The Foreigner

by P. G. Glynn

  Of our To Be, which was our Long Ago.”

  There was now not a dry eye in the hushed hall and it was noted among Marie’s entranced audience that she, too, was crying. Hugo, stunned by her performance, wondered at it. Did Mama love Papa more than she pretended? She must do, to miss him enough to cry for him publicly …

  46

  Marie was not sure quite when it had first entered her head to write to Nell. Certainly the idea had begun to form by the time of the concert … and she had felt since then as if her life were beginning afresh. It was good to be the talk of the locality and to have people stop her in the street saying how moved they had been by her performance and how she should still be an actress. Even Alice had grudgingly said: ‘You were better than I ever expected, fair play’, which was praise indeed coming from Mam’s alter ego. Monmouthshire was not the West End, of course, but applause was still applause … and her reception in Clydach’s Welfare Hall had stirred Marie’s thoughts.

  It had also stirred her dreams and she found that she was dreaming of Charles constantly. She had dreamed, too, of Guy waiting for her in the wings and had awakened wondering about him. Unbelievably, he would now have turned thirty, assuming that he was not a war-victim. Could she assume this? No. One could make no assumptions with London forever at risk. Whether or not Guy had gone into uniform he might have died in the Blitz or been bombed since. As for Nell …

  It was years since Marie had heard from her. First the intervals between letters had lengthened while the letters themselves had shortened before, eventually, stopping altogether. Cards at Christmas had continued for a bit, but the last – Marie believed – had been received in 1935 or ’36. Life had taken the two friends in different directions and now Marie had no knowledge even as to whether Nell was alive or dead. Suddenly it was imperative to find Nell and renew the friendship. Not that it could be renewed if …

  Refusing to consider the possibility of Nell’s death, Marie penned the letter that had been resolutely writing itself:

  ‘My dear Nell

  I’m writing to you in Dalmeny Avenue in the hope that you still live there and that you’ll still remember your old friend. I feel bad about our having lost touch, but life has had its ups and downs … and isn’t there a saying about the road to hell being paved with good intentions? Well, my intentions were always excellent …

  You’ll see that I’m writing from Wales. Hugo and I left Bohemia before the Nazis marched in and are living with Mam and Lucy pro tem. Who knows what will happen once the war ends?

  I’ll be brief because I’ve no idea whether this will reach you. Can’t tell you how good it would be to hear from you again and know of your doings. I often think about our times together … and of your den. The thinking makes it almost seem that we could have those times again.

  Could we, Nell? Could we conceivably be as we once were? As you’ll gather, I’m still a dreamer!

  If you are reading these words, and haven’t forgotten me, please respond quickly and put me out of suspense.

  Ever lovingly,

  Marie

  P.S. I’d come visiting, were you to invite me!

  Marie had added her postscript involuntarily and now she stared at it. She had not meant to write that, but now it was written she was glad. Perhaps she would not even wait for Nell’s invitation. Perhaps …

  No, with bombs dropping willy-nilly, it would be madness to rush off to London on a sudden whim. And there was Hugo to consider. She was not the free spirited girl she had once been. She was a mature woman with responsibilities, one of which was to stop her son rushing headlong into marriage with Helena Gwyn.

  +++++

  Hugo was not especially keen on Mama being the local celebrity. He had preferred her being just his mother, before everyone kept telling him what a wonder she was and asking whether he had inherited her talent. It wasn’t as if he wanted to be an actor. In fact he couldn’t imagine anything much worse than having to stand on a stage and say words some playwright or poet had written. He would never want to draw attention to himself like that or indulge in make-believe, which was a poor substitute for reality. Now that he had met Helena he could think of nothing better than to be with her and to plan their future together: a future that today had come a big step closer.

  It was quite extraordinary how it had all happened and in a sense it was thanks to Mama that he was now in a position to ask Helena to marry him. Lady Brynusk had come to the farm to see Mr Gwyn, who had introduced Hugo as Marie Howard’s son. Rhapsodising about Mama’s recital, Lady Brynusk had then said that she needed extra help on her Estate – and that if Hugo knew of anyone willing to help, it might be of interest to them that a cottage went with the job. Well! Hugo had been more than interested but had not immediately said anything for fear of offending Mr Gwyn. He had been astonished to hear Helena’s father saying with a wink and a nod ‘I’ve an idea that the chap you’re after might be standing not too far from here’, effectively giving his blessing. It had not occurred to Hugo until later on that he might have been endorsing more than a change of job and a cottage. Was it obvious that Hugo wanted to marry Helena and settle down with her?

  The Brynusk Estate was well known around here and seemed to stretch forever. Hugo reckoned that it must be nearly as big as his lands in Czechoslovakia. They were his now that he had come of age – or would be, but for the Nazi occupation. He sometimes reflected on the similarities between Bohemia and Monmouthshire. Both were rich in rivers and mountains and pastures – and now, instead of a castle, he had a cottage amidst nature’s riches. It was a small stone cottage set in a hollow by a stream and he was sure that he and Helena could turn it into a palace. While showing it to him earlier on Lady Brynusk had apologised for the fact that the cottage had only one tap and that it lacked the comforts he was perhaps used to, but Hugo had seen no disadvantages. He had, indeed, hardly heard her apology above the hum of his happy heart …

  As Helena had gone to Hereford today with her mother, and was not due back just yet, he was having somehow to contain his happiness. He wasn’t sure, though, that he had succeeded in containing it at the tea table and now Mama was saying: “Let’s take a walk, Hugo. I could do with some fresh air and you look as if you could, too.”

  “He’ll have had nothing but fresh air all day,” sniffed Janet, who had planned on giving Marie a pile of darning. Several of Hugo’s socks had holes in them for starters – and his mother’s talents could be put to better use than posturing in front of an audience or walking while others were working. “Give the boy a chance to be indoors for a change.”

  “He can be indoors later,” Marie said, purposefully opening the back door and gesturing with her head for Hugo to follow her. “We won’t be long, unless our legs take us farther than intended.”

  Their legs took them across the village street and down the steep hill to the old mill at Dan-y-Bont. When they were within hearing distance of the river Usk as it tumbled and rushed over boulders and through gullies, Marie looked up at her son and asked him: “Has something happened? You seem … different.”

  “Do I?” They crossed a little bridge over one of the Usk’s tributaries, Hugo wondering the while how best to reply. He said after a bit: “I suppose I am different, although I didn’t know it showed. And I wish Gran would stop thinking of me as a boy, now that I’m a man.”

  Marie smiled. “No hope of that, considering she still thinks of Lucy and me as girls! And I feel like a girl in her presence, because nothing much has changed in Beulah for as long as I can remember. Being there is almost like being in a time-warp, with childhood the only reality and Bohemia and the war just imaginings.”

  “So we imagined Papa, did we?”

  She heard the slight edge to his tone and answered: “No, Hugo – I need only look at you to know of Otto’s existence.” Feeling July’s gentle warmth on her skin and spotting the bright plumage of a kingfisher on the far bank of the river, she added pensively: “I wonder whether … ”<
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  “ … Papa’s alive or dead?”

  “Yes. He’s alive, I suspect. I somehow doubt his lucky star has set yet. Do you have any thoughts on that subject?”

  “Just that I hope you’re right … and that if he is alive you’ll be glad about it and … and forgive him for … doing as he did.”

  “It isn’t about forgiveness. It’s more about whether he can live with himself. If he can, so be it. Which doesn’t bring me any closer to knowing what’s happened to make you seem so happy.”

  Nor was Hugo any closer to knowing how Mama truly felt about Papa, except for the words of that poem with which she ended her Clydach recital. Helena reckoned that those words should be proof enough for him about Mama’s feelings. “I haven’t told Helena yet,” he said.

  “Is that some sort of impediment to telling me?”

  “Not an impediment exactly.”

  “Well then?”

  “I’ve got a new job,” he responded, all to conscious of having to make some response. “It comes with a … cottage.”

  “A cottage?”

  “Yes,” Hugo said, “belonging to Lady Brynusk, who was at your concert and thought you were wonderful. I’ll be helping on her estate. It’s interesting how similar the Brynusk lands are to ours in Czechoslovakia.”

  “Which you own: a little different from being an estate-worker, much like Helga’s grandfather. Is that what you’re trying to do, Hugo – reduce your stature to match Helga’s and Helena’s? If so, you’re going the right way about it. You can’t have thought about this. You’re just letting your heart rule your head and will regret it unless you stop to think.”

  “I can see nothing wrong with listening to one’s heart. Didn’t you listen to yours, when you married Papa?”

  The only time in her life she had listened was when she fell for Charles, but she could hardly tell her son about the ensuing disaster! “We aren’t talking about me and your father, but about you and Helena. Think, Hugo, for heaven’s sake … and further ahead than taking her to bed! Consider, carefully, whether she would ever be prepared to leave Wales and her close-knit family and go to live with you in Bohemia. Consider further whether she would fit into life in Schloss Berger. It’s one thing planning the immediate future, quite another looking ahead to when the war has ended and you have a destiny to fulfil in Czechoslovakia. At twenty-one you’re too young to make such far-reaching decisions. Don’t rush into marriage, Hugo!” Marie frowned as an awful thought struck her. She studied his face, asking: “Helena isn’t expecting, is she?”

  “Of course not!” It was embarrassing to have Mama ask such a question, especially when he respected Helena far too much to make love without first putting a ring on her finger. “And we wouldn’t be rushing – that is, if she agrees to marry me.”

  “Obviously she’d agree. She’d be a fool not to, wouldn’t she?”

  “Why would she … and why do you see the Bergers as being a cut above Helga’s and Helena’s families?”

  “You’re a good ‘catch’. Can’t you see that? You’re tall, you’re handsome and your pedigree is excellent, quite apart from the fact that you’re heir to a castle. To a farmer’s daughter you must seem … ”

  Staggered at being described by Mama as ‘handsome’, Hugo was nevertheless not rendered speechless. He butted in: “People are people, not pedigrees, and they don’t belong in categories. Categorising Helena as a farmer’s daughter is as misleading as describing me as a Nazi’s son. Even if Papa were really a Nazi, I wouldn’t be the same as other such sons. I’d still have the characteristics I was born with and that have developed as I’ve grown from boy to man. Those characteristics, good or bad, are surely of more importance than whether my father has a castle or a farm. I am who I am, Mama, and Helena is who she is: a dear, sweet, sensitive girl whom I love deeply and who loves me with her whole heart, I believe. She’s the other half of me – the missing half till I met her – so, far from rushing things, our marriage is already overdue in my view. As for whether she’d agree to leave Wales at some stage and live with me in Schloss Berger, all I can say is that you left and went to live there with Papa after growing up in Monmouthshire. So Helena would just be doing as you did, wouldn’t she?”

  “Yes, except that I went via London and other cities, where I’d learned a good bit about life outside Gilchrist.”

  “Helena is well-read – and we can do our learning about life together. Anything she needs to know in advance about Czechoslovakia I can tell her.”

  Looking at her son, Marie saw that his mind was more than made up. She also saw that he was lit from within, much as she imagined she had once been lit. His love for Helena was akin to hers for Charles and, knowing this, she could hardly say anything further against their marriage. She could feel envy, though, for a Destiny that brought two who truly loved together instead of driving them far apart. Marie said: “How fortunate you are! Hold on to your good fortune, Hugo, and never take it for granted.”

  Astonished by the sudden change in her tone and her whole demeanour, he asked: “Are you giving us your blessing, Mama?”

  “It seems that I must be,” she answered wryly. “And if you’re wondering why I changed my mind, let’s just blame enlightenment!”

  +++++

  She had seen him, back in the beginning, as more than a man. There had been something godlike in his bearing when she first saw him on the Sugar Loaf mountain: something not quite of this world. Watching him stride through the bracken and heather, his hair blowing in the wind, she had caught her breath and wondered at the perfection of him.

  It was not just that he was tall and handsome. No, it went much further than that. Goodness shone from his whole being as if he had never had a bad thought, never done anyone a bad turn, and as for his eyes: these glowed as if with more than mortal vision.

  Looking back to that meeting, Helena recognised that for her it had been love in an instant. Why, she had loved him even before she heard him speak! There had been the most profound sense of recognition, as if he had been known to her in some former existence and had now returned. While she was still wrapped in that sense of wonderment he had spoken, saying with a foreign accent: ‘I wish I were that lamb!’

  She had been holding an orphaned lamb in her arms and must have blushed because he had hurriedly told her that his name was Hugo Berger and that he wasn’t normally so forward. It dawned on her then that he was old Mrs Jenkins’s grandson who had come from abroad to live here because his father was a Nazi. Helena had heard all the talk around the village and, unlike some, had kept an open mind about why Hugo and his mother were here in Monmouthshire.

  She had since learned the truth from him and knew too that he prayed every day for his Papa’s safety. Listening to Hugo was like listening to a play on the wireless or having a book read aloud to her. The life he had lived in a castle in Czechoslovakia sounded more like a story than actuality – and there was so much drama, what with a mad uncle who wasn’t really mad, along with an aunt who was and another uncle who had wanted to kill his father. Worst of all, though, was Carla and the little silver coffin on the windowsill of the family mausoleum. Helena had seen the expression in Hugo’s eyes when he mentioned his dead sister and this still haunted her.

  She was also haunted by the thought that when the war ended she would lose him forever, since he would hardly stay in Gilchrist if he belonged in Bohemia. Terrible of her not to want the war to end, and yet …

  “Helena, darling, where are you?”

  “Oh dear!” She realised that Hugo had been speaking to her and that she had not heard a word. At his suggestion upon her return from Hereford earlier they were walking again on the Sugar Loaf and she had been unprepared for the emotions such a walk would stir. “I’d gone back to when we first met up here … and forward to when we won’t be together any more.”

  Shocked to the core, he said: “That’s a ‘when’ I’ve never considered. Why are you considering it?”

  �
��Because,” she gazed up at him, “I’m trying to be a realist.”

  His hand holding hers tightened its grip. “And how do you see reality?”

  “As the sea between our countries. You won’t be staying in Wales, will you, once we’ve won the war?”

  “I believe,” he told her, meeting her gaze and hoping she was aware of his love flowing in to her, “you have your own little cloud that you carry round with you, just in case the sun shines too brightly one day! Does that make sense, Helena?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But then, with us, everything makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  “It does, my love.” Resisting his deep desire to take her in his arms, Hugo asked: “Are you tied to Monmouthshire?”

  She reflected before responding: “I’m tied in the respect that I’ve never left Wales, so can’t quite imagine being anywhere else.”

  “How would you feel about being somewhere else, if we were there together?”

  “Happy.”

  “Even if the ‘somewhere’ was on the other side of the sea?” When Helena nodded dumbly and he could see his own feelings reflected in the azure of her eyes, Hugo said: “Nobody knows what will happen when the war ends. That’s anybody’s guess. I might or might not have a castle to go back to, but can’t imagine going back without you.”

  “Oh, Hugo!”

  His arms went round her then, and hers round him as their mouths met in a searching, wonder-filled kiss. He eventually asked, as they stood bound together high above Gilchrist: “Do you think, my darling, that you could be as happy with me in a cottage as in a castle?”

  “Even happier!” Helena answered.

  +++++

  When the wedding arrangements were well advanced, Marie finally received a response to her letter. It came as a huge relief to read: