The English Air Read online

  THE

  ENGLISH AIR

  D. E. Stevenson

  © D. E. Stevenson 1940

  D. E. Stevenson has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1940 by COLLINS.

  This edition published in 2020 by Lume Books.

  The characters in this novel are imaginary; the opinions expressed by them are their own opinions – the natural outcome of their circumstances and individuality – and must in no case be taken to represent the author’s views.

  Table of Contents

  Part One

  summer’s lease

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Part Two

  german interlude

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Part Three

  rough winds

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Part One

  summer’s lease

  Chapter One

  “We must be very nice to him,” said Mrs. Braithwaite, looking up at her daugher with large blue eyes.

  “Nice to him!” echoed Miss Braithwaite in some surprise. “Well, of course we’ll be nice to him. I mean why shouldn’t we?”

  Wynne Braithwaite’s eyes were quite as large as her mother’s and of the same shade of periwinkle blue and, as if that were not enough, she possessed golden curls, and a complexion of milk and roses which was slightly tanned by the sun. She was wearing a short white tennis frock which displayed her pretty arms to the shoulder and her slim legs to slightly above the knee.

  Mrs. Braithwaite sighed. “I don’t know why you like sitting on tables,” she declared.

  “Why shouldn’t we be nice to him?” repeated her daughter, disregarding the red herring.

  “Of course,” nodded Mrs. Braithwaite thoughtfully, “of course he’s half English—we mustn’t forget that.”

  “Even if he wasn’t,” said Wynne quickly.

  “You mean he can’t help it.”

  “No, I didn’t mean that at all. I don’t suppose he wants to help it—why should he? We mustn’t be so awfully insular,” she added, shaking her head earnestly so that the golden curls danced and gleamed in the morning sunshine. “We mustn’t think that just because we like being British, everyone else would like to be British too. I expect he’s very glad he’s a German and thinks it’s the best thing to be.”

  “Yes,” agreed Mrs. Braithwaite doubtfully. “And anyhow he is half English, whatever you may say, and a sort of cousin as well. I shall find it quite easy to be nice to him because of his mother, but it’s different for you.”

  The conversation—if such it could be called—lapsed into silence. Wynne could not explain her point further, and, even if she could have done so, it was doubtful whether Mrs. Braithwaite would have bothered to understand. Mrs. Braithwaite had the elusive type of mind which prefers to follow its own thoughts, and can rarely be roused to argument.

  It was the spring of 1938 and the tennis season had just begun. Wynne was waiting for three friends to arrive for a practice game. She sat on the table and swung her legs and looked at her mother with affection. Sophie was an obstinate mule and an old-fashioned stick in the mud, but she was a dear darling all the same.… Their eyes met and they both smiled.

  “I couldn’t say no when he wrote and asked me if he could come, could I?” inquired Mrs. Braithwaite. “Besides I didn’t want to say no.…”

  “I think it will be rather fun to have him,” said Wynne, with a thoughtful smile. “He’ll be quite different, won’t he? I wonder if he’s a Nazi.”

  “It will be much better not to mention politics at all,” declared Sophie.

  “But Sophie—”

  “We don’t want any unpleasantness, Wynne. You must warn your friends about him.”

  “Oh dear, what a fuss!” Wynne exclaimed.

  Sophie Braithwaite sighed. She was a creature of impulse and she had not considered the difficulties before writing to welcome her young relative to come and spend a long visit beneath her hospitable roof. “I do hope,” Sophie began, “I do hope that everyone will be nice to him—”

  “Don’t worry,” said Wynne kindly, “I’ll warn everybody to treat him like eggshell. Migs always says what he likes of course but the others will do what they’re told.… Tell me about him,” she added, “tell me how we’re related and all that. I’d better know all about it before he arrives, hadn’t I?”

  Mrs. Braithwaite looked at her in surprise. “But I’ve told you so often—”

  “I know, but I’ve forgotten,” admitted Wynne. “I don’t always listen to things … at least I do listen, but, unless the things are going to be useful to me, I don’t keep them.”

  Mrs. Braithwaite was quite pleased to oblige. She enjoyed talking and it had always seemed unfortunate that her daughter was not a good listener. Her husband had not been a good listener either, but he had been dead for four years and she remembered his good points and had forgotten his failings—in any case a man was different, you did not expect a man to sit down and chat. There was no reason why Wynne should not sit down and chat—no reason except that she did not seem to want to. Wynne was very sweet, and very kind and considerate in lots of ways but she was not much of a companion. She was always rushing out, or rushing in, or else she was so deeply immersed in a book that no good could be got out of her.

  “Elsie was my favourite cousin,” began Mrs. Braithwaite with a little sigh. “She was four years older, of course, but we were tremendous friends all the same. We used to stay with each other in the holidays and share all the fun that was going. They lived at Lowestoft, and had a small yacht—it was lovely—and Elsie always came to us for cricket week, or anything like that. Neither of us had a sister, you see, so we used to tell each other everything. She got married first—it was in November, 1913—and of course I was her principal bridesmaid. We were all in pink, with bouquets of pink carnations and big black velvet hats. I remember my hat was so big that I couldn’t get into the Daimler without tipping it up sideways … it was the fashion of course and I must say we looked very nice.”

  “I’m sure you did,” said Wynne kindly.

  “It was a lovely wedding,” continued Mrs. Braithwaite reminiscently, “but, somehow or other, it was very sad. Elsie was going so far away from everyone. You see, I had hoped and hoped that Elsie would marry my brother Tom, and then she would have been my sister, but things like that don’t happen in real life. Of course they were cousins, which isn’t supposed to be good, but it would have been lovely for me, and they would have been much happier.”

  “You can’t know that,” objected Wynne.

  “I do know it,” responded Sophie Braithwaite with some heat. “Neither of them could possibly have
been more miserable than they were, and so, if they had not married each other, they would have been happier. Tom adored Elsie, and I believe she would have taken him if only Otto hadn’t appeared on the scene, but of course the moment Otto von Heiden appeared nobody else had a chance. He was very good looking—tall and straight, with broad shoulders and fair hair … but I didn’t like him.”

  “I wonder why,” said Wynne, thoughtfully. “You like most people don’t you?”

  “You couldn’t get to know him,” explained Sophie. “He was so stiff and polite and so proud of his family connections. He made me feel that he was condescending to us all the time. I suppose Elsie didn’t notice—or perhaps she didn’t mind, or perhaps he was different to her when they were alone.”

  “He probably was,” nodded Wynne.

  “He played the piano beautifully, of course, and he had a wonderful voice. Even now when anyone sings Schubert’s songs it makes me think of Otto. There was one called ‘Ständchen’ which was Elsie’s favourite. We had it the other night when we were at the Audleys’ and I could almost see Otto … in fact I saw him quite clearly when I shut my eyes.”

  There was a little silence and then Sophie heaved a big sigh. “I missed Elsie dreadfully,” she said, “I missed her all the more because I lost her completely—more completely than if she had died. We had always written to each other and told each other everything but after she was married and went to Germany her letters were quite different—I felt she wasn’t Elsie any more. Otto always called her Elsa—well of course that was a very small thing but I didn’t like it.”

  “You were jealous,” Wynne pointed out.

  “Oh yes,” agreed her mother, “Oh yes, I was. But it wasn’t only for my sake that I was jealous—I was jealous for Elsie, if you know what I mean. I had always thought Elsie quite perfect, but Otto wanted to change her.…” Sophie was silent for a few moments and then she continued, “I never saw Elsie again. She just seemed to vanish. We had arranged that I was to go and stay with her at Freigarten, but I never went. Elsie kept on writing and putting me off … and then the war came. I believe she knew beforehand that the war was coming.”

  “How could she?”

  “I don’t know, but afterwards people said that the Germans did know … they had been preparing for it.”

  “People said all sorts of silly things,” declared Wynne.

  Mrs. Braithwaite did not answer this. She was following her own line of thought. “The war must have been dreadful for Elsie,” she said sadly. “She was so cut off from her own people. Franz was born in 1916 and I never knew about it until the end of the war.…”

  “Why didn’t she write and tell you?”

  “Because it was war, of course. You don’t understand what it was like in the war and I hope you never will.” The words were spoken with such force and bitterness that Wynne looked at her mother in surprise. It was most unusual for Sophie to be bitter.

  “I was very unhappy about Elsie,” continued Sophie after a little pause, “and it made me think of the war a little differently from other people. When we heard that the Germans were starving I couldn’t feel glad about it, because of course it meant that Elsie was starving too.”

  “Why should you feel glad?” inquired Wynne in horrified tones.

  “You don’t understand,” Mrs. Braithwaite told her again. “The Germans were our enemies and it was a weapon—just like guns. When armies besiege a town the people in the town can’t get food—sometimes they have to eat mice (they did that in Paris, but that was another war of course) and we besieged the whole of Germany in the same way. It’s dreadful, but all war is dreadful. You don’t understand.”

  “I don’t want to understand,” Wynne said firmly.

  Mrs. Braithwaite left it at that.

  “Well, go on,” said Wynne. “What happened after the war? Why didn’t you see Elsie when the war was over?”

  “All sorts of things happened,” replied Mrs. Braithwaite vaguely. “By that time I was married and I had Roy. I couldn’t have gone to Germany even if Elsie had asked me and, as a matter of fact, she didn’t ask me. I expect it would have been difficult.”

  “Why didn’t you ask her to come here?” demanded Wynne, who was holding to the one idea with the persistence of youth.

  “Everything was different then,” replied Sophie, still more vaguely. “I can’t explain it, but it just wasn’t thought of … and there was so much to do. I wrote to Elsie several times when the war was over but she never answered, and then, when I had almost given up hope of ever hearing from her again, she wrote and sent me a picture of Franz in his bathing suit. That made me more unhappy than ever … I don’t mean the picture, of course, because he was a dear little fellow, very healthy and sturdy with lovely curly hair, but the letter was dreadful. It was a hopeless sort of letter and it didn’t tell me anything I wanted to know. Then, about a month later, I heard from Otto that she had died. I couldn’t send even a wreath because it was too late and there were all sorts of difficulties … Oh dear,” added Mrs. Braithwaite pathetically, “oh dear, of course I know it didn’t matter about the wreath … but I had a silly feeling about it … I loved her so much, you see.”

  Wynne said nothing. She swung her legs a little and thought about the story she had heard. It was as unreal to her as a fairy tale. It was a glimpse into a world which she could not understand, a frightening world, a world in which people were deliberately cruel to each other. The pale golden sunshine streamed through the open windows on to the lovely old Persian rug and the parquet floor. The pretty chintzes, the polished furniture, the china and the pictures and knick-knacks, which were all so familiar to Wynne that she scarcely saw them, suddenly took a different complexion and became dear and reassuring and homelike. Outside in the garden the birds sang lustily and the spring flowers nodded in the faint breeze.

  “So you see we must be very nice to Franz,” Sophie Braithwaite said.

  Mrs. Braithwaite was a widow. Her husband had died four years ago, leaving her with two children. Roy was sixteen when his father died and Wynne was two years younger. The Braithwaites were a comfortable family, they were pleasant and agreeable to each other and had no sharp corners or complexes of any kind. Mr. Braithwaite was the pillar of the house, he managed everything and kept his wife and daughter in cotton wool. When he fell ill, and began to suspect that he was unlikely to recover, he had some bad moments for it was obvious that his family was incapable of looking after itself. Who was going to look after his family when he had gone?—that was the question. He and Sophie were both very badly off in the way of relations—their parents were dead: Sophie’s only brother was in the Navy and was in the East at the time: he himself had no relative living except his half-brother Dane Worthington. He turned it over in his mind, which despite his illness was perfectly clear, and decided that he must ask Dane if he would look after Sophie’s affairs. He saw that in some ways it was unfair to saddle Dane with the responsibility of his family but he had no option in the matter. So Dane was wired for, and arrived.

  Dane seemed to think it quite natural that he should be the one to take over the care of his brother’s family.

  “I’ll look after them,” he declared. “After all it was I who introduced you to Sophie, wasn’t it?”

  Philip Braithwaite had forgotten this interesting fact, but casting back his mind he began to remember …

  “At Oxford,” he said in a tired whisper. “Yes, of course it was when you were at Oxford, wasn’t it? I came down for Commem … we went on the river …” He shut his eyes and the brightly-coloured picture took shape: the blue sky reflecting itself in the water, the arching green trees, and the boatloads of young men in white flannels and young girls in pretty frocks. Sophie’s frock had been blue, the colour of her eyes … so pretty, she was. He had fallen in love with her at first sight and had no eyes for anyone or anything else … “Before the war,” whispered Philip. “What a long time ago it seems!”

  It seem
ed a very long time ago to Dane for he, too, was seeing visions. He sat quietly beside Philip’s bed so that when the sick man opened his eyes he could see him, and be reassured. They had always been friends in spite of the ten years’ difference in their ages. Philip Braithwaite had been extremely good to his young half-brother, and Dane did not forget it. He remembered incidents long before Commem. He remembered Philip coming to Rugby for the school match; he remembered Philip coming to Sandhurst and taking him out for huge feeds of bacon and eggs. It was Philip who had come for him and taken him home when his parents had both been fatally injured in a railway accident; Philip who had comforted him and sustained him and given him courage to bear his loss. Philip had felt the loss too, for he was devoted to his mother and his step-father, and, although he had left home some years before and lived in London so as to be near his work, he had kept in close touch with his old home.

  Dane thought of all this. It seemed cruel that Philip should die at the age of forty-five, but if he had to die then he should die in peace. Dane owed him so much … it was the least he could do for him.

  After the funeral Dane stayed on at Fernacres for there was much to settle and arrange. Fortunately there was no difficulty about money. Sophie, although not exactly wealthy, was reasonably well-off. Roy was started in the Navy and Wynne was at a day-school in the neighbourhood. Everything would continue as before. Having settled matters as best he could, Dane suggested that it was time for him to go, but Sophie pressed him to stay. He stayed another week … and then another. Somehow or other, without anything definite being said, or any arrangements being made, it became obvious to all parties that Dane was remaining at Fernacres indefinitely.

  Fernacres was a pleasant place, one of those sunshiny houses in which it is almost impossible to imagine gloom. It stood in about three acres of pleasant garden, facing south. There were houses on three sides, but the view from the front terrace was unbroken except for trees, and from certain vantage points it was possible to see the sea in the distance—the sea, and a piece of cliff, and a stretch of green turf. The house itself had been built about the beginning of the century, it was a white house, low and sprawling with a red roof and green shutters. It was too big for Mrs. Braithwaite and Wynne, but of admirable proportions for a joint ménage. Dane took over the west wing which gave him a bedroom, a sitting-room and a bathroom and a room for his man. He decorated the rooms to suit himself and installed his own furniture. It was now necessary to have a business talk with Sophie, and Dane pursued her to the garden where she was cutting off dead roses and explained to her that he would pay her so much a month in rent and so much a week for food. She had agreed to everything else that he had suggested without a murmur and Dane was somewhat surprised when she raised objections to his plan.