Irretrievable (21 page)

“You know how indispensable you are,” said the Princess, “and I have only stopped on your horribly draughty market-place, where it is blowing a gale from all directions at once, as far as I can see, I have only stopped to make sure that you come and visit us this very evening …. But I am forgetting to introduce you gentlemen … Pastor Schleppegrell, Count Holk.”

The two men bowed.

“And you must be forbearing and well-disposed, my dear Pastor. Count Holk is a genealogist and thus something of an historian and as such, and as an excellent questioner, he will give you the opportunity of learned conversation. You always have the best conversation when there is someone asking questions and someone else replying to them. You know how inquisitive I am myself; I would not exchange my curiosity for anything. And do bring your dear wife with you. The only time I like to drink tea in Hilleröd and Fredericksborg is when my dear friend from the vicarage has poured it out. Yes, Ebba, that is the truth and you must accept it and not be jealous. But I see that I am falling into another sin of omission … Pastor Schleppegrell, Fräulein Ebba von Rosenberg.”

The pastor greeted the young woman and promised not only to come but to bring his wife; and the party then left the market-place to continue their way up to the castle, after Holk, in obedience to the Princess's command, had taken the front seat in her own carriage for the short remaining stretch. Here, he found himself sitting next to Ebba opposite Countess Schimmelmann, and felt sufficiently stimulated to make a further attempt at conversation.

“Pastor Schleppegrell has a very stately appearance and yet, at the same time, a sort of cheerfulness that prevents him from being overbearing. I have rarely seen a man so calm and self-assured when talking to royalty. Is he a Democrat? Or a general Dissenter?”

“No,” laughed the Princess, “Schleppegrell is not a general Dissenter, although he is in fact the brother of a real general, General Schleppegrell, who was killed at Idstedt. Perhaps it was just at the right time, because it was de Meza who took over from him.”

“Ah,” said Holk, “that explains it.”

“No, my dear Holk, I am afraid that I must contradict you once again. That doesn't explain it at all. What you call his self-assurance springs from quite another reason. When he was twenty years old he came to court as a teacher—a teacher of religion, in fact—to several young princesses and the rest you can imagine. He has seen too many young princesses to be impressed by old ones. What is more, we owe a great debt of gratitude to him and to his wisdom and discretion because on three occasions the situation arose that, had he wished, he could have become a member of the family. Schleppegrell was always very sensible. Nor, by the way, do I have the heart to blame those princesses particularly. He really was a very handsome man and a good Christian—and he knew how to say no. Let anyone resist such a combination of virtues if they can.”

Holk was amused, Ebba too, and a smile even flitted across the features of the Countess. They saw that the Princess was in the best of humours and took this as a good augury for the days to come. Then, while they were still talking, the carriage drove over two narrow bridges into the castle courtyard and stopped in front of the castle door.

[
2
]A Celtic bard, an alleged translation of whose works by Macpherson was extremely popular in the eighteenth century.

[
3
]A collection of Norse sagas, one of whose authors was Sturleson (see p.
196
).

Servants
with hurricane lamps were already waiting and hurried forward as the Princess mounted the broad horseshoe staircase towards her suite of apartments, not very extensive, in the middle of the castle and flanked by the two towers which stood at the acute angle formed by two projecting wings joined together by a colonnade. On the first landing, on which a small rococo sofa had been placed, the asthmatic Princess rested for a moment and then dismissed the ladies and gentlemen of her suite with the injunction to make themselves as comfortable as possible in their tower rooms. At seven o'clock, she added, turning towards Holk, tea would be served as usual; Pastor Schleppegrell and his wife would be coming somewhat earlier to inform her of all the latest happenings in Hilleröd, which she was greatly looking forward to hearing: small-town gossip was always the most interesting, for it made you laugh so much and to be able to laugh at your dear fellow beings was really the greatest enjoyment in your old age. With these gracious words they parted, and half an hour later anyone passing through the courtyard could easily have recognized which of the rooms had been occupied by the new arrivals. On the first floor of the main building, in the rooms occupied by the Princess herself, there could be seen only two dimly-lit Gothic windows while the two side-towers shone brilliantly from top to bottom. Everything had been arranged more or less according to the Princess's instructions: on the ground floor lodged the maids, on the first floor the two ladies-in-waiting, with Pentz and Erichsen above Countess Schimmelmann and Holk above Ebba.

Seven o'clock was approaching and as the castle clock struck the half-hour, the Schleppegrells came across the moat from Hilleröd, preceded by a maid with a lantern. Soon afterwards Holk, too, made himself ready. In the hall of the tower that he was occupying, he met Karin, Ebba's maid from Stockholm and almost one of her friends. She informed him that Ebba was already with the Princess. From the hall to the main body of the castle was not far, and a minute later Holk was climbing the stairs to enter the high gallery that served as reception and drawing-room when the Princess was in residence. This gallery had only a narrow frontage on the courtyard as on the park at the back of the castle; but it was, nevertheless, a large room. In the middle of one of the side-walls was a tall Renaissance fireplace above which hung a picture, larger than life, of King Christian IV, who had always been very fond of Fredericksborg and, like the Princess, had preferred this gallery to any other room in the castle. To the left of the fireplace were baskets filled partly with big logs and partly with pine-cones and juniper branches, while to the right, apart from an immense poker, lay a pile of resinous pine-torches for lighting departing guests through the dark corridors. All the decoration of the gallery was still half medieval, like the gallery itself, on whose panels, in addition to the portrait of King Christian, were hanging huge pictures brown with age. At the very back stood a side-board and, in place of the usual high chairs, a number of modern arm-chairs were arranged round the hearth.

Holk bowed as he approached the Princess and said how beautiful the gallery was and what a wonderful Yuletide they would be able to celebrate there, for nothing was lacking, not only the pine-torches but the pine-cones and juniper as well. The Princess replied that she was intending to hold just such a celebration; Christmas in Fredericksborg was the best day of the year and, after adding that she had already arranged a kind of pre-Yuletide celebration for tomorrow, she invited Frau Schleppegrell to take her seat beside her. The pastor's wife was a short, stout woman with red cheeks and black hair piled up on top of her head, extremely plain but quite indifferent to the fact, being one of those happy people who are completely unconcerned about themselves and, least of all, about their personal appearance. Ebba had sensed this at once and taken an immediate liking to her.

“Do you not find it difficult to leave your children for a whole evening, Frau Schleppegrell?” she asked.

“We haven't any children,” replied the pastor's wife with such a guffaw that the Princess asked what was the matter. There followed such general amusement that even Schleppegrell had eventually to join in, albeit rather wryly, since the laughter was primarily at his expense. Nothing this, Holk felt that he ought to change the conversation and, in a jocular and apparently casual tone, he asked about the portrait over the fireplace. “I notice that it is of King Christian and so it's difficult for anyone to be particularly interested in it, because his portrait must be
de rigueur
almost everywhere. May I ask who painted it? I should have guessed a Spaniard, if I had known that we had a Spanish painter in Copenhagen at that time.”

Schleppegrell was about to reply when Ebba broke in: “If we are going to start talking about art and pictures, it is absolutely forbidden to begin with a picture of King Christian, even if it is by a Spaniard, which I venture to doubt, like Count Holk, whose opinions I frequently share—at least in artistic matters. So I propose that we leave the unavoidable king alone. Personally, I should prefer to know who those two are.” She pointed towards the opposite wall. “The old man with the pointed beard and the grand lady with the white hood.”

“The man with the beard is Admiral Herluf Trolle from whom King Frederick II bought this castle, or rather exchanged it with him and then named it Fredericksborg after himself. Not one single stone of the old castle was left standing and nothing was taken over except these pictures here on the right and the left commemorating the great naval victory of Oeland in 1559 under Admiral Herluf Trolle and, in addition to those murals, the two portraits between them, one of Herluf Trolle himself and the other of Brigitte Goje, his dearly beloved wife, who because of her Protestant piety was almost more celebrated than her husband.”

“Which is not surprising if she really was so devout,” said Pentz emphatically, “because although I am sure that actresses and mistresses of the great are the most popular figures, immediately after them come the devout and I am not certain if they are not sometimes even slightly ahead.”

“Yes, sometimes,” laughed Ebba. “Sometimes but not often. And now, pastor, what is this about Herluf Trolle's naval battle? I'm afraid that it must have been fought against my dear compatriots the Swedes, although to judge by the costume, it took place in a pre-Rosenbergian era and so my patriotism is not too closely involved. And a naval battle at that! In naval battles, friend and foe alike are always drowning and a charitable cloud of smoke hangs over everything so that a plus or minus quantity of dead, which people call victory or defeat, can never properly be ascertained. And especially where, in addition to the gun-smoke, you have a three hundred year old coating of dust and grime.”

“And yet,” said Holk, “it seems to me that everything is still more or less recognizable and if we can perhaps look more closely … but where can we find the necessary light to do that … ?”

“Here,” said the Princess, pointing to where the pine-torches were lying. “There will be a certain amount of smut but that will only increase the illusion and if our pastor and cicerone is in good form today, then we shall surely be able to fight this naval battle all over again. So, Schleppegrell, to work and do your very best, we owe that much to an historian of Holk's calibre. And we shall perhaps even convert him from his Schleswig-Holsteinism to Danism.”

Everyone agreed and Pentz ironically applauded with two fingers. Schleppegrell, himself a passionate picture-lover, took one of the large torches and having lit it, went over to the left-hand side of the picture on which there could be discerned, in a dim yet harsh light, the sails of a number of vessels, flags, pennants, gilded figure-heads and the white crests of waves but no trace of fighting or gun-smoke.

“But surely that is not a battle!” said Ebba.

“No, but the preparations for it. The fighting is still to come, on the other side, immediately to the right, beside Brigitte Goje.”

“Oh,” said Ebba, “I understand: a double battle-painting, beginning and end. Now, I am all eyes and ears. And each time your torch passes in front of Herluf Trolle's flagship, you must give him—or me—half a minute for a curtsey so that I can impress him on my mind, even in the heat of battle.”

“You will hardly succeed in doing that,” said the Princess. “Herluf Trolle is hidden in too much gun-smoke or has sunk in the general gloom and you will have to be satisfied with his proper portrait. But now you must begin, Schleppegrell, and give us good measure, not so short that we want a great deal more and not so long that we start casting anxious glances at each other. Holk is the expert but, thank Heaven, not the sort to embarrass anyone; he knows that art is difficult.”

During these kind words, Schleppegrell had once more approached the circle of people gathered round the fireplace and said: “Your Royal Highness commands and I obey. What we can see here” and he pointed to the second half of the great wall-painting, which was not illuminated even by the reflection from the fire, “what we can see here is the decisive moment when the
Immaculate
blew up.”

“The
Immaculate
?”

“Yes, the
Immaculate
. That was, in fact, the flagship of the Swedes, who just at this period stood at the zenith of their power, in spite of their mad king, Eric XIV. And so our ships sailed against the Swedes and their powerful fleet, superior to ours in size and possessing other large vessels in addition to the
Immaculate
. Our commander was the great Herluf Trolle. And when he came out of the bay of Kjöge into the open sea, he steered sharply east towards Bornholm where he suspected the Swedish fleet to be hiding. However, it was no longer at Bornholm but off Stralsund under Admiral Bagge. And as soon as Jacob Bagge had perceived that the Danes were searching for him, he weighed anchor and sailed north-east against the enemy; and close off Oeland the two fleets met and a three-day battle was joined, the like of which the Baltic had never seen. And on the third day, it seemed as if the Swedes would be victorious. Then Herluf Trolle, whose own ship was in sorry shape, summoned his second-in-command Admiral Otto Rud and gave him the order to board the
Immaculate
at all costs. Delighted to receive such an order, Otto Rud sailed towards the enemy, but hardly had his ship, which was only small, thrown its grappling-irons, than Admiral Jacob Bagge had all sails set on the
Immaculate
in order to tow the small Danish ship attached to him into the midst of the Swedish fleet. That was a difficult moment for Otto Rud but he still did not delay his assault with the boarding-party and when a number of our men had crossed, one of them shot a fire-shell into the armoury and a fire broke out which reached the powder-room and the
Immaculate
blew up with friend and foe and Klaus Flemming took over the command of the Swedes and led the rest of the fleet back to Stock-holm.”