by Guy McCrone
A light wind blowing down from the Vienna Woods ruffled the fringe of the striped awning that hung out over the sunny pavement. To Henry it was just a breeze. But to the natives—to those tarock players at the table behind him, to that old man with the Barbary organ over there on the far side of the Ring, to that stiff dowager sitting in her carriage beneath her tussore parasol—it was a promise and a harbinger. All of them breathed a little more deeply, caught, or imagined they caught, the scent of damp earth and rising sap from the sprouting woodlands up there in the blue distance, and told themselves that spring was about to invade their city.
Somewhere a clock struck eleven. Henry looked about him. Maximilian Hirsch had given him this place of meeting, and eleven was the time. Henry, from his point of vantage, leant forward and cast an eye up and down the pavement. Maximilian was not yet to be seen. The morning was growing warmer, the scene more animated. Shop-girls in bright colours. Plump City men, hats in hand, mopping warm brows and looking about them for a table where they might sit and cool themselves. A flower-seller passed by, her basket laden with Parma violets and mimosa arrived from Italy overnight. Out in the expanse of the Ring itself, carriages, hired and private, were becoming more numerous. Many of them were moving in the direction of the Aspern Bridge on their way to the Prater. Some of the trams had open trolleys now, and, as the stocky little horses trotted back and forth along the Ring in the sunshine, their bells added a joyful noise to the other sounds of the City. It was difficult to believe that the passengers were everyday people merely going about their business. They wore an air of gaiety as though they were holiday-makers, out to see the sights.
Henry ordered his coffee, and when it came sat sipping it moodily. What had happened to his employer? Why was he keeping him waiting? He had more than enough to see to when he got back to the factory. It was maddening that he should have to waste the morning like this, merely to see some papers that he could just as easily have seen in Herr Hirsch’s private office at the bank. Herr Hirsch knew very well that he, Henry, hated wasting time. Why then had he asked him to waste this morning dawdling in a coffee-house?
II
As he sat stirring his coffee, stroking his beard and mechanically following the come and go of the traffic, Henry became aware that his eye had fixed itself on the figure of a young woman sitting in an open tramcar. As she came nearer, he saw that there were parcels on her knee, together with a bunch of flowers that might be mimosa or yellow tulips.
Suddenly he came to his senses. The girl was Phœbe. His own wife. As she passed him by, he could see her sitting, sunk in her own thoughts, far away from the animation about her, pensive and tired, perhaps, with her morning shopping.
A quick uprush of tenderness, of passionate excitement, took hold of him. He waved to her but she did not see him. Now he felt that he must run out into the street, race after the trotting horses, and climb into the car beside her. But already the tram had gone on. He would never catch up. He would only look ridiculous. He sat back regretfully, and took another sip of his coffee.
Why this excitement, when he had seen her at breakfast, only a few short hours ago? She had sat out there, unconscious that his eyes were upon her. Why should this sudden glimpse of her thus, unattainable, pensive and alone, stir him so deeply? Was his conscience chiding him with neglect of this wife of his, who was now to bear his child? Should he have given her more of his companionship? Of his support? Had he been taking all and giving little?
He was glad that Hirsch was not yet with him. He wanted to sit here alone, examine himself and think.
After their first quarrel, there had been strangely little friction between them. Knowing Phœbe and his moods as he did, her patience had been remarkable. She had told him not to worry, that she did very well meantime, that he must give everything to his work. But had he any right to take her at her word? Did not his wife come before all else? Phœbe could be so remote, so independent, that it was easy to forget she must need him, as any other woman must need her husband. Especially in this foreign place.
For a newly married couple, his wife and he had spent far too little time together. On many days he was so busy that he saw nothing of her until late in the evening. But Phœbe had not complained. And her time seemed full. She seemed to be occupying herself picking up Austrian marketing and housekeeping; in learning the language; in amusing herself with the shops and the sights of this endlessly amusing city. That she should be exerting patience until such time as he should find himself established, had not before entered his mind.
Now Henry was stricken with a sense of guilt. His feelings rose, quick and hot, to blame him bitterly. He had failed Phœbe! It was no use trying to find excuses in his inexperience! He was nothing but a thoughtless monster!
An old man in a moleskin cap, with a tray of primroses hanging from his neck by a string, stopped and held up a bunch. Henry, in his agitation, was quite unaware that the man was there. The old creature shuffled off, muttering to himself that the strange young man in the coffee-house was, as the Austrians say, “heavily” in love.
He was not wrong. Henry was “heavily” in love with his lawful wife. And he was full of youthful doubt and a sudden sharp self-criticism of his conduct towards her.
He drained his cup and drank some of the fresh water that, after the Viennese custom, stood in a glass beside it. Yes, he would talk to Phœbe tonight.
But where the devil was Maximilian Hirsch? The precious morning was almost gone. He leant out once more and looked about him. Why were people standing gaping by the edge of the pavement?
The ring of distant hoofs on granite slabs told him. A squadron of Hussars were coming back from morning exercise in the Prater. Now they were in front of him, coming down the Ring. The horses were dark and gleaming with sweat. Each rider, in his blue tunic with its yellow frogging and his fur cap, held himself proudly, in the knowledge that Imperial Vienna was watching him go by. Brass buttons sparkled in the sunshine as attilas, hanging from square shoulders, swayed to the rhythm of the walking horses, as they passed, row by row.
And, good heavens! There was Maximilian Hirsch standing among the mob watching the horsemen—a sight he must have seen hundreds of times. Watching them with the innocent interest of a child! Truly, the Austrians were an unaccountable, time-wasting people!
III
Now the last row of mounted Hussars had passed. The watchers by the kerb were breaking up and moving off. The pavement in front of Henry regained its springtime animation. Gaily dressed ladies. Fashionable men. Milliners’ girls. Flower-women. Clerks in shabby, light-brown overcoats. Peasants’ wives in vivid regional colours. Officers in bright uniforms. Countrymen in chamois shorts and short jackets. Bareheaded porters in striped waistcoats and baize aprons. The cheerful, surging, colourful mob that might be seen in Vienna on any sunny morning.
Maximilian Hirsch had turned, too. In a moment he had spied Henry, given him a signal of greeting, and presently he stood beside him, offering him his hand.
“Good morning, Herr von Hayburn. Wonderful morning, isn’t it?” He said in the Viennese dialect, at the same time sitting down and looking about him, hot and smiling. He took of his hat, wiped his brow, and looked at Henry quizzically. This young man was altogether too solemn. Maximilian knew that Henry hated to be called von Hayburn. It was ridiculous to be so young and yet so serious. Henry needed teasing.
“You will have a quarter with me?” he asked, raising his finger to attract a waiter. “I can’t drink coffee now: it’s too near lunchtime.”
Henry drank little wine, and it was part of his creed that he must drink nothing at a time of day when there was still work to be done. But he did not dare to offend Maximilian.
While the wine and mineral water were being brought, Maximilian gave him the papers to look through. As the young man was doing so, the other took out a long Viennese “Virginia”, drew the straw from it, lit it and sat puffing contentedly, following the passing show outside the window. Aft
er a moment his eyes wandered back to Henry.
“Understand?” he asked, indicating by his question that Henry might still have some difficulty with German.
“Yes, thanks.”
A clever boy this. There was little that he did not grasp. Henry was bent forward, reading the sheets with concentration. Maximilian examined him afresh. His straight black hair straggled over his sallow brow. His young beard needed trimming. His hands were rough and stained with oil like a workman’s. The nails were closely cut, and none too clean. How did his young wife like this? What sort of life was he giving her?
Henry laid down the papers.
“All right?” Maximilian asked him.
“Yes, I think so.”
“You’ll manage to deliver on time?”
“I’ll see that we do.”
“Good.” Maximilian gathered up the papers out of the way of the waiter who was waiting to put down the little tray of wine and mineral water, and thrust them back into his pocket.
He picked up the carafe, poured out for both of them, touched glasses with Henry and sat back once more. “How’s your wife?” he asked, after a sip or two.
“Quite well, thank you.”
But Maximilian wanted to know more than that. “How is she liking Vienna?”
“Very well.”
Maximilian regarded Henry for an instant, the beginnings of a smile just showing; then, with no unfriendliness in his tone, he asked his next question. “How do you know? Do you ever ask her?”
Henry’s colour deepened. “Well—she seems all right. She knows I’m too busy to go out much. She understands. The landlady we’re staying with takes her about.”
Still Maximilian’s eyes were upon him. Still the teasing smile. “Von Hayburn, you’re a hypocrite. I don’t believe you’re looking after her! It would serve you right if she took a lover!”
This was the kind of Austrian joke that Henry’s Puritanism did not think funny. But Hirsch had touched on a sore spot. Had he not, as he sat here ten minutes ago, blamed himself bitterly for neglecting Phœbe? He sat now confused and silent.
“Where are you going to live during the heat of the summer?”
“We don’t know yet. Where we are, probably. For a time, at least.” Then, answering a question in Maximilian’s eyes, he added: “You see, it’s all uncertain. She’s going to have a child in the autumn.”
The elder man leant across the table, took his hand and shook it warmly; thus merely adding to Henry’s confusion. “But, my dear boy, she must be looked after! Why hasn’t she seen more of my aunts? They were horrified when they heard she had gone to a district like the Favoriten. Oh, I dare say the old ladies in the Paulanergasse are not very interesting. But a young woman in that condition must have women friends!”
Maximilian swallowed down the dregs of his wine and again looked at Henry. This was ridiculous! Preposterous! Indeed, it made him angry! He set down his glass on the marble table and launched forth. Henry was behaving like a thoughtless boy. Why had he brought this girl from Scotland if he were going to treat her thus? She must see his aunts at once, and have their help and friendship!
And why should not the Hayburns spend their summer in a little house on the edge of the Vienna Woods where it would be cool and pleasant for Phœbe, yet not too far for Henry to come to work?
This he said, and much more. And, as he spoke, he was glad—if a little surprised—to see that Henry looked ashamed of himself. But well he might! It was not before time! He did not deserve that beautiful child for a wife!
Maximilian finished his tirade and stood up. “Now, you’ll look after your wife, von Hayburn, won’t you?”
Henry’s reply was the ashamed grin of a schoolboy who has been scolded and forgiven.
Herr Hirsch handed the waiter a coin and drew out his watch. It was a quarter past twelve. He had invited a crony to lunch with him in his pet restaurant, the “Reichenberger Beisel”, in the Griechengasse, at twelve o’clock. But a quarter of an hour in Vienna was neither here nor there.
He gave Henry his hand, saying he must go, and took his leisurely way across the Inner City.
IV
A few minutes later, Henry also found himself in the Inner City. Like Maximilian, he, too, could call himself the Stammgast of a Viennese restaurant, although it had never occurred to him to do so. But Maximilian’s restaurant in the Griechengasse and Henry’s restaurant in a passage-way off the Herrengasse were very different places. Henry had come upon his one day quite by chance, as he was taking a short cut through one of the rights-of-way or Durchhäuser which abounded in the Inner City; relics of earlier days when Vienna was a closely crowded labyrinth inside protecting walls; when much time and inconvenience were saved to those who went on foot, that they were given rights to pass through other people’s courtyards.
In one such passage-way off the Herrengasse, Henry had found a little eating-house. He had come here in the first place merely because he was hungry, because it looked cheap and because he happened to be passing by. It consisted of one large stuffy room, constantly lit by gas-flares, since, from its position, there was never enough daylight. If the regulars—clerks, students and Fiaker drivers—had at first resented a foreigner’s presence, Henry had certainly not noticed this, any more than he had noticed the grease-spots on the checked cloths or the all-pervading smell of Gulasch. But in a short time custom had set aside a table for him, and “der Mister”, as he came to be called, was to be seen sitting solitary in his accustomed corner, papers or a book propped against a carafe of untouched wine, deep in his reading, and munching abstractedly anything that happened to be put before him.
But today Henry had no reading propped up in front of him. He felt unhappy, and his conscience was not clear. The sight of his wife passing him by in the tramcar. The scolding he had just had from Herr Hirsch. The thought of the child that was to be.
Henry was a simple creature. Now that he had thought of it, he was filled with self-reproach at his treatment of Phœbe. She had been too much alone, too little with him. He had been very busy, of course, but, in the full flood of his penitence, he could look back and think of many times he might easily have spent in her company.
The elderly restaurant-keeper, having served everybody for the moment, leant against his little service counter watching his customers eat, and conversing with the plump lady who combined the occupations of wife, cook and cashier. Now he gave it out as his firm opinion that something was on “der Mister’s” mind. She nodded sympathetically. Yes, he looked troubled as he sat there, forgetting his soup, looking about him, and crumbling rye bread with his long, stained fingers, his bony wrists protruding from his sleeves.
Should he apologise to Phœbe? Henry wondered. No. Somehow that would merely be awkward and unnatural. But tonight he would talk to her and put things right.
And now, having reassured himself a little, Henry remembered the vegetable soup that stood before him, took up his spoon and allowed his eyes to range about the room while he ate.
In a far corner, dim in the gas-light, there was a table of young people, most of them regular customers, who came and went, making this their common meeting-place—students from the music or medical schools, judging from an occasional fiddle-case, or from the fact that at more hilarious moments stethoscopes were brandished, and even, on more than one occasion, amid the screaming of the girls, a human skull. Today the din was at its height. There was gaiety and laughter, and, as was the unselfconscious custom of Viennese youths, bursts of song.
Henry, well used to this behaviour, sat watching them, incuriously. But now a single voice piped up. In some way it sounded familiar. He looked across, and saw that it came from a young woman who sat conducting herself with a fork as she sang. He had heard this voice many times singing about the house in the Quellengasse. It belonged to Pepi Klem.
She finished, bowed exaggerated acknowledgement of her companions’ applause, then her eyes caught Henry’s. She smiled and waved her fork
. Henry, surprised and embarrassed, smiled in return.
So Pepi was back in Vienna? He fell to wondering about her. Her mother, he knew, had been much troubled at her disappearance. Willi Pommer had for a time been inconsolable. But Henry had, just then, had more than enough to think of on his own account. Having heard that she had been found working in some provincial theatre, and that her parents had accepted the inevitable, Fräulein Klem and her problems had passed from his mind.
Now the party in the corner was standing up to go. They were teasing their host as they paid—or begged him to mark up—their modest reckonings. There was laughter, banter between young men and women, and noise. Presently Pepi said goodbye to her friends, came across to Henry, and sat down facing him, her elbows on the table.
V
“Well, Herr Hayburn? Aren’t you pleased to see me?” She was laughing at his surprise, his flushed face, his obvious embarrassment as he stammered out:
“Oh, how are you?”
His innocence amused her now, as it had always amused her. But now there was recklessness in her amusement—recklessness born of the jealousy that had driven her from home, of the careless informality of her life in the theatre, of her new, defiant independence.
She offered her hand in a formal handshake across the table, rather with the affected air of a prima donna.
“I suppose you are still in the Quellengasse?”
“Yes, we are.”
“And how is the gracious lady?”
“My wife is very well.”
“She must be quite Viennese now.”
“Oh, no. I wouldn’t say that.”
“No? Well, she had better learn. If she doesn’t want to be hurt in Vienna.”
“I don’t understand.”
Pepi shrugged. She had picked the bundle of wooden toothpicks out of the glass that contained them, and was making squares and triangles on the table-cloth.