The Storm Sister (The Seven Sisters #2) (52 page)

It was on one of their trips into the city centre at lunchtime that Anna was startled to spot Jens sitting in the window of the Thüringer Hof, one of the best restaurants in Leipzig. It was
the place where the local aristocracy gathered in their fine clothes, their carriages lined up outside, with horses waiting patiently to take them home after a sumptuous lunch. Just as her life in
Christiania had once been, Anna thought ruefully.

She strained to look between the carriages at Jens’ dining partner. It was clearly a woman, by the bright scarlet hat with a feather in it that was bobbing as the figure talked. Inching
closer, much to Herr Hougaard’s amusement, she saw the woman had dark hair and what her mother would call a Roman profile, which in essence meant a big nose.

‘What on earth are you staring at, Anna?’ Herr Hougaard walked up behind her. ‘You look like The Little Match Girl in my very own Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. Will you
wish to go and press your nose against the window, as she did?’ he chuckled.

‘No.’ Anna tore her eyes away as Jens and the woman leant in close to talk. ‘I thought it was someone I knew.’

That night, Anna forced herself to stay awake until Jens returned home, well after midnight. These days, he threw his clothes off in the water closet and slid into bed in the dark, so as not to
disturb her. But of course he did. Every night.

‘What are you still doing awake?’ he asked her, obviously surprised to see the oil lamp still alight as he entered the room.

‘I thought I’d wait up for you. I feel we hardly see each other any more.’

‘I know,’ Jens sighed as he collapsed into bed next to her and Anna knew he’d been drinking again. ‘Sadly, this is the life of a music student at the famous Leipzig
Conservatory. I barely have time in the day to eat!’

‘Even at luncheon?’ The words had fallen off her tongue before she could stop them.

Jens turned to her. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I saw you taking lunch in town today.’

‘Really? Then why did you not come in and say hello?’

‘Because I was hardly dressed for such a place. And you were deep in conversation with a woman.’

‘Ah, yes, Baroness von Gottfried. She is a great benefactor of the Conservatory and its students. She came to a concert last week where four of us young composers were actually given the
chance to perform one of our own short pieces. It’s the composition I’ve been working on, remember?’

No, she didn’t remember, but then Jens was never here to tell her anything any more.

‘I see.’ She swallowed hard, a wave of indignation welling up inside her as she wondered why, if he’d been premiering a new work, he hadn’t invited her to watch.

‘The baroness invited me for lunch to discuss possible plans for having my compositions heard on a wider scale. She has many contacts in all the great cities of Europe. Paris, Florence,
Copenhagen . . .’ Jens smiled dreamily and put his hands behind his head. ‘Can you imagine, Anna? Having my music played in the great concert halls of the world? That would show Herr
Hennum now, wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes, undoubtedly it would give you great pleasure.’

‘What is the matter, Anna?’ asked Jens, reacting to the ice in her voice. ‘Come now, spit it out. You have something to say to me.’

‘Yes, I do!’ Anna could contain her anger no longer. ‘From one week to another, I hardly see you, and yet now you tell me that you are giving concerts to which I, your
betrothed, and to all the world your wife, am not even invited. You come home after midnight most evenings and, occasionally, not at all! And I sit here, waiting for you like some faithful dog,
with no friends, nothing to do but chores and no prospect of continuing my own singing career! Then to crown it all, I see you at one of the best restaurants, taking lunch with another woman.
There! That’s what I have to say.’

Once it was clear that Anna had finished her outburst, Jens stood up from the bed. ‘And now, Anna, I will tell you what I have to say: can you imagine how it is for me to lie in bed every
night next to the woman I love, to be so close to her beautiful body but not be allowed to touch beyond a caress or a kiss? My God, in some ways, what small allowance you deign to make me only adds
to my frustration! I lie here night after night dreaming of making love to you, to the point where I cannot rest. It is better for me and my sanity if I am not lying with you, longing for you, but
instead arriving home as late and as drunk as possible so I will sink into oblivion. Yes!’ Jens folded his arms defiantly. ‘This . . .
life
that we are living together is
neither one thing nor the other. You are my wife, but not my wife. You are withdrawn and sullen . . . and you give every impression that you would like nothing better than to go home. Anna, please
remember, it was
your
decision to come here. Why do you not leave? It is obvious to all you are not happy. That
I
make you unhappy!’

‘Jens, you are being very unfair indeed! You know as well as I do that I am desperate to be wed so that we can build a proper life together as husband and wife. But every time I ask you to
come and meet the pastor, you say you are too weary or too busy! How dare you blame me for this situation when it is not of my making!’

‘No, that part is not, you are right.’ Jens’ expression softened. ‘But why do you think I do not wish to see the pastor yet?’

‘Because you do not wish to marry me?’

‘Anna’ – he gave an exasperated chuckle – ‘you know how desperate I am to be a real husband to you. But I don’t think you realise what such an event costs.
You would need a dress, attendants, a wedding feast . . . it’s what any bride deserves. And what I wish you to have. But there are simply no funds for such an event. We live hand to mouth as
it is.’

All the fire went out of Anna as she finally understood. ‘Oh . . . but Jens, I don’t need any of these things. I just want to be married to you.’

‘Well, if you speak the truth, then we will marry immediately. Sadly, it won’t be anything like the wedding you would have imagined as a child, though.’

‘I know.’ Anna swallowed hard at the thought that none of her family would be there. Not Mor and Far or Knut and Sigrid. Pastor Erslev would not preside over the ceremony and she
would not wear the village wedding crown. ‘But I do not care.’

Jens sat back down on the bed and kissed her tenderly. ‘We will meet with your pastor and set a date.’

The marriage ceremony at the Thomaskirche was brief, simple and private, with Anna wearing a plain white dress she had bought with Frøken Olsdatter’s money for the
occasion and white flowers in her hair. Pastor Meyer smiled genially as he spoke the vows that would bind them to each other for the rest of their lives.

‘
Ja, ich will
,’ they each said in turn, and Jens slid his grandmother’s simple gold band around her finger, his touch warm and sure. Anna closed her eyes as he kissed
her chastely on the lips and, with relief, felt the Lord’s forgiveness in her heart.

The small wedding party moved on to a
Bierkeller
, where Jens’ musician friends played an impromptu wedding march as the newly married couple entered, and the other patrons raised
their beer steins in congratulations. Over a simple meal of German wedding soup, Anna felt the reassuring touch of her husband’s hand on her knee. Thanks to Herr Hougaard, she could join in
the jokes and toasts with Jens’ friends, and she no longer felt like a stranger in a strange world.

As they mounted the stairs to their room later that night, Jens’ fingertips rested on the base of her spine, sending shivers of nervous anticipation through her.

‘Look at you,’ he murmured, his eyes dark with desire as he closed the door behind him, ‘so tiny, so innocent, so perfect . . .’ He reached for her then and pulled her
into his arms, his hands travelling boldly over her body. ‘I must have my wife,’ he whispered into her ear, as he tipped her face up to kiss her. ‘Is it any wonder I looked
elsewhere for comfort?’ At this, she pulled away from him.

‘What do you mean?!’

‘Nothing, nothing, really . . . I only mean that I want
you
.’

Before she could reply, he was kissing her, his hands caressing her back, her thighs, her breasts . . . and despite herself, it suddenly felt wonderful, natural, that her clothes and all the
rest of her barriers that had separated them were finally removed so that they could become one. Carrying her to the bed, Jens stripped off his own clothes and moved to lie on top of her.
Anna’s own hands tentatively explored the hard muscles of his back. As he entered her, she was ready for him, knowing her body had been subconsciously practising this ever since she’d
first laid eyes on him.

The process was strange to her, but as he sighed and then collapsed onto the pillow beside her, tucking her head into his shoulder, all of the horror stories she’d heard about this moment
faded into oblivion. For now, he was truly hers and she was his.

For the next few weeks, Jens was home on time for supper, both of them desperate to finish their food and retire upstairs to their room. It was obvious to Anna that her husband
was experienced in the art of lovemaking, and as he became less tentative with her, and she too allowed herself to relax, each night became a wonderful adventure. The loneliness of the past few
months was vanquished as Anna fully understood the difference between friends and lovers. And it seemed as if their previous roles were reversed, as she constantly yearned to feel his touch on
her.

‘Good Lord, wife,’ he said one night as he lay panting beside her, ‘I’m beginning to wish I’d never introduced you to this new game. You’re positively
insatiable!’

And she was. Because these moments were the only part of him she fully owned. When he left her arms in the morning, and dressed to leave for the Conservatory, she saw his expression change and
felt his thoughts wander away from her. She’d taken to walking with him to the Conservatory, where he’d embrace her, tell her he loved her and then disappear inside the doors to the
other world that consumed him.

My enemy
, Anna sometimes thought as she turned away and retraced her footsteps back home.

Herr Hougaard had noticed the new spring in her step and her ready smile as she greeted him for her lesson in the mornings.

‘You seem happier now, Frau Halvorsen, and I am glad for it,’ he’d said.

Spurred on by her newfound positivity, Anna’s German had improved apace. She now spoke with a confidence that Herr Hougaard applauded her for. And it seemed as if each new word she grasped
would lead to a flurry of others.

She resolved that she would no longer simply sit and wait for Jens to find her a singing position. She wrote a letter to Herr Grieg, telling him of her move to Leipzig, along with a request to
perhaps gain a singing audition from anyone he knew in the town. Jens had enquired at the Conservatory for the address of C. F. Peters, Herr Grieg’s Leipzig music publishers. Finding number
10 on Talstraße, she hand-delivered her letter to a young man who worked in the ground-floor shop, selling the sheet music. Every night afterwards, she prayed that Herr Grieg would receive
her missive and reply.

One day in June, when she had managed to hold a fifteen-minute conversation in German without a single mistake, Herr Hougaard gave her a small bow.

‘Frau Halvorsen, that was word-perfect. I salute you.’

‘
Danke
,’ Anna chuckled.

‘And I must also tell you that I am soon off to take the waters in Baden-Baden as I always do in the summer months. It becomes far too hot for me here in the city and I have been feeling
particularly fatigued of late. Are you and Herr Halvorsen departing for Norway when his term ends?’

‘He has certainly not told me if we are.’

‘I leave tomorrow morning, so I will see you again, if luck will have it, in the autumn.’

‘Yes, I hope so.’ Anna rose as he did, wishing that she could show her affection and gratitude to him in a less formal way than polite manners required. ‘I am truly indebted to
you, sir.’