Theirs Was The Kingdom

by R. F Delderfield

  They returned home from an evening boat trip one summer dusk to hear the engine rattling away across the yard and saw, what was unique in these circumstances, the barn door swinging free in the evening breeze that had ruffled the surface of the river all the way from the Kai.

  George realised at once that something was wrong. Shouting to Gisela to keep the others back, he ran across the grain store to find Maximus running at full power, its rear wheels spinning above their blocks and the place full of acrid exhaust. For a moment, bemused by the fumes and stunned by the roar of the machine, he could not see the old man but then he noticed his red slippers protruding beyond the front wheels and beyond them a hand, clutching the heavy crank that they used to start the engine.

  He guessed then what had happened. The engine had a fierce kick and the old man, having clearly ignored George's plea that only he should use the crank when they were testing, had either collapsed over the task or had been flung clear by the recoil, perhaps striking his head on a bulkhead or the stone floor.

  He switched off, lifted Max, and carried him across to the house, leaving one of the girls to bolt the doors and telling another to despatch Rudi, fleetest of the boys, for Doctor Dahn, who attended the Körners for minor ailments. He tried to give Max a sip of brandy but his lips were blue and unresponsive so that it was obvious to George, aware of the danger of those fumes, that the old man was half-suffocated, as well as suffering from shock. With the womenfolk fussing around Max, George carried him up to his room and laid him on the bed, whereupon, to George's relief, Max vomited and became half-aware of his surroundings, gesturing feebly with his left hand, as though to shoo them away from his bedside.

  George interpreted this as a command to clear the room of women and ordered them all outside, for it seemed to him important to learn precisely what had occurred inside the store so that he could brief the doctor on arrival.

  As soon as they were gone, Max made a great effort to pull himself together, continuing to gesture feebly with his left hand, then speaking in a slurred, hesitant voice, as though having difficulty with his breathing. George understood then, with a sinking heart, the reality of the situation. Max had not necessarily been flung backwards by the kick of the crank, and there were no external injuries to his head or any other part of his body. It was clear, however, from the thickness of his speech and the strange inertness of his right arm, that he had suffered a stroke. He said, detaining George with a surprisingly fierce grasp, “Doctor?” and when George nodded, “Cylinder flooded… slow to start… should have waited…” And then, “Switched off?”

  “Yes, yes,” George said, “forget the damned machine. I warned you to leave heavy work to me, and I mean to see that you do in future!”

  But the old man smiled feebly and said, carefully enunciating his words. “No future, boy… only for you, and that engine in there. Finished… Dahn will tell you… here,” and he lifted his sound hand to the cage of his ribs.

  “Damned nonsense!” said George, explosively, “and don’t let Frau Körner and the girls hear you talk like that! Rest will put you right, and I’ll see you get it. As soon as the doctor comes…” But then he stopped, for the old man was looking at him pleadingly, his lips moving as though he had something further to say.

  When George was silent, Max took a long, rasping breath and went on, “Listen… haven’t long… damned doctor will dose me… know him… sleep for a week… mightn’t wake… another pillow behind me… mustn’t… lie… flat…” so that George eased him into a sitting position, supporting his back with cushions taken from the chair under the window.

  “What is it you want to say, Max?”

  “This is the end for me. Don’t waste time, clucking like those women… known about this for years. Dahn warned me times enough, but what is a man to do? Went on with what I started. Like Benz, like all of them. Now that engine passes to you… don’t argue… put it in writing, diagrams and records, too. Witnessed. Saw to it months ago. Dismantle. Get it crated and carried to London.”

  He could say no more. The effort seemed to bring on a second seizure, for he writhed and groaned but was just able to swallow a sip or two of brandy George held to his mouth. Then he lay still, breathing very heavily, and George stole away, dismayed and angry that a man as tough and resolute as Maximilien Körner could be demolished so quickly and so finally. George knew somehow, that whether or not the old man survived this attack, he would never do more than shuffle round the inside of that shed of his, watching someone else at work on his creation.

  Gisela sought him out after the doctor had left, giving instructions that Max was to be kept in bed, free from worry and on a light diet for at least a month, and thereafter was on no account to tackle the staircase leading to the ground floor. Gisela was not profoundly upset, as all the others seemed to be, but it was clear that she had guessed the truth, and saw this as evidence of a heart condition the old man had somehow succeeded in concealing from all save the doctor. She said, quietly, “You were alone with him. I heard him talking. Was he speaking of that engine of his?”

  George admitted that he was, telling her that Max seemed insistent he should take it with him when he returned home, and had even instructed his lawyer to this effect. He said this with embarrassment, as though they were already discussing the terms of the old man's will. “No matter what he wants I wouldn’t deprive his family of any of his property. You know that, don’t you, Gisela?” and she said, calmly, that she did, but that no one else was likely to want it, for none of them understood it and all but himself went in fear of it.

  “Would it be worth money in your country, Herr Swann?”

  “No,” he said, “not in its present form. It might ultimately but it needs a great deal of modification before it could be patented. I could arrange that for your mother. If it ever did produce money I could make sure she got it.”

  “We’ll discuss it later,” she said, and went away to comfort her mother.

  From that day on Max never left his bed, although, as the summer drew to a close, he progressed to some extent and could sit up and talk more or less coherently. His right arm, and to some degree his leg too, was paralysed, and when George went in to talk with him he realised the old man was resigned to the fact that he would never work again. He gave George messages for the firm, among them his resignation.

  He was a tiresome invalid, however, and insisted on smoking his pipe, so that the pungent smell of his tobacco hung over the upper floor night and day, and Frau Körner was forever voicing fears that he would set the house on fire when they were all asleep. Then he had another slight seizure, and the family took turns to watch with him, George, Gisela, and Frau Körner sitting by his bedside in two-hour spells throughout the night. He slept fitfully and when he awoke to find George there he would mutter endlessly about things he should have done, or ought not to have done, concerning recent adaptations to Maximus. George had not the heart to discourage him, even though he seemed to get excited when he saw, or thought he saw, a way of improving the steering, the braking power, the transmission, or the variable speed mechanism. He asked George to duplicate a full report on their progress to date, to be sent to Benz and Daimler, including scale diagrams of all their recent modifications. Grumbling to Gisela that this kind of activity was only reducing his chance of recovery, George was puzzled by her defence of the old man's whims. “Let him have his way. That engine was always more important to him than we after my father died. It is his dream. You cannot prevent a dying man from dreaming, Herr Swann.”

  After that he made no further protest, but let the old man run on. George carried out all his commissions concerning the engine, on which he worked from time to time through the sultry weeks of September, when an unnatural stillness had settled on the once-riotous household.

  He had gone to bed tired and depressed after a spell of watching one night to find the brilliant moonlight prevented sleep and the room very stuffy, despite the breeze from the river. He was
restless now, and hopelessly at odds with himself, and he stood a long time at the window, looking out across the moonlit countryside until he heard the whirring notes of the Essling church clock strike two. That meant Gisela would be relieved by the family help, Marta, who had been fitted into the schedule in order to give the exhausted Frau Körner some rest.

  He was turning away from the window when he heard the door latch click and suddenly there was Gisela in bedgown, her hair unplaited and her feet bare. He said, urgently, “Max? Another spell!” but she laid a finger to her lips and came in, closing the door and standing with her back to it in such a way that it seemed perfectly natural for him to cross to her, saying nothing, and take her in his arms, as though her appearance here had been prearranged.

  When he kissed her lips, however, she shivered, so that he would have released her but she clung to him fiercely, as in the grove on Lobau, and he said, gently, “Why then, Gisela? Why did you come?” and she replied, with an improbable catch of laughter in her voice, “Because I love my grandfather, Herr Swann. He knows I am here.” And then, still with a suggestion of laughter, “No, no, perhaps not. But he would approve, I am sure, for he talks of no one but you.”

  “He said you should come? At night? Like this?” and when she nodded eagerly, “Ah, but you, Gisela, that's a matter for you, not him! You must understand that?”

  “Yes,” she said, in her familiar level tone, “I understand it. I am not quite a fool. Neither am I a wanton, like Gilda, who sets out to tease every man who looks at her. I would not be here if I had not wished it myself more than anything in the world. I would have pretended I did not understand grandfather's talk concerning you. I would have dismissed it as an old man's nonsense.” Then, calmly, “You wish for me to leave, Herr Swann?”

  “No, by God!” he blurted out and threw his arms about her again, but she said, taking control of the situation, as she had on Lobau, “Wait, then. And do not talk. My mother is asleep but perhaps one of my sisters is not. You would not wish my presence here discussed by them, I think.”

  “Of course I wouldn’t, but…”

  “Then be silent.”

  She slipped out of her flannel gown and he saw she was not wearing a nightdress or a shift of the kind the Körner girls wore in bed, and gazed at her rapturously. He had only seen one other woman without clothes and this one was in great contrast to Rosa, who had conveyed to him an impression of strength and majestic symmetry. Gisela was well-formed, with full breasts and well-covered thighs, but her small waist and stature added a daintiness to her figure that he found at one with her essential stillness and femininity. In the bright moonlight he could see her quite clearly, and said, as she made a move towards the bed, “No, Gisela, over there by the window… I want to look at you. You’re beautiful, Gisela. You’re so much more beautiful than I imagined!”

  She took a step towards the window and stood quite still in the broad beam of moonlight, her chin high, her hands at her sides in a pose that was somehow submissive, but she looked, he thought, like some lovely vision who had materialised out of Danube water-meadows. In that soft light her form appeared quite perfect so that it amazed him that he had ever thought of her as less graceful than her sister Sophie, or less prepossessing than Valerie or Gilda. Then he remembered that she, alone among the Körner girls, wore corsets that gave her a bulkiness, for the corsets the Viennese wore were ridged with heavy wire, of the kind Max used to bind joints on his machine.

  When he embraced her again she was warm and very supple but seemed, in some way, to have herself in hand. Perhaps she was only here because Max had all but proposed it to her, or perhaps, most of her life, she had been at the disposal of others and it was therefore natural that she should do him this small service.

  He said, breathlessly, “You must be sure, Gisela. Quite sure,” and she said briskly, “Please to go to bed,” and gave him a push in that direction.

  Once there and holding her, he had no further misgivings concerning the motives that had brought her there. Pleasing grandfather must have been incidental.

  It was possible, when he opened his eyes soon after dawn, to look at her and think about her as though he was seeing her for the first time.

  For perhaps ten minutes he lay very still, his face turned towards her, studying the clear, unblemished skin of her cheek framed in a skein of golden hair that had always been severely disciplined in carefully arranged plaits but now spread itself clear across his pillow in the wildest disorder. He found that he could relish every part of her individually, like a man who has stumbled upon a treasure and has yet to count it and come to terms with his luck. A single finespun hair, venturing from somewhere behind the rounded lobe of her ear, caught the first gleam of morning sun so that light seemed to travel down it, over the heavy-lidded eye, down the length of the short, straight nose to the upper lip. It caught the shoulder of a tooth and stayed a moment before passing on over the little chin to the neck and losing itself in the cleavage of her fine young breasts, over which the coverlet was drawn taut, pinned by his weight.

  She was quite perfect. Fairy-tale perfect. An amalgam of every quality he had ever looked for in women. For, as he watched the slow rise and fall of her breathing and the tiny flutter of the errant hair where it cut the corner of her mouth, he saw her as all the women who had touched his life and his dreams, so that it was as though he had conjured her out of his conscious and subconscious mind and breathed life into her for his own exclusive comfort. She was Laura Broadbent, infinitely caring, infinitely maternal; Rosa Ledermann, joyous and positive in the act of loving a man; herself, whom he had watched unknowingly all this time, pouring her concern into the affairs of everyone about this house. But, in addition to all this, which had reality and substance, she was something else, the princess-waif of nursery days; the fragile, stoic heroine; a little figure symbolising everything that was wholesome, challenging the dark forces of the fairy-tale world and triumphing after many dangers and hardships. She was Gisela Körner and now, God be praised, she was his and there came to him a triumphant awareness of what it meant to be unequivocally in love and to know that love was returned in full measure.

  Physically, in retrospect that is, it was profitless to compare her to Rosa, the only other woman he had held in his arms for more than a few breathless seconds. Rosa's responses, if they could be called that and not regarded as storming advances, had been calculated, conditioned by her experience and her assertive energy. With Gisela, everything had to be reversed, he supposed, and yet, thinking back, this was not the whole truth. Her very lack of experience, expressed in her expectancy and desire to please, had communicated itself to every nerve in his body, convincing him that he was the bestower. And some strange alchemy of emotions, stemming from this, made it implicit, that this single act of love had integrated her into his life and that, by possessing her body, he had possessed himself of her entire being. And this, following some strange logic, was the essence of everything he had experienced in this stone house by the river.

  Outside, in the windblown lilac trees, finches squabbled, a sound that had often awakened him as it now awakened her, but slowly, so that he could watch awareness stir in her as she turned her head from the light and opened her eyes, acknowledging him with a small, shy smile. An incongruous smile he might have said, given the circumstances, and yet it was not, for it had within it a distillation of her personality. Restraint, infinite patience, infinite courtesy.

  He said, as though it had been in his mind months rather than minutes, “We must be married, Gisela. Soon, you understand? We must marry before Max is too sick and confused to understand what has happened. Would that be possible, since I am not a Catholic?”

  She said nothing for a moment and continued to smile but then, the smile slipping away, she turned her head back to its sleeping position and seemed to be contemplating the high, arched ceiling.

  He said, “Would it? Would your priest marry us very soon?” and she replied, without looki
ng at him, “I did not seek that when I came to you. You should understand that.”

  He raised himself on his elbow and stared at her. “Listen, Gisela, I don’t care what brought you here or what you or Max had in mind. I’m in love with you, very much in love with you. I want you and I need you and I mean to have you as soon as it can be managed. Is it that you couldn’t bear to leave Austria and your family and come away as my wife to England? Because if so I wouldn’t expect that right away, not so long as we were married. We could stay… where are you going?” for suddenly and effortlessly she had slipped away and was standing by the window, shrugging herself into her flannel bedgown, her hands tugging the girdle into a knot.

  “I shall go now,” she said, very quietly, “before anyone stirs. I will not have you made the subject of jokes in this house, you understand?”

  He said, in a hoarse and urgent whisper, “Don’t go, Gisela. Not until you’ve promised, not until I’m sure…”

  “Ach, I will come to you again. Or we can talk of it at a distance from the house. But not here and at this moment, for I will not be judged as one of my sisters…” He was alarmed and confused now and lunged the length of the bed, catching her round the waist before she could reach the door. “Listen, Gisela… yes, yes, I’ll keep my voice down, but you must tell me. I must know before you leave here. I love you, Gisela. Understand that, please. I love you and I want very much to marry you. You love me, don’t you?”

  She said, gravely, “I do not think you need to ask that question.”

  “But of course I do. Any man would, wouldn’t he?”

  She seemed to consider this, standing looking down at him gravely and fidgeting with the knot of her girdle. He had the advantage now, holding her tightly by the waist, and was in no mood to surrender it, saying, “If necessary I’ll rouse everybody in the house and make it public this instant. I love you, Gisela, and I mean to marry you. All I want from you is yes or no.”