by David Fraser
After presentation to Herr and Frau Langenbach and an exchange of comments on the general unreliability of machines, Frido had asked permission to telephone Arzfeld.
‘Of course,’ said Herr Langenbach. ‘You will wish now to tell your father of your mishap. But I must inform you that it is most unlikely that your vehicle will be repaired tonight, unless the problem is an easy one. It may be best to telephone again after they have looked more carefully at the engine. I do not understand these things but I am sure you will not be able to continue your journey if the trouble is serious.’
And so it proved. The bailiff reported at eight o’clock. The ‘clever mechanic’ had had little difficulty in his preliminary diagnosis. It appeared most likely that a new engine would be required, or major surgery at least. The bailiff spoke exactly and pessimistically. Anthony listened with mounting consternation.
‘A new Morris engine! Here in Lower Saxony!’
‘There may be something the garage can do tomorrow. They are very good people,’ said Anna soothingly. She radiated competence and composure.
‘And now Frido,’ she added, ‘you must telephone Cousin Kaspar and tell him that you will all spend the night here. And he need not worry. If the garage cannot put the car right tomorrow I will drive you to Arzfeld with pleasure. I should enjoy it. And you are welcome here as long as you like.’
Both Langenbachs had bowed their agreement. Anna’s father-in-law was not unlike Kaspar von Arzfeld, Anthony decided. He had the same withdrawn serene authority although he had not the air, like Kaspar, of a military man. Instead, he gave the impression of an academic, and this was near the truth, for although Gottfried Langenbach had done little in life except care for his fields, his possessions, his remarkable house, he was, by taste, a scholar and he was happier in his extensive library than anywhere else. He looked delicate, and Anthony later learned, without surprise, that chronic asthma had preserved him, no doubt protesting, from military service in 1914. His wife was tall, gaunt and somewhat forbidding, with iron grey hair, high cheekbones and a figure like a ramrod. It must, thought Anthony, be remarkably tedious for Anna, in her husband’s absence, living with this no doubt generous but certainly austere couple.
It had been light enough to gain an impression of the house as they arrived. Schloss Langenbach was a long, low building, with tall, curiously-shaped chimney stacks, all dissimilar; with wooden shutters, each painted a faded red and white, on each of its many windows; and with two towers, taller than the rest of the building and culminating in squat, onion-shaped steeples, straddling a gateway into the small courtyard round which the house was built. Although of no enormous size, Schloss Langenbach gave the sense of having housed a little local court, of a master, in periwig and lace, dispensing patronage and justice to the immediate neighbourhood. Arzfeld, Anthony decided, had to do with husbandry, forests – and, at times perhaps, with war. Langenbach held a whiff of scent and patches and powder, a small echo of Haydn or Mozart, despite its more ancient origins and undeniably heavy interior. Unlike Arzfeld, Langenbach seemed to impose a certain graceful formality.
Yet Anna herself was radiant. She showed no sign of being overwhelmed by the atmosphere of Schloss Langenbach. The house was dark, with a profusion of carving – as far as Anthony could judge, carving of high quality of a kind more familiar in mediaeval choir stalls than in a private house, however august. Old Frau Langenbach guessed his thoughts.
‘My husband’s ancestors were benefactors of the church in Kranenberg, which was a more important place in the seventeenth century than it is today. They employed craftsmen who went on and on – first the church, then this house – sometimes one can forget which one is in! Do you find it oppressive? I did, when I first married and came to live here. It felt so like a museum. But one changes. Our son, Kurt, thinks of nothing but aeroplanes. He becomes impatient here. My daughter-in-law, Anna here, is an expert on both house and church. She has become a great friend of the pastor.’
Anthony could imagine. ‘Your son – and – and your daughter-in-law – live here always, when he is not away on duty?’
‘No, at first they lived in Berlin. My son was in the Ministry.’
Anna was sitting on Anthony’s other side. She smiled at him, joining in a conversation which had turned to herself as subject.
‘You know Berlin, Herr Anthony?’
‘No,’ Anthony said, adding – ‘It’s kind of you to speak German to me when your English is so perfect.’
‘Not kind. My mother-in-law does not speak English.’
Anthony felt abashed. Of course that was the reason! But Anna’s smile made of any remark a gentle benediction. He felt warmed by it. She had, he decided, an extraordinary personality. She exuded efficiency and energy, complete self-possession, so that she seemed naturally to dominate her surroundings. Yet she was also feminine, and so gentle and smiling that ‘domination’ was the last word that could be associated with her.
In appearance Anna Langenbach had, certainly, a strong resemblance to the von Arzfelds, her cousins. She had Lise’s fair hair, with darker lights in it. Her skin, although it was of the fortunate kind that could brown in the sun without burning, was fairer than Lise’s – a cream and roses complexion, and with eyes blue instead of brown. But her face was very strong. Compared to Lise or even to Frido she was immensely positive. This was a woman who would always have ideas, take initiatives, lead not follow. It was clear that Frido was proud of this relation; and that Lise worshipped her.
Anthony looked hard at Anna. They were supping simply but well.
‘You must be well informed on what’s going on in Spain.’
She shrugged, ‘My husband doesn’t write much of the situation.’
‘Has he been there long?’
‘For six months. He is due for some leave, for a holiday, in July. And after that he doesn’t know. Maybe again in the New Year, something like that.’
‘Will the war go on as long as that?’
She considered that, and answered it directly.
‘Yes, I think so. But not after next year.’ Anna showed signs of preferring some other topic. ‘Did Frido tell you I have English blood?’
‘He did. And do you know England well?’
‘My grandmother lives in London. I used to see her often once. Now it is more difficult. I am very fond of my grandmother. Maybe I will visit her in the summer – after my husband’s leave.’
‘You should persuade your husband to spend some of his leave bringing you to England.’
‘Not likely, I think. More likely I come afterwards. In September perhaps. This September, 1938. I will not have seen my grandmother for nearly three years. It is too long.’
‘I hope,’ said Anthony, ‘that you will find time to visit my parents’ home. We’d love that. They’re very friendly, easy people I promise you. Frido will tell you!’
‘I am sure of it,’ said Anna Langenbach. ‘But if I go to England I shall, I expect, be with my grandmother all the time.’ Her smile was cool and somewhat dismissive as she turned to talk to Herr Langenbach who, with Lise on his right, had abandoned himself to prolonged silences. The old man’s eyes lit up as his daughter-in-law made some laughing remark.
‘Ach! Anna!’ he said, and took her right hand in his.
After dinner they moved into a long gallery, a place of dark portraits and many windows in the wall which faced them. Anthony manoeuvred himself into a talk à deux with Anna Langenbach. He asked about a particular picture at the other end of the gallery. She beckoned him to look closer and began explaining it.
‘It was a Langenbach in the eighteenth century – very early, just after the Elector became your King. You see the boundaries are rather hard to explain quickly; Germany was a patchwork, but these lands were subject to the Elector of Hanover.’
‘Our George I. Who imprisoned his wife until she died because she was unfaithful, is that right? We visited their palace at Celle this afternoon.’
‘Yes
, poor Sophia Dorothea. She had rather a terrible life. She fell in love, you see. She had been married to the Elector and then she fell in love with Count Königsmarck. The Elector’s officers killed him.’
‘The guide told us about it.’
‘He may not have told you that as Sophia Dorothea was dying after all those years of lonely captivity, the story is that she said one thing – she said, “Summon my husband to meet me at the judgement seat.” Did they tell you that?’
‘No. They didn’t tell us that.’
‘And he – her husband, your King – was travelling in a coach from England to visit Hanover. And at that moment he died. It is a good story.’
‘It is a very good story.’
‘And was she justified to call him so?’
‘Absolutely justified, don’t you think?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Anna with a shrug. ‘Love – well, it’s a difficult enough emotion for anybody to manage, and for a young girl, married to a prince, friendless, at her husband’s mercy – it must have been hard.’
They wandered to another picture. Anthony heard himself saying softly,
‘I m-must say again how much I hope it will be possible to see you when you visit England, visit your grandmother.’ He tried to keep his voice normal, unemphatic, but he found himself a little short of breath. The connection to their last exchange, to the sad story of the little Electress, was obtrusive. Anna suddenly turned and looked full at him.
‘You say that rather insistently!’
‘I intend to.’ Anthony did not take refuge in a light laugh, a disclaimer. He stood his ground. He knew that his expression was painfully serious. He held Anna Langenbach’s eyes. She, too, looked grave.
‘We have never met before. I doubt if you or your family would find me – find us – particularly interesting.’
‘I am not speaking of my family.’ Anthony supposed he had drunk too many glasses of a delicious Mosel at dinner. He, stuttering Anthony Marvell, was meeting this young, married woman for the first time and was pressing her for another meeting, pressing her in a tone of voice which he knew was most improperly sincere.
Anna spoke quietly. ‘You are a person of strong impulses, Mr Marvell!’
‘Anthony. Of strong feelings, perhaps. And you?’
She disregarded this. ‘When I first saw you, I thought, “He’s got an uncertain temper, he is unpredictable.” Is that true?’
So she had, immediately, considered him! ‘Well, I can be impatient,’ Anthony said softly, ‘I can be intolerant. But I think I have it in me to be –’ He fumbled for a word and sighed.
They had moved from picture to picture hanging on that long wall, both tacitly joining in the pretence that they were merely examining them together, Anna explaining Langenbach ancestors, Anthony trying to ask intelligent historic or artistic questions, in an unsteady voice.
‘And if my car is not repaired, can you really drive us to Arzfeld?’
‘Of course I can,’ she said in a conversational voice. ‘I love any excuse to go there.’
‘You must not bore Herr Marvell with our family,’ called out old Langenbach with a chuckle from the other end of the room where Lise was entertaining the older people and Frido stood smiling quietly. ‘They were a dull lot.’
‘A most interesting lot, sir!’ Anthony rejoined with a smile as he followed Anna towards the others. He looked across the room and found Frido’s eyes upon him, intelligent, speculative and kind.
Chapter 5
Anthony left Oxford at the end of that summer term of 1938. He intended to live in London, to read for the Bar, to ‘eat his dinners’ – attend Hall at his chosen Inn of Court as an apprentice barrister with the aim of taking his final law examination in 1941. He had not read Law at University. No Law degree could shorten the obligatory and lengthy process he had now to begin, and concentration on undiluted Law for too long a period was regarded as narrowing and ultimately detrimental to a man’s character. ‘Quite right,’ Anthony thought to himself, regarding with boredom the prescribed list of reading. He had taken a set of rooms in Mount Street, Mayfair, with his closest Oxford friend, Robert Anderson. Robert, also, was planning to read for the bar.
At the end of August, Robert, like every other able-bodied and solvent inhabitant of London, was away. Anthony had been to Scotland for ten days, returning on 26th. He had some weekend invitations, but the first of these was not until late September. He was at a loose end. And on 29th, at Bargate for two days, he received a short letter.
‘You may remember a little motorcar mishap at Langenbach. I am in London for a few weeks. It would be delightful to see you and your charming sister, so I write this line in case, perhaps, you are not away for your holidays.’
The letter, with some indecipherable flourishes, was signed ‘Anna Langenbach’. How prim Anna, with her perfect command of English, could yet sound in writing and even sometimes in speech, Anthony thought delightedly.
He had felt a fool after that first, April, meeting with Anna – gauche, impulsive and blundering. Yet he had not been able to resist saying to her, when they parted at Arzfeld, ‘I will write.’
She had said,
‘No, no.’ Then she had smiled and avoided his eye and said, ‘Write? What about?’
‘I have many things I feel I must say to you, can say to you!’ They had had only a few short moments alone at Arzfeld before Anna returned to Langenbach.
‘Many things!’
And he had written. It had been, Anthony recalled with embarrassed self-knowledge, an immature letter. He had told Anna that he had felt happier in her company than with anybody he had ever known. He had written as if she had no husband, as if making a lover’s first, tentative moves. He had written that her face was before his eyes at all times, that he could not sponge it from his mind, that her voice was in his ears always.
‘I know I shouldn’t write these things to you. But I feel I must!’
It was a letter of appalling indiscretion, idiotic. He had written in May. There had been no reply. Perhaps a jealous Langenbach husband had seen an English stamp, suspected something, snatched the letter. Perhaps she was outraged. Or – far, far worse – perhaps she had simply laughed to herself –
‘What a foolish schoolboy! I turned his head with one conversation! And our hands hardly touched!’
But there had been no reply. And now – as if nothing in the world had passed between them since April – there came this cool little note –
‘It would be delightful to see you and your charming sister, so I write this line in case …’
She explained in it where she was staying.
‘Anna – I’m s-s-sorry about my letter – I mean – you got it?’
Anthony’s stutter was worse than it had been for some time. Anna smiled.
‘Why are you sorry about it?’
They were lunching in a restaurant, two days after Anthony had received her note.
‘Not sorry I wrote it. I meant it.’ He held her eyes with his. He looked stern.
‘That was wrong of you,’ Anna said, near inaudibly. Conversation so far had been stilted, tension high. To eat was impossible. Anna tried to ease things.
‘You’ve not told me about Marcia. How is she?’
‘Marcia’s in Vienna.’
‘She’s lovely. The Austrians will be mad about her.’
It was a hot summer. They made a pretence of playing with food, their eyes seldom leaving the other’s face, serious, unsmiling. Anna spoke quietly, matters of no importance. She had explained that her grandmother, Mrs Briscoe, had married an Englishman after grandfather von Arzfeld’s premature death. Born English and now again widowed, Mrs Briscoe lived in London. It appeared that she was particularly fond of Anna.
‘My dear grandmother feels only the cold. She does not mind this. Her house is an oven.’
‘London is no place for a heat wave, Anna.’
‘No, but it is where I must be for these days.’
‘You know a lot about trees and shrubs, I can tell that. You’ll love Kew, and there’s space and air there.’
Later they walked slowly among the magnificent trees, forcing themselves to observe, exclaim, admire, hearts beating, aware of nothing but each other. At one comparatively deserted place of shade Anthony turned to face Anna and stood very close. She did not move away.
‘Anna –’
Anna put both her hands on his upper arms and without a word rested her head on his shoulder. Quietly she began to sob. This could not end well. It was her doing. And it could not end well.
Anna’s life had already been marked by sorrow. An infant in 1914, she remembered one or two visits from her father, a remote figure apparently always wrapped in an enormous greatcoat. She remembered smoke from a cigar, and a spluttering cough between rather overpowering kisses. That, she learned later, had been on his infrequent periods of leave from the Western Front, from fighting against his mother’s relations. She had been five years old when he died in January 1919, in a field hospital still far from home, not from wounds but from influenza. Anna could recall no sense of bereavement. That period was what she came to know as the great hunger. Everybody in Germany was hungry – hungry all the time, hungry, sallow of face and evil-smelling: the hungry smell. Anna heard horrible stories of those days when she was older. The Allied blockade was maintained after the Armistice and it was said food was so scarce that children in the streets of big cities were in danger of kidnap. Anna never knew whether these whispered nightmares had substance. It was a time of humiliation, suffering and darkness.
Anna’s mother, strict, loving, brought the girl up in her own image. Beautiful and gallant, Klara von Arzfeld was undaunted by loss, by famine or by penury. She started a dress-making business, specializing in the economical but elegant remodelling of clothes, using old material. Her taste was admirable, her industry tireless. She took on two, then three girl assistants. The business prospered sufficiently. She and Anna had been left poor and they remained poor. But they survived. They lived in Berlin.