Return to Silbersee

by Jane Arbor

  'Who were they?' Juliet asked. Wilhelm told her. 'But they didn't agree?' she said.

  'Hmm,' said Wilhelm. He had no word of English and had picked up none from her, and most of her fluent German which Karl Adler had condescended to term 'good' she had learned from him and recognised his 7Hmm' as his bid for time before making an answer.

  Her pulse quickened. Surely they weren't going to let her down—go over to the enemy without a fight? 'They didn't agree—did they?' she pressed.

  Wilhelm made up his mind. 'They didn't say Yes and they didn't say No to him. Not for them to say either, was it? The Herr wants to build his sawmill. He was telling them that, and that he will pay them to move out of their houses to make room for it.'

  'But they don't have to move!' Juliet protested.

  'They have to, if the Baronin has agreed to rent the land to the Herr,' Wilhelm maintained.

  'Even the Baronin can't turn us out while our properties still have leases to run,' Juliet declared desperately. 'Herr Adler wants to pull down the School too. He came to see me last night, and I told him I refused to move. And you and the others should do the same. Then he can't——' She broke off awkwardly at the old man's questioning glance. 'Yes, I know,' she admitted, reading its meaning, 'I thought we'd have to close the School when the hotel closes. But I've decided to stay on after all. We'll have to find some other outlets for selling our stuff, and to keep people at work, but there's no reason why we shouldn't produce all summer as well as winter. Anyway, we've probably had it too easy, being able to sell all we could make to the tourists at the hotel, and it's time we began to strike out.'

  'Hmm,' said Wilhelm again. And then, 'You hadn't told me about this;'

  'I'm telling you now. I only decided last night, quite suddenly.'

  'To fight the Herr and his sawmill?' Wilhelm queried shrewdly.

  Juliet nodded. 'We can't stop him felling as much timber as the Baronin lets him have. But we can make him find somewhere else for his sawmill, if we all refuse to move.'

  'Though there are those on the shore who might welcome his money to get themselves a house in Gutbach or Stronberg, where there'd be work in plenty,' Wilhelm demurred.

  'And others who would break their hearts if they had to leave the Lake,' Juliet countered. 'What about Grandpa Weisskop, who would be willing to retire if we'd closed the School, but who has never done anything but wood-carving all his life? Or Helmut Jager —what about him? He couldn't find work in Gutbach that he could do.'

  'Ach, blind Helmut,' Wilhelm mused compassionately. 'He must use his hands for eyes, or be idle, as we know. And so, Fraulein, you would have me say No to the Herr, even though the Baronin has told him Yes? You do not like him, I take it, Fraulein?'

  'It is mutual. He made it very clear he didn't like me,' Juliet admitted frankly. 'Mostly, I think from what he heard about me when he came to Herr Min- den's funeral.'

  'Yes, that,' said Wilhelm. 'Knowing, as we did, that Gerhard Minden had wanted to marry you, perhaps we were too bitter to speak kindly of you then. But we know you now, and you can be very sure that Herr Adler will hear nothing but praise of you if he should ask us how we regard you since you came back to the Lake.'

  It was a promise which, kindly as it was meant, set all Juliet's hackles of pride abristle. Depend on her friends' championship to gain favour with Karl Adler she would not. But she managed a wry smile for Wilhelm.

  'I doubt if anything you say will convince him that I am nice to know. I'd guess that prejudice is his middle name. Meanwhile, all I ask is that you should consider giving him a very firm No when he '

  'When he- ?'

  The echo had come from behind her, where she and Wilhelm stood, just inside his living-room, the outside door ajar. The voice was that of Karl Adler, who had come up the house path unheard. Juliet turned, startled to an undignified, 'Oh!'

  His cool glance raked her. 'Out early, canvassing the vote? How are you doing so far? Gaining support, or are the "Don't Knows" getting you down?' He turned to Wilhelm, offering a hand. 'We've met before, haven't we? You remember me?'

  'Yes, indeed, Herr Adler. You were present at Herr Minden's funeral.'

  'That's right. At a time when we hadn't the pleasure of Fraulein Harmon's company. As, while we talk business, if she will forgive us, we could dispense with it now.' Though a faint smile accompanied the words, the hint was so blatant that Juliet almost gasped. Ignoring it, she said to Wilhelm, 'Will you come over to the School this evening? I'd like to go through the stock with you.' Then, with a heavily emphasised, 'Bitte, Herr Adler,' she swept past him through the open door.

  He came after her. 'May I hope to find you at home later in the morning?' he asked.

  'I couldn't say, though I shall probably be there,' she said.

  'I hope you will try to be.' That was all. He went back to Wilhelm with an air of having issued an order which would be obeyed.

  Seething, Juliet walked back home. The clouds had broken and the sun had come out, dimpling the lake surface with blue and green lights. Being free on such a day, she would probably have packed a lunch, taken a book and gone walking in the woods, and she was sorely tempted, for more than one reason, to do just that today. But if she were going to reorganise things at the School, there was work to do, and though there would be some satisfaction in bilking the enemy, there would be more in standing her ground and facing him. Besides, she was feeling again the tingle of challenge which had enjoyed their crossing of swords last night. In her present mood, if he weren't there like a thorn under a fingernail, she would have to invent him. She was spoiling for a fight.

  Deciding on a simple midday meal of thick soup and fruit, she checked that she had bone stock in the refrigerator, and she soaked dried peas to add to cold carrots and potatoes for a puree. Then, taking a notepad and a street map of Munich, she went through a trades directory in search of wholesalers and retailers of fancy goods in the city. She wasn't sorry that Karl Adler should find her at work on this when he arrived a couple of hours later. She would have liked to blind him with Statistics of the School's success, or at least to impress him with the fact of its importance to the Lake, and the need for someone to work at its affairs.

  But to her chagrin, he showed no curiosity as to what she was doing. Nor did he report on his interview with Wilhelm or with whomever he had called to see. He came, he said, to invite her to lunch with him and the

  Baronin in the hotel dining-room. 'A business luncheon,' he emphasised.

  An olive,-branch? Surely not. Then a trap? 'Thank you,' she said stiffly, 'but I've work to do, and I've already planned my luncheon.'

  'Then you refuse? That's a pity. I know the Baronin hoped you would join us.' His tone was formal, detached, indifferent.

  Juliet looked him squarely in the eyes. 'You know, I would doubt that,' she said.

  'Really? Why? I understood that she and you were great friends?'

  'And so we are. And it's because I think she is as fond of me as I am of her that I say I doubt if she would really welcome being a witness to the kind of hostility you showed for me last night. It would vex her and at the very least, embarrass her. So thank you, no. I won't lunch.'

  At that he laughed, disconcerting her. 'My dear girl,' he expostulated, 'do you suppose I eat and drink my minor controversies and regurgitate them at the very next opportunity ?'

  'To me, the differences between us hardly rank as "minor",' Juliet cut in.

  'Even so, you should be capable of rising above them from time to time, I'd have thought. High enough, any way, to enable you to accept a mere luncheon date. Besides, if you're afraid I might turn savage across the table, I assure you I rarely allow wrath to spoil for me a well-chosen menu and a mellow wine. Again, if you're still in doubt of my manners, on this occasion you have the Baronih as a buffer state between us, haven't you?'

  'Though I'd prefer not to use her as a buffer state, if you don't mind.'

  'You won't have to. I don't brawl in public. Thou
gh how do you know she wouldn't enjoy acting as peacemaker, if the need arose?' he taunted. 'So will you come?'

  His derision, his assumption that she had something to fear from him decided her. If she continued to refuse, he would see it as weakness, and that she could not tolerate! But feeling that a bland acceptance would choke her, after a moment's hesitation she evaded it with a glance down at her work-smock, her jeans and sandalled feet.

  'I can't go to the Schloss like this. I shall have to change,' she said.

  His ironic smile acknowledged her surrender. 'No hurry,' he said easily. 'It's far from the first time I've waited on a lady claiming either she 'hasn't a thing to wear' or that she 'can't possibly go' in the clothes she has on. And I haven't invited the Baronin until one o'clock for half-past, so we have time on our hands meanwhile.'

  Not to be outdone in this velvet-glove show of politeness, Juliet said, 'May I offer you a drink while you are waiting?' But he declined, saying they would drink in the bar with the Baronin before the meal.

  Going into her room and closing the door, Juliet was thinking, You bet it isn't the first time for him! With those Nordic looks and that debonair assurance of his on the Innsgort road that he was the welcome answer to any travelling maiden's prayer—you bet he was no stranger to his girl-friends' ante-rooms while they prinked to be taken out by him to luncheon, dinner or whatever! Well, she wasn't prinking; she was just changing to have lunch with Magda von Boden as much as with him. But following that thought came another. For her, here, it was the first time of changing next door to a man who was waiting to take her out. Gerhard had always called for her at the Konstats' and though, since her return to the Lake, she had been out with friends from Gutbach or Munich, it had always been with married couples or a party.

  So not the first time for him. But the first time for her. And hard upon that thought came a question— was he married?

  If he were, it could mean she had made a two-deep enemy instead of a formidable enough one. But on reflection she felt pretty sure he was single. If he were married and had known real love, he couldn't have judged her so harshly for refusing to marry Gerhard without it.

  She changed into a blue-and-white full swirling skirt and a white silk shirt and tied her hair into a pony- tail. Glad that convention, didn't now require gloves and hat for a luncheon date, she swung a shoulder bag and went to join Karl Adler, prepared to set out with him for the Schloss.

  But he said again, 'No hurry. Before we join the Baronin I'd appreciate it if you would tell me why, last night, you kept from me your intention to abandon the School and go back to England very shortly. When the hotel finally closes, in fact?'

  How had he learned it? 'Probably,' Juliet said levelly, 'because I didn't consider it was any concern of yours.'

  His nod appeared to agree. 'Though a very sudden switch of plan, wasn't it, your decision to see out the lease of this place, considering that the people I've been seeing this morning were all surprised to hear that you weren't leaving very soon?'

  She had warned Magda not to tell him, but she should have foreseen that he might hear it from any one of her neighbours. At a disadvantage, 'It was a sudden decision,' she admitted.

  'Almost lightning, one might say? And at the sting of a spur?'

  'A spur?' she was losing command of this exchange.

  'Uh-huh. The spur of my offer for your lease, which you were determined not to cede to me. Up to that point you had meant to throw in your hand and run away—a second time?'

  She turned indignant eyes upon him. 'I did not "run away" the first time! When Gerhard finally accepted that I wouldn't marry him, he made it virtually impossible for me to stay, and you've neither the right nor enough knowledge to judge otherwise!'

  'Very well, though I doubt if you would protest so much if you hadn't suffered some conscience towards him. Meanwhile, this time you were getting out because of the loss of the hotel's custom for your wares, and there being no summer employment there any longer for your workers. Right?'

  'You have done your homework well!' She couldn't resist the gibe. 'But yes, that's more or less how matters stood. As they stand,' she corrected herself.

  'They haven't altered overnight.'

  'Exactly,' he agreed crisply. 'It is only you who have changed course?'

  'You could put it like that.'

  'And we know why.' He paused. 'Ever heard, have you, Miss Harmon, of the ostrich's habit of burying its head in the sand?'

  'Of course.'

  'And a very ill-advised procedure for humans, I've always thought. Consider die gritty effect on the eyes, the ears, the nostrils, the mouth ! '

  'Thanks for the unnecessary warning. I've never tried it, and I'm not trying it now. I know precisely what I'm doing. And how. And why,' Juliet said.

  The blue eyes widened almost disarmingly. 'But I've already told you—-we both know why. It's to foil me— isn't it?' he urged.

  She inclined her head. 'As long as you realise that it was, and may continue to be, if you persist in your claim on my tenancy.'

  He acknowledged, 'I do realise it, and though I needed your confirmation of it, I haven't been long in doubt of your motive. If I may say so, hostility emanates from you like an aura.' He lunged upright from the window-ledge against which he had been leaning, and gestured her towards the door. 'But now you've been frank with facts which puzzled me, shall we go?'

  She held back. 'Are you quite sure you still want to invite me to lunch with you?' she said.

  'In the circumstances'—his short laugh and his echo mocked her—'I wouldn't miss it for the world!

  Come along ' His hand, firm beneath her elbow,

  amounted to a command. And intrigued against her will, aware that some nerve within her had responded electrically to his touch, Juliet went along.

  The road which climbed to the Schloss was a succession of hairpin bends to the point where the castle itself stood out against the higher mounting backcloth of forest behind it. It was surrounded by a walled outer courtyard which served as a car park; a great archway, gated with wrought iron, led to an inner court and the main entrance doors. When she had adapted the building to the service of her guests, the Baronin had kept for her private use a self-contained octagonal tower attached to the east wing. Its height surmounted all but the massive central structure, and looking at it as he and Juliet crossed the courtyard, Karl Adler remarked, 'A real Rapunzel turret, that you know the story, of course?'

  She nodded yes.

  'Makes one deplore, doesn't it, the invention of the domestic lift, when obviously the really ardent suitor would much prefer the romance of climbing up a rope of his lady's hair?'

  'Would he? Though I'd think she might rather he made use of the lift.'

  'So that he could reach her the faster? I doubt it, considering a woman's inveterate need, whether she is saying Yes to him or No, to make a man's approach to her as fraught as she can. For instance the hazard of that rope of hair. Or again '

  He paused for so long that at last Juliet was constrained to prompt, 'Or again ?'

  'Well, such as when a stranger attempts an innocently friendly pass, the lady implies that his passport to her favour must be his production of his own lunch-packet. That does tend to turn a man off.'

  She uttered a small gasp. 'I didn't say or imply anything of the sort!' she denied.

  She might not have spoken. '—And of course, on again,' he said, as if in continuation of his own thought

  'And what do you mean by that—"on again"?'

  He laughed. 'I assure you—in this instance, nothing

  more menacing to the lady's virtue than our stranger intended by his original plan for a chat in the sun with r an attractive fellow-traveller. No, all I meant by "on" was that, their Fates ruling that they meet again, he could find himself with an added zest for their second round of hostilities. Wouldn't you think that possible?'

  Of her own reaction, she thought, it was more than possible. It had happened. She was r
elishing the situation. But denying him the satisfaction of hearing she had given any thought to the matter, she said nothing as they entered the wide hall, now furnished with a reception desk and elevators for both guests and luggage, flanking the magnificent main staircase. ..

  The Baronin was awaiting them in the bar. She greeted Juliet with a kiss on either cheek and Karl Adler bent over her hand. There, and later at table, their conversation was the small talk of cordial, if not intimate friends; it went easily, considering the undercurrents running between herself and Karl Adler, thought Juliet. No one would guess he had more or less pressganged her into attending a business luncheon, since he did not attempt to touch upon any of the issues between them.

  It was towards the end of the meal that the Baronin looked about her at the otherwise empty dining-room and remarked with seeming irrelevance, 'Once, at Gibraltar, I joined a ship on its way back to Hamburg from the Far East and found most of the amenities and services already folded away—the swimming-pool emptied, the library closed, even a great many items on the excellent menus "off" for the last few hundred

  miles of the voyage. And now ' she paused and

  sighed, shaking her head.

  'Now?' Karl Adler prompted gently.

  'Well now, I am thinking, it is the same here. One or two guests remaining, but near the end of their stay; my staff depleted, my wine-cellars not what they were. It is the end of the Schloss as an hotel, as it was the tag-end of the voyage for that ship, and I feel I should apologise for such shortcomings as I know there are.'