The Star of Kazan

‘She was doing something like that all the time you were away, Mother. Scrubbing and sweeping and cooking – and she had all her meals in the kitchen. She’s just a servant through and through!’

Annika waited for her mother’s anger, but something had happened to Edeltraut. She was elegantly dressed in a new velvet coat and skirt and her hair was swept up in a different style which made her look younger and very beautiful.

‘Oh, Annika, my darling,’ she said with a rueful laugh. ‘What are we going to do with you?’

And she bent down and swept Annika into her arms and hugged her.

Everything had changed, Annika saw that at once. Her mother was no longer stiff and anxious. Mathilde had stopped looking like an unhappy camel. Uncle Oswald had trimmed his beard. Whatever the business was that had taken them to Switzerland, it must have gone well.

It was decided that the family from the hunting lodge would stay the night. Uncle Oswald had bought a hamper full of good things in Zurich: tins of pâté, truffles, hothouse grapes, a smoked leg of lamb, a bottle of champagne.

‘We’ll have a party,’ said Edeltraut. ‘But first I must tell you what has happened, because we shall need to pay our respects and say a prayer.’

So the children gathered round her and Edeltraut told them why they had gone away.

‘I told you there might be news which would help us here at Spittal,’ she said. ‘And there has been such news. Our money troubles are over. Everything won’t be settled at once, but I was able to raise enough money on my expectations to start on the things that need to be done.’

‘What are expectations, Aunt Edeltraut?’ asked Gudrun.

‘Well, in this case they are money, which has been left to me in a will. Quite a lot of money. And this, my dears, is where the sad part comes in, because my godfather, Herr von Grotius, has died. He was a widower and we went to Zurich to make sure he had a fitting funeral. I can’t tell you what a wonderful man he was and I was his favourite goddaughter.’

Edeltraut’s handkerchief came out and she dabbed her eyes. It was a new one, edged with finest lace; there had been no time yet to embroider it with the von Tannenberg initials.

‘Death is always sad,’ she went on, ‘but he was very, very old. Often in the last years he told me how tired he was; how he longed to be at rest.’

‘And now he is, God bless him,’ put in Mathilde.

Edeltraut raised her eyebrows at her sister. She never liked being interrupted and both the godfather and his legacy belonged to her. ‘You can be certain,’ she told the children, ‘that we gave him a wonderful funeral. A dozen black horses bedecked with plumes, three carriages packed with important mourners . . . a service in the cathedral presided over by the archbishop . . . Everybody who mattered in the city was there. The Prince of Essen sent his equerry.’ She dabbed her eyes once more, then put the handkerchief away. ‘So tonight when you go to bed I want you to promise to kneel and say a prayer for Herr von Grotius. I know you never met him, but he was a good man.’

‘A very good man,’ said Mathilde, who felt that she was not being allowed a fair share of the story.

‘Because he begged us not to go into mourning we shall wear our ordinary clothes,’ Edeltraut went on, ‘except when we go out, when we shall have black armbands. There will be armbands for you also so that people know we care and I shall wear a black ribbon on my petticoat, as my mother would have done, because he was my godfather.’

But to Annika it seemed that the clothes the grown-ups were wearing were not very ordinary. The muff Edeltraut had thrown down was made of sable, Mathilde wore a jacket embroidered in gold thread and Uncle Oswald’s shining new boots were made of finest kid.

Hermann had done his best to listen patiently, but now he got to his feet and moved to his mother’s side.

‘Does that mean I can go to St Xavier’s?’ he asked excitedly. ‘Does it? Does it?’

Edeltraut smiled at him.

‘Yes, my dear, it does. That will be our first task – to get you ready for the Easter term. The time for you to serve your Fatherland has come!’

Hermann’s face flushed with joy. He pulled back his shoulders and gave a perfect military salute.

‘I am ready,’ he said.

For a moment no one could think of anything except the noble way that Hermann was behaving. Then Edeltraut broke the silence.

‘And now you will want to see your presents.’

The boxes were piled up on the low table. Gudrun opened hers to find, in nests of tissue paper, a blue velvet cloak and hood with a matching muff – and a pair of white lace gloves.

‘Oh, Mama,’ she said – and her long pale face lit up. She slipped on the cloak and the hood, and wouldn’t take them off the whole evening.