“Why should I be gone? Oh, the rats have all left, now the opera’s sunk, but I’m a Lissenberger, remember. That’s why I’m here.”
“Oh?” Drugged with fatigue, Anne hung her borrowed coat in the closet and sat unwillingly down to listen, to try and keep awake.
“You’ve got to listen to me.” Gertrud lighted another cigarette. “I’m the only person who can tell you the truth. The only person who will.”
“The truth? What are you talking about?”
“About this nine-day-wonder between you and Michael, of course. About the friend he bribed to shout for you in the Rathaus. About what they are really saying in the town tonight.”
Anne passed a hand across her forehead. “I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t. What do you know about Lissenberg? Cooped up in this fake valley of Prince Rudolf’s, how should you know? Oh, you’re the little heroine today. Naturally. But don’t count on it lasting, Anne Paget, because it won’t. We care for our own in Lissenberg, and everyone in the place knows I’m engaged to Michael.”
“You?” Was she stupid with fatigue? What was this?
Gertrud laughed, not pleasantly. “Never bothered to ask who I was, did you? Just some young local had in to play a minor part in the opera. Passable voice … not bad-looking … unimportant. Right?”
“Who are you then?” Anne asked into a lengthening, nightmare silence.
“Michael’s cousin. A Liss like him. The family voice. You might have guessed. My parents were dead. I grew up at the castle. Cousin Rudolf … liked me. Michael did too.” She reached into the low-cut neck of her blouse and brought out a ring on a chain. “That’s Michael’s signet ring. I’ve had it since I was sixteen.”
“A long time ago.” Anne’s voice sounded dull to her own ears.
“Would you like to see the letters he wrote me from abroad? I’ve got them all. Love letters. If you hadn’t turned up, with your fancy voice and your pitiful waif’s eyes, it would be official by now, and Lissenberg would be wild with joy. Anne, don’t you see?” Now her tone changed, became friendly, pleading. “If it was just that, I’d have stepped back, disappeared, left Michael to be happy, returned his ring. But it’s not just that, is it? He’s not going to be happy; you’re a dying woman. Oh, God, even I, who should hate you, have felt sorry for you, have admired you for what you’ve done, how you’ve coped … But not this. Don’t you see what you’d be doing to Michael? Every minute you keep him in the dark, let him think he’s happy, you make it worse for him. Harder for him to find happiness afterwards. How long have you got?”
“Five months. But how did you know?” Now she had moved from mere fatigue into the black tunnel of nightmare.
“Oh, that! I’ve a friend works for Dr Hirsch. She thought it odd the way he dropped everything and came running when you called. When she found out why, she thought it her duty—as a Lissenberger—to tell me. Don’t you see, Anne? Michael must have an heir. Alix is out of it. She renounced her rights today. That settles her. And Lissenberg needs a family, not a mourning Prince.”
“His young brother and sister?” But this was a new, a heart-shaking idea.
“Them!” Gertrud’s tone was withering. “That just shows how little you know about anything. Everyone here in Lissenberg knows that whoever’s children they may be, they’re not Rudolf’s. He was ill, fifteen years ago. After that there were no more of his little bastards here in Lissenberg. Oh, no, I’m not one of them—in case you were hoping so. I’m the only child of Rudolf and Josef’s elder sister. By our law, I’ve as good a claim as Michael. That’s why our marriage will solve everything.”
“Nobody mentioned you today.”
“I told them not to, of course. It was Michael’s day.” She fingered her ring lovingly. “I had no idea he was taking this crazy affair with you seriously. Well, romantic stuff, I can sec, escaping together and all that. But—a passing fancy, Anne. He’ll wake up soon enough and see where his duty lies. Easier for you both if you’ve seen it for him first. And—more dignified for you. The Prince Bishop would have to get the Diet’s approval to marry you—did Michael tell you that? I wouldn’t stay quiet then. I couldn’t. It would be my duty as a Lissenberger to speak. And Dr Hirsch’s. Just think what an unlucky beginning to Michael’s reign, whichever way they decided. And what misery for him. Anne, I’m begging you, because I love him. Because you do. Spare him that. He’s been through so much—what his father did to him, the public exile. It was done in full Diet, you know. Wicked. And Michael standing there, quiet, taking it, because he would not call his father, his Prince, a liar in public. You couldn’t put him through something like that again, Anne. Not if you love him.”
“Oh, I love him.”
“Then do it for him. For us all. For Lissenberg.”
“Do what?” She was so tired … If only she could be quiet, think, face this new disaster. Because it was a disaster. She did not like Gertrud, but she believed her, found it hard not to agree with her. She ought not to have let Michael talk her into marriage. In her heart, surely, she had known it was wrong. Wrong for so many reasons. “What shall I do?” she asked, now, listlessly, defeated.
“Vanish,” said Gertrud. “You came into our lives, suddenly, a mysterious, romantic figure. Go out of them the same way, and you’ll be remembered forever. With love. Stay, and they’ll hate you.”
“But it’s not possible. How would I get away? And, besides, there’s Frensham’s trial. I have to speak at that.”
“You’re making difficulties,” said Gertrud impatiently. “The Diet heard your evidence today. It will be on the record. As to how you get away, that’s easy. I’ll help you.”
“You?”
“Michael’s not the only one with friends in Lissenberg.” She looked at her watch. “Josef will be in bed by now. The hostel’s closed for the night. I’ve got a master key and a car outside. And a friend on guard at the frontier. I can have you at Schennen in time to catch the milk train.”
“Go? Now?” Her tired brain could not take it in properly. “How can I? I’ve no money. I lost my purse.” But not her passport, she remembered, since it was safe in a drawer.
“Money! That’s no problem.” Gertrud produced a fat wallet. “Mine’s the rich branch of the family, I’m glad to say. Don’t worry, I’ll get it back from Michael. He’d want you to go in comfort. Now, you’d better get packing, hadn’t you, if you’re to catch that train.”
But I haven’t agreed, Anne thought tiredly. Or had she? Gertrud certainly seemed to think so. She had dragged Anne’s suitcase out from the closet and was beginning to pack shoes in tidy pairs. The shoes Prince Rudolf had ordered for her.
“No,” said Anne. “If I go, I go with what I brought.”
“Hardly worth bothering with, as I remember,” said Gertrud.
“You’re right.” Crawl away and die. “I’m too tired,” she said. “I’ll just go as I am.”
“Sensible,” said Gertrud. “Makes the travelling so much easier. But you’d better take the fur coat. You don’t want to catch cold, in your state.”
Why not? An everlasting cold, and have it over with. But she had no pills.
“My friend said you were on pain-killers.” Had Gertrud plucked the thought from her mind? “Thought you might be running low.” She produced a chemist’s bottle. “A new supply, just in case.”
“Thank you.” She should have said. “Get thee behind me, Satan.” But she was so tired … So tired … Michael, she thought, oh, Michael, my darling.
“Time to go,” said Gertrud.
17
It began to rain as Gertrud’s friend passed them through the control at the bridge over the Liss and rained steadily all the way to Schennen. A kind of nightmare reprise of her arrival, Anne thought tiredly. “What time is it?” she asked. Her watch, like everything else, was left behind, broken, useless …
“Late.” Gertrud was concentrating on the black, wet road shining under her headlights. The swish of windshiel
d wipers soothed Anne towards sleep. Incredible. She jerked upright. She was leaving everything in the world she loved, and all she could do was sleep. “I’ll need your address,” said Gertrud. “For your pay from the opera.”
“Yes.” Not for Michael. Oh, never for Michael. She could trust Gertrud for that. “I’ll write it down for you at the station.” She would go back to Mrs Briggs, to the glum bed-sitter. She had always known it was her place for dying. With money to ease things, Mrs Briggs would be kind, would nurse her, so long as nursing at home sufficed. After that, the untender mercies of the Health Service. But, what difference …
Unless … She had fought off the idea ever since Gertrud had produced the bottle of pain killers. A tempter? A solution. A final solution. Five months with Michael … That was one thing. A selfish thing. One to be forgotten. As the wet miles lengthened between her and Lissenberg, as she felt her heartstrings stretch and bleed, she knew that Gertrud was right, for however many wrong reasons. How could she have imagined inflicting her death on Michael? Michael who had been through so much, and now would have so much on his mind: the whole future of Lissenberg. So—five months of dying alone. Without Michael. With nothing but a hole to hide in. Must she? If she had taken that overdose, early on in Lissenberg, Michael would be a happier man tonight, and she would be out of it all.
Would he? Would she? Who could ever tell what would happen if they had taken the other road? What was that song Michael had sung to her at the Wild Man? Tonight? Last night? A million light-years ago, in another life. “There were two roads through the forest …” Oh, my beloved Michael, will you ever understand why I had to take the other?
“Christ! The train’s in.” Gertrud put her foot on the accelerator as they came in sight of the station. “Be ready to run for it. And best of luck.”
The car stopped and Gertrud reached over to open Anne’s door as she fumbled with her safety harness. “That’s it. Hurry!”
Rain sluiced down. The door slammed behind Anne as the car pulled off. And, as it did, so did the train, grinding and groaning its way off into the darkness. Dark. The station, too, was dark. Only, here and there, a feeble light illuminated the platform. Surely Gertrud must have seen what had happened. Would come back? Indeed she would not. Nor had she taken that vital address. If she had, she would not have passed it on. But Michael would find her. Carl would find her. If she was there to be found.
Better not to be? No guard had been there to see the train on its way. The station was closed and dark, but Anne remembered the bus shelter, at the end of the platform, with its convenient water supply. She could sit there. It would be cold, and her coat was wet, but she could sit there. If she wanted to, she could die there. Thoughtful of Gertrud to provide those pills. Thoughtful? Too thoughtful by half.
All planned? All of this planned? The missed train, the dark station, the pills … It would be so easy, so logical. So right? How long would it take? If she took all the pills, now, at once? What time? She did not know, but there was no hint of light in the sky. Dark … dark … As exhausted as she was, the pills should work quickly. Easier for Michael this way?
She had reached the shelter now, where it stood, faintly illuminated by the last light on the platform. She could just see the standpipe outside, with its chained, communal mug. Had Gertrud thought even of this? All planned … all subtly organised? If I do it, she thought, if I kill myself, here in the cold darkness, it will be murder. Gertrud will have killed me, and I shall have let her. What a shameful end. What a sordid story to begin Michael’s reign. No. I shall die in my own way, and my own time. She opened her handbag, felt for the bottle of pills and threw it with all her force into the darkness across the tracks. Then she moved tiredly into the shelter and sat down to wait for the next train.
Too cold to sleep, too cold to think, and that was a mercy. Crazy to have thrown those pills away; melodramatic … absurd. Any moment now the pain would strike. She was listening for it, waiting for it … Her head ached from the blow Frensham’s men had struck her. It had done so off and on ever since. Four days … And suddenly, like a lightning flash, it struck her that during those four days there had been no trace of the other pain. Extraordinary … It was the longest remission she could remember. Oh well, she thought wryly, perhaps I should make a habit of living dangerously. But now it would come, now it was bound to come. She braced herself, waiting, and thought about Michael.
She ought to have left him a note, a message. Incredible, brutal to have come away like this. But Gertrud would have destroyed a note, suppressed a message. Michael would understand … Michael would forgive her … Perhaps, one day, he might even be grateful to her. He would never marry Gertrud. Strange to be so sure of that. Strange, and conforting. But, after a while, after she died, he would marry and be happy. Have heirs for Lissenberg … children for himself … Call one of them Anne? Oh, Michael … She let herself think of him, of the goodbye they had not known was forever. The kiss on the hostel steps. “I shall love you always …” Tears tasted salt in her mouth … What would he say, in the morning? What would he do? Gertrud would say nothing. She saw that, suddenly. I can’t bear it, she thought, and yet, it was right. I was right to come away, even if Gertrud was wrong to make me. Right … wrong … Michael … cold. She slipped down on the hard bench and, mercifully, slept.
Cold. Starting awake, aware of the noise that had roused her, she thought, the train. Must not miss another one. Up, staggering, to her feet and out in a rush into dawn light. Rush of wheels; scream of brakes; Michael, flinging himself out of the big car. “Anne!” He gathered her up as she swayed towards him. “Anne?”
“Tired.” She opened her eyes. Had she said it aloud?
“Well, I should think so.” Dr. Hirsch was sitting by the bed. Hospital bed; nurse, highly starched, at its foot. “Running off like that. I ought to scold you, young woman, but I can’t. I’ve got to apologise instead.”
“Apologise? Why? Where am I?” She looked at the door, half hoping that it would open and reveal Michael.
“In my clinic. We rushed you here, Michael and I. Never been driven so fast in my life. Pumped out your stomach straight away. Hence the apology. But we didn’t know, do you see? Whether you’d taken them or not.”
“Taken—”
“The pills Gertrud Stock gave you. No time to wait and see. Better safe than sorry. And Michael almost off his head. You shouldn’t have done it, Anne, not that way. Run off like that.”
“I’m sorry.” And then, “But how did you know?”
“By a miracle. Well, by luck, if you like. Michael rang me when he got home, told me his good news … and his bad. He wanted to know just how things stood. About your health. I thought he had the right.”
“Of course he had the right.”
“So I fetched your notes. And found that something had been added. In my assistant’s hand. Emergency supply of painkillers, yesterday’s date. Idiotic creature. Doing a scandalous thing like that, and then making a note of it. Characteristic. Scared me rigid. And as for Michael … We met at the hostel; woke Josef; found you and Gertrud were both missing. How did she get to you, Anne?”
“She was in my room when I got back. Had been there a long time. She had a master key, must have got in while Josef was at the castle. Were she and Michael really engaged, Dr. Hirsch?”
“That’s what she told you! Years ago. Boy-and-girl. I was always against it. First cousins, and in that family. She’d never have got him, even if she had succeeded in murdering you.”
“Murder?” But it was what she had thought.
“I don’t know what else you’d call it. Leaving you alone there, with what you faced, and an overdose at hand. I’m proud of you, Anne.”
She smiled shakily up at him. “Don’t be too proud. I nearly did.”
“Tell me.” He had taken her pulse, but kept hold of her hand as if to go on monitoring it. “How’s the pain been, through all these excitements?” There was a little rustle, as if the
starched nurse at the foot of the bed had moved suddenly.
“Funny you should ask that.” Anne’s smile came stronger this time. “I suddenly thought … waiting for that train … I haven’t had it since … since …” She stopped, puzzled. “Friday? I’m not sure. When I realised that, I thought it was bound to start. I fell asleep instead. I was so tired, Dr. Hirsch. Does Michael understand … Will he? When can I see him? I’ve got to explain, do you see. Quickly. Because Gertrud was quite right. Not in what she did … What I let her make me do. But she was right. We can’t marry, Michael and I. You’ll help me to make him see?”
“I’ll do anything you want. Ah!” A tap at the door. Michael? No. The nurse opened it, spoke to someone, turned to Dr. Hirsch. “They’re ready, doctor.”
“Thanks. Excuse me a minute, Anne?”
Tension in the air. Unmistakable. “There’s nothing wrong, is there? Michael?” Suppose he had found Gertrud. A murderess ….
“Nothing in the world. Relax, child. Rest. Don’t fret.”
Absurd advice. She had told him she would not marry Michael and he had made no attempt to dissuade her. He might at least have thanked me, she thought, and felt tears of self-pity forming. Not that, never that. I shall die in some comfort after all, she told herself, in Dr. Hirsch’s clinic. And I still have a little pride. “Nurse.” She pulled herself up in the bed. “Could I have my bag? I’d like to put some lipstick on.”
The nurse’s hands, passing her the bag, were shaking.
“Something is going on,” Anne said. “If it’s Michael, and you’re not telling me … I’ll … I’ll …”
“It’s not Michael. I promise it’s not. The Prince, I should say. We’ve all got so used to calling him Michael. He’s with the Diet. Emergency arrangements.” She was talking almost wildly, infected by the general tension.
“Anne!” Dr. Hirsch was carrying a sheaf of papers. He gave a little nod to the nurse, and she moved round to the other side of the bed as he sat down on the chair by Anne. “You’re a good, strong girl, aren’t you?”
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