The Longest Winter

by Mary Jane Staples

  ‘Sophie, let me see,’ said Anne. She got up and sank to the lawn with Sophie. They sat with their heads together. They leafed through sketches. They were mostly outdoor impressions of bits and pieces of Vienna. The entrance to St Stephen’s, the face, the arm and the whip of a cabbie, the corner of a house, a girl looking into a shop window, a standing carriage horse with its nose in its bag of oats and the upper half of a proud Vienna matron in an enormous hat. Part of a bridge with its glimpses of the river attracted Sophie, and she thought that even in crayon the water reflected bright light.

  ‘James, they’re so good,’ she said. There were others, they were all enchanting little peeks at Vienna. How well they would illustrate the volume of poems she had in mind.

  ‘They’re better than good,’ said Anne, ‘they’re lovely.’

  ‘Oh, sketches,’ said James. ‘A very limited branch of art, but suitable for a limited talent. I’d like to paint but I only achieve pretty-pretty pictures. I did some of the river the day I ran into you. Watercolours.’

  ‘Where are they?’ asked Sophie, her new hat out of sight on the grass behind her.

  ‘I drowned them in the Danube.’

  ‘Modesty should not be suicidal,’ said Sophie.

  ‘Don’t you sometimes tear up a poem?’ smiled James.

  ‘With some poems I commit murder,’ said Sophie. She leafed back to her portrait. She hesitated, then said, ‘James, will you let me have this? I mean, please may I have it?’

  ‘Of course. Take it,’ he said. She carefully extracted the leaf and returned the thick pad to him.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said as he went to work again on Anne’s sketch.

  ‘A pleasure,’ he said, ‘and a compliment. But I shall charge you for it.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. Then, ‘Naturally, you must, but what?’

  ‘I’ll tell you one day,’ said James.

  ‘James, now you can’t refuse to sell me the one you’re doing of me when it’s finished,’ said Anne.

  ‘It’s yours, but I’m not selling it to you,’ said James, ‘there’s no charge.’ Which left Anne shaking her head and Sophie disconcerted.

  ‘James, I’m not complaining,’ she said, ‘but why—’

  ‘We won’t go into it now,’ said James.

  Which left her puzzled. She and Anne watched him putting the finishing touches to the sketch. He was absorbed, so Sophie put her new hat on again. Anne looked at it and loved it.

  ‘Oh, Sophie, that’s delicious,’ she said.

  James sketched on.

  ‘It might be delicious,’ said Sophie, ‘but it’s not commanding universal attention.’

  ‘It commands mine,’ said Anne, ‘it’s turning me green with envy. You’re impressed too, aren’t you, James?’

  ‘Not with this,’ said James, viewing his work critically, ‘I think it’s coming out wrong again.’

  ‘Since he seems to be taking more notice of you than of me at the moment,’ said Sophie to her sister, ‘will you please tell him that if he doesn’t look at my new hat I shall get up and bite him?’

  He looked. The little green boater perched lightly, tilting piquantly on her dark hair. It made him think of joyous spring kissed by gay summer.

  ‘Is that a hat, Sophie?’

  ‘Beast,’ said Sophie.

  ‘Words can’t describe it,’ said James.

  ‘Hate you,’ said Sophie.

  ‘It’s not even a creation,’ said James, ‘it’s a little miracle. What words are there? Divine? Exquisite? I think I’ll go for stunning.’ He returned to his sketch, musing on it.

  ‘Do you think he means it?’ said Sophie to Anne.

  Anne, laughing, said, ‘Do you have reason to believe he doesn’t?’

  ‘Well, I don’t think he’s given to weighty and ponderous judgements,’ said Sophie, ‘he’s more inclined to be frivolous, especially about ladies’ hats. The only thing he’s very serious about is automobiles. Now if I were wearing not a hat but a brass motor lamp, I could rely on him passing the most earnest and sincere of comments.’

  Carl arrived. In a grey jersey and old dark grey trousers he looked slightly out of touch with the clean, civilized impeccability of the gardens. He came with grease and oil about him.

  ‘James, old chap—’

  ‘Go away, you disgusting creature,’ said Anne. ‘We are being quietly cultural. You may ask Ludwig to join us if you like, but you must please go away.’

  ‘Ludwig is in a more disgusting condition than I am,’ said Carl. ‘James, there’s a knocking.’

  ‘Impossible,’ said James, ‘unless you’ve left something undone.’

  ‘Will you be a good fellow and come and inspect?’

  ‘In a few moments,’ said James.

  ‘I’m obliged,’ said Carl. ‘Sophie, my word,’ he said as he went on his way, ‘that’s a new hat and it’s a beauty.’

  ‘Am I a sensation?’ said Sophie, colourfully arranged on the lawn. ‘If one’s brother actually notices, that is a sensation, isn’t it?’

  ‘More than a brass motor lamp,’ said James. ‘There, that’s the best I can do, Anne.’ He gave her the portrait. It delighted her. However self-critical he was, she could find no fault with the sketch.

  ‘James, thank you,’ she said. ‘Oh, you are so clever and extremely nice. Why aren’t you married when you could be such an agreeable husband?’

  ‘I can’t afford it,’ said James, putting his things into an old satchel.

  That produced a moment of uncomprehending silence. What did he mean? He was the son of Sir William Fraser, who was surely rich. Neither Anne nor Sophie knew any young man who would have answered that particular question in the way James had.

  ‘You aren’t serious,’ said Sophie.

  ‘I’m very serious,’ said James.

  ‘But, James,’ said Anne, ‘you—’

  ‘I could, of course, go to work again for my father,’ said James, ‘that would pay reasonably well but it wouldn’t be a fortune. Well, I’ll go and look at the knocking Benz.’

  When he had gone Anne said, ‘I don’t understand, his father is rich, isn’t he?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Sophie. She added a little quietly, ‘In any case, perhaps James isn’t the sort of man who’d let his father keep him.’

  ‘But what are families for except to provide for sons and daughters?’ said Anne.

  ‘It isn’t like that in every family, my child,’ said Sophie. She took off her hat and looked at it. It had been very expensive. It seemed at this moment to be a silly extravagance.

  At breakfast two days later Maude Harrison looked up from a letter she was reading. It was from Fräulein Coutts, she informed James. Fräulein Coutts was quite recovered and wished to return.

  ‘I’m delighted for her,’ said James.

  ‘So am I,’ said Maude, ‘but it’s a little hard on you, James.’

  ‘Not at all. The agreement has always been that I’m a temporary substitute, nothing else.’

  ‘You’ve been a perfect love,’ said Maude, ‘and a great help, and I’m very grateful. But I did promise Fräulein Coutts, and of course the post is so necessary to her.’

  ‘Say no more,’ said James. He thought of something. ‘As a matter of fact, it could suit me very well for her to return as soon as you like. Next Monday would be fine. I’ve a trip in the offing if I could get away on Saturday.’

  ‘A trip?’

  ‘To Bosnia. A place called Ilidze. My friends in high places invited me. I told them I couldn’t manage it. If Fräulein Coutts comes back on Monday, I can.’

  Maude smiled.

  ‘Oh, the von Korvacs,’ she said. ‘I don’t think they consider they inhabit high places. They’re too charming for that. Who is the one you favour, James, Anne or Sophie?’

  ‘Maude, I stand impecuniously on the sidelines.’

  ‘You stand in a state of nonsense, then,’ said Maude in her forthright way. ‘You’re intelligent, ingenious a
nd you have a very bright future. Do you imagine you have to own a gold mine to be eligible?’

  ‘Yes,’ said James.

  ‘Well, you’ll find out by the time you’ve finished a holiday in Ilidze with them. The daughters of Baron von Korvacs are both modern girls. So I should not have too many old-fashioned ideas if I were you.’

  At the end of classes that day James supervised the seemly departure of the pupils. He saw Rosa at the gate, Boris Ferenac with her. Boris lifted his black hat. James nodded. Marie came out.

  ‘Rosa has come for you, Marie,’ he said, ‘and Boris. I went dancing with Kirsti and met them a little while ago.’

  ‘How nice, m’sieu,’ said Marie.

  ‘Yes, very nice. Do you like Boris?’

  ‘He is very funny,’ she dimpled, ‘it was he who said—’ She stopped and blushed.

  ‘Oh, about good archdukes,’ said James casually.

  ‘Yes, I heard him say it to Rosa. It wasn’t wrong, m’sieu, was it?’

  ‘Wrong? No. It was amusing, wasn’t it?’ James was smiling airily. ‘As you say, Marie, he’s very funny.’

  Marie looked pleased and relieved. He did not watch her as she went to join Rosa and Boris at the gate, but he had a feeling that Boris was watching him.

  ‘What was he saying to you?’ Ferenac asked Marie as they strolled away.

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ said Marie.

  ‘He was talking about me, I suppose,’ said Ferenac, ‘we have met, you know.’

  ‘Yes, he said so,’ confessed Marie. Rosa took her hand and Ferenac put his arm around her shoulders, chatting to her as they went on their way. Marie, responsive, chatted back.

  Later, outside the Corbière home, he spoke to Rosa.

  ‘That Herr Fraser, he’s not what he seems.’

  ‘He’s only a teacher,’ said Rosa.

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ said Ferenac, ‘I saw him once with the son of Count Lundt-Hausen, the police superintendent. And now he’s asking Marie questions about me and she’s told him what I said to you.’

  ‘Well, you should not have said it,’ remarked Rosa, ‘then she wouldn’t have heard.’

  Boris Ferenac chewed his lip.

  ‘By the way, I have to go to Salzburg tomorrow,’ he said, ‘I’m engaged to play in an orchestra there for three weeks.’

  ‘Oh, I shall miss you,’ said Rosa.

  ‘I need the money,’ said Ferenac, and seemed to be full of brooding images of darkness as he added, ‘But I tell you, unless they pay me more than they’ve promised I shall only take my violin, I shall not take my soul.’

  James was modestly diffident when he told Carl that if the invitation to Ilidze still held he was now free to accept. Carl, who had joined with Anne in trying to get him to go with them, clapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘James, you’re more than welcome. The family will go by train, you and I will drive the Benz. That will be an adventure, won’t it, driving from Vienna to Ilidze? And you’ll be company for the girls there. I’m not sure they aren’t both getting rather fond of you, old chap. Kindly don’t get things too complicated. It’s my opinion that women are more difficult to handle than a motor car.’

  ‘You’re speaking from experience or instinct?’ asked James.

  ‘From instinct. I tread a light path myself, you know. It’s safer.’

  James smiled a little ruefully. He was not too smitten with the safer courses of life. He preferred, to a reasonable extent, the hazards of winding ways. But some hazards, however well overcome, produced consequences not so easy to deal with.

  The June weather was glorious. The sun bathed Europe in warm, golden light, and travellers who journeyed in less comfortable fashion than others blessed the kindness of the weather. Those who had a conspiratorial appointment to keep in Sarajevo were thankful for the clement conditions for, on the instructions of Major Tankosic, they travelled cautiously, in short stages and by whatever ‘underground’ means were available.

  The three main conspirators, Cabrinovic, Grabez and Princip, had left Belgrade in late May in order to arrive in Bosnia well before the Austrians strengthened all border posts and crossings, which they intended to do just prior to Franz Ferdinand’s visit. The young assassins, all nineteen years old, went their separate ways after a day or two, travelling independently. Before they parted company, however, Cabrinovic, an extrovert, wrote exultant postcards to friends, and on one of them he quoted brave lines written by Kara George, nineteenth-century Serbian hero.

  Noble waters of the Drina

  Frontier between Bosnia and Serbia

  Soon will come the time

  When I shall cross you

  To enter faithful Bosnia.

  Gavrilo Princip, an introvert, was disgusted by such indiscretion and was more than glad to detach himself from the incautious idiot. In any event, they all succeeded in entering Bosnia by their different routes and under the hot sun journeyed on to Sarajevo, where seven in all would rendezvous. Agents of the terrorist Black Hand helped them on their way at various points.

  Boris Ferenac slipped quietly out of Vienna. It was time to commence his own part. If there was glory to come out of the assassination of the archduke, Ferenac intended that glory to be his.

  The archduke had decided he would take his wife with him. They could stay in Ilidze, which was a pleasant place and conveniently close to the manoeuvres. And to Sarajevo, which he was to visit on the 28th.

  Chapter Five

  Ilidze, six miles west of Sarajevo, meant a healthy change for the baron. On the south side of the resort he had a comfortable stone-built house set in spruce parkland. Hunting and fishing were within easy reach. The forests of Bosnia were abundant, many of them untamed and impenetrably virginal. Sportsmen could find chamois and deer as well as wild boar and even the elusive, predatory wolves. The River Ivan was full of fish.

  The baron was an amiable shot rather than a good one. He cared little for amassing a tally. It was the tramping, stalking, open-air adventurousness of the sport, not the results, he enjoyed. Carl shared his father’s enthusiasms and intended to spend the best part of most days with him on the river or in the game regions. The baroness relaxed and enjoyed long, peaceful hours in which the pressures of Vienna’s demanding social life were forgotten. She entertained in Ilidze, but as informally as possible.

  Friends called to leave their cards and their invitations. The latter embraced a host of light-hearted events, including parties and receptions. The atmosphere of Ilidze was one of charm. It was a pretty town, sunny and well-kept, with cultivated parks and a wealth of pines, laurels and flower gardens, and the inevitable quota of oriental architecture, symbolic of past Turkish occupation, added Byzantine curves to its picturesque appearance.

  Anne and Sophie were not disposed to have James go off hunting. They thought the sport an activity of dubious graces. Not only was it unfair to the poor creatures on the receiving end, but it deprived deserving young ladies of the stimulation of male company. Anne was adamantly opposed to her brother’s suggestion that James should take it up.

  ‘Why don’t you and Sophie take it up too?’ said Carl. ‘It’s a fine, invigorating activity.’

  ‘I think I can manage without it, Carl dear,’ said Sophie, ‘and I’m simply not the type to stalk inoffensive rabbits—’

  ‘Rabbits?’ said Carl hoarsely.

  ‘Or whatever it is you like to shoot. I should be so hopeless at it and such a dunce with a gun that I’d be much more likely to shoot you. Or Papa. How would Mama take it if I came back and told her I’d bagged you? Or Papa?’

  ‘Ah, hrmph,’ said the baron.

  ‘What’s your fancy, James old fellow?’ asked Carl looking every tweedy inch the intrepid hunter in check jacket and pepper-and-salt knickerbockers. A feathered felt hat was on his head.

  ‘In the best interests of everybody,’ said James, ‘I’ll just laze around.’

  ‘James, that isn’t the idea at all,’ said Anne. ‘Carl and Papa have their gun
s, we shall retain the Benz. You can drive Sophie and me on outings. There’s always somewhere to go, and there are some delicious shops.’

  Until Ludwig arrived in early July, James was the only permanent escort available, and Anne was lightly possessive with him. He raised no objection to driving her and Sophie around, and did so. Sophie did not know whether her vivacious sister was flirting with him or seriously involving herself with him. Sophie herself was not quite sure what she wanted from him, except that the image of a would-be husband of distinguished looks and subtle wit was becoming even vaguer in her mind. And she was sometimes aware of a little quickening of her nerves when James was close by. She could not really tell what he thought of either Anne or herself, he was always pleasant to both of them.

  There was a ball at the Hotel Bosna one evening. Sophie was detained in the ornate reception hall by a Captain Fabrovic, a Bosnian aristocrat known to her family and who had lightly pursued her on previous visits to Ilidze. She thought him an extrovert dandy. He wore so much gold braid on his gaudy uniform that he seemed festooned with it. In the crowded hall she was divorced from Anne, James and Carl as the delighted captain cornered her, swept her hand to his lips, expressed himself bowled over by her presence and dazzled by her beauty. Sophie said she did not think she was quite as beautiful as he was himself, at which he laughed, brought her hand to his lips again and said, ‘Ah, if there were only two of you, one to enchant Vienna and the other to delight Ilidze.’

  ‘Two of me would be one too many for everybody,’ said Sophie. ‘As it is, one of me is problem enough.’

  ‘To whom?’

  ‘To me,’ said Sophie. She could hear the music from the ballroom. She wanted to be rescued, she wanted to dance. She looked around, seeking James. There was a galaxy of ballgowns, uniforms and tails orbiting around the hall and the ballroom but she could not see James. It was a little while before she was able to detach herself from her flamboyant admirer, but James was still not visible. Nor were Anne and Carl. To enter the ballroom alone was to make her a little cross. That sense of pique, so foreign to her, had her biting her lip. She lifted her chin and began her entrance, her white silk gown shimmering.