Again, politics intrude.
I’m looking forward to the big mess in Albania I’m expecting all along; Austria and Italy must have some fight as both are behaving badly and lying right and left.
Meiningen,
13 June 1914
It seems too good to be true your saying ‘cheer up, your dream will soon be realised’: if it could but be so soon: matters stand too badly here and my husband gets more nervous and bitter daily …
… fate is hard often and my husband is now the oldest of the whole generation, and the only one not reigning!! So use all your forces!!
I imagine Zeno, turning to Rosetta with vexation, exclaiming, ‘What exactly does she want me to do? “Use all your forces”, she says – what, to cast a spell, to murder the old man by witchcraft? Is that what she wants?’ Where once he might have smiled at the Princess’s folly, now he is dismayed.
Then Charlotte remarks:
The terrible unrest of the whole world I quite see: but not that every country and city are threatened with danger … your tragic picture must be as true as you feel it by intuition I’ve learnt to believe in. Fire and slaughter daily take place already and Albania is closely nearing it now!
The visions that he described at Torre Clementina in March, the same unwanted visions that visit him at night; Zeno cannot explain how it is that they come to him, but he believes what Charlotte still cannot accept. The world they know will be consumed by flames.
Meiningen,
22 June 1914
We are living in a terrible unrest … Europe must fear danger in consequence arising between Austria and Italy, as they misuse my stupid nephew to profit by him. The idea of driving Albanians into submission is totally wrong and useless, and trust Germany will keep her fingers out of this mess: let them settle their things rightly themselves, as … they can never become civilised.
Turkey and Greece are calming down again, and their warlike ideas seem too childish and wicked; bloodshed means nothing to them, but the unrest everywhere seems to continue.
On 25 June, the longed-for death has come: Charlotte’s next letter is edged in a wide band of black. At last she has what she wants.
Meiningen,
1 July 1914
Now that the worst days are over the wretched, unkind, squabbling, fighting family have left, I am capable of thanking you so much … Remembering what you said, I knew you would extend your thoughts and forces in my direction and help to overcome all the overwhelming difficulties …
Next Charlotte refers to another death, about which, amazingly, Zeno appears to have warned her. This event will not have anything to do with natural causes. Its consequences will prove both grave and unimaginable.
The murder of the Austrian heir presumptive did not astonish me, after what you said …
… and cruel as it may sound, it’s a blessing, and may save Austria and us from war: 2 wicked, intriguing, false people less: but what will be next?
The first domino has fallen. The murder does not save anyone.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was killed by Gavrilo Princip, nineteen, in the Bosnian town of Sarajevo. On 28 June, this hitherto unknown, unremarkable young man was one of a group of assassins organised and armed by the Black Hand, a secret society devoted to Serbian unification. The Black Hand tried to kill the Archduke and his wife Sophie earlier that day but blundered. The bomb that had been thrown bounced off the archducal car.
Princip did not expect to see his quarry again. Quite by chance he was sitting in a cafe, gloomily contemplating this failure, when to his surprise he caught sight of the distinctive pale-green feathers of Franz Ferdinand’s helmet only metres away. This was entirely unexpected; it seems the royal chauffeur had taken a wrong turning. The Black Hand would not miss its chance again. Princip walked over to the near-stationary car. He raised his pistol and shot twice. Within minutes the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne and his wife were dead.
I wish I knew exactly what it was that Zeno said to Charlotte, the words that led her to respond to this murderous news without surprise.
As to her query ‘what will be next?’, opinions varied. The day after Charlotte posed this question, the Austrian newspaper Neue Freie Press pronounced, ‘The political consequences of this act are being greatly exaggerated.’ Zeno did not share this optimistic view. He believed that evil would ensue.
Charlotte’s final letter has another thick black border. It has been written just ten days after her brother, Kaiser Wilhelm, promises German support for Austria’s revenge against the Serbian outrage.
Grosses Palais,
Meiningen, 1
5 July 1914
I am sorely disappointed to think you may not be able to come in 3 weeks time … I do so hope that your patients and work will be less and enable you after all to come, if but for a few days! Do try your best and come to give me strength for future happiness and life …
Despite Charlotte’s pleas, Zeno will not come. Patients and work are but a ruse: he has no intention of leaving for Europe in three weeks’ time. Indeed, he will not visit Paris, or the Riviera, and certainly not the palaces of Germany, for many years ahead.
On 28 July, Austria formally declares war on Serbia. This brings Russia into play.
In England, the Daily Mail’s headline of 31 July shouts ‘Europe Drifting to Disaster’.
On 1 August, Germany declares war on its vast eastern neighbour. The following day, fifteen thousand people gather in London’s Trafalgar Square. They stand in driving rain and call upon the British government to avoid entering the conflict. ‘Think what war will cost!’ their banners say.
The Cabinet is still grappling with its response. It is a ‘moving situation’, Britain’s Lord Chancellor, Lord Haldane, remarks, ‘like a huge cinematograph show, seen through a mist’.
Each day there is a new announcement. On 3 August, Germany declares war on France. The following day, its army invades neutral Belgium.
Britain can delay no longer. Alliances are invoked. At 7.00 pm the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, delivers a solemn statement to the House of Commons. An ultimatum is sent to Germany: withdraw your troops.
At 11.00 pm the ultimatum expires. Great Britain is at war. Kaiser Wilhelm II and his subjects are the enemy.
There will be no more letters from Charlotte.
THIRTY-NINE
LONDON, SEPTEMBER 1914
The two women are in Lilian’s dressing room, trying on the purchases they have made for the new season. As they are quite alone they play at being ladies’ maids, hooking up each other’s delectable silken gowns of emerald and scarlet, sapphire and rose; it is an intimate indulgence. Lilian and Rosetta stand before the long double-sided mirror, admiring the images they see. They turn this way and that and, as they do so, exchange confidences. It is what women will do in circumstances like this.
Lilian bemoans her empty marriage. ‘But what is my solution?’ she laments, adding that she has no wish to participate in the casual arrangements so many bored, married women of her acquaintance make with the equally jaded men of their aristocratic set.
‘Creeping down cold corridors on country house weekends … Rosetta, that is not for me!’
‘Darling, stop. If we are going to talk about this properly you need to feel much more comfortable than this.’
Lilian stands, compliant, as Rosetta undoes the last dress, letting it fall around her friend in a shimmering heap. Next she unlaces Lilian’s corset. The other woman remains motionless as Rosetta removes her fragile drawers. She has never seen her friend completely naked before. Really, she is terribly enticing. What is wrong with Arthur Pakenham?
Rosetta reaches forward and, as she does, allows the tips of her fingers to graze Lilian’s breasts. Impulsively, she pinches each rosy nipple hard, feels them rise and stiffen.
Lilian tenses. Then, languidly, she stretches her arms out wide. A tiny shiver runs through her before she drops them
back to her side. ‘That was rather nice.’ She smiles. ‘If only Arthur would touch me like that.’
‘What a cold fish that man is,’ Rosetta says as she reaches for Lilian’s loose white satin robe. ‘Look, put this on and we’ll sit on the chaise longue. I have an idea.’
‘But are you sure, Rosie, really sure?’ Lilian’s blue eyes are open wide. ‘You say that you won’t mind. But how will you feel afterwards?’
‘I will feel safe. Frankly, I will be thankful that I know where Zeno is. Most important, I will be relieved that the person with whom he is spending time is someone I trust above anybody else.’
Lilian looks a little flushed. Rosetta kisses her on the cheek.
‘You both care for each other. Yes, it has never been in that particular way. But it could be. Dearest Lilian, just let him give you the pleasure that I know you need. All I ask is that you do not speak of it to anyone. Oh, and there is no need to speak of it to me.’ Rising smoothly to her feet, she moves towards the brass bell on the wall beside the marble mantelpiece. ‘Now, let us call for tea.’
Rosetta waits until late on Sunday afternoon. She and Zeno have returned to their mansion flat in exclusive Portman Square after a pleasant visit to that nearby temple of British culture, the Royal Academy in Piccadilly. Here, several happy hours have been whiled away, viewing a procession of commanding portraits by Gainsborough and Reynolds, some of Constable’s bucolic landscapes and a number of J.M.W. Turner’s more turbulent canvases. Zeno’s interest in painting is as strong as ever. Sometimes he speaks of his wish to stop his ceaseless work and devote himself to art. ‘One day,’ he says, ‘I really think I will.’
This particular Sunday has about it a warm, dreamy quality that makes it difficult for Zeno and Rosetta to believe they live in an era of such bloodshed and disarray. On a day like this, only the sight of so many khaki-clad men in the streets and tranquil parks signifies that dreadful things are taking place just across the Channel, that alarmingly narrow stretch of sea.
Once home, Rosetta wonders if she should make a pot of Lapsang Souchong tea but, on reflection, decides perhaps a fine malt whiskey might induce a more persuasive atmosphere. She begins to speak cautiously, does not make her intention clear. There is no reference to her fears, no mention of any liaisons in which Zeno might currently be involved. She speaks only of their vulnerability, observes that in these uncertain times there must be nothing in their behaviour that might lead them to be compromised.
‘We have done well here,’ Rosetta says to her husband. ‘But despite your powers of prophecy,’ she smiles, ‘we don’t know for how long this can continue. I am worried we might overreach ourselves. Oh, they can’t seem to have enough of us now, but we must not forget that society is fickle. You have said it yourself. It will not last.’
Zeno, an intensely percipient man by nature, is on this occasion puzzled as to the direction that Rosetta’s train of thought is taking.
‘And there’s the war,’ she continues, adding, ‘you are an admirer of Mr Churchill: for months now you have been reading what he’s said in the Parliament and even heard him speak. In fact, sometimes I think it is Mr Churchill’s incessant thundering that has been responsible for you imagining such gruesome things.
‘Anyway, you both seem to think that this talk of the fighting being over in a few weeks or months is nonsense. Well, you have convinced me that you and he are right.’
Rosetta adds more whiskey to Zeno’s crystal glass.
Then she speaks of Lilian, of how lonely and neglected her dear friend feels. ‘All that Arthur Pakenham seems interested in is politics and soldiering,’ she says. ‘Do you know, Lilian told me she thinks he was secretly delighted that war broke out? He went straight away to Ulster, raised the 11th Royal Irish Rifles and took himself and his loyal Ulstermen off to fight on the Western Front. She’ll never see him now, and I don’t think she cares. Poor Lilian.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ Zeno says. He sips his drink and frowns, glances at his wife. ‘You know how fond of her I am. It’s a pity there’s nothing I can do to help.’
‘I think there is,’ Rosetta replies. She looks into her husband’s panther eyes. ‘Go to her.’
Zeno is taken by surprise. ‘And?’
‘Make her happy, do those things you know how to do best.’
‘Rose, you don’t mean …?’
‘I do. I have always found her beautiful. After all this time you can hardly have failed to notice her appeal. It is what I want for her, for all of us.’
Zeno places his glass onto a side table with a slow deliberation that belies the impact of his wife’s unexpected statement. ‘Rosetta, really, you are the most astonishing woman. I never dreamt you would suggest such a thing.’
Rosetta takes a breath. ‘I won’t say more. Only this. I do not need to know when. I do not want you to speak about it. Only – go to her. I have already talked it over with Lilian. She is uncertain.’
‘Well, if that is the case …’
‘You will ensure she has no doubts.’
FORTY
AUSTRALIA, AUGUST 1914
The nation, obedient and united, follows Britain. Prime Minister Joseph Cook vows, ‘If the Armageddon is to come, then you and I shall be in it … if the old country is at war, so are we.’ He makes a pledge to place the Commonwealth’s vessels under the control of the British Admiralty and offers an initial force of twenty thousand men. He does not imagine that during the next four years four-hundred thousand more will serve; that sixty thousand of these soldiers will die on foreign soil so very far from home.
The response of Mr Andrew Fisher, Leader of the Opposition, is equally enthusiastic. Fisher declares that Australia will stand beside the Mother Country ‘to the last man and the last shilling’. The statement strikes a resonant chord, wins him great support. By September this lion of the Labor Party is, for the third time, leading the government.
In Melbourne, two young men join the crowds that gather in the streets to sing patriotic songs. They are brothers. The elder, Hubert Jacobs, is an honours graduate from an exclusive school, Wesley College. He is also aide-de-camp to Victoria’s Lieutenant-Governor and in possession of a university scholarship. Though still a medical student, he is sent to Gallipoli in early 1915 where he does his best for soldiers who are wounded and dying. Frederick, four years younger than his brother, is eighteen when war breaks out. At twenty he enlists. He is not quite so talented as Hubert but a great deal more interested in the ladies. He sets sail for France.
One day Fred Jacobs will meet Rosetta’s daughter, Frances Raphael, and make her his unhappy wife. One day they will have a child, my mother. Yet, lacking Zeno’s professed powers to see into the future, neither can know that this will happen.
Frances remains at the convent, far from war, safe. In their small, closed world the girls speak French at breakfast overseen by the Paris-born Mère Angèle. They receive thin bread and butter and an apple. Frances knows she must cut and peel the fruit in the proper fashion, eat it with a knife and fork. Surprisingly, after this meagre meal, the girls are served good coffee. It is an indication of the nuns’ French heritage.
There are not quite forty boarders at the school. Frances is well aware of the number because the girls are promised a holiday when the fortieth is enrolled. The holiday never comes. Perhaps it is the war.
At seven o’clock each morning Genazzano’s students attend mass. There they are instructed to pray for the holy sisters and the children who suffer in the distant convents of Belgium and France. How fortunate they are to be so far away from bloodshed: the nuns remind them frequently. The girls are taught to knit khaki socks for the soldiers. Some organise raffles or plan small concerts to raise money. They try to do their bit.
There are dreadful days when the newspapers’ black-edged casualty lists contain a name that one of the girls recognises. Louis Raphael has not gone to war. He is too old. But many girls have fathers or brothers who have left to fight. Nobody knows wh
en, or even if, they will return. The nuns counsel prayer; they must keep their hopes alive.
Frances doesn’t understand this hoping. She learnt a long time ago to put hope aside.
FORTY-ONE
LONDON, OCTOBER 1914
The threat, when it arrives, comes not from a duchess but from a half-forgotten girl who has emerged from the shadows of the past.
‘I suppose you don’t remember me, do you?’ she says.
It is late in the day and Zeno has left for his laboratory. The girl has just strolled through the waiting-room door in a manner that Rosetta’s mother, Fanny, if she were there, would declare to be ‘as bold as brass’. The girl is addressing Rosetta who, taken by surprise, looks at her quizzically from behind her pretty walnut desk.
‘Let me explain. I used to work at Wonderland, one of the chorus girls Mr Anderson employed. I don’t believe we ever met,’ she says, a smirk upon her lips. ‘Oh, there was one occasion when we got close to it, but you were in, well, let’s say, something of a hurry at the time.
‘You never really noticed me, did you?’ The girl pauses, theatrically. ‘But your husband did.
‘My name’s Mildred, by the way. I’m known as Marguerite these days – it’s a lot more posh, you see. It was easy to make the change. But then you’d know more about that business than me.’
Rosetta realises, with rising consternation, exactly who has stepped back into her life. The memory remains, of the Palace of Illusions, of her husband in the half light embracing a figure wrapped in silver spangles … Rosetta never saw the girl’s face but recognises something in her posture, the way she arranges her limbs. Yes, she knows exactly who this intruder is.
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