To All Eternity

by Christopher Nicole

  She had been repaying him for saving her life; she had not pretended otherwise. And had he attempted to come between her and what she considered her duty, she no doubt would have shot him without a moment’s hesitation. Whatever his memory of her, he had been an object to be used. When they had parted, after crossing the Russian border, she had not looked back. That was better. That was a recognition of the facts. They were two people who had drifted together, and who, for a brief few days, had been forced to fight and exist, shoulder to shoulder. But basically they were enemies, whose duty it was to destroy each other if necessary. As now. If only he could feel certain that it wasn’t the Austrians, in their brutal suppression of their Slav minorities, who weren’t the real enemies. Just as he wished he was not accepting this mission simply to save himself from disgrace.

  “Berkeley!” Paul Gracey, bluff and red faced, worked his own land and was in the field by the road supervising the harvesting. “Welcome home.” He stamped across the mud to reach up and shake Berkeley’s hand. “Successful trip?”

  “On the whole. Julia at home?”

  “Indeed. And she’ll be the happier for seeing you. Go on in. I’ll be down as soon as we’ve got this field finished.”

  Berkeley continued to walk his horse, down the drive now, between more recently harvested fields towards the farm house, large and four-square. Dogs barked, and a maidservant appeared, to duck back inside, no doubt calling her younger mistress. A groom emerged from the stables to take Berkeley’s bridle as he dismounted, and he patted the shaggy mastiffs on the head.

  “Berkeley!”

  When away from this young woman, he often forgot how attractive she was. Or perhaps today he needed her to be more attractive than usual. Julia Gracey was tall and slim. As she was twenty-four years old, he had to presume that she would remain tall and slim until she perhaps began to put on weight in middle age. Her face was piquant, with small, attractive features. He would never have called her pretty, a word which he disliked anyway, but equally she could not be described as beautiful. The most appropriate word was attractive. And she had splendid pale brown hair and eyes; the hair was worn long unless she was dressed for an occasion, and the eyes were huge.

  “It’s good to see you,” she said. “Did you have a successful trip?”

  “Yes,” he said, and kissed her. It was a chaste kiss, but then, their entire relationship was chaste. That was the way of the English gentry, certainly those who lived in the country. It would be quite impossible to imagine Julia, no matter what the circumstances, entering the bedroom of a man she had just met, much less asking permission to get into his bed! But then, living in rural England in this year of 1908, she could be a million miles from oppressive regimes, from bombs and whips and revolvers and simmering hatreds.

  Long might it remain so. And yet, he thought, as she withdrew her closed lips and gave his hand a gentle squeeze, might that not be an important factor in his behaviour towards Anna Slovitza, this apparent lack of passion, of intensity among his own womenfolk?

  Suddenly he knew he needed to find out if passion was there, urgently, before he could contemplate marriage to even this charming creature. And if it was there, and would be there to come back to, would that not make his mission the easier to accomplish?

  “Mother!” Julia called, as, still holding his hand, she led him into the house. “Berkeley’s back.”

  “Berkeley!” Joan Gracey bustled out of the kitchen drying her hands on her apron. Like her husband, she believed in playing an active role in the running of her household. “So good to see you. Did you have a successful trip?”

  Hopefully, this would be the last time he would be asked the question. “Oh, indeed, Mrs Gracey. Excellent.”

  “Well, there’s roast lamb for lunch. In an hour, so you’ve time for a wash and brush-up.”

  “I’m sure Berkeley and I have a lot to talk about,” Julia said. She was every bit as positive as her mother.

  “Of course. One hour, mind.” She bustled back into the kitchen.

  “Do you want a wash and brush-up?” Julia asked.

  “I’d rather talk to you, first.”

  She pulled a bonnet from the stand by the door, put it on, and led him through the low-ceilinged drawing room, and out the back door into the orchard. It was a warm August day.

  “So,” he said, “what have you been doing with yourself?”

  “The usual things. I don’t live a very exciting life.”

  “I understand you’ve been entertaining.”

  She glanced at him. “People come to call.”

  “Harvey Braddock?”

  “Why, yes.”

  “I gather he’s been making a habit of it.”

  She nodded, pink spots gathering in her cheeks. “He doesn’t seem to have much else to do, not being a soldier.”

  “I thought Foreign Office people worked harder than soldiers.”

  She had walked as far as a rustic bench, some hundred yards from the house. Now she sat down. “They do. But not at weekends. And they’re always in the country. Don’t tell me you’re jealous?”

  He sat beside her. “Of course I’m jealous. Has he proposed?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes.”

  “And?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear.

  “I told him he’d have to wait.”

  “That must have cheered him up. Wait on what?”

  She turned her head to look at him.

  “So I’m still number one?”

  “Perhaps.”

  They gazed at each other, then he took her in his arms and kissed her. This time he did not allow her lips to remain closed, but forced them open to get at her tongue. She made a startled sound, which changed into another sound as he rested his hand on her breast, caressing the soft mound he could feel beneath her bodice. For a moment she didn’t resist, perhaps because she was too surprised. Then she got her own hands up to push him away.

  “Gosh,” she said.

  “I’m sorry. I needed to do that.”

  Her cheeks were flushed. She glanced at him, then looked away again. “What are you trying to say?”

  “That I love you and would like to marry you. But . . . I am a passionate man.”

  “So I gather,” she said.

  “Was that so repulsive?”

  “It was . . . unexpected.”

  “Too much so?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But will you marry me?”

  “I don’t know,” she said again. “It’s all rather sudden.”

  “Sudden?” he cried. “We’ve known each other all our lives.”

  “Have we?” she asked.

  “Ah,” he said. “But love is about passion.”

  “Tell me what happened in Hungary,” she said.

  “Hungary? I went there to buy remounts for the cavalry, and—”

  “The truth.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “You’ve come back . . . different; as if you’ve had some kind of experience. I think I’m entitled to know what it was.”

  “Before you can make up your mind to marry me.” And he had supposed the decision was all his.

  “Well . . . I don’t think a husband and wife should have any secrets from each other.”

  “Then . . .” he changed his mind about what he would have said, that she knew very little about marriage. “I’m sorry, Julia. I went to Hungary to buy remounts for the cavalry. That is all I am prepared to say, all I can say.”

  He gazed at her, willing her to understand.

  Her face was composed, but the pink spots were back. “Then you are asking me to marry a man part of whose life must be a secret from me.”

  “That’s how it is, with the army.”

  “There was some talk of you giving that up.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible, right this minute. It’s my career, and, incidentally, my livelihood. Dad’s income doesn’t rise to giving me an allowance substantial enough to
live on, much less support a wife.”

  “And you will continue to go on secret missions, the purposes of which you will not be able to divulge to your wife?”

  “I will continue to go where I am sent,” he said carefully. “I have no choice.”

  “You would not say that is an intolerable burden to place on a wife?”

  “I’m sure it is. But there are quite a few thousand wives bearing such a burden. Not all of them are unhappy.”

  At last she turned her head. “You are rebuking me.”

  “I am endeavouring to point out that you would not be unique. For God’s sake . . .” he seized her hands, and she did not pull them away. “I love you. I suppose I have loved you, in a vague sort of way, all of our lives. Now I do so as a man. I want you to be my wife. So I am an actively serving officer; that will soon be over. I will have promotion, and a settled place, and I will be home even more often that your Harvey Braddock. You will no doubt become bored with the sight of me.”

  “And when there is another war?”

  “There is hardly likely to be one, involving us, for a very long time. We have proved, to the Boers, to the world, what we can do when we are roused. Anyway,” he made a face, “I am hardly likely to receive a field command with a gammy leg.”

  “Then may I ask what are your plans, or the army’s plans for you, in the immediate future? Where you will be stationed?”

  “I’m afraid I have to go away again.”

  “More remounts?”

  “We cannot have enough horses.”

  “And where do you hope to obtain these horses now?”

  “The Middle East. In the first instance, Greece.”

  Now she did pull her hands free. “I could never marry a man who lied to me.”

  His mouth opened, and then shut again. “I am going to Greece. Athens. I can show you the ticket.”

  “But not to buy horses.”

  “Well . . .”

  She stood up. “I hear the lunch gong.”

  “Then your answer is no.”

  “No. My answer is, please ask me again when you come back. And perhaps are more settled.”

  *

  “The Devil,” John Townsend commented at dinner. “Turned you down flat? I never expected that. You should’ve worn uniform. Gals always go for a handsome man in red.”

  “Oh, really, Father. Hasn’t she seen me in uniform often enough? Anyway, she didn’t turn me down flat. She said to ask her again when I come back from my next overseas trip.”

  “You can’t really blame her,” Alicia Townsend said. “A woman likes a settled life, children, a husband she’s going to see at least once a day. Next trip? You never said anything about another trip, Berkeley. Aren’t you due some leave?”

  “Actually, I am. But the War Office have discovered there are some good horses to be had in Thrace, and they want me to go out there and look them over, negotiate a price for them if they are worthwhile.”

  “Thrace,” John Townsend said. “That’s actually Greece, isn’t it?”

  “There’s a difference of opinion as to whether it belongs to Greece, Bulgaria, or Turkey,” Berkeley said. “I don’t suppose the horses know, either. However, Lockwood and I have passages booked for Piraeus, next Monday.”

  “So soon?”

  “You know what the War Office is like, Mother. It shouldn’t be a long trip. Not more than a month.”

  “But you’ll be careful,” his mother admonished. “Those people are so wild.”

  “I’m sure they won’t trouble me, Mother. Or even Harry.”

  “But you’re not going for a week,” his father said. “Are you going to, ah . . .”

  “Certainly not,” Berkeley said. “She said to ask her again when I come back. I shall do that.”

  “A month,” Alicia said darkly. “She may have been suited by then.”

  “That is entirely up to her,” Berkeley said.

  *

  He almost hoped she would be. Because, if she had not entirely rejected his physical advance, she had certainly not responded to it. They lived in different worlds, and it had been foolish of him ever to suppose the gap could be bridged. But didn’t he then also live in a different world to his own parents?

  As for the world in which he would be living when he returned from this jaunt; he did not care to consider that.

  He gazed at the mountains of the Peloponnessus, glowing to the west in the sunset as the steamer turned Cape Malea and headed through a calm sea, north for Piraeus, the port for Athens. The people here were so wild, his mother had said. It’s an unlucky mother who does not know her own son, he reflected.

  “Well, sir, at least it’ll be different,” Lockwood commented, leaning on the rail beside him. “I’ve never arrested anyone before. And as for that Madame Slovitza . . . do you think she’ll come quietly?”

  “No,” Berkeley said.

  “Ah.” Lockwood considered this for some seconds, no doubt wondering how his master would reconcile those undoubtedly passionate moments he and the lady had shared during their escape from Hungary, with having to treat her as a criminal. Even if she was; Lockwood had read the file. “Could be tricky.”

  “It will be tricky. We shall need to employ subterfuge until we get her within striking distance of the Austro-Hungarian border.”

  “Sounds nasty. Will you . . .”

  “Harry,” Berkeley said. “We have been given a job to do. As you say, it looks very nasty. But we will employ all the means in our power to carry it out.”

  “Yes, sir.” As he had made obvious from the beginning, Lockwood did not approve. It was worth remembering that the only time in their entire relationship, which now went back ten years, Lockwood had questioned a decision of his master’s had been in the bedroom in Seinheit, when he had realised Berkeley intended to help the woman. But he would continue to obey whatever orders he was given.

  But what orders would he be given? Berkeley had wrestled with this problem through the last three weeks. He had sought a quick, easy answer, that Julia should fall into his arms so passionately and without reservation as to allow him to regard Anna as what she really was: a cold-blooded murderess deserving only of hanging. That hadn’t happened. Which did not in any way make Anna less of a cold-blooded murderess, but also did not allay his desire for her as a woman. That had to be exorcised. By being harsh and ruthless and treating her as . . . a cold-blooded murderess.

  He didn’t know he could do it.

  *

  Early next morning they nosed up to their anchorage off the little seaport that had been the scene of so much history. Instantly the steamer was surrounded by bumboats and launches from the shore, some containing customs and immigration officials, but one delivering an attaché from the British Consulate.

  “Mr Jones?” The attaché seemed uncertain.

  “I am he.” Berkeley shook hands.

  “I have train tickets for you and your man as far as Belgrade. I was informed that you would not be staying any time in Athens.” He seemed relieved about that.

  “That’s right,” Berkeley agreed. “There was also to be a dragoman; I don’t speak Serbian.”

  The attaché nodded. “I have one waiting. You will find, though, that many Serbs speak at least a variation of German.”

  “Thank you. That will help.”

  The attaché hesitated. “The train ticket is one way . . .”

  “That’s right,” Berkeley said again. “We won’t be coming back.”

  *

  The interpreter was a small, round man, who wore a Greek hat and smelled of garlic; this was, fortunately, a vegetable of which Berkeley was fond.

  “I show you everything,” Pathenikos said. “There is much to see in Belgrade.” He rolled his eyes.

  “I just wish to find someone,” Berkeley said.

  Pathenikos rolled his eyes some more.

  “I am a solicitor. You understand this?”

  “Sol-i-ci-tor?”

  Berkel
ey hoped his Serbian was better than his English. “It means lawyer. There is a woman in Serbia for whom I have some money. I need to find her.”

  “Ah, money. Yes, I understand. But in Serbia? This is a big country, sir.”

  “I think, if we ask in the right places in Belgrade, we will be able to find her.”

  *

  The distance from Athens to Belgrade, following the valleys through the mountains, was a good 800 miles, involving crossing the border into Macedonia, thence north to the province of Kosovo, all Turkish territory this, then up the valley of the Morava to Belgrade itself. As the train seldom made more than twenty miles an hour, because of the age of the engine, the overcrowded carriages, and the various gradients, and as it only worked for twelve hours a day, the journey would in any event have taken more than three days. But as it also stopped regularly, sometimes for more than an hour while passengers embarked or disembarked in a most leisurely fashion, and the drivers and conductors engaged in long conversations with the various stationmasters, punctuated by much arm waving and gesticulating; and as all the border guards were highly suspicious and insisted upon examining, slowly, the papers of every passenger, it was actually five days before they stepped down at Belgrade Central.

  Berkeley found it a very interesting and informative, if disturbing, trip. He had known before he left England that the Turkish Empire was in turmoil, with the Sultan virtually a prisoner and his government being carried on, spasmodically, by the so-called Young Turk Party. These internal problems had meant that the Turkish grip on its European provinces had been weakened, as a result of which those little countries, such as Bulgaria and Serbia, which within the last generation had gained full independence, were flexing their muscles and seeing what might be picked up if, as was generally supposed would soon happen, the Turkish Empire was to disintegrate entirely.