asking, and he might think nothing of giving it.”
Famke felt a twinge of resentment that brought her into communion with Frøken Grubbe; it was almost as if the Saints were stealing from the two of them.
“They’re a strange bunch,” Frøken Grubbe continued, fishing out the tea strainer. “They pray to God’s wife, though everyone with a right mind knows He is a bachelor.” She sighed, as if suddenly weary. Then she picked up the tray of steaming tea and sweetly fragrant pastries. “I will bring this upstairs,” she said with a sharp look at Famke. “I think it’s best if you stay out of Herr Skatkammer’s sight.”
Famke was grateful to have found a protector in the spare and unlikely form of Frøken Grubbe. She avoided Skatkammer as best she could; and even when he asked for her by name, the housekeeper would send another maid in her place or do the errand herself.
Eventually Famke realized that Frøken Grubbe’s cooperation could point in only one direction. She loves him, Famke thought, and was astonished. She felt as if she’d received a revelation: At the advanced age of nearly forty, and suffering a lack of personal charms, a woman could fall in love. That this particular woman was besotted with an even less attractive and more aged employer, and hoped he would come to love her as well—Famke thought it very sad indeed.
What was more, the housekeeper’s unhappy story made Famke realize her days in the mansion could well be numbered as the hairs on her head. Even the kindest of women—and Frøken Grubbe certainly was not that—would not harbor the object of a beloved’s lust for long. Indeed, her reproofs of Famke’s mistakes were becoming sharper and sharper, and once or twice Famke found that after the other servants had eaten there was no meat for her own dinner. She made herself adopt the meek manners of the convent and tried to please Frøken Grubbe whenever possible. This was not a job a girl should throw away, especially not a girl who’d lost her virtue.
Famke’s virtue remained unmourned, nearly unremembered except for the two mementos of the man who had taken the last shreds of that ephemeral purity from her: the silver tinderbox and the sketch he had made of her in Dragør nearly a year before. She would not tack it to this wall, but when she had a moment and a candle and her bedmate was sleeping, Famke liked to unroll the delicate cylinder of it and spread it on her own bed. She still thought it was Albert’s finest work. There was always some new detail to be noticed: a wrinkle in the ribbons of the cap so carelessly shoved back from her head, a bend in the curls that escaped from her braids, a spark of sunlight in her eyes. And finally, as a special treat, Famke might turn the paper over and read the words written there—words she had not discovered until she unpinned the sketch from Fru Strand’s wall and rolled it up to come to Skatkammer’s. Albert must have written them just before he left:
To my sweet, lovely Famke, who rescued her face and my fate from the fire—
Had we but world enough and time, this parting, darling, would be no crime.
Best regards from a rushing heart,
A. C.
They were beautiful words, words that—she thought—made it plain he did not wish to leave her. It was only the uncertainty of his own future that kept him from begging her to be his permanently. Had she but means, she might have gone to him and said that none of the rest mattered . . .
These thoughts never failed to make her weep, until, romantically, she doused the candle with her tears.
Kapitel 9
Behold, my house is a house of order, saith the Lord God, and not a house of confusion.
PEARL OF GREAT PRICE 132:8
Alone, depressed, and bored, Famke’s mind needed some occupation, and the strangest of the strange attractions in Herr Skatkammer’s household were the men who called themselves Saints. They were not Skatkammer’s only visitors, but they were the most fascinating; they came to the house regularly, and when a visit was expected, Famke found herself choosing to perform certain duties that lay in their path. She brushed the animal heads in the hallway or polished the sabers on the front stairs, allowing Frøken Grubbe to chase her away only after she got a good look. Men who married more than one woman at a time . . .
“Polygamy,” she said, trying out her dictionary English in the privacy of the servants’ outhouse. “Fidelity. Darling.”
What if Albert had been able to marry both Famke and another girl? Would a half share in Albert have been enough?
He had been gone for more than two months. At night, when her bed-mate, Vida, fell asleep, Famke recalled his amphibious eyes and touched herself Down There. The cottager holds a paintbrush. . . She rolled a pebble of her own flesh and felt something pleasant, but not the shimmering feeling, the wanting feeling, she got with Albert. In time even that pleasure disappeared; but she was interested in no other kind. Vida was chubby and smelled like Herr Skatkammer’s cat, and she was not Albert. Famke had to take some other action.
With April and the British Royal Academy show well in the past, Famke took advantage of her first Thursday halfday and trudged into Copenhagen. Albert had promised to tell her how Nimue fared, and her faith in that promise had only grown in the absence of other hopes.
Fru Strand’s rooming house looked more dilapidated than ever, now that Famke had Herr Skatkammer’s villa to compare it to. The landlady still had not replaced the windows Albert had removed, and she probably never would, Famke thought as she rapped at Fru Strand’s door. There must be plenty of sailors who were willing to take that room; when in port, they lived in the darkness and slept in the daytime, so the boards would be no hardship for them.
When the door opened, Famke was surprised to see not Strand but a hunched-over man of early middle age. He was in his shirtsleeves, a napkin glistening with fish scales around his neck; when he saw her, he whisked it off, revealing an equally discolored shirtfront, then wiped his mouth and tossed the napkin into the shadows beyond the door. With lips still shiny, he smiled and tried to straighten, but he was unable to do so fully.
Famke hesitated, but she remembered the boarded-up windows above; she was in the right place. “Nå. . . I came to see Fru Strand.”
“She is gone,” he said, and made a courtly little bow. “I am Ole Rasmussen, her nephew and the new proprietor. You are a friend?”
“I lived here once,” Famke said. “Just a month ago. With my husband.” She felt it was only polite to ask, “Where has Fru Strand gone?”
“To the other side,” he said delicately; then, when Famke still looked blank, “She is dead.”
Famke received this news with a shock that surprised even herself.
“She fell into the canal,” Rasmussen said helpfully. “She was—er—”
“She was drunk,” Famke said.
“Nej, sadly, she was set upon by thieves. They were never found, but they took even her gold tooth.”
There was no predicting what might happen—accidents, footpads—oh, Albert!
Famke swallowed. “I have come to ask about a letter,” she said, willing her voice to steady itself. “My husband was to have written me here. His name is Albert Castle, and mine is Famke—or Ursula.” She didn’t know which name Albert might use in writing her, or whether he’d try giving her a last name.
Ole Rasmussen opened his door wider, and for the first time Famke saw into the landlord’s lair. It was the dirtiest place she had ever seen—broken-down furniture and newspapers, indeed papers of every sort, everywhere, and a thick pall of dust choking the air itself.