CLOUDED NOON

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20543, 19 February 1935, Page 14

CLOUDED NOON

By

CHAPTER XIV. The Snapshot. But Burden had little fear on that score. Always his custom was to meet an attack by forestalling it, and he had taken advantage of his one night's stay in Vienna to interview an important member of the Austrian Government, with satisfactory results. He was more eager than ever now to carry out his scheme, for a reason quite apart from its financial possibilities. Wienthal was Sandra’s home. Before he had known that, it has just been an ordinary gamble to him, which he could cut out if lie pleased, and if it showed no promise. Sandra’s presence put the whole adventure on an entirely new footing. She was Tony Carslake’s sister. Unquestionably, if he had not been bombed from the air that night long years ago, Tony would have saved him from the injustice and shame he suffered after. It was indeed Tony’s death which had encouraged that vindictive and poisonous cousin of Harvey Stayre to arrest him and perjure his sould before a court-martial with such certain safety. If only for friendship’s sake, it seemed to John, he was called on now to save Sandra and her mother from the poverty under which they laboured. And Sandra was so beautiful that friendship’s sake was not John’s only reason. He appreciated that more and more as the next couple of days slipped by. He began to observe as well that, on her part, she did not avoid him, but rather herself made opportunities to be in his company. Indeed, her manner encouraged him to believe that at least she found him attractive. “Why diJ your hair go grey like that?” 6he asked him suddenly, one afternoon. She was always putting surprising, and sometimes awkward, questions to him in that naive, deliciously impersonal way of hers. But this time, in voice and manner, she suggested an equally pleasant personal interest. It had been her idea that, as she was walking over to Petersdorf —a village a mile or so away—he should go with her, as he seemed to have nothing better to do. Resting for a moment after a steep climb, just where a tiny mountain cascade made the air icy cold and refreshing, he was standing before her, while she leaned against the hillside. In the sunshine, which flooded him, while she was in the shadow, his grey hair shone like silver. 4 “Why has it gone grey ?” he asked in response, passing a palm over its smooth sleekness, and shrugged. “Old age, child; old age, of course! ” “I’m not a child!” she said gravely. “And you’re not old. I’ve seen—l know — older men than you, with no grey at all in their hair. Did it go like that from shock ?” “Shock?” Behind the faint surprise in his eyes, shadows lurked, the shadows which made surprise only a pose. “Why should you think that?” “Mutterehen said it, when I asked her. She said men went quite grey like that, quite young, after trouble and shock.” “I’m 44,” he said. “Would you call that young?” “Years don’t make men old—they only do that to women,” she answered. One of those moments when always she startled him by her naivete—well, no, it was not that —her knowledge of the world. She went on, musingly. “There’s a man in Wienthal —he goes to the casino a good deal, for he still has money-—but not much—and he likes gambling. He was an officer when the war was on. He isn’t any older than you, and his hair’s quite white. They say it was shock ” “Were you in the war?” she asked, thrusting away from the hillside, and beginning to walk on up the road beside him. “Yes, I was in the war,” he said simply. And then he wondered if this was not the moment to tell her the truth, while they were alone in this way. But—as it proved—they were not alone. There came round the bend in the road a group of young people, three men and two girls, and —at sight of Sandra —they raced towards her and John. Greeting them, she began to introduce him to them all, speaking laughingly in German. To John—in English—she explained them. They were friends of hers, who lived in Petersdorf, and they knew she was coming, so had walked out to meet her. She presented them to him in turn, a string of names. He caught only three to remember. “Magda Schultz. . . Max Greffel. . . Toni Ritter. . .” The last, lie noticed particularly, was a young giant, with a wealth of golden hair, brushed back from the forehead, blue eyes, the complexion of a girl, and the muscles of an ox He did not regard John with great favour judging from the dour set of his lips; but he clicked liis heels and saluted in the Fascist fashion, beginning to talk in the exaggerated guttural English of the Teuton. Sandra, laughingly, stopped him, clearly suggesting to him that he ought to learn a language properly before he tried to speak it. They all moved on together into Petersdorf, which was quite near. The others went on a little ahead, making for an inn. Sandra, behind with John, plucked him by the sleeve, pointed ahead. “Toni—the big one—” she said with a smile, “ —lie’s in love with me.” Sandra said that without enthusiasm, just as if the young golden-haired giant were one of a crowd, all dropping similar offerings at her feet. To John, for an instant, it came with something of a shock. But then he smiled down at her. “That doesn’t surprise me in the least, Sandra. It wouldn’t l>e at all a difficult thing to happen to a man.” “Don’t you think so?” “You’re very pretty.” “What is prettiness ? Any man will love prettiness.” It was so true that John was dumb. She added, in the most matter-of-fact way: “Toni is nice. They are all nice—these boys and girls. \ r ou will see that for yourself,” And John, an hour later, had to agree with that. They were Austrians, but—but to his rather insular British mind—they were agreeable. In a way, he rather wondered that Tony’s sister should be associated with her brother’s war-time enemies, responsible—distantly, it was true —for her brother’s death. But this was clearly, to her, quite natural, and she was even much more at home with them than she was with John. Indeed, at times she seemed almost to forget his existence, though remembering it in the end, and generally interpreting to him what had been said; his own knowledge of German was very limited.

BASIL HAYE

“I have just been telling them that you fought in the war!” she informed him laughingly on one occasion. “Toni’s uncle was a General. Toni’s going to be an officer himself, if he passes hie examinations. He wants to know what you thought of the soldier’s life.” “Tell him, Sandra, that I saw a good deal more of death than of life, those days!” John retorted grimly, wondering that, in the pure air and enchanting natural surroundings of this mountainland anyone - should want to talk of the holocaust of war. This Toni was evidently one of those belligerent young fire-eaters which the Nazi creed has produced. Interpreted by Sandra, he assured John that there was another European war coming quite soon, and Austria would become a great Power again. It would be rich enough to look after itself then. Apparently, from Sandra’s eonfusion, he said a good deal which was not in favour of Englishmen and their money making profit out of places like Wienthal. “He hasn’t any great liking for me, that young Toni of yours, it’e quite evident, Sandra,” he suggested to her some time later when, having parted from the others, they were on the road back downhill. “He’s jealous. He hates me to talk to any man, except himself. And that, of course, is just silly,” she laughed. “Why —silly ?” “Wliat’s the good? He’s too young to marry yet, and—besides —he’s as poor as we are—poorer.” He felt relieved that she took this sensible line of thought. He had been rather afraid that this blonde giant might have infatuated her, that it was a ca’se of young love. The simplicity of her explanation seemed to sweep that fear away. For her own sake he was glad, quite apart from his own. Even though she had Austrian blood in her ; he could not imagine Tony’s sister marrying out here. That went rather against the grain, to his mind. “\ou’re not always going to be poor,” he said to her. “Things are going to improve here in Wienthal presently, you’ll see. You know, you and your mother ought not to be here like * this -a-keeping a sort of hotel, I mean—” “Oh, why not?” she flashed him a glance, lialf-amused. “It’s been rather fun, sometimes. The queer people we’ve had here. All sorts of other ways, too. Of course, Mutterehen doesn’t like it. That’s her pride. The Rabenbergs were such a great family. It makes her feel ashamed, she says, after what she has been.” “Of course!” nodded John. “And the Carslake family is a good one, too—” “lou know them?” she asked. He hesitated a moment. Before he told her he felt it wisest to feel his way. “It’s a well-known name in England. A county family, as we call it —” “Oh, I know all that. But what’s the good of all that family pride when there isn’t any money to keep it up? Since my father died, the Carslakes in England haven’t done anything for us. If we hadn't had this Schloss, 1 don't know what would have happened. It might have been different if my brother had been alive, of course.” John could understand that. Tonj> had been a real Carslake, brilliant, with a bright future ahead of him. The kind of fellow who would have gone far, with Carslake pride and traditions strong in him. And again he was on the verge of telling her that he knew this. “I suppose, though, you scarcely remember him, do you?” he suggested. “I was exactly four on the very day the military telegram came saying lie had been killed,” she told him. “So I can't really say I knew him very well, can I? But I do remember him a little. And father told me a good deal about him, how clever lie was at school, what a fine soldier he made—and—about his death.” “Yes?” John hung on her words so obviously that she looked up at him in surprise. “Are you really interested?” she asked. “Of course.” “There was a queer thing happened about Tony’s death,” she went on, as they descended a steep, winding path, a short cut leading by a back way into the Schloss. “I only know it, you see, through having been told it. Just after the telegram came saying Tony had been killed they had a letter from him. It was just as if, you understand, he was talking to them—father and Mutterehen —when he wasn’t any longer alive.” “That must have often happened in the war,” John told her. “A man would write and put his letter in the field-post, never dreaming that an hour later he would be killed.” “Y r es,” she nodded. “That’s what father said. He and Mutterehen were so upset at the time they never read it. Oh, it was years after, when father quite by chance, turned it up among some papers. It had been quite forgotten. And when father did read it, he found something of importance in it he ought to have known about before.” They were passing now through the small gate in the castle wall, bringing them into the courtyard. John felt his pulses beating with excitement. The truth was coming from her, without any confession from him. He just let her talk, suggesting an impersonal interest for the moment. “Something of importance?” he asked. “About a great friend of Tony’s—someone named Branscombe. I didn’t understand much about it—never properly, but father explained that this Branscombe was disgraced and put in prison. Father said Tony’s letter might have helped him, if only it had been read in time. And he tried to find this Branscombe. but couldn’t. Then father died suddenly.” “And you still have that letter?” John interrupted her anxiously, that being what he most wanted to know. He was to know immediately, for she shook her head, and the flame of her sun-gold curls in the sunshine blinded his eyes, while her answer numbed his mind with bitter disappointment. “Mutterehen must have destroyed it,” he heard her saying, “when she was going through some old papers a long while ago. She and I were looking for it the day after you came. Because— I’ll show you something.” | She reached out impulsive fingers for his hand and drew him into the sunshaded darkness of a room which once had been a library, and now’ was used as a smoking lounge. He saw that she went to an old oak bureau, which she opened, pulled out a drawer and brought something from it.

“That’s a picture of Tony—a snapshot taken in Paris when lie was on leave there with this Branscoinbe,” she said, holding it out to him. “And that’s why Mutterchen and I were looking for that letter. You see —we both thought —if it wasn’t for your grey hair —and, of course, that picture was taken some years ago—your likeness to Tony s friend was so great that —** Swiftlv John hid the snapshot behind him. flung out a warning gesture towards Sandra. Stayre had followed them into the room, and was calling for him eagerly by name. (To be continued daily.)