Текст книги "Gossamer Cord"
Автор книги: Philippa Carr
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Philippa Carr
The Gossamer Cord
Incident in the Forest
WHEN I LOOK BACK I can see that it all began one morning at breakfast in our home at Caddington Hall when my mother said casually, looking up from the letter which she was reading: “Edward has asked that German boy to stay with them for a holiday in England.”
“I expect he will bring him over to see us,” replied my father.
I was always interested in what Edward was doing. I thought he was such a romantic person because of his origins. My mother had been at school in Belgium when the war broke out, and she had had to leave that country in a hurry because of the advancing German armies. Edward’s parents had been killed by a bomb when it fell on their house which was close by the school, and the dying mother had extracted a promise from my mother that she would take the child with her to England; and this had been done.
Edward was always full of gratitude to my mother—understandably so, for what could he have hoped for from an invading army or fleeing refugees with themselves to care for and who might not have had much time to spare for a helpless baby.
He lived usually with my maternal grandparents at Marchlands, their estate in Essex, or in the London family home in Westminster. My grandfather had been a Member of Parliament—a tradition in the Greenham family—and now my uncle Charles had taken over the seat.
Edward was about twenty-two years of age at this time; he was going to be a lawyer, and he was, of course, just like any other member of the family.
My young brother, Robert, was saying that he expected Edward would pay a return visit to his friend in Germany.
“I wish I could go,” he said. “It must be wonderful. They have Beer Gardens and they are always fighting duels. They don’t think much of men until they have a scar received in a duel, and it has to be on the face so that everyone can see it.”
My mother smiled at him indulgently. “I can’t believe that is so, darling,” she said.
“I know it is because I heard it somewhere.”
“You shouldn’t believe all you hear,” said my sister Dorabella.
Robert grimaced and retorted: “And you…you’re such a know-all.”
“Now,” put in my mother, “don’t let’s quarrel about it. I hope we shall see Edward and this…er…” She looked at the letter. “…Kurt,” she went on. “Kurt Brandt.”
“It sounds rather German,” commented Robert.
“What a surprise!” mocked Dorabella.
It was the summer holidays and a typical morning and the family was all together for breakfast.
I can picture that morning clearly now that I know how important it was.
My father, Sir Robert Denver, sat at the head of the table. He was a wonderful man and I loved him dearly. He was different from any man I had ever known. There was not a trace of arrogance about him. On the other hand, he was rather self-effacing. My mother used to chide him about it; but she loved him for it all the same. He was gentle, kind, and I think, best of all, utterly to be relied on.
He had inherited the title on the death of his father not long before. My grandfather and he had been very much alike—entirely lovable—and it had been a great blow to us all when my grandfather died.
My grandmother Belinda lived with us. We always called her Grandmother Belinda to distinguish her from Grandmother Lucie. She did not come to breakfast but took hers in her room. She was quite different from my grandfather and father. Autocratic in the extreme, she demanded attention and took a mild yet cynical interest in family affairs, while being completely absorbed in herself; but at the same time she managed to be very fascinating. She was beautiful, still with magnificent black hair which had miraculously—or perhaps cleverly—not lost its color, and deep blue eyes which invariably seemed amused and a trifle mischievous. Dorabella and my brother were a little in awe of her; and I know I was.
So on this occasion there were only Dorabella, my brother, myself, and our parents.
Dorabella and I were twins and between us there was that special bond which is often there with such people. We were not identical, although there was a close physical resemblance. The differences had been brought about by our characters, because my mother said that when we were babies, it was difficult to tell us apart. But now that we were sixteen—or should be in October—the resemblance had faded.
Dorabella was more frivolous than I; she was impulsive, whereas I was inclined to pause for thought before I took action. She had an air of fragility, whereas I was sturdy; there was a certain helplessness about her which seemed to be attractive to the opposite sex. Men were always at her side, wanting to carry something for her or look after her in some way, whereas I was left to care for myself.
Dorabella relied on me. When we were very young and first went to school, she would be disturbed if we did not sit together. She liked to sidle up to me lovingly while she copied my sums. And later, when we went away to school, we were closer than ever. There was no doubt that there was a deep affinity between us.
Immediately after the war had ended, my father had come back from France; that was in 1918. He and my mother were married and in the October of the following year Dorabella and I were born.
At the time my mother had been fascinated by the opera. It must have been exciting when they came to London after four years of restrictions and privations and constant fear for their loved ones, and used my grandparents’ house in Westminster as their home. During that time they wanted to relish all that they had missed. My mother had always loved the opera; it became a passion of hers during this time, and she had the romantic notion of naming us after characters in two of their favorites. So I became Violetta from La Traviata and my sister, Dorabella from Così fan tutte.
My grandmother had once laughingly said that she would have protested at Turandot.
Our brother, who was born about three years after us, had to be Robert, because there was always a Robert in the family, which did make it a little difficult at times to know which one was being referred to. But tradition had to be obeyed.
True to our expectations, Edward came to visit us, bringing Kurt Brandt with him.
It was a lovely summer’s day in mid-August when they arrived. We were all waiting for him and when we heard the car come into the courtyard my mother, with Dorabella, Robert, and myself, ran down to greet him.
Edward leaped out of the car and I saw his eyes go to my mother. They embraced. I guessed that when he met her after an absence he thought of how she had brought him out of danger when he was a helpless baby. It had made a special bond between them, and I believe my mother thought of him as one of her children.
A young man of about Edward’s age got out of the car and came toward us.
“This is Kurt…Kurt Brandt,” said Edward. “I have told him about you all.”
He looked slight beside Edward and very dark because Edward was so tall and fair. He stood very straight before my mother, clicked his heels, took her hand, and kissed it. Then he turned to Dorabella and me and did the same. He shook Robert’s hand, which rather disappointed my brother who would have liked the clicking of heels, if not the hand kissing.
My mother said how delighted she was to see Edward and his friend and she led them into the house, for which Kurt Brandt expressed his admiration in good but accented English. The house was very ancient and dated back to the fifteenth century, and people were often impressed by it when they first saw it—so there was nothing unusual about that.
My father joined us for luncheon. Usually he was busy on the estate, but this was a special occasion and my mother had asked him to make an effort to be there.
Kurt Brandt told us that his home was in Bavaria. There was an old schloss which had been in the family for years.
“Not so big…not so grand as this house,” he said modestly. “Schloss sounds grand, but there are many such in Germany. Castles…but very small. Ours is an inn now—and has been for some years. Then there were bad times…the war…and after…it was not easy…”
I thought of my father, who had been decorated for bravery during that war, and remembered that he would have been fighting against Kurt’s father. But it was all over now.
“Tell us about the forest,” said my mother.
How glowingly he spoke of his homeland! I could see how much he loved it. We listened entranced and, seen through his eyes, the forest seemed an enchanted place. He told us how, during the autumn, the mists arose suddenly—bluish mists which shrouded the pine trees suddenly without warning so that even those who were familiar with the place could lose their way. About the necks of the cows which belonged to the few farms scattered on the wooded slopes were bells which tinkled as the cows moved, and so the sound gave their owners an idea of where they were.
He was a fascinating talker, and Edward sat back smiling because his guest was a success. It was an excellent beginning, not that the rest was disappointing.
Edward was eager to show him something of our country and, as one of his passions at the moment was his new motorcar, he insisted on driving us somewhere each day.
We went to Portsmouth so that Kurt might see Admiral Nelson’s battleship; we explored far beyond our neighborhood; then Kurt must see the New Forest, where William the Conqueror had hunted; and after that to Stonehenge, which was of an even earlier period.
We would return each day and chatter over dinner of what we had seen.
During that time we had come to know Kurt very well. We used to sit for a long time over dinner because the talk was too interesting to be cut short. If the weather was hot, we ate out of doors. We had a courtyard shut in by red brick walls with creeper climbing over them and a pear tree in one corner. It was an ideal place for an alfresco meal.
I think Kurt enjoyed that visit as much as we did. He told us a great deal about the difficulties of life in his country after the war. There had been great struggles. The inn had had to be closed for a time and it was not very long since it had been reopened.
“Visitors come now,” he said. “They did not come during the bad years immediately after the war.”
“It is the people who have no say in making wars who suffer most from the consequences of them,” commented my father.
We were solemn for a while and then were laughing again.
We made Kurt tell us more about the forest, his home, and his family.
He had a brother Helmut and a sister Gretchen. They helped his parents manage the inn.
“Helmut will have the inn in due course,” he added. “For he is my elder brother.”
“And you will be with him?” asked my mother.
“I think perhaps it may be necessary.”
No more was said on the subject. My mother probably thought it would be prying to ask too many questions.
It was the last night. Dorabella, Robert, and I would be going back to school in two days’ time. Dorabella and I were in our last year.
We were in the garden and there was that air of sadness among us as there can be when something which has been enjoyable is coming to an end.
“Alas,” Kurt said at length. “Tomorrow I must say goodbye. It has been delightful. Sir Robert and Lady Denver, how can I thank you?”
“Please don’t,” said my mother. “It has been an enormous pleasure for us to have you here. I should thank Edward for bringing you.”
“And you will come to the Böhmerwald one day?”
“Oh, yes please,” cried Dorabella.
“I’ll come,” said Robert. “The trouble is there is this beastly school.”
“There will be holidays,” Edward reminded him.
“I wish you could come back with me,” said Kurt. “This is the best time of the year.”
“I’d like to see that blue mist,” said Dorabella.
“And the cows with bells,” added Robert.
“It would be wonderful,” I added.
“Next year…you must come…all of you.”
“We shall look forward to it all through the year, shan’t we, Violetta?” said Dorabella.
Kurt looked at me and said: “She speaks for you both?”
“She usually does,” I said. “And on this occasion…certainly.”
“Then it shall be,” said Kurt. He lifted his glass. “To next year in the Böhmerwald.”
It was an exciting year for Dorabella and me because it was our last at boarding school. We should be seventeen in the coming October and that was certainly something to set us thinking, so that we forgot about our proposed visit to Germany until at mid-term. Edward was at Caddington and one of the first things he said was that Kurt hadn’t forgotten that we had promised to visit him in the summer. Then, of course, we remembered and it seemed an excellent idea.
We said goodbye to our friends at school, and looked round the tennis courts and the assembly hall for the last time without too many regrets; after all, we had become adults and ahead of us was the prospect of going to Germany.
Robert had been invited to spend the holidays with a friend in Devon, so that disposed of him. This was a relief to my mother who had felt that it would be quite enough for Edward to look after us without having to watch over a high-spirited boy.
My parents drove us down to the coast, and in due course we embarked on the Channel steamer and arrived at the port of Ostend. Dorabella and I were in a state of excitement during the long train journey through Belgium and Germany. Edward, who had done it before, pointed out places of interest as we passed along. We wanted to miss nothing. It grew dark and we slept then, but fitfully, waking now and then to be aware of the movement of the train.
When we finally reached Munich, we were to stay a night, as the train to the small town of Regenshaven would not leave until the next day.
“Then,” the knowledgeable Edward informed us, “we have another long journey, but not, of course, like the one we have just experienced. We should get to Regenshaven before dark and there Kurt will be waiting to take us to the schloss.”
“I can’t wait to get there,” said Dorabella.
“That is something you will have to do,” Edward retorted. “So don’t say you can’t.”
“I mean, I’m just longing to be there.”
“I know,” he replied soothingly. “So are we all.”
It was exciting arriving in the great City. We were taken to the hotel where two rooms had been reserved for us—Dorabella and I sharing.
“Perhaps you would like a rest first,” suggested Edward.
We looked at him in amazement. Rest! When we had come to Munich—a town which had been but printed letters on a map until now!
“All right,” he said. “We’ll have a look round. Just a quick one…because I shall be hungry and looking for sustenance.”
The middle-aged woman at the desk was very affable. She smiled benignly on us and said in deeply accented English that she hoped we should enjoy our stay in Munich.
Edward, who spoke some German and liked to make use of it, told her that we were leaving the next day for Regenshaven.
“Ah,” she cried. “In the forest. That is good…” She pronounced it “goot.” “Wunderbar…wunderbar. You have friends there?”
“Yes, someone I knew at college.”
“That is goot…goot…this friendship. But you must see something of München…only a little, alas…but the goot things. First it is the Cathedral…the Frauenkirche…then the Peterskirche…”
We asked directions, which she gave, smiling benevolently while we thanked her.
It was certainly a fine city and very busy. There were several museums, I noticed, but there was no time to explore them. Edward said we had the afternoon and referred once more to that necessary sustenance.
Everywhere we were met with friendliness. It was fun to ask the way and receive instructions, and in high spirits we returned to the hotel for lunch.
The dining room was full and there was only one table available; this was for six and we were given that.
Hot soup was put before us and, while we were consuming it, the waiter appeared with two young men. He asked our pardon. Edward was concentrating hard to understand him and, with the help of a little miming, we discovered that the young men wanted a meal; there was no place for them, so should we mind if they shared our table? So it was amicably arranged that they should sit with us.
They were tall and blond and we prepared ourselves to enjoy their company and they ours, it seemed. They were interested when they heard we came from England.
They lived on the outskirts of Munich, which was a very big city—they added proudly, in Germany second only to Berlin.
We looked suitably impressed.
They were in the town on business. Things were different now. They had changed since the Führer came to power.
We listened attentively. There were questions I wanted to ask, but it was a little difficult because of the language problem, though they spoke some English and, with Edward’s German, we could reach some understanding.
“We like the English,” they told us.
“We have found the people here very helpful to us,” Edward said.
“But of course.”
I put in: “And we like all we have seen.”
Dorabella was a little silent. She was hurt, I thought, because they did not pay her the attention she was accustomed to receiving from young men. These two seemed to me too earnest for frivolity.
“It is good that you come here,” said one of the young men whose name we discovered was Franz. The other was Ludwig.
“It is good that you see we are now a prosperous people.”
We waited for him to go on.
“We have suffered much. After the war…there was a harsh treaty. Oh, we suffered. But no more. We shall be great again.”
“But you are,” said Dorabella, giving one of her most appealing smiles.
Both young men then regarded her with interest. “You have seen this?”
“Oh, yes,” said Dorabella.
“And you will go home and tell your people Germany is great again?”
Dorabella said: “Oh, yes.” Although I knew she had no intention of doing so and certainly no one would have been interested if she had.
“We are proud,” said Ludwig, “because it was here in Munich that our Führer made his great attempt to lead our nation.”
“What year was that?” asked Edward.
“1923,” answered Franz. “It was the Putsch in the beer cellar.”
“Beer cellar!” cried Dorabella. “Can we go to a beer cellar?”
Neither of the young men seemed to hear that. They were staring silently ahead, their faces flushed with zeal.
“It failed and he went to prison,” said Franz.
“But that time was not wasted,” added his friend. “For out of it came Mein Kampf.”
“And then when Hindenburg died he became Chancellor. And then Dictator…and everything was different,” said the other.
“Oh, good,” murmured Dorabella. “That must have been nice.” There was a touch of asperity in her voice. She was a little bored by these too earnest young men. However, there was a very friendly atmosphere at the table and the food was good.
We felt distinctly refreshed and spent a pleasant afternoon exploring the Peterskirche—one of the oldest churches I had ever seen. After that we sat outside a restaurant, drank coffee, and ate some delicious cakes. It was interesting to watch the people strolling by. Edward said we must not stay out too long. We had to think of the journey tomorrow, for we should have to rise early.
We went back to our hotel. Franz and Ludwig were no longer there. We dined and returned to our rooms where Dorabella and I talked of the day’s events until we dropped off to sleep.
We were greatly looking forward to arriving in Regenshaven.
As we stepped from the train, I felt I was in an enchanted land. We had traveled through mountainous country of pine-covered slopes with waterfalls and little rivulets which glittered in the sunshine. We had seen the occasional little village with tall brick buildings and cobbled streets, which reminded me of illustrations in Grimm’s Fairy Tales from my childhood.
Kurt was waiting to greet us which he did with such joy and made us all feel like honored guests.
“How glad I am that you have come!” he said. “Ach, but it is a long journey and so good of you to make it to see us.”
“We thought it was worth it,” replied Edward lightly. “Kurt. It is good to see you.”
“And the young ladies are here…Violetta…Dorabella.”
“We are here,” cried Dorabella. “You don’t think we should have let Edward come without us, surely?”
“They are all eager to meet you. My family…I mean,” said Kurt. “Come. We will waste no time. They are impatient. Is this the luggage?”
Kurt took our bags and we went out of the station and settled into his waiting car. Then we drove through the pine-scented air.
“It is beautiful!” I cried. “Everything I thought it would be.”
And so it was. We were soon in the forest.
“The schloss is five miles from the station,” Kurt told us.
We looked about us eagerly and soon came to a small town, with its church and old belltower, its cobbled streets, and the square in which were the post office and a few shops. The small houses had clearly stood there for hundreds of years. One almost expected the Pied Piper to appear.
The schloss was about a quarter of a mile out of the town, which I discovered was called Waldenburg. The road to it was slightly uphill. I gasped when I saw the schloss. In the afternoon light it was like another illustration from the fairytale books.
It was a castle, yes, but a miniature one. There was a circular turret at each end and it was built of pale gray stone. I thought of a princess at one of the turret windows letting down her long fair hair to enable her lover to climb up to her. I could hear Dorabella’s voice: “It’s silly. He would have pulled it all out, and think how it would hurt!” But I was more romantically minded than she was, and I thought it was an example of true love to suffer for the joy of receiving one’s lover in the turret.
I would have reminded her of this but there was no time, for standing at the door of this fascinating edifice was a group of people.
Kurt shouted in German: “We’re here,” and they all clapped their hands.
We got out of the car and were introduced to them. Edward they knew already, and greeted him with great pleasure. And Kurt presented them to us with that dignity with which I was beginning to become accustomed. There were his parents, his grandfather and grandmother, his brother Helmut and his sister Gretchen. Standing to one side were the servants—a man, two women, and a girl who, I guessed, would be much the same age as Dorabella and me.
When the first formal introductions had been made, the welcome was very warm.
We were shown to our rooms. Dorabella and I shared, which we were delighted to do. We stood at the window looking out on the forest where a faint mist was beginning to settle, giving the scene a mysterious aspect and, just for a moment, I felt a certain apprehension which made me shiver. That mist once again reminded me of the forest in the Grimm books, where evil was so often lurking.
It was gone in a moment, for Dorabella hugged me suddenly—a habit she had when excited.
“It is wonderful!” she cried. “I know it’s going to be fun. What did you think of Helmut?”
“I am afraid it is too soon for me to have made an assessment. He seemed very pleasant.”
Dorabella laughed at me. “You are such a pompous old darling, dear sister. I’m glad all that side of us went to you.”
She often said that she and I were one person, really, and the vices and virtues which fell to the lot of most people at birth had been divided between us.
However, on that occasion she did manage to disperse that mild feeling of uneasiness.
I remember our first meal in the schloss inn. I recall going down the narrow spiral staircase to the dining room where we dined with the family, apart from the guests who were staying at the inn; and we had our meal after they had had theirs.
It was a small dining room which looked out—as so many of the rooms did—on the forest. There were rugs on the wooden floor, and two stuffed heads of deer protruded from the walls on either side of the open fireplace.
We discovered that long ago—before the unification of Germany, when the country had consisted of a number of small states—the schloss had been the hunting lodge of some baron, and the animals’ heads must have been put there then. One looked somewhat ferocious, the other scornfully resentful. They seemed to intrude into the peaceful atmosphere of the room. There were pictures, too, of the Brandt family which I later learned had been painted before the disastrous years of 1914 to 1918.
It was a merry party. The language represented little problem. Dorabella and I had learned a smattering from our school lessons which was of some small help to us. Kurt and Edward were fairly good; and Kurt’s parents seemed to have acquired a little English, possibly through visitors to the schloss; and Helmut and Gretchen had some English, too. So the language problems which cropped up now and then only added to the merriment.
It was a very pleasant evening.
Dorabella and I discussed it when we were alone in our room.
“It’s going to be fun,” said Dorabella. “Helmut is rather disappointing, though.”
“You mean he has not responded to the allure of Miss Dorabella Denver?”
“He’s a bit stodgy,” she said. “I can’t bear these intense people. Like those men in the hotel. Helmut doesn’t laugh much.”
“Perhaps he doesn’t see anything to laugh about, or it may be that he doesn’t feel it necessary to let everyone know what he is feeling.”
“Tomorrow,” she went on, “we shall explore. It’s going to be interesting.”
“I’m sure it will be…different from anything we have done before.”
I went to the window and looked out. The mist had thickened. I could just see the outline of the nearest trees.
“It looks exciting like that,” I said.
Dorabella came to stand beside me.
I went on: “Weird almost. Do you think so?”
“It just looks like mist to me.”
I found it difficult to turn away, and suddenly I saw a figure emerge from the schloss.
Dorabella whispered: “It’s the maid.”
“Else,” I murmured. “Yes, that’s her name. I wonder where she’s going. It must be nearly eleven.”
Then we saw a man step out of the shadows. We could not see him clearly, but he was obviously not one of those whom we had seen in the schloss. He was tall and very fair. Else was caught up in his arms and for a few moments they clung together.
Dorabella was giggling beside me.
“He’s her lover,” she said.
We watched them as, hand in hand, they slipped into one of the outhouses, which in the days of the baron may have been stables.
We left the window. Dorabella got into her little bed and I got into mine.
We did not sleep well that night, which was to be expected; and when I did dream it was of a fairy-tale kind of blue mist which turned into shapes of strange people, and the branches of the trees became long arms that stretched out to catch me.
During the days which followed, we settled into the life of the schloss. I learned from Kurt’s mother that the inn was by no means full. They had at the moment only six people staying, and they considered that fairly good. Times had been bad, but they were in some respects getting better as the country became more prosperous.
“It had a long way to come after the war,” said Kurt. “Now there are more visitors because people come from abroad…from England, America, and other parts of the world. But we have the Beer Garden and when the weather is not good customers come inside. We have the big room with the bar…it is from this that we make our living.”
“We are grateful for this,” went on Kurt’s mother.
She was a woman of great energy, and I was impressed by her devotion to her family. In fact, what struck me immediately was this attitude among them all. It was almost as though there was an element of fear in their feeling toward each other. It puzzled me.
The grandfather was rather feeble and spent most of his time in his room reading the Scriptures. He would sit in his chair with a little black cap on his head and his lips would move as he said the words to himself.
The grandmother would be in her chair, knitting most of the time. Among other things she made jerseys for the whole family. She told me that winters in the forest could be harsh.
“We are so high,” she said. “Well above the sea…and the clouds come down and surround us.”
She would croon to herself and Kurt told us that she lived in the past and seemed to be there more often than in the present.
His parents were constantly working. The father was often in the forest. I had seen him felling trees, and logs were brought into the schloss from time to time on a long carriage-like contraption used for that purpose.
There was a great deal to do in the schloss, and I guessed they could not afford much help.
Helmut, that very serious young man, continued to be a disappointment to Dorabella. He showed no more interest in her than in Edward or me, though he was meticulously polite and considerate to us all, but equally so, and clearly he was unaware of Dorabella’s special charms—and that did not endear him to her.
Gretchen was a charming girl—dark-haired, dark-eyed like the rest of the family—and I noticed that Edward’s eyes were often on her. I mentioned this to Dorabella; she shrugged her shoulders; she was not really interested in the romances of others.
In a few days I felt we had been at the schloss for weeks. Kurt had driven us round so that we could see something of the countryside. Sometimes we descended to the lower slopes and walked among the spruce, silver fir, and beech; then we would make our way up to where the firs grew in abundance.
We walked a great deal which meant much climbing, but it was the best way of seeing the country. It was delightful to visit the small hamlets. They were different from those at home and most seemed to have that Grimm-like quality. I always felt that there was something a little frightening about them. I was reminded of children lost among the trees and finding a gingerbread house or giants lurking in the undergrowth.
I think these feelings were engendered by something I did not understand at the time. It was there in the schloss.
What was it? Beneath all the bonhomie, the laughter, the merriment of the Beer Garden…and often in the bar where people came in from the villages around, sitting at tables drinking, often singing songs with beautifully haunting tunes, usually extolling the Fatherland.
