On the Night of the Seventh Moon

Liesel nodded.

I felt I was getting on very well. Liesel was ready to go with whoever was the leader, I could see that. Fritz was quite different from Dagobert. He was much smaller but then he was several years younger; his eyes were dark whereas Dagobert’s eyes were light blue; his hair was brown and straight, Dagobert’s waved about his head like a glistening gold cap. Dagobert was the handsome one but Fritz interested me. He had a sensitive face and I remembered Frau Graben’s saying that he missed a mother. I could well believe it. Dagobert would be self-sufficient; Fritz less so. I was sure, though, that Fritz was going to prove the better pupil.

I thought: He would be a year older than my own child. And I thought fleetingly how wonderful it would be if she had lived and all had gone as in those magic three days I had believed they would. Suppose this were my home-suppose instead of with these children I were here with my own . I shook myself free of fancies. I must be firmly realistic I must not allow the pine forests to put their spell on me.

“We’ll go to the town together,” I said, ‘and I’ll tell you what everything is in English. That will be a lovely and easy way to learn.

“

“Will Dagobert come?” asked Liesel.

“If he wants to.”

“Shall he be whipped if he won’t?” asked Fritz.

“Would you whip him?”

I could not see myself so engaged so I smiled faintly.

“I shall just ignore him. If he doesn’`t want to learn he will be ignorant and when the Count comes he will say: ” Well, what English have you learned?

”” And you and Liesel will speak to him in English and he will be pleased. Dagobert will know nothing. “

Liesel laughed.

“It’ll serve him right,” she commented.

They took me down into the Randhausburg. This was of much later period-sixteenth or seventeenth century, I believed. It consisted of several turreted buildings on the mountain plateau above which the fortress rose. The sleeping quarters of the rest of the household were’in one of these and in another was the Rittersaal the hall of the knights which would be used for ceremonial occasions. Beyond this was the stone-floored kitchen with its roasting spits and cauldrons.

It smelt of sauerkraut and onions. During our tour we met one or two of the servants who bobbed curtseys at me when Fritz told them who I was.

It was in the Rittersaal that Dagobert appeared; he stood quietly listening to what I had to say and he was trying to pretend, I could see, that he had been with us all the time.

“This was where the knights used to be,” Fritz told me.

Dagobert said: “Look at all the swords on the wall.”

That one’s the Count’s,” said Fritz.

“No, that one,” contradicted Liesel.

“That’s the biggest.”

“They’re all the Count’s, sillies,” declared Dagobert.

Liesel put out her tongue.

“We’re going to speak English and you’re not going to know any. Fraulein Trant said so.”

“No, that’s not right, Liesel,” I corrected.

“What I said was that if Dagobert didn’`t want to be with us when we learn he would know nothing and then your father would wonder why he couldn’'t speak English like you and Fritz.”

“I’ll speak English best of all,” said Dagobert.

I smiled inwardly. This was early victory.

“Can he?” asked Fritz almost anxiously; and I knew then that Fritz was hoping for an opportunity to excel the half-brother who beat him at almost everything he did.

“The one who works the hardest will be the best,” I said.

“It’s as simple as that.”

Victory indeed I I had instilled in my pupils a determination to apply themselves and succeed.

After we had examined the Randhausburg we went back to the fortress, and the children showed me the hunting room. The ceiling of this room was decorated with groups of animals and there were some stuffed heads on the walls among guns of various kinds.

“We practise shooting,” Dagobert told me.

“I’m a good shot. Bangi Bang! I shoot to kill.”

“You couldn’'t,” said Fritz.

“The cartridges are all blank.”

“Yes, I could,” insisted Dagobert.

“Bang.”

“We have archery lessons too,” Fritz told me.

“We practise in the courtyard,” added Dagobert.

“I hit the target every time.”

“You don’t,” Fritz disagreed.

“I would if I wanted to.”

“Well, I shall see,” I said.

“Now we’ll go to the schoolroom and I’ll see the Pastor.”

“The Pastor doesn’`t come today,” Dagobert said, scornful of my ignorance.

“Then I shall tell you what I hope to do about our daily lesson. Then I can arrange the time with the Pastor when he does come.”

We were mounting the staircase and came to a passage. I could turn right or left. One way led to my room, so I took the other and found myself at the foot of a spiral staircase. I started up this when Fritz called to me urgently: “Fraulein Trant.

I was about to say: “It’s Miss Trant in English,” when I turned and saw the fearful expression on his face. He was standing at the bottom of the staircase.

“What’s wrong, Fritz?” I asked.

“You mustn’`t go up there.”

The other children came up. Their faces bore the same excited yet frightened look.

“Why not?” I asked.

“The haunted room’s up there,” explained Fritz.

“Haunted? Who says so?”

“Everybody,” answered Dagobert.

“Nobody goes there.”

“The servants go to dust it,” contradicted Fritz.

“Never by themselves. If you go there by yourself something terrible will happen to you. You’d die and stay there for ever to haunt people.”

Fritz had turned very ‘pale and I said sharply: “That’s nonsense. What could be in there? “

The ghost,” said Fritz.

“Has anyone seen it?” I asked.

There was silence. I walked up a step or two then Fritz said: “Come back, Fraulein, Miss.

I said: “There’s nothing to be afraid of, I’m sure.”

An irresistible urge forced me to go on and besides I did not want the children, on whom I had made a good impression, to think me afraid, particularly Dagobert who, as I advanced, crept up behind me.

All the children were watching me.

The staircase ended in a small landing on which was a door. I went towards it and took the door knob in my hands. I heard the gasp behind me.

I turned the handle.

The door was locked.

The rest of the day passed as though I were in a dream; I had to keep reminding myself that I was really here. I took luncheon with Frau Graben in a little room in the Randhausburg which she said was her sanctum. Her delight in my presence was very gratifying but I was a little afraid that I might not live entirely up to expectations. I had not had a great deal to do with children; yet although I had never thought to teach, when I had realized that I might have a child dependent on me and Ilse had suggested that I teach in the Damensfift, the idea had seemed possible. I had thought of Ilse quite often since I had known I was coming here and of how strange it was that after we had been so close during my months of waiting for the birth of my child she should have faded out of my life. For I really had no idea where she was now.

In the afternoon of that day I met Pastor Kratz, a shrivelled little man with very bright sparkling eyes. He thought it an excellent plan, he said, that I had come to teach the children English. He himself had toyed with the idea of introducing it into the series of lessons he gave, but his accent was not good. Nor was his English, and there was no one who could teach a language like a native of the land to which it belonged; and when that teacher had a good command of the pupil’s language also, then it was ideal.