Disclaimers, acknowledgements, notes, warnings, etc: Please see Chapter 01.
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The Sound of Music Chronicles
Part I
The Twelfth Governess
Chapter 16
Women, horses, power and war
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"Four things greater than all things are, -
Women and Horses and Power and War."
Rudyard Kipling, "The Ballad of the King's Jest"
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"The sea hates a coward."
Eugene O'Neill
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Baron Georg Ritter von Trapp was enraged – with everything and everyone. His wrath bordered the irrational in moments like these, when it reached such extremes that he would start blaming Austria for losing the war and even his wife for dying, thus ripping his family and his heart apart. He was mad at his own children, for demanding from him what he could not possibly give them, not anymore. Thinking of the children made him think, inevitably, of the tomboy that had the audacity to call herself a governess. Right now, she hated her as well. And that made him angrier because he was allowing such a menial subject to occupy his thoughts when he should be thinking about Vienna and his plans for a new life with Elsa.
There was one thing that he could do that would assuage his anger before it started eating him from the inside. He knew he had to get away from it all. He needed the one activity still in his life that had a minimum amount of painful memories attached to it. After leaving the Fräulein alone with the children, the Captain knew exactly what to do. He ordered the stable boy to saddle his Lipizzan stallion, Pluto Austria – he was going for a long ride in the countryside, preferably at neck breaking speed, until he felt ready to rejoin civilization again without doing or saying anything he might regret later.
The act of riding, in itself, was not especially connected to Agathe, although everything else about it irrevocably was. It was one of the few things that he was used to doing alone in the latter years of his marriage, after he had lost his post in the Navy. Or rather, after Austria lost the need for a navy.
"Damn them all," he thought.
He rode alone, not Agathe, not the children, only his horse and his thoughts. Most importantly, he had his own personal space, just as he had while he was at sea. Being a father of seven could be tiring and overwhelming; even if he loved his children and their mother above anything else.
"Don't they know I love them? Can't they see it?" He wanted to ask this to his children, but asking would mean talking, and listening, and remembering. Things that he couldn't do just yet.
No, he still needed his solitude. That was something his wife had always respected – his need to spend some time by himself, for his usual brooding. However, Agathe hated riding – she much preferred indoor activities, and certainly nothing that required her to remain outside for long periods of time, facing heat or cold made her happy. She loved the mountains, loved Austria and Salzburg, but they were just as lovely from inside their parlor as they were outside on the terrace. He, on the other hand, had grown up around horses, and they were an essential part of his life, next to the sea and music.
When they moved to Aigen, he had announced his intention to breed horses on their property. He needed something to do, something productive, because he was not a believer in the old idea that noblemen should not work at all. Idleness was a foreign concept to him, he abhorred it and had and developed a profound dislike for anyone who defended it.
"Detestable, useless bores," he thought, remembering some of his friends who were utterly unable to do menial things such as tying their own shoes.
Naturally, he would not accept going to the extreme of performing in public playing the piano - that was absolutely out of the question, even for a self-appointed modern aristocrat like himself. He was willing to play for his family and a selected circle of friends during the Festspiele, but the idea of doing it for money had always revolted him, it was much to déclassé for him to stomach. Horse breeding, on the other hand was something that he knew he could do well, and he knew the right people whom he had to hire to help him. It had a certain allure to it that allowed him a little bit of freedom and a new challenge.
Agathe had been upset and not entirely without reason, although her main motives he could not agree with.
"We have our money, from my inheritance and yours. You don't have to do that. You don't need to work. You shouldn't feel useless; after all, what you did in the Adriatic could have saved Austria. But you are one man – one man cannot make or break a country. If all of the men fighting the war had put even a fraction of the effort that you did, we would not have lost the war and you would be an Admiral now. But they didn't, and the Austria that we know and love isn't the same. It's different, and yet, it's still Austria. It's time that you also become a different you. Think about it, you can dedicate yourself to your music again… or your submarines, perhaps. But Georg, breeding horses!"
She had been correct, he had never bred horses before the war, had never even mentioned it. And yet, it had always been a part of him, one that he never spoke of – one that he kept locked away. After losing the Navy, he still needed the opportunity to take risks, to be different, to defy protocol. He needed a way to shun the invisible barriers of aristocratic society without actually denouncing himself or his family.
There was something else that bothered Agathe. Nothing was ever black and white for Georg – if he chose to do something, he had to excel in it. It was like that with the Navy, and, maybe to a lesser extent, with respect to his music. Thus, she feared that her husband would become as obsessed with his horses as he once had been with his submarines, and he would consequently suffer from it. The loss of the Austrian Navy had been a terrible blow, and she knew it also had been painful when, in his youth, he had to choose between the sea and music.
Eventually, they had reached a compromise. He would have his horses in their property, he would enjoy the challenge they represented, but he would not make a business out of it. Her peace offering had been Pluto – who was as moody and mysterious as both his master and his namesake (1).
Their mutual agreement also meant that he would at least try to go back to another one of his lost loves – the sea. It was highly unlikely that he would command another ship again, but few men knew more about U-boats than he did. He knew them from inside out, how they worked, what could be done to make them better, more efficient.
At first it was like removing a tooth without the proper anesthetics. The first time he was invited to a submarine, without being able to shout the exhilarating order "dive!" was so depressing to him that he was silent for days after he returned home. But he persisted, and he was back again, three months later, to check the efficiency of a new propelling system he had designed.
How could he give up, at any rate, when Agathe was there to encourage him? It was her who would keep the children away from his study when he was too busy concentrating on solving a problem, it was her who would bring him coffee in the middle of the night when he had to meet a deadline in the following day. Sometimes she would stay with him for a while, rubbing his stiff neck and shoulders, or she would simply sit in his favorite chair by the fireplace with a book in his hands and keep him company, until he was exhausted enough to retire. Or his favorite – she would simply hug him from behind, whispering in his year that life was simply too short for him to spend drawing underwater boats, and coaxed him to go upstairs to their bedroom, where they would engage in more pleasant activities.
Regardless, with his wife´s help and support, with the help of her family connections and his own prestige, soon he was getting commissions from naval forces around the world, from other countries that still had their sacred coastline and needed a navy to defend it. Sometimes, all they wanted was to improve on a minor technical detail, sometimes they wanted a new design altogether.
Of course all that came to a halt when she died. It was one of the things he couldn´t bear doing anymore. However, he was not forgotten – lately, his expertise had been requested, with some insistence, by a high officer of the French Navy. Highly ironic and oddly flattering, since sinking one of their battleships was what had made him famous in the first place. But gone were the days when France and Austria were enemies, so he saw no problem in helping them. Had this happened before Elsa, he would certainly refuse, as he had refused so many other offers. Now, for the first time, he was considering it with some seriousness. As a matter of fact, he might even accept it.
Those were his thoughts as he found himself in his study after leaving number twelve alone with the children. Yes, riding would be indeed the balm he needed. The mere thought of it was enough to improve his mood greatly. Impatiently, he waited, in full riding gear, for Franz to call him, announce that Pluto was ready.
His eyes fell upon three letters on his desk. One was from the aforementioned high commander of the French naval forces. Another one was from another naval officer, this one a British admiral and a dear friend of his father in law – considering his latest arguments with Agathe´s father, he could well imagine what the man wanted. It would be a letter that he would not be willing to open so soon.
The third one had already been open, and the mere sight of it was enough to make his temper flare again. It was actually a telegram, where the Reverend Mother informed him of his governess´s pending arrival.
"The governess!" He spat, pacing around his study, tearing his gaze away from the offending piece of paper.
The little rag doll did not look like a governess, did not talk like a governess, and, most of all, did not act like one. Every passable governess knew, at least, how to act with her employer. Never before had an employee – or any of his subordinates in the Navy – behaved in such a brash manner towards him. The Black Sheep of Nonnberg was proving to be everything the nuns said she was and much more: outspoken, impulsive and much too brazen for her own good.
He considered the one person he was directing most of his anger to – no, not the so-called governess, but himself. He was angry because somewhere in his musings of the little black sheep he detected that small part of him that he thought dead after years of grieving was actually amused by her cheeky behavior. That part of him that signaled that, if had surprised the little Fräulein during her ridiculous mock dance in the ballroom; he would have laughed, and probably even applauded her, joining the play. If she were one of his girls, or Agathe, he might even have asked her to join him in a waltz. He would also have grinned mischievously when she dared to blow the whistle at him. If she were any other woman – Elsa, for instance - he would have even taken that as a flirtatious gesture.
But she was not Baroness Schrader. She wasn't Liesl, Louisa, Brigitta, Marta or Gretl. Finally – and the thought was nearly sacrilegious to him – she was not his wife, Agathe von Trapp, née Whitehead. She most definitely had not been inviting him to a dance, let alone flirting with him. She was going to be a nun, for heaven's sake!
Who was she? Fräulein what? Maria something. If she had a last name, she had not even had the grace of informing it to him, as it would have been expected of her. Another "faux-pas" to add to the growing list of her inadequacies, so far.
He searched the top of his desk, looking for an answer. It would not be proper to continue calling her Fräulein Maria, nor any of the other names that came to mind when he thought of the young girl. He found what he was looking for - the telegram on top of his desk.
Fräulein Maria Heller… (2)
The name was enough to make him squirm, because it recalled him of his childhood nemesis – Stephen Heller. The man who almost made him give up music. The only reason why he had persisted was to prove Herr Heller, his father, and his piano teacher that he could play the piano properly. Whenever he misbehaved, his usual punishment was two hours of playing Heller´s Études. When his behavior was really, really bad, he had to go through Carl Czerny's Etudes progressives et brillantes, which he still called the most boring combination of notes ever imagined by a human being. Heller was difficult enough, boring monotony being drilled into his fingers as punishment, and he did not discover his love for music until he had passed the stage in which he had to suffer through those endless piano exercises. And even though he later learned that Heller actually wrote some very good piano music, including a few transcriptions of some of his favorite Schubert's Lieder, the composer was never completely redeemed in his eyes.
Now, a Fräulein Heller was the – uh - governess of his children. It was doubtful that she was related to the infamous (at least in his opinion) composer, but he would be very much honored and relieved if she were a Fräulein Schubert, or Haydn. The Heller name still made his skin crawl.
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet," (3) he quoted the Bard in his mind. Considering his childhood experiences, he sincerely doubted it.
Yet, in spite of it all, he was reluctant to do what he knew should have been done – fire her on the spot. If he had not paused right after he met her, leaving her waiting for him, her mouth agape, while he rang the Reverend Mother, she would be on the bus back to Salzburg at this hour. It had been the sainted nun who had convinced him to give that bedraggled misfit a chance until he returned from Vienna. She had been so good that he had actually promised her he would. He had no idea that a nun could be so manipulative!
He kept trying to convince himself that it was indeed the best thing to do, regardless of what the Mother Abbess had said, because he needed to go to Vienna the next morning, and there was no possibility of finding another governess before that. Postponing his journey was also unthinkable. However, the real reason why he had not sent her packing as soon as he saw her in the ballroom was beyond his comprehension, or later, when she had questioned his methods in front of his children. Or when she had given him the final blow, giving him a dose of his own medicine…
"She really had done that, hadn't she? Clever!"He thought, feeling a smile tug at the corner of his lips, which he immediately repressed.
Yes, he was… amused. Not to mention curious.
He wanted to see how that project of a nun would handle his seven pranksters, what kind of infallible tactics she had in store, if any. Most of all, he wanted to see how the seven pranksters would handle her, and what would she do when she fell victim of the first trick. Her behavior so far had been so chaotic, so unpredictable to him, that he simply had no idea of what to expect.
He gazed at the clock over the mantel. The children had been alone with her for twenty minutes.
"They must be slacking," he thought. It usually took the governess about ten minutes to find the welcome gift in the pocket of her coat or dress. The present was usually slimy creature Louisa found by the river, or in the woods. He could have sworn there was not a single living snake in all of the Salzburg area that his daughter hadn't managed to find – how she did it was still a mystery.
Before he could think further, he heard a series of screams coming from downstairs.
"Ah! Ah! Aah! Oh! Ohh…"
He shook his head, smiling cynically. The children were once more, back in action. It was time to see how the black sheep would react.
A/N: (1) Pluto was the Roman god of the underworld, the counterpart of the Greek Hades. It is also the name of one of the main Lipizzan male lines, according to our expert in the subject, maxisback. As it happens with every Lipizzan stallion, he takes the name of the line (Pluto), followed by the name of a female line. I thought the female line Austria was very suitable to a patriot like Captain von Trapp. (2) I realize that in the play Maria´s last name is Rainer, and in real life, her last name was Kutschera. However, it is my humble opinion that none of these names suit the character as I see her. Considering that the differences between the real Maria and her movie counterpart are rather striking, I can safely assume that I am dealing with an entirely fictional character. That being the case, I see no problem in changing her name. Stephen Heller was a famous and very prolific Hungarian composer (1813-1888), famous for his Études for piano. (3) William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet.