CHAPTER 22

IN A MONTH’S TIME, I created a life for myself in shadows. Days stretched, seeming endless, despite the shortened daylight hours. The diversion of posing for Christoph disappeared along with the struggling artist, as he packed up his canvases and paints to go to Italy in hopes of studying with one of the maestros there. Before leaving, he made a gift of both my portrait and the Rebekah painting to the Reichenbach household. Elsa allowed me to hang my own portrait in my room, but the other was whisked away before the wheels of Christoph’s hired coach touched the end of the drive.

My role as a Latin tutor for the Reichenbach children expanded into something more like a governess, giving instruction in history and literature, and I was grateful for the added responsibility, as it consumed the better part of my day. Otherwise, I was left to my own lonely devices, strolling the garden now bare of blooms or performing some act of stitchery as an excuse to watch through the window, waiting.

“Just like your portrait,” Elsa said, coming upon me late one afternoon. The children had been exhaustive with their questions, and I’d dismissed them early to go enjoy the last few hours of sunlight. I couldn’t decipher the tone of Elsa’s comment —if she meant to mock or flatter or compliment. So I merely smiled, the tight-lipped response I’d perfected since Jerome’s leaving, and returned to my stitching.

“It’s a shame, really,” she continued, “that you weren’t given over to someone with better skill.”

“All skills take time to develop.” I held up my poor piece of work as an example. “And as I’m not likely to be hounded to pose for another portrait, I’ll happily accept the one I have. Someday, when I’m a rickety old hag, I’ll be glad of the evidence that I was young once.”

To say that Elsa and I had not engaged in truly friendly conversation in most of a month was not an exaggeration, yet she selected this moment to come sit opposite, forcing me to choose between ignoring her with my craft or lifting my face in acknowledgment. Aware that, despite my familiarity, I was still very much a guest in this home, I chose the latter, and was taken aback by the sympathy lurking in her countenance.

“You’ve still heard nothing?”

Immediately, I regretted my decision to engage her. “No,” I said, and bent back to my work. While Jerome and I had done a fair job of hiding the secret of our engagement, we’d failed to conceal our attraction to one another. Now, his total abandonment of my affection lived in full display, making me a household object of pity. Even the scullery maid offered me a look of unhidden compassion when we chanced to pass each other.

“It takes time, I’m sure, to settle in. Young men are inconsistent even in the steadiest of circumstances. Why, if I’d let my Philipp out of my sight for even three days’ time in our courtship, I’d be mistress of some other house, you can be sure.”

Her words may have been spoken in a noble attempt at levity, but they served only to reinforce my gloom.

“It’s not so much, really.” I worked the thread in and out of the fabric, barely registering the pattern. “I only hope that he is well.”

“Would it cheer you up to know that Luther is coming to visit?”

“I don’t need cheering up.” For this, I allowed a broader smile. “But Herr Luther is always a welcome presence, isn’t he?”

“He is.”

Elsa’s emphasis on the word he implied that the presence of some was not as welcome, and as the only remaining summer guest, I could not escape her meaning.

“When is he due to arrive?”

“Day after tomorrow. I was just about to check the holdings in the wine cellar, to make sure we have enough.”

To date, I’d never heard Elsa hint that their house could not provide food and drink and entertainment for half the city. I kept my smile frozen and joined her in her subterfuge.

“Does he drink so much?”

She laughed. “There’s always a deception with drink, isn’t there? Open a cask, and it seems to be endless, and after a time goes by, you find it spoiled.”

“That’s why I shy away from drink.”

“And how proper for you to do so.” Elsa reached over and patted my knee. “Not all of us have that choice.”

She left me without a response, claiming a need to check that the kitchen larder would support another houseguest. It may be that she was not aware of the unkindness of her words, but they rang on nonetheless. Without clarification, I understood the intention for my shelter here: a woman in need of a home and a husband; an eligible bachelor neighbor nearby. Doubtless Luther had filled the Reichenbachs’ heads with visions of a late-summer wedding, hosted here, where the romance took root. I imagined Luther and Elsa good-naturedly vying to claim responsibility for the match, giving only a passing nod to the providence of God himself. Now, in the shadow of Luther’s return, there seemed no chance of such celebration.

I’d heard not a word from Jerome. Not a note to assure me of his safe arrival, nor a message sent off in haste with a promise of a longer missive to come. He’d left me with no token, and I’d given him none. We had nothing but time spent together and time spent apart. And though the time apart spanned half of that spent together, it had aged me to my very core.

Rather than call for a flame to the sconce when the light from the windows grew too dark for work, I took myself to my room, where Marina waited, herself busy with mending.

“Nothing today?”

A waste of a question, because no amount of decorum would have kept me from running into her arms had I evidence of his promise. In truth, though everyone of my acquaintance seemed to guess at the abandoned love affair, only Marina knew the length to which Jerome and I had pledged each other. Only she knew the scope of the future we’d imagined, because rather than spending that last night riding with him on the back of his horse, I’d spent it weeping on her shoulder. So this evening, when I might have been annoyed at the intrusive nature of her question, I remembered the comfort she’d whispered to me and braced myself for another round.

“Nothing.”

“And you don’t think it’s possible that they’d keep something from you?”

The possibility had crossed my mind, more than once, but I felt no right to ask. “That seems cruel. Too cruel for Elsa. His mother? Maybe. But he would know not to go through her.”

“I’m sure he’s just —”

“Don’t. Don’t try to excuse him or explain him. It is all in the hands of God, not for us to bend and twist what we see right before our eyes.”

“And you won’t consider writing to him, miss?”

“I am not the one who made the promise.”

Turning, I slipped off my overdress and asked Marina to unlace my bodice. Stripped to my chemise and stockings, I made my way to the bed and lay down upon it.

“Taking a rest before supper, miss?”

“Find Elsa, please, and tell her I won’t be down this evening.”

“Are you not feeling well?”

“Not feeling hungry.”

“Shall I bring up a tray later?”

The mere question conjured memories of Sister Gerda, bent beneath a lifetime without the love of a man, a person of unabashed pity.

“No, sweet girl. Thank you. It is a luxury to take to one’s bed at a whim. I feel I’m overdue for such an indulgence.”

“Then I shall leave you to it.” She came to my side and made a show of fluffing the pillows behind me and lifting the coverlet with enough force that it drifted to settle around me. “I’ll take myself downstairs. See what’s about.”

Marina left, and the room descended into darkness. Six o’clock, according to the chimes coming from the front hall. Too early for sleep, but I couldn’t face another meal with Elsa Reichenbach and her unspoken dismissal. Rather, it had been unspoken up until this day. Recalling our conversation of a few hours before, I realized she couldn’t have been more clear.

I had to leave. But where was I to go?

And if I left, how would Jerome ever find me?

The only way he knew to contact me was here: Katharina von Bora, House of Philipp Reichenbach, Wittenberg. Were I to go back to my father, or to the Brummbär with Marina, or to some thatch-roofed hut in the forest, I would never know the reason for his silence. Did he fall ill? Did he succumb to the temptations proffered to a young, unattached man? Did his feelings wane so sharply with time and space wedged between us?

My feelings, of course, remained unchanged. If anything, they’d increased in fervor. Perhaps I’d always been the stronger of the two. He’d been led to love me, and so he did. He’d been encouraged to marry me, and so he offered engagement.

Now Jerome, bereft of Luther’s encouragement to love me and his parents’ encouragement to leave me, had only his own will to spur him to pursuit. Six weeks without word might speak to a lack of strength, rather than a lack of love.

But I lacked no strength. Never had I relied on any person other than Jesus Christ to shape my thought or bend my will. Marina’s hint that I should write only gave voice to the thoughts I’d kept buried in silence since Jerome left. I was no stranger to writing a letter. I risked the fire of the Church to write to Luther. To secure my freedom at any cost. Writing to Jerome inspired no fear, other than the loss of dignity. Then again, my rebirth to this life came from the huddled darkness of a herring wagon.

I climbed out of bed, fetched a candle, and —taking care to check that no one was about to see my state of undress —lit it from the torch outside my door. Once I wedged it in the holder attached to the bedpost, I found my writing desk and brought it straight into bed. From underneath the hinged lid, I retrieved paper, ink, and quill.

My dearest Jerome,

And all my passion, all my noble intention, all my eloquence dissolved. So, too, did his name upon the page, the ink running with my tears. I dropped the quill, uncaring of how it might stain my bed, and picked up the page, intending to rip it to ruin, but paused. How could my lover deny such a blatant display of my heart? I blew across the page, drying the ink and my tears together. Satisfied, I returned it to the writing surface, dipped the quill, and wrote a message equal in brevity to the last he ever wrote me.

Write, as I wait in the garden.

KVB