‘Sophie?’
Sophie walked straight by him and out into the cold night and wondered wildly what she was doing. It was James, James, and she had cut him dead. Had it been James? So intense, so real, so alive? Ludwig seemed to have gone from the living, and Carl, according to a desperate Italian girl, was dying on his feet. James alone was unconquerable. She walked, her heart beginning to hammer, every sense in wild confusion. The wind was icy, but strangely, madly, her blood was hot. But the bitterness made her walk on and her pride made her walk with her head up. And the wine engaged light-headedly with her hungry body.
James? She had seen him? Then what had she done? Walked out on him. He would not dare to follow, not after that.
But she heard him behind her, his footsteps insistent. And her blood pumped crazily into her heart. He caught her up and walked by her side. He said nothing. She flung her head higher, her teeth clenched, the bitter wind stinging her taut face. She walked faster. He kept pace with her, kept close to her.
‘I’m not going to leave you,’ he said.
Not going to leave her? Did he know what he was saying? He had left her on that station all those years ago, he had left her to go to war with her. She walked on, head high, and every dead emotion came to life and the wine chased her thoughts into a giddy whirlpool. Vienna was so dark, so icy with winter, the lamps empty of light, the night as bitter as death. The dead leaves blew out of unseen heaps and skittered and rustled over the cold ground. Those without homes, and there were thousands, huddled together for warmth in every protected corner of the old, narrow slums. But the streets through which Sophie walked, with James dark and obdurate beside her, were empty and hollow. When had Vienna ever been so dead? James and his English and his Scots and all his other allies had turned the birthplace of emperors into the graveyard of Austria. She could not look at him, speak to him, forgive him, yet what was making her heart hammer so wildly if not the coursing blood of renewed life? She felt the purpose of his presence. He meant to corner her, defeat her and add her to his triumphs. Her lungs began to fight for air and she could not contain the surging vibrations of her newborn blood. It pumped through her starved body and fed brilliant light into her brain.
He heard her sigh. It was like a faint breeze dying in the face of paralysing cold. She fell. He caught her, held her. Stricken, he saw how white her face was, how heavy her lids lay. He lifted her and she hung like one lifeless in his arms. He began to carry her home.
Summer came again for Sophie. The light was so bright, the sun so warm. She was running, swooping, not in fear but in pursuit of life. And life received her as James opened his arms to her.
Her eyelids trembled, lifted. There was no light, no warmth, only a sensation of weakness. Except where arms were around her.
James felt her stirring.
‘Sophie?’
She spoke at last, in a whisper.
‘Who are you?’
‘Years ago, Sophie, we knew each other.’
‘Yes. Many years ago. You may put me down, please.’
‘Put you down? I will not. Are you mad?’ He was almost grim. ‘My God, you’re starved, you weigh nothing, you should not be out. What have you been doing? Drinking wine without food inside you? Venturing into the realms of fantasy? Don’t you know there’s been a war, that even in Vienna it’s not safe to be out by yourself at night?’
Sophie, in a state of physical weakness and indignity, felt outrage swamping her senses. What was he saying, what was he talking about, did he think that after all this time, after all her heartbreak, she only wanted to listen to a lecture?
‘Put me down,’ she said wildly.
‘I will not. If I put you down what will keep you standing up?’ He was shocked, horrified, placing the necessity of getting her home far above everything else, even his desperate wish to reclaim her. But she had not forgiven him. He had to give her time, or in her pride she would freeze every word he spoke. He was going to have to start from the beginning again with Sophie. But he would have her. He would not give her to any other man. ‘Sophie, I’m taking you home. Please make up your mind about that. I’ll put you down when we get there, not before.’ He tried to sound kind. Sophie did not answer. But she turned in his arms and weakly her arms stole around his neck. She hid her face against his coat. He felt her shiver. Her teeth were clenched again, her heart hammering again. He carried her quickly down the deserted silence of the Salesianergasse and turned into the drive of the house. He carried her up the steps to the door. There he set her gently down on her feet. He knew what it might do to her pride if he attempted to carry her into the house. Sophie swayed. He reached again for her. She fell into his arms, shuddering violently. James felt racked.
‘Sophie? Are you all right? Sophie?’
And suddenly Sophie was weeping, weeping the tears that had frozen on the day he left her. To James it seemed as if the long conflict had been mankind’s worst obscenity. He rang the bell urgently, then put both arms around her again.
‘Sophie, my darling Sophie, what have we done to you?’
‘Nothing, nothing – I am only dying – that is all.’ She was sobbing on his chest. ‘Oh, I thought Richthofen would get you – and I prayed for you – I should have been praying for Austria.’
‘Sophie, there hasn’t been a day when I haven’t thought about you. But I know what you must feel. I do understand. You’re all right now, you’re home. I won’t distress you. I’ll leave you now, but I’ll—’
‘Leave me?’ Her voice gasped its way through strangling sobs. ‘Oh, dear God, you would leave me again?’
‘Sophie?’
‘Oh, love me, James, please love me,’ said Sophie.
It was Anne who opened the door, who stepped aside as James, lifting Sophie into his arms again, carried her into the house and out of her long cold winter.
About the Author
Mary Jane Staples was born, bred and educated in Walworth, and is the author of many bestselling novels including the ever-popular cockney sagas featuring the Adams family.
Also by Mary Jane Staples
The Adams Books
DOWN LAMBETH WAY
OUR EMILY
KING OF CAMBERWELL
ON MOTHER BROWN’S DOORSTEP
A FAMILY AFFAIR
MISSING PERSON
PRIDE OF WALWORTH
ECHOES OF YESTERDAY
THE YOUNG ONES
THE CAMBERWELL RAID
THE LAST SUMMER
THE FAMILY AT WAR
FIRE OVER LONDON
CHURCHILL’S PEOPLE
BRIGHT DAY, DARK NIGHT
TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY
THE WAY AHEAD
YEAR OF VICTORY
THE HOMECOMING
SONS AND DAUGHTERS
APPOINTMENT AT THE PALACE
CHANGING TIMES
SPREADING WINGS
FAMILY FORTUNES
A GIRL NEXT DOOR
UPS AND DOWNS
OUT OF THE SHADOWS
A SIGN OF THE TIMES
THE SOLDIER’S GIRL
Other titles in order of publication
TWO FOR THREE FARTHINGS
THE LODGER
RISING SUMMER
THE PEARLY QUEEN
SERGEANT JOE
THE TRAP
THE GHOST OF WHITECHAPEL
ESCAPE TO LONDON
THE PRICE OF FREEDOM
A WARTIME MARRIAGE
KATERINA’S SECRET
THE SUMMER DAY IS DONE
and published by Corgi Books
TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
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A Random House Group Company
www.transworldbooks.co.uk
THE LONGEST WINTER
A CORGI BOOK: 9780552150910
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781446488072
First published in Great Britain in 1978 by
Souvenir Press Ltd as Appointment in Sarajevo
u
nder the name Robert Tyler Stevens
Corgi edition published 2009
Copyright © Robert Tyler Stevens 1978
Mary Jane Staples has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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