her wedding ring).
I informed Frau Beck I was going to my room to write a complaint. I doubt she knew what I meant, and how could I know myself? What would I write? In English? To whom would I address my charges? No, I must bite my tongue. I had no recourse but to order new plans, and of course the firm’s draughtsmen would copy the
London Illustrated News
again, although my brother would make it clear to them that “Mr. Henry’s” request was even less welcome than the first.
And yet, was not my little boy himself the most important family enterprise? He was a Brandling, which is also the name of a salmon before it has gone to the sea, a parr, a pink, a smolt, a smelt, a sprag, or brandling. My brother must be made to see that Percy was our future. He had none of his own.
I returned to my eyrie and lay upon my bed. How long I slept I have no idea. I was roused by a mousey skittering as someone attempted to slide paper beneath my door. I was on my feet in a trice.
I surprised the maid’s son kneeling, envelope in hand, blue eyes wide with fright. I caught him by his long white wrist and hauled the limpy creature into the room. I felt his magnetic life surge as it shook my arm, jolting, kicking like a hare or rabbit in a trap. I bootedthe door shut as I shackled his other wrist as well—if he had lice eggs under his fingernails they would not find a home beneath my skin.
Trapped—my little criminal, in the middle of the white-washed room, shaking, crying, crumpled letter in his hand. Then it was knock knock knock and rattling on the handle and here was the accomplice, “The maid of the room,” a red kerchief around her wheaten hair. This second party required no dragging. Indeed she rushed to embrace her offspring. There, by the foot of the peculiarly austere bed which she had so recently made herself, she kissed his crown and glared at me. I was a brute. The boy pressed himself hard against his mother and regarded me with fear and hatred, his fierce eyes revealing a will much stronger than my own. I wanted him to like me even so, this tiny enemy.
The mother I had earlier thought to be quite pretty, but now I saw, in that wide and delicate mouth, the knowledge that all happiness was conditional. Her complexion was as fine as an English woman’s but her thief’s hands were used and hard.
“Give me back my plans,” I said.
She showed the perfect understanding of the guilty.
“Sir, your plans are safe,” she said, and the quality of her English was not of the natural order. That is, she was revealing herself to be a maid so dangerously well educated that, apart from the eccentric Binns, no one of my acquaintance would have employed her.
I said: “They will be safe when they are with their lawful owner.”
She dared to contradict me.
Said she, “They must not be allowed to remain in Karlsruhe.”
I fear I may have snorted.
“It is better the plans go to where they can be understood.”
Her craven manner had slipped from her. I thought, yes, I am correct, a gang.
“And where might my plans be understood?”
“In Furtwangen.”
Who had ever heard of such a comic place?
“But even Furtwangen is filled with mediocrities.”
I would have grilled her on the sources of her strong opinions had not the child slyly produced a number of small brightly painted wooden blocks, and then—from where?—a length of thick steel wire perhaps a quarter of an inch in diameter. I watched in silence, while he swiftly assembled an ingenious bowed bridge along which his red and yellow blocks were made to slide and hop, all under the power of their invisible or magical engines.
It was a delightful contrivance. What lovesick father would not be charmed by such a child?
The boy had a voice like a little bell. When he spoke he was so tuneful that I did not immediately understand he spoke my tongue.
“He has made it for your son,” his mother said. “You will send it to England and your son will play with this
I informed Frau Beck I was going to my room to write a complaint. I doubt she knew what I meant, and how could I know myself? What would I write? In English? To whom would I address my charges? No, I must bite my tongue. I had no recourse but to order new plans, and of course the firm’s draughtsmen would copy the
London Illustrated News
again, although my brother would make it clear to them that “Mr. Henry’s” request was even less welcome than the first.
And yet, was not my little boy himself the most important family enterprise? He was a Brandling, which is also the name of a salmon before it has gone to the sea, a parr, a pink, a smolt, a smelt, a sprag, or brandling. My brother must be made to see that Percy was our future. He had none of his own.
I returned to my eyrie and lay upon my bed. How long I slept I have no idea. I was roused by a mousey skittering as someone attempted to slide paper beneath my door. I was on my feet in a trice.
I surprised the maid’s son kneeling, envelope in hand, blue eyes wide with fright. I caught him by his long white wrist and hauled the limpy creature into the room. I felt his magnetic life surge as it shook my arm, jolting, kicking like a hare or rabbit in a trap. I bootedthe door shut as I shackled his other wrist as well—if he had lice eggs under his fingernails they would not find a home beneath my skin.
Trapped—my little criminal, in the middle of the white-washed room, shaking, crying, crumpled letter in his hand. Then it was knock knock knock and rattling on the handle and here was the accomplice, “The maid of the room,” a red kerchief around her wheaten hair. This second party required no dragging. Indeed she rushed to embrace her offspring. There, by the foot of the peculiarly austere bed which she had so recently made herself, she kissed his crown and glared at me. I was a brute. The boy pressed himself hard against his mother and regarded me with fear and hatred, his fierce eyes revealing a will much stronger than my own. I wanted him to like me even so, this tiny enemy.
The mother I had earlier thought to be quite pretty, but now I saw, in that wide and delicate mouth, the knowledge that all happiness was conditional. Her complexion was as fine as an English woman’s but her thief’s hands were used and hard.
“Give me back my plans,” I said.
She showed the perfect understanding of the guilty.
“Sir, your plans are safe,” she said, and the quality of her English was not of the natural order. That is, she was revealing herself to be a maid so dangerously well educated that, apart from the eccentric Binns, no one of my acquaintance would have employed her.
I said: “They will be safe when they are with their lawful owner.”
She dared to contradict me.
Said she, “They must not be allowed to remain in Karlsruhe.”
I fear I may have snorted.
“It is better the plans go to where they can be understood.”
Her craven manner had slipped from her. I thought, yes, I am correct, a gang.
“And where might my plans be understood?”
“In Furtwangen.”
Who had ever heard of such a comic place?
“But even Furtwangen is filled with mediocrities.”
I would have grilled her on the sources of her strong opinions had not the child slyly produced a number of small brightly painted wooden blocks, and then—from where?—a length of thick steel wire perhaps a quarter of an inch in diameter. I watched in silence, while he swiftly assembled an ingenious bowed bridge along which his red and yellow blocks were made to slide and hop, all under the power of their invisible or magical engines.
It was a delightful contrivance. What lovesick father would not be charmed by such a child?
The boy had a voice like a little bell. When he spoke he was so tuneful that I did not immediately understand he spoke my tongue.
“He has made it for your son,” his mother said. “You will send it to England and your son will play with this
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