“So you know that, too!” exclaimed Frank. “You know that my father is an official in the confidence of our Leader. You seem to know everything.”
“Not quite everything,” said Dane with an involuntary smile.
“It’s true, of course,” said Frank slowly. “My father is a trusted official in the party.”
“And he wouldn’t approve of your marrying Wynne,” urged Dane.
“No,” said Frank reluctantly. “No, he wouldn’t approve at first. I should have to persuade him … you see he’s always been very bitter against Britain. But if he saw Wynne …”
“It would be very unpleasant for Wynne.”
“I would prepare the way,” declared Frank, with more confidence than he felt.
Dane sighed. “Why did he send you here? I can’t understand it.”
“There were reasons. I told you the first reason—it was to see what English people were saying and how they were feeling towards our country. There was the language, too. I had always been good at English and I wanted to learn to speak it like a native. The third reason,” said Frank, hesitating for a moment and then lifting his head and looking straight at Dane, “The third reason is rather difficult to tell, but I want to tell you everything. I thought if I learnt to speak English really well I might be useful to my country. I thought that some day I might return to England as a Secret Service Agent. I can tell you this because it’s over now. I could never do it now—you must believe this, Dane.”
“I do believe it,” Dane said.
“I must tell you,” continued Frank rather uncomfortably, “I must tell you that when I came here first I came with bitter feelings in my heart. I was half English but I hated the English half of myself—I wanted to tear it out and throw it away. I had such bitter feelings that it was difficult to be polite and pleasant. I believed that Britain was trying to crush my country, to encircle her and crush her to death. That’s what we were told.”
He stopped for a moment but Dane did not speak.
“It was funny,” Frank said thoughtfully, “it was funny to come here and see everyone so—so unconscious. At first I thought it was because people were afraid to speak their minds when I was there, but soon I realised that they were completely natural. They didn’t hate Germany or wish her ill. They were too busy and happy to bother. It was funny, too, to hear people speak openly against their own Government, and at first I misunderstood this and thought England was ripe for revolution—but then I changed my mind. I saw they were loyal in the big things, I saw that they spoke little of their country and their Empire because their feelings were too deep. They were of one race, they were happy and secure. I couldn’t go on hating you,” continued Frank in a lower tone, “it was impossible to hate people who were so kind at heart. You can’t hate people when you understand them.”
“That’s true,” Dane said, the words bursting out of him, almost against his will.
“Yes,” agreed Frank. “It’s a truth I’ve found out for myself. It’s a pity that everyone in my country couldn’t come here and have the same experience … my mind has been in a turmoil all these months. I was like a man at sea in a boat with a load of preconceived ideas and prejudices and, almost every day, I cast one or two of them overboard. Soon I had none left. Soon I was beginning to feel proud that half of me was English. I saw then that I could never take up any appointment which would mean that I was working against Britain. I couldn’t do it because I was half English myself. I saw that so clearly that I couldn’t understand why I had never seen it before.”
Dane had listened to the tale with deep interest, and he believed every word of it—indeed it was quite impossible to disbelieve the boy.
“I have wondered what to do,” Frank continued. “I haven’t written yet to tell my father that my feelings have changed. I haven’t written to him at all lately for it has been difficult to know what to say … but now,” he added, looking up and smiling at Dane with sudden joy, “now it’s all right, now there is nothing to worry about any more. We are friends.” He held out his hand with a sudden, impulsive gesture, and Dane took it in a firm clasp.
“We are friends,” agreed Dane, smiling into his eyes, “and I hope we shall always be friends, Frank.”
“You hope?” cried Frank. “But it’s settled. Our leaders have signed the pact!”
Dane was only too ready to believe that peace was assured but he was older than Frank and more experienced. He was more cautious. Perhaps it was foolish to feel any doubts about the future but there were so many things to take into account. There was the Polish Corridor, there were the German colonies, … could these and other matters be settled amicably?
Frank had been watching his face, and at last he said, “Dane, what is it? Why won’t you consent to our marriage? I swear to you that I’ll be good to Wynne. I swear that I’ll always love her. She shall come first with me always.”
“Wait for a little,” Dane said. “There’s no hurry. I’m saying this for your own sake as much as hers. See what your father has to say about it. You’re both so young … No, Frank, I won’t agree to an engagement either. I’m sorry about it but I can’t.”
“May I speak to Wynne?”
“No,” said Dane. “No, you must wait for a year at least.”
“A year!” cried Frank in consternation. “A year! But someone else may fall in love with her—they’re bound to. Nobody could help it. I don’t know why every man she meets isn’t madly in love with her. Why must we wait a year before I may speak to her, Dane? Don’t you believe in this pact? I tell you it’s true. The two greatest nations in the world … and now they’re friends for ever. The Fuehrer has said so. Do you think he would go back on his pledged word? Do you think that, Dane?”
“I hope not,” Dane said in a low voice.
“I’ve seen him and spoken to him,” cried Frank with flashing eyes. “He’s a great man—a genius—look what he has done for us! Look how he has remade our country!”
“He has done wonders,” Dane agreed.
They were silent again for a few moments, and then Dane rose to his feet. “I’m sorry, but it must be a year,” he said gravely. “I trust you, Frank. If I find you have spoken to Wynne and told her that you are fond of her I shall have to withdraw my consent altogether.”
“I won’t go behind your back,” said Frank in a hopeless sort of voice. “I can’t help seeing her if she comes to London but I won’t seek her out and I won’t tell her that I love her.”
“That’s what I meant.”
“Six months,” said Frank in sudden desperation, “I can’t wait longer than that. Please, Dane … it will be the end of March … even that is an eternity.”
Dane sighed; he was unutterably weary; the clock on the mantelpiece was striking three.
“Six months, then,” he said.
Wynne woke at six. It was not unusual for her to wake early and she often got up and went for a walk before breakfast. She wondered if she should do that today. It was a fine morning. The sun was shining and her blind was flapping in the breeze. She lay still for a minute or two and then she heard someone walking round the house—who could it be? It was a firm, light step—a man’s step, but not Dane’s. Wynne jumped out of bed and ran to the window. She saw Frank walking across the garden to the garage—Frank!
Wynne’s heart beat so fast that she was almost choked. Frank had come back. She had known he would come, of course. She opened the window wider and called him softly and he turned and looked up at her.
“Frank, where have you come from? What are you doing? Are you going to stay?”
It was so like Wynne to ask three questions all at once that Frank had to smile. He did not really feel like smiling at all, but he could not help it.
Wynne beckoned to him and he came back across the lawn and stood looking up at her without speaking.
“Frank!” she said, eagerly. “Are you going to stay?”
“No, Wynne. I can’t stay. I just came to see D
ane about something. I’m going back to London now.”
“Now?”
He nodded.
“Oh, Frank, must you go? Can’t you stay one day?”
“No,” said Frank.
“Wait a minute,” Wynne said. “I’m coming down.”
“No, Wynne—”
She had vanished.
Frank looked up at the window and then at the door. Dane would not like it if he knew that Wynne was coming down to speak to him, but what could he do? He was still hesitating on the path when the door opened and Wynne appeared. She was in her pyjamas and a fur coat, and her hair was standing out in a fuzz of gold round her small rosebud face.
“Come here,” she said. “Come and tell me—I can’t shout at you, Frank. What have you been doing? Have you got into a scrape?”
Frank came towards her somewhat reluctantly—he was remembering his promise to Dane.
“Is it a scrape, Frank?” inquired Wynne again, examining him carefully.
“No, it isn’t,” he replied. “No, Wynne, everything is quite all right.”
“You had better tell me,” said Wynne, shaking her head at him. “I mean I might be able to help you. Roy always tells me when he gets into a mess.”
“It isn’t anything like that. I just came to see Dane.”
“And you were going away without seeing me!” exclaimed Wynne in reproachful tones.
“I didn’t want to,” replied Frank. He could have said a lot more if it had not been for his promise. He felt that it was going to be very difficult indeed … Wynne was dearer and sweeter and more adorable than ever. He looked at her and looked … It would be the end of March before he could see her again—the end of March! He must look at her carefully, he must fill himself up to the brim with Wynne’s dear face so that when he shut his eyes he would be able to see her.…
Wynne was looking at him too, and the little silence that had fallen was full of significance.
“Well!” said Wynne at last, “well, of course if that’s all you’ve got to say after not seeing me for two whole months—”
“Oh, Wynne, you don’t understand!” cried Frank in dismay.
“No,” said Wynne. “No, I don’t understand it at all. I thought we were friends, you see.”
“Of course we’re friends!”
“Funny sort of friends,” declared Wynne in a puzzled tone of voice. “Very funny sort of friends, Frank. You arrive here in the dead of night and creep away at the crack of dawn. You don’t want to see me or talk to me.”
“It isn’t that I don’t want to see you or talk to you.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No,” said Frank desperately, “No, it isn’t. I could talk to you all day, but—but I’ve got to go.”
“Why?”
“I’ve got to get back—back to London.”
“I see,” said Wynne thoughtfully.
“You see, don’t you?” urged Frank. “I mean I’ve got to go.”
“When are you coming back to see us?”
“I don’t know,” said Frank. “At least—”
“What about next Sunday?”
This was frightful—it would have been much better not to see Wynne at all. “I’ll see,” said Frank. “I’m—I’m not sure … I’ll come back sometime, of course.”
“Yes, of course,” agreed Wynne in a curiously expressionless voice. “You’ll come back sometime when you aren’t so busy—when you’ve got nothing better to do.”
“Oh, Wynne it isn’t that at all.”
“That was what you said.”
Frank struggled against the overpowering desire to take her in his arms and end all the misunderstandings by kissing her thoroughly. “I’ll come back,” he said in a gruff voice, “I’ll come back as soon as I can; that’s all.”
“That’s all, is it?” inquired Wynne. “It isn’t much, is it, Frank?”
“No,” said Frank, “I mean yes, it is. It’s a great deal if you look at it in the right way; because, if I say I’ll come back as soon as I can, it means—well, of course it means that I can’t come any sooner.”
Wynne saw the point. She nodded thoughtfully. “Oh it means that, does it?”
“Yes,” said Frank earnestly. “Yes, that’s what it means. So if I don’t come for—for a little while—”
“Yes,” said Wynne, inquiringly, “yes, Frank, if you don’t come for a little while, what then?”
“Nothing,” said Frank, who had suddenly realised that he was sailing very close to the wind. “Nothing, Wynne, I must go at once—”
“Why need you—”
“I really must,” declared Frank, “because if I don’t go at once …”
Wynne smiled at him. “What would happen, Frank?” she inquired innocently. “What would happen? Do tell me.”
“If I don’t go at once,” declared poor Frank who had almost reached the end of his tether. “If I don’t go at once I shall—I shall be late.”
He turned away as he spoke and began to walk quickly across the lawn toward the garage.
“But Frank!” cried Wynne, “Frank, come back. Aren’t you going to say goodbye?”
Frank stopped and looked back. “No,” he said, “No, Wynne—don’t let us say, goodbye. I’ll just say, ‘Auf wiedersehen’ … Auf weidersehen, Wynne!”
“Auf wiedersehen, Frank,” she replied.
She watched his tall figure stride off across the grass, and there was joy in her heart—of course he loved her, poor darling!
Chapter Seventeen
It was a long winter. Everyone felt it long, and to Frank, slaving away in a London office, it seemed that spring would never come. He received several friendly letters from Wynne and replied to them in the same spirit for he did not think that Dane would mind. He wrote these letters with an eye on Dane—as it were—and they were so extremely innocent that Dane might have seen them. He corresponded with his father, too, and these letters were much harder to write. At first, Herr Heiden wrote urging his son to come home, but soon the tone of his letters changed and Frank was aware of the reason. Herr Heiden was still under the impression that his son’s prolonged stay in England was to perfect himself in the language and so to fit himself for an appointment as a German Agent. Frank had not the courage to undeceive him. It was weak and cowardly—he knew that well—and he was merely putting off the evil day, but he found it impossible to write and tell his father that his ideas and feelings had changed. Frank wrote to Cousin Sophie several times and once to Dane. He lunched with the Audleys at the Berkeley and went with Migs to the little restaurant Migs knew of where they served snails. It was not a tremendous success because neither of them enjoyed the snails very much but they were both too proud to say so.
At the end of February, when Frank had started to count the days and to tick them off on his office calendar, Roy suddenly walked in and announced that he had got leave.
He sat on the office table and swung his legs and smiled and waved his hands, and he was so like Wynne that Frank could have hugged him.
“The Terrible’s in dock for a refit,” explained Roy, “so I’ve got leave and I thought it would be tremendous fun if you and I did one of those Outings together.”
Frank began to explain how impossible this was, but Roy did not listen.
“I don’t mean in Germany,” he said, “because anyhow I don’t suppose they’d let me go abroad without an awful fuss and bother. I mean we could do an Outing here, just you and me—and Agatha. Yes, I’ve got Agatha now … you see Harry’s brother bought a new car and he wanted to get rid of Agatha so Harry and I bought her between us. It works out all right really. Whoever gets leave uses Agatha and if we both get leave at the same time we can both use her … so there you are,” declared Roy, waving his hands again.
Roy was so large and so full of sea air and freshness that he made the cramped little office seem smaller and more cramped than ever.
“I wish I could,” said Frank, regretfully.
“You can,” said Roy, “and, what’s more, you must. We’ll go to Scotland. We’ll go to the West of Scotland. There’s a fellow I know who says it’s marvellous. You’re here to see the country, aren’t you? Well then—”
“It’s impossible,” said Frank.
“Impossible, my foot,” declared Roy. “Why, of course they’ll give you leave. Tell them your long-lost cousin has come all the way from Kamschatka to see you. Tell them your uncle from America has suddenly turned up. Spin them some yarn or other. They’ll fall for it all right.”
“They wouldn’t,” said Frank, with conviction.
“They must be cads, then,” declared Roy, “and, as a matter of fact, it’s obvious that they are cads. What a foul, filthy little hole to work in!”
“Yes,” agreed Frank in a thoughtful voice. He had begun to think it over and to consider it carefully. He knew that he was doing good work for the firm—practically the whole of their foreign correspondence was in his hands—but they had refused to raise his salary or to give him a better room. He was overworked and underpaid and for some time past he had toyed with the idea of leaving them and trying to get something better. He was pretty certain that he could get something a good deal better, for the experience had been useful and he had begun to know his worth. He saw, too, that it would be a great advantage if he were free to go on this trip for, when the trip was over, it would be quite natural for him to go back to Fernacres with Roy. He and Roy would walk into Fernacres together and there would be no embarrassing questions to answer. The six months would be over on the 23rd of March and he would then be free—free to speak to Wynne and tell her he loved her. Apart from all this Frank wanted to go with Roy. He wanted to shake off the dust of this horrible office and smell the fresh air again.
The English Air Page 13