Виктория Холт - On the Night of the Seventh Moon

Dr. Carlsberg came as arranged. I was in the little garden when he arrived and did not hear him come. He must have been with Ilse for a quarter of an hour when I walked into the house and found him there.

When he saw me his face lit up with pleasure. He rose and took both my hands in his.

“How are you?” he asked.

When I told him that I felt I was getting back to normal he smiled with pleasure and gratification. Ilse left us together and he wanted to know every detail of what had happened. What dreams had I had? Had I suffered from nightmares? Every little item seemed of the utmost importance to him.

Then he asked about my physical health and I told him that I often felt unwell on rising.

He said he would like to examine me. Would I agree?

I did.

I shall never forget what followed. It was one of the most dramatic moments in my life.

“I have to tell you that you are to have a child,” he said.

I was deeply moved by the manner in which Ilse received the news. She was stricken with horror and dismay.

“Oh God!” she cried.

“This is terrible.”

I found myself comforting her, for to tell the truth I could only feel exultation. I was to have a child-his child. I was not mad. He had existed. From the moment I realized this I started to emerge from the depth of my unhappiness.

My own child! I did not think of the difficulties which must inevitably lie ahead simply because I could see nothing beyond the wonder of having our child.

I knew then that deep in my heart I must always believe that Maximilian had loved me; I could not associate him with a criminal in the forest; the prospect of bearing his child could do nothing but fill me with a fierce exhilaration.

When the doctor had gone Ilse said to me: “Helena, do you realize what this means?”

“Yes, I do.” I could not help it if my delight was obvious. I possessed what my father had called a mercurial temperament.

“Up and down,” said my mother.

“Irresponsible,” Aunt Caroline called it. And I was sure Ilse thought me odd and illogical. I had been sunk in depression when I had had every chance of putting an ugly incident behind me and starting a new life; and now that would be impossible because there would be a living reminder. I was rejoicing. I couldn’'t help it. The wonder of having a child subdued all else.

“This is shattering,” said Ilse at length.

“That this should have happened as well as everything else ! What can we do now? You can’t go back to England. Helena, have you thought of what this is going to mean?”

But all I could think was: I am going to have a child.

“We must be practical,” she warned me.

“Can you go back to your aunts and tell them that you are going to have a child? What will they say?

You would be disgraced. They might not even receive you. If I wrote to them and told them what had happened . No, they would never understand. You will have to stay here until the child is born. It’s the only way. Yes, we shall have to arrange that. “

I had to confess I had not given much consideration to the months between only the arrival of the child. I should like a boy but I would not think about that until it came. If it were a girl I should not wish her to think that I was not completely delighted with her.

But I was right. I must try to be practical. What was I going to do?

How was I going to keep a child, educate it, bring it up in the best possible way? It would have no father. And what should I do while I waited for the child to be born?

The first exultation had passed.

Ilse seemed to have come to a decision.

“You must stay with us, Helena, and I shall look after you. I shall never forgive myself for going out that night without Ernst and then losing you in the crowd. Yes, we will arrange something. You’ll be all right. You can trust us.”

She seemed to have grown calmer; the first horror had passed and characteristically she was making plans.

The first feeling of triumphant joy had passed. I had had a glimpse of how I should have felt if I had been truly married to Maximilian and he had been with me so that we could have shared the joy of prospective parenthood. I asked myself if there was not something I could do to find him. He was the father of my child. Yet what could I do? If I talked this over with Ilse I would see that sad, patient look come into her face. I had given up trying to make her understand that no matter what evidence they showed me I could never believe that I had dreamed my life with Maximilian. I began to make wild plans. I would travel the country looking ‘for him. I would call at every house seeking information concerning him. Now that I was going to have a child I must find him.

I said to Ilse: “Could I put an advertisement in the newspapers? Could I ask him to come back to me?”

Ilse looked horrified: “Do you believe that a man who did that would answer such an advertisement?”

“I was thinking ” I began; and saw how hopeless it was to talk to Ilse, for she insisted that the Maximilian I had known had never existed.

She was patient with me.

“Suppose you mentioned Count Lokenberg. You would be deemed mad. There could even be trouble.”

So whichever way I looked I could do nothing.

I knew that she was right about my not going home. The aunts would be horrified at the prospect of sheltering an unmarried pregnant niece. I could imagine the scandal. No one would believe the story of the attack in the forest any more than they would believe that other version of my unusual marriage.

I needed Use’s kindnesses and ingenuity to help me in my difficult situation, and I knew I could rely on her. She was very soon her calm and practical self.

“You will certainly have to stay here until after the child is born.

Then we shall have to decide from there. “

“I have a little money, but it is not enough to keep us and educate the child. “

“We’ll think about that later,” she said.

Ernst came back. His health seemed much better and when he heard the news he shared rise’s horror and compassion. They were both very gentle with me and very anxious because they assumed guilt for what had happened.

He and Ilse, I know, discussed my affairs continuously, but for me the state of euphoria persisted and every so often I would forget my circumstances and think solely of the delight of having a child.

Sometimes I wondered whether Dr. Carlsberg had given them something to put into my food to make me happy. I had a terrible thought once that he might have made me imagine I was going to have a child. I didn’`t think this was so as Ilse and Ernst seemed to think it such a tragedy. But once one has been the subject of such an experiment one becomes suspicious.

We all decided that for the time being we would not tell the aunts, and during the next months would think very carefully what we should do.

In the meantime an excuse must be made to keep me with my cousin. Ilse took that into her own hands and wrote to Aunt Caroline to tell her that I was staying on because Ernst had taken a turn for the worse and she needed my help.

“A little white lie,” she said with a grimace.

So I stayed on in Denkendorf and the weeks began to slip by. I no longer felt ill when I arose; and I thought constantly of the baby. I bought material and started making a layette. I would sit for hours stitching and thinking.

Dr. Carlsberg came to me. He said he was going to pass me over to Dr. Kleine, a doctor friend of his who had a little nursing home in Klarengen, not very far away, and soon he would drive me over and introduce me to his colleague. There, in Dr. Kleine’s clinic, I should have the child.

I wondered about the cost but they wouldn’`t discuss it and in my present state I was content to let things go.

Ilse said one day: “When the child is born you can stay with us for a while and perhaps later on you could take a post teaching English in one of our schools. It might just be possible to have the child with you.”

“Do you think there would be such a post?”

“Dr. Carlsberg might be able to help. He and his colleagues know a great deal that is going on. They would find out and if there was anything I am sure they would be only too glad to help.”

“You are so good to me, all of you,” I cried gratefully.

“We feel responsible,” replied Ilse.

“Ernst and I will never forget that not only did this happen to you in our country but when you were under our care.”

I was content to allow them to plan for me, which was unlike myself because I had always been so independent. It certainly seemed as though the Seventh Moon had cast a spell upon me and all my actions had become unpredictable.

So I allowed Ilse to cos set me. I was almost unaware of what went on.

I stitched at my little garments and delightedly folded them when they were done and laid them away in the drawer I had prepared for them.

White, blue and pink. Blue for a boy, they said. So I would have both pink and blue so that I should not have planned for either sex. I knitted and sewed and read. The summer passed and the autumn was with us.

Aunt Caroline wrote that she was surprised that I should enjoy living with foreigners in some outlandish place rather than in my own home but Aunt Matilda, realizing that my cousin Ernst had a ‘heart’ and hearts being funny things, quite understood that Ilse should want me at hand to help.

Mrs. Greville wrote. She had heard that I was staying on to help my cousin nurse her husband. She thought it would be a good experience for me, but she and her husband as well as Anthony were looking forward to my return.

They all seemed so far away in the world of reality where life pursued an even tenor. The fantastic adventures of the last months had sent me worlds away from them.

One day Ilse said: Dr. Carisberg has news. He says that the nuns at your old Damenstift would take you in to teach English to the pupils.

You could have the child with you. “

“You do so much for me,” I said emotionally.

“It’s our duty,” replied Ilse solemnly.

“In any case we are so fond of you. We must think of the future, you know.”

I was growing obviously larger. I could feel the movement of my child and whenever I did my heart leaped with joy. How could this be so, I asked myself, if this life within me was the result of an encounter with a savage brute in the forest? I would never stop believing in those ecstatic days no matter what evidence they brought forward to try to convince me that they had never existed.

Ilse introduced me to people in the town when it was necessary as Mrs. Trant, who had recently suffered a bereavement in the loss of her husband and who was shortly to bear his posthumous child. I was seen as a tragic figure and people were very kind to me.

When I went into the market they called to me to ask how I was; I would stay and chat with them and the women would tell me about their childbearing, the men about their vigils during their wives’ ordeals.

Dr. Carisberg came alone one day and drove me into the town where his friend had his nursing home. He thought it was better for me to see the doctor there at this stage.

I did so and Dr. Kleine told me that at the beginning of April I should come into his nursing home to be prepared for the birth of the child.

He called me Mrs. Trant and had evidently been told the story about my recent bereavement.

As we drove away Dr. Carisberg said: “You can rely on Dr. Kleine. He’s the best man in his line in these parts.”

“I’m wondering if I shall be able to pay.”

“We are taking care of that,” he said.

“I can’t accept.

“It’s easy to give,” he said ruefully.

“So difficult to receive. But it is you who must give us the satisfaction of helping you out of this situation. I know your cousin is filled with self-reproach. She and her husband can only regain their peace of mind if they do everything possible for you. As for me, you have helped me in my work tremendously. You have given me an opportunity to prove a theory. I can’t thank you enough. Please tell me-have you now come to accept the truth?”

I hesitated and he said: “I see that you cannot give up your belief in the dream.”