Fall of Giants (The Century Trilogy)

by Ken Follett

  "It worked, didn't it?"

  He shook his head in admiration. "I would never have thought of it. You're so clever."

  "We need an atlas," she said. "In case anyone comes in."

  Walter scanned the shelves. This was the library of a collector rather than a reader. All the books were in fine bindings, most looking as if they had never been opened. A few reference books lurked in a corner, and he pulled out an atlas and found a map of the Balkans.

  "This crisis," Maud said anxiously. "In the long run . . . it's not going to split us up, is it?"

  "Not if I can help it," Walter said.

  He drew her behind a bookcase, so that they could not be seen immediately by someone coming in, and kissed her again. She was deliciously needy today, rubbing her hands over his shoulders and arms and back as she kissed him. She broke the kiss to whisper: "Lift my skirt."

  He swallowed. He had daydreamed of this. He grasped the material and drew it up.

  "And the petticoats," she said. He took a bunch of fabric in each hand. "Don't crease it," she said. He tried to raise the garments without crushing the silk, but everything slipped through his hands. Impatient, she bent down, grasped skirt and petticoats by the hems, and lifted everything to her waist. "Feel me," she said, looking him in the eye.

  He was nervous that someone would come in, but too overwhelmed with love and desire to restrain himself. He put his right hand on the fork of her thighs--and gasped with shock: she was naked there. The realization that she must have planned to give him this pleasure inflamed him further. He stroked her gently, but she thrust her hips forward against his hand, and he pressed harder. "That's right," she said. He closed his eyes, but she said: "Look at me, my darling, please, look at me while you're doing it," and he opened them again. Her face was flushed and she was breathing hard through open lips. She gripped his hand and guided him, as he had guided her in the opera box. She whispered: "Put your finger in." She leaned against his shoulder. He could feel the heat of her breath through his clothes. She thrust against him again and again. Then she made a small sound in the back of her throat, like the muted cry of someone dreaming; and at last she slumped against him.

  He heard the door open, and then Lady Hermia's voice. "Come along, Maud, dear, we must take our leave."

  Walter withdrew his hand and Maud hastily smoothed her skirt. In a shaky voice she said: "I'm afraid I was wrong, Aunt Herm, and Herr von Ulrich was right--it's the Danube, not the Volga, that runs through Belgrade. We've just found it in the atlas."

  They bent over the book as Lady Hermia came around the end of the bookcase. "I never doubted it," she said. "Men are generally right about these things, and Herr von Ulrich is a diplomat, who has to know a great many facts with which women do not need to trouble themselves. You shouldn't argue, Maud."

  "I expect you're right," said Maud with breathtaking insincerity.

  They all left the library and crossed the hall. Walter opened the door to the drawing room. Lady Hermia went in first. As Maud followed, she met his eye. He raised his right hand, put the tip of his finger into his mouth, and sucked it.

  { II }

  This could not go on, Walter thought as he made his way back to the embassy. It was like being a schoolboy. Maud was twenty-three years old and he was twenty-eight, yet they had to resort to absurd subterfuges in order to spend five minutes alone together. It was time they got married.

  He would have to ask Fitz's permission. Maud's father was dead, so her brother was the head of the family. Fitz would undoubtedly have preferred her to marry an Englishman. However, he would probably come around: he must be worrying that he might never get his feisty sister married off.

  No, the major problem was Otto. He wanted Walter to marry a well-behaved Prussian maiden who would be happy to spend the rest of her life breeding heirs. And when Otto wanted something he did all he could to get it, crushing opposition remorselessly--which was what had made him a good army officer. It would never occur to him that his son had a right to choose his own bride, without interference or pressure. Walter would have preferred to have his father's encouragement and support: he certainly did not look forward to the inevitable stand-up confrontation. However, his love was a force more powerful by far than filial deference.

  It was Sunday evening, but London was not quiet. Although Parliament was not sitting, and the mandarins of Whitehall had gone to their suburban homes, politics continued in the palaces of Mayfair, the gentlemen's clubs of St. James's, and the embassies. On the streets Walter recognized several members of Parliament, a couple of junior ministers from Britain's Foreign Office, and some European diplomats. He wondered whether Britain's bird-watching foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, had stayed in town this weekend instead of going to his beloved country cottage in Hampshire.

  Walter found his father at his desk, reading decoded telegrams. "This may not be the best time to tell you my news," Walter began.

  Otto grunted and carried on reading.

  Walter plunged on. "I'm in love with Lady Maud."

  Otto looked up. "Fitzherbert's sister? I suspected as much. You have my profound sympathy."

  "Be serious, please, Father."

  "No, you be serious." Otto threw down the papers he was reading. "Maud Fitzherbert is a feminist, a suffragette, and a social maverick. She's not a fit wife for anyone, let alone a German diplomat from a good family. So let's hear no more of it."

  Hot words came to Walter's lips, but he clenched his teeth and kept his temper. "She's a wonderful woman, and I love her, so you'd better speak politely of her, whatever your opinions."

  "I'll say what I think," Otto said carelessly. "She's dreadful." He looked down at his telegrams.

  Walter's eye fell on the creamware fruit bowl his father had bought. "No," he said. He picked up the bowl. "You will not say what you think."

  "Be careful with that."

  Walter had his father's full attention now. "I feel protective of Lady Maud, the way you feel protective of this trinket."

  "Trinket? Let me tell you, it's worth--"

  "Except, of course, that love is stronger than the collector's greed." Walter tossed the delicate object into the air and caught it one-handed. His father let out an anguished cry of inarticulate protest. Walter went on heedlessly: "So when you speak insultingly of her, I feel as you do when you think I'm going to drop this--only more so."

  "Insolent pup--"

  Walter raised his voice over his father's. "And if you continue to trample all over my sensibilities, I will crush this stupid piece of pottery beneath my heel."

  "All right, you've made your point, put it down, for God's sake."

  Walter took that for acquiescence, and replaced the ornament on a side table.

  Otto said maliciously: "But there is something else you need to take into account . . . if I may mention it without treading on your sensibilities."

  "All right."

  "She is English."

  "For God's sake!" Walter cried. "Well-born Germans have been marrying English aristocrats for years. Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha married Queen Victoria--his grandson is now king of England. And the queen of England was born a Wurttemberg princess!"

  Ottoraised his voice. "Things have changed! The English are determined to keep us a second-rate power. They befriend our adversaries, Russia and France. You would be marrying an enemy of your fatherland."

  Walter knew this was how the old guard thought, but it was irrational. "We should not be enemies," he said in exasperation. "There's no reason for it."

  "They will never allow us to compete on equal terms."

  "That's just not true!" Walter heard himself shouting, and tried to be calmer. "The English believe in free trade--they allow us to sell our manufactures throughout the British Empire."

  "Read that, then." Otto threw across the desk the telegram he had been reading. "His Majesty the kaiser has asked for my comments."

  Walter picked it up. It was a draft reply to the A
ustrian emperor's personal letter. Walter read it with mounting alarm. It ended: "The Emperor Franz Joseph may, however, rest assured that His Majesty will faithfully stand by Austria-Hungary, as is required by the obligations of his alliance and of his ancient friendship."

  Walter was horrified. "But this gives Austria carte blanche!" he said. "They can do anything they like and we will support them!"

  "There are some qualifications."

  "Not many. Has this been sent?"

  "No, but it has been agreed. It will be sent tomorrow."

  "Can we stop it?"

  "No, and I would not want to."

  "But it commits us to support Austria in a war against Serbia."

  "No bad thing."

  "We don't want war!" Walter protested. "We need science, and manufacturing, and commerce. Germany must modernize and become liberal and grow. We want peace and prosperity." And, he added silently, we want a world in which a man can marry the woman he loves without being accused of treason.

  "Listen to me," Otto said. "We have powerful enemies on both sides, France to the west and Russia to the east--and they are hand in glove. We can't fight a war on two fronts."

  Walter knew this. "That's why we have the Schlieffen Plan," he said. "If we are forced to go to war, we first invade France with an overwhelming force, achieve victory within a few weeks, and then, with the west secure, we turn east to face Russia."

  "Our only hope," Otto said. "But when that plan was adopted by the German army nine years ago, our intelligence told us it would take the Russian army forty days to mobilize. That gave us almost six weeks in which to conquer France. Ever since then, the Russians have been improving their railways--with money loaned by France!" Otto banged the desk, as if he could squash France under his fist. "As the Russians' mobilization time gets shorter, so the Schlieffen Plan becomes more risky. Which means"--he pointed his finger dramatically at Walter--"the sooner we have this war, the better for Germany!"

  "No!" Why could the old man not see how dangerous this thinking was? "It means we should be seeking peaceful solutions to petty disputes."

  "Peaceful solutions?" Otto shook his head knowingly. "You're a young idealist. You think there is an answer to every question."

  "You actually want war," Walter said incredulously. "You really do."

  "No one wants war," said Otto. "But sometimes it's better than the alternative."

  { III }

  Maud had inherited a pittance from her father--three hundred pounds a year, barely enough to buy gowns for the season. Fitz got the title, the lands, the houses, and nearly all the money. That was the English system. But it was not what angered Maud. Money meant little to her: she did not really need her three hundred. Fitz paid for anything she wanted without question: he thought it ungentlemanly to be careful with money.

  Her great resentment was that she had had no education. When she was seventeen, she had announced that she was going to university--whereupon everyone had laughed at her. It turned out that you had to come from a good school, and pass examinations, before they would let you in. Maud had never been to school, and even though she could discuss politics with the great men of the land, a succession of governesses and tutors had completely failed to equip her to pass any sort of exam. She had cried and raged for days, and even now thinking about it could still put her in a foul mood. This was what made her a suffragette: she knew girls would never get a decent education until women had the vote.

  She had often wondered why women married. They contracted themselves to a lifetime of slavery and, she had asked, what did they get in return? Now, however, she knew the answer. She had never felt anything as intensely as her love for Walter. And the things they did to express that love gave her the most exquisite pleasure. To be able to touch one another that way any time you liked would be heaven. She would have enslaved herself three times over, if that were the price.

  But slavery was not the price, at least not with Walter. She had asked him whether he thought a wife should obey her husband in all things, and he had answered: "Certainly not. I don't see that obedience comes into it. Two adults who love one another should be able to make decisions together, without one having to obey the other."

  She spent a lot of time thinking about their life together. For a few years he would probably be posted from one embassy to another, and they would travel the world: Paris, Rome, Budapest, perhaps even farther afield to Addis Ababa, Tokyo, Buenos Aires. She thought of the story of Ruth in the Bible: "Whither thou goest, I will go." Their sons would be taught to treat women as equals, and their daughters would grow up independent and strong-willed. Perhaps they would eventually settle in a town house in Berlin, so that their children could go to good German schools. At some point, no doubt, Walter would inherit Zumwald, his father's country house in East Prussia. When they were old, and their children were adults, they would spend more time in the country, walking hand in hand around the estate, reading side by side in the evenings, and reflecting on how the world had changed since they were young.

  Maud had trouble thinking about anything else. She sat in her office at the Calvary Gospel Hall, staring at a price list of medical supplies, and remembered how Walter had sucked his fingertip at the door to the duchess's drawing room. People were beginning to notice her absentmindedness: Dr. Greenward had asked if she was feeling all right, and Aunt Herm had told her to wake up.

  She tried again to concentrate on the order form, and this time she was interrupted by a tap at the door. Aunt Herm looked in and said: "Someone to see you." She seemed a bit awestruck, and handed Maud a card.

  General Otto von Wrich

  ATTACHE

  EMBASSY OF THE EMPIRE OF GERMANY

  CARLTON HOUSE TERRACE, LONDON

  "Walter's father!" said Maud. "What on earth . . . ?"

  "What shall I say?" whispered Aunt Herm.

  "Ask him if he would like tea or sherry, and show him in."

  Von Ulrich was formally dressed in a black frock coat with satin lapels, a white pique waistcoat, and striped trousers. His red face was perspiring in the summer heat. He was rounder than Walter, and not as handsome, but they had the same straight-backed, chin-up military stance.

  Maud summoned her habitual insouciance. "My dear Herr von Ulrich, is this a formal visit?"

  "I want to talk to you about my son," he said. His English was almost as good as Walter's, though he had an accent where Walter did not.

  "It's kind of you to come to the point so quickly," Maud replied with a touch of sarcasm that went right over his head. "Please sit down. Lady Hermia will order some refreshment."

  "Walter comes from an old aristocratic family."

  "As do I," said Maud.

  "We are traditional, conservative, devoutly religious . . . perhaps a little old-fashioned."

  "Just like my family," Maud said.

  This was not going the way Otto had planned. "We are Prussians," he said with a touch of exasperation.

  "Ah," said Maud as if trumped. "Whereas we, of course, are Anglo-Saxons."

  She was fencing with him, as if this were nothing more than a battle of wits, but underneath she was frightened. Why was he here? What was his aim? She felt it could not be benign. He was against her. He would try to come between her and Walter, she felt bleakly certain.

  Anyway, he was not to be put off by facetiousness. "Germany and Great Britain are at odds. Britain makes friends with our enemies, Russia and France. This makes Britain our adversary."

  "I'm sorry to hear that you think that way. Many do not."

  "The truth is not arrived at by majority vote." Again she heard a note of asperity in his voice. He was used to being heard uncritically, especially by women.

  Dr. Greenward's nurse brought in tea on a tray and poured. Otto remained silent until she left. Then he said: "We may go to war in the next few weeks. If we do not fight over Serbia, there will be some other casus belli. Sooner or later, Britain and Germany must do battle for mastery of Europe." />
  "I'm sorry you feel so pessimistic."

  "Many others think the same."

  "But the truth is not arrived at by majority vote."

  Otto looked annoyed. He evidently expected her to sit and listen to his pomposity in silence. He did not like to be mocked. He said angrily: "You should pay attention to me. I'm telling you something that affects you. Most Germans regard Britain as their enemy. If Walter were to marry an Englishwoman, think of the consequences."

  "I have, of course. Walter and I have talked at length about this."

  "First, he would suffer my disapproval. I could not welcome an English daughter-in-law into my family."

  "Walter feels that your love for your son would help you get over your revulsion for me, in the end. Is there really no chance of that?"

  "Second," he said, ignoring her question, "he would be regarded as disloyal to the kaiser. Men of his own class would no longer be his friends. He and his wife would not be received in the best houses."

  Maud was becoming angry. "I find that hard to credit. Surely not all Germans are so narrow-minded?"

  He appeared not to notice her rudeness. "Third, and finally, Walter's career is with the foreign ministry. He will distinguish himself. I sent him to schools and universities in different countries. He speaks perfect English and passable Russian. Despite his immature idealistic views, he is well thought of by his superiors, and the kaiser has spoken kindly to him more than once. He could be foreign minister one day."

  "He's brilliant," Maud said.

  "But if he marries you, his career is over."

  "That's ridiculous," she said, shocked.

  "My dear young lady, is it not obvious? A man who is married to one of the enemy cannot be trusted."

  "We have talked about this. His loyalty would naturally lie with Germany. I love him enough to accept that."

  "He might be too concerned about his wife's family to give total loyalty to his own country. Even if he ruthlessly ignored the connection, men would still ask the question."