The Tightening String Page 11

  ‘Emmi, die Königin von England ist in LON-DON’ – stamping their feet to emphasise the last two syllables. The unhappy woman left, unable to face this particular music.

  ‘Well, that was quite a change’ the Minister said to Martha and Rosina when they had repaired to the little boudoir to chew over the party. ‘Did you hear Pista’s story, Martha?’

  ‘Yes. Very nice too. No whisky for me, H.E. –I thought I’d flip down and tell David; it should give him a good night! Oh, and did Master Milton trouble himself to tell you about that gale having scattered all the German invasion barges? The B.B.C. have released that piece at last.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I approve of the way you refer to my Press Attache, who is technically your lord and master’ Sir Hugh said, skilfully evading the question – Geoffrey Milton had in fact not told him.

  ‘I thought not,’ Martha Beckley said, answering the evasion, and causing the Minister to laugh. ‘Anyhow it’s in the Press here today, so you’ll get it in the excerpts. Good night.’

  Now that David Eynsham was in hospital it was an understood thing that after the jours, at least, his wife dined at the Legation, since Lucilla ate at odd hours, to fit in with her periods of monitoring. As she and Sir Hugh waited for dinner Anton, the butler, came and said that a lady wished to speak with the gnädige Frau Eynsham.

  ‘I expect that’s more things from the Hunk knitting-party – do you mind if I go down and see?’ Rosina asked. It was by now quite dark.

  ‘Of course.’

  But it was not socks knitted in secret by the Hungarians. At the foot of the stairs stood a small woman, heavily veiled, holding an envelope which she handed to Mrs Eynsham.

  ‘I wished you to have this – I copied it out of the book for you. It is so true- as true as it was three and a half centuries ago.’

  The veil made the speaker’s face completely invisible, but Rosina thought she recognised the voice.

  ‘Isn’t it Fanny Derkheim?’ she asked. ‘How kind of you.’

  ‘Oh please do not speak any names! I am not sure that they are gone yet, and now one can trust no one’ the lady said nervously, glancing through her veil in the direction of the footman who was lingering to usher her out. ‘Good night.’ She hurried out through the glass door which gave onto the porte-cochere. Rosina, thoroughly mystified, took the envelope upstairs, and reported to Sir Hugh. ‘She was terrified of being seen by the spotteurs across the road, or that Hans would remember her name.’

  ‘Well what is this precious document?’ The Minister asked, practically.

  The envelope when they opened it proved to contain a typed copy of Schiller’s poem about the Armada – ‘Die Unüberwindliche Flotte’.

  ‘Oh, my German’s so rusty, I don’t think I can cope with this fast,’ the Minister said, glancing at it hastily. ‘You’ll have to make me a translation. Let’s go and eat’ – as Anton appeared at the door to announce dinner. And after a brief meal they repaired to the study; there, over coffee, while Sir Hugh read through papers from leather boxes, Rosina spent an hour translating Schiller’s poem, scribbling it down on blue-green foolscap sheets with the Lion and Unicorn embossed on the top.

  ‘Done?’ Sir Hugh asked at length, throwing the last of the papers he had minuted into one of the boxes, and snapping the lid to. (One only has to unlock diplomatic boxes, never to lock them.)

  ‘Yes, just. It’s quite fantastic – I mean it’s so ä la page; the Armada and the Battle of Britain are so frightfully alike.’

  ‘Really? May I see?’

  ‘Or had I better read it? It’s just scrawled.’ ‘Yes – read away.’

  So Rosina Eynsham read aloud to the British Minister in Budapest, in the year 1940, what the German poet Friedrich Schiller had written about England over 100 years before.

  ‘It comes, it comes, the proud fleet of the Continent—

  Earth’s waters shudder under it,

  With roar of guns, and new gods in the firmament,

  Lightnings and thunders pouring out of it.

  A fearful horde of mighty floating fortresses

  The ocean never saw its like as yet;

  “Lo, the Invincible” men say of it

  As it approaches through the watery passes.

  With what majestic silent tread

  Trembling Neptune bears his burden on

  With world-destruction in its heart and head

  And still it comes, and every storm dies down.’

  ‘WelI’vernichtung – what could be more like Hitler?’ Rosina said, pausing in her reading.

  ‘Don’t interrupt yourself – go on’ Sir Hugh said impatiently; he was listening with intense concentration, the German original in his hand. Rosina read on:

  ‘Now it stand right against you, in your sight,

  Fortunate island, mistress of the seas

  A galleon-army, fearful in its might

  Can even Britannia face such foes as these?

  Woe to your sons, though with brave hearts endowed

  Menaced by such a monstrous thunder-cloud!

  Say, at whose summons was it undertaken

  That task that made you Queen of half the earth?

  What spirit then, by tyrannous threats awoken

  Brought wisest institutions here to birth?

  That mighty Charter, that made Kings as burghers,

  And turned your commoners to Kings?

  You had a genius for the simple things

  Bought, sold, sailed ships, as it becomes plain burghers;

  Your fleet’s achievements told the world your worth.

  Whom may you thank? Oh blush, each other nation!

  Your spirit and your soul alone wrought your salvation.’

  ‘That’s true, you know’ Mrs Eynsham interjected again. ‘Poor Hunks, poor Czechs – always wanting someone else to save them.’

  ‘Any more?’ Sir Hugh asked, still rather impatiently.

  ‘Yes indeed – right up to today! Listen—’

  ‘Hapless! Look now on these fire-flinging monsters

  Look on the ruin which you must await!

  The whole round Earth watches, aghast, your fate —

  And all free hearts beat now in terror

  And freedom-loving souls lament with horror

  Watching the menace standing at your gate.

  God the Almighty from high Heaven looked down

  And saw your foes’ proud flags against you waving;

  Saw the abyss in which you must go down—

  “Is this my England?” He cried, “these perils braving?

  Shall my one hero-race be blotted out?

  Freedom’s sole bastion be brought to naught?

  Tyranny’s last opponent, now and here,

  Obliterated from this hemisphere?

  Never” God cried, “shall the heaven-minded few,

  Humanity’s last guard, by wicked men be driven!”

  God the Almighty blew

  And the Armada fled to the four winds of Heaven.’

  There was a little pause.

  ‘That’s a very accurate translation’ Sir Hugh said then. ‘A lot of it is almost verbatim.’

  ‘Yes – it’s very easy to translate into English from German; much easier than from French. I made a mess-up in verse 3, though; there were two lines I simply couldn’t do.’

  ‘So I saw – and you had to paraphrase der Freiheit’s Paradies in the last verse. But it’s a good effort, Rosina. Well done. I think you ought to get it published.’

  ‘David would hate that.’

  ‘Would he? I wonder why? All the same I wish it could appear – perhaps in America. It is so amazingly a propos – at the moment England is‘humanity’s last guard’ in this hemisphere – indeed everywhere.’ He mused. ‘Most peculiar, really, that old Schiller should have written this – it’s really more prophetic than historical. Perhaps all poets have a touch of the prophet in them.’

  ‘Only in the sense of being timeless, wouldn’t y
ou say? This seems to me just an odd coincidence – apart from the extraordinary fact of a German having really seen what England is.’

  ‘Oh, there’s nothing extraordinary about that. They have always admired and envied us; this war, and the last one, have both really been a sort of crime passionel.’

  Rosina laughed, and got up.

  ‘I must go home.’

  ‘Why?’ His tone made her blush.

  ‘Well really because I get a bit tired; there’s such a lot of work.’

  ‘You do too much.’

  ‘Of course – who doesn’t? And now is one of the few times when it’s worth while doing too much, don’t you think? So often people do too much over pure rubbish, like entertaining or being superlatively dressed.’

  ‘You are always well-dressed’ the Minister said, opening the door for her.

  ‘Yes yes – the sales in Davies Street! But I never work at it.’ She paused at the door. ‘Oh by the way, I had said that Lucilla and I would go to the Weissbergers this weekend. If David is all right, I mean. If we do, could you slip down and see him, and ring me up? Martha says you aren’t going away.’

  ‘A private secretary leaves one no private life!’ Sir Hugh said with a small smile. ‘Yes – I should have gone to see David anyhow. Why are you going to the Weissbergers? – apart from their being ‘good citizens’? Save the Children, and all that?’

  ‘I like her; and they keep on asking us. And I want to consult him about finance.’

  ‘Oh, are you proposing to invest in Hungary? I shouldn’t, just now.’

  Rosina laughed again.

  ‘Don’t be silly! – I haven’t got a halfpenny to invest anywhere. But I want to raise money for the prisoners, and I think he might advise me. And they’re good people.’

  ‘He will advise you very well – and they are, as you say, good people; some of the best.’ He kissed her hand. ‘Good night.’

  Chapter 7

  The Weissbergers, to whose country estate Lucilla and her Mother drove down on the following Saturday, were Catholic Jews; Jews by race, devout Catholics for two generations – a curious phenomenon, not unusual in Central Europe, rare elsewhere. They were a large clan: Baron Hermann was one of four brothers, all Barons – in Hungary to be a Baron proclaimed one also to be a Jew; the indigenous aristocracy were Counts, Markgrafs, or Princes, like old Willie Tereny. These wealthy Jewish families had been ennobled under the Dual Monarchy (the old Austro-Hungarian Empire) because of their enormous importance to the country’s economy: such heavy industry as Hungary then possessed it owed entirely to their capital, skill and enterprise, and most of the lighter industries were also in their hands. They were good employers, hugely charitable, and great patrons of the arts – music, painting, and sculpture in Hungary owed almost as much to them as its industrial output did; in fact, as Sir Hugh had said, they were good citizens. And they were collectors – the house at which Lucilla and her Mother presently arrived contained not less than four superb Titians.

  During the drive down Lucilla was rather silent. She knew quite well that Hugo Weissberger, the son of the house, was seriously in love with her – no question, here, of Endre Erdöszy’s flirtatious nonsense. She had been relieved, at Terenzcer, to ‘have it out’ with her Mother about Count Endre, but she was dissatisfied with her attempt at explaining her attitude. It had been true so far as it went, but it was not the whole truth. Her engagement to Hamish had been so hurried – what engagements weren’t, on the outbreak of war? She remembered that evening with a quite peculiar clarity: not only the room and the fire – because the Highlands are so often chilly even in late summer – lighting up the rather dull furniture and the bad portraits, but the dual quality of her own emotions, even then. She had met Hamish in London, at balls – he was a beautiful dancer – and had fallen rather in love with him, though always with certain reservations. Then had come this visit to his home, a rather ugly house in surroundings that couldn’t be lovelier, a place of which he adored every inch, quite uncritically; there were also his parents, his Mother absorbed in her garden, his Father in birds and his herd of pedigree red-polls – Lucilla’s reservations had increased, though her liking for Hamish had increased too; he was so nice to his Father and Mother. Suddenly the wireless became menacing: Molotoff and Ribbentrop signed a pact; the situation of minefields was given at dictation speed during the news, as a warning to shipping; then there were telephone calls for Hamish – he must rejoin his regiment at once. That night the old people removed themselves and left the drawing-room to the young pair; Hamish proposed, with a desperate urgency which Lucilla found hard to resist at such a moment, reservations or no – she said Yes.

  Hamish, rapturous, after some rather overwhelming embraces suggested that they should dance to their betrothal; he pushed the rugs aside, hunted in the record-stand beside the gramophone, and put on the tune of his choice – that rather charming but very out-of-date waltz, ‘Always’. As the mechanical voice chanted the words of the song, Hamish sang them close to her ear —

  ‘Not for just an hour, not for just a day,

  Not for just a year, but always, always, always’

  And even in his arms Lucilla had felt a chill, a sense of fetteredness – fettered by this touch of the old-fashioned in Hamish, and his simple-minded seriousness. But what could she do, or say, then? She had just accepted him; they were engaged – for ‘always’; her word, given at the moment when her betrothed was about to go off to fight, must stand – it still stood. But Hamish had refused absolutely to let the engagement be announced, or even to give her a ring. ‘I might come back with no legs, or no arms, or something – I won’t have you publicly tied to a cripple’ he had said. ‘Wait till I come back,’

  All the same, she could not help being sharply aware of the difference between her chivalrous lover and the lively, cultivated Hungarian young men who now swarmed about her, whether frivolous like Endre, or good like Hugo; Hugo had his serious side too, but his mind and his interests were so wide – music, pictures, literature, films – there could be no sense of fetters with him. And during this week-end he would almost certainly propose to her. She would refuse him, of course, but she would like to go on seeing him.

  Lucilla recognised quite clearly that she was rather man-minded, and was perfectly frank about it. One day Sir Hugh had asked her which she like best, Emmi Weiss-berger or Oria Tereny?

  ‘Oh, about the same – they’re very nice. I’m not frightfully interested in women, really; so many of them have pinhead brains. I don’t mean those two – they’re both clever. But I do like men.’ Sir Hugh had laughed out.

  ‘Really, Lucilla!’

  ‘What’s wrong with saying so, if it’s true? It doesn’t mean that people are nymphomaniacs; it’s just that they’re normal,’ the young girl pronounced, in her cool clear tones. And the much older man, looking at her – as cool as her voice, and completely unembarrassed – realised that she was uttering a truth that his generation seldom admitted, but was none the less true for that. ‘In fact I like you tremendously’ Lucilla had ended, ‘but of course one knows what a pitfall clever older men are.’ She gave a youthful girlish giggle as she said that, and the Minister had laughed again, disconcerted.

  And now here she was, committed to a week-end with the Weissbergers, facing a proposal from Baron Hugo, and really in torment about her fettering old-fashioned Hamish, underfed, and lacking clothing and cigarettes, a prisoner in German hands – and worried about her Father’s illness. She had plenty of cause to be silent, enclosed in her own thoughts, as the car sped through the pretty villages and flat fields of the Alfold, the great Danubian plain.

  A very large house-party was assembled in the white house, long and low, where they arrived in time for luncheon; Johanna, the Baron’s wife, in spite of her devotion to good works was gay and lively, and loved to entertain young people. The afternoon, however, was devoted to the good works aspect. The Baroness wanted Mrs Eynsham to see the school that they
had added to and staffed for the village children; the communal bath-house that they had built for the peasants’ use, and above all the factory where maize, the chief local crop, was processed into starch for the laundries of Budapest and Vienna, while the sticky dextrose was sent to the Bata shoe-factories in Czechoslovakia in the form of glue; to gum, it seemed, one part of a shoe to another part.

  Baroness Weissberger expatiated on the factory.

  ‘This is such a problem, where the local product is both bulky, and cheap, so that freight charges eat up all the profits. But starch and glue are not bulky, and are quite dear; so that problem is solved. And there is now employment, here in the village, so that the young people earn money while they live at home, instead of going to the city, and being un-natured. Do you say this so? I mean dénaturé – wrenched into a form of life that for them is false.’

  Rosina, gazing at dusty machines in big airy well-lit rooms, at vats full of the yellowish stringy dextrose, and at the cheerful young men and women tending them, asked how many people were employed?

  ‘At present 175, about – all who are available.’

  ‘Aren’t they missed on the farms?’ countrified Rosina inquired.

  ‘Oh, Hermann arranged for this. The factory works on a ten-months’ year, so that the men and girls can be released for the hay-harvest, for the maize-harvest, for the vintage and for picking the mulberry-leaves – this is only the girls – to feed the silk-worms at the end of the summer.’

  Rosina was impressed by this intelligent planning, which seemed to her quite admirable; she was thinking of her beloved Highlands, where the main crop, the wool of black-faced sheep, also cheap and bulky, was all freighted away at ruinous cost to be processed elsewhere.