Lovely Shadow (Timeless Classics Collection)

by Ursula Bloom

  These days his father was growing older, he had had three more heart attacks, coming with appalling suddenness in vicious attacks of pain, which made Hugo sorry for him. But pain teaches people to be either more tender, or more cruel. It made James Blair more cruel.

  The longing for ships and the sea receded into the distance; now, in his stagnant world, only the office was real, with the stairs’ thready lino showing through to scarred boards, and the musty smell from the stuck windows, where the creeper tapped so greenly in spring, so redly in autumn.

  Once he said to Miss Helstone, ‘This’ll go on for ever.’

  ‘Oh no, it won’t, nothing goes on for ever. There’ll be another war. Have you heard about that man called Adolf Hitler?’

  ‘Yes, but nobody has the money for a war.’

  ‘If you ask me, people don’t need money; it’s ever so funny but money doesn’t stop wars. I believe that Hitler will start something sooner or later.’

  ‘I think,’ said Hugo, ‘that he’s doing quite a lot of good in his way. He has managed to put Germany on to her feet.’

  ‘Too much on to her feet, if you ask me. Still, it’s no good crossing bridges till you come to them, is it? And if you ask me, the next war’ll be a real corker.’

  A week later, lying under the walnut tree, he thought that if there was a war he could be conscripted, and would be able to go to sea after all. The ship grew again. It stripped its rigging of the great green walnut leaves, its masts took shape from the branches, and the lawn became a deck. He pulled himself together.

  He went to Germany in the summer of 1936. Hugo had always wanted to take a holiday abroad, and he managed to scrape sufficient to visit the Tyrol that summer. His father had thought that he could stay with Emily Binns again, but holidays with Emily were dull now. She and her husband nagged. Mr. Binns was the proud owner of a shop, and he and Emily had lost their old comfortable complacency because they were fretted with domesticity and this world’s cares. She settled the question by having no room for Hugo, her three children growing older, and the last being a girl making bedroom accommodation so difficult.

  Hugo had wanted to see Austria, and travelled out third class because he needed to save everything that he could for the actual holiday. It was trying, sitting bolt upright in a railway compartment which had none of the amenities, for nearly sixteen hours, but when he came to the end of the journey, he declared that it had been worth it. He was young, and to youth fatigue and discomfort means little. The end justified both.

  The following afternoon he found himself near Innsbruck, in the heart of the mountainous country, clearly blue and clearly gold, riding in an autobus to his hotel. It was harvest time, and the women were at work with the full wagons in the fields, whilst the men strutted about with their fancy Lederhosen, and their gay hats doffed at wayside shrines. Here was something close to the heart of the earth itself, something that he had not felt since the night in the hay-loft at Hindhead, when he and Muriel had talked.

  The hotel was modernly built and skewed on the side of a hill, which rose behind it, so that some of the windows looked into the heart of a fir wood which ran alongside. Hugo’s bedroom stared into the gloom of the wood, and the brightness of the strip of garden which lay between his room and the firs was almost bewilderingly contrasting. Everything in the room was of light oak, and the bed had two mattresses atop it, which amused him at first, but which he found to be very comfortable.

  He put his few things out, he was travelling light, and went on to the terrace which led from the lounge behind the hotel, and which was shaded by an enormous awning striped green and orange. Before it was the panorama, the whole valley stretched in a maze of greens and blues, shut in by the great mountains streaked like butterflies’ wings with silver veins, and capped with sugar tops of snow. The little villages looked like those that a child builds with its bricks, there were tiny absurd churches, and chalets, from wooden balconies fuchsias and petunias sprawled in a tangle of prune and wine. There were more fir trees and lindens and wild cherries, and the log huts in the fields, with large pieces of rock stuck on their roofs to keep them on in winter when the gales came. The fields were speckled with the little shrines. He leaned on the wide stone balustrade, staring down at those shrines, where pink plaster Christs hung, faded posies thrust dying through Their crossed feet. Involuntarily he drew in a quick breath of appreciation.

  ‘It’s lovely, isn’t it?’ said the girl whom he had not noticed until this moment. It seemed to be quite natural that he should speak to her.

  ‘Yes, isn’t it beautiful? I wish I knew what those mountains are.’

  ‘I’ll show you. It’s all made very easy for you here.’ She took him to a picture set on the centre of the terrace on an upright pillar like a sundial stand. It was a raised map, a replica of the view, with the Konigsberg, and the Reisnauer and the Grandeshoffman before them, their names stuck on small flags. He could trace the whole range with a finger.

  ‘That is the Bergkette,’ she said triumphantly.

  He glanced at her and saw that she had unusually flaxen hair, like white corn in September, and that her eyes were pale blue with lashes severely gold. Her skin was that soft pink which goes with the golden hair of a Dane, and in her face their was no hint of darkness, save perhaps the crimson of her mouth, emphasised by lipstick.

  ‘You’re staying here?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. My name is Isolde West. My father and I always come here for our holidays, it is such a lovely part of the world.’

  ‘You must tell me a little about it. I only came here by chance. My name is Hugo Blair.’

  ‘Undergraduate?’

  ‘No, why should you think that?’

  ‘Oh, just that we get a lot of them staying here. I don’t know why, but I just thought that you might be one of them.’

  ‘I’ve been at work three years, went straight from Dover into my father’s office.’

  ‘And you don’t like it?’

  ‘So it’s as obvious as that?’

  ‘Quite,’ and she laughed, then she went back to the map, pointing out the mountains, and the little villages, and the paths. He liked her fairness, that pale flowery face, with those gentian eyes flecked by gold. He knew at once that they would be friends.

  He found that he ought to have brought a dinner suit, but because he was travelling light had omitted it, to his complete chagrin. He had never supposed that the hotel would be so smart. Its charges were moderate according to English standards; he had not thought that evening dress would be necessary. Therefore he felt ashamed when he entered the dining room for Abendessen, to find that he was the only man there in merely a dark suit. Even at twenty-one Hugo had not got over his shyness, and he knew that he flushed crimson. Isolde called him over and introduced him to her father, a small man, stocky, with eyes that never stayed still but wandered about in a harassed fashion as though anxious. But he was kindly.

  ‘You’ll join us?’ he said. ‘There are only the two of us and we need some new blood.’ Hugo accepted gratefully. By the look of the room he would have been lonely here, because mostly they were comfortable-looking women in their middle years with husbands who had been bulwarks of empire, but who now lived on pensions, and found it was cheaper abroad. There were some German women, interested in their food, and a French family who talked very fast and were always complaining at the office, so Isolde said. To-night, she told him, Tyrolean dancers were coming in from Innsbruck; they came to give a display once a week and it was the greatest fun.

  ‘Then I’ve struck the right night,’ said Hugo.

  ‘Yes. You have to have coffee early, and in the lounge, otherwise you won’t get a seat, because everybody wolfs down their food, and then flies out there to nab the best places.’

  Mr. West refused to be hurried for Tyrolean dancers, and sent Hugo and Isolde out early to find seats, staying on over the dessert, luscious green figs and warm-fleshed Bavarian peaches served in baskets of plaited str
aw. When ultimately he came out into the lounge with all the larger and older ladies in the best places, he saw that the two were spreading themselves on a sofa for three. He could not help noting what a fine-looking couple they made; the young man with his dark hair and intelligent eyes, so bright with dreams, and the girl with her startling fairness.

  The Tyrolean dancers arrived noisily; they were stout young men as they walked, setting their feet down firmly as though they still trod the mountain roads, but very agile when they danced. They slapped their knees heartily, wagging their heads, but still keeping their absurd hats on.

  When Hugo went to bed, he knew that he was going to like this place. It had been a wise choice.

  Isolde showed him the country.

  They went in the morning to fetch the English papers from the little Kramladen where the woman sold pressed edelweiss to tourists, and post cards, and Lederhosen. The woman knew little English, and could only say, ‘Pleass’ and ‘Poddon’ wishing them ‘auf Wiedersehen’ when they left.

  Then they went across the fields to see the harvesting. The path through the stubble was of beaten earth, with the pimpernels and the shepherd’s purse growing beside it. Here or there it twisted round a shrine, but beyond lay the valley itself, where the hay stood high.

  ‘Hay after the harvest? Surely that’s queer?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s the second crop,’ she said.

  They sat down at the side of the path, with the vetches and the gentians in a blue and purple tangle together, and the hot wild scent of leaves coming to them. Far away among the foothills a man was yodelling, and it echoed across the valley.

  Isolde told him about herself.

  Mr. West was the director of a large company in Watford, and had built the concern up from his boyhood. There had been a time when he had been merely a nobody, tramping from door to door in an effort to tout for orders; but luck had walked with him, and he had now become head of his company. The last war, which had submerged so many, had put them on their feet. Isolde could not remember a time when they had not been very well off, living in the yellow stone house, flanked with the green slopes of the park, and the twin lakes shining between the trees.

  ‘One day you must come and see it,’ she said. ‘I’m frightfully fond of it. I expect you’re fond of your home?’

  ‘I’d love to see it.’

  He told her of Lynton Lodge, as a house he did not care much for it, but the walnut tree in the garden stood for something in his life. He talked of it. Isolde’s mother had died very suddenly when the child was only ten. ‘She was a Dane,’ Isolde said, ‘and used to stay a lot in Copenhagen. She told me the loveliest stories about it. The land of Hans Andersen, you know.’

  He nodded. ‘The flying trunk,’ he said.

  ‘The little mermaid,’ she answered. ‘Mother used to talk about the cobbled streets by the barracks, and the spire which is made of dolphins’ tails all twisted together, and the fish-market with Krog’s restaurant in it. It must be most amusing.’

  ‘Mothers oughtn’t to die,’ said Hugo.

  ‘No, they certainly oughtn’t.’ She told him about her father, he had had a good many worries lately with the works and needed this holiday badly. ‘He’s terribly worried, I know. Usually he tells me, but this is something that he does not want to talk about. I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘It’ll probably right itself.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  Hugo said, ‘Having a holiday is the finest thing for it; he’s bound to get better here.’

  She told him more about herself, sitting there, her arms looped round her knees. She was twenty and had ‘come out’ at eighteen, and had been given a season in London. It had been fun, but not so good as she had thought it would be. When she came to think about it, she didn’t believe that she was the type of girl who likes a season. She had never wanted the champagne of life. He glanced at her closer, and he saw how real she was, how simple, as she sat there playing with the grasses and the hard dry earth which she crumbled in her hands.

  ‘I always thought that being presented must be one of the most thrilling moments in life,’ said Hugo.

  ‘Not really. It’s terrifying. The palace is so impressive, and all the time there is the horror that you’ll get hiccoughs, or something dreadful. When the moment comes you go scared and weak-kneed, and wonder if you’ll fall over. Then you start and you go like clockwork; it’s rather like an operation, and you come round to find somebody saying, “Well, that’s all over”.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Oh, then you eat the most enormous meal you’ve ever had in your life.’

  She had Muriel’s simplicity and charm, and yet there was some of Wynne’s glamour.

  They sat there until, the sun rising high above the Berkette, the day grew too hot. Then they walked back across the field, empty save for the women who toiled with the harvest, handkerchiefs tied over their heads, and their thick flat-heeled boots on their feet. Hugo and Isolde walked up the village, and went into the little cafe there, sitting on a screened balcony, with an awning, and petunias like purple fountains splashing over the balustrade. They drank lemonade and ate Torte. He felt very young. Years younger, yet years older than he had ever done before, it was like a general levelling up that he could not understand.

  There seemed to be so much to talk about that a whole lifetime would not be long enough for it all. He told her of the sign above the tea office, and of the lovely shadow which lay upon his life.

  ‘I wish that I’d known her,’ she said. ‘She must have been a dear!’

  ‘Yes, she must have been.’ Only she never seemed to be his mother; she was Marguerite. His old grandfather had called her Daisy, and he believed that she must have been very much like a daisy, young, simple, and very sweet.

  They talked so long that they had to hurry to be back in time for Mittagessen. Afterwards there settled on the hotel a stillness born of the heat, when Hugo imagined that everybody sank down into siesta. He could not decide whether he would walk in the fir woods, or go down to the fields, or up to the Schwimmbad for a dip. He lay for a moment on his bed, with the room glowing warmly, and the blind drawn but the tarry scent of the firs blowing in through the window. He closed his eyes, not supposing that he would sleep, because he had never done such a thing before, but he did sleep, and did not awake until after five. It was, he supposed, the unusual heat, and was angry with himself for having wasted some precious hours, when he had few enough, in this beautiful place.

  He bathed afterwards, meeting Isolde just as he was leaving the Schwimmbad, and staying to watch her. He leaned on a low fence which boundaried the pool, where the Tyroleans were diving and scrambling back up the banks, their skins the colour of warm apricots. Isolde wore a green bathing dress, reminding him of Muriel’s frock, that first time they had met. She was lovely. She did not stir him as Wynne had done, to a white-hot passionate acceptance of her beauty, she moved him in a different way; she made him desire to be worthy of her, to be a greater person for her, she made him eager for her companionship, because, although it was not emotional, it made him so happy. Lying in bed that night, and thinking about her, and dancing with her, he decided that she combined the qualities of both Muriel and Wynne. She was friendly and understanding, yet she had glamour, but her burnish was not so acute that a man’s emotion slid off it, to leave him stripped.

  For four whole days it lasted. A lovely friendship warming in the Tyrolean sunshine. Hours spent together in the sweetest confessional of the world. Dancing at night, walking, swimming, amusing themselves by day. It might have been a friendship years old.

  It certainly would last their lifetime.

  One night they went into Innsbruck to the Schwarhaus, which was a night club. Everybody had said that this was the place where Hugo must go, and Isolde agreed that it was lovely.

  ‘We’ll go together,’ she said, ‘I haven’t been there for two years; it’s the greatest fun. You have supper, and there’s
music and dancing, and people sell you things. It is so gay.’

  Before they started, Mr. West drew Hugo aside. ‘I’ve been young myself. When you’re young, money’s tight, and that’s the time when you can enjoy it most. It seems all wrong. You mustn’t be offended at this, because it’s only horse sense, but here is something to cover the evening’s expenses.’

  ‘Oh, but I couldn’t, sir.’

  ‘Nonsense. Of course you could! Take it, and make my little girl happy on it.’ He walked away sharply, his head dove-tailed into his shoulders, his hands dug into the side pockets of his coat. It was very decent of him, thought Hugo, because the difficulty of pruning the evening to suit his pocket had made him anxious. An evening pruned is usually an evening ruined, as he knew.

  They drove to Innsbruck in the Wests’ car. It was a very hot evening, and grew hotter as they dropped down into the valley, which had been baking all day. Now the mountains towered over them, jagged and blue, an encompassing ring, and the effect on Hugo was quite claustrophobic. Innsbruck itself was tense in the half light. There was the sweet scent of the stephanotis, mixed with the little dark red roses which climbed up balconies. There was that air of exhaustion and lethargy from the hot day, and yet with it the first awakening thirst for amusement in everybody’s hearts. The stars were already coming out above the lindens, and there was the sound of music, a man plucking at the stringed instrument like a young bird learning to sing. The two sat there excitedly.

  ‘Here it is,’ she said, like a child taken to a party, and pinkly expectant.

  The Schwarhaus was a large hall, with a handsome white facade, and an efficient porter in pale biscuit uniform, who made a dash for the car door. The hall itself was full of small tables, and flitting to and fro were the Tyrolean girls in their full-flowered frocks, the pert hats, and clumsy boots.