Happily Ever After

‘Would you like to see the house?’

Lise smiled. This was their third walk around the estate. It was springtime and everything was loudly in bloom, scents competing with one another, vivid yellows and greens replacing winter’s greys. She tossed her hair back, knowing the sunlight would pick up its golden glints, then felt embarrassed at the gesture.

‘Won’t your children mind?’

‘No, the boy won’t be home.’

‘And your daughter?’

‘She’s always home. But she won’t mind a guest. We don’t have many. It will be nice for her.’

The gamekeeper’s cottage was at the edge of the grounds, a neat white fence around its own garden with tidy raised beds. The front door opened into a kitchen, a large wooden table in the middle. The room was clean, no dirty dishes or dust, impressive for a widower who worked outside most of the day. The savoury smell of meat warming in the oven.

A girl stood on the stairs, polishing the banister.

‘Sweetheart, I’d like you to meet Lise. She works up at the manor.’

She stopped her rubbing and walked toward them, cloth held at her side. She was thin, her long light hair tied back, big eyes and thin lips. ‘Hello.’ Her voice was rusty, like a hinge on a door rarely opened.

‘Stay for dinner. My daughter is a wonderful cook.’

She stared at Lise without apology during the meal. Her cheeks were hollow, like a ghost who occupied the upstairs forced to investigate intruders. How many women he had brought to the cottage? None of the other maids had walked with him, she knew that. They whispered about Jacob as they did their work, the mysterious gamekeeper, friendly, without ever saying much. He hunted, chopped wood, strolled around the grounds.

On their first walk together as winter thawed and the frost on the grass seeped into her shoes, she asked him how long he’d been on the property.

‘Five years. I was lucky. We used to live at the edge of the forest. My wife had left us-’

‘Left her own children?’

‘No, my wife after… Their mother died when they were young. I married again but she didn’t like… we were in a bad way for a while. During the famine, no one wanted to buy wood or chairs. There was no food, no money. It was my fault. I should have been firmer… But then. I rode to the manor house hoping to sell some furniture. The gamekeeper had died that morning. Lucky timing. It’s hard work but the cottage is much bigger than our old place.’

She sat across from him dunking bread into the gravy when the son came through the kitchen door. Lise had seen him before, working on the grounds. Handsome, with coiled energy, like a hunting hound kept on the lead desperate to chase the scent. He stood by the table.

‘Oh, this is a good idea,’ he said and stomped upstairs.

‘Don’t you want dinner?’ Jacob called after him.

‘I’ve already eaten.’ A door slammed.

‘Long day. He’s tired.’

After dinner, Jacob offered to walk her back. As they were preparing to leave, he asked his daughter if she'd like to come along.

She looked at her shoes. ‘No, I’ll stay here.’

‘Come with us,’ Lise said, hoping to make her feel that she wasn’t intruding. ‘It’s a beautiful evening.’ A look of sheer terror crossed her face. What was that? A young girl not wanting to be seen with her father. Not wanting to witness their awkward courtship. Of course, that was it. It must be hard for her without a mother, alone, having to keep house.

Lise hummed the next day polishing the silver. ‘The handsome gamekeeper, is it?’ Lotte laughed. ‘Well, I’m not sure I could put up with another woman’s children.’

‘They’re older,’ Lise said. ‘No diapers or spoon feeding.’

‘Mmm, the son’s all right, works with the fieldhands. The daughter, now she’s strange. Never gets past the garden.’ Lotte motioned her over to help fold a tablecloth. ‘Something not right there.’

Lise became a regular visitor for dinner. One night when Jacob left to retrieve some meat from the smokehouse, while the girl was in the bath, she crept upstairs. The first door on the landing was her room. Sparse, a single bed, smooth blankets, her drawers and wardrobe shut tight. No sign of personality, of hobbies or friends or even favourite colours. The only ornament on the dresser was a flat wooden box carved with the initial G. Lise carefully lifted the lid.

A long pearl necklace, its rich sheen glowing against the wood. A thick gold chain with blood red stones. Such beautiful jewellery, out of place in this room, in this cottage. Had she stolen them from the manor? But she never left the house and the settings were old-fashioned, not something the lady of the manor or her daughters would wear. Something left by her mother? Would a woodcutter’s wife have such necklaces? Perhaps. Lise had heard stranger stories, heirlooms kept among starvation. Selling them meant giving up.

She heard movement in the bathroom downstairs. Lise rushed out of the room, shutting the door as quietly as she could. On their walk back after a delicious dinner of roast chicken and cider, Jacob asked her to marry him.

When she told other maids, they swooned. ‘He’s so handsome! Lucky girl!’ Lotte repeated her warning about his children, reminded her she would be his third wife, possibly fourth or fifth for all they knew. But the boy was never home and the girl kept to herself. Lise couldn’t safely conjure what her voice sounded like. Maybe she would warm to her, she could plait her hair, encourage her out of the cottage.

On a fuzzy summer day, she brought some of her clothes to the house. The bans had been read that Sunday, in a month they would be married. With Lotte’s help, Lise had begun to sew her dress. She thought about what she would do with her time. Tend the garden, have a baby. Her cheeks flushed. She knocked, then opened the cottage door.

No warm smell of dinner. A mug half-filled with brown sludge in the sink. Jacob sat at the table, looking lost. Something had happened. The children spoke against the marriage. He wanted someone else. Icy hands squeezed her stomach. She would not be married.

‘My son is gone. He’s taken work at Wilhelm’s estate. My daughter’s gone with him.’

‘She left the house?’

‘It was never the house. It was a home she wanted.’ And, slowly and softly, he told her what he had done all those years ago. His wife insisted, he said. There was no other way. But afterward there was still no food, no one who wanted wood or chairs, no money. When she left, he set out to find them. It had been weeks, but there they were in a clearing in the forest. They’d survived a terrible ordeal but their pockets were filled with pearls and jewels! He bought meat and potatoes, a horse and cart, came to the estate and found work. But they never forgave him.

Lise listened. ‘You were desperate,’ she reassured him. ‘You found them again.’ She heated up some stew and dumplings, and they ate in silence.

After Jacob had gone to bed, she sat at the table, imagining a future where she had a baby, a few babies, and then she died. If his fortunes changed, if he could not look after them… Despite the muscles and the axe, he was weak. Hansel and Gretel would not help their half-siblings. They would never return to this cottage. He would find a new wife who would send them away into the forest. Or worse she would survive the births and become bitter, demanding that their children disappear so they could save themselves. And he would let it happen.

She took her bundle of clothes. There was enough moonlight to see the path to the manor. She was a good worker. She would be welcomed back.

She would not be married.