Текст книги "Gossamer Cord"

Автор книги: Philippa Carr

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If I mentioned this to Edward and Dorabella I felt they would have laughed at me. They would say wasn’t I always fancying something? I told myself they were right. It was the forest atmosphere which moved me in some way.

Dorabella and I quite often went out alone. We had taken to walking into the town and we found it particularly enjoyable to sit outside one of the coffee shops, drink our coffee, and partake in one of the fancy pastries which were really delicious. The waiter now knew us as “The English Young Ladies,” and he would chat a little to us when he served us. We used our boarding-school German with him which he seemed to like. Then we would watch the people walking by; and after an hour or so of this pleasant occupation, we would stroll back to the schloss.

It was the beginning of our second week. It was a lovely day, slightly less warm than it had been, with the faintest touch of autumn in the air.

As we sat there, a young man strolled past. He was tall and fair, with a marked jaunty air, so different from the rather earnest people we met so often. He had a very pleasant face and, as he went past, he glanced at us. It was not exactly a stare, but he certainly did not look away immediately. I was aware of Dorabella’s interest.

He went on into the town.

Dorabella said: “He looked different somehow.”

“I think he is a visitor…I mean, not a local.”

“I thought for a moment he was going to stop.”

“Why on earth did you think that?”

“He might have thought we were someone he knew.”

“I am sure he thought nothing of the sort. In any case, he’s gone now.”

“A pity. He was quite good-looking.”

“Would you like another pastry?”

“No, I don’t think so. Violetta, do you realize we shall soon be going home?”

“We’ve another week.”

“By the way the time flies, we shall soon be there.”

“It has been fun, hasn’t it?”

“H’m,” she said. She was alert suddenly.

She was facing the street and I had my back to it. Her face creased into smiles.

“What is it?” I demanded.

“Don’t look round. He’s coming back.”

“Who?”

“That man.”

“You mean…?”

“The one who just went by.”

She appeared to become very interested in her coffee cup. And then I saw him, for he had seated himself at a table close by.

“Yes,” went on Dorabella, as though there had been no interruption. “It won’t be long now. I expect the parents will be thinking that two weeks away from their beloved daughters is long enough.”

As she talked it was clear to me that her attention was on that other table.

Then suddenly the man rose and came toward us.

“Forgive me,” he said. “I couldn’t help hearing you were speaking English. It’s such a pleasure to meet one’s fellow countrymen in foreign lands, don’t you think?”

“Oh, yes, I do,” said Dorabella.

“May I join you? One can’t shout across the tables. Are you on holiday?”

“Yes,” I said. “Are you?”

He nodded. “Walking,” he said.

“Alone?” asked Dorabella.

“I had a friend who was with me. He had to go back. I hesitated whether to go with him, but it was only for another week, so I thought I would stick it out.”

“Have you walked far?”

“Miles.”

“And you have just arrived in this place?” asked Dorabella.

“Three days ago. I thought I saw you before…having coffee here.”

The waiter had approached and the young man ordered coffee, suggesting that we have another with him. Dorabella agreed at once.

“This is a fascinating place,” I said. “And walking, you see the best of it.”

“That’s true,” he agreed. “Have you walked much?”

“A little.”

“Are you staying in this town?”

“No,” Dorabella told him. “In a little schloss about a quarter of a mile away…not exactly a hotel, but a sort of inn.” She waved her hand in the direction of the schloss.

“I know it. Charming surroundings. How long have you been here?”

“We are going at the end of the week. Then we shall have been here about fourteen days.”

The coffee had arrived and the waiter smiled benignly to see us chatting together.

“It is so good to be able to talk in English,” said the young man. “My German is somewhat inadequate.”

“And so is ours,” said Dorabella. “But we have someone with us who is quite good.”

“A friend?”

“Well, a friend of the family. He is like a brother…only not really.”

He waited for us to explain, but as neither of us went any further there was a brief silence. Then Dorabella said: “We are visiting a friend, really. He came to England and suggested we come here for a visit. That’s how it was.”

“I’m very glad you did. It’s comforting to meet someone English…although I’m not exactly English.”

“Oh?” we both said in surprise.

“Cornish,” he said with a grimace.

“But…”

“A little quibble. The Tamar divides us and we always maintain that we are a race apart from those people on the other side of it.”

“Like the Scottish and the Welsh,” I said.

“Celtic pride,” he replied. “We think we are as good as…no, better than…those Anglo-Saxons…as we call you foreigners.”

“Oh dear,” said Dorabella in mock dismay. “And I was thinking what fun it was to meet someone of our own race.”

He looked at her earnestly. “It is,” he said. “It has made this a most interesting day for me.”

“Tell us about Cornwall,” I said. “Do you live near the sea?”

“Sometimes it seems too near…almost in it, in fact.”

“That must be fascinating.”

“I love the old place. Where is your home?”

“Hampshire.”

“Some distance from Cornwall.”

“Are you looking forward to going home?” asked Dorabella.

“Not at this moment.”

“Shall you be walking tomorrow?”

“I let each day take care of itself.”

I could see that Dorabella was enjoying this encounter. Her eyes were shining; she looked very attractive and I noticed how his gaze kept straying to her. It did not surprise me. I had seen it so many times before.

She was telling him, in her animated fashion, about Caddington, and he responded with some details of his home in Cornwall.

He told us his name was Dermot Tregarland. “An old Cornish name,” he pointed out. “We seem to be either Tre, Pol, or Pen. It is like a label. ‘Where e’er you hear Tre, Pol, and Pen, you’ll always know ’tis Cornishmen.’ It’s an old saying I heard somewhere and it is true.”

And so the talk went on until I said—although I was aware of Dorabella’s displeasure—that it was time we returned to the schloss.

We said goodbye and started back.

Dorabella said angrily: “Why did you want to leave as abruptly as that?”

“Look at the time! They would be wondering where we were. Don’t forget we were about to leave when he came up.”

“What did it matter?” There was a pause and she added: “He didn’t say anything about seeing us again.”

“Why should he?”

“I thought he might.”

“Oh, Dorabella,” I said. “It was a chance encounter. ‘Ships that pass in the night.’ It was only because he heard that we were speaking English that he stopped.”

“Was that all, do you think?” She was smiling now…secretly.

The next day the weather had changed and there was a distinctly definite touch of autumn in the air. Kurt and Edward had planned an excursion to one of the mountain villages, and it had naturally been taken for granted that we would accompany them.

However, Dorabella decided that she must do some shopping in the town. I understood, of course. She wanted to go into Waldenburg and sit outside the coffee shop in the hope that the young man of yesterday would pass by again.

And, of course, I wanted to be with Dorabella. I must, because she could not very well go alone.

We watched Edward and Kurt go off, spent an idle morning, and after lunch went into the town.

We did a little shopping for souvenirs and in due course arrived at the coffee shop. The waiter gave us his welcoming smile and we sat down—Dorabella in a state of expectation, I amused and a little cynical, wondering what she thought would be the outcome of this chance encounter.

We talked desultorily while Dorabella was watchful. She had placed herself looking on the street, the way he had come before, and as time passed she was becoming more and more despondent.

A horse and trap went by, and then some riders—two young girls with an instructor; then a van drew up and a young man stepped out. He was delivering something to the coffee shop.

As I watched him carrying in a large box, I thought there was something familiar about him. He disappeared into the shop, and after a while came out carrying a sheaf of papers. The waiter was with him and they chatted for a while.

Then I recognized the young man.

I said: “Oh, look! Do you see who that is? It is Else’s young man.”

Dorabella’s thoughts were elsewhere. She looked at me impatiently.

“What?” she said.

“That young man who is delivering something. He’s Else’s young man. You remember. We saw him from our window. He’s her lover. We saw them embracing the other night.”

“Oh, yes…I remember.” Dorabella was not interested in that particular young man.

He was standing by the van now. He called out in German, which I could understand: “Tomorrow night, then. See you there.”

“They must be friends,” I said. “He and the waiter…they are meeting tomorrow night.”

“What of it?” said Dorabella petulantly.

“Well…nothing. Just that I was interested, that’s all.”

Dorabella continued to glance disconsolately along the street.

I said: “Well, we can’t sit here all the afternoon.”

She agreed reluctantly.

But I knew that she was bitterly disappointed and, as I often did, I understood exactly how she was feeling.

We walked slowly down the incline which led to the schloss. There was a faint chill in the air and a mistiness in the atmosphere.

“I don’t want to go in yet,” she said. “I’d like to walk awhile.”

“All right. Let’s do that, but not for long.”

“In the forest,” she said.

We left the road and walked through the trees. I wanted to comfort her, as I had always done when she was disappointed. I was reminded of the time when she had lost one of her teddy bear’s bootbutton eyes and another time when the face of her favorite doll had been smashed to pieces. I had been the only one who could console her on such occasions. I understood her better than any.

Now I wanted to bring her out of that despondency. It was absurd, I wanted to point out. How could seeing someone with whom she had exchanged only a few words be of such importance to her? It was ridiculous. But that was Dorabella. She felt intensely…for the moment. Her emotions did not really go very deep and might not be long in passing, but while they were there they took complete possession of her.

We never went deep into the forest. We had been warned about that. The road which led from the town to the schloss had been cut through it and on either side the tall pines rose to the sky. The trees grew less densely on the edges of the forest. Kurt had taken us deeper into it, but he had warned us always to keep close to the road so that if we could not see it we were aware of it.

So we continued to walk on the fringe.

We sat down on a log. I tried to talk of other things but Dorabella was absentminded. I knew this mood. Fortunately it would not last long. Her moods never did. She had been a little disappointed by the lack of admiring young men during this holiday. Helmut was too concerned with the running of the schloss to have given her the attention she looked for; and I gathered he was not good looking enough to appeal to her. The Cornishman Dermot Tregarland had been just right. He had appeared by magic right near the end of the holiday and that seemed to be the end of him. Poor Dorabella!

I said it was getting chilly and we should return to the schloss.

She agreed and we started to walk back the way we had come and then…suddenly, I began to be alarmed. We had not noticed how thick the mist had become. We should have remembered that it could come down quickly. We had been told often enough. Not that we could really say this was so sudden. It had been hanging about all day. And now…here it was and nothing looked the same.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get out of this quickly.”

But it was not easy. I had thought to see the road, but all I could discern were the trunks of nearby trees, their branches swathed in mist.

I took Dorabella’s arm.

“It’s what they warned us about,” I said. “How silly of us.”

She was silent.

I went on: “We can’t be far from the road. We must find it. I am sure this is the way.”

But was it? Wherever I looked, I could see very little. The mist was everywhere. I began to feel very alarmed. But I did not want Dorabella to see how much. The instinct to protect Dorabella was with me as strong as it used to be in our childhood.

She turned to me as she always did, and I was gratified to see that she still had that childlike confidence in me.

I felt very tender toward her.

“We’ll soon be out of this,” I said. “We shouldn’t have come into the forest, of course, after what they have told us.”

She nodded. I grasped her hand firmly and said: “Come on.”

We walked on. It might have been for ten minutes but it seemed like an hour. I was beginning to get very uneasy. The forest had taken on that Grimm-like quality. The trunks of the trees seemed to form themselves into grotesque faces which leered at me. The bracken caught at our ankles like tentacles trying to hold us back.

I glanced at Dorabella. She did not have these fancies.

I had a terrible fear that instead of going out of the forest we were getting deeper and deeper in. As the thought struck me I drew up sharply.

“What is it?” asked Dorabella.

I said: “I am wondering if we should wait here…until the mist lifts.”

“What! Here! That could be all night.”

She was right. But how could we know whether we were getting deeper and deeper into the forest? What idiots we had been to come in the first place! It was not as though we had not seen that there was mist in the air.

I felt exasperated—more so because I was becoming more and more alarmed.

And this had all come about because of that young man in the town. If I had not been so concerned about Dorabella’s disappointment I should have insisted that it was foolish to walk into the forest on such a day. Everything that had happened was because of that young man. We might have been safe with Kurt and Edward.

Then I thought of the consternation there would be at the schloss when we did not return. So what should we do? Stay where we were and wait? Or go on and perhaps deeper into the forest?

Despair settled on me—and then I thought I heard someone not so very far off.

I shouted: “Help! Is anyone there?”

We stood in silence, listening.

To our great relief there was a reply. And in English.

“Yes…where are you?”

I was aware first of Dorabella’s face. It was bright with excitement. She recognized the voice, as I had. It was that of Dermot Tregarland.

“We’re lost,” I shouted.

“I’ll find you. Go on calling.”

Both Dorabella and I called: “Here! Here!”

“I’m getting nearer…” came the response.

Now he seemed very close and we shouted at the tops of our voices: “Here…here.”

With what joy we saw him looming out of the mist.

“Oh,” cried Dorabella. “How wonderful! We were quite scared.”

He was grinning. “I was hoping to find you,” he said. “I saw you turn into the forest.”

“Where were you?”

“I came for coffee. I hoped you’d be there. The waiter told me you had just gone. Then I saw you down the road. I watched you go into the forest and I hurried down to catch you up. If I couldn’t, I decided I would have a beer in the schloss and await your return.”

Dorabella was overcome with delight and wonder. It had all turned out right after all.

Dermot Tregarland took charge.

“This devilish mist!” he said. “It is a shocker, don’t you agree? One doesn’t know which way to turn. We’d better get out of here fast. It could get worse as night comes on. I know the way I came and I’m fairly good at finding my way around. There was a gnarled old tree I passed…struck by lightning, I imagine…I guess when we find that we’ll be on the right road. There is a small one growing nearby. So…Excelsior!”

Dorabella giggled. The nightmare had turned into a thrilling adventure because our perfect, gentle knight had arrived to rescue us. This alone would make the holiday worthwhile and, to tell the truth, before, for Dorabella, it had been a trifle disappointing.

He was indeed all he had implied. He led us with the minimum of difficulty to the stricken tree. He shouted with triumph.

“We’re on the way.” Then he found the small tree to which he had referred. And there we were on the road.

Dorabella flung her arms round me and, looking over my shoulder at him, cried: “You’re wonderful.”

“I think we need something to warm us up,” he said. “What about a glass of wine—or are you tempted by their really excellent beer?”

Frau Brandt was at the door of the schloss looking anxiously along the road.

She said: “The mist had come up rather quickly, as it often does at this time of the year. I was beginning to think it was time you were back.”

Dorabella explained that we were lost in the forest and Mr. Tregarland had brought us out.

“Ach!” cried Frau Brandt, and broke into a stream of German which, we realized, expressed relief. She went on about the ease with which people could be lost in the forest and had to remain there until the mist cleared.

She hustled us into the schloss. It was not weather for loitering in the Beer Garden. What refreshments would we like?

We said we would like a glass of wine…a sort of aperitif. So wine was brought and we sat together—Dorabella in a state of extreme contentment. I thought to myself, I believe she is falling in love with this young man, or perhaps trying to convince herself that she is. And he? He was charming, and it was clearly Dorabella who had his attention. She was the sort of girl who changed in the society of men. If she were depressed, this could be completely dispersed by masculine appreciation. She sparkled; she was at her most enchanting best. I suppose there were occasions when I might have felt a little jealous, but I did not now. For one thing, I took her superior feminine charms for granted; and so far I had never felt any desire for the attention of those men who attracted her.

I liked this young man. He was certainly charming, but that was all. Dorabella was inclined to let her emotions flow too easily. I was always afraid that she would—as she had once or twice in the past—have to face some disappointment.

Dermot lifted his glass and said: “To our safe return from the dangers of the forest.”

Dorabella touched her glass with his and they smiled at each other.

“How lucky for us that you saw us,” said Dorabella.

“It was more due to design than luck,” he assured her. “I was so sorry to have missed you. I was so certain that I would find you sitting there sipping your coffee. I was so grateful to the waiter for telling me you had only just left. Then I dashed off and saw you turning into the forest. It occurred to me that it might be misty there. Indeed, it did seem to be getting worse every moment.”

“So you came to rescue us,” said Dorabella. “It was truly marvelous, the way you brought us out.”

They smiled at each other again.

“The English have to stick together when on alien soil…even if some of them are only Cornish.”

Dorabella laughed at everything he said, as though she found it the height of wit. I would tell her when we were alone that she must not be so blatantly adoring.

Then we started to talk about ourselves. We told him who Edward was and how our mother had brought him out of France at the beginning of the war.

He was very interested. “And Edward is the good big brother to you.”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “He is wonderful to us, always feels he has to look after us.”

“He does not forbid you to wander in the misty forest?”

“He will be furious with us for having done so,” said Dorabella. “But he has gone off for the day with his friend Kurt—the son of the Brandts. They have known each other for some little time. That is why we are here.”

He said he hoped to meet Edward.

He told us something about his house in Cornwall. It had been in the Tregarland family for hundreds of years. In fact it was called “Tregarland’s.” It was built of gray stone; it faced the sea and received the full blast of the southwest gales. But it had stood up to them for centuries and it seemed would continue doing so. It had towers at either end and its gardens sloped right down to a beach which belonged to the house but there was a “right of way” through it; otherwise people walking along the shore would have to climb the cliff and go round the house and descend again if they wished to continue along the beach.

“Not many people come that way. In the summer there might be a few visitors, but that is usually all.”

“Do you have any family?” I asked.

“My father is an invalid. My mother died when I was very young. That is really all the family. There is Gordon Lewyth—he is like a member of the family. He looks after the estate. He’s a wonderful manager. Then there is his mother who runs the house. She isn’t exactly a housekeeper. She’s a distant connection of the family, I believe…all rather vague. She came to us when my mother died and has run the house ever since. That must be about twenty-three years ago. It has worked out very well.”

“And there you are with your father your only family, really,” said Dorabella.

“Yes, but as I say, Gordon Lewyth and his mother are really like family.”

“It sounds interesting,” said Dorabella.

“And what do you do?” I asked.

“There is a Tregarland estate. Farms and so on. They are let out to tenant farmers and we have an interest in them. Then there is the home farm. I help in the management, although Gordon is more involved than I am. There’s a lot to do on an estate, you know.”

“It’s rather like Caddington,” I said. “We know something about the managing of estates, don’t we, Dorabella?”

“Oh, yes. Our father is always busy and our brother will take over one day, I suppose. That sort of thing goes on in families like ours.”

“That’s so. I think it would be a good idea if I stayed here for a meal tonight. Then I can grope my way back to my hotel through the mist later on.”

So we talked and eventually Edward and Kurt returned. When they heard about our adventure in the forest Edward looked very severe and reprimanded us for not being more careful. Hadn’t we been warned often enough about the mist in the forest?

It was a merry party when we had dinner that night. Dermot was invited to share the meal in the private dining room with the family and everyone seemed to treat him as a hero because he had brought us out of the forest.

Edward was particularly grateful. He told us more than once that he had promised our mother to look after us. How could he have known that we should have been so foolhardy as to get ourselves lost? It was not even that the mist had come up suddenly. Dorabella begged him not to go on and on. She herself was delighted that she had gone into the forest. Otherwise how could Dermot Tregarland have shown them how gallant and clever he was by rescuing us?

Hans Brandt told some stories about people who had been lost in the forest.

“There are so many legends about these parts. Some people are sure the trolls are still around and they come out of their hiding places under cover of the mist.”

We sat, warm and content, in the comfort of the schloss and the merry company.

We lingered over the table while Dermot told stories of his native Cornwall which could match those of Hans Brandt. We laughed a great deal at the simplicity of folk and the amazing stories which could be handed down from generation to generation.

We could hear the sounds from the bar lounge where people were still drinking, as was their custom. There was no one in the Beer Garden on this night on account of the mist.

It had been a wonderful evening—a pleasant finale to the holiday, for in a few days we should be returning home. I watched Dorabella. She was looking so happy and I felt a twinge of anxiety. She scarcely knew this young man. Then I reminded myself that this was not the first incident of this kind. There had been a friend of our grandfather Greenham…some Member of Parliament who had been staying at Marchlands briefly. She had been very taken with him. But that had been about two years ago. He had turned out to be a devoted husband and father of children. She had quickly recovered from that. Then there had been a man at school who had come for a term to teach music. He had been another. It was all right. This was just Dorabella’s enthusiasm of the moment. On those other occasions she had been a schoolgirl, of course. Now she was grown up.

If Dermot Tregarland was not married, if she saw him again…this might just turn out to be not like one of those incidents. He lived some way from us. Perhaps in a few weeks he would become just another of those passing encounters…he would just be a part of the holiday in the Böhmerwald.

However, we parted on very friendly terms that night, and I knew Dorabella had a somewhat restless night.

Edward had made arrangements to go on another jaunt with Kurt the next day and, as we had behaved so foolishly, he refused to leave us behind on this occasion.

A party should be made up which included Dorabella, myself, and Gretchen.

Gretchen was delighted to come with us. I fancied that she was attracted by Edward, as he was by her; but she did not show her feelings—in fact neither of them did—as blatantly as Dorabella showed hers.

Dorabella herself was inclined to be sulky; she would have preferred to go into Waldenburg, and drink coffee so that Dermot could have joined us, but Edward was adamant and so we went off with the party.

It was a pleasant day; the weather had changed again; the skies were blue and we were back in summer. Kurt knew the forest well; there were several roads cut through it and he wanted to show us some of the charming little villages.

I enjoyed it very much; the small hamlets were very attractive with their mellowed brick houses, their cobbled streets, their old churches, and their general air of orderliness.

The people were very friendly. We had lunch in an old inn, with the sign of a mermaid outside—Die Lorelei it was called, and we recalled the poem we had learned at school and Gretchen recited it for us. She had a sweet, tremulous voice, and Edward led the applause.

We were taken down to see the ancient wine cellars and were told that at one time the inn had been part of a monastery, and the cellars were those in which the monks had once made their wine.

It was all very pleasant, but Dorabella was impatient to return, because in the evening Dermot Tregarland would be joining us at the schloss for dinner.

I shall never forget that night and the disaster which was all the more horrific because it was so sudden. It was as though the faces of benign friends suddenly changed into those of monsters before one’s eyes, leaving us quite bewildered because we were so unprepared.

When we returned from our day’s sightseeing, Dorabella and I changed in our room, Dorabella putting on the best of the dresses she had brought with her. She was in high spirits. She was certain now that the end of the holiday would not be the end of her friendship with Dermot Tregarland.

She chattered while we dressed and said how much she would like to see that place of his. It sounded fun and it was not really so very far away. She was going to suggest to our mother that we ask Dermot to Caddington.

He had arrived before we went down. We were going to eat in the inn that night. The family would be busy and would not dine until much later. Kurt and Gretchen would join us.

It was a pleasant meal, with lots of merry chatter, and afterwards we went into the inn parlor, where there were more people than usual. But we managed to get a table to ourselves.

It must have been about nine o’clock when a party of young men came in. It occurred to me at once that I had seen one of them before. I remembered immediately. He was Else’s young man, the one whom I had seen delivering a parcel at the coffee shop.

He looked different. He was wearing some sort of uniform, as were his friends. On his right sleeve was an armlet. I wondered if he had come to see Else.

They sat at a table and Else served them with beer. They joked with her and the young man laid a proprietorial hand on her arm. The group laughed loudly. They said something to Else, who nodded in the direction of the dining room. The young man began to sing one of the songs I had often heard. It was something about the Fatherland. Quite a number joined in. Then Helmut came into the parlor accompanied by his father.

That was the signal.

Else’s young man, who was obviously the leader, stood up suddenly and shouted something about Jews.

Pandemonium began. Someone hurled a tankard at the wall. Others did the same. One threw his at Helmut. It very narrowly missed him.

Dermot put his arm round Dorabella and she hid her face against him. Edward took my arm and pulled me to my feet and at the same time seized Gretchen.

He said: “They are going to start a riot. We’d better get out of here.”

Gretchen whispered: “Helmut…”

Kurt had gone to his brother’s side. He was very pale. The two of them stood side by side facing Else’s young man. The rest of the people in the room remained in their seats with looks of amazed horror on their faces.

Else’s young man had leaped up to stand on one of the tables. He began haranguing the people. I heard the name of Führer mentioned several times. He was shouting and I wished I could understand what he was saying, but I did realize that he was inciting them to join with him in his fury, which was directed against the schloss and its inmates.

Dermot said quietly: “We’d better get out of this.”

At that moment one of the tables was overturned and the air was filled with the sound of breaking glass.

Helmut said to Edward: “Get the girls out of here. Take Gretchen. This is no quarrel of yours.”

I felt sickened by the look of hopeless despair I saw on Helmut’s face. I did not know then what this was all about except that the young man and his friends seemed to be intent on destroying the place.