The Star of Kazan

‘I have explained to Herr Gerhart that Annika was adopted by you as a baby, and given Ellie’s surname, and that I agreed to act as her guardian,’ said Professor Julius. ‘Also that she is no longer in our care because her real mother – her birth mother – has come forward and that Annika is now living with her. It seems that the old lady she used to visit – Fräulein Egghart – has left Annika something in her will.’

‘It’s nothing at all valuable,’ said Herr Gerhart. ‘Just a trunk with some keepsakes from the theatre – old clothes and suchlike. All the same, we shall want to check the new adoption papers. You see, the child is definitely described as living at this address.’

‘She did live here,’ said Ellie in a choked voice. ‘She lived here all her life till two weeks ago.’

The lawyer gave her a sympathetic glance.

‘It shouldn’t take too long to get everything sorted out, since the professor has kept copies of the documents which Frau von Tannenberg brought. The affidavit signed by Herr Pumpelmann-Schlissinger should be decisive. When we’ve investigated them we will inform her and send the legacy on to her for the child.’

‘Annika will like to have the trunk,’ said Ellie when the lawyer had gone and they were back in the kitchen. ‘She can use the things for dressing up. She’s probably doing some acting with her new friends; you know how fond she was of making up plays.’

‘Yes. Though she doesn’t say anything about it in her letter.’

‘Well, it’s early days yet,’ said Ellie, sighing. And then, ‘Shows how fond the old lady must have been of Annika, leaving the trunk to her and not the family.’

‘Well, that’s nothing to wonder at,’ said Sigrid gruffly, stacking plates beside the sink. ‘Being fond of Annika, I mean.’

C

HAPTER

E

IGHTEEN

A

NNIKA

B

REAKS A

P

ROMISE

Annika had been frightened on the evening they returned from the spa. The dark figures moving about trying to force doors to the house, shouting, had been menacing – but what had really upset her was her mother’s rage and fear. In Vienna she had not seen adults afraid in this way. Professor Gertrude was nervous before concerts, Professor Julius was cross when they did not publish his letters to the newspaper, and no one spoke to Ellie when she was preparing quails’ eggs in aspic. But this was different. Whoever those men had been, they had made her proud and beautiful mother lose control.

Nothing had been damaged or taken when they returned to Spittal. Annika and Hermann had been sent straight to bed, but it was a long time before Annika slept. She would have gone through fire to protect her mother from whatever it was that troubled her . . . but the next day nothing was said. There was the usual rain in the morning, the sound of Uncle Oswald’s gun, the little pieces of stonework falling into the moat . . . and then a long day because Zed was taking the carriage horses to be shod and there was no one at the farm.

But on the following morning she slipped down to see him. He was taking water to the pigs, but when Annika went to help him she found that there were only two pigs left in the sty.

‘What’s happened to Dora?’ she asked.

Dora was a huge and bristly saddleback and Annika had been fond of her.

‘Sold,’ said Zed. ‘We’re down to two pigs, three cows, half a dozen sheep and a handful of chickens. God knows what the Master would have said.’

He was in a bad mood, but Annika couldn’t bear not knowing what was wrong any longer.

‘Zed, who were those men the night before last? Why did we have to turn round and go back? What does it all mean?’

He shrugged. ‘Why don’t you ask your mother?’

‘I can’t,’ said Annika in a low voice. ‘I don’t want to upset her.’

‘It’s not my business to tell you what’s wrong with your home.’

Annika turned away so that he wouldn’t see her face. But Zed had sensed her misery.

‘What’s wrong with Spittal isn’t your mother’s fault,’ he said. ‘Come on, we’ll take Hector to the lake; he’s in a good mood this morning.’

That afternoon the lawyer whose wife had had fits came to Spittal and Annika signed an important-looking document, which took up several pages and was not at all easy to understand.

And a few days later, Annika was called into her mother’s boudoir to hear the explanation she had been hoping for.

‘I know you must have been puzzled, my poor child, by those dreadful men the other night, and I can tell you now that they were bailiffs.’

‘Bailiffs? Those men who take the furniture away when people can’t pay their bills?’

‘That’s right. You can imagine how I felt – someone from a family like mine classed with common poor people who can’t pay their bills.’

Annika was silent, remembering the Bodeks, to whom the bailiffs had always been a dread – yet somehow they had always managed to pay their debts in time. Frau Bodek had taken in extra washing, the boys had run errands round the clock . . .

‘You see, I have not told you anything about my husband; I didn’t want to upset you, but the truth is, he was no good.’

‘A louse, like my father?’