by David Fraser
Frido thought of his last meeting with them, of Bargate. Anthony had shaken his hand and looked into his face with what was, he knew, real affection, although, with the English, one could never be absolutely sure. And Marcia – his mind’s eye saw Marcia’s flushed face in the billiard room, the glinting eyes of that unpleasant, ill-mannered Deputy, the uncle, Herr Paterson, clearly a man of disgusting morals. He remembered Marcia’s broken shoulder-strap, her bare shoulders, her dishevelment. How lovely she had looked! Had she led that old lecher on? Had she meant it when she had said goodbye to Frido, had pressed his hand, held his eyes with hers and said, ‘I can’t wait until the spring, until our visit to your home, Frido’? But with English girls, too, thought Frido sadly, perhaps one could never be sure.
He heard his name called –
‘Frido, Frido!’
It was Lise. Good heavens, had they come? It was past five thirty. He started to run towards the house. Lise appeared at the iron gate which connected the wood with the vegetable and fruit garden, fenced against deer and hare, which lay behind the house itself. He could see her, but two hundred metres separated them and he couldn’t make out what she was calling.
There was no formal flower garden, nor lawns at Arzfeld. All appeared practical, functional, part of a way of life deeply rooted in the soil, of a culture untouched except lightly by the decoration, the elegant artificiality of the eighteenth century. The house was large and plain. It looked both farm and manor. Arzfeld had beauty, but beauty in which man’s work was so harmonious with nature as almost to seem part of it. The deep red of those brick walls which were not whitewashed, the darker red of the tiles, the faded, peeling yellow paint on the shutters were all colours whose tones blended perfectly with the varied greens and browns in Arzfeld’s background of tree and meadow. House, stable, farmsteading, extensive barns, dusty cart road running to the courtyard before the main entrance – all seemed as if they had been in place for ever, interlocking parts of a whole dedicated to the management of animals, crops, timber; inseparable from husbandry and the land. The atmosphere of the place was, the Marvells later decided, mediaeval. The word was expressive but inexact. Certainly, Arzfeld could be imagined at any time in German history, backdrop to any scene of peasant serfs, armoured landsknechte, wandering friars. But the house in its present form had been chiefly built in 1555. The von Arzfeld of those days had been touched by the inspiration of Luther. He had devotedly supported his lord in the league of Protestant princes, and an imaginative eye might deduce the fact from his building. The place was lovely but austere.
Lise was shouting something about a telephone. It seldom rang at Arzfeld.
‘Who, Lise?’ Frido shouted back. ‘The Marvells, yes, but from where? Where are they?’
But it was not the Marvells.
‘Werner has telephoned. He is arriving here this evening. He has seven days’ leave, unexpectedly. Wonderful!’
Lise’s eyes shone. She adored both her brothers but Werner, now twenty-five, and Frido’s senior by several years, was her idol. Infrequently at home, Werner’s value was enhanced by rarity. He was an officer in the Army. His cadet training had been cut short because German military expansion had led to an urgent demand for more young officers. Werner had thus been a lieutenant for nearly four years. He was stationed in a small garrison town in Bavaria, between Munich and Garmisch.
‘When does Werner come, then?’
Today. By train. I’ve asked Franz to fetch him from the station. He’ll be here for supper.’ Most trains stopped at the small town on the railway only three miles from Arzfeld. Franz, elderly farm bailiff, drove a horse and trap, and picked up the infrequent visitors. Frido demurred.
‘I can go in the car.’ It was Frido’s proudest possession.
‘I thought perhaps – the Marvells –’
Frido agreed. Best see how the evening went, at what hour Anthony and Marcia would arrive. The plan could always be changed. And Franz covered the distance to the station remarkably quickly.
‘Did you tell Werner we are to have visitors?’
‘Of course. Friends of yours. He was surprised.’
‘I hope he wasn’t upset.’
‘No, I’m sure he wasn’t.’ But Lise was not really sure. Werner must have wanted his family, his home, peace, no strangers. He’d not been to Arzfeld for months and months.
‘Just as well,’ said Frido, ‘I know he’ll like them very much.’ He loved his brother. Werner’s visits were occasions of joy. But now he felt a touch of cool at the heart, he could not say why.
He smiled at Lise and thought how attractive she was. They were all dark complexioned, with smooth, olive skin. In Lise’s case this was unusually combined with fair hair, silkily framing a face of exceptional prettiness, with brown eyes and a small, tilted nose.
‘Perhaps Anthony will fall in love with Lise,’ he thought. ‘That might be symmetrical. Symmetrical but difficult.’ Then he thought of Marcia again. Of recent days he had thought of little else.
They walked together toward the house. By a side door a tall figure was standing. Grey breeches, black riding boots; left sleeve of a green collared jacket tucked into a pocket, pinned there, as all knew. Face lean and lined, high cheekbones, thin mouth, a permanent limp since 1917. Kaspar von Arzfeld stood very still.
‘You have heard that Werner’s coming? We can hear about this Army of ours! And I want to speak to him of next season’s planting plans. I have spoken of them to you, Frido. Not to Werner. It should be done.’
‘Exactly so, father.’
‘He will be here for supper. Perhaps we shall eat late this evening. Is that not so, Lise?’
‘Yes, exactly, father.’
‘At what time will the English family arrive?’
‘It is not certain. They are coming by car.’
But at that moment Kaspar von Arzfeld cocked his head and said, ‘I think I hear something.’
The clock in the stable block struck six. Two minutes later, Anthony’s Morris came into sight round a corner of the wood, followed by a cloud of dust.
Anthony Marvell looked thoughtfully from his host to Werner von Arzfeld, the elder son. Anthony’s German had improved in the last few days. He and Marcia shared a facility for languages, and enjoyed them. Despite a childhood almost entirely free from foreign travel, both were competent in French and German, the work of governesses at an early age, farsightedly employed by Hilda against the protests of the young. Their fluency owed little to formal schooling. Now Anthony felt at ease, anticipating with pleasure practice and conversation in an entirely German household. He was already talking much faster – more like his pace in English.
Kaspar von Arzfeld, however, insisted on speaking a slow, careful English. His vocabulary was sound, his grammar excellent, his grasp of pronunciation imperfect. He, too, had looked forward to a chance to practise again a tongue learned in youth at which he had once been unusually proficient.
‘I was determined, Herr Marvell, that my sons should learn both French and English. Does Frido speak correctly?’
They had supped in a low-ceilinged, white-painted room, with heavy oak furniture and antlers of many stags adorning the walls. Now they sat before a huge open fire in the central hall of Arzfeld, a room not dissimilar from and serving the same purpose as the inner hall at Bargate. Chairs were more upright, but had the same comfortable shabbiness. On a long refectory table was a flat, circular bottle containing a white wine from the banks of the Main. It was new to the Marvells, a post-prandial drink, delicious.
‘Frido speaks English very well indeed. Perfectly!’
‘Ach! Perfectly!’ Werner von Arzfeld said it softly, with a smile. His expression was both sardonic and affectionate. ‘How superb looking he is!’ thought Marcia. ‘Like Frido, but every feature stronger, more definite. Harder.’ Werner had said little at table. He had held a long conversation with his father before they had gone to supper, murmuring apart while Frido and Lise chatted to the Marv
ells. At supper Kaspar had spoken knowledgeably about the state of agriculture in Europe, and the problems of forestry. Now and then the conversation had taken a turn leading, it seemed, to a dead end unless some essentially political issue were at least to receive acknowledgement. At such moments Kaspar pursed his lips and opened another line of talk.
Anthony was determined to extract from his host some comment, however neutral, on the European scene. The older man could not be drawn. Werner at times shot at Anthony a look with a sly smile behind the eyes. ‘I know what you’re after,’ he seemed to be saying, ‘but you won’t get this old one to say much.’
Lise spoke little, now that conversation was general, but sat with a slight smile on her gentle rather submissive face. The atmosphere at Arzfeld was essentially, almost brutally, masculine. The long widowerhood of Kaspar contributed to this, but it went deeper, had persisted far longer. This was a house for the forester, the huntsman, the warrior, a place of horns and saddles and armed men.
Kaspar drew on his cigar.
‘Herr Marvell, there is a famous English poet, Andrew Marvell. You are of the same family?’
The question was not uncommon.
‘I believe we may come from the same origins, yes. My father says there is a connection. But we are not descended from him.’
Kaspar had prepared himself.
‘And now the Irish are ashamed
To see themselves in one year tamed –’
He stopped suddenly, appalled. Was it not, perhaps, dangerous, delicate, insufferable manners, to speak of the Irish to this young Englishman? Was Ireland not still a rebellious province? He simply could not remember how matters stood, but felt that his choice of quotation had been boorish, inept. To his relief, however, Anthony completed the verse –
‘So much one man can do
That does both act and know.’
He stuttered slightly, as always when quoting.
Kaspar smiled at him gratefully. ‘Ode to the Lord Protector,’ he said. ‘To your Cromwell, eh?’
Werner von Arzfeld spoke English well, though less practised than his brother, ‘Ach! What was that again? So much –’
‘So much one man can do
That does both act and know!’
‘It is good that,’ said Werner, ‘and true, I think. Those that act, that perform deeds are often without wisdom. And those that know and are wise, too often think and talk and do nothing. Is that not so?’
Marcia had been sitting on a sofa exchanging in a soft voice desultory, smiling remarks with Lise. Lise had acknowledged them with answering smiles, but briefly and with an anxious eye for her father and brothers. It did not seem entirely appropriate to conduct a feminine tête-à-tête in the presence of so much masculine, worldly understanding from which, surely, one should learn. Marcia had, at the same time, been particularly conscious of Werner. She thought it about time that her voice, too, should be heard by the men and she now responded to Werner’s general question.
‘Perhaps people that know do nothing because they’re wise. What’s so clever about action?’
Frido looked disconcerted. Werner smiled.
‘You are a soldier,’ said Marcia directly to Werner. ‘I suppose you’re brought up, trained to think that doing is the important thing. Not meditating!’
‘I was also brought up to think that action, unless directed by a well-trained, objective mind is likely to be disastrous!’
‘We’re some way from Cromwell,’ said Anthony. He felt liberated from excessive constraint by the delightful wine and he was determined to use the evening, the presence of a German officer, for contemporary probing rather than philosophic word-play. Germans, he said to himself a little hazily, go in for heavy generalizations, so I’ve heard. Real issues have to be measured by particular examples.
‘C-Cromwell,’ said Anthony, as they listened attentively, ‘had Marvell writing an ode in his praise. He may have tamed the Irish in a year, as the poet put it, but it didn’t last and they hate his name to this day. He treated the Irish, when he caught or beat them, as being outside the pale of ordinary humanity. Men, women and children.’
There was a silence. Kaspar von Arzfeld said,
‘Religious questions bring great savagery. That happened in the seventeenth century. You had your Cromwell. In Germany, we had war for thirty years. Men come to believe that their enemies are less than human, accursed by God. Then every cruel action becomes – permitted.’
Anthony felt a bond of sympathy with this old countryman with one arm, so unpretentious, so grave and so sincere. He experienced a sense of barriers coming down. It must be a time for frankness. Friendly frankness.
‘Indeed, that was so in the seventeenth century, as you say, Herr von Arzfeld. And what about now?’
‘Now? I do not think Catholics and Protestants wish to kill each other now! Here in this valley,’ said Kaspar with a smile, ‘it is true that Catholics tend to live on one bank of the river and we Protestants on the other! We do not, perhaps, make our friends very much among people of the other Church. But we do not think them accursed! We live happy together now, we are all Germans, these things are long past.’
‘I was with Marcia in Herzenburg this morning,’ said Anthony, ‘in Franconia.’
His host nodded.
‘Herzenburg. A pretty place,’ said Werner.
‘A beautiful place. Marcia and I were very – very surprised, to see the number of placards violently hostile to Jews: “Jews not welcome.” Is that the policy of your Government? Are Jews regarded as Germans with the rights of Germans – officially?’
There was a long silence.
‘It is a complicated matter,’ said Kaspar steadily. None of his children looked at their father. ‘Yes, it is complicated,’ he continued. ‘There has been much feeling against the Jews in some places. Generally for economic reasons, I think. Of course, there are also historic prejudices – in most parts of Europe, I believe. Perhaps less in Germany than elsewhere, like Poland, Russia. Herzenburg is an ancient, mediaeval town, your guidebook will have told you. Perhaps it has, also, some ancient mediaeval habits of mind.’
‘Surely what we saw wasn’t just the expression of individuals’ dislike? And there was some sort of official celebration. Nazis in uniform everywhere.’
Von Arzfeld nodded, expressionless. Werner looked at Anthony with the same silent smile in his eyes. ‘You’ve not got far, have you!’ he thought. The men puffed at their cigars. Anthony frowned.
‘How long leave have you, Werner?’ asked his father.
‘One whole week of peace. Arzfeld in the spring. And I hardly saw it last year.’
‘I hope,’ said Kaspar seriously to Anthony, ‘that your sister and you will stay here as long as you wish. Frido does not return to Marburg at all. He will start his military service in June. You have heard that my son, Werner here, has a holiday. It will be good for Lise that you are with us.’
‘You’re very kind, sir.’
‘This is a beautiful part of Germany, especially in the spring. Our beech woods are famous. And you have a fine car. So does Frido. You can visit, if you wish, some of our Lower Saxon villages and towns. There is much to see.’
‘We must not stay too long. You’re too kind –’
‘It is a pleasure for us. Frido and Lise see few people when they are in their old home. It is a pleasure for us.’
Lise smiled at Marcia and nodded as her father spoke. She took Marcia’s hand.
‘It is as my father says. There is much to see. Here it is always quiet. Not dull, but quiet. Here there is always peace.’
Chapter 4
‘You like to ride horses, Marcia?’
‘Yes, Werner, I love it. I’m not very brave but I love it.’
‘I know that already. I could see how it was when we were in the stables with the horses on Tuesday. I watched you and Lise. You love them. This morning we will ride. I will show you some parts of the countryside you have not seen.’
/> ‘How lovely. Anthony’s never been as keen as me, but I expect he’ll –’
‘Anthony is taking Frido and Lise on a long expedition. They are going to Celle. It is a town north of Hanover. It was where the “Kurfürsten” had their palace. Later, they were your kings.’
‘Oh, is it pretty?’
‘Very beautiful. But the woods here are more beautiful still. And the day is warm, extraordinarily warm. The sky is blue. It is better to ride on a horse and smell the smells of outside than the petrol from Anthony’s car, is it not? We will take something to eat in a bag with us.’
‘Your father –’
‘My father has business.’
‘I’ve not got anything to ride in –’
‘Lise will lend to you. You and she are the same size, I think. I have spoken to her.’
Marcia thought she had never experienced such a degree of tranquillity. The silence in the woods was like a piece of music. They had climbed some way. Now they rode between huge beeches, planted regularly but without oppressive symmetry. They trotted along broad, grassy rides, the spring sun striking through the trees to produce alternate patches of shadow and light. The woods hung from a steep hill whose contour their horses followed, a hill crowned to the east by the broken rolling country in which Arzfeld lay. West, and now far below them, the river Weser flowed quietly northward in the valley, silver and serpentine.
Marcia felt very happy. All about her pleased the eye. Arzfeld, in the five days she and Anthony had spent there, had enfolded her in a friendly yet disciplined calm. She had, to her surprise, found herself enjoying the emphasis on regularity and simplicity – the sense of harmony between her host’s family, their employees and their possessions. She felt witness to an unbroken rustic process. The link that bound these people to their home was primitive and potent. Marcia was seeing all things through a joyful haze. She was well aware why. Werner kicked his horse to a canter and she followed.
The evening before had been fine and promised the perfect April day which they now enjoyed. After supper Lise had sat at the piano with a shy, secret smile. After a little – the notes falling on the air, gentle, unassertive, she said something to Frido who had been humming softly.
