A Legacy (34 page)

But Count Bernin stayed.

Presently she said, "If this mercy is so infinite why was he not given the time he needed? why was the bullet not made to go another way? why was he not prevented from doing what he did at all?"

"These are the questions of a pagan and a school child. There is free will, and there is a law."

"Ah yes," she said, "a law."

At one point she said, "If I will do this thing you ask me, will you let Clara, will you let me, do what we can about the Corporal?"

"The man who killed your husband's brother?"

"He is not that man."

"You realize what it must mean once more? To Jules, to me—to all of us. To the girls."

"To all of us."

"You have been a disturbing presence amongst us. You are asking a great deal now."

"No, Conrad, don't worry—I am not asking it. I'm not asking for anything. No deals. ... I did want to get the Corporal out, but not in that way, not at that price. . . .** Then she changed to a smile. "We both know that if Clara has set her mind on it, she will do it anyhow."

Count Bernin said, "As you are so reluctant, will you let me do it for you? I would tell Clara tomorrow that I asked you at once—she will understand that—and what answer you gave me. She will not ask you again. Will you consent to that?"

She said wearily, "I cannot make you see. It would be the same. It would be worse. Oh I don't want to be churlish—and I don't want to be hard, above all—"

"I have always been interested in you," said Count Bernin. "There was a time when I was able to wish that your child might be a boy ... I might have treated him as a son, made him my heir . . . Jules could have been brought round. As it turned out I have no need of an heir."

Presently he said, "Could you not have been mistaken? An error in observable fact—a human possibility."

"You forget the doctor," said Caroline.

"Who will be kinder tomorrow."

She sighed.

He looked at the picture on her wall. "That is what you like, isn't it? I suppose it would be what one'd turn to, if one went in for that side."

"Art?" she said.

"Not all art. This." He read out the name plate, "Claude Monet. I can see that this is—" he paused— "persuasive."

"Did you never succumb?"

"I liked Shakespeare as a boy," he said.

Caroline said, "Conrad, you have lived so long, more than twice as long as I have. Such strange gleanings . . ."

Count Bernin said, "Nobody has ever understood me."

Presently, he said, "My father made one mistake. In which I followed him. He believed one had to fight heresy from above. The real menace of this century is irreligion."

Presently he stood up, "You would call yourself a humanist, would you not? I beg you to consider what I've asked you in that light."

"Oh what I call myself . . ." she said. "But whatever it is, don't you see? is against you."

"I shall leave you now," said Count Bernin. "Remember that my sister will ask you first thing tomorrow morning."

Caroline remained alone for some time; the night was still mild, though dark; then she went upstairs and knocked at Julius's door.

"I know it's late," she said, "and we're all worn out, but I have to speak to you. Now. I cannot deal with this by myself.

"For once, I am going to treat you as what you might be to me—an elder brother."

Julius was in his dressing room. All the lights were on and he was still in his clothes. The lamp he used for diffusing some liquid in the air against his asthma was burn-

ing; a ledger was open on the table, but he was not writing.

When Caroline came in, he was standing with his back against the curtained window. "Have they gone?" he said.

"Who?"

"Are they not going? They must! They cannot stay here, not in this house. They must take—everything—back to Sigmundshofen."

"Tonight?"

"They must go. Make them go, Caro. You've been speaking to them, they must have told you when they are leaving."

She controlled herself. "Jules, this cannot do," she said.

"You are not on my side," he said.

Again she made an effort. "I need you," she said.

He went to the decanter and poured her a little brandy. "I cannot smoke tonight," he said, "because of this," he touched his chest.

"Jules, Conrad wants me to tell Clara that he did not die at once."

"No," he said, "No, No."

She looked at him and saw that his face was grey. Something went out from him that she was not good at recognizing; yet she had known it in horses, it was that kind of fear.

"I have been alone all evening," he said.

"There was much to see to."

"I would have sent for you, but I thought you were arranging for them to go. Let us have some piquet." He fetched the cards.

They drew. "Your deal," she said.

She took up her hand, discarded, picked up five. She stopped. "It isn't possible," she said, and saw that Jules had dropped his hand, too. All their cards were spades.

Julius recoiled.

"A practical joke," Caroline said. "A rather nasty one." She turned them over. "Not at all. They're grabuge cards;

Plon must have brought them by mistake from Voss Strasse. Shall I try to find another pack?"

"Oh no!" said Julius.

She remained sitting at his desk. He stood before her. "Don't you think that we must speak? We need not speak of my predicament, but we must speak of what has happened."

He put his hands to his ears. "Don't speak of it to me, don't speak of it ever."

She looked at him intently.

"I've got a good mind to go away," he said off hand.

She wished to calm him. She matched his tone, "Yes that might be a good idea."

"A long journey," said Julius.

"Then we could shut up the house."

He said suspiciously, "There is no reason for that."

"You know we shall have to do it sooner or later," said Caroline.

"Who says so?" said Julius.

"We should have talked about it before. I did not want to while we were under their roof."

"You have been talking to Sarah," said Julius.

"Of course."

"The lawyers think it's entirely preposterous."

"Jules—?"

"One must not let Sarah interfere about everything."

"You don't mean you are going to insist on that money?"

"I know nothing about it," said Julius, "I know nothing about money. It was left to me. It has nothing to do with you or me. The lawyers will see to it."

"Jules."

"You are not on my side," said Julius.

She got up swiftly and went to the door. "Stay," he said.

"There is no point," said Caroline and went out.

As she walked down the stairs she had the sense of the house asleep and not asleep: of Clara lying held under the

drug, of the wake kept in the library by the menservants and the women from the village, of the nursery, of maids uneasy in their dreams, of people alone, wakeful and watching. On the last step it came to her what she must do.

Count Bernin was writing in the downstairs drawing room.

"I have decided," she said.

He bowed his head.

"I shall go away. Now. At once. The uses of my presence here are at an end/'

"Yes; but when you come back?"

"I shall not come back," said Caroline.

In her room, she sat down to write the letter; then she saw that it must not be so. She went herself to Jules. The lights were still full on, he was standing in the same position by the window. She had not realized that less than ten minutes had passed.

"I am leaving you, Jules," she said; "this time I am. There is nothing I can say now. I shall send for the child in a few days; anything else we can settle by letter. This place is yours, I gave it to you."

Julius said, "I always knew you would leave me. It was too good to be true."

"No, Jules, it was not that. Not for many years—I know you have come to resent me. I've been but poor protection."

He said, "You are not leaving now?"

"Yes."

"What folly."

"You showed me that it was possible to leave your house at this hour."

At the door she said, "I had meant to ask you one thing —did you know that the cats you gave to the Merzes were fakes?"

"Oh yes," said Julius. "I was taken in. I was young then,

but I knew it after a week. It was one of my worst mistakes." "And what made you give them as a present?" "I did not like to look at them. What could I do? You see, they were beautiful—they were very good fakes."

I waked. Some light was coming in through the open window from the park, and I was able to see the outline of her face bent over me. "Are you going away, Mummy?"

"Yes, I am going away. I shall send for you, duck; nanny will come for you soon.

"Are you taking a train?"

"It will be a milk train, I suppose."

"Where are you going?"

"England."

"England is good? Nanny says so."

"At the moment I feel rather prejudiced in its favour."

"I will be in England with you?"

"Yes. You must go to sleep now."

"Promise?"

"I promise," said my mother.

But nanny never came. My father found some letters in a book and sent them to the lawyers and my mother did not get my custody. After some time my father sent me a note asking me not to mention her name to him again; this rather hurt me as I should not have spoken of her anyhow. Her room, the one with the picture in it, stayed locked. My father and I lived in our country house in summer, and in the winter with Grandmama Merz at Voss Strasse. I now travelled there with my father in the motor-car; he said we were ruined and could not afford to buy railway tickets. He often spoke of our ruin, and there were some signs; he had sold the horses and refused to get beer in for the servants, they were made to drink up the older wines. And I soon had no more clothes. Blankets and overalls were best for small children, he said, and I liked this well
enough. We had no more servants from the village; my father had them come from France, and forbade them to go out or speak to the local people, it would give them revolutionary ideas, he explained to me. When we needed things that had to be delivered, my father sent for them from a catalogue and they arrived in parcels. Our butler had left soon; it was to get married, but I believed he missed my mother. I had no new nanny; but one or another of the housemaids always looked after me. My father still went to auction sales. The new servants told me that we were not really poor; I knew myself that my father had come to a settlement about his Merz inheritance and that we also lived on some of the capital that had been left to him by his brother Johannes.

When we were in the country my father and I had all our meals together. He told me stories about what he used to do when he was a boy, and about furniture, and he also knew about fruit trees and vegetables and how to grow vines, and he taught me. We were never silent, though I found it always a little difficult to talk to him myself. He had much trouble in these years with his asthma, and I knew it worried him. Henrietta did not come to the country with us any more; Grandmama was lonely and she stayed all the time with her. My father said it was much better so.

"I hope you will never trust a young woman," he told me.

Later on Henrietta also stayed away because she was engaged. It was to the violinist who had once been engaged to Sarah's youngest girl. Sarah first said that it was a mercy, and then she said it was not, because her own girl had run away with another young man.

"He's worse, if that can be possible," she said.

We did not see much of Sarah. She did not call so often at Voss Strasse now; though Edu came every day. My father had taken against Sarah; he called her a false friend who had brought great misfortune on us all. Sarah's eldest girl

was training to become a hospital nurse. Edu said Sarah was quite cut up about it; but he said as soon as a chap'd come along there'd be an end of it. Sarah said chaps only came along for the other one.

I also knew that Sarah had paid Edu's debts.

"Why not?" she had said. "It'll make all those old gamesters sit up. I seem to have become so very rich lately—I see no point any more in keeping it up. I forget why I ever started it."

Grandmama Merz said to me every day when I came down to say good morning, "When shall we see your beautiful mama again, dear? I miss her very much."

As my father seldom was downstairs at that hour, I did not really mind.

I was not sent to school; my father was not for it. Also it might have been awkward for a while. My Aunt Clara had been right—the Bernin Letter, as it came to be called, together with the fact of Gustavus Felden's suicide, roused interest again. People seemed to feel this time that Corporal Schaale really would be better out of prison. The authorities became tired of the fuss; the corporal's trial was not reopened, but he was given a full pardon and released.

We never saw Aunt Clara.

In November 1913 my father caught bronchitis as we were driving up to Berlin. We reached Voss Strasse; but the bronchitis had affected his asthma, and the asthma affected his heart. It was a struggle for him to breathe, and the more he struggled the harder it became. They gave him morphine to relax the tension, but when he lay still the bronchitis choked him. Presently pneumonia set in. He did not want to die and he was sure that he was meant to, and these weeks must have been very terrible for him. I had become afraid of such things, and tried to avoid having to go in to him. Emil and the servants helped me in this. When he asked for me at the end I did not go.

They buried him in the Merzes' vault, next to his first wife, Melanie.

Shortly afterwards I was told that I would be taken to my mother. I was to be met at the Dutch border and one of Grandpapa Merz's former companions was to take me for the German part of the journey. When it became known that my mother herself would be meeting me in Holland, Marie offered to come with me instead.

Marie and I arrived at the border station, dressed in black clothes. We went into the stuffy waiting room, but my mother was not there. After a while we went out again. It was very cold. We had seen from the train that it had been snowing.