On the Night of the Seventh Moon (24 page)

I saw a hand reach out to turn the knob.

Then I realized who it was. “Fritzi!” I whispered, using the pet diminutive.

He did not look round.

I went up to him, all fear evaporated.
“Mutter,”
he whispered. He had turned to me and seemed to stare without seeing. Then I realized. Fritz was walking in his sleep.

I took his hand firmly in mine. I led him down the stairs and back to his room. I put him into his bed, tucked him up, and kissed him lightly on the forehead.

I whispered: “Everything is all right, Fritzi. I'm here to look after you.”

He whispered:
“Mutter? Mutter meine . . .”

I sat by his bed. He was very quiet and after a while appeared to be sleeping peacefully. I went to my own room. I was very cold so I got into bed and tried to warm myself.

I slept little for the rest of that night; I kept straining my ears for the sound of footsteps. In the morning I decided to talk to Frau Graben.

 

“He was always a nervous child,” she said, beaming at me. In her sitting room she kept a fire going most of the time and invariably had a kettle singing on it. She also kept what she called a stockpot and this provided a most appetizing smelling soup.

She made tea for me. She always did this with a kind of smug delight as though to say “See how I look after you?”

As we sat sipping the brew I was telling her about last night.

“It's not the first time he's walked in his sleep,” she said.

“It's dangerous, I should think.”

“They say that people who walk in their sleep rarely hurt themselves. There was one of the maids . . . so the story goes . . . who got out of one of the windows and walked along the parapet of the tower without coming to any harm.”

I shivered.

“No, Fritzi's never come to any harm sleepwalking. They say they step over anything that's in their way.”

“But he must be in a disturbed state to sleepwalk, don't you think?”

“Poor Fritzi, he's the sensitive one. He feels things more than the other two.”

“Yesterday they took me to the Island of Graves.”

“Oh, that upset him. It always does. I don't like them going there, but don't like to stop it. After all it's right they should respect their dead mothers.”

“I think it's a pity there has to be so much talk about the haunted room. The fact that it's kept locked makes them imagine all sorts of horrors behind those closed doors. Have the children ever been in the room?”

“No.”

“It's no wonder they're overawed. The fact that Fritz made his way up there shows that it's on his mind and he connects it in some way with his dead mother, because he was at the Island of Graves yesterday.”

“He seems to have been better since you came. Learning English agrees with him. Or perhaps it's you. He seems to have taken a real fancy to you—and you to him.” She gave me that rather sly look of hers. “I reckon he's your favorite among the children. I'm glad, for Fritzi's sake.”

“I'm interested in him. He's a clever boy.”

“I'll agree with you.”

“I think he needs to be a member of a big uncomplicated family.”

“They say all children do.”

“I was wondering about that room. What is it like?”

“It's just a room. It's in the turret and so it's circular. There are several windows, the lattice type that open out. That was why it was so easy for her to open one and get out.”

“And this room has been locked for years and years.”

“I don't think so. The fortress wasn't used much before Count Frederic brought the children here. Then there was this story about the haunting and I thought it better to keep the door locked.”

I hardly liked to go against her authority so I was silent but
she pressed me. “You think it's wrong to keep it locked, then?” she went on.

“If it was treated just like an ordinary room people would forget the story,” I said. “Such stories are best forgotten surely.”

She shrugged her shoulders. Then she said: “Would you like me to leave it unlocked?”

“I have an idea it would be better. Then I'll try to make light of it and perhaps go up there occasionally with the children.”

“Come with me now and I'll unlock it.”

She kept her keys dangling from her belt like a good
châtelaine;
she delighted in those keys. I suppose she regarded them as a sign of her authority.

I put down my cup and we went up to the turret room together; she unlocked the door. I must confess I caught my breath as we entered, though why I could not imagine. There was nothing eerie about the room; the windows and its extremely elevated position made it very light. There were several beautiful rugs on the wooden floor, a table, a few chairs, a settee, and a bureau. It looked as though it had been recently occupied.

“It's not been used since . . .” said Frau Graben.

“It's a beautiful room,” I said.

“You can use it if you like.”

I did not know that I wanted to do that. Approached only by the narrow spiral staircase which led to the turret it was isolated and although it was easy to feel comfortable here during the day with a companion I remembered the uneasy feeling I had experienced last night when I had followed Fritz up here.

“Perhaps we can use it . . . later,” I said. I imagined lessons up here; laborious conversations in English as to the beauty of the view which was, as from all the windows in the fortress, magnificent.

“Which was the window from which the lady fell?” I asked.

She led me across the room.

“This one.”

She unlatched it and pushed it outwards. I leaned out. I was looking
straight down the mountainside, for like so many of the castles in these parts the mountain's side had been used to form a wall. The drop was sheer. I could see right down to the valley.

Frau Graben moved close to me.

“Silly girl she was!” she whispered.

“She would have been dead before she reached the valley,” I said.

“Silly girl!” she repeated. “She could have had so much and she chose to kill herself.”

“She must have been very unhappy.”

“No reason to be. This castle was her home. All she had to do was keep in her place and she could have gone on here . . . the mistress of Klocksburg.”

“Except when the owner called with his wife.”

“She should have had more sense. He was fond of her or he wouldn't have brought her here. He would have protected her. But she had to go and jump down there . . . to her end.”

I said: “Is she in the Island of Graves?”

“She'd be there. There is one grave. It just says one name on the tombstone: ‘Girda.' They say that's the one. What a silly girl! It need never have been. It's a lesson to girls though.”

“To make sure they can trust their lovers.”

She smiled her fat comfortable smile and gave me a little nudge in the ribs. “To accept what's what, and make the best of it. If a count loves you enough to set you up in a castle shouldn't that satisfy you?”

I said: “It didn't satisfy her.”

“Some have had more sense,” she said.

I turned away from the window. I wanted to stop thinking of that girl who had discovered her lover to have tricked her. I understood too well how she must have felt.

Frau Graben understood my feelings. “Silly girl,” she insisted once more. “Don't go on feeling too sorry for her. You'd have had more sense in her place, I know.” Again that sly smile. “It is a pleasant room. So you'd like it left unlocked and you'll come up here now and then. I think you're right. Yes, it's a good notion.”

 

.  .  .

 

The room fascinated me. I was soon feeling an urge to go there alone. I must admit that on the first occasion I went, I had to fight a lurking reluctance, but once I was there I experienced a certain excitement. It was a delightful room, perhaps the most attractive in the fortress. Even the view seemed more magnificent seen from these windows. I opened the one from which Girda was alleged to have thrown herself. It opened with a little squeaking protest. It needs oiling, I thought, forcing myself to be practical.

How grand the ducal castle looked, a mighty impregnable fortress guarding the town. After frequent conversations with the boys who had on very special occasions been allowed to visit the castle, I could make out the features which they had described. I could see the walls with their flanking turrets and the gate tower fortress. There it stood dating back in some parts to the eleventh century, guarding the town, ready to defend itself from marauders. What an uneasy life people must have led in those days when their greatest concern was to defend themselves. The boys had described the grandeur of the
Rittersaal
and the tapestries which adorned the walls; there were gardens with fountains and statues which their father had told them were like those of Versailles, for it had been the desire of every German princeling to follow the example of the great Sun King, and in his little domain to see himself as the mighty French monarch.

I reminded the boys what had become of the monarchy of France. Dagobert replied: “Oh yes, old Kratz told us all about that.”

Looking out across the sweep of the valley to the town and then up again to the royal castle, I could make out the outhouses of the
Randhausburg
where I presumed many of the outdoor servants lived; and there were the barracks too. Across the valley would come the trumpet call to wake them in the morning; I often heard it soon after dawn, and sometimes when the wind was in the right direction I would hear the band playing in the ducal gardens.

But as I sat in the room I wondered about the girl who had been so
unhappy that she had decided to end her life. I imagined her beautiful, with long flaxen hair, like a girl in the fairy-tale picture book my mother had brought with her from her home. I thought of her sitting at this window awaiting the arrival of her lover and then seeing that other woman—the wife, when she herself had believed herself to be married to him.

The despair, the wretchedness, the horror would have been overwhelming. I imagined her to have been strictly brought up. She would have believed herself to be dishonored and see the only way out of her wretchedness was to end her life.

Sad Girda! Perhaps when anyone was as unhappy as she must have been he or she left behind them some aura of the past. Was that what people meant by haunting?

What nonsense! It could well have been only a legend. Perhaps the girl fell from the window by accident. People like to put dramatic constructions on perfectly ordinary events.

I decided that I would exorcise the ghost by making this a normal room so that in a short time no one would consider it any different—except perhaps more beautiful—than any other room in Klocksburg.

The next day I brought the children up and gave them a lesson there. At first they were overawed but when they saw that it was just like an ordinary room Dagobert and Liesel forgot about the ghost. Fritz, I noticed, kept looking over his shoulder and didn't like to move too far from my side. He was the sensitive one.

I took them to the windows and pointed out the various landmarks giving them their English names. This was always a good way of getting them to learn and I really was becoming quite pleased with their progress. Fritz was by far the best, which pleased me because I thought it would give him the confidence he needed. Liesel was quite a fair mimic and although she couldn't always remember words her pronunication was good. Dagobert lagged a little but there again I decided that would do him no harm; he really was a little braggart.

When I was alone with Fritz and we were in the schoolroom I said to him: “Fritz, there's nothing to be afraid of in the turret room.”

A puzzled frown appeared between his eyes. He said: “A lady jumped out of the window.”

“That's just a story.”

“You mean it never happened?”

“It might have done but we can't be sure.”

He shook his head. “A lady did jump,” he said. He looked at me as though wondering whether he could trust me.

“Yes, Fritz,” I said tenderly.

“I think it was my mother.”

“No Fritz. If it did happen it happened long ago. It couldn't possibly have been your mother.”

“She died,” he said.

“Unfortunately some people do die young . . . but never mind, you have Frau Graben; you have your father and now you have me.”

I felt very moved because he gripped my hand rather tightly and nodded. I was touched to think that already I meant something to him.

“There's nothing to be afraid of,” I said. “It's only a story, you know. It may well not be true and if it is, it happened years and years ago.”

I had an idea that although he was comforted by my presence he didn't really believe that.

D
agobert's eyes gleamed with excitement. “There's going to be a stag hunt,” he told me. “We're to go. It's exciting. Bang. Bang.”

“
You're
to go to hunt stag?”

“This is a special one. My father will be there.”

I turned to Fritz. “Are you going?”

Fritz didn't answer and Dagobert shouted: “Of course he's going. Liesel isn't. She's too little.”

Liesel set up a wail.

“She can go in my place,” said Fritz.

“She can't,” cried Dagobert. “Because you're frightened that doesn't make her old enough.”

“I'm not frightened,” said Fritz.

“You are!”

“I'm not!”

“You are, you are, you are, you are!” Dagobert was dancing round Fritz like some irritating dervish. Fritz hit out at him.

“Please, stop,” I said. “It is most impolite to fight in front of your English teacher.”