The Children's Book - A. S. Byatt [229]
Good sense is both a curse and a blessing. Dorothy sat in Munich, and thought everything out. If she was to be a doctor, she must return to Todefright and matriculate. She thought briefly about trying to stay in southern Germany and become a doctor there, but German women had more restricted options for study than the British, at that time. And she realised she had no idea what her new-found family would say if she asked to be taken in. And then she realised that she did not want to stay, not yet, not really. She was homesick even if she was happy. She missed both the Tree House and the convenience of Queen’s College, Harley Street and the lectures in Gower Street. There was also the problem of the tutors. Griselda and Karl knew what was going on and had accepted Wolfgang and Leon as proxy cousins. She made a plan. She asked Griselda to tell Toby Youlgreave, in very strict confidence, what had happened. And she asked Karl to tell Joachim Susskind, in even stricter confidence, the same story. They would be part of a circle who knew the truth about Anselm Stern and Dorothy Wellwood, and they would preserve the convention that Dorothy was indeed Dorothy Wellwood, and thus she could go home. She wondered what Toby would think, who had loved her mother so long—she was trying to rethink, revisit, what she surmised of the relations of those two. She rejected the idea that he might always have known that Dorothy was not Humphry’s child. She would have noticed, if he had looked knowing in any way. He did not. He looked baffled.
And how should she prepare her return—to a certain extent, a climb-down—to Todefright? She wrote a letter to her mother. It took her a long time to write.
Dearest Mother Goose,
I was so pleased to have your letter and hear that all is well at home. I miss the children, and Tom, and the countryside, even though it is both beautiful and exciting in the city. I am learning a lot. Germans are very different from us, and you come to understand yourself better by seeing people who are different.
I don’t know why you thought I might not want the fairytale. I always love to see it, and know what happens next. I showed it to Herr Anselm Stern whose theatre we have been visiting. He said Mistress Higgle might be related to Hans mein Igel (originally by the Grimms) and put on his own puppet play about Hans the Igel for all of us to see. We have become great friends with Herr Stern and all his family. Frau Stern is an artist. I don’t know if you have met her. She is a very kind and welcoming woman and invites all of us—including the Tutes—to supper. Herr Stern’s sons, Wolfgang and Leon, are very good friends of all of us, now. They talk to Griselda in German, and take Charles to cabaret theatres and cafés! I know you are sad we shall not be in Todefright for the Midsummer Party, but the Sterns have invited us to celebrate it—it is called the Johannisnacht Fest—here, with them, and we will think of you all. Everyone in Munich—that is, in artistic circles in Schwabing—dresses up in fancy dress on every conceivable occasion, so we shall have to think what to go as. Herr Stern has promised to do a version of Midsummer Night’s Dream with marionettes for the occasion. Everyone here loves to go out and see the Bauerntanz—the people dancing in the streets. Herr Stern says he can make the rustics in the Dream be like the German Bauern. I am learning German but very slowly. Griselda speaks it like a swan swimming in a river. But she too will be happy to come home. We all send love, to you, and to Father, and to everyone in Todefright.
Dorothy.
Dorothy thought this letter was both a masterpiece of the disingenuous, and a very useful lifeline,