Return to Silbersee

by Jane Arbor

  Both Juliet and her host murmured sympathetic disclaimers, and there was silence until he questioned, 'Sad as it is for you, Baronin, must it be so? Is it inevitable—the closure of the hotel?'

  'It's a decision I've had to come to,' she told him. 'I've carried the place on my shoulders, as it were, for ten years now. But I am old, and I want to retire—into my tower, perhaps to knit and dream my time away. Yes, it is inevitable, I'm afraid.'

  'You are not to be persuaded that it needn't be? That the goodwill alone must be worth a very great deal?' he urged.

  She drew herself up. 'I couldn't think of selling the goodwill into new ownership. Out of the question, that.'

  Karl Adler said, 'I was thinking rather of management, Baronin.'

  -She smiled wryly. 'I have tried managers—at the end of a successful third year and again at the seventh. Both were disastrous experiments. No.'

  'Even though I can recommend someone personally? A woman whose experience is of the very highest order. Cosmopolitan experience, at that—American, English. A friend whom I know to be free at the moment?'

  Magda von Boden mused, 'A manager? A woman? A friend, you say?'

  'Of long standing, yes. She was Munich-born, but she has only recently come back to the city. Frau Ilse Krantz, her name.'

  'Frau? She is married?'

  'A divorcee from an unfortunate marriage. I knew her before she went into that'

  'Ah,' said the Baronin. And then, 'But it is quite impossible. It is too late. You talk of goodwill, but I have already lost all I had. I have taken no summer bookings, and the agencies have told their clients that to apply would be useless. And I have got rid of most of my staff.'

  Karl Adler's gesture brushed aside such objections as trivial.

  'You could advertise widely again—even make capital out of your decision to re-open. The hotel a triumphant phoenix, risen from its ashes—how about that? So—may I send Ilse Krantz to see you, Baronin?'

  She appeared to hesitate. 'Perhaps. You must let me think about it, Herr Adler, please.'

  'Of course.' He poured wine again for her and for Juliet, and his next remark was addressed to her.

  'You ski, I think, Miss Harmon?'

  As if he didn't know that, from their encounter on the Innsgort road! Not to be outdone in polite-sounding finesse, she asked, 'You too?'

  'When I can make time, or am reasonably near some good slopes.' He turned to the Baronin. 'I was thinking of inviting Miss Harmon to join me in a day up at Innsgort, if she would.'

  The Baronin beamed. 'An excellent idea! Julie loves to ski, and she is good. Julie, you must accept before it is too late, before the season closes.'

  'I ' Juliet was thinking, not only of her skis, her boots, her snow-goggles, probably already sold secondhand from the ski-master's shop, but with surprise that Magda, who must know' just how she felt towards Karl Adler's, demands, should suppose she would be willing to ski with him or that she had accepted his invitation to luncheon in any melting spirit.

  But seeing that they were waiting for her to go on, she temporised with, 'I'm afraid that now I have decided to carry on with the School, I shan't have much free time for skiing.'

  To which, for all the world as if she were a society mamma, anxious that her debutante daughter shouldn't miss a date with an eligible male, the Baronin said, 'Nonsense, dear. You've always made a little time for skiing until now. And if you delay, you stand the chance of missing the last of the good conditions.' And Karl Adler agreed with her.

  'Exactly. I shall bring my gear the next time I come over,' ignoring Juliet as if she weren't there, or as if she were a child for whose caprice the grown-ups had to make allowances.

  A few minutes later the Baronin rose, 'collecting' Juliet with her eye as, at countless elegant dinner-parties in her time, she had gathered her lady guests to retire to a drawing-room to await the gentlemen after their port and cigars.

  On this occasion their host was not long in following them, saying he was at Juliet's disposal when she wanted to go home. In the car he remarked, 'The Baronin seems very fond of you.'

  'As I am of her,' Juliet said. j 'She would have liked you to marry Gerhard?'

  'She has never criticised me for refusing him. She happens,' Juliet added pointedly, 'to be generous enough to allow people to make their own decisions about their lives, without blaming them or offering unasked advice.'

  'I see. Admirably detached. All the same, mightn't she be glad for you to marry—period? Perhaps with a view to keeping you near her, here on the Lake or at least in Bavaria? After all, dowager ladies who've been happily married themselves often want to enlist their young protegees into the same league, don't they?'

  Needing to deny her own small suspicion, Juliet snapped, 'The Baronin has never attempted any matchmaking for me, if that's what you mean.'

  He agreed blandly, 'That's what I meant. But— never? Possibly knowing with rare wisdom that she might have first to disabuse you of some preconceived image of the German male as a husband?'

  'Knowing, I hope and believe, that I would never marry any man who had been chosen for me—English, German, Tahitian or whoever!'

  'Ah—the Englander notably a poor lover; the German reputed to want only a yes-woman in the bed, the kitchen and the nursery; the Tahitian possibly with bizarre habits? Well, I can't plead the cause of either the first or the third, but I assure you that we Germans expect and mean to get more from our women than that they be submissive to our lovemaking, good plain cooks and dutiful mothers.' He tilted a glance. 'Would you care for me to enumerate—with details?'

  She feigned indifference. 'Need you bother?'

  'As a prejudice-dispelling exercise, yes. For instance —charm, spirit, self-dependence only to a certain point; enough visible allure to make her man the envy of every other male in sight; response, surrender '

  'What's the difference between submission and surrender?'

  'Plenty,' he parried. 'Submission is merely servile. Surrender needs to be worked for, earned.'

  'And if it isn't forthcoming, I suppose the jackboot of command can always be brought into action?'

  'Shouldn't be necessary. Given flair, expertise with your sex and a skilful playing of the field before making his choice, a man can usually get response from where he has wittingly chosen to look for it.'

  'That's just blatant arrogance!' Juliet flared.

  'On the contrary, a statement of cold fact—that nature having made him the chooser and the woman the chosen, he has the right to call the tune. Or to vary the metaphor—to hunt the quarry into the ground.' He paused, then laughed shortly. 'Let's see, where were we before we launched on this battle of the sexes?' Ah, I remember—you snubbed my suggestion that the Baronin might have marital plans for you. But you know she approves of your not leaving the Lake?'

  'I think she will be glad when she understands the reasons for, my staying.'

  'Though can you be entirely truthful about them?'

  Juliet caught her breath. 'Truthful? Of course. Why shouldn't I be?'

  'Only that I wonder if it has occurred to you, the extent to which your stand in the matter of your lease could adversely affect the Baronin's affairs?'

  She turned puzzled eyes his way. 'Harm her affairs? I don't understand?' she queried.

  'Simple. Though we have taken over the project from Hartung, we haven't yet signed the deal for the von Boden timber and without freedom of action to build a sawmill, my directors might have second

  thoughts about concluding the deal. You see?'

  She 'saw' the implied threat so well that her rejection of it was explosive. 'That—that's blackmail!’ she flung at him. 'Using my feeling for the Baronin to force my hand! How dare you!'

  His response, totally unexpected, was to reach to touch her knee with the patting motion he might use for the head of a dog or to soothe an angry child, and she jerked away from under it.

  'Calm down, calm down!' he urged. 'I was merely putting all the fa
cts—and the possibilities, remote as they are—before you. For instance, I don't envisage for a moment that we shan't do business for the timber, and you and your fellow tenants can only hold us up for a limited time. So—no blackmail intended. No need.'

  'In other words, you only meant to put doubt in my mind as to whether I'm right in deciding to stay. You admit I can't really harm the Baronin and that I can't outwit you for good. But you are determined that I shall question my motives, and worry about them. Very clever, Herr Adler!' she raged. 'Diabolically so. But may I tell you one thing, and ask you one? The first—I am not worrying, and I'm not doubting, you can't frighten me into either with empty threats. And the other—since you have so low an opinion of me for more than one reason, why bother with me again after you had my firm No to your scheme? Why, for instance, invite me to a business luncheon at which the only business discussed had nothing to do with me? And why, even more ludicrously, go through the motions of pretending you'd like my company on a skiing trip? It couldn't have been just for something to say, for I should think you are rarely at a loss for— for uninvited openings. So perhaps you will tell me why?'

  They had reached the School and having stopped the car, he was free to turn to face her. It incensed her still further that there seemed to be a hint of amusement in the blue of his eyes, as he mused, mock-sagely, 'Mm —a fair question, that.'

  ‘I think so.'

  'Yes. And here's one for you. When you've got yourself an opponent who seems worthy of your steel and you've rehearsed all the arguments with which you mean to fell him, tell me—don't you ever feel cheated if chance robs you of the opportunity?'

  It was so true of herself in relation to him that she forgot her resolve to keep from him that she ever thought about him in his absence, and almost shouted, 'Yes!'

  'Well then ?' He paused, seeming to think it a reasonable question.

  'Well then?' she echoed.

  'Just that I believe in making my own opportunities,' he said. And then, opening the car door for her and ready to move off, 'Auf Wiedersehen, mein kleiner Hitzkopf, Auf Wiedersehen! Or, as you'd say in English, wouldn't you?—Here's to the next time!'

  He left his 'little spitfire' at a total loss for a retort.

  Chapter Three

  When Wilhelm came that evening to do the stocktaking he reported that during the morning and after Karl Adler had seen Juliet home, he had called to put his proposition to the remainder of the shore-tenants, and that Wilhelm himself had seen fit to pass on to those concerned Juliet's decision to stay and to keep the' School going.

  'The ones who didn't know you were staying and would make work for them here thought it wise to let the Herr have his way,' he announced in answer to Juliet's eager question.

  'Oh And the others? The ones you did have time to tell about me?'

  'They asked the Herr where they would live while they were working at the School if their houses were to be pulled down, and when he told them his workmen would build chalets for them elsewhere on the estate and have them ready to move into before they were asked to move, they said No to him. If the School was staying, they were staying where they were. 1st das nicht gut?' Wilhelm concluded, beaming.

  'Good? I'll say it's good!' Juliet praised. 'If we stand together, they can't win, these tycoon types, and before our leases run out they will have to think again. Let everyone know, will you, Wilhelm, that we'll try to start work again next week, and I'll give them a pep talk about the new outlets I'll find for selling our stuff, now that we shan't be having the hotel guests as customers?'

  She hadn't the right, she knew, to give Wilhelm any hint of Karl Adler's proposals to the Baronin about reopening the hotel. He must have meant them to be confidential, causing her to wonder why he had broached them in front of herself. As, on the level of his reasons for making them, the Baronin was questioning too, she told Juliet when inviting her to evening coffee a couple of days after he had returned to Munich.

  Juliet drove up to the Schloss after an early supper. She went to the private door to the tower and took the miniature lift to the sitting-room on the top floor, where Magda was seated behind a tray of silver appointments, ready to dispense coffee and little cherry - almond cakes.

  'Herr Adler couldn't be concerned for me, for he knows that if I sell the timber I can afford to stay here privately,' she said. 'And though he said before he left that when he has to come over, as he must frequently, he'd find it convenient to stay at the hotel, I can't think he would be quite so persuasive about it for that reason alone. It could be that, as a businessman, he can't bear to see the goodwill lapse. But I'm inclined to think that he has the interests of his friend Frau Krantz mainly in view, and he wants this opportunity for her. What do you say, Julie? Was that the impression you got?'

  Juliet thought back over the discussion. 'He did make rather a key figure of her,' she admitted. 'Did he tell you any more about her before he left?'

  'A little. It seems she is young—under thirty—to have been so successful in everything but her marriage. She hasn't actually managed a hotel, but she has handled all the publicity and the interior decorating and equipment and staffing for new ones in America and in England. She is bi-lingual, of course, and Herr Adler was so enthusiastic that, as I say, I did wonder just how close they may have been, since she has been free and back in Germany. He isn't married, you know, though Gerhard once told me he had quite a reputation But Gerhard was prejudiced, and I mustn't

  gossip. Anyway, Herr Adler is bringing Frau Krantz over and I have said I will see her. Because it would be nice if the hotel hadn't to die after all. Don't you agree, dear?' the Baronin concluded wistfully.

  Juliet did, and said so. Apart from all that its closing would mean to the School, the thought of the Schloss standing forlorn and unused after the seasonal business it had known had always depressed her since her friend had first told her that it was to have no future as a hotel. 'When is Herr Adler bringing Frau Krantz?' she asked.

  'He didn't say definitely. But quite soon, I think, judging as I do, that for him ideas and actions are almost simultaneous. A very dynamic man, with sound reasons, in his own view, for anything he does. Which reminds me,' the Baronin went on, 'that, having accepted that you and the shore-tenants mean to stay on until your leases run out, he could possibly want the hotel to continue, so that the School shouldn't lose the guests' custom that it has always had. What do you think?'

  Juliet's reply was a short rueful laugh. 'It's an ingenious idea, but totally not on,' she said. 'For one thing, I doubt if Karl Adler will "accept" any stand of ours as final until he has failed to outwit us. He said as much to me—that there were ways in which he could force our hand. He even instanced one of them.'

  'Oh dear, what?' queried the Baronin, distressed.

  'A suggestion that if we insisted on our rights and prevented the building of his sawmill, that might jeopardise your sale of the timber to Adler Classics. Oh, it's all right'—Juliet reassured her friend's nervous movement of disbelief—'he admitted that it wouldn't happen that way, but implying that if the threat made me doubt my own motives, that was all right by him. Which brings me to the second thing— he doesn't like me personally well enough to make any generous gesture towards me at all. Or to the School, because of me. Of that I'm quite certain.'

  'Not like you? Oh, my dear, you must be mistaken!'

  'I'm not,' Juliet insisted. 'What's more, he chose to judge me for "failing" Gerhard, as he put it. That I could not take.'

  'But he ! Not like you now? No, that I cannot

  take, dear,' the Baronin declared. 'For if not, why should he have asked you to ski with him, tell me that?'

  'Probably just making conversation.'

  The Baronin decided for her, 'No, he wasn't doing that, and you know it. He wanted a date with you. And why should he choose to spend a whole day in your company, if he feels about you as you claim, and—as I'm afraid you may have let him guess—you feel about him?'

  But fee
ling she couldn't justify or explain Karl Adler's warped reasons for seeking her out—reasons which, she had told him on parting from him, she understood and shared, Juliet took refuge in a noncommittal, 'I couldn't say,' adding, 'Anyway, I couldn't accept if I wanted to. For now I have no skiing things.'

  'Then you did sell them after all?' The Baronin sighed. 'How very final you meant your departure to be. But now—now I'm so glad that you are still to be here, perhaps to see our phoenix rise again, who knows? And as for your relations with Karl Adler-'

  'Which you can't expect to change very much, I'm afraid '

  To which the Baronin retorted with crisp finality, 'Though I shall try to understand them on both sides —I hope.'

  It was to take days rather than weeks for the first effects of the takeover to bring changes to the region.

  Initially there were strange cars parked at different points of the von Boden estate; strange men pacing the forest rides, grouping for discussion, surveying and marking off areas of timber and prospecting sites for the fellers' huts. But this was all that happened by the time Juliet had re-opened the School and had been gratified by the eager return of all her workers to their benches.

  Advertisements in a Munich trade paper and the Gutbach Yageblatt brought Wilhelm two new students in wood-carving, and though at the winter season's end Juliet had allowed the workshops' raw material to run down to almost nothing, there were the traditional ways of rectifying that—the selection and carting of suitable woods from the forests, with the estate ranger's permission, and the only obstacle ahead was the sale of the winter's stockpile of articles before more were added to swell it.