The Light Heart (46 page)

“Mm—well, I don’t see why not,” said the Emperor, eyeing with pleasure an elaborate dish which had just been set before him.

“Your favourite sweet, Sire,” said the soft voice beside him. “I remembered from the last time that you liked it. That was what I thought of first when Conny told me you were coming today—the Emperor’s
mousse,
I said to myself. He must have his
mousse
at dinner.”

“Charming—delicious,” said the All-Highest, with his mouth full. “And you want me to speak to Conrad, is that it, hm? Tell him you must have your little holiday and accomplish this important mission for Germany?”

“Oh, no, please don’t do that, he would scold me for
troubling
you with such a trifle when you have so many bigger things on your mind!” she said, her blue eyes uplifted to him. “Conny
can
scold, you know, very hard!”

“Tsk, tsk,” said the Emperor, and wiped
mousse
off his
moustache, and went on spooning it in. “Well, no doubt sometimes you deserve it, eh?”

“Oh, doubtless, Sire, but not
this
time,” she coaxed meekly. “This time I’m sure I could be of real use, if only I could just pop off tomorrow for a few days at Geneva. But I couldn’t do that nowadays without a passport, could I? And I haven’t got one. I suppose it would take quite a while to get one—unless you would help me.”

“Mm?” He glanced at her sharply around his spoon.

“Is the
mousse
all right?” she asked with an anxious look. “Is it as good as it was the last time?”

“Delicious. Wish my own cook could make it. Must be some trick to it.”

“It’s quite complicated, I believe,” Rosalind agreed, and added with an impish, intimate smile, “I could write it all out for you. Sire, I’ll trade you the recipe for a
laissez-passer
to go to Geneva.”

The All-Highest exploded with laughter, and retired behind his napkin, Rosalind waited, smiling, and he met her melting gaze above the edge of the napkin.

“That’s a fair exchange, no doubt,” he said. “But what about your Conrad, eh?”

“You give me the
laissez-passer
privately before you leave here,” Rosalind suggested lightly. “And then tomorrow or the next day you just say to Conny, ‘Oh, by the way, I sent your wife to Geneva. I think she might do us a bit of good there.’ And by the time he gets back home he’ll be so glad to see me again he’ll forget to scold.”

She could see that the idea appealed to the Emperor’s God complex, and to his weakness for a joke, however feeble. To assist a pretty woman to play a harmless trick on her husband and then crow over him looked to Wilhelm like fun. And it always amused him to wield power with a stroke of his pen. Besides—the Americans were getting rather stuffy about this Lusitania affair, and a little bit of clever missionary work in the right quarters—

“Very well, I will give you your
laissez-passer,
” he said magnificently. “And with it a few notations on things you might mention to your American friend. In fact, I will write out for you, not as coming from myself, mind, but as your own ideas, some points it would be well to make.”

“Oh, please do,” said Rosalind. “I’m sure you could suggest things I’d never think of. And you won’t tell Conny till after you’re well away from here?”

The Emperor gave her a roguish glance, which was rather as though he had pinched her cheek.

“I daresay it will slip my mind,” he said.

M
EANWHILE
the Embassy secretary heard with a puckered brow Johnny’s story of the paper on which Rosalind had written the address in Geneva. But he was a romantic young man, and he consented to return to Berlin alone and make no difficulties about Johnny’s staying another day at the village inn. Johnny carried the credentials of a neutral correspondent and was nominally entitled to travel wherever he wished.

When it was then discovered that the Embassy car which had brought them to Halkenwitz wouldn’t start, and Johnny suggested that he would get it seen to and bring it back to Berlin himself the following day while the secretary returned at once by train, his companion gave him a long speculative look and shrugged bis shoulders. He knew that this was against the rules. But he felt that if Johnny Malone broke the rules it would be in a good cause. He made one last futile effort to cover the situation. “Remember, now, we’re neutral,” he said, firmly. “You are
not
to have anything to do with escaping prisoners.” Johnny assured him he wouldn’t dream of such a thing. “And I shall catch hell if this is found out,” said the secretary gloomily, and departed with his bag for the railway station, having given up all his spare cash at Johnny’s request.

When he had gone, the car miraculously came to life again, and with Johnny behind the wheel rolled up in front of the
Schloss
at one minute to noon.

He was shown into the same drawing-room he had seen yesterday and there he found Rosalind, wearing a linen
travelling
cloak with a small hat and a motoring veil. She picked up a handbag from the table near-by and came towards him with her hand held out as the servant announced him.

“It was very kind of you to suggest that I go for a drive with you today,” she said casually. “I am all ready, you see, and it’s such a glorious day that I had a picnic lunch put together so that we shan’t have to watch the clock. My lady-in-waiting has gone to represent me at a meeting of our local hospital board, so she can’t come with us. Walther, we shall want tea in the blue room about four-thirty,” she added as she swept past the footman at the door, with Johnny just behind her.

He put her into the car beside the driver’s seat and they waited while more footmen stowed away a large hamper at the back.

“Enough food for an army,” she remarked for their benefit while this was being done. “I supposed you would have a driver.”

“I always prefer to drive myself,” he murmured as the car moved smoothly away from the steps.

“Thank God for that,” she answered, as they were now out of earshot. “Could you possibly just drive straight through to Geneva without stopping?”

“As a matter of fact, Phoebe is at Zurich,” he said, dazed.

“That’s nearer, isn’t it?” she remarked, accepting the mystery without comment.

“You mean you’re just kidnapping me?” he asked with a little prickle of nerves at the back of his neck, and Rosalind laughed delightedly.

“Americans!” she cried. “They’re like a breath of air! Mr. Malone, I want to get out of Germany. Will you help me?”

“Today?”

“Now. This minute. Please, you’ve got to, it’s my only chance!”

“What about tea in the blue room at four-thirty?”

“By that time we shall have disappeared,” she told him simply. “They’ll wait till five before they think much about it. By six they will be alarmed and Malvida will start to have hysterics. By seven they will be sure there has been an accident, and the foresters will turn out to search. They will look for us all night, at all the bad turnings on the local roads. There are quite a lot of those. By morning they will notify the police, and try to telegraph Conny. With any luck for us they won’t be able to get in touch with him till much later in the day. How far away can we be by then?”

“Let’s see, must be a hundred and fifty miles to Dresden. We’d better leave the car there and take to the railway, since we’re really in a hurry.”

“Will it be much faster?”

“Night express from Dresden to Lindau—once we get across Lake Constance we’re in the clear.”

“You’ll
do
it?”

“Couldn’t ever face Phoebe if I didn’t. Can’t face Bracken if I do. I’ll take Bracken every time.”

“I’ll bet Bracken would do exactly the same in your place.”

“I’ll bet he would.”

She leaned back and drew a long breath.

“I can’t believe it,” she said.

“We haven’t done it yet. How about your passport? I always have mine with me, luckily.”

“I have a
laissez-passer
to Switzerland from the Emperor—written in his own hand.”

“Is he in on this?”

“He thinks I want to go to Switzerland to convince Phoebe that Germany is winning the war. And he loves to meddle and play Providence. When I told him that Conny said I couldn’t go and that he didn’t understand what a lot of good I could do talking to an American writer, he instantly thought
he could be cleverer than Conny and that it would be a good joke on him. And he even gave me a list of things to be sure and say to her!”

“I’d like to see that. Of course I’ll have to talk you past the Swiss side somehow.”

“Oh, we’ll manage that,” she said confidently. “I’ve been in and out through Lindau several times in happier days, and I’m sure to see someone I know and can tell a story to. There’s only one thing.” She hesitated. “I haven’t got any money.”

“I have,” said Johnny.

“Enough for two?”

“I guess so. You’ll probably have to sit up all night in the express.”

“I shan’t mind. You know—it’s almost as though you
expected
something like this.”

“I did expect something,” Johnny confessed. “It’s happened a little faster than I thought it could, but—we’re on our way!”

“Won’t Phoebe be surprised!”

“Not entirely,” said Johnny, and reaching a straight road westward he let out the car.

“Conny will know why I’ve gone,” she said, settling back into her corner. “That is—he’ll know because I went with you and not in the usual way with half a dozen trunks and a couple of maids.”

“And why did you?”

“Because I think he will try to stop me,” she said simply. “Everything depends on when it occurs to the Emperor to tell him I have gone—or when he gets a telegram from
Heidersdorf.
If I had waited to pack and collect the entourage I’m not allowed to move without, he might have had time to do something. But he’ll know now I’m not coming back. If he tells the Emperor that we may have trouble at Lindau.”

“They won’t be quick enough. And they can’t be sure we’d go to Lindau.”

“Hurry,” she said quietly, and her hands were clasped tensely in her lap, her eyes were fixed on the road ahead.

“We don’t want Dresden till after dark. Walk right up to the train just before it starts. Step out at Lindau tomorrow and catch the first boat across the Lake. Dinner at Zurich with Phoebe. Won’t it taste good?”

She smiled faintly, and her face was small and white.

In order to avoid going to a restaurant in Dresden from which they might be traced, they ate the last of the sandwiches and other delicacies from the hamper before they drove into the city, and Rosalind let down her veil. At the station they left the car and walked together to the ticket window. There was a short queue and while they stood waiting Rosalind heard the man ahead of them ask for a ticket to Hanover. He spoke perfect German, but his voice stopped her heart. When he turned away from the window she stared up from behind her veil at Charles—wearing a rather shabby suit of German civilian clothes which were a trifie small for him, walking with a cane and a bad limp—Charles, in Dresden, buying a ticket to Hanover as though he owned the place.

Without lifting his eyes to her face, he stepped around the figure of a woman who seemed to be planted in his path and walked on, purposefully, towards the train gates, while she stood gazing after him. He had not seen her. If he had looked at her the veil was meant to hide her face. But it was Charles and he had got as far as Dresden and was heading northwards towards Holland—she had heard that some of them got away through Holland….

Johnny’s hand took her elbow and she accompanied him in stupefied silence towards the train for Lindau.

“You’ll have to look as married as possible and nap on my shoulder,” he was saying. “Sure to be other people in the compartment. I’ll wire the Embassy from Rorschach on the Swiss side to collect the car. What’s the matter, feeling faint?”

“I’m—all right.”

“Hold up,” said Johnny. “So far, so good.”

All through that hot, endless night journey, as she dozed and waked and dozed again, she never quite lost sight of Charles,
limping away from her towards the trains—after Hanover, what?—Bremen?—he’d never get out that way—Osnabruck—Amsterdam—she knew so little about the Dutch frontier—she wished she could see a map—at Zurich she could see a map—Johnny Malone would know how you got out through Holland, once she could ask him—darling Charles, so far, so good….

She roused to find that Johnny had put an arm around her and held her gathered into the hollow of his shoulder, her face against his coat. Her small motor hat had slipped back and hung by its veil, her hair was loose—she suppressed the
impulse
to sit up quickly, and opened cautious eyelids. The seat opposite to them was empty now. She knew by the way Johnny held her, his body saving hers from the jerks and swayings of the train, that he was not asleep.

It was very hot, but the additional warmth of his guarding arm was infinitely welcome, his coat was harsh beneath her cheek, but her head fitted so exactly into the hard curve below his collar-bone—she thought, I’ve been married a dozen years and I never knew this about a man—I never knew you could be so comfortable—so
grateful.
And she thought, Why doesn’t Phoebe marry him—I would, if I were Phoebe—maybe she will—you wouldn’t ever have to worry about anything again—and unconsciously she nestled a little against the protecting shoulder, and his arm tightened round her reassuringly, and he thought, Worn out, and I don’t wonder—brave as a lion, but all worn out—poor little mite, she’s had a rough time—imagine roping in the Kaiser—that took nerve—imagine walking out of a palace like that with nothing but what you wore and no money—after all, I’m a total stranger to her—women are the deuce, I don’t mind if I say it again….

Through the window of the compartment Johnny saw the sun come up, red and angry and promising another hot day. He assisted a crumpled and apologetic Rosalind to recover herself and set off for the wash-room, and then he realized that his bag was still at the inn and he hadn’t even got a razor
on him, and must resign himself to arriving unshaven at Zurich for dinner. There was a restaurant car on the train, and when Rosalind returned looking remarkably fresh, he made her go and eat rolls and marmalade and drink hot coffee with him there.