Eva Ibbotson - A Song For Summer

“I thought I might work in the grounds,” Marek had answered. “The orchard is in poor shape and the trees behind the jousting ground want thinning.”

“Could you take fencing for the older boys?”’ asked Bennet, following his hunch.

“If you like. And carpentry, I suppose.” Bennet had tried pottery-he had a much prized heap of clay in the cellar moistened periodically by trusted children awaiting someone worthy-but Marek disclaimed all knowledge of pottery.

“There’s a book,” said Bennet, looking at the man’s large, reassuringly “unartistic” hands.

“I’ll think about it.”

“I’m afraid I can’t offer you much in the way of pay,” Bennet had said.

“I don’t want any pay. But I tell you what I do want.”

He had wanted leave of absence to go with Professor Steiner on his folk song collecting expeditions whenever the Professor heard of a promising singer. As he reached the door, Bennet tried again. “What about music? Could you take the choir?”’

Marek turned, shook his head. “Definitely not music,” he said.

Now it struck Bennet as singular that the three people on whom he could let his mind rest, certain that they would give of their best, were all of them uninterested in the ideas which for him empowered his school. Ellen, Marek and Margaret (who had come in at ten at night to help with his letters), did not seem to be concerned with freedom and self-expression-nor had they shown the slightest interest in the end of year play which everyone, though that was not its title, was calling Abattoir.

Ellen’s friendship with Lieselotte grew day by day. Her promotion from kitchen maid to cook brought a glow to Lieselotte’s eyes; her pride in her work, her skill, were a joy to behold. Within a week she had brought her Cousin Gretl to help out, and with Juan working in the gardens and Fräulein Waaltraut ensconced in the library to prepare a report on culinary herbs, the kitchen became a haven of cleanliness and skill.

Not only that, but in befriending Lieselotte, Ellen had acquired the goodwill of the Hallendorf tradesmen who had hitherto held disapprovingly aloof from the school. The butcher was Lieselotte’s uncle, the baker was her mother’s brother-in-law, and a farmer at whose apricot orchards Ellen had cast longing glances, was married to her aunt. Assured that the castle no longer meant to import corned beef from deserving stockyards in Ecuador or brown rice with weevils from a distant cooperative, they promised to supply the Hallendorf kitchens with fresh meat and fruit-and at prices that were reasonable and fair.

All the same, when Ellen announced that she was accompanying Lieselotte to church the following Sunday, her remark was greeted with consternation. Swimming in a bathing costume was one thing, but this was courage taken to dangerous lengths.

“Can one?”’ asked Sophie, her eyes wide. “Can one really do that?”’

“Of course one can,” said Ellen. “If one can worship Beethoven and Goya and Dostoevsky, why shouldn’t one worship God? After all, who gave Beethoven and the others their vision? It might well have been God, don’t you think?”’

“It can’t be, because God doesn’t exist,” said Leon. “And anyway religion is the opium of the people.”

“I used to go to church sometimes in Vienna,” said Sophie wi/lly. “The housekeeper took me. It was lovely-the incense and the music.”

Ellen, steeling herself, said nothing. She had taken no Sundays off since she came and had reached the stage, so familiar to those who work in schools, when she wanted to speak to no one under the age of twenty, and thirty would have been better.

“The steamer doesn’t go till the afternoon on Sundays, does it?”’ she asked Lieselotte.

“No. There’s a bus very early-but usually when he’s here Marek takes us over in his boat: me and Frau Tauber and anyone else who wants to go. He has friends in the village. He’s so kind and such a gentleman.”

And this of course was Ellen’s undoing. Making her way down to the jetty soon after seven, she found Sophie sitting on the steps, her arms around her knees.

If she had begged to be taken Ellen would have been firm, promising to take her some other time with her friends. But of course Sophie did not beg. She knew she was not wanted, and sat quietly on the jetty, and looked.

“Would you like to come?”’ Ellen said, and saw the spectacular change that happiness made in the thin face.

“Am I tidy enough?”’ she asked-and of course she was; the only child in Hallendorf who could have got into a punt then and there and rowed to church.

Leon was another matter. He liked Sophie, Ellen knew that even if Sophie didn’t. Now he appeared and said he wanted to come too.

“We’re going to church, Leon. As an atheist and a Marxist and a person to whom people have to be nice because he is a Jew, I don’t think this is the place for you.”

“I don’t mind.”

“They, however, will mind if you turn up with a dirty face and unbrushed hair. If you can clean yourself up in five minutes and behave yourself properly, you can come. And if you do, you will please leave Marek alone.”

“What do you mean?”’

“You know exactly what I mean. Now hurry.”

Ellen had expected Marek to leave them at the door of the church, but to her surprise he followed them in and saw them bestowed in the pew behind Lieselotte’s family before taking his place at the end of the row.

Their arrival caused a considerable stir. Marek was greeted by a surprising number of people, and Ellen’s virtues had been proclaimed by Lieselotte, but no one had seen Hallendorf children in church before, and the old woman who had warned Ellen on the steamer could be seen whispering agitatedly to her friends.

Ellen’s thoughts always wandered in church, but they wandered well. Now she allowed herself to admire the blond heads of Lieselotte’s little brothers and sisters in the row in front, and to admit that Marek (who did not seem to need his spectacles to read the hymn book) was looking extremely seigniorial in the loden jacket which had replaced his working clothes.

But mostly her thoughts wandered to Henny, for whose soul she prayed though she had no right to do so, not being a Catholic, and certainly no need, since Henny’s soul, if any soul on earth, could look after itself in the hereafter.

When the service was over, Ellen said she would like to look round the church and this was approved of in every way but it was not apparently a thing that one did alone. Lieselotte’s mother, Frau Becker, in particular expected to attend, as did her uncle and the old woman who had warned Ellen on the boat. Nor did Marek’s suggestion that he wait for them on the terrace of the inn prove to be popular. Herr Tarnowsky, who had helped Lieselotte’s mother mend her roof and chopped down the baker’s diseased pear tree, was expected to be present at this treat.

But if there was a claque of villagers, it was Lieselotte who was allowed to be the spokesman, for in Hallendorf church there was a star, a local celebrity, a saint to whom the church was consecrated but of whom they spoke as of any girl who had lived among them and in her own way done extremely well.

“Her name was Aniella,” said Lieselotte. “And look; here are the pictures which show you her life.”

She pointed to a row of oil paintings hanging on the chancel wall.

“This is one of her with her family; she lived up on the alp underneath the Kugelspitze quite close to here. You can see all the animals she cared for too.”

The painting contained all the loving detail with which eighteenth-century artists depicted simple things. Aniella’s house had window boxes of petunias and French marigolds; a morning glory climbed the wall. She herself was sitting on a bench and bending down to an injured creature who had placed his head in her lap-not a lamb; there were lambs as in all holy paintings, but further away in the meadow. No, Aniella was tending the broken leg of a St Bernard dog-one could see the keg of brandy around his neck. He was holding his paw up trustingly and beside him, jostling for a place, was a goat with a broken horn. Surrounding the girl, with her calm face and long dark hair, was a host of other animals: some were wounded-a cat with a bandaged ear, a calf with a sore on its flank-but there were others who seemed to be there more for company: a salamander walking over her foot; a grass snake curled up around a stone. It was a place where Marek’s tortoise would have been very much at home.