Nachtstürm Castle (3 page)

“Should I be jealous?” she teazed, as they made their way back to the courtyard. “Or shall I have my likeness cast in glass to keep your affections?”

“Neither,” he answered with good humour. “My affections are eternally yours.”

“Until some beauty arrives.”

“What is some beauty when I have all beauty beside me? But I do wonder if it would be terribly inappropriate to remove that window to Woodston.
 
But regard, love, how its frame is weakened.
 
An hour with a lever might do the trick.”

“Shall you wear a cockade and cry revolution?” Catherine asked.
 
“I cannot think it of you!”

“Can you not, Catherine?”
 
Henry asked, affronted.
 
“Can you not think of me atop a monument, waving a sword about and shouting, ‘Pour Liberté!’”

“Oh, certainly, Henry,” Catherine replied at once, “
that’s
all right.
 
But as for the rest, for the...the
deaths
...th-the
guillotine
, I mean.
 
No, Henry, I cannot think it of you.
 
You rescue souls in another fashion, my love, and one I daresay far more sensible!
 
As for the window,” she continued, “I’ll not have a thief for a husband!”

“No, but I shall have a thief for a wife – for you have quite stolen
my
heart, dearest Catherine.”

Thus much conversation brought them out to the courtyard where, much to Catherine’s delight, they were met by a real, live gypsy.

She was dressed significantly worse than the Woodston variety, being shockingly short on bangles and tassels, and whose dress was ornamented with nothing more exotic than grime.
 
She dragged two similarly grubby children with her, one by the hand and the other by the ear, and harangued them noisily.
 
The tongue was unknown to either Henry or Catherine, or the Dominican sister who had decided to continue her rosary outside in order to watch the amusing English couple.
 
However, if the Romany woman’s words were unknown, her meaning was perfectly clear.

With a final shove, the woman sent the elder child careening into Henry’s side – now lighter by the weight of a purse.
 
The child came away dancing and laughing to his mother, who gave him a sharp knock on the ear which sent him tumbling into another gentleman who neatly staved off the urchin with a well-placed cane.
 
Thus the gypsy might have continued were not Henry
 
in a heroic state of mind and decided to give chase.

Round and around they ran, and if the child was nimbler, then Henry was more determined.
 
He cornered the boy at last at the edge of the Seine, interrupting an over-ardent Creole gentleman and an immediately grateful New England woman.
 
Grabbing the struggling child by one ear, Henry shook him good-naturedly, dislodging coins of every country and denomination, several rings, a pearl necklace and – much to Henry’s excitement – a round of stained glass.
 
The purse Henry gave to Catherine, the remainder of the treasure he gave to the Dominican sister, who was thoroughly enjoying herself, and the round of stained glass Catherine pried out of Henry’s grasp and also gave to the religious.
 
As for the boy, Henry marched him up to the gypsy.

His mother, affronted by both the loss of her treasure as well as the return of her elder son, turned the whole of her anger on Henry, who replied in kind – attempting various sermons on the eighth commandment in English, French and Latin.
 
Thus they may have continued for some time, for Catherine had observed that behind his genial demeanour Henry could be shockingly pigheaded, except that Catherine broke between them and shouted, “Enough!”

Turning to her husband, she said, “You have your purse, Henry, if he hasn’t stolen it again.”
 
A firm shake from Henry revealed that the boy had, and had taken Catherine’s bookmark as well.
 
Once she had recovered these, our heroine in righteous indignation turned her fury upon the astonished gypsy.
 
“And as for
you
!
 
You are nothing like I imagined.
 
Really!
 
Have you no sense of professional dignity?
 
Not one shawl?
 
I am terribly, terribly disappointed!”

Then the strangest thing imaginable happened.
 
The gypsy woman, looking for the first time directly at Catherine, fell to her knees, moaning and doing our heroine homage as though the new Mrs. Tilney were the Madonna.
 
Catherine, finding this behaviour exotically acceptable, nodded as the woman continued to babble, dragging down her elder son with her and muttering something that sounded promisingly like “Fortune.”

“There!” Catherine cried, vastly pleased with herself.
 
“I knew that all she required was a sensible talking-to.
 
Very good!
 
This is very good!
 
Don’t you think she’s very good, Henry?
 
Only, I don’t think we ought to ask our fortunes from her after all.
 
We’d have to have her draw it for us, since we cannot understand her.
 
Merci, madame, mais nous ne desirons pas une
...oh, what’s the word for fortune, Henry?
 
Une...fortune
...I suppose she hears the word often enough.
 
Non, pas de fortune pour nous.
 
No, good Heavens, Henry!
 
She’s kissing my shoes!
 
Non, non,
arrêtez
-vous!
 
Ne pas baisez pas de tout – ne pas!
 
Pas des...
kissing.
 
What is that the right construction, Henry?
 
Non!
 
Allez-vous!
 
Dear me, they’re amorous!
 
Stop this at once!
 
Here, here – a coin!
 
Yes, very pretty English coin.
 
And another?
 
Yes, certainly I have another.
 
And one for the boy as well.
 
And another.
 
And – Henry, have you a coin?
 
Non, non!
 
Pas de
...shoes.
 
Henry?
 
Henry!”

Henry replied that if he had intended to pay them, he should have let the urchin keep his wallet.

Perceiving that her husband intended to be no help at all, Catherine did her best to extricate herself from the gypsy and her son.
 
Which is to say that she did not do well at all and came out of the affair several pounds the lighter.
 
The gypsy thus satisfied, she once again resumed her game of tossing the eldest child at likely victims – which now included the amorous Creole, much to the long-suffering New Englander’s delight.

“And what is your opinion of gypsies now?” Henry asked, offering his bride his arm as they quit that place.

“I think,” Catherine declared, holding tight her reticule to her breast, “that the reality is very much worse than the fiction dressed in poplins!”

“And do you prefer the poplins?”

“Oh!
 
Immeasurably.”

“Then let us only deal with poplined villains.
 
Nothing more, I swear, will go unplanned,” Henry concluded, to which Catherine very readily agreed!

Their stay in gay Paris ended a se’ennight after their arrival to the continent, on which night they attended l’Opéra’s performance of Gluck’s
Orfée et Eurydice.
 
Ever the scholar, Henry could not help commenting on the French disposition to translate every work to their native tongue, as well as the ridiculous supposition that the Greek underworld was peopled by the patches and pompadours of the previous century. Catherine – who had difficulty enough following the libretto – could only smile and sigh in long suffering.

Come the final intermezzo, Henry turned to her and asked, “Am I that tiresome, darling?”

“Not at all, my love,” said she. “It is only the strain of so much French – I’m afraid that my education lent itself to patriotism.”

“As well it should. Only imagine if you had read Voltaire and Rabelais!” Perceiving her wan smile, he hastened to add in the concerned tones of the newly married, “But perhaps you already long for England?”

As though that word had been a summons, there came from behind them a loud, cheerful voice calling, “England, eh? What? Gracious! Maggie, darling, stop chattering at the Marquise and come see what I’ve found!” And with that, in burst the most rosy, handsome, hullooing couple that had ever stepped out from a portrait.

Henry hardly had time to stand before his hand was firmly grasped by the gentleman who had spoken, and who continued to speak, saying, “Pleasure to meet you, quite a pleasure. Eh, Maggie?”

This last was directed at the lady, who laughed and stepped forward, embracing Catherine as if they were old acquaintances, and kissing her cheeks in the French custom. “Such a delight,” she effused, still holding Catherine’s hands. “One meets with so many foreigners when one is abroad!”

“D—nable number of foreigners, I dare say,” the gentleman agreed. “One longs to hear a scrap of sensible English now and again.”

“Forgive me,” Henry interrupted, reclaiming his lady, “have we met?”

“Oh, Lord! Quite went out of my mind – why I feel as though we’ve known each other for an age. But that’s what comes of good English stock. Robert Wiltford, Baron of Branning – ”

“And Brandenburg,” his wife cut in.

“And Brandenburg,” he agreed.
 
“Horrible, drafty place.
 
And this is my wife, Margaret, Lady Branning.”

“And Brandenburg.
 
Although I really wish I weren’t!” Lady Branning (and Brandenburg) laughed.
 
I have trouble enough with the servants I brought, let alone those at home.
 
I hardly need another set!”

“And so depressingly
foreign
, too,” her husband agreed.
 
“Not a single Englishman among ‘em.
 
Makes you despair of ever getting good service abroad.”

“Well,” the lady amended, “except for
him
.”

“Yes, yes.
 
If you could call him English.
 
Or servile.”

“English?
 
I should hardly call him human!”

“But I daresay you’ve found the same difficulties with your servants, my dear,” Lady Branning continued, turning bright eyes upon our heroine who blushed and began to demure that she had brought no one – except that Henry saved her, saying:

 
“Noble company, indeed,” Henry replied, also bowing. “I’m afraid you shall find us quite common.”

“Oh – are you common?” Lady Branning exclaimed, her limpid eyes glowing. “Are you very common?”

“How common?” Lord Branning muttered.

“A pastor merely. Reverend Henry Tilney, and my wife, the reverenced Catherine Tilney.”

“How romantic! And your first time abroad, too, I dare say. How long will you stay?”

“Tomorrow, alas, we depart from this fair city.”

“Whither?”

“South.”

“South! Oh, Robert – do you think…?” Lord Branning replied that indeed he did. And then, with puffed chests and locked fingers, they turned to our couple and said – overlapping each other in their excitement – that they’d a castle in the Alps.

“Just a small thing really,” Lord Branning said, “but well enough for you two, I dare say. I inherited it from an uncle of mine – which is the cause of this venture to the ghastly continent – and I hardly know what to do with the thing.”

“Musty, quite musty,” Lady Branning affirmed. “And all those dreary tapestries. And the stairs, darling! One never knew what one might find!”