Ida Brandt (7 page)

The guests stood at the open windows as the rockets whistled and made slender tracks up in the air, and the gentlemen from Horsens, standing with their hands in their trouser pockets and smoking big cigars, exclaimed in admiration and a dumpy little lady who had tied a handkerchief around her bare neck to protect her from draught, said:

“Good heavens, fancy stopping dancing just for
that
!”

At the upstairs window, Miss Rosenfeld had lifted Ida up in her arms. Ida stayed with her throughout the day, saying nothing, just following her, with cold hands, like a weak little shadow:

“Ooh, just look,” she said.

Another rocket went up as Feddersen came past with Miss Adlerberg.

“They are not going very high,” he said.

And Miss Adlerberg, laughing as she walked, with her train over her arms, said:

“They are a country product.”

Miss Rosenfeld turned round quickly with Ida, and she heard His Lordship say from over by the window:

“It is delightful, really delightful…” and, looking up in the air, he added:

“And he
was
such an excellent man.”

Miss Rosenfeld was walking with Ida across the open space when she suddenly felt tears on her hand.

“Why are you crying?” she asked.

The child made no reply.

The forester was up in the ballroom, standing in the corner by the bottom window: the rockets were still being let off in the night, for there were many of them, though they were only small.

“Oh dear, love,” he said. “How sad it all is.”

Quite quietly, Miss Rosenfeld took Ida into the sick man’s room, where Mrs Brandt sat enthroned in the same place.

“We just wanted to say good night,” she whispered.

And while Mrs Brandt got up, Ida bent down over her father (her eyes had the same expression as those of a sick child). Brandt opened his eyes.

“Is it Ida?” he said.

“Did she see the fireworks?”

∞∞∞

Ida slept in Miss Rosenfeld’s bed that night.

Miss Rosenfeld sat at her window. The guests had gone, and the night was dark. Then a carriage drove rapidly out of the bailiff’s gateway down over the road, through the darkness, like a shadow…

All the dogs barked furiously.

When they came down in the morning, His Lordship went across to the piano and quietly closed it and took away the key.

Old Brandt was dead.

All the guests dispersed, far into the woods and the garden. Miss Rosenfeld sat alone with Ida on her lap.

Over in the bailiff’s house, Mrs Brandt went around and took a large number of sheets out of her deep cupboards.

∞∞∞

Mrs Brandt was in her sitting room, pitch black and mighty, waiting for the carriage that was to bring Mrs Reck, the wife of the newly appointed bailiff, who was to inspect her house. The embroidered rugs were out on all the floors, and there was a garland of dried flowers around Brandt’s portrait. Ida was over at Schrøders.

Then Sofie opened the door out to the corridor:

“There she is,” she said. It sounded like a command to stand to attention, and she remained standing, tall and in black, behind her mistress, who opened the outer door.

“Yes, I’m Mrs Reck,” said a confused lady, who was small and slender and held the train of her dress in her hand.

“I’m pleased to meet you,” replied Mrs Brandt, slowly holding out her hand. She had retained the handshake of a peasant girl, merely touching the other’s hand. And now her hand was icy cold.

“Help Mrs Reck,” she said to Sofie.

And Sofie took Mrs Reck’s cape with her bony hands.

They went into the rooms.

“Oh, aren’t they big!” Mrs Reck burst out. She blushed immediately. She had stood still for a moment, quite frightened in face of the long floors of a rural residence.

“Yes, the house is quite roomy,” said Mrs Brandt, offering Mrs Reck a seat opposite her. Mrs Reck was not herself aware that she twice dabbed her forehead with her handkerchief, while Mrs Brandt said something about the cold weather and about the drive there.

“Yes,” said Mrs Reck, “it was rather cold.”

She thought she had said something about Mr Brandt and that it would certainly not be easy for Reck (she was quite flustered, and somewhere in her head she was thinking about the floors).

“No, it certainly won’t be easy,” she said once more and heard Mrs Brandt say:

“Of course, Brandt and I were both born and brought up near here.”

Mrs Reck hesitated a moment.

“Of course,” she said then. “Reck and I are both townsfolk.”

Mrs Brandt had undoubtedly
seen
that, but all she said as she got up was:

“Can I offer you some refreshment?”

And they went into the dining room.

Mrs Reck thought she had never seen so much food, and she ate and ate as though she dared not do otherwise, while Mrs Brandt offered her more and more without taking anything herself, like someone barricaded behind her own food.

She spoke of the big debt they had incurred on alterations. “We have had to cope with it,” she said, continuing to offer refreshments in the same cold, dry voice and with her eyes never moving from Mrs Reck, as though she would have liked to choke her guest with the food.

“Yes,” said Mrs Reck, “we know a lot has been done here.”

Mrs Brandt replied:

“There were stone floors when we came.” Mrs Reck thought that there could well still be stone floors as far as she was concerned.

After the meal, they went around the house, Mrs Brandt leading, opening, closing, showing everything from downstairs room to downstairs room, bedroom to bedroom.

Mrs Reck, who was cold in her thin town dress, said:

“Thank you, I’ve seen it now…but thank you, I really have seen it now, Mrs Brandt.”

But Mrs Brandt went on, showing everything: cellar, milk cellar, potato cellar, lofts, the whole house, refusing to let go of Mrs Reck – the entire perfect house that she had built up and which she, the widow, was now to leave.

She talked about the beds, their own beds, the servants’ beds, the beds for visitors. Mrs Reck said:

“Yes, it means buying a lot.”

“Here are the cupboards,” said Mrs Brandt when they came down into the corridor.

She opened her cupboards, showing the linen, the pillows, the pillowcases, the curtains, making a show of her peasant affluence, speaking a little louder, her mouth twitching a little in a sudden attack of widow-like playful malice.

Mrs Reck was thinking to herself:

“No, she shall never cross my threshold,” and said:

“Well, Mrs Brandt, if only I were half as able.”

“Well, one has to look after one’s house,” said Mrs Brandt, shutting her cupboards and putting on some wooden-soled shoes: they were to go and see the garden. When they arrived there, they encountered Ida along with Schrøder, who wanted to see the new mistress.

“I’m the housekeeper,” she said, shaking hands with Mrs Reck with a red hand. Mrs Reck felt something akin to relief and, bending down over Ida, who was with her mother, she said in a kind voice:

“So this must be your granddaughter, Mrs. Brandt.”

“My daughter,” replied Mrs Brandt, and they all flushed suddenly, while Mrs. Reck made matters worse by quickly saying to Ida:

“What a lovely garden you’ve had here.”

“Yes,” said Ida, withdrawing the hand that Mrs Reck was holding.

No one said any more before they were back in the corridor, where they found the pharmacist’s wife, who had arrived in the pony chaise and was dressed in a sealskin coat. To the accompaniment of a torrent of words, she began wildly to embrace Mrs Reck without vouchsafing the others a glance:

“Oh, my dear Henriette (they had been at school together), dearest Henriette, I am so delighted, my dear, to have someone here I know (they had hardly seen each other for twelve to fifteen years),I really do need that.

“Yes, dear Mrs Brandt, I’ll just take my coat off. Dearest Henriette, we have dozens of things to talk about.”

She led the way into the sitting room, holding Mrs Reck by the waist, while continuing to talk about the house and about how delighted she was and about what would have to be bought.

“You know, my dear, it
can
be made so lovely here…Well, Mrs Brandt, you know how often I have said that I could not exist even for an hour in these rooms, with all the furniture stuck up against the walls as it is now.”

“We have always made modest demands, Mrs Mogensen,” said Mrs Brandt, offering her a seat. Ida and Schrøder stayed in a corner.

Mrs Mogensen went on: “There are really only three rooms here. I suppose your piano is a Hornung, Henriette? Yours is German, of course, Mrs Brandt…But then no one has played it very much.”

She stood in the doorway between the two main rooms, talking without cease, pointing and advising, deciding where to put furniture, getting rid of the old things, giving Mrs Brandt such benevolent looks, as benevolent as though she were striking her:

“
That
is where you can put
that
, and
that
can go
there.
Dear Henriette…it can be quite delightful in here – ”

Mrs Brandt offered them coffee in the silver pot that had been presented to Brandt to mark 25 years of service.

Mrs Reck, too, became quite enthusiastic and spoke about her furniture and curtains and the doors, while Mrs Mogensen moved the silver coffee pot to make a plan of the Recks’ rooms on Mrs Brandt’s tablecloth.

She asked for a tape measure. “Because you must have the measurements,” she said, and Ida brought the tape measure while Mrs Reck measured up, standing on a chair, walking to and fro across the floors, cheerfully asking Mrs Brandt’s advice.

“Don’t you think so, dear Mrs Brandt, don’t you think so, dear Mrs Brandt,” she said repeatedly as she hung invisible curtains, arranged alien furniture and took the entire house to pieces bit by bit. Mrs Brandt continued to make brief replies and Schrøder stood panting over her cup: she felt the cakes turning into great lumps in her mouth.

“Yes, you know, I think it can be made quite nice here,” Mrs Reck concluded, jumping down from a chair.

Shortly afterwards, Mrs Mogensen took Mrs Reck home with her to the pharmacy in her pony chaise.

While still standing in the doorway – Mrs Reck was in the chaise – she said goodbye.

“Yes, dear Mrs Brandt,” she said, gently placing her hands on hers, “it must be rather difficult…”

She stood there for a moment looking straight into Mrs Brandt’s face and said once more as she touched her arm:

“Really difficult.”

And then the carriage was gone.

Schrøder hurried to get away: she was not keen on being there alone.

“Well,” she said: “That was that. Now the pharmacist has finally got the measurements of the bailiff’s house.”

Schrøder went.

Mrs Brandt washed the china herself, collecting it piece by piece in large stacks. But then, all at once, she sat down on the chair near the sideboard. Mrs Brandt wept.

Ida just stood in front of her; she had never seen her mother really weep like this.

Then she gently touched her knee. And Mrs Brandt picked the child up while still weeping.

But that afternoon she went down past the pharmacy, veiled and in mourning, carrying a wreath. She was on her way to the churchyard…there were the sounds of music in the pharmacy.

∞∞∞

It was starting to grow dark, but Schrøder continued to walk about in the garden, bending down over the remaining snow and searching; there were always snowdrops around here – the first ones.

But they were so frail and difficult to find.

She had found ten or twelve, delicate and cold. She would give them to Mrs Brandt before she left.

She went inside into the stripped, bare rooms. Ida was toddling around, wrapped in a shawl and had nowhere to lay her head. It was dark and there was straw on the floors.

“Is it you, dear?” said Schrøder, attempting to adopt a happy tone.

“Yes,” said Ida.

“Good Lord, but it’s cold,” said Schrøder, feeling her hands.

“Mother’s in there,” said Ida.

“In there” was the bedroom. Now they had packed and tidied up for a week, room by room, as though they were losing a bit of the house with each passing day. There was a candle in a jar on the bare window ledge in the bedroom. Otherwise there was only the bed and the servants’ old wardrobe. Christen Nielsen’s wife was sitting on the edge of the bed, and Mrs Brandt was going around clad in a black shawl.

Christen Nielsen came and spoke slowly in a low voice with his hands on his stomach: “Well, there you are, the butter and the hams and that’s that.”

Mrs Brandt went around packing the last things as he spoke: now she had surely seen to everything and made all the necessary arrangements…For when all was said and done, it was cheapest for her to buy from the estate when she
had
to buy things. They owed her that at least.

“Aye, aye,” said Christen Nielsen’s wife.

“I suppose that’s it,” and she got up from the bed.

“Yes, I suppose so,” said Schrøder, putting the snowdrops on the edge of the bed. Ida took them; her mother had put gloves on her, and she held them tight while the other three stood there quietly, looking at the candle in the jar.

They heard the carriage turn up at the door, and Sofie came in, wrapped up so that only her nose was to be seen. She took the candle, and they all went in through the rooms. Mrs Brandt had dropped her veil over her face. But Ida went along holding the twelve snowdrops in her gloves.

Lars was out in the yard with the horses. They were the old ones. But the carriage was His Lordship’s phaeton, for Brandt’s barouche had been “sold privately”.

Mrs Brandt gave orders, behind her black veil.

“I won’t be a moment,” said Schrøder, running over towards the main building.

There was a host of sacks and jars that had to stand upright, and Mrs Brandt continued to give orders from behind her black veil. The steward came out, and they all helped, though no one spoke except Mrs Brandt, and Ida was helped up into the carriage, followed by her mother.