by David Fraser
Anthony’s mind went back to ‘the contact’. He could not erase the image of Anna from his mind and he wanted her all the time – absolutely, he decided with many a frustrated groan, all the bloody time. He saw her face everywhere.
‘And what joy it brought us! With you I find warmth and ease and laughter. Of course to be your lover, your mistress (and I am proud of it) is to act a lie most of my life. With the most important part of me I am thinking of Anthony, wanting him, feeling I am part of him. The rest is mechanical – Langenbach, family, possessions. But these things are strong.’
‘Damned, bloody strong,’ Anthony muttered to himself, ‘hellish strong. Of course they are.’
‘You ask me in your last letter to leave these things. My dear, it would be absurd. It is true that I love you.’
Anthony was young enough to feel that those were the words which mattered –
‘You beseech me to come to you for ever, to run away, ask to divorce Kurt. My love, believe me, I am not telling you our love was just an amusement, the passing fancy of a woman whose husband was away at the war. Nor am I saying that two weeks of love were not long enough for us to learn to know each other. I think I know you well, and you know me. But marriage and divorce and family and relations are real solid things. In Germany it is so. Also in England, I think. I cannot do what you ask. You will love others. It is perhaps better that you forget me. It is better that we say to each other – “It was beautiful. Now we say goodbye.” I kiss you in my heart. I laugh and weep when I think of you.
Anna.’
‘Nonsense!’ said Anthony out loud. ‘“Better forget me!” She doesn’t mean a word of it.’ There was a postscript on the back of the last sheet.
‘It is best not to write here any more. If you write, send it to my grandmother’s address in London.’
Anthony laughed delightedly. This was no breach, no severance. Reference to Mrs Briscoe’s address surely knotted firmly once again the cord that bound them. Mrs Briscoe was discreet. ‘I have told her,’ Anna had said, ‘that it is always possible letters are opened now in Germany. I have told her that if anybody wants to write to me with matters which – which might make trouble – the letter can be sent to me to her house, here in London. She will keep it. Then, when a reliable friend is in London I can make arrangements. It’s not quick of course. But it is safe.’
‘No,’ Anthony thought, ‘it certainly isn’t quick!’ He started to read Anna’s letter again. Then he glanced quickly at Marcia’s:
‘Darling Ant (on)
You’ve got to help me. Will you please calm Mummy and Daddy down. I think they’ll need it because I’ve written to them by this post to say I’m not coming home for Christmas. I’ve got a wonderful chance to ski at St Anton with a blissful party of people and it’s got to be Christmas week. I’ve written a long letter to them both but please try to stop them fussing or being hurt, or communicating with Cousin Francis to find out who the party consists of and all the Victorian stuff. Anyway, he and Cousin Angie wouldn’t know, all my friends are Austrian, met through the art school, mostly –’
Before reading Marcia’s letter carefully he started at once to compose a reply to Anna. His pen raced across paper. It would be, he reminded her, six months in February since she had seen her grandmother. It was already late October. His letters were likely to take time – he would write them regularly and send them, regardless of the absence of answers, to Mrs Briscoe’s London address.
‘I know,’ he wrote, ‘that you will be with me again in a very few months. And then I will be able to find better words, to keep you with me for ever. Let it be February, my darling – or March at the latest.’
He felt sick. March, 1939 seemed a lifetime away. Yet he also felt immensely more robust than ever before. Anna loved him. After separation, after ages, from afar, Anna loved him.
Chapter 6
Bargate. March, 1939.
‘Anthony, my dear, we’ve heard from Marcia at last. She’s coming home very soon, for Easter. Thank Heavens for it – it’s about time.’
‘I don’t blame her for spending Christmas and skiing out there, Mother.’
‘But Christmas!’ Hilda Marvell had taken her daughter’s long absence badly. ‘I hope she’s not getting involved with some undesirable Viennese. Marcia’s so young – naïve, an innocent. I’m sure Cousin Angela is keeping her eyes open. Marcia needs guidance, protection.’ Hilda sighed. They were walking in the garden at Bargate where a few bold shrub shoots were suggesting that winter was nearly past.
‘Marcia’s pretty well able to look after herself, Mother.’
‘All you children think that. You’re so mistaken.’
‘Is Easter late or early? When exactly does she come?’
Marcia, it appeared, was planning to arrive on 14th March and to stay until the last week in April. Her letter had taken a surprisingly long time to arrive.
‘14th March,’ said Anthony. ‘Good Lord, that’s next Tuesday! I’d better meet the boat train in London and give her lunch and put her on a train down.’
Anthony had been considering how much to tell Marcia about Anna, but considering in a desultory way. Now the question was imminent. Brother and sister were close, and in one way he longed for the relief of confidences. There had been only one further letter from Anna – the courier service, via Wilton Place worked, albeit laboriously – but it had shown no diminution in love while still offering no explicit encouragement to any ambitious imaginings. As far as the immediate future was concerned, ‘Plans are uncertain,’ Anna had written. But February – Anna’s six-month point – had come and gone and all she had offered was the probability of a further visit to England ‘some time in, or even before, the spring’. ‘Whatever that means,’ thought Anthony miserably. She had written, too, that Kurt had been given a further leave from Spain. Anthony had groaned. It might be some sort of relief to talk to Marcia. She was too young to understand, of course, but she was a sympathetic girl. There would be complications, irritation. He could imagine –
‘What about her husband, Ant? I take it you’re just her bit of fun, her fancy man? I suppose you know what you’re doing – don’t get into a mess, love!’ He would find that sort of reaction hard to take.
On the other hand, Marcia had always been his confidante and the need to speak of Anna to somebody was almost insupportable. His closest intimate, Robert Anderson, was certainly not a suitable recipient of descriptions of Anna. He was too apt to snort impatiently at the weakness of humanity. One could talk about many things to Robert, but not easily about love. Anthony decided, as he paced the platform at Victoria Station, that he would talk to Marcia. He at once began to look forward to it, to the delicious moment when he could speak Anna’s name aloud. Marcia would, inevitably, be agog to hear his news. She would be intensely curious about the state of his heart. He had arranged to take her to Mount Street, to give her lunch there before putting her on a train to Sussex. Over lunch he would talk to her of Anna.
The train seemed to be a few minutes late.
‘Mr Marvell!’
Anthony turned. He did not at once recognize the middle-aged, plainly dressed lady who had apparently uttered his name and was smiling at him.
‘Good morning, Mr Marvell.’
Anthony raised his hat. Something was familiar –
‘I live with Mrs Briscoe. Margaret Platt.’
Of course! The companion!
‘Good morning, Miss Platt. Are you meeting someone as I am?’
‘Indeed I am. I’m meeting Anna Langenbach. Ah, this seems to be the train now. Always rather an exciting moment, I think.’
Anthony felt his mind spinning like a top.
‘I didn’t know – I mean, is Anna – is Frau Langenbach –?’
Miss Platt was looking at him shrewdly.
‘I had to send a telegram. She generally comes over in the Spring but Mrs Briscoe had a bad fall last week. The doctor is keeping her in bed and he’s afraid of pneum
onia. I knew it was important to get hold of Anna if she could possibly come.’
The train was now visible, moving slowly and remorselessly toward them down the platform.
‘Luckily,’ said Miss Platt, ‘Anna could come. Her husband, Kurt, was at home for most of January and February but has now returned to wherever it is – Spain, I think. He’s in the Air Force. So Anna was free and is due on this train.’
Anthony said quickly,
‘And I’m meeting my sister who’s arriving from Vienna!’
He felt unable to handle the situation of Anna arriving, seeing him, presuming he had somehow discovered her day of arrival, uncomprehending, angry even. Nor could he handle simultaneous explanations with Marcia, Anna, Miss Platt, as in some operatic quartet, full of repetitions and misunderstandings.
They were standing near the ticket barrier. The train stopped.
Anthony saw Anna before anybody else. She was walking, tracked by a porter, near the head of the throng of boat train passengers. She looked radiant. It was a cold, sharp morning and she glowed. Beside her, thought Anthony, his heart appearing to stop, her travelling companions seemed only half alive. Miss Platt swooped.
‘Anna!’
They embraced. Anthony feasted his eyes. He was in for it now.
‘See who I’ve picked up!’ said Miss Platt with a chuckle, ‘your friend, Mr Marvell. He’s meeting his sister off this train. Such a coincidence!’
Anthony summoned up reserves of self-control. There must be no self-betrayal in the Platt presence.
‘You will remember my sister, Marcia, Frau Langenbach. She is travelling from Vienna and must have been on the same boat as you.’
Anna, for once, looked less than entirely self-possessed. Passengers were streaming past them. The porter negotiated the barrier and turned, looking impatient. He called something.
‘No!’ cried Miss Platt, ‘no taxi! I’ve got Andrews here with the car,’ she said to Anna, ‘I’ll get hold of him!’ She made a dart of surprising agility to catch up with the porter and bring him under control. For one moment Anthony and Anna were alone, alone amidst the crowd. Anthony muttered with shaking voice –
‘It really was a coincidence, my darling. I’m sorry about your grandmother. I’ll telephone – ask for news of her of course, talk to you. Oh, my love –’
‘Is it the same?’
‘Just the same! Oh, Anna!’
‘My love! I had no time to get word to you.’
‘Can I hold you and kiss you, here and now? I can’t stand this!’
‘No, my darling, no – oh, the wonder of seeing you again!’
Their faces were close. Miss Platt was invisible but must be hovering.
‘ANT!’
‘– Wiedersehen,’ said Anna abruptly, looking and moving away.
‘I walked past you once, you never saw me. Who was that you were with? How are you, anyway?’
Anthony kissed his sister. He had completely forgotten he was meeting her.
‘Oh that! That was Anna Langenbach, do you remember? The von Arzfeld cousin who looked after us when Frido and I broke down and drove us to Arzfeld next day.’
He looked at Marcia. Even his brotherly eye could discern that she was looking remarkably pretty. Even prettier than before departure to Vienna.
‘Lunch!’ he said. ‘If you can face it. Then I’ll put you on an afternoon train. Were you seasick?’
‘Not a bit. I’m ravenous. And it suits me well,’ said Marcia, ‘because you’ve got some listening to do. I’ve got rather a lot to say.’
‘Of course I’m sure,’ said Marcia. Cheeks flushed and eyes brilliant, she looked superb. ‘Of course she must be irresistible,’ thought her father.
It was the following day.
‘Don’t pour it out too quickly,’ Anthony had advised. ‘Get acclimatized to Bargate first, make much of Mother and Father. Father’s not been too well. And you’ve been away over six months. They’ve missed you like hell. Then talk about your thing calmly, making it clear you’re telling them good news.’
Anthony himself had been uncertain how good he thought this news really was, that Marcia thought herself in love with Werner von Arzfeld. He had been about to approach the subject of Anna – delicately, confident of sympathy and interest, and suddenly Marcia had looked at him and said,
‘I’ve got a bombshell for you all!’ and proceeded to talk about herself. It had not been the reunion he had planned. And Marcia, Anthony said to himself, was only just approaching twenty-one. She was painfully young. She had been – seduced; he could find no substitute for the censorious, old-fashioned word. And she seemed delighted with the fact!
‘Let’s get this clear. You’re saying you want to marry Werner?’
‘Indeed I am. And he’s terrifically keen. But he thinks he must do all sorts of proper things, approach the parents, all that.’
‘And what are you going to tell them?’
‘I’m going to say that we’re in love and he wants to marry me, but that it’s hard to make plans until he can come to England and meet them. Werner, poor darling, must come here on leave some time. But he never seems to get any. Just the odd weekend.’
‘And for those he goes to Vienna?’
‘Once I went to Munich, stayed in an hotel. It was Heaven!’
Anthony said in a firmly older brother way, ‘Marcia, are you sure he is seriously in love with you and that he really wants to marry you?’
‘Of course I’m sure. He’s potty about me. And I’m the same. It’s all marvellous, Ant, but it needs a bit of finesse, you must see that.’
And when they had talked, at last, of Anna she had been perfectly sympathetic – but, somehow, disappointingly unsurprised. ‘Of course I remember her, a heavenly person. Quite a bit older than you, isn’t she?’
‘Slightly. It makes not the smallest difference.’
‘I like Werner being quite a lot older than me. It’s bliss.’
‘And you’re really sure?’ said Anthony for the fourth time. He felt a sense of doom, not unmixed with irritation.
‘Of course I’m sure.’
‘Of course I’m sure,’ said Marcia. It was evening in the inner hall at Bargate. Nothing was making her task easy. They had listened to the nine o’clock news on the wireless. Earlier that day, German troops had crossed the Czechoslovak border. Now the field-grey uniforms were marching into Prague.
‘So much for Hitler’s absence of territorial ambitions in Europe,’ said John Marvell. ‘I wonder what the Germans themselves have to say about it!’ He had tuned to a German station. The reports were confident and bland. There was something unctuous in the announcer’s words, that a period of misunderstanding was being brought to an end by an invitation to the German Reich to bring Bohemia and Moravia under its protection. There was triumph in the air, reports of the troops’ entry into the Czech capital, martial music. ‘Preussens Gloria!’ said John. ‘Yes, he’s on the march all right. Now it will be the turn of the Poles. The German Army will lie along their southern border, as well as to their west.’ He felt without hope.
Against this unpromising background Marcia had tried, with nervous excitement, to expound her feelings for Werner von Arzfeld, Lieutenant (shortly to be promoted Captain) of Panzer troops: now, for all Marcia knew, rumbling through Bohemia. ‘Damn Hitler!’ she thought. ‘What rotten timing!’
The Marvells received her news, hesitantly presented, in total silence. After what felt like an hour, John said,
‘I liked the brother. What was his name?’
‘Frido. He’s much younger.’
‘That’s it, Frido. What’s he doing now?’
‘He’s doing his military service. He’s at an officer school. Daddy, I’m trying to tell you about Werner, not Frido.’
Hilda snorted impatiently.
‘Darling girl, you must see that there’s likely to be a war.’
‘I don’t believe it. Werner doesn’t believe it.’
�
��They’ve made no secret about their claims against Poland.’
‘Oh, the Poles!’ said Marcia impatiently. ‘People over here don’t understand about Poland. Over a third of the people in Poland aren’t Poles – they’re Germans, or Russians or something else. And the Poles have behaved really badly to them!’
‘Nevertheless –’
‘And that corridor of land, given to Poland and cutting off East Prussia from the rest. Ridiculous!’
‘My dear girl, you’re talking like Dr Goebbels. Anyway, the point is that after today, war can’t be regarded as improbable, whatever the rights and wrongs. And you’re saying you want to marry one of the enemy.’
‘I’m saying I want to marry someone who loves me, whom I love, whom I know you’d both love. Ask Anthony – he’s met him. He’ll tell you how wonderful Werner is. Talk about “the enemy” is nonsense. Werner’s family love England.’
‘The fact remains,’ said John from the depths of misery, ‘that he’s a German officer. And if you married him you’d have to share his life. Which is likely to involve fighting against this, your own country. You’d probably be pretty unwelcome in Germany too. Have you thought of all that? You might never see us again. For God’s sake, darling, think what all this means at such a time.’
Hilda felt that they were losing the battle but that a small piece of territory might still be defended.
‘Darling Marcia, we feel for you absolutely. All I ask is that you do nothing in a hurry. Don’t go back to Vienna. Stay here. If Werner feels as you say he does he’ll come over here, meet us –’
‘I’ve promised to go back. Werner can’t come here, not yet. He’s in the Army. He wants to meet you, of course he does, but he’s terribly busy, he never gets away. He’s on some General’s staff now, too.’
‘Sooner or later he is bound to be able to take some leave and to come –’
‘Provided we have peace,’ muttered John.
‘Then you can get some perspective on the situation. I’m sure he’s all you say he is, and if so he’ll find a way to visit us here. Quite soon. I’m certain of it. You’ve anyway planned to be here until the end of April – write and ask when he can come. And don’t plan your return to Vienna until he’s been here and we can talk things over.’
