Authors: Sybille Bedford

Tags: #Jewish families, #Catholics

A Legacy (30 page)

"There seems to be so much misunderstanding. My brother must explain. People would behave differently if they were told what really happened."

"Clara dear—" said Gustavus.

Caroline looked, and realized how little she had seen of him. She was held anew by the likeness between him and Jules, and by the difference. Gustavus was more solid physically than his brother—it was not vitality, but he was there —and he was quite without that extra-human fineness that made Jules felt sometimes as only half a presence in a room. Both men appeared younger than they were; Jules looked younger, Gustavus had acquired the fussy boyishness of the permanent ADC. "What really did happen?" she asked.

Clara told her. "And now Conrad won't say anything. He says it had nothing to do with him, he says he was not there. That is true of course. Conrad was en poste in Rome during those years. When he came back Jean was already settled. It was Papa who arranged it. When Papa died, everybody was charitable and it just went on. What with being so much older and leaving home so soon, I don't believe Conrad ever knew Jean."

"How monstrously unfair," said Caroline.

"What did you say?"

"It is unfair."

"Unfair —what a curious term."

"So then it is all true?" said Caroline; "Jules told me some things, but they seemed so very queer."

"Jules did not know everything," said Clara.

"And they sent him back?"

"We all tried to prevent it; according to our lights. My father, too. When he was able to see what it would mean, he tried to undo it. There was a very good man—a priest —he is dead now. Papa was too late. Now I know that it was something that had to come to Jean's father. Though the rest of us had to go on doing our best; you see, Caroline— it was our duty."

"But the Army? Clara, the Army?"

"We did not see it in that way. Papa did not. It was only a farm . . . One of our local regiments ... It seemed less sad."

Caroline looked hard at Clara, with awe and something like a nascent admiration. For the first time since her arrival in the town she did not feel desolately apart.

Clara said, "Perhaps everything was rather different in Papa's day. It is very dreadful that we should give such scandal now. Conrad must speak. Gustavus—"

But Gustavus, they found, had left the room.

The Government did not fall next day. Bernin said nothing; but the Chancellor got up and spoke a few firm quiet words. He spoke of mountains out of molehills, he spoke of self-seeking propaganda; he pledged investigation of the matter under debate, but doubted if it was of a nature to perturb the workings of a great realm; he undertook to guarantee that justice would be done and a certain fugitive discovered; and he promised to maintain order.

This speech had a wonderfully calming effect. Solid people felt they had been carried away too easily.

"It could peter out now," Sarah said.

The week passed. Schaale was not found. In the towns, police were omnipresent but reserved; the people began showing signs of tiring of the riots.

Then Quintus Narden sprang the fact that Captain Felden had been decorated by His Majesty.

"My Red Eagle!" said Gustavus.

"Ruritania," said Sarah. "Such a pity it isn't more noticeable."

All over Bavaria a bulletin appeared on the house-fronts, purporting that the Kaiser had been non compos since 1902, and in some localities the Crown Prince was proclaimed Regent.

On that day Count Bernin resigned.

H
e had the Corporal hidden in the Foreign Office."

"He was found there?"

"That's just it —he was not. They took him down to Baden with them. He was smuggled out in a trunk."

"No, not in a trunk, he left bold as brass by the main entrance dressed up in priest's clothes. The sister did it."

"My dear chap, you've got it all wrong: the Felden Murder was used by Biilow—very clever of him actually —to get rid of him. The Cabinet had got on to his naval deal."

"The Englishwoman was the go-between. Baron Bluebeard was the cover. He got paid for marrying her."

"He promised the bishops in the House of Lords to get our Naval Estimates cut down, then the bishops were to sell out to Rome."

"I heard it had been the Zionists?"

"Oh, the Zionists too."

"The Baron ratted; he never married her. Preferred to stick to Frau Shylock. He got some kind of a show put up in their cathedral; man in my department knows somebody who was there, he said there was so much incense you couldn't see your own hand, but there was no bride."

"They'll have to close that chapel on their place; he's been excommunicated, though he won't let on. The Holy Father sent a secret bull."

"He left Germany. On foot."

"Little good that will do him. He's to be locked up as soon as he gets there. In the Vatican. He knows all the Church secrets."

"Will he be a monk then?"

"A state prisoner."

"Have you heard? Count Bernin is to be indicted for High Treason."

"Friedrich, what's the news?"

"Putnitz has been cashiered. Cowardice."

"What will he do?"

"Oh, a bullet, or the colonies. Here he is, in a lounge suit. 'Ex-Lieutenant's Comment.' The g-Uhr Abend nabbed him in the station. ' "It was all a mistake," says von Putnitz.' "

"I wish Clara had heard him," said Caroline.

"The Doctors' Association is asking for an inquiry into Army medicine; there is to be a commission."

"A humdrum day. Anything else?"

"The market's up. Very rum."

"Not at all," said Sarah. "There's not going to be another peep out of the South for a long time, a victory for industry. It's about finished all those Catholic peasant parties."

"You're not expecting a boom?"

"Oh yes."

"Anything else?"

"Only rumours."

"The Eighteen-Months-Service Bill is to come up before recess."

"The old Jesuit's gone; but we are to be left helpless."

"Poor Germany."

Indeed, the troubles, public and internal, of the administration had not been lessened. Too many questions had been left unanswered, and substantial people throughout

the country were acting on their conviction that something, somewhere, had gone very wrong. In Government offices, inquiries were shuffled on to sub-departments and everybody was furious with the fellows down next corridor; the ruling caste was divided by the sense that they had let each other down, and they blamed the Kaiser in their hearts. "H.M. has always been unfortunate in the choice of his friends."

"It couldn't have happened under the Old Man." In all this, little love from any quarter was lost upon the Feldens; and through the whole of that summer the gutter press, scot-free, poured forth what it pleased. They were fair game.

"What does she do with herself all day?"

"She has her own sitting room, you know, upstairs. I go to her; she comes to me. She insists. She insists on going out at least once every day. She does her shopping, she goes to the zoo, she rides a little in the Tiergarten. She's talking about sending for their horses. And she reads. . . ."

"I know. Two novels a day. The next stage is chocolates."

"She reads mostly history," said Sarah.

"They ought to leave!"

"Where is there for them to go?"

"Leave Germany altogether," said Jeanne.

"I don't think she would do that, she'd call it running away."

"You ought to tell her, Sarah."

"I? She did say to me she couldn't slip off to England— like Edu."

"I should have thought of her as more, I don't know—" Jeanne said.

"More what?"

"Worldly—? feminine—? spoilt—?"

"It comes as a surprise. Caroline is an English gentleman."

"The two or three one used to know in my time drank horribly. But I know you don't mean that."

"No."

"There is no sense in her staying, Sarah/'

"She doesn't like it any better here than you do."

"I've got used to it."

"I hate it!" said Sarah. "With what Quintus Narden calls the notorious lack of patriotism of my race."

"He doesn't notice my existence," said Jeanne. "I'm only fit for the g-Uhr. 'The other Foreign Concubine.' My poor grey hair. . . . Though it's also taught me the small use of an actual husband."

"Jules doesn't read the papers."

"Isn't he tempted to?"

"It doesn't occur to him."

"That's my idea of a gentleman."

"He's started coming down to meals again," said Sarah. "To some of their meals."

"Of course she has the child," said Jeanne.

"What child?"

"Jules's."

"I believe she's trying to educate her. That's lost on Henrietta."

"The girl ought to be out of it all. Sarah—is it beastly? The streets?"

"Berlin's a big place. The only really bad spot is the door in Voss Strasse. And seeing that it doesn't make the slightest difference to anyone in that house except to her and me, and of course poor Friedrich—"

"I'm afraid Friedrich uses the back entrance," Jeanne said, looking her friend in the eyes.

"You do love him," said Sarah.

"He loves me."

Sarah said nothing.

"You can understand that?"

"Yes" she said. "No. Yes. You know I think my girl is going to marry that violinist."

"Will you let her?"

"It's that, or her running away. I'm sure she'd much

prefer the latter. Not he though, as I read him; he's at the house all day, she thinks it's so brave of him. When I have a couple of men from the Watch Sc Ward outside."

"I read that," Jeanne said.

"My bodyguard. They're the same people we use at Kastell at the works."

"I read about that, too."

"I wouldn't do it for my sake—I didn't do anything the other time—but I won't have my guests insulted at my own door."

"The violinist?"

"I didn't think of him."

Jeanne said, "You are fond of her."

"I wish she'd never met me!" said Sarah.

Hole-and-Corner Wedding but —

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"It must be a fake," said Caroline. "When I didn't share so much as a sandwich with poor Clara. Anyway, that's you with Jules in front of the Neronian spread, not me. It's familiar though—I have seen these hams and antlers before."

"In the family album," Sarah said. "Jules's fiftieth birthday, and mine. I have not forgotten it."

"Extraordinary backcloth. It isn't real—?"

"What?"

"The edibles?"

"Quite real," said Sarah.

"Frau Baronin, I did not wish to disturb Frau Geheimrat, but should we send out some soup to them?"

"Do you usually?"

"It has been our custom to dispense some charity."

"Then I suppose so. Oh, by all means."

"My dear child," Markwald said, "they're shouting for venison."

"Not very realistic of them," said Emil.

"Seeing it is not in season, sir," said Gottlieb.

"All the same, perhaps not soup?" said Caroline.

"They've come neither to be reasonable nor to be fed," said a voice from the door.

"Frau Eduard," announced Gottlieb.

Sarah was carrying a parasol. She looked cool, but cross. "Who said Prussia was a police state?"

"Do you think they'll keep it up, Gottlieb?" said Mark-wald.

"We might envisage retirement for a night's rest, sir."

"It was like walking through a bad Breughel," said Sarah.

"Their afflictions are impressive, ma'am."

"It's no worse than Spain," said Caroline.

"I didn't know we had so many in the town."

"Nobody ever does it for fun."

"If I may be permitted to quote Marie, ma'am," Gottlieb said, "Marie says they are the chorus from Boris Godunov."

"Edu got it this morning."

"What's Edu to Hecuba?"

"His debts."

"Well, he's not here to hear."

"No judge is ever going to give him a discharge now, he'll be a bankrupt till his dying day. I suppose one must take it as a blessing in disguise."

"But darling, the disguise.'*

Sarah said to Caroline, "Jeanne would like you to come and see her."

"That's very good of her."

"She would come to you, you know, if she could."

"She and Gustavus—"

"Do go," Sarah said.

"She must remember that I did not the first time I was here; it would hardly be a service to her if I did so now."

"Am I mad? Are they mad? Are all the Feldens mad?" Sarah picked up the newspaper.

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"This one says the chimps were part of a Southern-Separatist plot to bring dishonour to the country from within. That poor brute I spoke to once in a cage at Hamburg?"

"Caroline, you oughtn't to be here."

"My place is by my husband's side, isn't it? You should see the letters I get from home. They all make a point of writing to me. About the delphiniums and Mr. Asquith's Budget and Mrs. Patrick Campbell, and they're not addressed to me at all—it's as if I were already dead and buried."

"Has it occurred to you that Jules most likely wouldn't be here at all if it weren't for you? And for my telegram."

"Sarah, I cannot make plans now."

"That is unlike you."

"I daresay."

"You've got to decide something."

"I said I could make no plans."

Sarah said, "My dear, don't make it any harder for yourself than you can help."

Caroline said nothing.

"I have an idea," Sarah said.

"Oh don't insist."

"We can't stay here all summer. Do you never think of time? We'll soon be in August."

"I don't see why you stay," said Caroline.

Without a change of tone, Sarah said, "For one thing I happen to be a mother; just at present it would be difficult for me to leave without my daughter accusing me of dragging her away."

"How's that going?"

"Not well," Sarah said.

"Don't listen to her. No one knows what's good for them."

"And I know?"

"Forgive my temper," said Caroline. "We all have our troubles."

"Yes."

"They're always one's own."

"Caroline—there isn't anything else?"

"Of course not," said Caroline.

Pedro, the manservant who arrived with them from Spain, had become a problem. When he was with Jules, he was contented enough and they talked about the things that interested them. But he had to go to mass, and he had to have his day off, and he didn't know the town and he didn't know the language, yet he was getting known himself in the drinking cellars of the neighbourhood, and he was very bored, and often he came home late and incoherent. Marie, who had rarely had a good word for the man in Spain, had established herself his guardian angel here; she saw to it that rice was cooked for him that was not rice pudding, she made Gottlieb see to his daily wine, she fretted. When she was in an unbending mood Pedro called her Tia, and she liked it.

One hot Sunday morning Gottlieb, Marie and the flock of servants had returned from worship early; not so Pedro. Gottlieb served luncheon in the dining room; when he came to sit down to his own dinner, Marie, already in her bonnet, would not let him. She seemed to know exactly where to go; yet Gottlieb, whose intercourse with Marie was respectful, dared not chaff her. At the third Spelunke, as she called these taverns, he found Pedro (she of course had remained outside). Pedro was standing lightly on two tables; he had been given white beer to drink spiced with potato spirits; someone in the audience who knew about as much French as he did had constituted himself link and compere.

"What did the first wife do?"

"The first wife she weep all day." Pedro curled up on the boards, impersonating a lady moping on a chaise longue.

"And the second wife?"

"She weep all day, too." (The liar, Caroline said.) Pedro posed himself into a graceful figure pining by a window.

"Now tell them why these poor women weep."

Pedro drew himself up. "Because my Master is very Magnificent Man."

The old people and the house were getting ready for the annual departure to the spa; Sarah had called as usual, she and Caroline were upstairs in the latter's sitting room.

"I wish there was a dog," said Caroline. "Did you see, Faithful George has resigned the Service. After thirty-one years. 'Orderly says Army not the same without his Captain.' I hope he'll get his pension."

"Bound to," said Sarah.

"We ought to do something for him."

"Clara will have been seeing to that."

"We can't leave everything to Clara. And now there'll be all that money."

"You are speaking of Jules's and Gustavus's inheritance?"

"How convenient the papers are. We don't have to tell each other anything."

"Jules ought to see the lawyers, Caroline."

"I can't even ask him to. I dare not mention his brother's name."

"Something should be done," said Sarah.

"Don't I know? The money must be refused. Or given away. . . . Could / get a power of attorney?"

"I'm afraid not for such a matter. Unless— Jules is capable of transacting business?"

"Oh yes, yes. If he wishes to."