something. You'll be all right. You can trust us.”

She seemed to have grown calmer; the first horror had passed and characteristically she was making plans.

 

The first feeling of triumphant joy had passed. I had had a glimpse of how I should have felt if I had been truly married to Maximilian and
he had been with me so that we could have shared the joy of prospective parenthood. I asked myself if there was not something I could do to find him. He was the father of my child. Yet what could I do? If I talked this over with Ilse I would see that sad patient look come into her face. I had given up trying to make her understand that no matter what evidence they showed me I could never believe that I had dreamed my life with Maximilian. I began to make wild plans. I would travel the country looking for him. I would call at every house seeking information concerning him. Now that I was going to have a child I
must
find him.

I said to Ilse: “Could I put an advertisement in the newspapers? Could I ask him to come back to me.”

Ilse looked horrified: “Do you believe that a man who did
that
would answer such an advertisement?”

“I was thinking . . .” I began; and saw how hopeless it was to talk to Ilse, for she insisted that the Maximilian I had known had never existed.

She was patient with me. “Suppose you mentioned Count Lokenburg. You would be deemed mad. There could even be trouble.”

So whichever way I looked I could do nothing.

I knew that she was right about my not going home. The aunts would be horrified at the prospect of sheltering an unmarried pregnant niece. I could imagine the scandal. No one would believe the story of the attack in the forest any more than they would believe that other version of my unusual marriage.

I needed Ilse's kindnesses and ingenuity to help me in my difficult situation, and I knew I could rely on her. She was very soon her calm and practical self.

“You will certainly have to stay here until after the child is born. Then we shall have to decide from there.”

“I have a little money, but it is not enough to keep us and educate the child.”

“We'll think about that later,” she said.

Ernst came back. His health seemed much better and when he heard the news he shared Ilse's horror and compassion. They were both very
gentle with me and very anxious because they assumed guilt for what had happened.

He and Ilse, I know, discussed my affairs continuously but for me the state of euphoria persisted and every so often I would forget my circumstances and think solely of the delight of having a child. Sometimes I wondered whether Dr. Carlsberg had given them something to put into my food to make me happy. I had a terrible thought once that he might have made me imagine I was going to have a child. I didn't think this was so as Ilse and Ernst seemed to think it such a tragedy. But once one has been the subject of such an experiment one becomes suspicious.

We all decided that for the time being we would not tell the aunts, and during the next months would think very carefully what we should do.

In the meantime an excuse must be made to keep me with my cousin. Ilse took that into her own hands and wrote to Aunt Caroline to tell her that I was staying on because Ernst had taken a turn for the worse and she needed my help.

“A little white lie,” she said with a grimace.

So I stayed on in Denkendorf and the weeks began to slip by. I no longer felt ill when I arose; and I thought constantly of the baby. I bought material and started to make a layette. I would sit for hours stitching and thinking.

Dr. Carlsberg came to me. He said he was going to pass me over to Dr. Kleine, a doctor friend of his who had a little nursing home in Klarengen, not very far away, and soon he would drive me over and introduce me to his colleague. There, in Dr. Kleine's clinic, I should have the child.

I wondered about the cost but they wouldn't discuss it and in my present state I was content to let things go.

Ilse said one day: “When the child is born you can stay with us for a while and perhaps later on you could take a post teaching English in one of our schools. It might just be possible to have the child with you.”

“Do you think there would be such a post?”

“Dr. Carlsberg might be able to help. He and his colleagues know a great deal that is going on. They would find out and if there was anything I am sure they would be only too glad to help.”

“You are so good to me, all of you,” I cried gratefully.

“We feel responsible,” replied Ilse. “Ernst and I will never forget that not only did this happen to you in our country but when you were under our care.”

I was content to allow them to plan for me, which was unlike myself because I had always been so independent. It certainly seemed as though the Seventh Moon had cast a spell upon me and all my actions had become unpredictable.

So I allowed Ilse to cosset me. I was almost unaware of what went on. I stitched at my little garments and delightedly folded them when they were done and laid them away in the drawer I had prepared for them. White, blue, and pink. Blue for a boy, they said. So I would have both pink and blue so that I should not have planned for either sex. I knitted and sewed and read. The summer passed and the autumn was with us.

Aunt Caroline wrote that she was surprised that I should enjoy living with foreigners in some outlandish place rather than in my own home but Aunt Matilda, realizing that my cousin Ernst had a “heart” and hearts being funny things, quite understood that Ilse should want me at hand to help.

Mrs. Greville wrote. She had heard that I was staying on to help my cousin nurse her husband. She thought it would be a good experience for me, but she and her husband as well as Anthony were looking forward to my return.

They all seemed so far away in the world of reality where life pursued an even tenor. The fantastic adventures of the last months had sent me worlds away from them.

 

One day Ilse said: “Dr. Carlsberg has news. He says that the nuns at your old
Damenstift
would take you in to teach English to the pupils. You could have the child with you.”

“You do so much for me,” I said emotionally.

“It's our duty,” replied Ilse solemnly. “In any case we are so fond of you. We must think of the future, you know.”

I was growing obviously larger. I could feel the movement of my child and whenever I did my heart leaped with joy. How could this be so, I asked myself, if this life within me was the result of an encounter with a savage brute in the forest? I would never stop believing in those ecstatic days—no matter what evidence they brought forward to try to convince me that they had never existed.

Ilse introduced me to people in the town when it was necessary as Mrs. Trant, who had recently suffered a bereavement in the loss of her husband and who was shortly to bear his posthumous child. I was seen as a tragic figure and people were very kind to me.

When I went into the market they called to me to ask how I was. I would stop and chat with them and the women would tell me about their childbearing, the men about their vigils during their wives' ordeals.

Dr. Carlsberg came along one day and drove me into the town of Klarengen where his friend had his nursing home. He thought it was better for me to see the doctor there at this stage.

I did so and Dr. Kleine told me that at the beginning of April I should come into his nursing home to be prepared for the birth of the child. He called me Mrs. Trant and had evidently been told the story about my recent bereavement.

As we drove away Dr. Carlsberg said: “You can rely on Dr. Kleine. He's the best man in his line in these parts.”

“I'm wondering if I shall be able to pay.”

“We are taking care of that,” he said.

“I can't accept . . .”

“It's easy to give,” he said ruefully. “So difficult to receive. But it is you who must give us the satisfaction of helping you out of this situation. I know your cousin is filled with self-reproach. She and her husband can only regain their peace of mind if they do everything possible for you. As for me, you have helped me in my work tremendously. You have
given me an opportunity to prove a theory. I can't thank you enough. Please tell me—have you now come to accept the truth?”

I hesitated and he said: “I see that you cannot give up your belief in the dream.”

“I lived it,” I said. “Of the other . . . I remember nothing.”

He nodded. “It is even better than I thought. And now that you are to have the child you believe that child is the fruit of your marriage, and that is the reason why you feel ready to welcome it. Had you thought . . . but no matter. This is good. Anything we can do for you we shall be delighted to do, rest assured of that.”

 

Sometimes, looking back, I ask myself: Why did you accept this and that? Why did you not inquire more closely into these strange things that happened to you? I suppose the answer is: I was very young and I appeared to have stepped into a world where strange things seemed the natural course of events.

I was brought down to reality one day in February. I was visiting Dr. Kleine once every three weeks and Ilse used to drive me into Klarengen; she would put the trap in an inn yard and shop while I went to Dr. Kleine's nursing home.

He was satisfied with my progress and he did pay very special attention to me on Dr. Carlsberg's instruction. I had had a shock, Dr. Carlsberg had told him—Dr. Kleine believed this to be the death of my husband—and in the circumstances might have a difficult confinement.

On this February day the sun was brilliant and there was a frost in the air. As I came out of the nursing home a voice behind me startled me as it took me right back to Oxford.

“If it isn't Helena Trant!”

I turned and there were the Misses Elkington who ran a little tea shop near the Castle Mound, which was only open during the summer months. They sold tea and coffee with homemade cakes besides egg cozies, tea cozies, and embroidered mats which they made themselves.
I had never liked them. They were constantly apologizing for selling their wares and making sure that everyone knew it was something they were not used to as they had come down in the world, their father having been a general.

“Oh, it's Miss Edith and Miss Rose,” I said.

“Well, fancy meeting you here of all places.”

Their little eyes scrutinized me. They must have seen me come out of Dr. Kleine's nursing home and would be wondering why. But not for long. Although I wore a loose coat my condition could not but be perfectly obvious.

“And what are you doing here, Helena?” Miss Elkington the elder was roguishly censorious.

“I'm staying with my cousin.”

“Oh yes, of course, you've been away some months.”

“I daresay I shall soon be back.”

“Well, well. It is a small world. So you are really staying here?”

“Not exactly. I've come in with my cousin. I'm joining her now.”

“I'm so glad we saw you,” said Miss Elkington.

“So nice to see people from home,” added her sister.

“I must hurry. My cousin is waiting . . .”

I was relieved to get away from them.

I looked at my reflection in a shop window. I didn't think there could be much doubt of my condition.

 

The weeks had passed and my time was getting near. Ilse fussed over me; often I would find her seated in silence with a worried frown on her forehead and I knew she was concerned for me.

She had consulted both Drs. Carlsberg and Kleine and they had decided that I should go into Dr. Kleine's nursing home a week or so before my child was expected. As for myself I continued in my state of placid euphoria. I could think of nothing but my child.

“You will have to wait until the baby is about a year old before you go to the
Damenstift
to teach English,” said Ilse. “Dr. Carlsberg has not
mentioned your name, but on his recommendation no obstacles would be put in the way of your going there.”