Fall of Giants (The Century Trilogy)

by Ken Follett

  There was a long moment of stunned silence.

  Da looked at Mam. "Get Ethel out of here," he said.

  Ethel stood up. "My case is packed and I've got some money. I'll get the train to London." She looked hard at her father. "I won't drag the family into the gutter."

  Billy picked up her suitcase.

  Da said: "Where are you going to, boy?"

  "I'll walk her to the station," Billy said, looking frightened.

  "Let her carry her own case."

  Billy stooped to put it down, then changed his mind. An obstinate look came over his face. "I'll walk her to the station," he repeated.

  "You'll do what you're told!" Da shouted.

  Billy still looked scared, but now he was defiant too. "What are you going to do, Da--throw me out of the house and all?"

  "I'll put you across my knee and thrash you," Da said. "You're not too old."

  Billy was white-faced, but he looked Da in the eye. "Yes, I am," he said. "I am too old." He shifted the case to his left hand and clenched his right fist.

  Da took a step forward. "I'll teach you to make a fist at me, boy."

  "No!" Mam screamed. She stood between them and pushed at Da's chest. "That's enough! I will not have a fight in my kitchen." She pointed her finger at Da's face. "David Williams, you keep your hands to yourself. Remember that you're an elder of Bethesda Chapel. What would people think?"

  That calmed him.

  Mam turned to Ethel. "You'd better go. Billy will go with you. Quick, now."

  Da sat down at the table.

  Ethel kissed her mother. "Good-bye, Mam."

  "Write me a letter," Mam said.

  Da said: "Don't you dare write to anyone in this house! The letters will be burned unopened!"

  Mam turned away, weeping. Ethel went out and Billy followed.

  They walked down the steep streets to the town center. Ethel kept her eyes on the ground, not wanting to speak to people she knew and be asked where she was off to.

  At the station she bought a ticket to Paddington.

  "Well," said Billy, as they stood on the platform, "two shocks in one day. First you, then Da."

  "He have kept that bottled up inside him all these years," Ethel said. "No wonder he's so strict. I can almost forgive him for throwing me out."

  "I can't," said Billy. "Our faith is about redemption and mercy, not about bottling things up and punishing people."

  A train from Cardiff came in, and Ethel saw Walter von Ulrich get off. He touched his hat to her, which was nice of him: gentlemen did not do that to servants, normally. Lady Maud had said she had thrown him over. Perhaps he had come to win her back. She silently wished him luck.

  "Do you want me to buy you a newspaper?" Billy said.

  "No, thank you, my lovely," she said. "I don't think I could concentrate on it."

  Waiting for her train she said: "Do you remember our code?" In childhood they had devised a simple way to write notes that their parents could not understand.

  For a moment Billy looked puzzled, then his face cleared. "Oh, aye."

  "I'll write to you in code, so Da can't read it."

  "Right," he said. "And send the letter via Tommy Griffiths."

  The train puffed into the station in clouds of steam. Billy hugged Ethel. She could see he was trying not to cry.

  "Look after yourself," she said. "And take care of our mam."

  "Aye," he said, and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. "We'll be all right. You be careful up there in London, now."

  "I will."

  Ethel boarded the train and sat by the window. A minute later it pulled out. As it picked up speed, she watched the pithead winding gear recede into the distance, and wondered if she would ever see Aberowen again.

  { V }

  Maud had breakfast late with Princess Bea in the small dining room at Ty Gwyn. The princess was in high spirits. Normally she complained a lot about living in Britain--although Maud recalled, from her time as a child in the British embassy, that life in Russia was much more uncomfortable: the houses cold, the people surly, services unreliable, and government disorganized. But Bea had no complaints today. She was happy that she had at last conceived.

  She even spoke generously of Fitz. "He saved my family, you know," she said to Maud. "He paid off the mortgages on our estate. But until now there has been no one to inherit it--my brother has no children. It would seem such a tragedy if all Andrei's land and Fitz's went to some distant cousin."

  Maud could not see this as a tragedy. The distant cousin in question might well be a son of hers. But she had never expected to inherit a fortune and she gave little thought to such things.

  Maud was not good company this morning, she realized as she drank coffee and toyed with toast. In fact she was miserable. She felt oppressed by the wallpaper, a Victorian riot of foliage that covered the ceiling as well as the walls, even though she had lived with it all her life.

  She had not told her family about her romance with Walter, so now she could not tell them that it was over, and that meant she had no one to sympathize with her. Only the sparky little housekeeper, Williams, knew the story, and she seemed to have disappeared.

  Maud read The Times's report of Lloyd George's speech last night at the Mansion House dinner. He had been optimistic about the Balkan crisis, saying it could be resolved peacefully. She hoped he was right. Even though she had given Walter up, she was still horrified by the thought that he might have to put on a uniform and be killed or maimed in a war.

  She read a short report in The Times datelined Vienna and headed THE SERVIAN SCARE. She asked Bea if Russia would defend Serbia against the Austrians. "I hope not!" Bea said, alarmed. "I don't want my brother to go to war."

  They were in the small dining room. Maud could remember having breakfast here with Fitz and Walter in the school holidays, when she was twelve and they were seventeen. The boys had had enormous appetites, she recalled, consuming eggs and sausages and great piles of buttered toast every morning before going off to ride horses or swim in the lake. Walter had been such a glamorous figure, handsome and foreign. He had treated her as courteously as if she were his age, which was flattering to a young girl--and, she could now see, a subtle way of flirting.

  While she was reminiscing the butler, Peel, came in and shocked her by saying to Bea: "Herr von Ulrich is here, Your Highness."

  Walter could not possibly be here, Maud thought bewilderedly. Could it be Robert? Equally unlikely.

  A moment later, Walter walked in.

  Maud was too stupefied to speak. Bea said: "What a pleasant surprise, Herr von Ulrich."

  Walter was wearing a lightweight summer suit of pale blue-gray tweed. His blue satin tie was the same color as his eyes. Maud wished she had put on something other than the plain cream-colored peg-top dress that had seemed perfectly adequate for breakfast with her sister-in-law.

  "Forgive this intrusion, Princess," Walter said to Bea. "I had to visit our consulate in Cardiff--a tiresome business about German sailors who got into trouble with the local police."

  That was rubbish. Walter was a military attache: his job did not involve getting sailors out of jail.

  "Good morning, Lady Maud," he said, shaking her hand. "What a delightful surprise to find you here."

  More rubbish, she thought. He was here to see her. She had left London so that he could not badger her, but deep in her heart she could not help being pleased by his persistence in following her all this way. Flustered, she just said: "Hello, how are you?"

  Bea said: "Do have some coffee, Herr von Ulrich. The earl is out riding, but he'll be back soon." She naturally assumed Walter was there to see Fitz.

  "How kind you are." Walter sat down.

  "Will you stay for lunch?"

  "I would love to. Then I must catch a train back to London."

  Bea stood up. "I should speak to the cook."

  Walter jumped to his feet and pulled out her chair.

  "Talk to Lady Maud," Bea said a
s she left the room. "Cheer her up. She's worried about the international situation."

  Walter raised his eyebrows at the note of mockery in Bea's voice. "All sensible people are worried about the international situation," he said.

  Maud felt awkward. Desperate for something to say, she pointed to The Times. "Do you think it's true that Serbia has called up seventy thousand reservists?"

  "I doubt if they have seventy thousand reservists," Walter said gravely. "But they are trying to raise the stakes. They hope that the danger of a wider war will make Austria cautious."

  "Why is it taking the Austrians so long to send their demands to the Serbian government?"

  "Officially, they want to get the harvest in before doing anything which might require them to call men to the army. Unofficially, they know that the president of France and his foreign minister happen to be in Russia, which makes it dangerously easy for the two allies to agree on a concerted response. There will be no Austrian note until President Poincare leaves St. Petersburg."

  He was such a clear thinker, Maud reflected. She loved that about him.

  His reserve failed him suddenly. His mask of formal courtesy fell away, and his face looked anguished. Abruptly, he said: "Please come back to me."

  She opened her mouth to speak, but her throat seemed choked with emotion, and no words came out.

  He said miserably: "I know you threw me over for my own sake, but it won't work. I love you too much."

  Maud found words. "But your father . . . "

  "He must work out his own destiny. I cannot obey him, not in this." His voice sank to a whisper. "I cannot bear to lose you."

  "He might be right: perhaps a German diplomat can't have an English wife, at least not now."

  "Then I'll follow another career. But I could never find another you."

  Her resolve melted and her eyes flooded.

  He reached across the table and took her hand. "May I speak to your brother?"

  She bunched up her white linen napkin and blotted her tears. "Don't talk to Fitz yet," she said. "Wait a few days, until the Serbian crisis blows over."

  "That may take more than a few days."

  "In that case, we'll think again."

  "I shall do as you wish, of course."

  "I love you, Walter. Whatever happens, I want to be your wife."

  He kissed her hand. "Thank you," he said solemnly. "You have made me very happy."

  { VI }

  A strained silence descended on the house in Wellington Row. Mam made dinner, and Da and Billy and Gramper ate it, but no one said much. Billy was eaten up with a rage he could not express. In the afternoon he climbed the mountainside and walked for miles on his own.

  Next morning he found his mind returning again and again to the story of Jesus and the woman taken in adultery. Sitting in the kitchen in his Sunday clothes, waiting to go with his parents and Gramper to the Bethesda Chapel for the service of the breaking of bread, he opened his Bible at the Gospel According to John and found chapter 8. He read the story over and over. It seemed to be about exactly the kind of crisis that had struck his family.

  He continued to think of it in chapel. He looked around the room at his friends and neighbors: Mrs. Dai Ponies, John Jones the Shop, Mrs. Ponti and her two big sons, Suet Hewitt . . . They all knew that Ethel had left Ty Gwyn yesterday and bought a train ticket to Paddington; and although they did not know why, they could guess. In their minds, they were already judging her. But Jesus was not.

  During the hymns and extempore prayers, he decided that the Holy Spirit was leading him to read those verses out. Toward the end of the hour he stood up and opened his Bible.

  There was a little murmur of surprise. He was a bit young to be leading the congregation. Still, there was no age limit: the Holy Spirit could move anyone.

  "A few verses from John's Gospel," he said. There was a slight shake in his voice, and he tried to steady it.

  "'They say unto him: Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.'"

  Bethesda Chapel went suddenly quiet: no one fidgeted, whispered, or coughed.

  Billy read on: "'Now Moses in the Law commanded us that such should be stoned, but what sayest thou? This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as if he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted himself up, and said unto them--'"

  Here Billy paused and looked up.

  With careful emphasis he said: "'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.'"

  Every face in the room stared back at him. No one moved.

  Billy resumed: "'And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lifted himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her: Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? She said: No man, Lord.'"

  Billy looked up from the book. He did not need to read the last verse: he knew it by heart. He looked at his father's stony face and spoke very slowly. "'And Jesus said unto her: Neither do I condemn thee. Go, and sin no more.'"

  After a long moment he closed the Bible with a clap that sounded like thunder in the silence. "This is the Word of God," he said.

  He did not sit down. Instead he walked to the exit. The congregation stared, rapt. He opened the big wooden door and walked out.

  He never went back.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Late July 1914

  Walter von Ulrich could not play ragtime.

  He could play the tunes, which were simple. He could play the distinctive chords, which often used the interval of the flatted seventh. And he could play both together--but it did not sound like ragtime. The rhythm eluded him. His effort was more like something you might hear from a band in a Berlin park. For one who could play Beethoven sonatas effortlessly, this was frustrating.

  Maud had tried to teach him, that Saturday morning at Ty Gwyn, at the upright Bechstein among the potted palms in the small drawing room, with the summer sun coming through the tall windows. They had sat hip to hip on the piano stool, their arms interlaced, and Maud had laughed at his efforts. It had been a moment of golden happiness.

  His mood had darkened when she explained how his father had talked her into breaking with Walter. If he had seen his father on the evening when he returned to London, there would have been an explosion. But Otto had left for Vienna, and Walter had had to swallow his rage. He had not seen his father since.

  He had agreed to Maud's proposal that they should keep their engagement secret until the Balkan crisis was over. It was still going on, though things had calmed down. Almost four weeks had passed since the assassination in Sarajevo, but the Austrian emperor still had not sent to the Serbians the note he had been mulling so long. The delay encouraged Walter to hope that tempers had cooled and moderate counsels had prevailed in Vienna.

  Sitting at the baby grand piano in the compact drawing room of his bachelor flat in Piccadilly, he reflected that there was much the Austrians could do, short of war, to punish Serbia and soothe their wounded pride. For example, they could force the Serbian government to close anti-Austrian newspapers, and purge nationalists from the Serbian army and civil service. The Serbians could submit to that: it would be humiliating, but better than a war they could not win.

  Then the leaders of the great European countries could relax and concentrate on their domestic problems. The Russians could crush their general strike, the English could pacify the mutinous Irish Protestants, and the French could enjoy the murder trial of Madame Caillaux, who had shot the editor of Le Figaro for printing her husband's love letters.

  And Walter could marry Maud.

  That was his focus now. The more he thought about the difficulties, the more determined he became to overcome them. Having looked, for a few day
s, at the joyless prospect of life without her, he was even more sure that he wanted to marry her, regardless of the price they might both have to pay. As he avidly followed the diplomatic game being played on the chessboard of Europe, he scrutinized every move to assess its effect first on him and Maud, and only second on Germany and the world.

  He was going to see her tonight, at dinner and at the Duchess of Sussex's ball. He was already dressed in white tie and tails. It was time to leave. But as he closed the lid of the piano the doorbell rang, and his manservant announced Count Robert von Ulrich.

  Robert looked surly. It was a familiar expression. Robert had been a troubled and unhappy young man when they were students together in Vienna. His feelings drew him irresistibly toward a group whom he had been brought up to regard as decadent. Then, when he came home after an evening with men like himself, he wore that look, guilty but defiant. In time he had discovered that homosexuality, like adultery, was officially condemned but--in sophisticated circles, at least--unofficially tolerated; and he had become reconciled to who he was. Today he wore that face for some other reason.

  "I've just seen the text of the emperor's note," Robert said immediately.

  Walter's heart leaped in hope. This might be the peaceful resolution he was waiting for. "What does it say?"

  Robert handed him a sheet of paper. "I copied out the main part."

  "Has it been delivered to the Serbian government?"

  "Yes, at six o'clock Belgrade time."

  There were ten demands. The first three followed the lines Walter had anticipated, he saw with relief: Serbia had to suppress liberal newspapers, break up the secret society called the Black Hand, and clamp down on nationalist propaganda. Perhaps the moderates in Vienna had won the argument after all, he thought gratefully.