Chapter 25: Out Of Patience

Aigen, the final Sunday morning in May

Louisa woke earlier than usual, swiping at the crusts in the corner of each eye before thumbing through the book she had hidden from Frau Wimmer the evening before. She hadn't slept well the entire night, more tossing and turning rather than dreaming like she usually did. But everything was a little easier on Sundays, the day their governess kept more to herself, usually reading a book of her own or writing one of those letters she always added to Monday's outgoing post. She'll probably never come round to really see it anyway, like Frau Schmidt, she thought.

Frau Wimmer's rounds through their bedroom and certainly their brothers' as well had seen it thrust the short novel beneath her pillow like she had with her dresses in those first days and weeks. (It irritated their governess less than before.) The boys' ventures into their room were fewer than when she had first arrived, though sometimes when their ideas at last ran dry, they held a fresh council late at night. Anymore, they all knew their own tasks, mostly delegated at the start. Liesl more often than not distracted her, usually Brigitta as well. If they ever reverted to anything so simple as adding something to her coffee or wine, it was Kurt who added the dash of salt or vinegar as Brigitta clamored for her attention. (They had discovered very early that sugar in either only made her smile.)

Louisa turned to the next page, the words bleeding together. Some sort of party, a woman unhappy with a man who thought himself better than her, another man demanding her attention. Liesl had passed it along to her a month or so ago, just saying that it was one of their mother's, she had already read it— She bit down on her lip as she drew her legs closer, her knees pushing the book almost up against her chest; she pulled it away immediately before the yellowed pages crinkled. Especially in the mornings when she wasn't quite awake, it was still a little too raw.

"Louisa?" She whipped her face away from the book to the far wall where the window stood wide open, the chilly morning breeze wafting the curtains this way and that. Just a few feet away from the fresh air, Brigitta was turning in her own bed, stretching one arm far above her head before pushing herself up with a creak of her bed frame and the rustling of her sheets. "Why are you awake?"

Louisa frowned and turned her attention back to her mother's book and the party filled with men and women who spoke awkwardly and never quite at one another. "I couldn't stay asleep."

Brigitta yawned as she twisted around, feet now hanging over the edge of her bed. "Why not?"

"If I knew that, I would have!"

"Don't be mad at me!" Brigitta snapped, her feet already padding across the carpet, toes scuffing in the cotton weave as she wandered around the end of Liesl's bed.

"I'm not—"

"You are—"

"Am not!" Louisa finished as Brigitta climbed into bed beside her. She already had her cold feet under the quilt, pressed up against one of Louisa's calves that was bare where her nightgown was pushed up around her knees. "And your feet are freezing, don't do—"

"Why are you going on like that already?" They both looked to the middle of the room, now even Liesl shoving herself up, a few fingers scrubbing at an eye. "You're being silly."

Louisa snapped her book closed; there was no point in trying anymore with both of her sisters insisting on talking so early when she just needed a few minutes to herself. A few more minutes to read before the rest of the house really woke. The German words were a little stilted, a little off, though what was there expect when something had come from English? I just wish I could have gotten through the party, it sounds as though it might be as interesting as the ones Mother and Father gave occasionally...She swallowed as she clenched her eyes tightly. Don't, she reminded herself. Don't think about it. "We're not—"

"Well, it's probably not even gone eight in the morning—I don't know you could even be awake, it's the only day she doesn't really bother us, so be—" Liesl paused, her face suddenly turning toward the door. Her own feet were on the floor as she hurried toward their bedroom door, hardly even looking toward Louisa and Brigitta as she pulled her nightgown down around her knees from where it had been bunched up in her bed. "Be quiet."

Louisa sighed and opened her eyes, her book at last landing with a thud on her bedside table. "No one's even paying attention—"

"No, listen!" Liesl twisted the doorknob, opening the heavy door just a few inches, enough for the lamps in the hallway to force their way in, the sudden light making Louisa squint as her eyes burned for a moment. "That's not right, is it?"

"You're imagining things," Louisa grumbled as she tightened her sheet and summer quilt around her waist. "You always try to stay—stay out a little while the rest…" Her words faded, a jumble of muffled voices floating up the stairs and through the crack in the door. Maybe it wouldn't mean anything if it weren't before breakfast on a Sunday morning.

"—just another—" It vanished, then began again, though even from what must be so far away, it must be someone else—and very loud. But she couldn't tell who! "Absolutely not, I'm not—" It was suddenly all too muddled again.

Together, the girls crept through the door. Their feet scuffed along the carpet and nightgowns swished around their legs as the reached the end of the hallway that housed their little cluster of the rooms, the boys' a little farther back and the nursery for Marta and Gretl farther still. Brigitta was the first to catch her hands on the banister along the gallery, the voices still stifled and no one in the foyer to be seen. "What is that?" she whispered.

"How should we know?" Louisa asked. "There was something—"

"But that doesn't sound the same as..." Liesl took a deep breath, biting the rest of her sentence back. Perhaps it hadn't been right, really. Or maybe the maids and even Frau Schmidt and Franz simply expected them to know when to hold their tongues, both her and Friedrich. But sometimes in the schoolroom as the two of them sat with their thicker books and more complicated maths papers than Louisa, Kurt, and Brigitta, they talked quietly between themselves, usually of the little things they had heard the household staff say when they thought no one else was listening. (Or perhaps they forgot that children might be expected to be seen and not heard, but still heard everything.) The little sniggers between the maids at how Frau Wimmer couldn't quite manage them, how she quietly worried each evening about what to each day, how this work would be harder than everything she had already struggled to accomplish. Now, though, she recognized the housekeeper and butler's worn voices, even though the words were still incomprehensible. "Well, it's not, is it?"

"What?" Brigitta asked as she took another few steps along the hall, pausing only to push herself up onto her toes, her chin caught on the railing as she peered down into the foyer. The sounds were coming from the back of the front hall, closer to the kitchen.

"Nothing," Liesl said.

"But why would it be—"

"Why are you trying to make it be right?" Louisa hissed, though she caught up with Brigitta just at the railing. She didn't need to shove herself up to twist around to see to the back of the hall. I never know what happens back there, she thought, though now she was actually off her feet as she struggled to see, toes caught under the ornate railing. Mother and Father never wanted us back there...She sank back down, though the noise was already growing louder. It was a fresh voice, low and a little ragged, but rising as a stream of incomprehensible words continued to drift up into the air. Is it her? she wondered, now craning her head to the back of the hall. Who else could it be?

Liesl shook her head as she rushed to the banister next to Brigitta and pull her back down, her hand caught in Louisa's nightgown to drag her back as well, though she mainly pulled her feet back onto the floor. "It's just so early. I didn't think—"

"Just because you like to stay in bed—" She grunted as Brigitta trod on her toes for a moment, already rushing away along the gallery to where it met the stairwell. "Brigitta!"

"It's her!" the younger girl said with a quick glance back, braid whipping around her shoulder.

"Her?"

"Frau Wimmer!"

"Why are you worrying about her—"

"No one else ever argues with Frau Schmidt, Louisa, you hear her—"

"You mean you've just never heard someone arguing with—"

"Oh, come on, Louisa!" Liesl grumbled with a quick reach for her hand, nearly stumbling as the pair of them scrambled to follow her. Perhaps it really had been wrong, all those little tricks they coordinated together."You're always the one who's trying to bother her the most!"

Louisa yanked her hand free though she continued down the gallery hallway, scurrying to catch Brigitta as the voices grew louder. "I'm not the only one, even if you just want to distract her for us—"

"So don't you want to know what's going on? Friedrich and I can't be the—"

"What do you know?"

"Nothing you shouldn't if you think you know it all!"

Louisa sighed as she skirted around her younger sister, still tumbling down the first portion of the stairs, listening more than ever for the first words she might understand—and somehow wishing she was still back in her bed with her book. I don't like her, she thought as the three of them reached the curve in the stairwell, it's just been so hard since she's been there. I don't even if I want to know where she's going—I just don't want to know her.

As they occasionally talked into the night, at least between themselves, Louisa and Liesl had long ago agreed that their governess must mean well. She never yelled at them—not even Franz or Frau Schmidt had been quite that nice, at least once or twice—not even after the worst of their tricks. Or maybe until just now, the way incoherent voices were drifting up the stairs. At least it isn't us she's shouting at, I know she doesn't have much patience with Frau Schmidt—

"What are you doing here?"

It was a deeper voice than she expected, and a quick glance over her shoulder found Friedrich and Kurt hurrying along the gallery railing, just feeling a whoosh of air as Brigitta rushed around her. Standing at the end of where little sanctuary in the house met the gallery, Friedrich's nighttime trousers were even higher up along his ankles than the last time they had all huddled together late in the night, discussing this and plotting that. Beside him, still hiding a yawn behind an elbow across his face, Kurt's fair hair was mussed over the top of his head as it often was even at breakfast until Frau Wimmer reminded him to smarten his appearance.

Liesl let out a hiss as she turned back as well. "The same thing you are. You know that."

"It wouldn't have been too long, would it?"

"What are you talking—" Brigitta started before Kurt began the same question, leaving the two of them suddenly giggling as he joined her at the top of the stairs to peer over the banister to peer over the railing as well. "What are you talking about?" the little girl finally managed even though she turned back to the hall below immediately.

Friedrich sighed, his own hands caught on the banister. "Why are you asking? You saw how upset she was last night at dinner."

"You would have put all the salt in her noodles if you were closer to her at the table!" Kurt snapped.

"You just want to be closest to the kitchen for when they bring out the dessert—"

"Shh!" Liesl hissed again, finally noticing the little cluster of adults that currently ruled their lives down below between, still on the patterned tile between the fancy furniture lining the walls. The butler, the housekeeper, and their governess must have been tucked under the far end of the gallery just where the portion of the house they knew ended and the mysterious labyrinth of the staff's halls began. ("No! Don't even ask me again!" "Ida, really, it won't be that—" "And I already told you no!")

It was the shoes snapping on the coppery tiles that left her wincing. Their governess with a shawl over her shoulders—greying hair not even tied up—a bag in either hand as she stomped her way from that entrance to the staff's realm, footsteps finally muffled when she reached ornate carpet just in front of the small set of steps in front of the front door. And then Franz and Frau Schmidt hurrying after her: the housekeeper almost running, some sort of bonnet over her head and Franz following slowly, almost lazily.

Louisa slipped down the first steps around her brother and sister, crouching down even as she knew the thin twisting bars along the railing would do nothing to hide her. "What's happening?" she whispered, Frau Wimmer finally at the base of that little staircase. Franz doesn't like us, either, she thought, sitting up straight to peek through one of the swirls in the railing.

Friedrich at last reached the stairs themselves, settling himself beside her though he almost slid into her instead. "Don't you have any idea?"

Louisa wrapped her hand around one of those twists in the iron and pulled herself a step lower, away from her him, more of the hall becoming visible. "They were unhappy with each other last night!"

"She's usually cross—"

"Quiet!" Liesl whispered as she joined them, Brigitta and Kurt still creeping to the first of the stairs though they had reached the top first. "You know they'll hear us eventually."

Their governess's words were even louder, but none of them could pick out a single word. "Not over her!" Friedrich grumbled. "I can't—"

"How would you know if we could or not?"

"She shouts at me and Kurt often enough, even if not—"

"Quiet!" Liesl snapped again.

Louisa frowned as she glanced back for a second, then returned to the argument unfolding below. "You'll sound like Frau Schmidt if you carry on like—"

"Don't you want to hear if we can?"

"Well, yes, but what do you think we'll hear? We know she doesn't like us!"

"Well, now!"

Friedrich scowled as he rolled his eyes, Louisa moving yet another step down the staircase. "You like her less than the—" He stopped, now almost peering over the banister as he shoved himself onto his knees, the hem of his trousers now halfway up his calves as they crumpled around his legs. "Less than most of us," he finished as he sank back down onto his backside and tugged his legs back against his chest, now just as curious as Louisa as what must be an argument continued erupting below.

A new cluster of words were becoming clearer, the voices were so loud and...more than angry. Things like "children", "awful", "please", "impossible", and "wretched", all three of the adults finally shouting.

Louisa pushed herself away from the railing, back into Friedrich, though she pulled herself away as soon as she felt his knees against her back. "She really does sound angry, doesn't she?"

"And how—" Friedrich sank back down with a wince, his hand right on already trying to soothe away a fresh ache just below his knee. More and more, his legs hurt in the mornings, sometimes so intense that he curled them into his chest, his hands struggling to work the pain out, his arms, too! Some days, he had even struggled with the aches as they walked to school, grumbling to himself as he tried to shake it all away when he thought no one else was looking. Liesl and Brigitta were always talking with their heads in the clouds, Louisa was always too busy complaining about how cold it was—at least this spring—and Kurt was always looking for a little rock or fossil or even a frog along the way. He hissed as another ache shot up his leg. "And—and is that different than any other day?"

"How do you and Kurt make her so mad?" Louisa hissed, already craning her head to see through the metal swirls. Frau Wimmer was almost ready to run up that short set of stairs to the front door—at least until Frau Schmidt seized her arm, both of the governess's bags falling to the floor as she spun back.

"Quiet!" Liesl snapped again, now pressing her own face into the ornate railing. Was it really that bad?

"And you don't?" Friedrich hissed back, the pain burning again for a second; he smacked his wrist into the railing, the gentle sound of shivering metal rising to the whitewashed ceiling. He twisted one of his ankles around, almost hitting Louisa. "Louisa, you're too close—"

"Don't you want to know?" she whispered. "You and Liesl don't like her more than anyone—"

"And you're the one who climbed the trellis into her bedroom yesterday afternoon."

"Only because you couldn't do it yourself!"

O O O

It was only yesterday. They had all finally talked, decided what would frustrate her the most after all their tricks over the last months—how to move throughout the house despite the maids and all the other members of staff who always seemed determined to send them off back to their rooms or the schoolroom. Or to maybe dispense with the house at all, she and Friedrich finally decided.

It was Kurt and Brigitta who troubled her on their Saturday walks around the grounds, though today it was Kurt complaining over trodding over a tree root and turning his ankle the wrong way. And after they slipped away, it was Friedrich who found the little snake and the first who struggled up first few feet of the trellis before he lost his footing on the mossy wood and crashed into the grass on his backside. Louisa finally took the green snake, coiling most of its slender body around a few fingers as she pulled herself up little by little, though the thing nearly escaped once or twice. With the warmer days and nights, Frau Wimmer had taken to leaving her window open, the panes gleaming as they hung over ivy clinging to the house's stuccoed wall. She had to toss the snake through before scrambling through herself and capturing him again. Louisa needed a moment to decide just where to hide it. In her bed would be no good; he had been hard enough for Friedrich to capture, who could say where he would slither. And they had already done enough with all the frumpy dresses and scuffed shoes in her wardrobe. In the end, she tucked him into the table beside her bed, wincing at the collection of photographs atop: little boys and a bearded man in mismatched frames her father would never have allowed—then scowled. We only have her because of you, Father.

Returning to the window and the trellis, Louisa tried not to listen to Friedrich laugh as her dress caught on the sill and a sudden gust of wind left goose pimples on the back of her thighs. But at least it was a quick journey down the scratchy wood, far easier without a squirming snake in one hand. And with a moment to right her dress, she and Friedrich scrambled back to their brother and sisters—Kurt suddenly claiming his ankle to be perfectly fine—and despite Frau Wimmer's typical day to herself, they continued along the Sunday afternoon they had begged her to lead.

O O O

Pulling herself back from the banister and twists and turns in the railing below, Liesl reached for Brigitta's hand, fingers tightening around hers as she pulled her in. "Don't you want to know what Frau Schmidt and Franz are going to say?"

Friedrich turned back to her again. "Why? We already know how she feels."

Louisa sat up straighter, her eyes suddenly wide. "They might know something about Father! They must know something, more than just that he's in Salzburg or Vienna or Innsbruck?"

"Salzburg?" Kurt asked, finally crouching down himself. "Why would Father be there?"

"I don't know." Louisa shrugged her shoulders. "But he's been there before with Mother, you remember—"

"NO! Absolutely not!"

Brigitta shuddered, pushing herself into Liesl's arms as hard as she could, almost shaking. "Why is she shouting like that?" she whispered.

Liesl shook her head. "I don't know, but maybe—maybe we were too harsh? Maybe it was too much."

"Won't you please reconsider?" Frau Schmidt asked, hands tightly caught in her dark apron. Frau Wimmer was shaking before her and Franz, finally forced to turn around from the door. The shawl over her shoulders wasn't even knotted properly and her hair half loose. She must have dressed quickly.

"Whatever for?" Frau Wimmer snapped as she stepped into one of her bags, nearly falling down. "So they can torment me again?"

"But how don't you understand, they're children—"

"And where is their father, if their mother is dead?" She righted herself, though the sole of her boot caught on the carpet before the heel, both desperately needing a cobbler. "The Captain doesn't want to see his children, I can tell that, now!"

"Ida," Frau Schmidt murmured, "please don't say that."

Franz cleared his throat. It really was too early to be struggling with these little tiffs. The entire household needed to be set in order, even if a little later this morning, just as the Captain had allowed it to be in the past years. Softening, he thought as his eyes caught the little movements. Even on the boat, he was different after she turned his head away from the war and ensuring—

"Say what?"

God, women and their nerves. Franz cleared his throat again. "He has a number of business ventures to look after in town—"

"Well, we aren't there—"

"And investments in Vienna that require oversight as—"

"And not the monstrous pack of children he helped bring into this world?" Frau Wimmer snapped, now trying to snatch up her bags—just for the butler to hold his hand out, not even needing a word to stop her.

The housekeeper shook her head, approaching her as well. "Not a word about the children—"

"The Captain really does care for—"

"So where is he?" Frau Wimmer asked as her spectacles slid down her nose, nearly off her face and onto the floor. She ripped them away and shoved them into her jacket pocket. But so long as she could find her way to the bus stop a little way down the dusty lane that ran in front of this horrible house, she would gladly spend the schillings she had earned on another for when she had a proper household post. "And why can't he keep his own children in line if he could keep a ship of sailors—"

"He captained a submarine, I was there with him," Franz interrupted with a shake of the head as he took a step toward the middle-aged woman. Perhaps it was how briefly the navy's submarine service had existed, or the disbelief over how young the Captain had been to wear the medals he had received for his maneuvers in the Adriatic. Either way, his master was happy to remind anyone who dared forget, though sometimes, Franz bristled. When something so much brighter flickered to the north—Greater Germany—to still be serving a man who was so Austrian...Sometimes, it was only the pamphlets and newsletters he surreptitiously purchased in small Salzburg storefronts and hid at the back of his wardrobe that kept him sane. After all, he remained a pair of eyes for the growing—

"Does it really matter?" she shouted, finally bending down to seize either bag. "Seven children running wild like they've never seen the inside of a proper house?"

With a few steps of her own, Frau Schmidt reached out for Frau Wimmer's wrist again, just hoping to persuade her to stay. "You must make allowances—"

"A snake in my drawer yesterday evening—salt in my coffee or vinegar in my wine every time I didn't keep my eye on the lot of them—glue on the soles of the shoes in my wardrobe and on my comb? I can't do it any longer, no matter how much the Captain doesn't want to see his children!" she shouted again.

"It isn't that," Franz finally said. "You really must understand, the Captain was heartbroken after—"

The governess finally broke from Frau Schmidt again. "Does he think he's the only man to ever lose his wife? He's run away right when his children needed him the most."

"Please, Ida, you still don't under—"

"You needn't tell again me I don't understand." She glared for a moment, reminding herself to right her shawl and hair once she was past the front gate. Perhaps I do owe them one final glance. At least now I'll always know I shouldn't trust even the fanciest of homes. And now, her eyes went up, just to the stairwell that led to the family's wing: the master suite that still seemed unoccupied but for an evening here or there, the elder children's pair of bedrooms, and finally the nursery that had always remained the domain of Frau Bauer. It was no surprise, just now, the cluster of children huddled behind the twisting railing. Do you really think I don't see you all, a little pack of wild ruffians in a aristocrat's home? Finally seeing what you've done?

"But—"

"Is he going to come back to watch his sons grow up? I watched my husband die—it sounds like he watched his wife do the same!" Frau Wimmer shouted. And for perhaps the first time since she had set foot into the von Trapp household, the housekeeper took a step back, her eyes wide and her hands knotted in her apron once more. "And just as painfully as what I've heard from everyone else. And I didn't have the…" Her gaze bounced around the hall, from the molding along the corners and the intricate banisters to the gleaming chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Everything creamy and pale and lovely, and nothing right despite the façade. "The luxury of a large house and a fortune afterwards."

"Ida—"

"How long did you expect I would last around those monsters, Mina*?"

"Ida, please—"

"And what of his daughters?"

"Ida—"

"Is there anything you need to persuade you to stay?" Franz asked. I just can't have Frau Schmidt be a nanny again. "Not very long, just a day or so."

"Until the Captain actually comes to look after his children?"

"No. But least until their grandmother arrives from Vienna."

Frau Wimmer squinted, one of her bags almost on the floor again. "Their grandmother."

Frau Schmidt nodded, the sudden anxiety building in her chest ebbing a little, her heart slowing. "Yes. The Captain wrote her when we first told him you were having troubles—"

"And so if he knows, why isn't he here?" the governess snapped as she backed into the door. "Why did he leave me to his wolves instead?"

Franz needed another deep breath. This woman was too much to bother with, nowhere near enough to handle even half the children. Really, she should be ashamed, would have been turned out of the house if it had been left to him rather than the housekeeper. "He has endured a lot in—"

"And I haven't?"

"Ida—"

"So what does he think he's doing to them? He should have sent them to their grandmother months ago instead of abandoning them to you! At least then someone might have taken the time to love them!" It was a flurry of scuffed boots and a slightly worn skirt as one bag was thrown onto the ground before she wrenched the door open—grabbed again as she hurried through the door before it hardly had a chance to open. And then with a slam, the first governess the von Trapp household had ever hired was gone.

Still huddled behind the railing with all her elder siblings, Brigitta sniffed as she curled herself deeper into Liesl's arm. She pushed her face into Liesl's shoulder, her oldest sister's nightgown already damp no matter how she clenched her eyes. The Captain doesn't want to see his children. "Liesl?"

A little further along the stairwell, Kurt glanced back, looking to her as well. "She doesn't mean that—"

"Liesl?" Brigitta asked again. "She can't mean that! I don't believe it."

She took a deep breath as she embraced Brigitta as tightly as she could. I don't know what to tell you, you're too young to listen to what they say when they don't think we're listening. "I know—"

"—no matter how much the Captain doesn't want to see his children."

Nest to Liesl, Louisa winced, a hard blink the only thing to hold back a few tears before she smeared them into her sleeve. "Why is she saying that?" she whispered, at last doing as her younger sister had, pushing herself into Liesl's free arm. "And how she just said that he doesn't want to see us—I can't believe it either."

Not even Kurt was able to resist hurrying to Liesl, though he mostly plopped himself next to her, nearly between her and Brigitta. Friedrich stayed where he was, still just peering down through the railing, listening to the anger still unfolding below. ("Is he going to come back to watch his sons grow up?")

He and Kurt still occasionally managed to make their way out onto the grounds despite Frau Wimmer's determination to keep them in either the schoolroom or their bedrooms as much as possible. And it was still some member of the staff who always caught them, whether trying to wander through the edge of some of the more wild wooded lands just behind the house or miserable beside the lake again. Kurt just never seemed to listen, never quite hearing when one or two of them muttered that if the Captain simply wasn't upset with them in the last months, he might come home. But that they all reminded him too much of—

"I watched my husband die—it sounds like he watched his wife do the same!" Their governess's voice was still echoing up the stairwell.

They all fell silent as the argument below continued, their governess retreating occasionally toward the door—pulled back by Frau Schmidt—Franz moving closer as well. Their voices finally melded together, no more words intelligible as she moved closer and closer to the front door. Just a final muttering about waiting and someone arriving as Frau Wimmer sounded unable to believe something, pausing her shouting for a moment before it began again.

"Why was she talking about Mother?" Kurt whispered. "And—" He hardly had time to look up as he heard the front door snap closed. We went away a year ago before...He took a deep breath as he pushed himself up to try to peer down into the hall. Before Mother was ill. If she'd done that in that cottage, I don't know if it would have made it. And already, he saw the housekeeper and butler almost nestled together, probably trying to decide what to do. But Franz was with Father during the war, how...But…"Does she really think we're monsters?" he added. I know Frau Schmidt doesn't have the time to look after us, we just...Kurt rubbed his face dry before Friedrich would have a chance to see. We just want Father back with us.

Next to him, Louisa shrugged again. "It must have been too much."

Liesl shook her head, already urging Brigitta away and rubbing at her neck, the weight of her little sister too wearing. "That doesn't matter, but until who arrives? Do you know who they're talking about?"

Friedrich shook his head as he shoved himself away from the banister. "No."

Louisa stretched out her legs as she caught her tangled hair in one hand, fingers almost beginning to comb through the ends. "But how would we know?"

Next to her, Liesl frowned. "What?"

Louisa's fingers rose higher, a loose braid beginning. "We hardly see them anymore with her here."

"You mean saw them," Friedrich muttered.

Brigitta had her face behind the back of one hand, probably hiding a yawn, Friedrich decided. "Them?"

Her braid still longer, though she had nothing to tie around the end. "Frau Schmidt and Franz. At least apart from breakfast or dinner."

Liesl tugged Brigitta close again, the youngest child huddled on the stairs head lolling back onto her shoulder as though morning had come to soon. "I know—"

"But we see other people," Friedrich said twisting around with a wince. Anymore, especially when he woke, his lower legs ached. "And we haven't heard anything—"

"So we see them, but they don't talk to us! Not really."

"They aren't meant to—"

"And a lot of them act like they'd rather we didn't exist," Louisa murmured.

"But—"

"So now you both need to be quiet!" Friedrich snapped, already standing. "If you don't know anything—"

"Just because you think you're just like Father—"

"I didn't say—"

"Yes you did!" Louisa shouted.

"Don't do that," he muttered as he tried to straighten his trousers. The hem was still well above his ankles.

"But…" Brigitta's voice was still muffled, though once again against Liesl's shoulder. "Father won't be coming home?"

She ran her other hand over her sister's head, smoothing down some of the hair rumpled against her pillow through the night. "I suppose not."

"Of course he won't," Friedrich said.

Still one of the steps, Kurt looked up. "Why?"

"I don't even know if he likes us anymore."

Louisa was on her feet, braid forgotten. "Of course he—"

"You can't know that—"

"Children." The housekeeper's voice silenced their argument, her apron strangely wrinkled and her own hair out of place in a way that it never really was. "You shouldn't listen to conversations that might upset you. Back to your rooms until it's time for breakfast, it will be late today."

"But…"

"What is it, Louisa?"

"Is she really gone?"

Frau Schmidt sighed, one outstretched arm already urging them up the stairs, seeing Liesl helping a drowsy Brigitta to her own bare feet and Kurt scrambling up on his own. "Don't think we didn't all see your little tricks, my dears. And...well, I'll just need you to pack your things for a few weeks."

"But what about school?" Brigitta asked after turning back with another yawn behind her arm. "Aren't the end of school exams coming up. And—she was helping us—"

"No, she wanted to," Louisa snapped. "Maybe you and Kurt—"

"Please, children. You'll find out soon enough." Frau Schmidt let out another breath as the small cluster of children continued to find their feet and stumble up the next few steps toward the gallery and their rooms. As Louisa tripped over a bit of rumpled carpet, the housekeeper caught her with a hand at her back. "Just please find what you'll need, I don't think you'll to worry about the rest."

The first of the children were already disappearing into their little copse of rooms, though Brigitta, as she often did when she had a thought in her head, was slowest. Always a fresh thing to wonder about, Frau Schmidt had concluded long ago. I just hope your grandmother can look after the lot of you better than Frau Wimmer or I could manage. One of the doors snapped shut, and she found herself with the toe of her own shoe tangled in the runner. But I suppose you'll be a little gentler with her than either of us.

Vienna, later on Sunday

Elsa was tired as she roused herself, her bed still too comfortable and her satin nightdress cool enough to slick away the afternoon heat. The woman on her staff who always helped her prepare for bed had been nowhere to be seen the evening before, rather the same as the Saturday before. The party had gone on longer than she anticipated, seeing her back to her Vienna townhouse hardly before the sun rose. Her makeup was smeared across the pillowcase through the night, her hair tangled despite a few klutzy attempts to comb it before she stumbled into bed, and little ache at her temple.

More troubling was the telegram from Salzburg yesterday afternoon as she waited for her maid to look after the dress she had ordered a week before. As she looked to her cigarettes and coffee to ease her appetite ahead of the dinner scheduled for far into the evening, Elsa couldn't quite stop reading over the short telegram from Georg as a curt response to her own. Too busy STOP Too many things to look after here STOP I still can't tell you when I'll be there again STOP

"You still can't be that upset, darling," she murmured around her first cigarette of the morning, the dried tobacco at the very end of cigarette holder too sticky and syrupy to hold onto much longer. She would either need to have her primary maid chase one of the younger girls to finally clean it or simply send another member of her staff to the tobacconist's shop. "Though maybe you have other things to distract you if you take that long to answer."

It was only a matter of time before that woman finally brought her morning coffee to her bedroom, probably something for breakfast beside it on the tray. (Elsa often didn't bother with a meal in the morning at the weekend, her stomach often still settling from the night before and without Georg paying a visit, she didn't bother to leave her bedroom for it.)

"You aren't really saying that much at all anymore, Georg," she went on to herself as she stood, a flick of her wrist throwing open the window just to the right of her vanity. A quick bite of wind across her face before it finally wafted through the room and down across her chest, more interested in biting at her bare skin than gusting through her suite. She wrinkled her nose, not certain if it was the smell of the motorcars from the road beneath her bedroom or the noise invading her ears—

It was already worse, the throbbing now burrowing into her head. And not just the noise, but the sights as well: a black car roaring along the curve and leaving a fresh ache deep in her head. And so soon followed by one coated in dark green, then another wrapped in a vibrant red. You've never quite talked about your life in the navy, darling. A fresh puff on her cigarette brought a new rush of tobacco to her lungs, certainly with just a few moments until it rushed into her blood.

Even with all the years she had known Georg—still far less than she had known Agathe—Elsa had never quite asked about the life the two of them must have lived in Pula, before Salzburg. She didn't quite know where it was, if she was honest, just somewhere on the coast down...She coughed into her elbow, though at least it wasn't so deep that she couldn't stop it. Somewhere that had once been on the Austro-Hungarian coast. "I know why you prefer to stay down there in Aigen." She took another deep breath through the end of her cigarette in its holder—then another before she tossed both away, the still glistening embers flickering through the last remnants of a morning fog she had missed.

"Agathe always said she liked the calm," she muttered as she pulled the window closed. It squealed on its hinges, and Elsa winced. I suppose I'll have to ask someone to look at that. Some time last week as she had sat at her vanity, the girl had been struggling to say something about a fresh member of the household. Something about a new young man to look after the maintenance as the older man Hans** had hired was struggling long ago to climb a ladder here and—

Elsa coughed into the elbow of her dressing gown again, the last lingering taste of tobacco catching in the back of her throat. "Or at least the quiet down there, Georg, I don't know if I could stand the quiet myself." She rubbed a hand at the base of her neck, another gentle cough rising up through her throat. "I still can't quite understand—"

Yet another cough was almost raw and scratching. She would have to ask the girl to send her a cup of tea rather than coffee this morning, though she always hated when it came to that at the end of the weekend. Even after so many years (maybe longer than that handyman whose name she couldn't recall!), the household cook still couldn't manage to make a decent cup of tea for those days she couldn't quite stomach the far stronger coffee.

With another, gentler cough coming up, Elsa ran her hands through her hair as she sat back down, her eyes finally falling back down to her table and the little stack of telegrams from Georg she couldn't quite bear to part with. They weren't quite showing the wear those first few letters from Hans had, but she still glanced through them when she was preparing for the day.

The day? "Oh, really," she said with one more cough. "I can't wait all day for you to finally come up like…"

Elsa paused as she dropped into, wincing as her elbow caught on the front edge of her table and the force both shuddered through her elbow and the pile of cosmetics just in front of the mirror. "I can't tell you how long I'll wait for you, Georg." She already needed another cigarette. "I just don't know what you're so afraid of." Her fingers scrabbled across the vanity, at last finding her case of cigarettes and her lighter. She scowled, already wishing she had continued to bother with her cigarette holder until she had one to replace it. The end of the cigarette would stain her lips after enough time, no matter how she painted them and powdered her face around them. A flick of her thumb lit the end in a moment and her other fingers had it in her mouth in a moment.

"You can't be afraid of something this simple, darling." She pulled the cigarette away from her lips, already thinking of every precious moment to stop it muddying her skin. "Not after your years in the navy." She laughed to herself as she heard the first feet hurrying through the hall, probably finally listening enough to know she was up and about. "Or are you just afraid of falling in love again?" Yes, it was one of her maids in the corridor—maybe more—she could already hear the words running back and forth. "I can't quite imagine that, you silly man, but I'll let you know soon enough." She really would need to have them find a new holder for her cigarette, the warmth was already too much for her. "You always needed someone to guide you, even if Agathe didn't quite know it herself."

* Frau Schmidt doesn't appear to have a first name in canon, and I think it's unrealistic for Frau Wimmer to never call her by her given name, so I made one up.

** Hans is the name I've given to Elsa's deceased husband, it's just been a long time since he was mentioned, in very slight passing.