The Longest Winter

by Mary Jane Staples

  ‘Major Moeller,’ said James, lifting his head, ‘you’re a damned marvel.’

  ‘So are you, my boy, for providing this spare ammunition,’ said the major. ‘Might have been tricky without it, though I daresay we could have organized a fighting retreat. What do you say to firing off your revolver? Anywhere will do, except at me. Say about three shots. It’ll make a useful noise and keep them all thinking. In any offensive, if you have to stop and think it’s the beginning of having to worry.’

  James fired three shots at Avriarches and company. Avriarches and company responded with blasphemy and several wild shots of their own. Bullets smacked stone and tore holes in the air. The major chuckled.

  ‘Well done, James.’

  ‘Frankly,’ said James, ‘I’m getting nervous.’

  ‘Stuff of battle, my boy, healthy nervousness. But it won’t be long now, rely on my men. When it’s all over I’d be honoured if you’d call on me. I insist. No, damned if I shan’t insist first on calling on you and the baronesses in Ilidze, if you’ll permit. Best day’s sport I’ve had in years. Capital. Keep down, old chap.’

  He let go judicious shots at intervals, penning Avriarches’ men across the river with his uncanny accuracy. And when the bandaged Dobrovic tried to crawl away he brought him back with a shot that singed his eyebrows. Angry rifles from the far bank spat in erratic intimidation from time to time, but failed to spoil the major’s enjoyment of the engagement or James’s cheerful appreciation of his new friend.

  It was two hours before Gunther and Herman returned. Baron von Korvacs was with them, so was Carl. Father and son had just got back from one more fruitless search when Anne and Sophie reached the house in Ilidze. Because of Sophie’s frantic pleading, the baron and Carl insisted on accompanying Gunther and Herman on their return journey. There were also two large cars full of police who, on arrival, immediately went to work. Avriarches’ brigands began a mad scramble back through the foothills and up to the heights. Dobrovic and his two cursing friends, together with the vastly roaring Avriarches, were rounded up and carted off. James and Major Moeller came out of the line, finished the schnapps, greeted the grateful Baron Ernst with a cordiality that made him smile, then returned processionally to Ilidze with the police and the captives.

  Sophie, lying on top of her bed, dreamt herself into the nightmare of flight for the hundredth time. For the hundredth time she plummeted into the abyss at the end of a river. For the hundredth time the shock awoke her. She turned, subconscious anxiety dragging at her tired body. She had slept, and for hours, after she had had a hot bath and much-needed food, but she would not get into bed, she was desperate for news of James. Anne had said she would not sleep at all until James got safely back, but she had gone down like one dead.

  Sophie, after hours of sleep, was aghast to hear from her mother that James was still not back.

  ‘Mama, I told him – oh, I knew they would get him –’

  ‘He is at the police station,’ said the baroness, who had feared the worst and was still in a state of blissful gratitude for the deliverance. ‘He’s there with Papa and Major Moeller.’

  Sophie closed her eyes in the intensity of her relief, then opened them again.

  ‘But why is he there? He’s exhausted, starving. What are they doing with him, why should the police want him?’ She went on distractedly. Her mother soothed her, made her lie down again, told her to sleep, told her she must sleep. Sophie tried to, a hundred times. It was late evening when she was shocked into one more awakening. The subconscious anxiety leapt after a moment into conscious awareness of voices in the hall below. She sat up. She heard her father.

  ‘Come down again when you have had your bath. Carl and I will wait to eat with you. I think my wife will endeavour to provide you with a banquet. Well, could we do less?’

  ‘Anything will do, sir.’ That was James, and sounding so tired. Sophie came to her feet, her heart beating.

  James came slowly up the stairs. The long questions, the many questions from the police had drained his elation hours ago. He was left only with the relief of knowing Sophie and Anne were safe, and even that was not quite such a bright light in his exhausted mind now. Unshaven, hollow-eyed, he could not remember precisely where the bathroom was, and that was what he wanted above all other things, a hot cleansing bath. He stood on the rectangular landing, the wide strip of olive-green carpet restful to his eyes. He speculated vaguely. A door opened. He turned. He saw Sophie. She was clad in something white, loose and very soft. Her eyes were dark, emotional, her mouth working.

  ‘Sophie?’

  ‘Oh, James!’ She ran and flung herself against him. His response was immediate. He drew her into a warm embrace. After so much terrible worry Sophie slid into bliss. She hid her hot face in his shoulder. ‘Oh, I am so glad you are back, but how could you send us away as you did? I have been out of my senses—’

  ‘Dear Sophie,’ he said and held her very close. Her warm, agitated body vibrated. ‘Are you all right now? Let me look at you.’

  ‘No,’ she said muffledly, ‘and I am not all right.’

  ‘Why not? Everything has turned out quite well—’

  ‘Well?’ She was outraged but still kept her face hidden, still retained blissful contact with him. ‘After your awful act of perfidy, sending us away, staying to have those men shoot at you, giving me hours of frantic worry, that isn’t well at all. I am still shocked and distracted.’

  ‘Let me see.’ He put a hand under her chin and turned her face up. She was a beautiful Sophie, a laundered Sophie, her eyes very soft and looking as newly washed as her shining, flowing hair, her flush a warm, spreading pinkness. ‘Yes, as I thought,’ he said, conscious of his tired blood quickening because of the pressure of her soft, curving body, ‘you are very well, Sophie. I must apologize for being so down at heel myself, but a bath and a shave should work some improvement.’

  ‘No, James, no practical or sensible talk, please. Please?’ She looked up at him, her colour deepening. She said breathlessly, ‘Oh, if you will not, then I will!’ And she wound her arms around his neck and kissed him without shame and in grateful love on his lips. It was not a light, fleeting gesture, it was an emotional, lingering betrayal of her need of him. It evoked warm, firm response which was not only electrifying but which so delighted her that she knew if her parents said she could not have James then she would never have anybody.

  ‘My very sweet Sophie,’ said James, and wondered what she would think of life in a Warwickshire cottage with one maid and a single pony and trap.

  ‘You are saying that, you are calling me sweet? Oh, you are everything.’ Her breathlessness came from her intense being. ‘You were so good – oh, almost magnificent. Anne and I, we are so grateful, we always will be – except that I am much more than grateful, I am exceptionally loving. Oh, is that shameless, for me to say I love you? If it is, I don’t think that fair at all, I should not consider you to be shameless if you said you loved me—’

  ‘Oh, Sophie.’ He could not resist her, her flushed loveliness, her way with words, and he swept her back into his arms. ‘I should not have helped Carl change his wheel that day if I hadn’t thought you to be the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, even behind your motoring veil.’

  ‘James? Oh, be careful, think of what you are saying, it is putting me in danger of my life.’

  ‘Kindly advise me how.’

  ‘How?’ Sophie was irrepressible in this, her most delighted moment. ‘But, James, you must know how weak we women are. When we are put into unparalleled bliss by the men we love we can die of it.’

  ‘I think,’ said James, kissing her chastely on the forehead, ‘that before I can even begin to live up to such an unparalleled woman I’ll have my bath. That might sharpen me as well as cleaning me. Go to bed. I’ll talk to you in the morning.’

  ‘Talk to me?’

  ‘I’ll kiss you in the morning.’

  ‘That is better, James, much much better.’


  Chapter Nine

  Sophie awoke and lay in luxuriating bliss. A maid peeped in. She bobbed, entered and drew back the curtains. Sunlight poured into the bedroom. Sophie felt enriched by delicious comfort, sweet security and future’s golden promise. The maid asked if she wanted anything.

  Only James, thought Sophie.

  ‘Nothing at the moment, Tica.’

  The maid bobbed again and went out. Sophie stretched. She had had a gloriously deep sleep. Oh, the ecstasy of feeling so safe and so clean. Cleanliness today was a physical joy, the soft bed civilized enchantment. No more horrors, no more frightening waters, racked limbs and tortured feet. No more clammy heat or icy coldness.

  Only James, who was quite unlike any of her imagined men yet quite irreplaceable now.

  Her mother, informed by the maid that Sophie was awake, came in.

  ‘Sophie? How do you feel, darling?’

  ‘Beautiful,’ murmured Sophie. Her hair, thickly draping the white pillow, lay richly, cleanly glossy again. Her eyes were slumbrous. ‘Mama,’ she said, then smiled. ‘Mama, I’m so glad to be back with you.’

  The baroness bent and kissed her daughter’s cheek.

  ‘And we are very glad and very grateful, darling,’ she said. ‘Would you like a meal sent up?’

  ‘No, I shall get up. When is lunch?’

  ‘Lunch has been served,’ smiled the baroness, ‘but we did not want to disturb you, we thought it better to let you sleep on.’

  Sophie looked at the china clock. It was almost two. Heavens, how she had slept.

  ‘That is the time? Oh, how disgraceful I am. How is Anne?’

  ‘Quite herself again. She’s up and about. She’s talking her head off to Carl. Mostly about James. We are in debt to James, aren’t we?’

  ‘Immensely, Mama. Is he all right?’

  ‘He is not complaining,’ smiled the baroness.

  Sophie wondered if James had said anything. No, perhaps not. Her mother would have mentioned it. He would speak to her father first. Formally.

  ‘Mama, I was dreadfully scared, you know, especially when Avriarches appeared. I have never thought myself capable of swooning, but Avriarches, oh, he would have made the great Maria Theresa fall from her throne. There he was, a huge man – you have never seen such a monster – and suddenly, before one really had time to swoon, he was on the ground. James had actually upended him. But I shall never look romantically on brigands again.’

  ‘Well, the authorities have him now, darling,’ said the baroness soothingly, ‘they have them all.’

  Sophie was silent for a moment, then said, ‘I can’t feel sorry for him. He will make a villainous lump on the end of a rope. I suppose,’ she added regretfully, ‘that to wish him well and truly hanged shows how much such men can reduce one to their own, inhuman level.’

  ‘Sophie,’ said the baroness firmly, ‘that isn’t inhuman of you. It is, as your father says, very advisable to hang the occasional rogue in the interests of the rest of us.’

  ‘Oh, I assure you, it’s a lovely relief to have escaped that one,’ said Sophie. ‘Mama, where is James?’

  ‘With Anne and Carl. He’s been asking if he might see you before he goes.’

  ‘Before he goes?’ Sophie felt a little shock. ‘Goes where?’

  ‘To Sarajevo, with Major Moeller, an extremely pleasant man, to whom we are also very grateful. James says they have some business in Sarajevo and will be gone a day or two.’

  ‘What business? He said nothing to me.’

  The baroness regarded her daughter wonderingly.

  ‘Sophie, you’re very intense. Aren’t you quite recovered? Would you just like to lie quietly?’

  ‘Mama, I am exceptionally recovered,’ said Sophie, ‘but I just do not want James going carelessly off to Sarajevo.’

  ‘Now what am I to understand from that?’

  Sophie wanted to say that she was in such a sensitive condition about James that she did not wish to let him out of her sight. Instead she said, ‘Mama, would you please tell him I should like to see him?’

  ‘Very well, darling.’ The baroness knew what was affecting Sophie. She was suffering from an excess of romantic gratitude. The baroness understood. She had herself suffered deceptive emotions as a girl, imagined herself in love a dozen times for varying reasons. Ernst had not been her romantic ideal when she first met him, and her feeling for him had only been one of affection. But by the time they were married she went into his arms with far more than affection. James was a very likeable man and they would always be in debt to him, but he was not as suitable for Sophie as Ludwig. ‘Sophie, has something happened to you and James?’

  Sophie’s smile was a little unsteady.

  ‘Mama, something has happened to me,’ she said, ‘and if it hasn’t happened to James too you had better pray for me.’

  The baroness did not protest or make a speech, she simply said, ‘Is it so bad, darling?’

  ‘I’ve had a sudden thought, Mama. About James. I think it will all depend on what he says to me. Will you please tell him that if he isn’t required to go to Sarajevo immediately, I’ll be happy to receive him in fifteen minutes?’

  The baroness, affected by Sophie’s obvious emotion, lightly touched her and said, ‘I’ll tell him now, darling.’

  The maid went to fetch James twenty minutes later. Sophie received him in her room. Twenty minutes had not given her quite as much time as she would have liked, but there was really little more she could have done to better what she had accomplished, for she presented herself to him as an exquisite bloom of summer. She was slenderly, curvingly lovely in pale yellow. It set off the burnished brilliance of her chestnut hair and graced the aristocratic elegance of her form. She wished most desperately, after two days of feeling herself a dishevelled mess, to have James see her at her best. All the same, considering what was in her mind, it might have been a mistake, for to James she had an air of richness which somehow escapes those who may acquire wealth but are not born to it.

  ‘Sophie, how beautiful,’ he said. He took her hand and Sophie stared in almost horrified dismay as he lifted it and kissed it.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she said.

  ‘Paying my tribute to a lovely Sophie.’

  ‘Oh, are you indeed? I am thrilled,’ said Sophie, loving him despite her dismay because he was so darkly cool – and to her new eyes – devilishly attractive. She looked at her slim fingers. ‘My hand is very thrilled. But what is wrong with my face? Am I haggard? Are my eyes crossed? Has my nose taken a crooked turn? Have my teeth dropped out? You look very refreshed yourself, and not at all repellent. Well, if I am no longer quite the most beautiful thing you have ever seen you must close your eyes, because if you will not kiss properly again, then I must.’ And she kissed him. It was a brief, almost angry kiss, but it destroyed James’s cautious front. He put his lips very decisively to hers and kissed her so warmly and positively that her dismay vanished and she shut her eyes tight to hold back sudden tears of intense relief.

  ‘James, oh, I thought – oh, I haven’t turned into a frog, have I? You did kiss me last night and say sweet things, didn’t you?’ Her eyes were dark with appeal. ‘I assure you, I am just the same today, only more so. That is, I am more exceptionally loving, and if you go to Sarajevo and don’t come back until tomorrow that is twenty-four hours for me of not being alive. James, do you understand what I’m saying?’

  James considered her with the seriousness of a man who knew that her striking fascination was presenting him with his greatest problem.

  ‘I understand what I feel about you,’ he said. ‘On top of being irresistibly lovely, you’re given to the kind of talk I can’t listen to without realizing life could be very silent and empty for me if you weren’t there. However, my lovely Sophie—’

  ‘Oh, more of that, please.’

  ‘However, my very sweet Sophie, much as I love you, and have done ever since you put back your veil, we must be practical�
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  ‘Never,’ breathed Sophie, ‘never. I know what being practical means to you. It means doing something which is going to upset me. I am not really disposed to cry about things but I am near to unleashing an ocean of tears this very moment.’ He was not sure whether she meant this or was just using words, except that underlying vibrations were making her voice unsteady. ‘I beg you, James, please don’t say we must be practical, because in this case I know it means you are going to find reasons why you should not propose to me. You are going to say you can’t afford me.’

  He shook his head, caught halfway between a smile and a sigh.

  ‘Sophie, my father will pay me a very good salary. More than that if I have a wife to keep. But I could give you little of what you’re used to, what you’re entitled to. We’re not great landowners. You must realize—’

  ‘No,’ said Sophie passionately, ‘no!’

  ‘Sophie—’

  ‘No. I won’t accept your argument. It is so horrifyingly old-fashioned it would make some young ladies swoon.’ Sophie was flushed and emotionally purposeful. ‘No, I will not accept that at all. But I will accept your proposal. I wish to be proposed to. If you refuse, then I shall propose to you, and if you think that shockingly forward of me you only have yourself to blame. And if you turn me down I shall enter a convent.’

  In the bright, sunlit room James eyed his glowing, dramatizing love a little hopelessly.

  ‘Sophie, be serious.’

  ‘You think I am not? I am very serious,’ she said intensely. ‘If you don’t wish me to be your wife I shall become a bride of Christ. That is how nuns are looked upon in some orders, I believe.’

  ‘Well, just look here,’ said James, putting his hands firmly on her shoulders, ‘there would only be one servant, two at the most, and a pony and trap – although a motor car would be no problem if you preferred—’