by P. G. Glynn
“It won’t always be as bad as this.”
“No, it’ll probably be worse. You can’t imagine just how bad it is, having to be Nancy to his Bill and then … then nothingness. I can’t stand it. I swear it’s driving me mad. And as for Clive’s little asides and sniggers, as well as the knowledge that Dolly’s having the last laugh … ”
“But she isn’t! She’s still out on her ear and you’re still his leading lady. You’re still that, if nothing else, Marie – and that, more than anything, is surely what you want to be.”
“Wanted. Now all I want is to be his everything instead of his … his past history.”
“You’ll never be in his past, Marie. No man who’s been close to you could ever forget you. You’ll haunt him, I reckon, to the end of his days. He only did what he had to do. He could never have done it if he hadn’t had to.”
“I’ll make him sorry. I promised to make him sorry and I shall.”
“Can’t you see that he’s sorry enough already? I can. He’s suffering, dear, quite as much as you are – and his acting is suffering, what’s more, which yours is not. This last week, since he … did what he did … his performance has gone right off.”
“Has it? I hadn’t noticed.”
“You aren’t noticing anything much, other than your own heartache. I’d say his heart is breaking.”
“I hope it is. I hope he rots in hell.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Perhaps not … but I feel better for saying it. He’s hateful.”
“He’s also mortal.”
“What on earth’s that supposed to mean?”
“Simply that he isn’t the god you’d set him up to be. He fell for you, Marie, in a big way but the falling didn’t make him capable of changing society. He has to live by certain rules. We all do – even you.”
“I can’t see why we should have to. Nor can I see how love can possibly ever be wrong.”
“The love itself isn’t necessarily, but … ”
“I knew there’d have to be a ‘but’.”
“Yes, ‘buts’ are my territory – which is perhaps one of the reasons why my life is so much duller than yours is. I often wonder how my life would be if I had your philosophy and the fact is I doubt I could cope with it. So I reckon my future is destined to be uneventful while yours will be the opposite.”
“What was the particular ‘but’ in question?”
“I can’t remember. Oh, yes, I can – it was the circumstances that were wrong, not the feelings. If he hadn’t been married already, then everything might have been fine and dandy and there’d have been nothing to stop you and him marrying. There’s plenty to stop you as things are, though, so it’s best to move on and put the whole messy business behind you.”
“It wasn’t messy … and I can’t move on from the Tavistock!”
“Not from the theatre, at the moment, certainly … but you can, if you try, move on in your mind from Mr Brodie. It isn’t as if he were the only fish in the sea.”
“He is, for me.”
“He won’t be for long – not if I know you, Marie.”
“You don’t know me – you can’t, if you think I could be so faithless to Charles!”
“It wouldn’t be faithlessness. It’d be … wisdom.”
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
“Has your uncle noticed anything?”
“If he has, he hasn’t said, although he’d have to be dense not to notice I’m different. But men are dense!”
“Not all of them.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Nell! Here I go again, thinking of myself and forgetting how much you miss Billy. Forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive. My wounds aren’t fresh like yours are. If it’s any comfort, the missing does begin to hurt less eventually, as you’ll find out for yourself.”
“It isn’t and I shan’t – not while I’m in Charles’s arms each evening. He might be Bill and I might be Nancy but beneath all that we’re Charles and Marie and … and I ache for him! That is, I would if I didn’t loathe him so. I’ll never let another man treat me like he has treated me. I’m finished with men forever.”
“We’ll see.”
Otto Berger was intrigued. How very enlightening the conversation had been and yet how mystifying! He at least knew now that the redhead’s name was Nell and the beauty’s Marie and that she was in Charles’s arms each evening even though they seemed to have parted. There was a Clive who was making asides and sniggering and a Dolly who despite being out on her ear was laughing. And mention had been made of the Tavistock Theatre, which was where this little drama seemed to be happening. It was all most entertaining … and Marie’s last statement certainly needed putting to the test. If she was finished with men forever his name was not Otto Berger!
A bee soon proved to be Otto’s accomplice. Perhaps attracted by the colours of their dresses, it flew toward the two girls and started buzzing purposefully.
After watching for a while as they flapped at it with their hands Otto produced his pocket-handkerchief and, standing, said: “Permit me, dear ladies!”
Nell turned to see a stocky gentleman doffing his grey homburg hat as with his handkerchief he expertly dispatched the bee. “How clever!” she commented as he held the dead insect for her inspection. “Thank you for coming to our rescue, Mr … er … ?”
“Berger,” he told her. “Otto Berger – as you will see, the ‘g’ is hard, not soft – from Bohemia.”
“Oh, so you’re a foreigner?”
“That is one way of describing me. There are others.” He smiled revealing two gold teeth, one at either side of his mouth. “We won’t go into those, though. I am delighted to have been of service and to meet you both. Of course, I don’t know … ”
“Our names!” Nell exclaimed, much to Marie’s irritation. “No, you don’t, do you? You’ve told us yours but we haven’t yet told you ours.”
“There’s no need,” Marie intervened, seeing a high forehead, wide-set brown eyes seemingly amused by her and a square jaw. “The bee has gone now and we’ll soon be at Kew. As my friend said, Mr Berger, we are grateful to you.”
“I can well understand your wish to preserve your anonymity,” he told her, apparently oblivious to the fact that her back had been turned on him. “I would wish to preserve mine, too, if I were a star of the theatre.”
“Oh, so you’ve recognised Marie?” Nell queried innocently.
“Who in London does not recognise her? It is an honour to have made your acquaintance … even if I have not made it altogether.”
“Oh, there’s no honour in knowing me! I’m just a nobody. It’s Marie who’s the leading lady. Have you seen her at the Tavistock in OLIVER TWIST?”
“I haven’t had that pleasure, unfortunately, although I have naturally heard of her success in it, playing opposite Charles …”
“ … Brodie,” Nell helped him, ignoring a dig in her ribs from Marie. “It isn’t surprising that you’ve heard how successful the play is, since as well as this being our longest run ever in one production we’re still sold out months in advance.”
“You are? That’s too bad.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because, regrettably, I am leaving London for home tomorrow – and, while it might be feasible to postpone my departure for a short time, I can’t postpone it indefinitely.”
“Oh, what a pity! Where did you say your home was?”
“In Bohemia, which belonged to Austria before the war. Now my little homeland has been gobbled up by the new republic of Czechoslovakia.”
Marie saw that it was time for her to speak. “So,” she queried, “you fought for our enemies?”
“I did not fight, dear lady – not I, personally, although I have to confess that my countrymen were coerced into siding with Germany.” He smiled, flashing his gold teeth. “As for me, I was in South Africa when Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his Sophie were assassinated and Austria declar
ed war on Serbia - and in London, en route for home, when the Kaiser signed the order for Germany’s mobilisation against Russia. So I was not permitted to leave your beautiful country and spent the war in an internment camp in Yorkshire.”
“Then you should be ashamed to have spent it in safety when men like my father and Nell’s fiancé were dying in their millions fighting the Hun!”
“If I had fought,” he replied, “it would have been wrong in your eyes – and it is also wrong that I did not fight. So, as I cannot do right I shall not try. Nor can I profess shame for having been safe since the safety was not of my choosing but forced upon me by circumstances over which I had no control. I apologise on behalf of my countrymen, though. I am not proud of their part in things. There are no winners in war, to my thinking. You’ve both paid a terrible price for Britain’s victory … and there have been fatalities, too, in my family.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Nell said, deeming it wise to speak before Marie did. “We tend to forget that there were losses on both sides and that people … over there … are flesh and blood just as much as we are over here.”
“Yes, we are, as you can see,” Otto agreed cheerfully. “I am the evidence that you needed.”
“I must say, you speak English almost as if it were your own language, but it isn’t … is it?”
“No, German is my native tongue,” he told her. “It’s spoken both in Bohemia and in Austria proper. But I’ve had plenty of time to perfect my English in Yorkshire and, before the war, in South Africa where I was negotiating to buy an orange grove.” He frowned. “I’d still be living in Cape Town but for one of my brothers.”
“Is that a fact?” said Nell, hoping to hear more. It was not every day that one was lucky enough to meet a gentleman who came from abroad and who could afford to buy whole groves in distant countries. Mr Berger must be an aristocrat at least. “I don’t see … ”
“ … how Ludwig made me leave? The wretch sent me a telegram in our mother’s name urging me home immediately. Had I known then that he sent it,” Otto shook his head bemusedly, “wild horses could not have budged me. But at least Ludwig did not achieve his wish.”
“What was his wish?” Nell asked him.
“To see me fight on the German side, knowing my antipathy toward Germany … and to see me killed, even if it meant killing me himself.”
“Surely not!” Nell was profoundly shocked. “Nobody would want to kill his own brother … would he?”
“Ludwig would,” Otto told her soberly. “He hates me almost as much as I hate him. We have our own private war to win.”
“Why do you hate each other … why are you warring?”
“That’s a very long story and we seem to be arriving at Kew.”
Marie said pointedly: “You’ll be continuing as far as Richmond, Mr Berger, won’t you?”
“That was my intention,” he said, smiling to such a degree that she wished he would swallow his gold teeth, “until you lovely ladies changed my mind for me. Now I see that Kew is definitely the place to be.”
His persistence was far worse than the bee’s and as they left their boat Marie felt like screaming. Was there no getting rid of him? There did not seem to be – especially with Nell flirting so shamelessly. Nell was such a shy little thing normally, yet here she was, behaving like a loose woman with this horrible stranger. Whatever was she thinking of? She was certainly not thinking of Billy, whom she had sworn to love and miss for the rest of her days – and nor was she thinking of Marie, neglecting her so and paying far more attention to the foreigner than to the heartbroken friend she had insisted on bringing on this picnic. Why, Nell and Mr Berger were now carrying the hamper and neither she nor he seemed to have noticed that Marie was trailing all alone behind them. It really was too bad of Nell to prefer the Bohemian’s company to Marie’s. And how could she be so insensitive as to consort with someone who should by rights have fought in Kaiser Bill’s army?
At Kew Green, where tall, gracious houses looked out on to a vivid expanse of grass and trees, Marie was sorely tempted to leave Nell to it and take a bus back to Marylebone Lane. Were she to do so, how long would it be before those two noticed? She was stopped by two considerations: firstly, she could not leave her friend unchaperoned. There was no knowing the fellow’s intentions. Marie had heard that foreigners were a law unto themselves. They had strange habits, abroad, and were certainly not to be trusted. But for them, over there, there would never have been a war. Nell’s memory must be short for her to talk animatedly and seemingly endlessly to a man who was Britain’s enemy in his heart even if he pretended not to be. Why, it was not beyond belief that Mr Berger actually knew, or was even friendly with, those responsible for Billy’s death in Flanders! Whether he knew them or not, he by virtue of his nationality was indirectly responsible. The second consideration against taking the bus home was that today was Sunday and the house in Marylebone Lane would have been taken over by Aunt Gwen’s folk. Her Pa and Ma always came over from Shepherd’s Bush on Sundays to smother Uncle John with all their complaints. Better to be here with Nell and her foreigner than there in such an atmosphere. That decided, Marie made up her mind to bid Otto Berger a speedy ‘goodbye’.
+++++
The pink silk handkerchief that had saved them from the bee had been stylishly returned to the breast pocket of the mid-grey suit that he wore with darker grey spats over his shiny black shoes. What with all these and his hat, Nell had never seen a smarter gentleman. And he was speaking to her as if she were the only woman in the world!
How could it be that he was more interested in her than in Marie? Nell didn’t see how and yet here he was, being charmingly attentive to her and seeming to have forgotten that she was one of a pair. She knew she was wrong to encourage his attentions when out with a friend and knew too that she would soon have to do the right thing by Marie but oh, how amazing to be the star attraction for a change instead of always walking in Marie’s shade! It had never occurred to her that she minded walking there and she didn’t mind, most of the time. But once in a while she had wondered how it would feel to change places with Marie and be Somebody instead of Nobody. Well, today she felt like a very special Somebody which was all thanks to the extraordinary man who had rescued them from that bothersome bee.
He must be a very rich man indeed, because he was staying at Claridge’s where it cost a king’s ransom to stay. But he spoke of staying there as if such luxury were commonplace. And oh, the tales he told about his travels to Paris and Rome and Africa before the war! Better even than those, though, were the hints he gave about his home in Czechoslovakia.
Apparently Bohemia had been a kingdom, like Britain, until the fifteenth century when – as Mr Berger put it – the crown passed to Hungary. Then, he said, it went to the Habsburgs who were Austrian Emperors. Now his country had become a province of the new republic that had been formed at the end of the war. So while he had been Austrian he was now Czechoslovakian whether he liked it or not. How very odd! His home, from the sound of things, was very big and he referred to it as a Schloss. It had a clock tower and stables and a fountain and – in his words – it unfortunately also had Ludwig living in it. When Nell asked why he lived with his hated brother he had answered that it was more a question of Ludwig living with him. Which was no answer, now that Nell came to think about it. There was a third Berger brother, she had learned, who also lived in the Schloss – whatever that was – and both those brothers had wives living there with them too, but no children. Nell’s Mr Berger did not appear to have a wife: not that he was hers except in a manner of speaking and not that it mattered to her whether he was married or not. Why should it, when she would always be faithful to Billy’s memory and when the likes of the Bergers married their own kind, however nice they were to passing strangers?
As they reached the huge black and gold wrought iron gates guarding the entrance to the Royal Botanical Gardens Nell turned and said to Marie: “Ah, there you are, dear – so yo
u haven’t deserted us!”
“It’s hardly me who has done the deserting,” Marie said meaningfully, glowering at her friend. “Apart from the fact that I can’t get a word in edgeways you two were walking too fast for me to keep up.”
“Oh dear,” responded Otto, “that must be my fault! I do apologise for monopolising Nell … and for forgetting the length of my legs. I must make amends. I am sure I shall think of some way of compensating you for all your aggravation.”
“Compensation won’t be necessary,” Marie said edgily, objecting to his manner as well as to his casual use of Nell’s first name. “I was merely mentioning that if anyone was guilty of desertion it wasn’t me. Well, Nell – are we going in, or aren’t we?”
They went in, through the turnstile, with Otto Berger insisting on paying all three token admission fees. Better, Marie decided, to let him pay than to slap his smiling face, which would have been her preferred option had she not been brought up to behave like a lady. Once inside the Gardens she forgot him for a while.
She had surely arrived in Paradise. This was the Garden of Eden, wasn’t it, with its trees of knowledge and of life, where Adam and Eve lived until they ate the forbidden fruit and were banished? It seemed like an Eden, here within the compass of London, so exotic were its flowers, so green its backcloth. The scent was almost overwhelming and there was a music of sorts from the water-sprinklers as well as from a wide variety of birds. They were too late for the lilac of Alfred Noyes’s poem, but in time for the cuckoo which when dawn was high and all the world a blaze of sky would – though very shy – sing his song for London. In another verse the poet said that Noah had hardly known a bird of any kind that wasn’t heard at Kew and, now that she was hearing for herself, Marie believed him. Oh, to have Charles here with her and to wander hand-in-hand with love in summer’s wonderland! As things were, without him, the poem and her surroundings somehow mocked her.