Just after he arrived she had a chance to be alone with him. He was a fine-looking boy, large, dark. Except for Joszef’s lovely eyes, she could see little resemblance. Harry’s hands. A look of Ma when he spoke—how Ma might have been if she’d been confident. Families are funny, she thought. He told her, as Daisy had already done, that his sister Ruth’s husband, Lew, was already in France, working with the ambulances. Ruth had three children, two girls, Esther and Lily, and a boy, Jay, and was expecting a fourth any day now.
It was unfortunate David should come just when they were having one of their now rare dinner parties. Another time and Robert might well have eaten upstairs, or been in bed early. She dreaded the encounter.
There was a gathering almost like old times. Sadie, specially asked and for once free. Charlie, who couldn’t be not asked. Erik Ahlefeldt-Levetzau (no choice here). The medical officer at The Towers. A Mr. and Mrs. Palmer. A Mrs. Fraser. All present to greet Lieutenant David Ziolkiwiski.
Food. A problem. Erik Ahlefeldt had told her that in his native country the shortage of fats was so serious that children’s health was in jeopardy. She wondered occasionally if he had a wife and family—and if so, where they were? His behavior, always so correct, left no occasion for personal questions.) Game, in season, was the great standby. Problems too of the overworked kitchens, strained to the limits now with feeding patients. This evening they produced charred venison, soup so salted it was painful to the tongue, mangled vegetables. Only the wine was good.
Erik came late. She knew the reason must be some crisis in the hospital (how often had it not happened to her?), but all the same felt irritated. Robert made some light remark which falsely led her to suppose he was in a good mood—he did, after all, seem to approve of the new director.
David he had so far ignored. She hoped for this to continue. But no … He asked suddenly:
“Don’t the Yankees, that regiment of yours—don’t they keep all the Ikey Moes in one bunch?”
“Sir?”
“Ikeys. Semites, Israelites, what have you. You’re a Jew, more or less, aren’t you? Nothing to be ashamed of. Fortunately I don’t have the problem. Mix you all together, do they?”
David had gone very white. Lily, faint with shame and anger. Charlie cut in:
“Talking of regiments—my cousin, Archer-Seymour, the one in the Princess Royal’s—”
Lily was surprised to see Erik Ahlefeldt put down his napkin and rise from the table. “Forgive me. A task I have suddenly remembered. I would like to make my excuses.”
“But certainly.” It made, though, a slight chill. Conversation ceased as he moved to the door.
“Well,” Charlie began again heartily, “Cousin Archie is now fearfully—”
Erik’s voice, polite but firm, cut in from the doorway:
“Excuse me. It is not the truth that I have work. I leave your table because I come from a nation that has suffered humiliation—although almost fifty years since. I am not willing to listen that another shall be insulted for his race or his nation. Here or anywhere. That is all.”
The door closed behind him. There was an uneasy silence. Sadie turned to David:
“Although I don’t know New York like my own city, I want to ask you —the pastry shops round Union Square …”
Lily, waylaying Robert afterward, reproached him:
“How could you? How dare you?” She was beside herself with anger at the upset. And to cap it all that it should have been that annoying Dane who defended David.
“I have always said exactly what I like, when I like.”
“Oh?” she said. “Really? I had not noticed!”
“It is my roof after all. Your Israelite nephew visits only by my kindness.”
Impossible. He is quite impossible. “This,” she said, “we’ve had it so many times this argument. Always about Jews … Jews are people, are they not?”
“So are niggers, I suppose, in your book. Wisely, until the North American folly, they were kept in their place—as slaves.”
“You are impossible.”
“Go now,” he said, “go and sit with your nephew. Talk to him as much as you like. And,” he added, turning to leave her, “by the way, I didn’t care for the behavior of my replacement. Damned impudence under my roof. His terribly correct English—they say his wife was English. No concern of mine that—if he keeps himself to himself out in the cottage, does the work properly.”
Lily said, “There’s no complaining on that score.” Even with her prejudice she had to grant him that.
“Tell you what,” Robert said. She saw he was angry still. “Fellow’s a Hun, you know. I’m sure they’ve sent us a Hun.”
It appeared Robert was not the only person to think that. Three days later Lily was in her office before breakfast, writing quickly to Hal. She told him about his cousin. “They are very keen you should come to New York when it’s all over.”
When it’s all over. One of the maids, a new one from the next village, stood at the door. She looked frightened, rushing her words in a low voice so that Lily had to ask her to repeat them.
“It’s summat not right—at t’cottage, where t’German gentleman—”
“Danish. From Denmark, Annie.”
“Danish gentleman, m’lady. Summat’s up. Hodgson was in t’gardens and he said—”
“Perhaps whatever it is Hodgson would care to speak to me?”
Stopping only to put on a heavy coat, she went out. As she passed the stables to reach the cottage, the elderly groom, Wilkinson, said “Good morning,” and looked quickly away.
“Has something happened, Wilkinson?”
“You’d best see for yissen, m’lady. I don’t know owt about it. It’s nowt to do wi’ me.”
She turned the corner then. And saw …
Not a window of the cottage remained unbroken. The place looked almost derelict. The contents of several garbage cans, emptied in a pile under the downstairs windows. Red paint on the door and GET AWAY HOME HUN, YOR BLOOD FOR OUR BLOOD, HANG KISER BUT YOU GO FURST.
She hurried to the back. The door, which opened like a stable door, had the upper part swinging open. The bottom had been kicked in. Inside she saw books scattered, torn from their spines, pages lying about. A violin, broken and trodden on. She picked up a book, let it drop. She was shaking. Terrible, she thought, this is terrible.
“Good morning and please excuse me, Lady Firth.” He stood just behind her, dressed, but not yet shaved.
“What is all this?” she said. “What has happened?”
“I too must ask what has happened.” His voice was as polite as ever. Only a slight tremor in it betrayed shock. “The truth is I’m still a little afraid—”
“It’s a vicious attack,” she said. She looked about her. The violin bow, snapped in three, lay at her feet. “Last night?”
“I’m not certain of the hour. Let’s say after midnight. It was maybe six, seven, people that live in the village. Perhaps some drinking first, and then they encouraged each other. It was—ugly. And, yes, of course I was afraid for myself—”
“What can I say? My husband—Sir Robert and I—we would both—” She kept repeating, “What can I say?”
“It is enough you are concerned. It is not your fault.” He smiled gently. “Also it is nothing beside what is happening in France, or Flanders. Your son, son-in-law—”
She met his eyes. They were blue. She had not noticed, not caring to look at him before.
“The windows,” she said, “all that. A glazier will be sent for at once. I shall arrange the cleaning up.”
Damaged books, wrecked violin—what should, could, she say? She went on, “A room will be arranged for you at once. You must rest. The shock. Everything will be seen to.”
“Yes,” he said. “That would be most kind.”
She put out her hand. “If you would accept—I wish to apologize on behalf of—if you can forgive …”
Afterward, afterward. In years to come, going
over and over again the moment when their hands touched (but we must have shaken hands before?), she found he, they, had lost forever those next few seconds.
She would ask, “Did I throw myself in your arms? Which of us …” And he would say, “But of course it is you who seduce me, how can you think I would be so wicked?” Then she would say, “What a likely story. Telling it to me too, who would believe anything you say.”
But this was not, she knew already, the casual coming together she had so feared, for its predictability, for what it told her about herself—but something quite different.
Her face cupped in warm hands. Then his head, pressed against the heavy wool of her coat. Locked in an embrace. How long, how long, oh let it be forever.
The bedroom upstairs. Berthe and her mother had shared it. She remembered walking first up the narrow staircase. The stripped bed, so neat. She was crying and trembling, touching, clinging. It was me, she thought afterward.
And yet who had wept (shock and fright at the night’s happenings)? Who was it said over and over, that never, never, never …
“Never,” he said. “From the first—when you disliked me so much. From the first moment—when I saw you—a lonely person. You are so lonely. I also of course. But you—”
Lonely. A son, two daughters, a distinguished husband, a full household, a responsible post. Scarcely a free moment. Yes, it is possible to be very lonely.
Stifled cries—his hand, her hand, over her mouth. Icy winter sunlight through half-drawn curtains, shattered window panes. Floor scattered with glass fragments. And never so happy, since, since—but today I say good-bye, and thank you to Valentin.
“You are partly to blame,” she told a visibly shaken Robert. “It is, was, your attitudes. People are not deaf—they notice. Rumor and misunderstanding. These are ugly matters.”
He had taken to humming tunelessly when he did not wish to answer. He did so now.
At midday she went down to the village, to the inn, the Fox and Grapes. All talking stopped as she came in.
“Some of you here,” she said, “some of you will certainly know what I mean when I say—are you not ashamed?”
Several of those drinking looked away. The landlord, a man she knew and respected, murmured something. One of the farmers said, “I told them as they shouldn’t.”
Later she told Erik, “There was that sort of trouble in Leeds last year, against Jews. And of course, conscientious objectors have suffered also. But you …”
Gradually, eagerly, because they talked now, she learned more about him. He had a married daughter, living in Esjbo, and a son at Copenhagen University. His wife, who had died in 1909, had been half Danish, brought up in England because of her mother’s second marriage to an Englishman. Erik had worked in her family business for some twelve or fifteen years, beginning at the bottom. In the early days of the war he had worked as a censor in London. Later, through friends and connections, he had become involved with hospital administration.
As the days passed—grim with their lack of news about Gib, and constant, draining worry for Hal—she asked how it could be that she had so much emotion left. We are so much in love.
She wondered sometimes if anyone guessed, if Robert knew. How little I care, she thought. The man who had beaten her before Teddy’s birth, who had draped her with jewelry, before whom she’d stood, dressed only in the Waterfall …
Such matters did not concern him these days. Robert had aged remarkably. And the Diamond Waterfall—all that talk of donating it for the war effort (perhaps that would earn him a further title—who knew?). The man who if he could not love Teddy gave instead double love to Sylvia.
But this solace, this wonder, among all the cares, anxieties, despairs. She thought too afterward, I never believed it was just for the moment. I always knew it would be for nearly forever.
Nearly forever. For who speaks of forever, now? Not because of broken faith, but because of death.
29
Hal started up falsetto (he hadn’t much of a singing voice, but they always liked his falsetto):
“Oh they’ve called them up from Flaxthorpe and they’ve called them up from Penn, and they’ll call up all the women when they’ve fucked up all the men …” It was a parody of the verse from “Keep the Home Fires Burning.” You could use anyone’s home town. He said:
“They’re the lines Ivor Novello didn’t write—he thought of them too late.”
“Jolly good song, jolly well sung, give the poor bugger some beer.”
“… Keep the home fires burning, till the boys come home …” And when might that be? Hal felt they’d been over here forever. A long time anyway since the leave he’d had last August, and the time in hospital after for his wound. A cushy time, that, all too short—and not truly appreciated because all he had wanted was to get back, if only for a week or two, to see Olive.
Now it was April, and the fourth spring of the war. It was all going badly again. Hurrying backward, as far as he could make out. Rumor and counterrumor—the worst one, that soon the Germans might be over the Channel. (“See a Kraut before May’s out …”) On April 11, Field Marshal Haig’s Order of the Day. It was read out to them: “… there is no other course open to us but to fight it out … with our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause … the safety of our homes and the freedom of mankind alike depend on the conduct of each one of us at this critical moment …”
Tired. He was so tired. As if he were falling, falling. What price his murmuring heart, as they had once called it? He supposed it had been either a mistake in the first place, or else something he’d grown out of. No time here for hearts to murmur, or thump—except with fear. And he was used to fear. Snowy managed the best. Gus had grown jumpy—his color a yellowy white, his eyes dull. Lighting cigarettes one after the other, when he could get them, or pulling at the skin on his cheek with a nervous angry gesture. He told Hal, “I don’t rightly know—I can’t take it like. Not much more I can’t—I’d never thought, you see …”
A fine spring evening. Stopping on the march, they lay by the roadside to sleep. Twice in the night motor trucks, mule-drawn limbers, rattled by. Gus said afterward, “I never—I couldn’t shoot me finger off. Nothing like that. But I’d thought—a foot stuck out accidental like—when the wheels come by. That’d do it.”
Hal told him, “You’ll be needing both feet, Gus, to run from all those girls you made promises to.”
He hadn’t felt at all like joking. Then a few days later, after an action when a number of wounded were lying out on stretchers, a limber rushed by, its drivers killed, the bloodstained horses bolting: wheels rolling over the first of the stretchers. Gus, with Hal at the time, white and sick. Sick all that day.
A letter came from Olive in the evening. Letters came often from Olive. No one teased Hal about her now.
One bit of news is that I’m off to Devon to Aunt Nellie. Dad’ll be staying with Uncle Walter, that lives Skipton way. They were always good pals. Granny Willans will go too. Altogether it seems for the best. Tom reckons to wed at Easter—he’ll look after the place well enough. It’s a right shake-up and no mistake. I’m homesick before I’ve even left. Only that’s no way to look at things—thinking of all you boys that really have something to be homesick about. Tom’ll be fetching up his own collie dog here. Tess is past it.
News from a foreign country. Far, faraway places. Yet to think, eight months ago … It had been terrible, his jealousy, his fears about Tom last summer.
When she’d let him kiss her, he’d thought the worrying would go. Only he couldn’t forget her admission: “Tom has courted me …” Suppose?
His father hadn’t seemed very fit—heavy cough, tired, irascible, critical. Impatient with Hal, still in the ranks.
“Can’t see what you’ve got against it—becoming an officer. They’d bring you home, allow you time here. You might even get to India—somewhere quiet. Who knows?” Shaking his head sadly: “A ranker, Henry. Rea
lly. For a Firth to be Tommy Atkins still.”
“I could put in for a lance corporal. They’ve—”
“Are you deliberately misunderstanding me?”
“Probably. Sir.” Then because that hardly seemed fair, he added, “I’m best where I am. One star one stunt, they say. You’ve seen the casualty lists in The Times. You can’t want …”
No, of course his father didn’t wish to lose him. But as he had long ago discovered, attitudes, emotions were not so simple as that. And it was no better with his mother. He couldn’t think in the past when they had ever had a conversation. Now, the springs dried up within seconds. (For him, ghost of Stephen hovering always. For her too?)
Yet his father had the confidence to speak of Cambridge, planned for him years ago, in the days of Gib.
“A little coaching for six months or so to rest you, get you up to standard. Perhaps Nicolson himself. Then I really can’t see why not.”
What fairy-tale world did he inhabit, this father of his? To speak like that when all around him at The Towers was visible proof of what happened in war.
A fairy-tale world. But then, Hal thought, these few summer days I too have chosen to inhabit one. Perhaps it was going back to when everything had seemed safe. Those well-loved Fairy Books, with their different-colored covers, arriving every Christmas, Red, Green, Orange, Crimson …
In the evenings, when he couldn’t be with Olive, he sat in the window seat of his room. Removed, in another world. The best was that he seemed to have forgotten the stories: he would read on, breath held, to see what happened next. Yet I must have known once. And how could there be surprises, real surprises? The prince always married the princess, the monster was slain, the villains died a horrible death.
He came upon the tale of the King of Goldland. He did not want to remember it, and could do so only with pain. Stephen trespassing in the copse. Stephen walking along the walls with Tess, rabbiting. The stranger— Stephen, white with anger, cutting him at Settstone market. Stephen enlisting.
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