The Gossamer Cord (29 page)

One night I dreamed I had been walking along the beach when a figure had risen from the waves and beckoned. I awoke in a fright and was relieved to find that I was in my bedroom in dear, normal, old Caddington, the home of my childhood, where everything was prosaically reasonable.

In February my mother and I went to stay with Edward and Gretchen. The house was looking more lived in now. The new baby was expected in April and my mother said we should be there for the great event. Gretchen could become quite excited discussing the baby, but I knew she was still very anxious about her family.

Of course, we were invited to the Dorringtons. Mary Grace and Mrs. Dorrington were delighted to see us. It was afternoon when we called and Richard was not at home.

“He will be so pleased to hear you have arrived,” we were told. “Edward did tell him you were coming. You must come and dine. What about tomorrow night?”

My mother promptly accepted the invitation.

In my room I took out the miniature of Dorabella which I had brought with me. I set it on the table by my bed and remembered my mother’s words when she had spoken of her misgivings. I had begun to wonder, too. We must remember that Dorabella often acted and spoke on impulse. She often gave more stress to her utterances than they deserved. She was lonely, she had said. That was because she liked to have us all around; my adventures with Jowan Jermyn provided a certain interest and amusement.

I studied the miniature. Mary Grace had caught Dorabella’s personality quite uncannily. Dear Dorabella. I hoped she was going to be happy. I remembered the joy in her face when she had seen my picture. She kept it in her bedroom, she said, but when I was not there she put it away because she did not want to look at it and miss me more. Though, she said, she did take it out at times to talk to it. I would understand her feelings because we always had understood each other.

I wondered whether I should have insisted on staying. But my mother was right, of course. She was sure it would be better for Dorabella to stand on her own feet now that she was married. As for myself, I should be seeing friends and enjoying visits to London. I must not be shut away in a remote part of the country.

“There in Cornwall,” she said, “you are not aware of what is happening in the world. They seem so shut away. They are more concerned with ghosts and shadows, superstitions and such things…remote from what is really going on in the world.”

“You mean the speculation about what is going on in Germany?”

“Well, yes.”

“I think Gretchen and Edward think about that a great deal.”

“Well, they would. Poor girl. She must suffer great anxiety about her parents. It’s not good for the baby. Thank God Edward was able to bring her out, at least.”

“She is safe now.”

“She has a husband to protect her, but that won’t stop her worrying about her family. Kurt is such a nice young man. I think he came over to see them just before Christmas.”

“It was a pity they could not go there.”

“I don’t think Edward would want Gretchen to go to Germany just yet.”

“Perhaps it will all blow over.”

“These things often do.”

There was no mistaking Richard Dorrington’s pleasure in seeing us. He took my hands and held them firmly.

“I’ve been wondering when you would come,” he said.

“We have been away, of course.”

“Yes, in Cornwall. I hope your sister is well. Mary Grace told us a good deal about the place when she came home after that lovely holiday you gave her.”

“It was lovely to have her, and Dorabella was very pleased with her picture.”

“Dear Mary Grace! You have brought her out, I can tell you. We are all so grateful to you, my mother and I as much as Mary Grace.”

“She could really be a great artist.”

“She is very diffident. She says miniatures are not much in fashion now.”

“She must make them a fashion. She can, with a talent like hers, I am sure.”

“You see how good it is for us all to have you back.”

Over the dinner table at the Dorringtons it was impossible to keep the subject of Germany out of the conversation.

There were four other guests—a lawyer and his wife and a doctor and his.

As we had come through the streets to the house, we could not help but see the placards, and the newsboys were shouting: “
Standard, News
…Read all about it.” “Hitler meets Austrian Chancellor.” “Schuschnigg at Berchtesgaden.”

“What does it mean?” asked my mother as our taxi took us to the Dorringtons.

Edward said: “I don’t know. But I don’t like the sound of it.”

He took Gretchen’s hand and held it for a moment. I wished we had not seen those placards.

As we sat at dinner the doctor said: “It looks as though Hitler is planning to take over Austria.”

“He couldn’t do that,” said Edward.

“We shall see,” replied the doctor.

I wished they would stop talking of the situation, but naturally it was a subject which was uppermost in people’s minds at this time. The papers were full of it, and many were waiting with great interest to hear the result of the meeting between Hitler and Kurt von Schuschnigg.

The lawyer said: “We should have been firm long ago. Hitler and Mussolini are hand in glove. Dictators, both of them. No one can stop them, not among their own people anyway. It’s impossible to curb dictators except by deposing them, and it would be a brave man who tried to shake those two. In my opinion, Hitler is bent on conquest. He wants an empire and he is going to do everything he can to get it. He has got rid of Schacht who has tried to call a halt to the excessive storing up of armaments because it is crippling the economy. Blomberg and Fritsch and others have gone because they were professional soldiers who advised caution.”

“And where is it all leading?” asked Richard.

“I think a great deal depends on the outcome of this meeting. Schuschnigg is no weakling. He won’t allow Hitler to walk over him.”

“We shall know in due course,” said Richard.

I managed to catch his eyes and looked toward Gretchen. He understood. As for her, she had turned rather pale and was staring down at her plate.

“Now tell me,” went on Richard immediately, “what are you planning to do while you are in London?”

“So much,” I replied, “that I am sure we shall not succeed in doing it all.”

“There is a remedy,” he said. “Stay longer.”

While the men lingered over the port, I had a chance to talk to Gretchen in the drawing room.

“You must be very excited about the baby,” I said.

“Oh, yes.”

I laid my hand on her arm and said gently: “Don’t worry, Gretchen.”

“I think of them,” she said quietly. “Hitler is getting more powerful every day. I don’t know what he will do next to our people.”

“Have your family been…?”

She shook her head. “Not yet…but they must expect…”

“They should get out, Gretchen.”

“They won’t leave. I have written to them. So has Edward. Edward says, ‘Come over here. We’ll manage somehow.’ But they won’t. They are so stubborn…so proud. It is their home, they say, and they are not going to be driven out of it.”

“What are they going to do?”

“They will stay as long as they can.”

“How glad I am that you are here!”

“Edward did that. It is wonderful for me, but I think much of my home and family.”

“Dear Gretchen, let us hope that some day it will be different. I am so pleased that Edward brought you out, and now there is the baby. My mother is delighted. She wants to be here for the birth. Did you know that?”

She nodded and I was glad to see her smile.

“When the baby comes…you will feel better.”

She looked at me and smiled rather sadly and I wished there was something I could do to comfort her.

My mother and I spoke of the evening over breakfast next morning.

“I wish that people would not talk all the time about what is happening in Germany,” I said.

“It is certainly the topic of the moment and it is, of course, very important.”

“I know, but the papers are full of it and it does so much upset Gretchen.”

“She can’t help wondering what is happening in her old home. I do hope everything is going to be all right.”

“She’ll be better, perhaps, when she gets the baby. She won’t have much time then to think of much else.”

She was certainly cheered when we went shopping together. There was a great deal of discussion about prams and cradles.

Edward was delighted that we were there, and when I saw him with Gretchen it occurred to me that there did not appear to be the same unwavering devotion between Dermot and Dorabella. But then Edward and Gretchen were earnest people. Both Dorabella and Dermot were light-hearted and perhaps did not betray the depth of their emotions as Edward and Gretchen did.

Mary Grace and I went to see an exhibition of paintings which was interesting. The lawyer and his wife came and had a drink with us and I showed them Mary Grace’s portrait of Dorabella, which I had brought with me. When the lawyer’s wife admired it enthusiastically, I suggested she herself would make a good subject.

I was delighted to have secured a commission for Mary Grace.

I had an idea that the lawyer’s wife lived a fairly busy social life and I was sure that when the miniature was completed, if she were satisfied with it, she would show it to her friends. I should be surprised if at least one other commission did not come out of it.

Knowing my mother’s fondness for the opera, Richard took us all to see
Rigoletto
, which was an evening of sheer enchantment. We had supper afterwards and talked animatedly about the setting and costumes as well as the wonderful music. I laughingly said I might have been Gilda instead of Violetta.

“Violetta is much more charming,” said Richard, “and it is better to have a namesake dying gracefully in her bed taking her top notes with ease rather than lying in a sack.”

There was a great deal of laughter, but the evening was marred slightly by the news which greeted us when we were on the way back to the house.

Hitler had forced Schuschnigg to sign an agreement before he left Berchtesgaden giving the Austrian Nazis a free hand.

A few days later Richard invited me to dinner. There were to be just the two of us.

It was strange because usually we went in a party. There was a reason, of course, and my mother knew what it meant.

Richard took me to a quiet little restaurant near Leicester Square. We had a table which was fairly secluded and after we had ordered and the food had arrived he said: “It has been wonderful to have you here.”

“We have thoroughly enjoyed it.”

“My mother was saying that Mary Grace has changed a good deal and it is all due to you.”

“Someone would have discovered her talent sooner or later.”

“Well, you did it. We are grateful to you, Violetta…all of my family are indebted to you.”

“I am flattered. But it all came about so naturally. She showed me her work and I saw immediately that it was good. Dorabella was absolutely enchanted with the picture of me.”

“We are all so fond of you. It is not only I…”

“And we of you all, of course.”

He paused for a moment, then he said simply: “As for myself…I love you.”

“Oh,” I stammered. “I…er…”

“You’re not going to say you are surprised and it is all so sudden, are you?”

“Well, we haven’t known each other very long.”

“Time doesn’t count. I know I love you. I want to marry you. How do you feel about that?”

“Well, I know it is supposed to be some sort of joke to say it is so sudden, but it does seem a little so. You see, we really don’t know each other very well.”

“One can get to know people very well in a short time.”

I felt uneasy. A picture of Dorabella and Dermot flashed into my mind. I had let that remark of my mother’s upset me. Everything must be all right with them. And what about Richard? I liked him. I found his company pleasant, stimulating. But I was not like Dorabella to rush into commitments with great haste.

“Marriage is such a serious matter,” I said. “It is a lifetime together.”

“Does that appeal?”

“I just feel bewildered.”

“You must know how fond I am of you.”

“I knew that you liked me. But this is more than that. We are talking about marriage.”

“There is no one else…?”

“Oh, no…no.”

“You don’t seem oversure.”

I was seeing Jowan Jermyn in the field when I had fallen, then smiling at me over a tankard of cider, showing me his house.

“Oh, no,” I said. “There is no one.”

“Then…?”

I looked at him. He was so earnest, a man of honor and integrity, who was devoted to his family, who lived an interesting life. Here in London I felt alive. I liked to be among people, people who were hurrying around on their own business, not watching you all the time, knowing where you came from, what you were doing. I liked Mrs. Dorrington…I was fond of Mary Grace…and Richard, too.

He was looking a little crestfallen.

“It is too soon, I see,” he said. “I just seized on the moment.”

“Yes, it is too soon,” I agreed. “I was never one to make hasty decisions. I should want to be absolutely sure.”

“So you do like me?”

“Very much.”

“You like my family?”

“Of course.”

“Mary Grace would be so pleased and so would my mother.”

“Mine would be, my father, too.”

“Then,” he said, smiling warmly, “the matter is in abeyance for the time being. Would that be all right?”

“I think it is an excellent idea,” I said.

“You are going to get to know me very well while you are in London.”

“And you will have to get to know me.”

“I know all I want to know already.”

“Am I so easy to read?”

“No, but I’m besotted.”

I laughed and he went on: “It is not No. It is just, ‘I am not sure.’ That’s it, isn’t it?”

“That is it,” I said.

“Well, I shall have to be content with that.” He held up his glass. “Let’s drink to it.”

It was a happy evening. I could not help feeling a certain gratification. I suppose it is comforting to be loved, and I had so often been overlooked because Dorabella attracted so much attention.