Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (14 page)

“Will you let me keep the tickets, Grandma?”

“Here they are.”

“May I go out for a walk?”

“Don’t go far.”

“Good-bye for now, Grandma,” said the girl and kissed the old lady’s hand.

She could not wait to be alone and seize the opportunity to satisfy her curiosity as to the mystery of the theater tickets.

She locked herself in. She sat by the window and examined the pink tickets very closely. At first sight there was nothing odd about them. They bore the date of the performance and the seat numbers, but nothing that made them unusual. Yet Valerie remained convinced she would find some sign from Orlík on them. She remembered that there was a secret ink which became legible when the paper was heated.

She lit a candle and brought the paper close to the flame, carefully so that it did not burn. Soon some secret writing emerged. It was tiny, and she had to read it under a magnifying glass. These were the words on the tickets:

“My dear, don’t go to the theater. After your grandmother leaves, have the horses hitched up and drive out to the eastern forest. There all will be explained. There is no need for me to sign this.”

Valerie covered both tickets with kisses. The writing slowly faded away until it vanished completely. Then, as if not fully trusting her memory, the girl warmed it up again. But to her surprise the writing did not reappear. She sighed and stroked the unresponsive tickets. What would she tell her grandmother, how would she explain not wanting to go to the theater? Poor Grandma! In all likelihood, there was no theater troupe visiting the town anyway. How could all this have happened? As she sat there feeling helpless, there was a knock at the door. It was a maid, who announced that Grandmother had taken ill and was calling for her. Valerie hid the tickets and ran to Grandmother’s room. Grandmother was lying on her bed, looking pale.

“What’s the matter with you, Grandma, let me open the window. I’ll have Andrei go fetch the doctor!”

“No, my child, I don’t want that. The nausea will pass on its own. Give me a drink of water.”

As Valerie poured some water into a glass, she heard Grandmother groaning woefully. Could it be a punishment? she wondered.

Grandmother had a drink. Her eyes were drowning in vagueness and her hands hung lifeless by her body.

Valerie remembered her amulet. If she gives it to Grandma, her pain might be relieved. She wasn’t concerned about what might happen to herself, just as long as she saved her poor old grandmother.

She reached into her bosom. Imagine her surprise: the scapular was gone!

Chapter XXXIV
UNCERTAINTY

Towards evening, the doctor arrived and gave Grandmother a painkiller. He said that she was in no danger provided she avoided all excitement. The old lady felt easier, and as evening fell she dozed off.

So the memory loss was not an illness, it was probably just a herald of the attack of nausea. The girl was pleased not to have to consider either herself or her grandmother mad. Although constrained at the thought of leaving her grandmother’s bedside, she could not resist the temptation to obey the invisible ink and drive out to the forest. She commanded the maid not to leave Grandmother for a single moment and went into the yard. Andrei was just feeding the horses.

“Hitch up,” she told him. “I want to go for a ride in the carriage.”

“I was hoping to mend the halters today,” he said. “But if it’s your wish, let’s go.”

“I’m going to drive myself.”

“That’s different,” he replied and grinned.

Valerie’s ears still rang with the suspicious conversation she had heard while in the loft.

“I’ll be back soon,” she said and left the stable.

At that moment she noticed that the chickens were clucking in fright. This is awful, she thought. I haven’t got the amulet.

The noise of the birds kept coming from the henhouse.

“Andrei, Andrei!” she called in alarm.

Andrei came out in front of the stable.

“Can you hear it?”

“It must be a polecat!” the coachman replied. “It’s high time he got his comeuppance. Are you in a rush?”

“No,” said Valerie.

Andrei want back into the stable. In a moment he reappeared carrying a rifle.

“What are you going to do?”

“Punish the rogue!”

“No, Andrei, please.”

“Never fear, miss,” said Andrei, opening the henhouse.

“Scram!” he shouted. He began clapping his hands and hissing.

A small animal jumped out of the henhouse.

“He almost jumped at my face,” said Andrei and put the rifle to his cheek.

“For God’s sake don’t, Andrei! Grandma’s ill. Andrei!”

At that instant a shot rang out. Then another.

“That’s the end of
him!
” said the coachman and ran over to the carcass.

The back door opened and the maid appeared. In a tearful voice she said:

“Come quickly, miss, quickly! Your grandmother’s dying.”

Chapter XXXV
A CRUSHING TRIFLE

As if she had not heard the maid’s appeal, Valerie stood frozen to the spot and gazed into the dark at the outline of a dark, suspicious object.

“Andrei, drop everything and hitch the carriage!”

“I want to look at the little beast.”

“No!” said Valerie, stamping her foot.

“Surely you’re not sorry for the raider,” said Andrei. He would have liked to inspect his quarry from up close.

“Andrei, go into the stable. I insist.”

Andrei pushed back his cap and went about his business.

By the door, the maid repeated that Grandmother had taken a turn for the worse and was surely in the throes of death.

“Go on in,” Valerie told her. “I’ll follow.”

“Don’t you believe me, miss? If you don’t come now, I’m not sure you’ll find your grandma still alive.”

“Go. I’ll come at once.”

The maid left.

Valerie stood motionless in the silent yard and could not gather the courage to act.

“I haven’t got the amulet,” she sighed, and a shiver went down her spine. She was afraid she would see lying in the blood a short distance away a human being. This caused her to hesitate.

“Is it finally the end of that terrible creature?” she asked herself uncertainly. In the course of the week she had witnessed so many unexpected transformations that she could no longer presume to regard things in the way she used to.

“Poor Grandma.”

Tears trickled down Valerie’s cheeks. Although she was in anguish over her grandmother, she was incapable of just dropping everything and going inside.

“Why did I order the carriage? I certainly can’t go off now with Grandma dying.”

Her sole concern at the moment was to remove Andrei from the scene so that he might not witness the miracle which filled her with so much dread. The stars shone and the moon had so waned over the last few days that a thin crescent was all that remained. The hens slept as if sure their murderer was dead for eternity.

“I wish I knew where my amulet’s gone,” the girl sighed

She stared at the dark spot that was causing her concern.

Gripped by anxiety, she sighed deeply, but instead of the fragrant air of the oncoming night she inhaled a kind of scorched smell left behind in the yard by the gunshots. She felt the blood draining from her face. The anxiety nearly made her heart stop.

“Orlík,” she breathed.

It was all too clear that no one could assist her in the dire predicament she now faced. And yet something had to be done quickly. She didn’t know how long Grandma would live.

“If only it were all just a dream and if only I could wake up from it,” she wished from the bottom of her heart.

At last, she summoned the courage to make a move.

She approached the spot that so disquieted her, expecting the worst. She heaved a sigh of relief. Before her lay an animal in a pool of blood. An animal like other animals, with nothing remarkable about it. There were probably many polecats in the town, and there was no need to relate the creature that had been shot to the diabolical ancient who had bewitched her. This thought gave her the courage to step right up to the dead polecat and take a close look at it.

When she bent down over the corpse she was not a little surprised to find it had an earring in its right ear.

As if acting under someone’s orders, she undid it and put it in her pocket.

“Andrei,” she called, “Andrei, bury this animal. But as quickly as possible, Andrei!”

“Of course, miss, what else would you do with carrion,” came the reply from the stable.

Valerie gave one last look at the dead animal, whose identity could no longer be in doubt after the find of the earring, and hurried off to see her grandmother.

Chapter XXXVI
CONFESSION

When Valerie entered her grandmother’s room, the dying old lady pulled herself together and ordered the maidservants to leave.

“Grandma, dear Grandma,” Valerie wept and began to kiss her grandmother’s head. Then she saw something that horrified her: In her grandmother’s left ear was the other earring. So she had not been dreaming over the last few days.

Since the fateful earrings filled her with bad memories and terror, she undid this one and laid her grandmother’s head back on the pillow.

“Things will be better again, Grandma.”

“I don’t think so,” said the old lady with resignation.

“Are you in any pain?”

“Not really. I’m finding it hard to breathe, but what’s an old woman at death’s door to expect?”

“Don’t talk like that, Grandma! Anyway, it’s stuffy in here. Would you mind if I opened the window?”

“Please do, but come right back to me. I feel distraught.”

The girl went to the window, pulled back the curtains, and opened both sashes. She was about to turn back to her grandmother when a sound made her linger a moment longer by the window.

Although recent days had taught her self-control, she could not stifle a cry when she saw the carriage and horses leaving the yard, but without the coachman, and the horses breaking into a gallop as if on command. It was not the galloping of runaway horses, but a disciplined canter. Valerie watched the carriage in bewilderment as it disappeared around the corner of the street.

“What’s happening?” Grandmother asked, sitting up in bed.

Valerie went over to her and tried to reassure her.

“What happened?” the old lady asked again. “You must keep nothing from me, my child. Tell me the truth, it is most important that I should know the signs outside.”

“It was nothing, Grandma.”

The old lady looked saddened.

“It saddens me when you keep things you’ve seen a secret.”

“When you fell asleep, Grandma, I had the carriage hitched because I wanted to go for a drive in the forest. It was thoughtless of me, but I was convinced you were sleeping peacefully and wouldn’t need me.”

“Don’t reproach yourself.”

“And now I’ve just seen the carriage and horses leaving without the coachman. It caught me by surprise and made me cry out.”

“Are you sure Andrei wasn’t on the box?”

“Yes, Grandma, I’m sure.”

Grandmother’s breathing quickened and a joyful gleam leapt to her eyes. Her poor mouth smiled.

She said:

“Thank you for telling me. That’s wonderful. So truly wonderful.”

She lay back and a smile came to her face. Valerie did not dare ask what had so gladdened her grandmother after being told that the carriage had left the house without the coachman. However, Grandmother, whose anxiety had, so it seemed to Valerie, entirely left her, began talking:

“It was shortly after you were born that I first drove your mother out of the house.”

“I remember my mother well.”

“Listen closely, my child, and remember what I say. I have never had the courage to tell you the truth. Now you will learn it, for everything seems to have come to pass that was to come to pass.”

“I’m listening, Grandma,” said the girl humbly.

“After my husband’s death I had a lover. He was the most terrifying man in the world. He was ugly, but he moved me to such great love for him I was like a madwoman. At the time, your mother’s beauty put the beauty of all other women to shame. She fell in love with a young gamekeeper. He seemed a good man and he loved her ardently. When my lover, Richard, saw your mother, he fell in love with her at first sight and sought to win her favor. She swore to me a hundred times over that she loathed him and tried to avoid him, and I know she wasn’t lying. But my jealousy of her grew by the day. My lover, lying to me in order to bind my soul to him ever closer, claimed my daughter had accepted his love. I decided she had to leave home, and in order to be rid of her for good, I had her put away in a convent. Although I insisted she promise to forget her gamekeeper fellow, she couldn’t, and they would meet in secret in the convent garden.

“Their love was not without consequence. My daughter conceived and gave birth to twins. When I found out, I began to hate her madly because Richard claimed they were his children. One day, your mother, Matilda, managed to flee the convent with her little boy and little girl. She came home a repentant sinner. But my jealousy was too great for me to forgive her. I took her in on condition that she left as soon as the babies were weaned. When the children were no longer nursed at their mother’s breast, I drove her out and kept the children. Richard used to torment me. I would forgive him. One day, when he asked me to let him have the boy to bring up, I acquiesced. But Richard disappeared with Orlík and I saw no more of him. Valerie stayed with me, and there’s no need to tell you that that’s you. Meanwhile your mother married her gamekeeper and from time to time she would linger around the house like a beggar-woman and plead to be allowed to hold her children in her arms. I told her Orlík had died and allowed her to stay awhile in my house. Since my jealousy never left me, I spoke to the Bishop of – to see if they would have mercy on my miscreant of a daughter and take her back into the convent. Having succeeded in gaining his consent, I urged her to return there. Matilda implored me not to force her to go. Since she had the audacity to refuse to abide by my express wish, I drove her from the house with these words: