Sophie awoke and lay in luxuriating bliss. A maid peeped in. She bobbed, entered and drew back the curtains. Sunlight poured into the bedroom. Sophie felt enriched by delicious comfort, sweet security and future’s golden promise. The maid asked if she wanted anything.
Only James, thought Sophie.
‘Nothing at the moment, Tica.’
The maid bobbed again and went out. Sophie stretched. She had had a gloriously deep sleep. Oh, the ecstasy of feeling so safe and so clean. Cleanliness today was a physical joy, the soft bed civilized enchantment. No more horrors, no more frightening waters, racked limbs and tortured feet. No more clammy heat or icy coldness.
Only James, who was quite unlike any of her imagined men yet quite irreplaceable now.
Her mother, informed by the maid that Sophie was awake, came in.
‘Sophie? How do you feel, darling?’
‘Beautiful,’ murmured Sophie. Her hair, thickly draping the white pillow, lay richly, cleanly glossy again. Her eyes were slumbrous. ‘Mama,’ she said, then smiled. ‘Mama, I’m so glad to be back with you.’
The baroness bent and kissed her daughter’s cheek.
‘And we are very glad and very grateful, darling,’ she said. ‘Would you like a meal sent up?’
‘No, I shall get up. When is lunch?’
‘Lunch has been served,’ smiled the baroness, ‘but we did not want to disturb you, we thought it better to let you sleep on.’
Sophie looked at the china clock. It was almost two. Heavens, how she had slept.
‘That is the time? Oh, how disgraceful I am. How is Anne?’
‘Quite herself again. She’s up and about. She’s talking her head off to Carl. Mostly about James. We are in debt to James, aren’t we?’
‘Immensely, Mama. Is he all right?’
‘He is not complaining,’ smiled the baroness.
Sophie wondered if James had said anything. No, perhaps not. Her mother would have mentioned it. He would speak to her father first. Formally.
‘Mama, I was dreadfully scared, you know, especially when Avriarches appeared. I have never thought myself capable of swooning, but Avriarches, oh, he would have made the great Maria Theresa fall from her throne. There he was, a huge man – you have never seen such a monster – and suddenly, before one really had time to swoon, he was on the ground. James had actually upended him. But I shall never look romantically on brigands again.’
‘Well, the authorities have him now, darling,’ said the baroness soothingly, ‘they have them all.’
Sophie was silent for a moment, then said, ‘I can’t feel sorry for him. He will make a villainous lump on the end of a rope. I suppose,’ she added regretfully, ‘that to wish him well and truly hanged shows how much such men can reduce one to their own, inhuman level.’
‘Sophie,’ said the baroness firmly, ‘that isn’t inhuman of you. It is, as your father says, very advisable to hang the occasional rogue in the interests of the rest of us.’
‘Oh, I assure you, it’s a lovely relief to have escaped that one,’ said Sophie. ‘Mama, where is James?’
‘With Anne and Carl. He’s been asking if he might see you before he goes.’
‘Before he goes?’ Sophie felt a little shock. ‘Goes where?’
‘To Sarajevo, with Major Moeller, an extremely pleasant man, to whom we are also very grateful. James says they have some business in Sarajevo and will be gone a day or two.’
‘What business? He said nothing to me.’
The baroness regarded her daughter wonderingly.
‘Sophie, you’re very intense. Aren’t you quite recovered? Would you just like to lie quietly?’
‘Mama, I am exceptionally recovered,’ said Sophie, ‘but I just do not want James going carelessly off to Sarajevo.’
‘Now what am I to understand from that?’
Sophie wanted to say that she was in such a sensitive condition about James that she did not wish to let him out of her sight. Instead she said, ‘Mama, would you please tell him I should like to see him?’
‘Very well, darling.’ The baroness knew what was affecting Sophie. She was suffering from an excess of romantic gratitude. The baroness understood. She had herself suffered deceptive emotions as a girl, imagined herself in love a dozen times for varying reasons. Ernst had not been her romantic ideal when she first met him, and her feeling for him had only been one of affection. But by the time they were married she went into his arms with far more than affection. James was a very likeable man and they would always be in debt to him, but he was not as suitable for Sophie as Ludwig. ‘Sophie, has something happened to you and James?’
Sophie’s smile was a little unsteady.
‘Mama, something has happened to me,’ she said, ‘and if it hasn’t happened to James too you had better pray for me.’
The baroness did not protest or make a speech, she simply said, ‘Is it so bad, darling?’
‘I’ve had a sudden thought, Mama. About James. I think it will all depend on what he says to me. Will you please tell him that if he isn’t required to go to Sarajevo immediately, I’ll be happy to receive him in fifteen minutes?’
The baroness, affected by Sophie’s obvious emotion, lightly touched her and said, ‘I’ll tell him now, darling.’
The maid went to fetch James twenty minutes later. Sophie received him in her room. Twenty minutes had not given her quite as much time as she would have liked, but there was really little more she could have done to better what she had accomplished, for she presented herself to him as an exquisite bloom of summer. She was slenderly, curvingly lovely in pale yellow. It set off the burnished brilliance of her chestnut hair and graced the aristocratic elegance of her form. She wished most desperately, after two days of feeling herself a dishevelled mess, to have James see her at her best. All the same, considering what was in her mind, it might have been a mistake, for to James she had an air of richness which somehow escapes those who may acquire wealth but are not born to it.
‘Sophie, how beautiful,’ he said. He took her hand and Sophie stared in almost horrified dismay as he lifted it and kissed it.
‘What are you doing?’ she said.
‘Paying my tribute to a lovely Sophie.’
‘Oh, are you indeed? I am thrilled,’ said Sophie, loving him despite her dismay because he was so darkly cool – and to her new eyes – devilishly attractive. She looked at her slim fingers. ‘My hand is very thrilled. But what is wrong with my face? Am I haggard? Are my eyes crossed? Has my nose taken a crooked turn? Have my teeth dropped out? You look very refreshed yourself, and not at all repellent. Well, if I am no longer quite the most beautiful thing you have ever seen you must close your eyes, because if you will not kiss properly again, then I must.’ And she kissed him. It was a brief, almost angry kiss, but it destroyed James’s cautious front. He put his lips very decisively to hers and kissed her so warmly and positively that her dismay vanished and she shut her eyes tight to hold back sudden tears of intense relief.
‘James, oh, I thought – oh, I haven’t turned into a frog, have I? You did kiss me last night and say sweet things, didn’t you?’ Her eyes were dark with appeal. ‘I assure you, I am just the same today, only more so. That is, I am more exceptionally loving, and if you go to Sarajevo and don’t come back until tomorrow that is twenty-four hours for me of not being alive. James, do you understand what I’m saying?’
James considered her with the seriousness of a man who knew that her striking fascination was presenting him with his greatest problem.
‘I understand what I feel about you,’ he said. ‘On top of being irresistibly lovely, you’re given to the kind of talk I can’t listen to without realizing life could be very silent and empty for me if you weren’t there. However, my lovely Sophie—’
‘Oh, more of that, please.’
‘However, my very sweet Sophie, much as I love you, and have done ever since you put back your veil, we must be practical—’
‘Never,’ breathed Sophie, ‘never. I know what being practical means to you. It means doing something which is going to upset me. I am not really disposed to cry about things but I am near to unleashing an ocean of tears this very moment.’ He was not sure whether she meant this or was just using words, except that underlying vibrations were making her voice unsteady. ‘I beg you, James, please don’t say we must be practical, because in this case I know it means you are going to find reasons why you should not propose to me. You are going to say you can’t afford me.’
He shook his head, caught halfway between a smile and a sigh.
‘Sophie, my father will pay me a very good salary. More than that if I have a wife to keep. But I could give you little of what you’re used to, what you’re entitled to. We’re not great landowners. You must realize—’
‘No,’ said Sophie passionately, ‘no!’
‘Sophie—’
‘No. I won’t accept your argument. It is so horrifyingly old-fashioned it would make some young ladies swoon.’ Sophie was flushed and emotionally purposeful. ‘No, I will not accept that at all. But I will accept your proposal. I wish to be proposed to. If you refuse, then I shall propose to you, and if you think that shockingly forward of me you only have yourself to blame. And if you turn me down I shall enter a convent.’
In the bright, sunlit room James eyed his glowing, dramatizing love a little hopelessly.
‘Sophie, be serious.’
‘You think I am not? I am very serious,’ she said intensely. ‘If you don’t wish me to be your wife I shall become a bride of Christ. That is how nuns are looked upon in some orders, I believe.’
‘Well, just look here,’ said James, putting his hands firmly on her shoulders, ‘there would only be one servant, two at the most, and a pony and trap – although a motor car would be no problem if you preferred—’
‘All that? For me? I would have all that and you as well?’ Sophie’s emotion burst into delight. ‘We should not have to live in a garret and exist on dry crusts? Then what is there to be so old-fashioned and practical about? Do you think I want a hundred mansions and a thousand servants? You do not know your Sophie, and I am your Sophie. You saved me from Avriarches and therefore you must claim me. James, do you have feelings and needs and desires? I do.’
‘So do I, and they all concern you.’
She pressed herself close to him, her body trembling.
‘Then please propose to me and marry me quickly.’
‘You know I must first speak to your father,’ he said, ‘I want your parents to be happy about this.’
‘Your responsibility is to make me happy, not my parents. Oh, this is quite frightening. My feelings, I mean. I am already thinking—’
‘What are you already thinking?’
‘That in between nursing our children I shall be able to sit in the garden and write some poetry. We shall have a little garden too, won’t we? Of course, I should not make that a condition, only a negotiating point—’
‘We’ll discuss all that,’ said James with advisable gravity. ‘I think we can work it all out. But I have to go to Sarajevo now. We didn’t net Ferenac. He slipped us. As I know him so well the police think I can help to find him. I’ll be back tomorrow or the day after and I’ll see you then. I must see you then. Doing without you for a day or so is as much as I can manage.’
Sophie kissed him with warm passion.
‘James, saying things like that is much lovelier than kissing my hand.’
‘You will be careful, won’t you?’ said Anne. With Carl she was saying au revoir to James as they walked over the sanded drive to the gate. He was going to see the Austrian authorities in Sarajevo, and Major Moeller, hoping for more sport, was accompanying him. Baron von Korvacs, alarmed by the significance of James’s story, had departed for Sarajevo earlier.
‘Recently,’ said James, ‘I think I’ve learned to be very careful.’
‘I can’t comment on that,’ said Carl, ‘but I think you’re a damned good friend, James. The police have located the Benz, by the way. Found it tucked into some woods this morning.’
‘Oh, yes.’ James smiled. ‘I’m afraid the Benz slipped my memory a bit.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I really must go now.’
‘Find that man quickly,’ said Anne, ‘and come back to us soon. We don’t feel quite complete without you now— Oh, who is that arriving?’
A cab drew up outside the house. Ludwig stepped out. He smiled and waved. They went out to him as the cabbie unstrapped his luggage.
‘Oh, Ludwig, how good to see you,’ said Anne, ‘we can do with you.’
‘Managed it earlier than I thought,’ said Ludwig cheerfully. ‘Sent your dear mama a telegram. Hope I’m not unexpected. James. Carl.’ He nodded to each of them in his friendly way.
‘Mama didn’t mention it,’ said Anne, ‘but things have been happening. I’ll tell you about them. Oh, thank you for coming.’
She felt happy as she looked at him. He seemed so debonair, so fresh, so much more the handsome, outgoing man than the dark brooding figures of her nightmare. Ludwig would never hurt her, never consider wrongs could be righted by tossing bombs that would injure the innocent. His eyes were laughing, his smile expressive of his pleasure at seeing her.
‘My dear Anne, I’m delighted to be here,’ he said.
‘So am I,’ said Anne, ‘and I am going to monopolize you because James has to go to Sarajevo and Sophie is—’ She stopped, glanced at James.
‘Ah, yes,’ said James.