A gasp escaped the countess’s lips, and although Adam did not take his eyes off her, he was aware of the exclamations of surprise that came from the others. The countess grew pale and whispered, “That is impossible!”
“If Helen Ulric is alive, she will remember my mother. I think you may remember her yourself, Countess. Her name is Lylah Stuart, and you will remember that she was a guest in this house during the First War.”
Karl Bolko broke in, “Mother, what is he talking about?”
Countess von Richthofen began to move forward. She came until she was standing no more than three feet away from Adam. Her eyes went over his face carefully, and she turned to her son. “Karl, look at him.”
Karl Bolko came to stand beside his mother. He, too, studied Adam’s face, and finally expelled a breath of air. “He is very much like Manfred, but Manfred’s son—?”
Slowly the countess said, “I remember the young woman who came here with Helen—though I had forgotten her name.”
“That is my mother. She was very much in love with your son, but he was killed before I was born. For years I did not know who my father was. Only a few years ago she told me. She loved him very much.”
Countess von Richthofen studied the young man. Everything in her told her what he was saying had to be a lie—still there was the face of her son Manfred, as he had been at that age. Somehow the discovery took all the strength from her, and she refused to believe it or refused to admit it. “We will send for Helen Ulric,” she said, “but I cannot believe you are Manfred’s son.” She turned to Karl and said, “Send for Helen, Karl. In the meanwhile we will wait.”
Maris came over to stand in front of Adam. The others were all watching. She reached up and put her hand on his cheek. “So, Cousin, now we know why God brought you to this place. Do you believe now?”
Adam looked at his grandmother, his uncle, then back to Maris. He said quietly, “I’m beginning to believe that God can do anything!”
A MATTER OF FAMILY
As Karl Bolko entered the high-ceilinged room, he glanced around at the photographs on the wall. He was already familiar with them, of course, having grown up with them from childhood. His eyes fell on the picture of his father, Albrecht, Baron von Richthofen. For a moment he stood studying the stern face of the man that had so molded at least two of his sons in the military traditions. Karl had always felt himself in the shadow of Manfred and Lothar, who were almost mythological in their heroism—at least Manfred could be so described.
Karl shifted his eyes to the picture to the right of his father’s and studied the face of Lothar, the second brother, and felt a moment’s remorse, for he had always been very fond of Lothar. He had been saddened after the war when Lothar had been killed in a flying accident, but now in Lothar’s son, Wolf, he had hope. If only this war would end, he thought almost desperately. Wolf wouldn’t have to face a useless death.
The thought disturbed him now, and he moved over to look at the portrait of Manfred von Richthofen. The portrait was one of Manfred in his billed cap, his jacket collar open and lapels laid back to show the Blue Max, the Pour le Merite, the most coveted decoration that Germany offered her sons. The large, steady eyes seemed to look back at him, almost as if the picture were alive. The mouth was straight but full, and the nose was straight. It was a strong face and most disturbing to Karl Bolko, for the resemblance of the young American to the portrait was almost frightening.
“Put a bill cap on him, a collar like that, and it would be hard to tell the difference,” Bolko spoke under his breath.
“I have thought the same thing, Karl.”
Karl Bolko whirled to find that his mother had entered the room. Even at the age of seventy-two, there was no sign of frailty in her. She was strong-bodied, as she had always been, and her eyes were clear, though now filled with trouble as she came to stand beside her son. “It’s uncanny, isn’t it?” she murmured, staring at the picture.
“Very like—very like, indeed, Mother.” The two stood there quietly, studying the portrait, and Bolko turned to her, saying, “But there’s no proof at all.”
“If Helen were alive she might have helped.”
Helen Ulric had been sought by Karl, but he had discovered that she had died a year earlier in a Berlin air raid. “I’m not sure she would have helped, even if she were alive,” Bolko said quietly.
“She was very close to the young man’s mother,” the countess answered. She turned and walked over to the window and stared out. The snow had not melted, and its whiteness reflected the sun. It hurt her eyes and she turned away and moved to sit down in a brown leather chair beside a heavy oak table. “I’ve thought of nothing else since he came,” she said simply.
“Nor have I.” Karl went over and laid his hand on her shoulder. It was an unusual thing for him to do, for he was not demonstrative. When his mother looked up with surprise he smiled. “It’s like something out of a very bad novel, isn’t it?”
The countess reached up and put her hand over his. “I don’t know how to think anymore. Few things ever disturbed me this much.” She kept her hand on his but closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the chair. Her age was more evident now with her brilliant eyes closed, and Bolko saw the fine lines etched across her brow and in her cheeks. “I don’t think a day has passed,” she murmured so quietly that he could barely catch her words, “that I haven’t thought of Manfred. Not since he died.”
“He was always your favorite.”
The countess opened her eyes quickly. “I don’t know that that’s true.”
“I don’t know that it is either. It just always seemed so to me.” When she removed her hand, he took a seat opposite her and folded his own hands across his legs. “What about the family? What do they think? Have you talked to them?”
“Oh, yes, we’ve talked of little else. Ilse doesn’t believe for a minute that this man is Manfred’s son.”
“Why would he come up with such a story, and why does he look so much like Manfred? How does she answer that?”
“You know Ilse. She gets an idea in her head and will not let go of it. She just simply decided the man was an impostor, and she’s busy convincing Ann and Nicol that he is.”
“I suppose Ilse has to be contrary. She was always that way.” He spoke of his sister affectionately, though his words sounded harsh. “I think she’s bitter and refuses to accept what we see before us because he’s an enemy. She’s always been stronger than the rest of us for this war.”
The countess did not answer. She herself was sick and tired of the war. The First War robbed her of one son, and for all practical purposes, of Lothar as well. Now, she was afraid for her grandson Nicol, who at sixteen was terrified lest the war should end before he would have a chance to fight. “I’m worried about Nicol. He might run away and join the army.”
“And be sent to Russia and get killed. What good would that do? This war is lost.”
“He can’t see that, though.” The countess clasped her hands and stared down at them. “I don’t know what to say, Karl. What if he is Manfred’s son—what would that mean?”
“It would mean God has played a funny trick on all of us.”
“Maris doesn’t think so. She thinks God sent him here to be saved so that the line will go on.”
“His children won’t be Richthofens. They’ll be Stuarts.”
“I know, but Maris says that no matter what the name is, Manfred will still live in his son and grandchildren.”
Karl Bolko rose and showed nervousness as he paced back and forth. He’d thought much about this and worried about how it would affect his mother more than anything else. Finally he came and resumed his seat. “Well, we would never see them. He’s an American. He’ll go home when the war is over, when he gets out of prison camp. Certainly he’ll never come back here nor name his sons Richthofen.”
Suddenly the countess asked, “What do you think of him—as a man I mean?”
“Why, I’ve been
surprised. He’s not like I thought Americans would be—quieter for one thing, and that sergeant of his, he’s a very steady chap—a cousin, of course. The Stuarts must be very fine people. I’ve talked to him quite a bit, Mother, and if they weren’t the enemy I’d say I admire them tremendously. I say it anyway.”
“I’ve talked a lot with Adam Stuart. You know he has one of Manfred’s ways. I don’t know if you remember.”
“What was that?”
“Manfred always had a way of closing one eye slightly, the right eye, when he would ask a question. Adam Stuart does the same thing,” she said, and touched her cheek with one hand as she added, “The first time I noticed it, it brought back everything about my son. He did it when he was just a child.” She turned to Bolko and said, “Karl, I think he is Manfred’s son—but I don’t know what that means for us, for the family.”
Karl Bolko crossed his legs. “It presents a practical problem. What we will do with him? Turn him over to the authorities? He’d go to a prison camp, of course, he and his cousin.”
“Is that what you want to do?”
The question disturbed Karl Bolko and he shook his head jerkily. “I’m not ready to say. I think it’s your decision.”
“He’s your nephew if he is Manfred’s son.”
“But he’s your grandson.”
Countess von Richthofen rose and walked again to the window. She stared out and said quietly, “I can’t decide. If he is Manfred’s son, how can I send him to a prison camp? On the other hand, what else is there to do?”
“The war will be over soon. Germany can’t last long—we all know that now. Even Hitler and the others must know it. It’s all over.”
“We can’t keep him here. It might go on for six months.”
“I doubt it, but you’re right.” Karl thought hard for a moment and said, “You’ll decide what you want to do; then I’ll decide how I can help.”
“All right, Karl.” She came to him, took his hand, squeezing it. Managing a smile she said, “You were always the steady one, Karl—the baby, but you were always the steady one.”
“Well,” Karl Bolko said wryly, “that’s something, isn’t it?”
February came to an end, and Adam and Clint were in a strange state. Ilse was ready to turn them over to the authorities. Karl Bolko, her brother, was not, and as for the countess, she kept aloof.
“It’s almost as if she were afraid to talk to you, Adam,” Clint said. The two were sitting in the room that had been given them, waiting on the evening meal. Adam was walking up and down and testing his leg, which was healing admirably. He looked up and said, “That’s true, she’s very cold.”
“I expect she’s afraid.”
“Afraid? Afraid of what?”
“Afraid that you are her grandson.” Clint leaned back in the chair and locked his fingers behind his head. “If you are, that presents a real problem. What will they do with you?”
Adam put his weight on his injured leg and made only a slight grimace. “Well,” he said, “if I had to I could make a run for it.”
“I don’t think we’d get far. Neither of us speaks German, and we’re a long way from the borders. We’d probably be captured in twenty-four hours.”
“I guess you’re right.” Adam moved over and sat down on the window seat. He held the cane in his hand, running his hand along the polished length of it, and thought furrowed his brow. “I guess we’ll have to wait until they make up their minds what to do with us.”
“If they listen to Maris, we know what they’ll do,” Clint said at once.
Adam gave him a quick glance. He had not mentioned Maris much, but Clint had noticed that the two had spent considerable time together. They had begun taking walks outside as soon as Adam was able, and once when Clint had come upon them they were speaking of poetry, of all things. He said to Adam now, “That young woman’s brought quite a change in your life.”
“Yes, she has,” Adam said briefly. He did not want to talk about it, so he asked, “How about you, Clint, are you all right?”
“All right?” Clint was surprised. “Why, yes, what makes you ask that?”
“Don’t you think a lot about Carol?”
Clint dropped his eyes for a moment, then lifted them. “Yes, I do, but I guess I’d go crazy if I thought about it all the time. There’s nothing I can do about it right now, but there’s a verse in the Bible that says we’re to cast our cares on God, and that’s what I’ve done.”
The two men talked quietly, and finally there was a knock on the door.
Clint walked over and opened it and found Maris there. She was wearing her coat and she said, “The countess wants to have tea with you, Sergeant.”
“Tea, with me?”
“Yes, go on down; she’s waiting in the small parlor.”
Clint gave Adam a quizzical look and said, “All right. I feel like I’m being sent to the principal’s office for some reason or other.” He left at once, and as soon as he was gone, Maris said, “Come I want to show you something.”
Adam took the heavy fur coat that Maris handed him. “This is a fine coat,” he said, slipping it on.
“It belonged to your father.”
A shock ran over Adam, and he looked at her quickly, blinking with surprise. “My father? This was his?”
“Yes, the countess gave it to me. She said she wanted you to wear it.”
Adam felt odd. Somehow, putting on the coat that his father had worn made a difference. He ran his hand along the thick fur and murmured, “I feel so strange, Maris.”
“I suppose you do. It would have to be.” She stood watching him and then said gently, “Come along; let’s go out to the pond.”
Ten minutes later the two were walking alongside a pond that bordered the Richthofen estate. It was a small body of water in an L shape, the banks bordered by small trees. As they moved along silently for a while, Adam studied the young woman beside him. She had clean running physical lines, and her face was a mirror that changed often. He had seen laughter in her eyes, and pride, but something touched these things like a cloud. She had a self-sufficiency and was always on guard, but he had already discovered she was a beautiful and robust woman, with a woman’s soft depth and a woman’s spirit and a woman’s fire.
As they moved along, he said, “Things have been so strange, Maris. I guess putting on this coat brings my father to me more than anything else. It is the first thing I’ve ever touched that actually belonged to him.”
“I expect he and your mother walked around this very pond when she was here,” Maris said. “It’s the sort of thing lovers would do.”
Her words struck Adam hard, and he stopped and turned to look at her. She was looking at him silently, and a woman’s silence means many things. He was not sure what it meant in her, but it pulled at him like a mystery.
She drew away her curtain of reserve then, and a provocative challenge came to her eyes. “God brought you here,” she said firmly. “There’s no other explanation!”
Adam ran his hand over the sleeve of the coat, noting again the thick fur. He looked around the pond and said, “That gives me a strange feeling. My mother was in love with him. She told me. She said what they did was wrong—their affair.”
“I wager she’s not sorry though.”
He looked at her quickly. “What makes you say that?”
Surprise came to Maris. “Why, because she has you! How could she be sorry to have a fine son like you? As a Christian, I know she is sorry about the sin, but not about you.”
Her words warmed him, and he reached out and took her hand. “Believe it or not, that’s exactly what she said. How did you know that?”
“Why, I’m a woman!”
Impulsively Adam grinned. “I noticed that.”
His words brought Maris’s eyes to him, her lips parted slightly as she studied him. She was a woman with a great degree of vitality and imagination, but these things were held under careful restraint. The hint of her will was r
evealed in the corners of her lips and the steadiness of her gaze, and as she looked at him, Maris was shocked to find that she had grown very fond of him. After the death of her fiancé, she had locked herself away behind a cold reserve. Life in Germany was so uncertain, especially for the young. Almost everyone that she had grown up with of her generation was either dead or wounded or fighting the last deadly battles in which many would die. Now, however, as she looked at him her face suddenly flushed, and she could not answer him.
“What’s wrong?” Adam asked quickly. He was sensitive to her moods, and now her long, composed lips held back some hidden knowledge. “Have I offended you?”
“Oh, no, Adam!” she said and impulsively put a hand on his chest and held it there. Before she could move he put his own hand over hers. He held it there, and the two stood silently, caught up in a moment that neither of them had imagined. Adam admired the picture of a full woman and felt the strange things that a man feels when he looks upon beauty and fears that it will never be for him. There was fire in this woman that made her lovely, although she kept it hidden behind the cool reserve of her expression. He suddenly felt the urges that a lone man always knows, and it moved him like a needle in a compass toward Maris. She caught his glance and held it as directly as his own. She was attracted to him, and she knew she was a picture framed before his glance. Her assurance said as much as she watched him.
Suddenly, without thought, but on some urgings that rose deep within him, he reached out and put his arms around her, letting the cane fall to the snow. She came to him then and her body was soft and yielding, yet firm against him. He bent his head and kissed her, and there was a softness and firmness and sweetness there that he had never known.
Maris knew something was wrong with letting this man kiss her. She had not kissed a man since her fiance had died, and now the strong lips of this man who had come out of the sky, plunging into her life and disturbing it, moved her deeply. She felt his arms around her, pulling her closer, and despite herself responded to his caress. A loneliness that had built up in her seemed to drive her to him. She put her hands to his neck and pulled him closer, and there was a moment when she felt complete and utter surrender—and then with a gasp she pulled back.
Winds of Change Page 31