Gossamer Cord

by Philippa Carr

  He waited for us to explain, but as neither of us went any further there was a brief silence. Then Dorabella said: “We are visiting a friend, really. He came to England and suggested we come here for a visit. That’s how it was.”

  “I’m very glad you did. It’s comforting to meet someone English…although I’m not exactly English.”

  “Oh?” we both said in surprise.

  “Cornish,” he said with a grimace.

  “But…”

  “A little quibble. The Tamar divides us and we always maintain that we are a race apart from those people on the other side of it.”

  “Like the Scottish and the Welsh,” I said.

  “Celtic pride,” he replied. “We think we are as good as…no, better than…those Anglo-Saxons…as we call you foreigners.”

  “Oh dear,” said Dorabella in mock dismay. “And I was thinking what fun it was to meet someone of our own race.”

  He looked at her earnestly. “It is,” he said. “It has made this a most interesting day for me.”

  “Tell us about Cornwall,” I said. “Do you live near the sea?”

  “Sometimes it seems too near…almost in it, in fact.”

  “That must be fascinating.”

  “I love the old place. Where is your home?”

  “Hampshire.”

  “Some distance from Cornwall.”

  “Are you looking forward to going home?” asked Dorabella.

  “Not at this moment.”

  “Shall you be walking tomorrow?”

  “I let each day take care of itself.”

  I could see that Dorabella was enjoying this encounter. Her eyes were shining; she looked very attractive and I noticed how his gaze kept straying to her. It did not surprise me. I had seen it so many times before.

  She was telling him, in her animated fashion, about Caddington, and he responded with some details of his home in Cornwall.

  He told us his name was Dermot Tregarland. “An old Cornish name,” he pointed out. “We seem to be either Tre, Pol, or Pen. It is like a label. ‘Where e’er you hear Tre, Pol, and Pen, you’ll always know ’tis Cornishmen.’ It’s an old saying I heard somewhere and it is true.”

  And so the talk went on until I said—although I was aware of Dorabella’s displeasure—that it was time we returned to the schloss.

  We said goodbye and started back.

  Dorabella said angrily: “Why did you want to leave as abruptly as that?”

  “Look at the time! They would be wondering where we were. Don’t forget we were about to leave when he came up.”

  “What did it matter?” There was a pause and she added: “He didn’t say anything about seeing us again.”

  “Why should he?”

  “I thought he might.”

  “Oh, Dorabella,” I said. “It was a chance encounter. ‘Ships that pass in the night.’ It was only because he heard that we were speaking English that he stopped.”

  “Was that all, do you think?” She was smiling now…secretly.

  The next day the weather had changed and there was a distinctly definite touch of autumn in the air. Kurt and Edward had planned an excursion to one of the mountain villages, and it had naturally been taken for granted that we would accompany them.

  However, Dorabella decided that she must do some shopping in the town. I understood, of course. She wanted to go into Waldenburg and sit outside the coffee shop in the hope that the young man of yesterday would pass by again.

  And, of course, I wanted to be with Dorabella. I must, because she could not very well go alone.

  We watched Edward and Kurt go off, spent an idle morning, and after lunch went into the town.

  We did a little shopping for souvenirs and in due course arrived at the coffee shop. The waiter gave us his welcoming smile and we sat down—Dorabella in a state of expectation, I amused and a little cynical, wondering what she thought would be the outcome of this chance encounter.

  We talked desultorily while Dorabella was watchful. She had placed herself looking on the street, the way he had come before, and as time passed she was becoming more and more despondent.

  A horse and trap went by, and then some riders—two young girls with an instructor; then a van drew up and a young man stepped out. He was delivering something to the coffee shop.

  As I watched him carrying in a large box, I thought there was something familiar about him. He disappeared into the shop, and after a while came out carrying a sheaf of papers. The waiter was with him and they chatted for a while.

  Then I recognized the young man.

  I said: “Oh, look! Do you see who that is? It is Else’s young man.”

  Dorabella’s thoughts were elsewhere. She looked at me impatiently.

  “What?” she said.

  “That young man who is delivering something. He’s Else’s young man. You remember. We saw him from our window. He’s her lover. We saw them embracing the other night.”

  “Oh, yes…I remember.” Dorabella was not interested in that particular young man.

  He was standing by the van now. He called out in German, which I could understand: “Tomorrow night, then. See you there.”

  “They must be friends,” I said. “He and the waiter…they are meeting tomorrow night.”

  “What of it?” said Dorabella petulantly.

  “Well…nothing. Just that I was interested, that’s all.”

  Dorabella continued to glance disconsolately along the street.

  I said: “Well, we can’t sit here all the afternoon.”

  She agreed reluctantly.

  But I knew that she was bitterly disappointed and, as I often did, I understood exactly how she was feeling.

  We walked slowly down the incline which led to the schloss. There was a faint chill in the air and a mistiness in the atmosphere.

  “I don’t want to go in yet,” she said. “I’d like to walk awhile.”

  “All right. Let’s do that, but not for long.”

  “In the forest,” she said.

  We left the road and walked through the trees. I wanted to comfort her, as I had always done when she was disappointed. I was reminded of the time when she had lost one of her teddy bear’s bootbutton eyes and another time when the face of her favorite doll had been smashed to pieces. I had been the only one who could console her on such occasions. I understood her better than any.

  Now I wanted to bring her out of that despondency. It was absurd, I wanted to point out. How could seeing someone with whom she had exchanged only a few words be of such importance to her? It was ridiculous. But that was Dorabella. She felt intensely…for the moment. Her emotions did not really go very deep and might not be long in passing, but while they were there they took complete possession of her.

  We never went deep into the forest. We had been warned about that. The road which led from the town to the schloss had been cut through it and on either side the tall pines rose to the sky. The trees grew less densely on the edges of the forest. Kurt had taken us deeper into it, but he had warned us always to keep close to the road so that if we could not see it we were aware of it.

  So we continued to walk on the fringe.

  We sat down on a log. I tried to talk of other things but Dorabella was absentminded. I knew this mood. Fortunately it would not last long. Her moods never did. She had been a little disappointed by the lack of admiring young men during this holiday. Helmut was too concerned with the running of the schloss to have given her the attention she looked for; and I gathered he was not good looking enough to appeal to her. The Cornishman Dermot Tregarland had been just right. He had appeared by magic right near the end of the holiday and that seemed to be the end of him. Poor Dorabella!

  I said it was getting chilly and we should return to the schloss.

  She agreed and we started to walk back the way we had come and then…suddenly, I began to be alarmed. We had not noticed how thick the mist had become. We should have remembered that it could come down qui
ckly. We had been told often enough. Not that we could really say this was so sudden. It had been hanging about all day. And now…here it was and nothing looked the same.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s get out of this quickly.”

  But it was not easy. I had thought to see the road, but all I could discern were the trunks of nearby trees, their branches swathed in mist.

  I took Dorabella’s arm.

  “It’s what they warned us about,” I said. “How silly of us.”

  She was silent.

  I went on: “We can’t be far from the road. We must find it. I am sure this is the way.”

  But was it? Wherever I looked, I could see very little. The mist was everywhere. I began to feel very alarmed. But I did not want Dorabella to see how much. The instinct to protect Dorabella was with me as strong as it used to be in our childhood.

  She turned to me as she always did, and I was gratified to see that she still had that childlike confidence in me.

  I felt very tender toward her.

  “We’ll soon be out of this,” I said. “We shouldn’t have come into the forest, of course, after what they have told us.”

  She nodded. I grasped her hand firmly and said: “Come on.”

  We walked on. It might have been for ten minutes but it seemed like an hour. I was beginning to get very uneasy. The forest had taken on that Grimm-like quality. The trunks of the trees seemed to form themselves into grotesque faces which leered at me. The bracken caught at our ankles like tentacles trying to hold us back.

  I glanced at Dorabella. She did not have these fancies.

  I had a terrible fear that instead of going out of the forest we were getting deeper and deeper in. As the thought struck me I drew up sharply.

  “What is it?” asked Dorabella.

  I said: “I am wondering if we should wait here…until the mist lifts.”

  “What! Here! That could be all night.”

  She was right. But how could we know whether we were getting deeper and deeper into the forest? What idiots we had been to come in the first place! It was not as though we had not seen that there was mist in the air.

  I felt exasperated—more so because I was becoming more and more alarmed.

  And this had all come about because of that young man in the town. If I had not been so concerned about Dorabella’s disappointment I should have insisted that it was foolish to walk into the forest on such a day. Everything that had happened was because of that young man. We might have been safe with Kurt and Edward.

  Then I thought of the consternation there would be at the schloss when we did not return. So what should we do? Stay where we were and wait? Or go on and perhaps deeper into the forest?

  Despair settled on me—and then I thought I heard someone not so very far off.

  I shouted: “Help! Is anyone there?”

  We stood in silence, listening.

  To our great relief there was a reply. And in English.

  “Yes…where are you?”

  I was aware first of Dorabella’s face. It was bright with excitement. She recognized the voice, as I had. It was that of Dermot Tregarland.

  “We’re lost,” I shouted.

  “I’ll find you. Go on calling.”

  Both Dorabella and I called: “Here! Here!”

  “I’m getting nearer…” came the response.

  Now he seemed very close and we shouted at the tops of our voices: “Here…here.”

  With what joy we saw him looming out of the mist.

  “Oh,” cried Dorabella. “How wonderful! We were quite scared.”

  He was grinning. “I was hoping to find you,” he said. “I saw you turn into the forest.”

  “Where were you?”

  “I came for coffee. I hoped you’d be there. The waiter told me you had just gone. Then I saw you down the road. I watched you go into the forest and I hurried down to catch you up. If I couldn’t, I decided I would have a beer in the schloss and await your return.”

  Dorabella was overcome with delight and wonder. It had all turned out right after all.

  Dermot Tregarland took charge.

  “This devilish mist!” he said. “It is a shocker, don’t you agree? One doesn’t know which way to turn. We’d better get out of here fast. It could get worse as night comes on. I know the way I came and I’m fairly good at finding my way around. There was a gnarled old tree I passed…struck by lightning, I imagine…I guess when we find that we’ll be on the right road. There is a small one growing nearby. So…Excelsior!”

  Dorabella giggled. The nightmare had turned into a thrilling adventure because our perfect, gentle knight had arrived to rescue us. This alone would make the holiday worthwhile and, to tell the truth, before, for Dorabella, it had been a trifle disappointing.

  He was indeed all he had implied. He led us with the minimum of difficulty to the stricken tree. He shouted with triumph.

  “We’re on the way.” Then he found the small tree to which he had referred. And there we were on the road.

  Dorabella flung her arms round me and, looking over my shoulder at him, cried: “You’re wonderful.”

  “I think we need something to warm us up,” he said. “What about a glass of wine—or are you tempted by their really excellent beer?”

  Frau Brandt was at the door of the schloss looking anxiously along the road.

  She said: “The mist had come up rather quickly, as it often does at this time of the year. I was beginning to think it was time you were back.”

  Dorabella explained that we were lost in the forest and Mr. Tregarland had brought us out.

  “Ach!” cried Frau Brandt, and broke into a stream of German which, we realized, expressed relief. She went on about the ease with which people could be lost in the forest and had to remain there until the mist cleared.

  She hustled us into the schloss. It was not weather for loitering in the Beer Garden. What refreshments would we like?

  We said we would like a glass of wine…a sort of aperitif. So wine was brought and we sat together—Dorabella in a state of extreme contentment. I thought to myself, I believe she is falling in love with this young man, or perhaps trying to convince herself that she is. And he? He was charming, and it was clearly Dorabella who had his attention. She was the sort of girl who changed in the society of men. If she were depressed, this could be completely dispersed by masculine appreciation. She sparkled; she was at her most enchanting best. I suppose there were occasions when I might have felt a little jealous, but I did not now. For one thing, I took her superior feminine charms for granted; and so far I had never felt any desire for the attention of those men who attracted her.

  I liked this young man. He was certainly charming, but that was all. Dorabella was inclined to let her emotions flow too easily. I was always afraid that she would—as she had once or twice in the past—have to face some disappointment.

  Dermot lifted his glass and said: “To our safe return from the dangers of the forest.”

  Dorabella touched her glass with his and they smiled at each other.

  “How lucky for us that you saw us,” said Dorabella.

  “It was more due to design than luck,” he assured her. “I was so sorry to have missed you. I was so certain that I would find you sitting there sipping your coffee. I was so grateful to the waiter for telling me you had only just left. Then I dashed off and saw you turning into the forest. It occurred to me that it might be misty there. Indeed, it did seem to be getting worse every moment.”

  “So you came to rescue us,” said Dorabella. “It was truly marvelous, the way you brought us out.”

  They smiled at each other again.

  “The English have to stick together when on alien soil…even if some of them are only Cornish.”

  Dorabella laughed at everything he said, as though she found it the height of wit. I would tell her when we were alone that she must not be so blatantly adoring.

  Then we started to talk about ourselves. We told
him who Edward was and how our mother had brought him out of France at the beginning of the war.

  He was very interested. “And Edward is the good big brother to you.”

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “He is wonderful to us, always feels he has to look after us.”

  “He does not forbid you to wander in the misty forest?”

  “He will be furious with us for having done so,” said Dorabella. “But he has gone off for the day with his friend Kurt—the son of the Brandts. They have known each other for some little time. That is why we are here.”

  He said he hoped to meet Edward.

  He told us something about his house in Cornwall. It had been in the Tregarland family for hundreds of years. In fact it was called “Tregarland’s.” It was built of gray stone; it faced the sea and received the full blast of the southwest gales. But it had stood up to them for centuries and it seemed would continue doing so. It had towers at either end and its gardens sloped right down to a beach which belonged to the house but there was a “right of way” through it; otherwise people walking along the shore would have to climb the cliff and go round the house and descend again if they wished to continue along the beach.

  “Not many people come that way. In the summer there might be a few visitors, but that is usually all.”

  “Do you have any family?” I asked.

  “My father is an invalid. My mother died when I was very young. That is really all the family. There is Gordon Lewyth—he is like a member of the family. He looks after the estate. He’s a wonderful manager. Then there is his mother who runs the house. She isn’t exactly a housekeeper. She’s a distant connection of the family, I believe…all rather vague. She came to us when my mother died and has run the house ever since. That must be about twenty-three years ago. It has worked out very well.”

  “And there you are with your father your only family, really,” said Dorabella.

  “Yes, but as I say, Gordon Lewyth and his mother are really like family.”

  “It sounds interesting,” said Dorabella.

  “And what do you do?” I asked.

  “There is a Tregarland estate. Farms and so on. They are let out to tenant farmers and we have an interest in them. Then there is the home farm. I help in the management, although Gordon is more involved than I am. There’s a lot to do on an estate, you know.”