The Clouded Land

by Mary Mackie

  ‘Oh, that’s rubbish!’ she broke in, dismissing rumours of international unrest with a flip of her hand. ‘Everybody said there’d be a war last year, but it never happened, did it? There won’t be any war now, you’ll see. I said to Elsie, the newspapers love to blow things up out of all proportion. Bang the drum a bit and the men start strutting about, going all patriotic.’

  ‘I think it’s a little more serious than that,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, it’ll blow over. After all, your Kaiser’s a first cousin to our King. Your Crown Prince was a guest at the coronation in London only a few weeks ago, wasn’t he? I know there’s lots of soldiers everywhere in Germany, but they just like to dress up and strut about. It’s in the Prussian blood. Very smart and handsome they are, too. I had my share of officers queuing at the stage door, I can tell you. Think about it, dear – if things were as bad as they reckon, would me and my friends have been shown such a good time in Berlin, us being British and all?’

  Doubtfully, I answered, ‘Even so…’ The eastern sky began to lighten with dawn over the low contours of England as I thought back on the events which had brought me to this night. All at once I was seeing things with a cold clarity that burned my brain as, for the first time, I began to perceive a pattern I had not recognized before. Was it possible? Had the threat of war been only an excuse? Had my family colluded in sending me into exile solely because I had dared to love the wrong man?

  * * *

  What I knew of politics then was what I heard at the dinner table, what I read in the headlines and what my friends said. But even I knew that, for some years past, a feeling of grievance had been stirring in Germany.

  In that summer of 1911, unrest had woven itself deeper into the fabric of our lives. The papers had been full of patriotic bluster concerning a place called Agadir in Morocco, where France had done something that had forced the German government to send a gunboat. In response, Britain’s Mr Lloyd George had made an inflammatory speech, issuing a warning which had antagonized all Germans. In the streets of Berlin one had felt anger growing and wherever a group gathered there had been talk of war. Germany would not be threatened. Not for long! Tempers grew short. The Berlin bear was growling, the Prussian eagle testing his wings to defend his eyrie…

  Understanding few of the deeper ramifications, I was disquieted when Mother and Pa began to talk of sending me away to England because of the danger. How could trouble in far-off Morocco possibly spread to reach us in Berlin?

  The unrest disturbed the business community and the resulting uncertainty set my stepfather on edge. He came home late from the bank, looking more and more harassed. He ate his dinner hurriedly, which gave him indigestion, which in turn made him snappish. His moods unsettled the entire household. That was why Mother had become especially nervy and anxious for my safety, I decided. We were all out of sorts, what with the sultry weather, and the worry, and the wild talk… Being absorbed in my own immediate, private concerns, I dismissed more distant thunders.

  Mother and I had never been close. When I was young I always felt that I was a nuisance to her and nothing I did ever pleased her. I was never good enough, or pretty enough, though as I grew up and became useful she tolerated me more. She had, anyway, her new family to think of – at regular intervals, two years apart, she had given Pa three sons, my little half-brothers Rudger, Pieter and Hansi. Pa also had a son from his first marriage – Fritzi, a few years my senior. He had been away, at school and military college, most of the time I was in Berlin. Even so, I had grown fond of him and regarded him as a big brother.

  My stepfamily had readily accepted me and been kind, if not openly affectionate – displays of emotion were despised by the Prussian male. But, though Pa had a soft spot for me as the only girl in the family, he believed in discipline and expected unquestioning obedience from all of us. He had insisted that Mother and I should speak German unless we were alone, but that was no problem: I had soon become bilingual. As I grew up, however, I developed a mind of my own and lately I had found myself more and more in conflict with Pa. He didn’t like being argued with, especially by a young woman. Nor did he approve of my ambition to study journalism. I suspect he was instrumental in having the University of Berlin turn down my application for a place – a blow which ruined my plans for the future. And when he discovered I had been to hear the socialist campaigner, Clara Zetkin, speak, he forbade me to go out of the house for a whole week; he even burned the piece I had written about it and, for a while, relations between us were openly hostile. Torn between us, Mother sided with Pa. She always did.

  The distraction of my eighteenth birthday, and putting my hair up, was followed by my first proper grown-up ball at the officers’ mess at the military academy. I wore a gown of palest dove satin, trimmed with pink lace, and my dance card was full all evening. My stepbrother Fritzi escorted me, along with his best friends Carl-Heinz von Siemens and Willi von Sturm, all three of them scions of old, aristocratic families, all officers of the Third Hussars, currently attached to the Crown Prince’s guard, tall and fair and fine in their braided uniforms with swords at their sides. The Kaiser loved military accoutrements – parades, uniforms, horses and all the show of Prussian military might – and Berlin was full of fine young soldiers, who went everywhere in uniform, giving a colourful gloss to the crowded streets. But none were finer than my three champions. They called themselves my musketeers, and dubbed me Fraulein D’Artagnan. We were inseparable, the four of us.

  Or so I had fondly thought.

  At the ball, my beautiful Carl-Heinz kissed me for the first time, in an arbour scented by gardenias. My cup was full. If he loved me then my future was secure. But we kept the secret for ourselves, knowing that our parents would say we were too young – Carl-Heinz was not yet twenty-one.

  My stepfather had a fine house in the lakeside suburb of Wannsee, not far from the new palace at Potsdam, so it was convenient for Carl-Heinz to come there after duty. We met secretly on the shores of Lake Havel and walked in the pine forests there, making plans. But recently my sweetheart had once or twice missed our rendezvous, and then one evening – only two days before I found myself recounting it to Judy Love – Willi von Sturm had turned up instead.

  I lifted my hand, opening stiff fingers to take out the letter and unfold it for Judy Love to see. ‘He brought me this. It’s from Carl-Heinz. It says… It says he didn’t intend that I should take him seriously. It was a flirtation, and I should have known a man of his background could never consider a wife with no name or fortune. It says I was a fool if I thought otherwise, and I should go home to England and never come back…’

  Her hand was on my arm, offering comfort. ‘I’m sorry, dear. I’m truly sorry. Men can be such beasts.’

  ‘But he did mean it!’ I cried. ‘It’s this letter that’s a lie. Oh… why didn’t I see it before? It’s obvious that Willi made him write it!’

  Willi, with his smiling mouth and his cold blue eyes, his waxed blond moustache, his duelling scar, his overweening arrogance…

  ‘That’s what Fritzi was trying to tell me!’ I mourned. ‘He said something about… I didn’t take it in. I suppose I didn’t want to listen. But what he meant was that Willi von Sturm had orchestrated it.’

  That evening at dinner I had been in a state of shock. All I could think of was the letter – the fact that Carl-Heinz didn’t want me. But the presence of an unexpected visitor from England – the solicitor, Mr Wells – had obliged me to compose myself.

  ‘Mr Wells came to tell us that my grandfather is ill and wants to see me again before he dies,’ I told my new acquaintance. ‘Everyone agreed I should go and I let them persuade me. Before I knew it, I was on the train. And Willi was there, in the crowd, at the station. Making sure I left. Oh… you see! It’s not Carl-Heinz who has played me false, it’s all of them – his toffee-nosed family, and my parents, and Willi – plotting to separate us. They can’t do this.’

  The sun had lifted its first bright rim over
the horizon, its light ample for me to read the letter. The words still said the same, but I knew he had written them under duress, driven by his family and by his brother officers of the élite guard, the high-born, the blue-blooded, determined to close ranks and make him deny his feelings for a penniless little Ausländerin.

  ‘I shan’t let them do it!’ I cried, thumping my fist on the rail. ‘I shall write to him and tell him that I know he didn’t mean it. I shall ask him to wait for me. In a few years, when we’re of age, they won’t be able to stop us.’ So saying, I folded the letter again and returned it to my skirt pocket.

  Close beside me, Judy Love was peering up at my averted profile, all but bursting with interest. ‘That’s right, dear,’ she soothed. ‘Time solves all. You’ll probably meet some nice English boy and—’

  ‘There will never be anyone else for me.’

  ‘You think that now. But, I mean, if he let himself be bullied into writing a letter like that, maybe he’s not the one for you. In a few weeks’ time you’ll feel differently. After all, you’re off to Norfolk, to see your family. That’ll be nice.’

  ‘Will it?’ I remembered so little about Denes Hill. I didn’t care about Denes Hill.

  ‘Oh… No, sorry. It won’t be much fun if your grandfather’s dying.’

  That was not what I had meant. ‘I didn’t say he was dying, I said he was ill. At least, that’s what I was told.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it?’

  I forced myself to think of what lay ahead, though I hardly dared put my own doubts into words. ‘I don’t know what to believe. It’s all so fearfully convenient. For Mr Wells to arrive at just that moment… I expect Mother wrote and asked the family to take me in for a while, to get me away from Carl-Heinz. Why else should Grandfather suddenly want to see me? Even if he is ill… He’s shown no interest before. None of them has. Oh, Grandmother sends cards and small presents at my birthday and Christmas. Tokens, dutifully sent. But they never cared about me.’

  ‘Perhaps they want to make up for it.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ I wished I could believe it.

  The English coast was near now, gentle hills gilded by the rising sun behind a great estuary full of ships. But what waited further on, at the end of my journey, was unclear.

  ‘Is your mother the only child?’ Judy Love asked.

  ‘No, though she’s the oldest. The others… The only one I really know, because he’s been to visit us two or three times in Berlin, is Uncle Frank. He’s a darling. But then he’s different – he’s an artist. Mother says he’s much too fond of the ladies ever to be faithful to only one. My oldest uncle, Harry, is married, but he has no children, as far as I know. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I was just thinking. I mean, if your grandfather wants to see you before he dies, well… maybe he’s left you something in his will.’ Her eyes shone at the thought of it. ‘Does he have a lot of money?’

  The question eased a bitter laugh out of me. ‘You’ve been reading too many bad novels, Miss Love. My grandfather may be a wealthy man, but he has a wife, and four sons, and another daughter apart from my mother. I am not about to become a rich heiress.’

  Her face fell. ‘Oh.’

  The ship began to manoeuvre towards the estuary. Around us, other people emerged from cabins and saloons, to watch as we came into harbour. The air was thick with crying gulls, the sun glaring into my aching eyes. Another hot day lay in prospect. And somewhere ahead, hidden by distance hazed in morning brightness, waiting behind more hours of travelling on dusty trains, lay the county of Norfolk, and a house named Denes Hill, where lived my English relatives, the Rhys-Thomases.

  I was truly adrift, on currents that swept me ever further from people and places familiar and dear, while driving me inexorably closer to an alien shore. But I had to go on. I couldn’t go back. Not yet.

  Perhaps never, a voice in my head said clearly and, in sudden panic, I looked back, hoping for a last glimpse of the far, receding shore. But it was lost behind a haze of dawn mist, a swell of ocean, and a roll of sudden thunder.

  * * *

  Disembarking from the ship in the crowded confusion of Parkeston Quay, I felt like an automaton, worked by clockwork. A leaden depression had settled on me, and my head was thick from lack of sleep and from the oppressive weather. I saw Judy Love with her friends, making for a train bound for London. She waved at me, calling, ‘’Bye, dear. Good luck,’ but her main purpose was to draw my escort’s attention, which she succeeded in doing, briefly – I felt him hesitate and look round as he hustled me towards the dining car of our own train.

  Once we had been conducted to our table, Mr Wells settled back opposite me to study the breakfast menu. Judy Love had been right – he was good-looking, in a dark, rakish, mature sort of way, tall and well built, wearing a formal stiff collar and tie with his tailored summer tweeds. The black hair round his ears was faintly silvered, and the moustache he wore made me think of a riverboat gambler I had seen in a cinematograph. I could imagine him playing poker, winning or losing fortunes with little outward display of emotion. What was he thinking behind that calm façade as he ordered a full English breakfast, with China tea?

  My own appetite had deserted me. I drank a cup of coffee and several glasses of iced water, but my main recollection of that part of the journey is seeing watchful, khaki-clad soldiers patrolling beside the line, carrying guns.

  A mountainous lady at the table opposite ours exclaimed, ‘I never thought I’d live to see the day when British soldiers were obliged to keep watch on the English coast for fear of Huns!’

  ‘Not to worry, m’dear,’ her bewhiskered husband replied. ‘Our lads are exercising, that’s all. Nothing for you to worry your little head about. Didn’t you see those naval vessels in the harbour? Britannia still rules the waves. If Kaiser Bill dares to try anything, he’ll get short shrift. No matter how many spies he has lurking among us.’

  At this, the lady glanced straight at me and, finding me watching her, did not look away but instead stared into my eyes with bright challenge, her mouth tightening. It was I who snapped my head away, feeling my colour rise. Did she take me for a German spy?

  ‘Cold?’ Mr Wells’s voice made me start. From over the top of that morning’s Times, a pair of umber eyes regarded me levelly. ‘I thought you shivered.’

  ‘Oh, I… I wasn’t aware of it.’ If I had shivered it was not from cold but from a sudden malaise of the soul. I stared again at the view, seeing another file of soldiers walking beside the track. Preparing to defend the coast against invasion by Germany? Dear God…

  Two

  The Channel crossing, my conversation with Judy Love, and our arrival in England seemed like a part of the nightmare when I surfaced from more troubled dreams. Head heavy, neck cricked, I felt myself being gently rocked, carried along amid an odour of stale smoke and dust. Clickety-clack, clickety-clack. After twenty-seven hours we were, at last, on the final stretch of this wearisome journey, aboard the afternoon train from King’s Lynn to Hunstanton.

  As I forced my eyelids to part, sunlight glared through my lashes, making me squint. I was slumped in a corner of the carriage, with my nose all but pressed against the window and my straw boater askew. Seated opposite me, his back to the engine, the lawyer was perusing a local paper he had bought from a vendor at King’s Lynn station. Blinking, I forced my muscles to straighten into a more decorous position as I covertly repositioned my boater, anchoring it securely with its long hatpin.

  A glittering expanse of green and blue beyond the window resolved itself into grassland with the sea gleaming beyond it, the horizon meeting a clear summer sky where gulls flashed bright wings. Cows grazed on rich pasture dotted with great yellow buttercups, blue forget-me-nots and dancing scarlet poppies. I had forgotten how beautiful Norfolk could be.

  But, ahead of us, storm clouds trailing skirts of rain drove a straight line across the blue sky. Beneath their mud-dark swirling, sunlight still flooded a long wooded hill which dom
inated the skyline, a double-headed butt of land whose further promontory jutted out almost into the sea.

  The sight woke long-forgotten memories, surprising me. Of course…

  Twisting in his seat, Oliver Wells peered out of the window as if to see what had caught my attention. ‘Storm coming,’ he observed. ‘Thank God for that! Some rain will be welcome to break this heat.’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ I agreed, and saw him lift a wry eyebrow before applying himself to the Lynn News and Advertiser again. To him, I surmised, the view held nothing but the familiar and unremarkable. For me, it had stirred a kaleidoscope of impressions both happy and unhappy, all blurred behind nine years of absence.

  Before I could fully recapture any of those misted memories, another image intruded. Among tall grasses just beyond the fence that guarded the railway, I saw a young man clad in a dark bathing dress. Dripping wet, hair flattened to his head as if he had just come from the sea, he stood rigid, up to his knees in pasture. He was staring straight at me, as if he had been expecting me.

  I must have started, or made some small exclamation, for Mr Wells looked up. ‘What is it?’

  ‘There…’ I gestured out of the window, but now that I looked again there was no man, nor any sign of disturbance in the grasses except the ruffling of a rising breeze. ‘For a moment I thought…’ How foolish! My heart was thudding uncomfortably and I had to force my lungs to expand. I managed a breathy laugh. ‘No, nothing.’

  Giving me a strange look, he shook his paper and pointedly resumed his reading, as if annoyed to have been disturbed. He considered me more and more a little oddity, with whom he had been saddled much against his will.

  Closing my eyes, I tried to relax for the last few minutes before we reached the halt at Eveningham, but I was wide awake now, my heart unsteady, my mind imprinted with the face of the young man I had just seen. Tall, long-limbed and broad-shouldered, with a lithe, athletic body displayed in that wet bathing suit, he had reminded me of Uncle Frank. I had seen the drops of water on his face, even the way his eyelashes stuck together. He had been real. Oh… he must have lain down, hiding himself, I rationalized. Perhaps he was there with his girl. The grass was probably longer than it appeared.