Ida Brandt (33 page)

“Well, someone’s got to have it,” said Josefine.

But Nurse Petersen said:

“Oh, we ought to have kept them to have with the coffee.”

Ida had risen and left.

∞∞∞

Kate Mourier had developed the most remarkable habit. She wandered up and down through all the rooms followed by both the hounds.

“My dear Kate, why all this marching up and down?” said Mrs Mourier from her sofa.

“I’m thinking,” said Kate and marched on.

“But couldn’t you do it in just one room?” said Mrs Mourier.

Suddenly, Kate had sat down with both dogs in front of her, and then she got up again. Over by the door, she stretched her arms up along the door frame.

“Is it this evening we are going to a concert?” she said, staring up in the air.

“Yes.”

“That’s nice. Because I need some music,” she said; and she went in.

Mrs Mourier continued to sit there. The pages in her “Peters Edition” were left untouched. She was thinking that it was good that Mourier was coming at last. He would be company for Aline.

For Mrs Mourier did not really know what was going on in Kate’s mind.

The bell rang; it was Mrs von Eichbaum. She came merely to ask whether Mourier was also bringing their butler to town with him.

“Because, you see, Mine, it is best to know that,” she said.

Mourier’s butler was to help at the reception that Mrs von Eichbaum was arranging for the recently returned Mrs Feddersen.

They discussed it for a while, and Mrs von Eichbaum said then, in a different tone:

“The children have been riding, you know.”

“Yes,” said Mrs Mourier, staring ahead. She would so much have liked to have a “straight talk”, but she refrained.

Nurse Friis’s “errand” was a minute’s dash across to Svendsen, to find her large-nosed friend having lunch. The nurse was all hot and bothered after what she had seen that morning.

“Heavens above,” she said, “I would never have believed it. It was so splendid.”

Her large-nosed friend viewed his sandwiches.

“It’s always like that with those very gentle girls,” he said.

Nurse Friis sat for a while; she could still picture the bed and the big washbasin and the broad sofa.

“Yes, it must be that,” she said thoughtfully, and then she nodded.

But shortly afterwards she said:

“But, good Lord, it must be lovely to have money.”

“Well,” said her large-nosed friend, “the most important thing, when all is said and done, is to know what you want with each other.”

He offered Nurse Friis a glass of beer, which she lifted her veil to drink.

But, once more quite heatedly, she suddenly said:

“Frederik, she’ d moved the bed right into the middle of the flat.”

“Aye,
that
’ll probably be left where it is,” said the large-nosed friend.

∞∞∞

Mrs von Eichbaum was sitting with the general’s wife in front of the well-laid table in the latter’s dining room, where Mrs von Eichbaum’s guests were to eat today. All was ready.

Mrs von Eichbaum looked over the decorations, consisting of crocuses from the estate, and said:

“And then little Brandt is coming. I was out there myself this morning.”

And when the general’s wife made no immediate reply, she said:

“There was no sense in leaving the place empty, and she has been here a good deal during the winter. Besides, she will help a little with the tea.”

“But it is quite reasonable to invite her,” said the general’s wife, “as there is an empty place. And precisely,” she said, stopping just a little too suddenly after having said it, “under present circumstances.”

But Mrs von Eichbaum, appeared not to have heard, for she simply rose and said:

“And now all that remains for Julius is to light the lamps.”

The general’s wife also rose, but over by the door Mrs von Eichbaum stopped.

“And then I would also,” she said, rather more slowly, “like Aline to come a little earlier, for Lotte, (Mrs von Eichbaum performed a gesture with her hands as though she were putting something in place) then it would be as though she is really
here
.”

The general’s wife nodded as Mrs von Eichbaum opened the door.

“But good heavens my dear, the young ones are coming after dinner.”

They went down the corridor to the general’s wife’s kitchen.

“Those screens, Lotte,” said Mrs von Eichbaum as she went through the kitchen, where some grey screens both concealed and adorned the kitchen table and the stove, “those screens are a blessing.”

They separated, and Mrs von Eichbaum went over to her own small corridor where, in a rather commanding voice, she said to Julius, who had his gloves hanging to dry on a cord over by the stove:

“And Julius, I suppose you will take care of the visiting butler.”

Julius appeared, smelling slightly of petrol, and said he would take care of him.

Mrs von Eichbaum went in. She did not speak to Ane before the dinner.

The three rooms made a quietly comfortable impression, and the coal, which had been put on rather sparingly, was burning gently. Mrs von Eichbaum settled down in the sofa. She was going to make lace until it was time to dress. The bed curtain would soon be finished – within a few weeks. But Kate, that dear child, had really also been an eager lace-maker during the evenings and she did it very competently.

It really was as though those beautiful fingers had quietened down.

The lace bobbins slipped out of Mrs von Eichbaum’s hands, and she became lost in thought. The rooms were beginning to grow darker. Mrs von Eichbaum thought of so many things, of this winter and the many winters before it, of Aline and Kate and Karl. And suddenly she thought of one of the sermons preached by the chaplain to the royal household.

The subject had been faithfulness and a day’s work and the peace that was its reward.

Mrs von Eichbaum suddenly became very emotional, and she took out her handkerchief in the half light. Her eyes had alighted on Mr von Eichbaum’s picture above the desk. He was still visible in the half light.

His widow had folded her hands.

Then she was awakened from her thoughts. She had heard Karl. He opened the door from the dining room and came in.

“Have you dressed, mother?” he asked.

“No, I’ve simply been sitting in my corner for a while,” said Mrs von Eichbaum from the darkness: “But everything is ready.”

“Are we having Christensen then?” said Karl, who had collapsed on to a chair.

“Yes.”

They sat for a while in silence, until Mrs von Eichbaum said:

“And I have invited Miss Brandt.”

She had perhaps expected some comment from the gloom, but the word did not come, and all that was heard by either of them was the ticking of the clock.

“She’s been here a good deal during the winter after all,” came the voice from the sofa.

And Mrs von Eichbaum’s tone changed almost imperceptibly: “And so I have thought of this as a kind of final visit.”

The clock went on ticking perhaps for a minute.

“Will you light the lamp in the corner,” said Mrs von Eichbaum.

Karl lit the lap, and Mrs von Eichbaum rose.

“It is probably about time,” she said, and as she went past her son she suddenly laid her arm on his shoulder:

“I have been sitting here looking at the portrait of your father.”

Karl could feel she was trembling.

And suddenly moved, like her, he said:

“You are so kind, mother.” And he kissed her forehead.

“And now we must dress,” said Mrs von Eichbaum: “Julius has put the seating arrangements on your table.”

Karl stood in his room studying the “seating arrangements”. He felt something of a relief: Ida, who was to have the research student next to her at table, had been placed on the same side of the table as he himself.

Over in the dining room, Julius had finished lighting the lamps when Mourier’s Mr Christensen arrived with his dress shirt covered for protection by a velvet cloth. Julius treated the stranger with a great deal of ceremony and said that he “might perhaps be allowed to explain the situation to him”.

He took Mr Christensen into the general’s wife’s guest room beside the dining room, and Mr Christensen divested himself of his outer garments while looking at the two beds.

“This is where we dish up,” said Julius.

Julius had been thinking that Mr Christensen could pour the wine.

Mr Christensen – who wore gold cufflinks and had three square gold buttons on his shirt front, had served in the guards and during Mr Mourier’s annual visit to Karlsbad had zealously trained in the international style – studied the bottles.

“Of white wine,” said Julius,” we usually pour twelve glasses per bottle.”

Mr Christensen, who looked like a man who would not be surprised by anything, started arranging the bottles with a pair of very well-groomed hands. He wore a broad gold ring on the little finger of his left hand.

Mrs von Eichbaum had dressed and now sprinkled the rooms with “just a drop” of eau de Cologne.

The porter had taken up his post in front of the gate so as to give orders to the carriages. They were to stay on in the street. The “courtyard” between the two parts of the building was too narrow to allow them to turn with ease.

But the first guest came on foot. This was the student who was regularly given a meal here. He always came first because of an excessive fear of arriving too late, and as he divested himself of an array of strange garments he said to Julius:

“I suppose no one has arrived.”

Then, his head slightly bowed, he went in to Mrs von Eichbaum. Mrs von Eichbaum rose and said: “How nice to see you, Henrik; I take it you are reasonably well.” The student seated himself and thanked her. When sitting in the middle of a room, he looked as though he had been put in a corner, and he kept his legs curiously close to each other as though he had them in a foot muff. Hearing someone out in the corridor, Mrs von Eichbaum said:

“Yes, spring is a bad time for ailments of that sort.”

The research student’s “ailment” was a stomach upset.

“But have you had a lambskin rug under your table during the winter?”

Mrs von Eichbaum got up without waiting for an answer. The Schleppegrell family was making its entry into the small drawing room.

“Good lord, my dear,” said Mrs Schleppegrell, who was quite out of breath: “Fancy our being so early and I have been rushing around for hours.”

Mrs Schleppegrell had spent four hours of her day in the custom house, as she immediately told everyone.

The admiral had greeted the research student – in roughly the same way as he would have addressed a ship’s cook – and Mrs Schleppegrell moved across to the general’s wife, who usually came when she had heard the first carriage and had perhaps been hoping it was Aline. Karl, who had come in and was going round bowing and clicking his patent leather heels, had stopped before Fanny, who had a lace veil over an older salmon-coloured robe from a court ball, and, as a contribution to the conversation, Mrs von Eichbaum called across the room:

“I suppose you went to Father Dominique this morning, Fanny?
What
did he talk about?”

The priest had spoken on the subject of authority.

The admiral, who was truly religious every Sunday and attended service in the Naval Church with the Roskilde hymn book in his pocket, said:

“I don’t like all this enthusiasm for Catholic churches…”

“Good Heavens, Schleppegrell,” said the general’s wife – there was a certain staccato quality to the conversation – “for someone so firm in her faith as Fanny, it can only broaden the mind.”

And Mrs von Eichbaum, rising again, said:

“No, Schleppegrell, I can’t agree with you in that either – we are just talking about Catholics, Emmy – after all Catholics have a breadth of vision that is a source of inspiration.”

And hearing the door to the small drawing room open again, the general’s wife added as Fanny armed herself with her lorgnette:

“After all, there is a quality of permanence to Catholicism.”

For a second, while everyone was speaking, all eyes had lighted on Madame Aline, who had appeared in the doorway.

“Good morning, Aline,” said Mrs von Eichbaum, reaching out both her hands to her, and Mrs Feddersen, dressed in silk, without a word and supported by her walking stick, entered the room. Mrs von Eichbaum remained by her side as her friend shook hands with everybody – while shaking hands, Mrs Falkenberg instinctively stuck out her arm like a child learning to waltz – and the admiral (who was still talking about Catholicism) was heard to say:

“Well, damn it all, I don’t think it’s healthy.”

Mrs Schleppegrell had risen to embrace Aline, while over by the étagère Lieutenant Colonel Falkenberg was heard to say to the student: “Yes, that’s as it is, you go out in the sunshine, and then you find a cold wind blowing.” And the general’s wife, taking Mrs Feddersen’s walking stick, said:

“Sit here, Aline.”

While Mrs Feddersen was seating herself it was as though the group closed around her in the corner of the sofa.

But Mrs von Eichbaum, returning to the door to the small drawing room, said with a laugh:

“Yes, of course, the fine folk are the ones to come late.”

The Mouriers and Miss Rosenfeld had arrived together.

“No, Andreas,” Mrs. Mourier had said at home, “I do not wish to be there to see her arrive.”

Now, not having the courage to go in, she stood in the cabinet whence she could see Aline in the corner of the sofa.

“Good Lord, but she has gone grey,” she said to Fanny, who was standing closest to her, and Mrs Mourier had tears in her eyes.

“Who?” asked Fanny.

Karl, going past the end of the table, suddenly found Ida, behind the others, over in the corner by the rubber plant.

“So this is where you are, Miss Brandt?” he said, clicking his heels, slightly pale.

And Mrs von Eichbaum, who had completely forgotten her, but had extremely sharp ears, came towards her. “Good day, dear Miss Brandt,” she said and introduced her to a couple of those closest to her. Mrs Lindholm suddenly sailed into the small drawing room in front of her distinguished husband who was redolent of eau de Lubin, so there was quite a squeeze, while Kate, in a tone suggesting she was standing at the entrance to the Ark, said, as she tapped Karl’s arm with her fan: