A Kiss for the Enemy (12 page)

The train seemed to be a few minutes late.

‘Mr Marvell!'

Anthony turned. He did not at once recognize the middle-aged, plainly dressed lady who had apparently uttered his name and was smiling at him.

‘Good morning, Mr Marvell.'

Anthony raised his hat. Something was familiar –

‘I live with Mrs Briscoe. Margaret Platt.'

Of course! The companion!

‘Good morning, Miss Platt. Are you meeting someone as I am?'

‘Indeed I am. I'm meeting Anna Langenbach. Ah, this
seems to be the train now. Always rather an exciting moment, I think.'

Anthony felt his mind spinning like a top.

‘I didn't know – I mean, is Anna – is Frau Langenbach –?'

Miss Platt was looking at him shrewdly.

‘I had to send a telegram. She generally comes over in the Spring but Mrs Briscoe had a bad fall last week. The doctor is keeping her in bed and he's afraid of pneumonia. I knew it was important to get hold of Anna if she could possibly come.'

The train was now visible, moving slowly and remorselessly toward them down the platform.

‘Luckily,' said Miss Platt, ‘Anna
could
come. Her husband, Kurt, was at home for most of January and February but has now returned to wherever it is – Spain, I think. He's in the Air Force. So Anna was free and is due on this train.'

Anthony said quickly,

‘And I'm meeting my sister who's arriving from Vienna!'

He felt unable to handle the situation of Anna arriving, seeing him, presuming he had somehow discovered her day of arrival, uncomprehending, angry even. Nor could he handle simultaneous explanations with Marcia, Anna, Miss Platt, as in some operatic quartet, full of repetitions and misunderstandings.

They were standing near the ticket barrier. The train stopped.

Anthony saw Anna before anybody else. She was walking, tracked by a porter, near the head of the throng of boat train passengers. She looked radiant. It was a cold, sharp morning and she glowed. Beside her, thought Anthony, his heart appearing to stop, her travelling companions seemed only half alive. Miss Platt swooped.

‘Anna!'

They embraced. Anthony feasted his eyes. He was in for it now.

‘See who I've picked up!' said Miss Platt with a chuckle, ‘your friend, Mr Marvell. He's meeting his sister off this train. Such a coincidence!'

Anthony summoned up reserves of self-control. There must be no self-betrayal in the Platt presence.

‘You will remember my sister, Marcia, Frau Langenbach. She is travelling from Vienna and must have been on the same boat as you.'

Anna, for once, looked less than entirely self-possessed. Passengers were streaming past them. The porter negotiated the barrier and turned, looking impatient. He called something.

‘No!' cried Miss Platt, ‘no taxi! I've got Andrews here with the car,' she said to Anna, ‘I'll get hold of him!' She made a dart of surprising agility to catch up with the porter and bring him under control. For one moment Anthony and Anna were alone, alone amidst the crowd. Anthony muttered with shaking voice –

‘It really was a coincidence, my darling. I'm sorry about your grandmother. I'll telephone – ask for news of her of course, talk to you. Oh, my love –'

‘Is it the same?'

‘Just the same! Oh, Anna!'

‘My love! I had no time to get word to you.'

‘Can I hold you and kiss you, here and now? I can't stand this!'

‘No, my darling, no – oh, the wonder of seeing you again!'

Their faces were close. Miss Platt was invisible but must be hovering.

‘ANT!'

‘
– Wiedersehen
,' said Anna abruptly, looking and moving away.

‘I walked past you once, you never saw me. Who was that you were with? How are you, anyway?'

Anthony kissed his sister. He had completely forgotten he was meeting her.

‘Oh that! That was Anna Langenbach, do you remember? The von Arzfeld cousin who looked after us when Frido and I broke down and drove us to Arzfeld next day.'

He looked at Marcia. Even his brotherly eye could discern that she was looking remarkably pretty. Even prettier than before departure to Vienna.

‘Lunch!' he said. ‘If you can face it. Then I'll put you on an afternoon train. Were you seasick?'

‘Not a bit. I'm ravenous. And it suits me well,' said Marcia,
‘because you've got some listening to do. I've got rather a lot to say.'

‘Of course I'm sure,' said Marcia. Cheeks flushed and eyes brilliant, she looked superb. ‘Of course she must be irresistible,' thought her father.

It was the following day.

‘Don't pour it out too quickly,' Anthony had advised. ‘Get acclimatized to Bargate first, make much of Mother and Father. Father's not been too well. And you've been away over six months. They've missed you like hell. Then talk about your thing calmly, making it clear you're telling them good news.'

Anthony himself had been uncertain how good he thought this news really was, that Marcia thought herself in love with Werner von Arzfeld. He had been about to approach the subject of Anna – delicately, confident of sympathy and interest, and suddenly Marcia had looked at him and said,

‘I've got a bombshell for you all!' and proceeded to talk about herself. It had not been the reunion he had planned. And Marcia, Anthony said to himself, was only just approaching twenty-one. She was painfully young. She had been – seduced; he could find no substitute for the censorious, old-fashioned word. And she seemed delighted with the fact!

‘Let's get this clear. You're saying you want to marry Werner?'

‘Indeed I am. And he's terrifically keen. But he thinks he must do all sorts of proper things, approach the parents, all that.'

‘And what are you going to tell them?'

‘I'm going to say that we're in love and he wants to marry me, but that it's hard to make plans until he can come to England and meet them. Werner, poor darling, must come here on leave some time. But he never seems to get any. Just the odd weekend.'

‘And for those he goes to Vienna?'

‘Once I went to Munich, stayed in an hotel. It was Heaven!'

Anthony said in a firmly older brother way, ‘Marcia, are you
sure
he is seriously in love with you and that he really wants to marry you?'

‘Of course I'm sure. He's potty about me. And I'm the same. It's all marvellous, Ant, but it needs a bit of finesse, you must see that.'

And when they had talked, at last, of Anna she had been perfectly sympathetic – but, somehow, disappointingly unsurprised. ‘Of course I remember her, a heavenly person. Quite a bit older than you, isn't she?'

‘Slightly. It makes not the smallest difference.'

‘I like Werner being quite a lot older than me. It's bliss.'

‘And you're really sure?' said Anthony for the fourth time. He felt a sense of doom, not unmixed with irritation.

‘Of course I'm sure.'

‘Of course I'm sure,' said Marcia. It was evening in the inner hall at Bargate. Nothing was making her task easy. They had listened to the nine o'clock news on the wireless. Earlier that day, German troops had crossed the Czechoslovak border. Now the field-grey uniforms were marching into Prague.

‘So much for Hitler's absence of territorial ambitions in Europe,' said John Marvell. ‘I wonder what the Germans themselves have to say about it!' He had tuned to a German station. The reports were confident and bland. There was something unctuous in the announcer's words, that a period of misunderstanding was being brought to an end by an invitation to the German Reich to bring Bohemia and Moravia under its protection. There was triumph in the air, reports of the troops' entry into the Czech capital, martial music. ‘
Preussens Gloria
!' said John. ‘Yes, he's on the march all right. Now it will be the turn of the Poles. The German Army will lie along their southern border, as well as to their west.' He felt without hope.

Against this unpromising background Marcia had tried, with nervous excitement, to expound her feelings for Werner von Arzfeld, Lieutenant (shortly to be promoted Captain) of Panzer troops: now, for all Marcia knew, rumbling through Bohemia. ‘Damn Hitler!' she thought. ‘What rotten timing!'

The Marvells received her news, hesitantly presented, in total silence. After what felt like an hour, John said,

‘I liked the brother. What was his name?'

‘Frido. He's much younger.'

‘That's it, Frido. What's he doing now?'

‘He's doing his military service. He's at an officer school. Daddy, I'm trying to tell you about Werner, not Frido.'

Hilda snorted impatiently.

‘Darling girl, you must see that there's likely to be a war.'

‘I don't believe it. Werner doesn't believe it.'

‘They've made no secret about their claims against Poland.'

‘Oh, the Poles!' said Marcia impatiently. ‘People over here don't understand about Poland. Over a third of the people in Poland aren't Poles – they're Germans, or Russians or something else. And the Poles have behaved really badly to them!'

‘Nevertheless –'

‘And that corridor of land, given to Poland and cutting off East Prussia from the rest. Ridiculous!'

‘My dear girl, you're talking like Dr Goebbels. Anyway, the point is that after today, war can't be regarded as improbable, whatever the rights and wrongs. And you're saying you want to marry one of the enemy.'

‘I'm saying I want to marry someone who loves me, whom I love, whom I know you'd both love. Ask Anthony – he's met him. He'll tell you how wonderful Werner is. Talk about “the enemy” is nonsense. Werner's family love England.'

‘The fact remains,' said John from the depths of misery, ‘that he's a German officer. And if you married him you'd have to share his life. Which is likely to involve fighting against this, your own country. You'd probably be pretty unwelcome in Germany too. Have you thought of all that? You might never see us again. For God's sake, darling, think what all this means at such a time.'

Hilda felt that they were losing the battle but that a small piece of territory might still be defended.

‘Darling Marcia, we feel for you absolutely. All I ask is that you do nothing in a hurry. Don't go back to Vienna. Stay here. If Werner feels as you say he does he'll come over here, meet us –'

‘I've promised to go back. Werner can't come here, not yet. He's in the Army. He wants to meet you, of course he does, but he's terribly busy, he never gets away. He's on some General's staff now, too.'

‘Sooner or later he is bound to be able to take some leave and to come –'

‘Provided we have peace,' muttered John.

‘Then you can get some perspective on the situation. I'm sure he's all you say he is, and if so he'll find a way to visit us here. Quite soon. I'm certain of it. You've anyway planned to be here until the end of April – write and ask when he can come. And don't plan your return to Vienna until he's been here and we can talk things over.'

‘No word from Marcia, Father, I suppose?'

John Marvell was paying one of his infrequent visits to London, and was giving Anthony lunch in his club. It was a hot, humid July day with thunder in the air. July, 1939.

‘No recent word. As you know she wrote from Bargate to this von Arzfeld fellow, asked him when he could pay us a visit. He's too busy. I can well believe it. Then off she went.'

‘Father, I don't think there was ever a chance of persuading Marcia not to go back to Vienna. She's head over heels, you know. When she's there she can see him.'

‘So it seems. Anyway, she was determined and off she went. Seven weeks now. Your mother's almost out of her mind with worry. We've had three letters – full of affection, everything will turn out all right, still working hard at her art studies, that sort of thing. She's twenty-one, you know. She can do what she wants. And, of course, you've both got a little money of your own.'

‘What do the Carrs think?'

‘I wrote to Francis, your mother wrote to Angie. Believe it or not, they knew nothing of von Arzfeld! Complete surprise to them!'

Anthony did believe it.

‘They wrote back and said she seemed very happy and they loved having her. But it seems she's got some alternative arrangement in mind and may be moving out.'

Father and son considered this in silence.

‘What about you, old boy?' said John. ‘We can't talk about Marcia all the time. How are you getting on? You've not been home for several weeks.'

‘Well, as you know, I've joined the Territorial Army. I've been accepted for a commission if I undertake some training, do satisfactorily and so forth. I've been working at it most evenings.'

By now it had become unthinkable to Anthony, and most of his generation and kind to do otherwise.

‘I'm glad,' said his father. ‘It's best to have some definite duty if the worst occurs.' His voice was unsteady. He loathed the thought of his son in uniform. He added,

‘I hope it won't come to it. I pray all the time.'

‘There's been this big expansion of the Territorials,' said Anthony. ‘That, together with the Government introducing conscription out of the blue, has put the Army in a pretty big muddle as far as I can see.'

‘Time!' said John. ‘That's what we need. Time, and yet again time. I'm not sure we're going to get it. I shall be surprised if we celebrate Christmas in peace.' He felt the weight of both public and private misery. He eyed his son.

It was a good thing that Anthony, in these recent months, had begun to look so much more assured, confident, even at times radiant. There was no girl, as far as his parents knew. Perhaps, perish the thought, he even felt some sort of excited anticipation of the crisis that must surely now come, anticipation like that of an earlier, doomed generation? Still, the boy's eyes were brighter than they had ever been; and he seldom stuttered now.