The Left-Handed God Read online

  The other man turned to Desirée and pulled her upright by her hair. “I’m afraid God has small regard for loose women,” he said coldly. “You’re a harlot. As for any past between us, I had no idea you offered your quim so readily and with so little discernment to every country booby.” Reaching down, he squeezed one of the girl’s breasts viciously and said, “I know you like it rough, my dear, but this is ridiculous.” She gasped and cried out. “Very well,” he said, releasing her. “I’ll let him live this time. But you will come to me tonight. I have a sudden taste for country manners.” Turning on his heel, he left.

  Franz quickly rebuttoned his breeches and tucked in his shirt. The insult of being struck like this had been gross, but this man had had a relationship with the willing nymph. They were lovers rather than married, but that still meant he had been justifiably angry. The charming Desirée was a faithless slut. But as he watched her covering herself and weeping softly, his disgust faded.

  “He hurt you.”

  “Do not concern yourself, chéri,” she said sadly, finding one of her shoes and putting it back on.

  “Who is he? What is he to you?”

  “Eet is my business. I must obey ’im.” She gave Franz a pleading look. “Do not make ze trouble, mon ami. Il est très dangereux. ’E vill ’urt me and ’e vill keel you.”

  Franz did not think the man dangerous. What mattered at the moment was what lay between the girl and himself. Desirée had given herself to him freely and generously‌—‌if not perhaps virtuously. She had suffered pain for it and would suffer more. Franz touched her face gently. “My dear Desirée,” he said, tipping up her chin and kissing the moist lips, the wet cheeks, the brimming pansy eyes. “Do not go back to him. Promise me. I cannot bear to have you hurt again. Nothing is worth that. I’ll take care of you. I’ll find a way.” He faltered.

  He could not seriously consider marrying a French actress who evidently fell from one man’s bed into another’s without much thought.

  She kissed him back and laughed a little. “You’re very sweet. But non, eet is over, mon brave. Eet vas only un plaisir‌—‌une galanterie d’un après-midi.” She gave him a little push, whirled, and was gone.

  Very well. But what would Stiebel say? No, he could not possibly tell his kind friend and mentor what had happened.

  He thought of finding this man, of challenging him and, being a fair swordsman, perhaps killing him. Better for Desirée to be free of such a villain. Satisfied of having somehow soothed his injured honor along with his debt to Desirée, Franz started back to the inn.

  Stiebel was writing a letter. He looked up at Franz and chuckled. “The young lady returned in some disorder a few minutes ago,” he said. “And here you are, looking not much better. I see grass stains on the knees of your breeches. What have you been up to?”

  Franz flushed, brushed at his knees, and tucked in an errant shirt tail. “Nothing much, sir,” he lied.

  Stiebel pursed his lips. “If your amorous pursuits were as successful as I think, I trust you were prepared for them?”

  “Prepared?” Prepared for what? For being attacked in flagrante delicto by the lady’s lover?

  “With a French letter, Franz. Armor for the encounter. These women often harbor the pox.”

  “Oh.” Yes, he should have known better. He shook his head. He had bigger problems to deal with.

  “Well, we must hope for the best. I should have reminded you.”

  Stiebel’s familiarity with gallantry was not as shocking to Franz as his own naiveté. He had actually thought himself in love with a wanton. But even as he thought this, he felt pity for women who must lead such lives. Whatever Desirée might be to other men, she had made no demands on him but had treated him with kindness, nay, perhaps even a little fondness. What had happened was not her fault.

  16

  The Good Daughter

  Is it not better to be freed from cares and agues, from love and melancholy, and the other hot and cold fits of life, than like a galled traveler, who comes weary to his inn, to be bound to begin his journey afresh?

  Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy

  Frau von Langsdorff moaned and wept during the rest of their journey to Mannheim. Every jolt of the carriage produced a cry of pain. After they got some water, Augusta placed cold compresses on her mother’s swollen, bloody face. At first she worried that the nose and cheek bone might be broken, but as the hours passed, the compresses reduced the swelling, and her mother managed to breathe through her nose again. At last, she fell into a restless sleep.

  The stage coach stopped at Heidelberg and reported the attack to the local gendarmes. They stared at Augusta’s mother, nodded wisely, and took down descriptions of jewelry and monetary losses. Augusta was not sure how much gold had been in her mother’s purse, and her mother was in no condition to talk.

  “A lot, was it?” said the officer with a shrug. “That’s a pity. They’ll be long gone and the goods with them. The Parson‌—‌that’s what they call him, though he’s nothing but a thieving clerk‌—‌mostly works between Ulm and München. Strange, he should’ve come so far north this time.”

  Not strange at all, thought Augusta. Her mother had told one and all that she carried a small fortune in gold.

  They approached Mannheim after dark.

  “Will your brother meet you?” asked the young woman with a glance at the softly moaning Frau von Langsdorff.

  “He doesn’t know we’re coming.” Augusta peered out of the window at the lights ahead, then lifted the hem of her skirt to unpick a seam. She removed two gold pieces she had sewn up there while still at home and tucked them in her bodice. She had intended to buy a present for Jakob with them. Now the amount was pitifully small for their needs.

  “Oh, how clever of you!” cried the young woman. “But surely that’s not enough for two females alone in a strange city?”

  “No.” Augusta saw that they were pulling into an inn yard. “But it may pay for a room where my mother can rest while I make inquiries.”

  “Surely she cannot stay by herself. She should have a doctor. And you cannot walk about alone at night.”

  Augusta, suppressing her rising panic, snapped, “We will have to manage.”

  The young woman was offended. When the coach stopped, she cried, “There’s my husband, God be praised. What a dreadful journey!”

  She gathered her things and was the first to step down. A very tall, pleasant looking man greeted her with a fervent hug and a peck on the cheek, listened to her excited tale, then lifted down his daughters. They went off together.

  Augusta thought with longing of Jakob. He seemed so far away that it was almost as if she had lost him. She shook her mother’s arm. “Mama, we’re here. We’re in Mannheim.”

  It took the help of the coachman to remove a limp and moaning Frau von Langsdorff from the coach. As soon as her feet touched the ground, she collapsed in a heap in the dirt of the inn yard.

  Augusta nearly wept with frustration, but the young woman’s husband came back. “Allow me,” he said, scooped her quivering and sobbing mother into his arms, carried her into the inn, and set her down in the first chair he found. Augusta followed, and someone brought their bags.

  The inn was modest but clean. The innkeeper assumed that they were guests. Augusta’s funds would barely pay for food and accommodations as well as a doctor. Still, if she could find Franz quickly, they might manage. She asked for a room, then turned to thank the young husband.

  “No trouble at all,” he said, looking at her anxiously. “I’ll carry her up, if I may. It’s a very great shame that she was hurt, though I suppose we must be grateful that no worse happened.”

  She nodded.

  He glanced back at the door where his wife and the two little girls hovered, looking impatient.

  She took his meaning and said, “There was some shooting but I think they fired into the air. They just wanted the gold.”

  The room being ready, he took up his
moaning burden again and climbed the stairs as if she weighed nothing.

  A kind man.

  Augusta settled her mother in bed and sent for a doctor. He, a young man, rather finely dressed for some social appointment, arrived, looked the patient over quickly, and pronounced her to have suffered only minor bruising and a loose tooth. He left a bottle of laudanum to help her sleep and departed with one of the gold pieces.

  Augusta waited only until her mother was asleep, then threw her hooded cloak about her and set out to find Franz. Downstairs, the innkeeper waylaid her. He had heard of the robbery and wanted to be paid in advance. Augusta, her heart beating with panic, put on a haughty mien, pressed the other gold piece in his hand, and told him that her brother, Lieutenant von Langsdorff, would take care of any future bills.

  To her relief, the posting inn was in a central part of the city, and the streets were wide and well lit. She asked one of the grooms about the best inns and set out at a fast pace, praying that her mother would not have some dreadful setback, that no one would mistake her for a woman of the streets, and that she would find Franz as soon as possible. It had been the most dreadful day of her life, and she dared not even consider what the loss of the money would mean to all of them in the future.

  Her brother and Doktor Stiebel had in fact stayed at the second inn where she asked, but, alas, they had departed only that afternoon.

  For a moment, the blow staggered Augusta and she reached for support. The inn’s servant scanned her waist and asked if the younger gentleman was her sweetheart.

  “My brother,” she said, taking his interest for kindness and pouring out her tale. “We’ve come to join him, Mama and I, only we were robbed on the journey. Mama was hurt. And now I don’t know what to do.” Tears stung her eyes. She blinked and gulped some cold air to subdue her nausea. “What are we to do?”

  The servant’s eyes widened. “What? You were on that post from Ulm? Everybody’s talking about it. Here, if you give me half an hour, I’ll be free. I’ll buy you a hot meal and some wine to hear the story.” He leaned closer to push back her hood and whistled. “It’s my lucky day. You’re a beauty, sweetheart,” he said with a leer.

  Augusta backed away, pulling up the hood again. “I can’t stay. I must get back to Mama.”

  She ran all the way back. Oh, Jakob! That silent cry for help reminded her that she still had one item of value, his ring. It rested between her breasts, tied to a thin cotton string so as not to arouse her mother’s curiosity. For that reason and because the highwayman had wanted her mother’s purse, it had escaped him. She could not give it up, but knowing that she must, she started crying in earnest.

  Her mother was snoring soundly when she slipped back into their room. The candle had almost burned down, but Augusta found another in the drawer of the small table and lit it. Then she took a sheet of writing paper from her case and her quill and small bottle of ink. She had meant to write to Jakob about Mannheim and her new clothes, but now she had to beg for his help instead.

  “Dearest Jakob,” she wrote. “I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me for troubling you so greatly again. Max will have brought you my note by now. Believe me, I did Mama’s bidding against my better sense. She‌—‌may God forgive me, but she is a very foolish woman‌—‌not only borrowed a very large sum of money but talked about it on the coach so that somewhere in the mountains between Ulm and Mannheim one of the passengers drew a pistol and robbed us. Mama at first refused to give up her gold and was badly beaten for it.”

  She paused to check on her mother, whose breathing sounded stertorous, but it turned out to be nothing. Then she finished her letter, naming the inn where they were staying and telling Jakob that Franz and Stiebel had left Mannheim and were on their way home, leaving them in dire straits.

  “It is with the greatest sorrow, my dear Jakob,” she told him, “that I shall have to pawn your ring in the morning in order to post this letter and buy a little food for us. I pray you will forgive me for doing so and for making such demands on you again. I promise that I shall try to make it up to you by being your most faithful and loving wife.

  Yours forever, Augusta.”

  She folded and sealed the letter, addressed it to Jakob Seutter in Lindau, then blew out the candle, slipped out of her dress, and crawled under the covers beside her mother.

  *

  Desirée’s lover stopped short of killing her but only just. Desirée lay curled around her pain and sobbed. She had been a fool, and it was just that he should be furiously angry at her. She tried to convince herself that such violence showed how much he cared for her. He had been careful not to bruise her face. Other parts of her body could be hidden by clothing, and she would still be beautiful to her audience. She loved the stage, was besotted by the applause, and would do anything to keep working.

  Even this.

  His house was empty; he had brought no servants, and so her cries went unheard. He had spent nearly the whole night alternately beating her and then raping her like an animal. In the end she had stopped resisting and let him do whatever he wanted.

  After the first bout of punishment and sex, he had made her crawl to him on her knees to beg his forgiveness.

  After the last, he left her in the half darkness of closed curtains, lying tangled in the blood-stained bedding. The room smelled of blood and sex, and she thought she would never be clean. Or able to walk.

  The door opened. “Well?” he asked. “Not up and around yet?”

  Terrified, she moaned, hoping he would leave her alone.

  He came to the bed and shook her. “The man you were with, where does he stay?”

  She saw the expression on his face and cringed. “At the inn,” she said and felt ashamed.

  Poor boy! Poor, gentle boy.

  He was satisfied. “Very well. Take your time, but make sure you’re gone by nightfall. You can burn the sheets. When you get back to the others, say that you’re ill. A female complaint.” He laughed. “That should buy you some time. If you behave yourself in the future, I’ll see about getting you a good part in the next play.”

  She said nothing.

  “And be sure to air out the room before you leave,” he said on his way out. “It stinks.”

  *

  Augusta woke when her mother shook her shoulder. “How can you lie there, fast asleep, when I’m at death’s door?” she demanded.

  Daylight came from the window. Augusta peered at her mother blearily. To be sure, she looked a fright. Some of the swelling had subsided but one eye was still swollen shut and her upper lip was split, giving her a lopsided leer. The bruising, from her temple to her jaw on one side, had darkened. “I’m sorry, Mama,” she said, sitting up. Her throat felt strangely tight. “Are you in much pain?”

  “Don’t be stupid. I’m in agony. And I cannot see. I’m going blind.” Her mother whimpered. “Where’s Franz? Go fetch him. I don’t want to die without seeing my son.”

  Augusta felt the good side of her mother’s face and found it cool to the touch. “You’re not dying. And your sight will come back when the swelling goes down.” She got up and washed her face in the frigid water from the ewer, then dipped the cloth into the water and placed it on her mother’s face.

  “How can you be so cold?” her mother muttered. “You have no feeling at all.”

  Augusta shivered as she slipped on her dress and found her stockings and shoes. She hardened her heart. “I’m sorry, Mama, but there’s more bad news. Franz has left and is on his way home. As we have no money, the innkeeper is likely to throw us out in the street.”

  This made her mother sit up in bed, dropping the wet cloth. “They’ve left? How do you know?”

  “I found out last night. They left before we got here.” She stepped into her shoes and put on her cloak.

  “Where are you going? You cannot leave me here.”

  Augusta sighed and held up the letter. “I have written for help to Jakob Seutter.”

  Her m
other gasped. “I forbid you to write to that man, do you hear! Isn’t it bad enough that you’ve given away all of our gold? What we could have done with that! Oh, why did I have to be punished with such an unnatural child?”

  This was too much.

  “How dare you, Mama, when you were the one who borrowed it and then told all and sundry in the coach how much money you had with you? You were begging to be robbed.”

  Her mother turned alarmingly red and raised a fist. “It was you,” she screeched, “you who gave that monster our gold! Or have you forgotten that?”

  “He would have killed us all if I had not. How can you have a moment’s doubt of that after what he did to your face?”

  “Oh, I’m ruined. I’m dying and will be thrown into the gutter like a beggar.” With a moan, her mother sank back into the cushions and began to cry.

  Augusta left, slamming the door behind her.

  The innkeeper had been keeping watch for her. “Found your brother yet, Miss?”

  Heart beating, Augusta said, “I’m on my way now. Pray send some warm milk and white bread up to our room.” Then she swept past him and out into the street.

  She had noticed a pawnbroker’s sign the night before. In broad daylight, the city had lost its fearful aspect, and she walked quickly. The shop was open for business. An elderly man inside looked her over carefully. When she untied the string and pulled Jakob’s ring from her bodice, he stretched out a gnarled hand for it. Taking a deep breath, she handed it over.

  He peered at it closely, then reached for a pair of small scales. “It’s nicely wrought,” he said. “A fine ring, but I can only value its weight in gold. Are you selling or borrowing?”

  “B-borrowing,” she stammered.

  He gave her a sharp glance over his spectacles. “Five taler is all I can advance. If you’ll sell it, I’ll go as high as ten.”

  Five taler were a pitiful amount. However quickly Jakob would come to her‌—‌and she had no doubt that he would‌—‌they could not subsist on so little. Tears rose to her eyes. She bit her lip and nodded. “Very well.”