On the Night of the Seventh Moon Read Online Free PDF Page B

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.
    â€œEat 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 downstairs.
    Hildegarde was wearing cloak and bonnet, and outside was a trap drawn by a strawberry roan.
    â€œWe 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.”
    â€œHow 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 Siegfried.
    â€œYou 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 gray 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 horse 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.
    She clearly adored him while disapproving of him. I could understand that too, and I agreed that it would be wiser to tell my adventures from a slightly different angle.
    So we reached the
Damenstift.
What a fuss there was! Schwester Maria had clearly spent the night weeping. Schwester Gudrun was silently triumphant. “I told you that it was no use expecting good behavior from Helena Trant.” Hildegarde was warmly thanked and blessings showered upon her and I was seated for a long time in Mutter’s sanctum but I scarcely heard what she said. So many impressions crowded into my mind that there was no room for anything else. Myself in the blue robe; the way his eyes had glowed when we pulled thewishbone and the sound of his voice vibrating and passionate outside my bedroom door. “Lenchen . . . little Lenchen.”
    I continued to think of him. I would never forget him, I was sure. I thought: One day I shall go out and find him waiting there.
    But nothing like that happened at all.
    Three barren weeks followed, lightened only by the hope that I should see him and made wretched by the depressing fact that I did not, and then news came from home. My father was seriously ill. I must go home at once. And before I could leave came the information that he was dead.
    I must leave the
Damenstift
altogether. I must go home at once. Mr. and Mrs. Greville who had brought me home on that other occasion had kindly offered to come and fetch me and take me back.
    In Oxford, Aunt Caroline and Aunt Matilda were