The Tightening String

by Ann Bridge

  ‘No, no drink for me, Min,’ Martha said. ‘I must do a little editing for tomorrow’s issue’ – and in spite of his hospitable protests she took herself off.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t much of a success, was it?’ Sir Hugh said, sitting down after bringing Mrs Eynsham a whisky. ‘It would have been disastrous but for you. You are good.’

  Rosina had long realised, with a certain embarrassment, that the Minister had a slight tendre for her. Nothing could be more unsuitable or inconvenient in a diplomatic establishment. The trouble was that he was so nice, and on their arrival she had incautiously failed to conceal the fact that she found him so; now the harm was done, and she spent much of her time trying to repair the damage by exhibiting a brusqueness which she did not feel. Not on this occasion, however.

  ‘You look tired’ the Minister added solicitously. ‘Have you got a headache?’

  ‘No, thank you – yes, I am a little tired. Oh well, it might have been worse’ – to her own surprise and exasperation she burst into tears.

  He let her cry for a moment or two before he went over and patted her shoulder.

  ‘I expect you’re in torture about Dick’ he said quietly. ‘It is a torturing situation.’

  She looked up at him, relieved to have her trouble brought into the open, and wiped her eyes.

  ‘Yes. And what is so frightful is that I’d quite forgotten about Hamish, Lucilla’s young man. He’s in the Argylls, and that Mrs Starnberg says that the press here is full of a story that a Scottish regiment is having a bad time somewhere along the Flemish coast. She has a nephew in the Argylls.’

  ‘Have you any reason to believe that the Argylls were near the Flemish coast?’

  ‘Well Lucilla has always known – till quite recently, anyhow – where Hamish was; I didn’t have a chance to ask her this evening.’

  ‘How did she know? They aren’t allowed to say.’

  ‘Oh, she and Hamish each bought a copy of the Guide Gastronomique for France before he went out, and all he had to do was to write ‘I dined last night at the Chapon Fin off…’ and then mention some special regional dish and wine referred to in the book; and all Lucilla had to do was to look through northern France at all the Chapon Fins till she found the one with the right dish and the right wine – then she knew what town Hamish was near.’

  He laughed. ‘How ingenious. There’s really no controlling these young creatures – they’re far too clever for us!’ He went back to his chair.’ I’ll ring up the M.A. and see if he’s heard anything,’ he said, lifting the receiver of a telephone beside him as he spoke. All the main rooms in the Legation had telephones.

  ‘Colonel Morven, please.’ A pause – then a conversation – during which Mrs Eynsham waited quietly; she was ashamed of having cried, but felt more relaxed after hav-spoken to someone about Dick. With her husband she dared not discuss her anxiety; it upset him too much. Oh dear, she and David were so far apart nowadays – one might as well not be married! He was nearly always so cross and repressive; he shut her up if she tried to consult him even about Lucilla and the various young men who were running after her, like Hugo Weissberger – who was certainly in earnest – and Endre Erdöszy, who still more certainly wasn’t!

  At last Sir Hugh put down the receiver.

  ‘Yes, he’s had two telegrams today – one has only just come in. About the main Expeditionary Force, where Dick is, the news is definitely reassuring. For some reason this telegram seems to have got held up, but they reached the coast near Dunkirk two or three days ago, and a most extraordinary effort has been mounted to get them out – every private yacht or small launch along the whole of the South Coast has been mobilised and sent across to collect them; and the Navy is there too, of course. Most of them seem to have got away, in spite of the bombing.’

  ‘Bombing? There on the coast?’

  ‘Oh yes, the Stukas have been hard at it – but so has the R.A.F. I do think there’s a fair chance that most of them will have got out – although we have to rescue the French as well, poor creatures.’

  ‘Bother the French! and bother the Belgians too!’ Mrs Eynsham exclaimed vigorously. ‘Miserable wretches, running out on us.’

  ‘Oh well,’ the Minister said tolerantly. ‘As to Lucilla’s young man, I’m afraid the news isn’t so good. The Argylls really are up on the Somme somewhere between Abbeville and the sea, according to this latest telegram, and the fighting seems to be quite desperate. Rommel holds two bridge-heads, and our people are spread out far too thin to do much; the Panzers are simply flooding through and surrounding them. Morven is afraid that the 7th and 8th Battalions are being pretty well chewed up – his expression – and that those who aren’t killed or wounded will be taken prisoner.’

  ‘Oh, how awful! Oh, poor Lucilla!’

  ‘Her Hamish may be one of the lucky ones – and Mrs Starnberg’s nephew. Let’s hope so.’

  Mrs Eynsham got up.’ Thank you so very much. I must go home now.

  ‘You wouldn’t stay and dine?’

  ‘Really no, thank you. I must give David his supper. But I’m immensely grateful to have this news. The awful thing out here is the endless rumours, and never knowing anything for certain.’

  ‘Oh come – with the Bulletin we know a good deal more than most people’ Sir Hugh protested.

  ‘Yes – we do of course. Only somehow not enough! Good night.’

  As she walked home Mrs Eynsham regretted her hasty remark. The Bulletin, she knew, was the Minister’s pride and joy; later in the war these productions became common to most Embassies and Legations, but Budapest was the first British Mission to have one. In theory it came under the authority of the Press Attaché; in practice it was edited by Martha Beckley, while Lucilla did most of the monitoring of the broadcasts, since she, like Martha, knew shorthand; and as the demand for it grew two more girls had been got out from England to help with the mechanical tasks of roneoing and folding the pages. Martha had worked in a newspaper office, and knew her business; the news was well and clearly presented, and though people had to come and collect it, either from the Legation or from the Consulate down in Pest, the Bulletin already had a daily circulation of over 1200 copies. To accommodate it Sir Hugh had sacrificed most of his spare rooms, over in the old harem quarters on the ground floor at the far side of the courtyard; beds and dressing-tables had been taken out of one set of rooms and stuffed into the opposite suite – rendering this practically unusable – and replaced by large tables, kitchen chairs, typewriters, and the roneo machine; the huge and enormously powerful radio receiver lived in the bathroom – where whoever was doing the monitoring perched uncomfortably on a cork-topped stool. It was all rather improvised, but it was the first of its kind, it was doing a valuable job well, and the Minister was justifiably proud of it. Hence Rosina’s repentance.

  As she walked in to her house Lucilla came out of it.

  ‘Oh good, there you are. Daddy’s just come in – he’s pretty sour! But Margit has made a smashing goulasch – that may cheer him up. ‘Bye – I must relieve Betty.’ She darted away along the street.

  So there was still no opportunity to tell her about the disaster to the Argylls. Well, the young were very resilient; if she did hear about it from the B.B.C. Overseas Service she would probably prefer it that way, Mrs Eynsham thought as she ran a comb through her hair, washed her hands, and powdered her face, before joining her husband.

  ‘Party a flop, I suppose?’ David Eynsham said as she came in. ‘Bound to be, with the news the way it is.’

  ‘Yes it was, rather. Very few Hunks, at least of the sit-on-the-fencers. But the M.A. says there seems quite a good chance of our people getting out.’

  ‘Oh, Morven showed up, did he?’

  ‘No – the Minister telephoned to him and asked.’

  ‘Oh. Well let’s have some dinner, shall we?’ He rang the bell, and walked fretfully about the room till the meal was announced. David Eynsham was tall, thin, and so fragile-looking that one half ex
pected a piece of him to break off at any moment; his narrow face with the high forehead, beaky nose, and the same immense grey eyes as Lucilla’s was enormously intelligent, but almost shockingly sensitive; he had a slight tic in his right eyelid, which became more marked when – as so often – he was irritated or anxious. He ate his dinner in gloomy silence, which his wife was too wise to interrupt; quite at the end he asked – ‘What exactly did Morven say about our troops getting away from France?’

  ‘That every single yacht and launch on the South Coast had been mobilised, and sent across to bring them home.’

  ‘Where from?’

  ‘A place called Dunkirk. That seems to be where they’ve got to.’ She wondered if she dared to mention the disaster to the Argylls, but decided against it – David’s eyelid was ticking furiously. Through the open windows came the song of the golden orioles in the trees on the slope below the Bastion, the fortification surrounding the old city of Buda; the Eynshams’ house was perched on the very lip of this slope, and the loud, sweet, repeated note, ‘Oriole, Oriole,’ filled the room – as it was to fill every room for the next three days. For years afterwards Mrs Eynsham couldn’t bear to listen to golden orioles; they reminded her too much of those prolonged hours of sickening anxiety about her son.

  Chapter 2

  A few days later – it was a Sunday, the first in June – Lucilla came dancing into her Mother’s bedroom at seven in the morning waving a telegram.

  ‘He’s out! Dick’s out! He’s back in England – he wired to Grannie. Look’ – she held out the paper. Mrs Eynsham took it and read: ‘Richard wires from Dover safely returned asked me to cable you thank God Mabel Eynsham.’

  Rosina leant back against her pillows, feeling almost faint with sudden relief. ‘Why should he wire to Grannie?’ she asked, dazedly.

  ‘Oh don’t be silly, Mummy darling! A foreign telegram! – what a botheration, when thousands are sending them. The M.A. told me last night that each man was being allowed to send just one when they landed. But isn’t it lovely?’ She gave her Mother a kiss.

  ‘Yes, wonderful. Does your Father know?’

  ‘No – you come first! I’ll put it under his door. He was working till all hours last night; I saw his light on when I came in at two – I went dancing with Erszi after I finished work.’ She looked at her Mother’s face, still bemused with relief. ‘Hurry up and drink your tea, darling; you’ve got to be dressed in half an hour. Belinda’s train goes soon after eight.’

  Mrs Eynsham obediently drank her tea. She was having it thus early because she had undertaken to see off one of the Legation typists, whose mother was dying, by the Nice Express from the West-Bahnhof. (So early in the war it was still possible to cross France from Nice to one of the Channel ports, and so on to England.) But she did everything as if in a dream; Lucilla had to remind her to take the box of Gerbeaud chocolates and the Penguin which she had bought to lighten the girl’s journey. And when the long train had drawn out, and she and Lucilla were back in the car, Rosina told the chauffeur to drop her at the Kronungskirche before taking the gnädiges Fräulein home. Lucilla asked no questions about this move; she merely said—

  ‘I’ll tell Bertha to bring you your breakfast in bed when you come in. I think you’d better rest this morning. I dare say we shall get a wire from Hamish presently, though the M.A. seems to have an idea that the Argylls were a bit further north.’

  Mrs Eynsham did not feel that she could comment on this. ‘Bless you, my darling’ she said to her considerate child as she got out of the car.

  The Kronungskirche is the old Coronation Church, standing in a large open space at the edge of the Bastion; it was barely a hundred yards from the Legation. Mrs Eynsham had got into the habit of going there on Sundays after the Anglican parson had been evacuated, with many other British subjects, in the previous September on the outbreak of war; the only alternative was a service conducted in a bare school hall by the Presbyterian Minister, who thanks to his close links with the local Calvinists – thirty per cent of the inhabitants of Hungary were Calvinists – had felt it safe to remain. Mrs Eynsham however found that she preferred Mass in the Kronungskirche; puzzling as the Roman Liturgy seemed to her, there was a sort of reality about the Mass which she found supporting. So often, even before the phoney war ended, she had slipped in there to pray for Dick’s safety; this morning she wanted to go and give thanks.

  Mass was going on at the High Altar; she dropped on her knees in a pew. But when she tried to find words of thanksgiving, none came, only floods of tears; helplessly, she merely cried and cried while the service took its splendid course – so lofty, so related to Heaven, so far above all earthly concerns, and yet so closely linked to them. Now the congregation stood for the Credo; Rosina, still on her knees, made a final effort and prayed that her tears might be accepted as the thanksgiving she could not put in words, and for safety for Hamish. Then she slipped out, and walked back along the yellow street to her house.

  Yes, Lucilla’s idea was a good one – she threw off her clothes, got back into her freshly-made bed, and took her rolls and coffee. Bertha had put the latest issue of the Legation Bulletin on the tray, and she read it while she ate. Oh, awful – town after town in France bombed and burning; she read the familiar names with dismay.

  She was half asleep when Martha Beckley looked in to congratulate about Dick. ‘And here’s a note from H.E. – he’s got to see Czaki this morning, or he’d have come himself. It is wonderful, isn’t it? – so many out, when it seemed quite hopeless. Everyone is ringing up.’ Mrs Eynsham had never seen Martha so enthusiastic; her harsh face was almost radiant. ‘Oh, and Prince Willie – yes, he rang too – says Pista Táray is coming down to Balaton-Siraly by the late train as well, so he will look after you. There’s a diner on that train. He doesn’t mind your coming a day late a bit – I reminded him about Belinda, and that being the reason you couldn’t go yesterday.’

  That was Martha all over. She was always tying up loose ends and smoothing things over for everyone in the Legation, not only for the Minister, to whom alone she had any obligations of the sort; but it was all done so casually and off-handedly that it seemed almost accidental. ‘Why on earth do you waste your time clearing up my wife’s muddles? She’s quite old enough to know better than to make them’ David Eynsham said to her one day, in his most cassant manner.

  ‘Oh, the show must go on!’ Martha had replied cheerfully. She knew perfectly well how desperately the Counsellor was overworking himself, how fragile his health appeared to be; she guessed that these were the reason for his frequent sourness, to his wife and his colleagues too, and in fact was rather fond of him. But Martha never gave in to anyone.

  ‘Anyhow, David’ she pursued, ‘why do you always have to crab Rosina? She’s much kinder than you are; and can’t a poetess ever be absent-minded?’ (Mrs Eynsham had had a very minor poet’s reputation before she married.) He laughed at the word crab, and scowled at the reference to his wife’s poetry.’ Hardly anything of hers was the slightest good’ he had said coldly – ‘and anyhow she’s stopped it now, thank goodness.’

  ‘Very unthank goodness! But she can’t help having a poet’s mentality. You pipe down, David, and count your blessings, you silly man!’ Martha had finished, making him laugh again – she blew him a kiss as she went away. Everyone came to her for advice; this she never volunteered, but appeared to give with reluctance. ‘Oh well, in your place I rather think I should do so-and-so’ she would say, almost vaguely – and add that she must hurry off. There was always plenty of work for Martha Beckley to hurry off to; she had a lot on her plate. But before hurrying off on that Sunday morning the reserved creature did something almost unprecedented: she leaned over the bed and gave Mrs Eynsham a kiss. ‘I am so glad’ she said. ‘Bless you, Rosina.’

  The railway from Budapest to the Yugoslav frontier, leading on to Trieste and Italy, runs close beside the southern shore of Lake Balaton for almost the whole of its length of fifty miles;
it is Hungary’s largest lake, slanting very slightly from north-east to south-west. Sitting in the dining-car opposite Count Pista Táray, who had carefully ordered a table on the lake side of the train, Mrs Eynsham looked out at the trees bordering the quiet waters, faintly coloured in the sunset light; and then, as twilight fell, watched lights springing out in the villages along the farther shore. Her morning rest had calmed her to some extent, but she was still in a rather wrought-up mood, after her days of anxiety and the sudden relief. This tranquil scene, and above all the lights so fearlessly shown – the black-out had begun before she left England – plucked at her emotions.

  ‘Pista’ she said as they drank their coffee,’ I feel a poem coming on. Can we go back to our carriage for me to write it?’

  ‘How splendid! Yes of course. A poem about Hungary?’

  ‘Well about the Balaton.’

  But when they got back to their coach they found it in darkness; the lights had failed. Count Táray flicked on his briquet and located the bell, which he pressed; presently the little train-conductor appeared, a sort of policeman’s lantern stuck in his belt.

  ‘We require light’ Pista said.

  ‘Excellency, the lights do not function. I apologise.’

  ‘Nevertheless, light we must have. This lady from the British Legation desires to write a poem.’ Whereupon the conductor drew out the little lantern from his belt and set it on the table by the window. ‘I hope this will serve’ he said, bowing, and withdrew. And by that faint light Rosina Eynsham, on sheets of airmail paper from her despatch-case, wrote her poem.

  ‘The poplars stand by Balaton

  And over them the stars,

  With lights across the water

  And the low planet Mars –

  His red alone reminding

  Of aeroplanes and wars.

  The chestnuts stand by Balaton,

  Their flowers fall on the grass

  From white and coral candles

  Like candles at the Mass;