Authors: Elswyth Thane
Evadne spoke for the first time.
“What happened at Lichtenfeld?” she asked, and they looked at her with compassion and envy because she was ignorant and young.
“Mass executions,” said Johnny briefly. “In squads. When the men firing the guns got sick or fainted they were replaced. Young officers like Victor were required to witness it as part of the hardening process.”
“Are you sure?” said Evadne blankly.
“Sure of what?” Johnny asked. “That hundreds of people died that weekend, or that the officers got hardened?”
“Were you there?” demanded Evadne.
“Inside Lichtenfeld? Luckily, no. But we heard the guns. Even Dinah heard the guns, didn’t you, Dinah? And people turned up missing for days afterwards—German people one knew quite well, and never saw again. His own father—”
“No!” cried Evadne. “No, I won’t listen!” She stood up,
pushing back her chair. “How can you sit there talking about such things in cold blood over a plate of food, and not
do
anything?”
“Such as?” said Johnny gently.
Evadne turned and ran out of the room. Virginia sighed, as the rest of them sat speechless.
“I do wish she’d fall in love,” she said.
“Would that cure her, do you think?” Bracken smiled.
“It takes their minds off the state of the world,” Virginia explained. “When I think how I grew up—it was such a beautiful life for a girl—we had so much room to be happy, with nothing hanging over us. And I don’t think it spoilt us a bit for facing up to the war when it came. But we had had our youth. We had been really gay, and really carefree. No one growing up today knows what that means. They live with doom. I’m terribly sorry for my children and their children. We had the best of it, Bracken.” Her eyes brimmed over.
“Maybe,” said Bracken unwillingly. “It was pretty good, anyway. And I am not one of those loose-thinking orators who can beat his breast over the alleged folly of mankind which has brought us to the brink of disaster. It is not mankind that is to blame. It is only a small, indigestible, insurgent portion of mankind who refuse to be civilized and grown up. They want it that way. And the only way to stop their aggression is to get ready to be just as tough. You don’t teach a bad child not to throw stones through window-panes by brushing the broken glass out of your hair and pretending not to notice. You go after him and show him the error of his ways with the flat of your hand or the back of a hairbrush. Internationally, statesmanship won’t work any longer because we are up against a gang of hoodlums who have never felt the back of a hairbrush on their backsides. Religion can only work martyrdom, which proves something, perhaps, but is too slow and painful a way nowadays to demonstrate the power of good over evil, and of law over outlawry.” He sighed heavily. “That brings us to the subject of preventive war again, doesn’t it, Johnny. Andnobody
on our side is ready for that. Nobody will be till it’s too late. We might settle it now with a
little
war, like a big police action. But by the time enough people realize that, it will take a big war.”
“Oh, Bracken, not
again!
”
cried Virginia, and he turned to her, smiling and kind.
‘I’ve heard that before,” he said. “Forgive me for being a realist at luncheon, my dear. And of course there’s still Geneva.”
“What’s left of it,” said Johnny. “The Italians will walk out next, and there will be two empty chairs. That will be about enough. Geneva will go
phut.
In the meantime”—his eyes brightened warily—“let’s have another look at Victor.”
Virginia glanced down her own luncheon table on Thursday with a strange, somewhat groggy sensation of having lived the present moment twice—of having been there before. But it was a different house and a different German prince, the other time—a different Germany, in fact—and Archie had sat where her brother Bracken sat now as host, and Evadne was not born. Prince Conrad’s son had the same rich voice with its faintly rolling
r
’s, the same overly correct good manners, the same aggressively British tailoring, the same (let’s face it) slightly sinister charm. Virginia could understand—or almost—why Camilla had once concerned herself about his soul, for he had magnetism and intelligence and was indeed presentable. What was it about him, then, she wondered, that made one’s blood run a trifle cold?
She looked at Camilla—slim and elegant and poised, Continentalized to her finger-tips—and dear, blunt Johnny who adored her, and saw how they tempered their known aversion to this man with social grace; saw Dinah’s cool, smiling indifference to the fact that Nazis affected her the way cats affect people who have ælurophobia; saw Bracken’s alert, smiling, surgical gaze and Jeff’s cagey, easy smile. And then, like running into the edge of a door, she came to Evadne’s fascinated receptiveness,
her wide, brilliant eyes lifted to Victor’s face, her parted, listening lips, her dreadful, vulnerable, frightening friendliness. Evadne was pouring over him the ready interest and warm response with which she met each new acquaintance, and Victor was reacting in a logical and obvious masculine way. She was a very pretty girl, and she was hanging on his every word, under the eyes of her own people. To Victor it was plain that English girls were no less susceptible to virile German manhood than the girls at home. Even Camilla—his long, arrogant stare ran over the still desirable, arresting creature across the table—even Camilla was not impervious once. Women were much the same, whatever language you spoke to them in. And because of his English mother and his English nurse he had been bilingual from babyhood.
And Virginia, watching Evadne’s open, generous welcoming of this exotic stranger into her sheltered life, thought, Oh,
no
, not Victor—she’s too intelligent for
that.
Then, as from a great distance, she heard Victor saying, “It is an absurd situation, is it not, to require an introduction to one’s own mother?”
“But surely—don’t you remember her at all?” said Evadne, leaning towards him, all sympathy and interest.
“My dear young lady, you do not realize”—the
r
almost escaped him—“I was nine years old when she ran away from my father’s house, and I have naturally not seen her since then. I very much doubt if I should meet her face to face now if I could recognize her as my mother.”
“But—you must have seen pictures—” said Evadne incredulously.
“There are no pictures of her any more at Heidersdorf,” he told her harshly. “She brought scandal and disgrace to my family. My father would not permit her name to be mentioned in his hearing.”
“Oh, but she’s a very lovely woman, you must forget all that and be friends with her now!” cried Evadne.
“I should like very much,” said Victor.
“Well, we can arrange that, can’t we!” said Evadne, with a
bright glance round at her spellbound family, whose worst fears were being realized.
“Rosalind spends all her time down in the country,” Virginia said, pulling herself together. “She and her husband see almost no one but a few old friends—”
“Well, you might say that Victor
is
an old friend, mightn’t you, Mummy?” Evadne chided her gently.
“She has—forgive me—I understand that she has regularized her connection with this man?” asked Rosalind’s son with some hauteur of Virginia.
“She and Charles Laverham were married as soon as—that is, they were married last summer,” Virginia replied with some asperity.
“You mean as soon as she learned of my father’s death?” said Victor.
“Yes,” said Virginia, and their eyes locked defiantly and held, and he recognized in her an opponent with whom to reckon.
“I was very glad to hear,” he said smoothly after a moment. “It lends more dignity to her position, which was in the meantime perhaps—humiliating.”
“Not in the least,” said Virginia. “Everyone knew they would have been married long since if your father had consented to divorce her, and everyone accepted them as they were.”
“They could not, of course, attend the Court,” he remarked with satisfaction.
“They did not wish to.”
“Naturally,” said Victor, and his smile was indulgent. “But now that he has—as you say?—made an honest woman of her—”
“No, please forgive me,” Evadne interrupted him gently. “But you aren’t sufficiently familiar with English to know—it’s only right to tell you—we wouldn’t say that about a woman like your mother. It’s only for servant girls and—people who have made
mistakes.
”
“I see.” He studied her earnest, appealing face with appreciation.
“You are very kind to help me with my English. And you do not consider, then, that my mother made any mistake.”
“The mistake was to marry your father,” said Virginia, plunging in. “She and Charles Laverham had always been in love. After the war began, her life in Germany became intolerable.”
“That I can understand,” Victor agreed politely. “But was it quite necessary, do you think, after she returned to England,
“Yes,” said Virginia flatly. “They were both dying of it. And her obligation to your father was at an end.”
“I see,” said Victor again, and now the glance they exchanged was open war.
“If all you want is to take her to task for leaving your father in the first place, and—”
“But not at all,” said Victor softly. “As we have been saying, there is no longer any question. My father no longer exists. Therefore this man Laverham
is
entitled to exist. I have no objection to him.”
“I very much doubt if you’ll have much opportunity to see her.” This was Camilla, to Virginia’s aid. “She almost never comes up to Town. They take no part whatever in London’s social life.”
“No matter,” said Victor, with a fatalistic lift of his shoulders. “I can go to her. In Gloucestershire, is it not? A few hours’ journey. Your distances in England are so small. I shall write to her first, of course, to name a day, it would be only right.”
“Victor, does it occur to you that she might not want to see you?” said Camilla bluntly.
He spread his big, well-kept hands.
“Why not?”
“It’s all behind her, Victor. Why not leave it there? You’ll only be here for a short time, and—”
“On the contrary,” he interrupted smoothly. “I am now attached to the Embassy in London. You may remember I told you I would be.”
“So you did,” said Camilla, remembering only too well.
“Well, that’s wonderful!” beamed Evadne. “Any woman would be thrilled to find she had a grown-up son like Victor, wouldn’t she, Mummy! The chances are she wouldn’t be able to recognize you, either!” she added with a flattering glance at Victor, who almost visibly preened. “Why couldn’t he come to Farthingale for the weekend, Mummy?” she went on, for everyone seemed powerless to stop her. “We could ring up Rosalind from there and drive him over to tea or something.”
“Surprise, surprise!” muttered Camilla, with a glance at Johnny, and Victor, who must have heard her perfectly well, pretended not to and said that would be delightful.
Without downright unfounded rudeness Virginia was now lost, and the following weekend but one was named for Victor’s visit to Farthingale. Jeff dared not look at her, and Dinah began at once to wonder if she could possibly manage to be elsewhere that weekend. Camilla and Johnny seemed sunk in an apathy of resignation, and Bracken wore a small, wary smile because it was all so above-board and interesting and mysterious. And everyone at the table, except Victor, was longing, not for the first time, to spank Evadne till she howled.
Victor arrived at Farthingale at tea-time on the Friday, driving a black Mercedes-Benz, wearing correct (although too new) English country tweeds, and bringing a correct gift for his hostess. It was his first experience of an English country-house weekend, of which in general he had heard so much, and while he was aware that Farthingale was not one of the more famous stately homes of England, but merely an old Cotswold manor house, its dignity and comfort created an immediate impression. His welcome was all anyone could ask for, and he was soon seated beside Evadne on a chintz sofa in a panelled room bright with afternoon sunlight, drinking hot
tea with a piece of excellent cake alongside. It was still difficult for Victor not to be surprised at the abundance and goodness of English food. It was difficult not to eat too rapidly and with too visible pleasure, just as he had found it before now on his visits to France and Switzerland. It would not do for a German to appear to relish another country’s commonplace luxuries. In Germany the luxuries had all gone into guns, which was as it should be, as the other countries would learn to their cost before long. But in the meantime this sojourn in England promised to be very rewarding.
No one said anything about the object of his visit, which was Rosalind, until at last he was forced to refer to it himself, and instantly the atmosphere cooled a little.
“Yes,” said Virginia in answer to his query. “She has received your letter, and I have talked to her since then. She will see you tomorrow afternoon. Since you came in your own car, it might be as well if you drove yourself over to Cleeve, unless you would prefer to have one of us go along.”
“It will not be necessary to trouble you to do that,” he said politely, conscious that that was the way they wished it. “She was pleased?” he asked then, unable to let it alone.
“She didn’t say so,” Virginia admitted. “Are you still determined to go?”
“But naturally,” he answered, as though she were being unreasonable, and Evadne said quickly, “Would you like to go and look at the garden now?” and Victor put down his cup and rose, not as an Englishman would rise, in casual unfolding sections, but abruptly, all in one piece, like a German, and stood at her service.
When they had gone out through the French windows on to the lawn Virginia said irritably, to the others, “There must be some
reason.
I suppose we shall know soon.”
Rosalind at Cleeve was also wondering
why.
There was no clue in the formal phrasing of his letter to her. He was in England, and asked her permission to come and see her during a weekend visit at Farthingale, that was all. The self-contained, unaffectionate child in whose German upbringing there had
been very little time or place for an English mother even in his early years was a total stranger to her now, and there was no stirring of her blood at the idea of seeing him again, with the additional barrier of his Nazi training. He was always less her son than Conrad’s, and he stood for things she thought she had left behind for ever, and for other things which were even more repugnant to her. It was infinitely disturbing to be confronted with him now, especially in view of the ugly uncertainties which surrounded his father’s death. She had not loved Conrad, nor ever been in love with him, but she had lived gracefully in Germany as his wife for years, and had borne him a child. And she had acknowledged at times, in spite of everything, his certain masculine magnetism and experienced charm.