Виктория Холт: On the Night of the Seventh Moon

He had the larger piece.

“It’s mine,” he cried triumphantly. Then he reached across the table and took my hands; his eyes were very brilliant, almost tawny in the candle light.

“Do you know what I have wished?” he asked.

“Don’t tell me,” I cried.

“If you do it won’t come true.”

He bent his head suddenly and kissed my hands-not lightly but fiercely and I thought he was never going to release them.

“It must come true,” he said.

I said: “I can tell you what I wished because I lost, so mine doesn’`t count.”

“Please tell me then,” he said.

“I wished that we should meet again and we should sit at this table and talk and talk and I should wear a blue velvet robe and have my hair loose.”

He said: “Lenchen, little Lenchen very softly.

Lenchen? ” I said.

“Who is that?”

“It is my name for you. Helena is too cold, too remote. For me you are Lenchen, my little Lenchen.”

“I like it,” I said.

“I like it very much.”

There were apples and nuts on the table. He peeled an apple for me and cracked some nuts. The candles flickered; he watched me from across the table.

And suddenly he said: “You have grown up tonight, Lenchen.”

“I feel grown up,” I said.

“Not a schoolgirl any more.”

“You will never be a schoolgirl again after tonight.”

“I shall have to go back to the Damenslift and be one.”

“A Damenstift does not make a schoolgirl. It is an experience. You are sleepy.”

“It’s the wine,” I said.

“It is time you retired.”

“I wonder if it is still misty.”

“If it were, would you be reassured?”

“Well, then of course they would know I could not get back and it would be stupid to worry because there wouldn’`t be anything I could do about it.”

He went to the window and drew back the heavy velvet curtain. He peered out.

“It is worse than ever,” he said.

“Can you see it then?”

“Since you came down in your blue robe I have seen nothing but you.”

The excitement was almost unbearable, but I laughed rather foolishly and said: “Surely that’s an exaggeration. When you were pouring the wine and serving the chicken you saw that.”

“Precise, pedantic Lenchen,” he commented. He rose:

“Come, I will take you to your room. I can see the time has come.”

He took my hand and led me to the door.

To my surprise Hildegarde was there. She was fussing with a candle.

“I will show the young lady the way. Master,” she said.

I heard him laugh and mutter something about her being an interfering old woman from whom he endured too much.

But he let me go with her. She led the way to the room in which I had changed, where a fire was now burning in the grate.

“The nights are chilly with the mist about,” she said.

She set down the candle and lighted those in their sconces over the dressing-table.

“Keep the windows closed against the mist,” she said.

I saw that a white nightdress was laid out on the bed and I wondered vaguely why they had such a thing because I did not believe the pretty silk garments belonged to Hildegarde.

She looked at me earnestly. Then she drew me to the door and showed me the bolt.

“Bolt it when I have gone,” she said.

“It is not always safe here in the heart of the forest.”

I nodded.

“Make sure,” she said. I shall be uneasy and unable to sleep if you don’t. “

“I promise,” I said.

“Good night. Sleep well. In the morning the mist will have cleared and you will be taken back.”

She went out and listened while I bolted the door.

“Good night,” she called.

I stood leaning against it, the excitement making my heart pound. Then I heard a footstep on the wooden staircase.

Hildegarde spoke.

“No, Master, I’ll not have it. You may turn me out.

You may have me flogged but I’ll not have it. “

“You interfering old witch,” he said, but he said it indulgently.

“A young English girl a schoolgirl from the Damenstift.

I’ll not have it.”

“You’ll not have it. Garde?”

“No, I’ll not have it. Your women if you must, but not a young and innocent girl from the Damenstift.”

“You’re worried about the old nuns.”

“No, about innocence.”

There was silence. I was afraid and yet expectant. I wanted to run away from this place and yet I wanted to stay. I understood. He was one of the wicked barons. He was no Siegfried. He had not told me his real name. This was his hunting lodge. Perhaps his home was one of the castles I had seen high above the river.

“Your women if you must,” she had said. So he brought women here and, finding me in the mist, he had brought me here to be one of them.

I was trembling.

Suppose Hildegarde had not been there. In the fairy tales the wicked giants kept the Princess captive until she was rescued and emerged unscathed. But this was not a castle, it was a hunting lodge; and he was not a giant, he was a virile man.

I took off the velvet robe and looked more like myself. I undressed and put on the silken nightdress. It was soft and clinging, so different from the flannelette we wore at the Damenstift. I lay down and could not sleep; and after a while I thought I heard a step on the stair. I rose and went to the door and stood there listening. That was why I saw the handle slowly turn. If Hildegarde had not insisted on my locking the door it would have opened then.

I stared at it in fascination; I listened. I could hear breathing. A voice-his voice-whispered: “Lenchen Lenchen are you there?”

I stood there bewildered, my heart thumping so that I was afraid he must hear. I was fighting an inexplicable impulse to draw the bolt.

But I did not. I kept hearing Hildegarde’s voice: “Your women if you must...

” And I knew that I dared not unlock the door.

I stood there trembling until I heard his footsteps die away. Then I went back to bed. I tried to sleep but it was a long time before I did.

I awoke to a hammering on my door and Hildegarde calling “Good morning.”

I opened my eyes and saw the sunshine streaming into the room.

I unbolted the door to find Hildegarde there; with a tray on which was coffee and rye bread.

“Eat this and dress immediately,” she commanded.

“We must get you back to the Damenstift without delay.”

The adventure was over. The bright morning had dispelled it. Now the music had to be faced.

I drank the hot coffee and swallowed the bread; I washed and dressed and in little more than half an hour I went down stairs.

Hildegarde was wearing cloak and bonnet and outside was a trap drawn by a strawberry roan.

“We must go at once,” she said.

“I sent Hans off as soon as it was light with a message to say that you were safe.”

“How good you are!” I said, and I thought of what I had heard last night and how she had saved me though I am not sure that I had wanted to be saved from the wicked Sieg fried.

“You are very young,” she said severely, ‘and should take great care not to get lost again. “

I nodded and we went out to the trap.

“It is almost eight miles,” she said, ‘so quite far to go. But Hans will have explained. “

I looked around for Siegfried but he was not there. I felt angry. He might have come to say goodbye.

I got into the trap rather lingeringly but Hildegarde was brisk. I gazed back at the house-it was the first time I had seen it clearly.

It was of grey stone with latticed windows-smaller than I had imagined it. I had seen similar houses before and had heard them referred to as shooting lodges.

Hildegarde whipped up the horses and we took to the road. Progress was slow, for the way was often steep and the road sometimes rough. She did not speak much but when she did I gathered that she was anxious for me not to talk about my adventure. She managed to convey discreetly that I should not talk of Siegfried. Hans had delivered a message. The implication would be that Hildegarde’s husband had found me in the mist and taken me home. They had looked after me until I could be taken back. I understood what she was implying. She did not want the nuns to know that a wicked baron had found me and had taken me to his shooting lodge for the purpose of seducing me. There! I had faced the true facts, for it was really obvious that that had been Siegfried’s intention. But Hildegarde had saved me.