The Longest Winter

by Mary Jane Staples

  ‘Will you, Sophie sweet?’ James in his insistence was compulsively obliging.

  She flung herself back into his arms. She hid herself again. Sophie, for all her ability to meet ups and downs with composure, felt emotions that were devastatingly weakening.

  ‘Sophie, am I to have no answer?’

  ‘You are proposing to me, you are really proposing?’ She came faintly from the depths.

  ‘I think I’ve just proposed twice at least,’ said James, wondering if he would ever have known what light and beauty and laughter meant had he not taken a year’s sabbatical.

  ‘Oh, you have saved me from an existence of gloom and misery,’ said Sophie, and lifted her face to show him glowing light and laughter. ‘Is it in order for me not to worry any more? Not to think about entering a convent? We are firmly engaged? We will marry?’

  ‘When I’ve spoken to your father and informed my parents, we’ll arrange a date. Will that do, Sophie?’

  ‘Oh, it will do beautifully,’ said Sophie, ‘and it isn’t painful at all now.’

  ‘What isn’t?’

  ‘Loving you,’ said Sophie.

  Anne and Carl were delighted. Anne said that to have in the family the man who had upended Avriarches was quite the most historic thing the family had done. Carl said the Benz would profit too. Carl felt keenly appreciative of the match, for he was sure Sophie had committed herself heart and soul. That, unless James was fully alive to it, could be almost tormenting to someone as intelligent and independent as Sophie.

  Carl wondered what it was about the demon of love that it had such an unpredictable effect on people. Sophie had surveyed the arena of life and made James her champion. On James that mantle now rested and Sophie would expect him to wear it bravely, proudly and unequivocally on her behalf.

  A motor car, thought Carl, had its complications but providing you were reasonably good to it, it never became as unmanageable as people. Certainly it was never incomprehensible, as women were.

  The baroness did not try to talk Sophie out of the match. Sophie was desperately in love. She was not concerned with making a brilliant marriage, as she could have. She wanted James, no one else. But admirable and likeable though James was, the baroness knew his chief interest and occupation lay in sketching and painting. She had visions of him and Sophie ending up in a Paris garret, which though considered fashionable among very modern young people, was an uncomfortable environment for any married couple. It was not what Sophie was used to. However, James’s father was Sir William Fraser. There must be sound connections and James must at least have long-term prospects. And one could not discount how he had saved Sophie – and Anne – from unthinkable disaster.

  The baron, at Sophie’s request, agreed to see James the following evening. In being late home from his office he did not endear himself to his tenterhooked daughter, but she readily forgave him because she knew he really was very busy. The Serbian question was invading every whisper and buzz in the Ballhausplatz, the Austrian Foreign Minister determined to present Belgrade with demands so humiliating that they would be rejected and war made inevitable. The baron felt depressed. Nevertheless, he received James cordially. His affection for the man who had delivered his daughters from terror was ungrudging. They retired to the library for a friendly but traditionally necessary discussion on the suitability of the match, in terms of how suitable was James.

  Sophie tried to sit in calm acquiescence of the conventional, waiting in the drawing room with her mother. Anne and Carl were in the garden, relaxing in the evening sunshine. They would come in, Carl had said, when the champagne was opened.

  ‘Mama,’ said Sophie, ‘it must be so embarrassing for James, this sort of thing. After all, it is the twentieth century and I’m not sure compulsory talks of this kind with fathers can’t be considered an infringement of a daughter’s right to decide her own future.’

  ‘Darling,’ said the baroness in her tranquil way, ‘your father would not dream of infringing anyone’s rights. He will only do what he thinks best for you.’

  ‘Oh, I know.’ Sophie rustled anxiously all the same. ‘But James is a man, not a boy. It would be quite different if he were young and beardless—’

  ‘Sophie, he is hardly aged and he has no beard.’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ said Sophie. ‘Mama, how can we ask a man who virtually flung Avriarches and his cannon off his own mountain to prove himself to Papa? I do hope Papa doesn’t pat him on the head.’

  ‘Pat him on the head?’ The baroness hid her smile.

  ‘Metaphorically,’ said Sophie. ‘I suppose you realize that a talk like this implies I need protection?’

  ‘Sophie dear, the experience and wisdom of one’s father do amount to a little more than the unlearned callowness of youth. He and James will get along very well together.’

  ‘Oh, I will put my trust in Papa,’ said Sophie. She got up and wandered restlessly about. ‘Only if anything happened and James— No, I shall be resolute and allow nothing at all to happen.’ But suppose her father considered James unsuitable simply because he wasn’t rich enough or couldn’t claim the very best connections? He would talk very kindly to James, very fairly and logically, and James might ask to be released from the engagement in what he would say were her best interests. Nearly all men had odd ideas about the best interests of women. Was it in her own best interests to break her heart?

  She would never allow it, never. Nor would James in the long run.

  The door opened. James came in. He was smiling. Sophie swept him from the room in a rush, begging him to talk to her elsewhere. James, set for a lifetime of indulging the whims of beautiful Austria, accompanied her amiably to the morning room. Outside in the Salesianergasse the traffic had divorced itself from daytime hurry and eased itself into an evening saunter.

  ‘Please, what happened?’ asked Sophie. ‘What did Papa say to you?’

  Her anxiety, the intensity of it, surprised him a little. She must know her own father. He himself had felt that whatever reservations the baron might have, he was not going to make his enchanting elder daughter unhappy.

  ‘Sophie.’ James took her anxious face between his hands and kissed the tip of her nose. ‘Your father said you’re a young lady of priceless virtue, high intelligence and persuasive argument. That I’m very fortunate to have won you where thousands have failed, and that he only asks us to take our time in setting the wedding date. It would allow your mother to see that everything was done properly. I thought him very generous and reasonable. He’s a charmer, isn’t he? We went on to talk about the balance of power in Europe, of which I know very little and he knows everything, it seems. I found his comments fascinating, his arguments convincing. I’m quite won over now to the survival of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Apparently, it’s either that or the emergence of a greater German empire—’

  ‘James!’ Sophie beat at his chest with demanding fists. ‘James, you beast, you are flying kites over my head. Speak to me of me, not of empires. Papa has said it’s all right, that you may make me your most treasured possession?’

  ‘Didn’t I make it clear? I thought I did.’ James was drawn into the brilliance of eyes compelling relevancies from him. ‘Your father has no objections at all and is going to have champagne served. He also wishes your mother to arrange a small family dinner party in my honour. He thinks there’ll have to be an engagement party as well.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Sophie, ‘heaven has arrived at my door. James, are you pleased that I am yours now?’

  James regarded her with the smile of a man who was not going to complain.

  ‘Sophie, I don’t think I’ve done too badly at all. I think I’m getting the best Austria could give. Yes, I’m very pleased.’

  ‘Then I am pleased too,’ she said. ‘Actually, I am over the moon. Do you think— I mean, if you would rather do without an engagement party I shouldn’t mind at all. I really only want a wedding. I’ll talk to Mama. I must write to your parents and Mama mus
t invite them here. Do you think they will like me?’

  ‘They’ll love you. I love you. Sophie, you’re adorable.’

  She put her arms around his neck.

  ‘If you will kiss me,’ she said, her eyes moistly soft, ‘I will show you just how much I love you.’

  Chapter Twelve

  In mid-July Vienna swam in golden light. It mellowed old Franz Josef into having an official photograph taken that portrayed him in the rubicund health of balmy octogenarianism. In such a summer the Sarajevo incident became something for the statesmen to argue about, not the people. Serbia deserved a caning, but Franz Ferdinand and his wife, being demonstrably dead and buried, were better forgotten. Nothing could bring them back and the new heir apparent, Charles, was a much more attractive Habsburg. It was not the errors and omissions of the gloomy dead the Viennese preferred to gossip about, but the rich promise of the young and living. They did not like to turn their colourful taverns and coffee houses into funeral parlours.

  However, there were some people the golden summer could not mellow. The Foreign Minister, Count Berchtold, for instance. He was adamant that a caning was the least Serbia deserved, and his belligerence mounted rather than lessened. With the German Kaiser’s promise of support ringing martially in his ears, the Austrian Foreign Minister felt he could command Serbia to jump over the Habsburg moon, with dire consequences if her acrobatics failed her.

  The ordinary people did not worry much. Hardly at all, in fact. But then, as is generally the case with ordinary people, nobody really told them anything to make them worry. One or two newspaper editors did express concern at what might be going on in the underground communications linking the foreign ministries of Europe, but nobody worried excessively. There were exceptions, of course. Maude creased her forehead anxiously from time to time, then managed to startle James by referring to the possible pressure France might put on Britain.

  ‘Hold on,’ said James, ‘for God’s sake.’

  Maude figuratively kicked herself. The last thing to bring joy to James, engaged to the beautiful Sophie von Korvacs, was a suggestion that the developing crisis would see Britain involved.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said briskly, ‘that was a stupid thing to bring up.’

  ‘Frankly, Maude,’ said James, ‘I’ve heard no one talk as seriously as you do about things.’

  Maude might have advised him to have a long talk with Baron von Korvacs, whose position in the Foreign Ministry made him the best possible sounding board for his prospective son-in-law, but instead she said, ‘I’m getting to be an imaginative old woman.’ And she changed the subject by asking him about Sophie.

  ‘Sophie,’ said James with a smile, ‘would handle this Serbian situation with ease. Neither kings nor statesmen would be able to withstand her arguments, for she’d play from both sides of the fence at once. Her turn of phrase would induce euphoria. Incidentally, my father is a man of fact and logic. At some time in the future Sophie is going to stand him on his head.’

  Sophie had told James that for the sake of his future he must not be modest. He was a man in ten thousand. His victorious confrontation with Avriarches, the bone-crushing man-mountain, had been proof of that. His father, therefore, must not only be grateful to have James working for him, he must be suitably appreciative of the valiant qualities of his son.

  ‘But you mustn’t think, dearest James, that I wish to push you into an argument with Sir William. I wish only to have him realize how very invaluable you are. You must know that I’m not at all concerned about whether we live in comfort or just make ends meet, but I should hope no one would so underrate you as to offer you a pittance.’

  ‘I think we’ll make ends meet.’

  ‘I intend,’ said Sophie, ‘to work my fingers to the bone.’

  ‘I intend,’ said James, ‘that you don’t do anything of the sort.’

  ‘Thank you, darling. Perhaps—’

  ‘Sophie, however invaluable you think I’ll be to my father, do you realize you’ll be indispensable to me? I promise you you shan’t be penned up, you can be yourself as well as my wife. You can write your poetry, visit London, go to the galleries and the theatres—’

  ‘Please don’t,’ said Sophie, ‘or I shall get emotional. You aren’t going to put me on a train every day, are you? We are going to be at home, aren’t we, and have conversations? You are going to love me sometimes, aren’t you? I can hardly be indispensable to you if I’m going up and down to London in trains.’

  ‘I thought I’d go up and down with you. Not every day, of course.’

  ‘Oh, I am no one without you, darling,’ she said. ‘We will get along together, won’t we? Perhaps we will talk to your father together. I’m not too bad at talking to people, you know. Oh, I assure you, I won’t be aggressive or unfeminine, I should not want your father to think I came from a family of boxers or footpads. But you see, I’m simply unable to bear not being part of all that is important to you, to us, and I should love to help you beard your father in his cage.’

  ‘Den, I think you mean.’

  ‘Very well. Den. You will be Daniel and I will be Daniel’s wife.’

  ‘Heaven help the lion,’ said James.

  Sophie wondered why he had not yet settled the wedding date with her. She felt she had already been forward enough, although it had been desperation which motivated her, and she did not want to press him further. He would come round naturally to agreeing the day when the engagement party date had been fixed.

  The baroness, however, had a private word with James two days later. She knew Sophie could not quite understand why James avoided the issue. James liked the baroness. He thought her a warm, affectionate woman who had bequeathed much of her charm to her daughters.

  ‘James, please forgive me if I’m interfering where I shouldn’t,’ she said, ‘but I understand the wedding date is still not settled. I think Sophie would like to plan for the day. Oh, please don’t mention I’ve spoken to you, she would never forgive me. Will you think me silly if I ask whether there is anything worrying you, anything my husband and I could help you with?’

  Something was worrying James. Not Sophie. The crisis. It was there, darkly looming. Yet the family seemed to behave as if it did not exist, although the baron was in the closest official touch with it. Maude was certain it was serious and Maude was not a scaremonger, she was an extremely practical woman. She was also shrewd and had maintained from the beginning that the wrong kind of diplomatic and political attitudes could lead to disaster. She was sure that Count Berchtold really did mean to crush Serbia, to have Austria annex that country and bring it into the empire to keep a stern and fatherly eye on it. The emperor was being persuaded that such action was vitally necessary. Maude said that if Franz Josef signed the declaration of war it would be because Berchtold had also persuaded him that Russia, for all her bombast, would not interfere. But Russia, said Maude, would never permit an Austrian annexation of Serbia. There would be a European war on a disastrous scale. James wondered if the baroness thought in those terms, if she even thought that a war with Serbia was in the offing. He did not know what the baron might have said to her, and he himself could certainly not speak for her husband. He could only put his worry across in the mildest way.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘there seems to be something of a crisis concerning Serbia, Baroness, and I thought I ought to wait until it’s all blown over. To be fair to Sophie the wedding should take place in an atmosphere of peace and harmony, don’t you think? Nobody would want the occasion to be less than perfect for her.’

  It sounded limp and uncomfortable even to his own ears. And the baroness was looking at him as if it was puzzling to hers.

  ‘James, you can’t think that anything dreadful will happen, surely? It’s only a question of Serbia making suitable reparations. My husband has told me so. It might mean us taking a firm line with the Serbians, but that is all. It was a terrible thing they did, helping to plot the murder of the archduke. But whateve
r happened it would not affect you.’ She wondered if he realized Sophie would go off her head if for some inexplicable reason the marriage did not take place. ‘James, you have come to be a very good friend. I may ask you a question?’

  ‘Please do.’

  ‘It is just that you feel uneasy about this Serbian business? It’s nothing to do with a change in your feelings for Sophie?’

  James smiled. That made her feel better. It told her he did not need to equivocate.

  ‘My feelings for Sophie are unchangeable,’ he said, ‘she is a great gift to me. It’s only the crisis that’s making me cautious about the wedding date.’

  ‘I am so relieved,’ said the baroness. ‘James, Sophie is really rather an intense person. She is unable to trade lightly in emotions and affections, however lightly she may converse about them. I think you should speak to her, tell her you’re a little worried about things and that is all. Am I interfering?’

  ‘No,’ said James, ‘you’re my friend and counsellor.’

  ‘Good.’ She smiled. ‘You haven’t forgotten the little dinner party we’re giving for you at the end of the week? I thought you would like to have Major Moeller there, I think he has earned a special place with you and us. And you have earned a special place with the whole family.’

  The following day the newspapers, which had indulged in fits of ferocity and intervals of reassurance, came out in speculative rashes. All concerning a punitive ultimatum to Serbia.

  Baron von Korvacs, looking lined with worry, spent even more time at the Foreign Ministry. His wife asked him what was happening. He told her it was nothing. Well, nothing except discussions concerning the concessions Serbia would have to make.

  ‘Don’t let it disturb you,’ he said.

  ‘I’m trying not to,’ she said, ‘but I don’t think you’re very happy, Ernst.’

  ‘We’ll see, we’ll see,’ he said.