Disclaimers, acknowledgements, notes, warnings, etc: Please see Chapter 01.
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The Sound of Music Chronicles
Part I
The Twelfth Governess
Chapter 36
Musings of a surprised old sponge
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"Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced and the inconvenience is often considerable."
Jane Austen
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"The only thing that should surprise us is that there are still some things that can surprise us."
François de la Rochefoucauld
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As much as Herr Max Detweiler enjoyed Elsa and Georg´s company, he had been mentally preparing himself to be bored to tears after only a couple of days in Aigen. He had not been lying during their conversation in the car - the company was perfect, the wine cellar unexcelled, and, although he had not said it then, the seven children wearing identical sailor suits absolutely adorable. Well, a little too adorable at times, it was true, but he could very well live with that as long as he was only an observer and not the target of one of their infernal pranks.
Nevertheless, in spite of the quaint charms of the country life, Herr Detweiler considered himself to be a cosmopolitan man in the truest sense of the word. As such, he enjoyed the busy life of Vienna, rather than the quiet airs of Salzburgerland. He already longed for the smoke filled elegant cafés where he would be discussing the fate of the new talents he discovered with other equally cunning impresarios.
All that was forgotten the moment when he saw her for the first time.
Correction – the moment he saw them together. Georg von Trapp and the governess of his seven children. The twelfth one – number twelve.
Max was one very curious charming sponge, and considering the sight that greeted him when he stepped in the balcony, he could not resist watching the developing between two people shooting sparks at each other, refusing to admit defeat. Not even the birds dared to sing, as if they too were fascinated by their battle of wits. The atmosphere was thick with tension. Sexual tension although no one else would ever dream of acknowledging that.
O-ho, it was simply delicious. There could be some element of fun in the country after all!
While briefly serving in the glorious Austro-Hungarian Royal and Imperial Navy, his favorite pastime used to be watching those who dared to confront the formidable Captain Georg Ritter von Trapp. Although a fair and intelligent leader, Georg had always been a peculiar commander, and that had probably been one of the reasons why he had been awarded the highest medal of honor available at the time. Under normal circumstances, he used to treat his subordinates as gentlemen, even though, by any standards, the men who chose to volunteer to serve in those U-boats were in their majority, anything but that. He used to assert his authority not by force, but by sheer intelligence and reason, by the tone of his voice rather than its volume. For that, he was well liked and admired by most of the men he commanded, and there had never been the slightest hint of a mutiny while he was in active duty. It helped that they all knew about what they all called his dark side, which he showed occasionally to those who considered themselves clever enough to defy him. Only then, the fearsome Captain came into being. In these occasions, Max had seen all kinds of reactions to his friend´s blatant display of authority, none of which compared to what he was just witnessing.
Oh, she had to be number twelve, the governess who was causing the Captain to act like a hormone driven young sailor, something that was quite obvious to everyone except himself. Well, maybe not to Elsa, but she was blinded by her own little obsession, not exactly with the man, Georg von Trapp, but with the idea of marrying him and with that, everything he represented – his status as one of Austria´s greatest heroes, and ultimately - although she had no need of it -, his fortune. She had known something was happening, but she was still in denial about what exactly was affecting him so much.
Max squinted, his myopic eyes trying to see more of the young Fräulein from a distance. She was certainly not what he had expected. No, she was most definitely not the bosomy, bovine young woman he had pictured in his mind, with tightly braided hair looking at least a decade older than she actually was. As a postulant of Nonnberg Abbey, he imagined that she would be holding a rosary at all times and who would talk of nothing without trying to impose her strict religious beliefs. The Fräulein he was seeing at a distance could probably curse like a sailor, and she would if Georg provoked her enough.
He had to immediately correct this mental image, starting with her appearance.
What a delightful, refreshingly innocent surprise she was!
"She looks nothing like a nun!" he exclaimed aloud from the balcony.
He first saw the governess standing up precariously in a very small boat with the Captain´s precious seven children. There wasn´t the slightest hint of the picture he had been expecting. Instead, the young woman looked more like a pixie, trim and light. Instead of a black habit he was expecting, what he saw was a short-haired haired girl, wearing a light colored, typical Austrian, country dress. When the children called her attention for the Captain´s presence, she opened her arms wide, as if she expected him to jump on them. Max had the absurd idea that, if she were on dry land, it would be precisely what she would do – she would jump in his arms, impulsively without a second thought.
"Oh Captain! You´re home!" she had cried out, in a clear, high-pitched voice, in pure, unadulterated joy.
His very first thought had been "This one can sing!", however, something that his experience as an impresario taught him to tell, judging only by the sound of her voice. His second thought had been that he was only sorry he could not see Georg´s face when the boat capsized, and his seven little darlings, together with their curious little governess, fell on the water. His third thought, before things got more interesting, if possible, was:
"Prepare for battle, Captain!"
Elsa, standing just behind Georg, apparently had been watching the events with cool detachment - well, as far as he could tell - quickly left the scene, as elegantly as she could possibly manage. If she too had been caught unawares by the postulant, she did not let it show. Max could not help but chuckling in amusement, as the Baroness walked past the soaked to the skin governess like a soft breeze, like if the poor girl did not exist at all.
When Elsa saw him spying from the balcony, she merely rolled her eyes and walked past him, into the house. He felt tempted to ask her to stay, for the best was yet to come. For some reason he did not, a decision that he would not regret later.
Georg remained alone with the young woman, unaware that Max Detweiler was witnessing the scene. A young woman, a future nun – an important and meaningful detail that Max would not allow himself to forget. The governess had been described by Georg with such words as irritatingly wholesome and naïve and annoyingly innocent – something like that. Sarcastically, his friend also had said that the children´s Fräulein was truly a "gift from heaven". Now Max could not help but wonder if sarcasm was all there was about that statement.
"Why didn´t he send her inside to change too, as he had done with the children?" Max asked himself. It wasn´t like the Captain he knew at all. The least that the Georg he knew would do would be to remove his jacket and place it around the shivering girl´s shoulders.
"You old dog!" he said out loud, playfully punching the railing, when he realized the underlying reason – although he doubted Georg himself was fully aware of it.
The little Fräulein had quite a figure, one that was fully revealed by her clinging wet dress. She was nothing like the elegantly built Elsa von Schraeder, who appeared not to have a single gram of extra fat anywhere in her figure. No, the governess appeared to be soft and rounded in all the right places. More than enough to impress a connoisseur of the female form as Captain von Trapp.
The girl was also deceptively small. Max remembered that Agathe´s head barely skimmed Georg´s shoulder, but this one was tall enough to meet him eye to eye without having an uncomfortable cringe in her neck. And that was exactly what she was doing now, as she confronted him, raising her voice whenever he raised his, matching his deadly scowls with some of her own. It was a formidable scene, something to watch!
What amused Max the most was the fact that, between the two of them, the governess seemed to be more in control of herself, and consequently less blinded by anger. Only those who knew Georg well could tell how rarely he raised his voice above the necessarily, polite level. He seldom had to shout his orders, it was the merely a cautionary glance or the tone of his voice that conveyed the command in his words. When arguing with a fellow officer or lecturing a subordinate, he usually resorted to clever irony to intimidate his opponent, not the power of his lungs. Yet, he was doing that now, and that slip of a girl was holding her ground, while he was barely aware of what was going on around them. As furious as he was with the whole incident, Georg had not noticed that he was about to lose his precious rowboat – a gift from Agathe when they moved to Aigen -, which was drifting away. The governess actually went for it, leaving the Captain only to stare at her, speechless.
Oh, he would very much loved to watch the following developments, but he heard Elsa´s voice calling him from inside the house. For some unknown reason, Max did not wish Elsa to witness what was going on anymore, not yet. He needed to think, there were things he needed to understand.
"Darling, I think we are wanted in the drawing room."
"Are we? It is always good to know we are wanted, isn´t it my dear?"
"Max, you devil!"
"Who wants us?" he asked, quickly walking away, from the balcony. Somehow, he did not want Elsa to be disturbed by the scene developing by the lake. "Georg is still outside with the…"
"Fraulein!"
"… the Fräulein. Yes, I think you heard him," said Max.
He had cringed when they heard the Captain´s unmistakable bellow coming from outside. Elsa, however, kept her cool hauteur, and decided to ignore the commotion, even though the sound of Georg´s voice raised in anger was something she probably never heard before. In fact, it was probably something no one had ever heard before, unless he or she happened to watch him in action at sea. The only sign she had been affected by it was a slight raise of her perfectly shaped eyebrows.
"It appears Georg has his hands full dealing with… her at the moment. No, it is not him who calls us. Oddly enough we are being called by the children."
Max raised his eyebrows.
"The children? What could they want for us?"
"I assume the little dears want to apologize to me."
"Why? What they have done to you? Don´t tell me that you became the latest victim of one of their nasty tricks!"
Elsa was about to answer when an angry female voice was heard this time, and it was obvious to Max to whom it belonged to.
"Oh, you arrogant, conceited, pompous…!"
"Dear Lord!" Elsa shrieked, rolling her eyes, taking Max´s arm and leading him towards the stairs. "Come, let us go inside. Whatever those children have in store for us, it can´t be worse than this. Appalling, isn´t it? First that disgraceful scene on the lake and now all this yelling… Something tells me we will not be seeing that governess again, I don´t think Georg ever allowed such awful lack of class in his house."
"I would not be so quick in drawing any conclusions, my dear." Max chuckled. "That little governess may have a reason for calling him all those names… And you know him, he might listen to what they are."
"Max, really!"
"Elsa, Georg can be a puffed up snob when he wants to. I know that, you know that. That girl, whoever she is, must have a temper to match his, and if she yelled that, I have a little doubt that he deserved at least part of it. Trust me, it will do him good to have a good dose of his own remedy. Remember how Agathe used to scold him often when he was acting too much like the Baron and too little like the seaman, as she liked to say?"
"Yes, but Agathe was his wife, and not the help. Does that… little plebeian even know, does she even have the slightest idea of who he is?"
"Apparently not," said Max, still amused, as the sounds of the fight still reached them. "Refreshing, isn´t it? I wonder who the Captain deals with someone who doesn´t know what the von Trapp name stands for…"
"I am not finished yet, Captain!"
"Oh, yes, you are, Captain!"
"Of course she has never heard of him, what was I thinking… Did he just call her Captain?"
"I think he has!" Max wanted to double over in laughter, but he held himself back.
Leaving the terrace, Elsa began an endless monologue, as they walked towards the drawing room.
"Oh well! Let us forget about Georg and his troubles with the help. He will certainly deal with a horde of governesses just fine. Now, it also looks like the von Trapp children have a little surprise prepared for us, although considering the little I saw of them I shudder to think about what the surprise could be. I don´t think I can take anymore of those today."
Max smiled.
"I suspect that seven children and one screaming governess calling Georg a conceited oaf must have been too much for you, am I right darling?
"Indeed! Climbing trees! And those ridiculous costumes that the poor little ones were wearing. Poor, darling Georg! That silly deranged little… twit! I don´t care what you said, I supposed he must have fired her by now, it was the most sensitive thing to do. He does need my help around here, don´t you think? Especially with the eldest – she is quite a beauty. How old is she?"
"Elizabeth? Sixteen or seventeen, I believe."
"Well, she is just the right age to attend the next Opera Ball – with my help, she will be the most gorgeous débutante of the season. I told Georg I would take her to the Crillon Ball in Paris, but he wouldn´t hear of it. Naturally, I will try to change his mind. With those eyes and that face she will take Paris by storm."
"Unfortunately, she is also old enough to get into trouble if not properly guided," Max remarked.
"Terrible, isn ´t it? God knows that poor girl will never find a suitable husband, worthy of her name and upbringing, buried in the country and prancing around dressed like that! Who knows what kind of company she and the other children have been keeping!"
"Since when are you an expert in childcare, my dearest Elsa?" he provoked.
"I don´t have to be, and I don´t ever intend to be. Elizabeth is not a child and I have that sweet little thing called money, darling, remember? I can pay for that kind of help I need. That, and I also have a cunning mind of my own. In fact, I have a few ideas I would love to discuss with you later. What do you think of that ballroom, by the way?"
Elsa continued chatting until they reached the drawing room, where more surprises waited for them.