Pegasus: A Novel (27 page)

“I’d much rather have you safe in England. I will put you on a train to Belgium in
the morning. The papers he gave you will get you to Ostend, and you can take a ferry
to Ramsgate, and from there you can get a train to Hertfordshire. You’ll be safe once
you get to Ramsgate. And in Belgium before that, thanks to the colonel. I’ll give
you
as much money as I have here. Charles will take care of the rest, and I’ll settle
it with him later. You must go, my darling. We have no choice. Think of Nick and Toby
and Lucas, and how brave they were. And they went much farther, to be with people
they didn’t know. You’ll be safe and happy with the Beaulieus.”

“But I can’t leave you here.” She was aghast at the idea.

“You have to. I’ll be fine. They’re not after me. We’re not Jewish. We’ve done nothing
wrong. We will coexist peacefully until this dreadful war is over, and then you can
come home and we’ll go on as before. But I want you out of Germany before it gets
any worse. There’s no telling what Hitler will do.”

“What if it takes years?” she asked, wiping away tears, trying to be brave.

“Hopefully, it won’t take long. But this is what we have to do.”

“Who will take care of you?” she asked, starting to cry again, and he smiled at her.

“I will. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me. I’m not an old man like Paul. I’m not
sick. I’ll just be here, waiting for you.” She had just turned nineteen, and he had
no idea when he’d see her again, but he was more than willing to deprive himself of
the pleasure of her company, for her own good. “You must pack tonight. Don’t take
too much, as you’ll have to carry it yourself. Take what you need. And if anyone asks
you tonight, say that you are going to visit friends in Berlin, for a party or two.”
Berlin was very lively these days, with officers and pretty women going to celebrations
and glamorous parties. They talked for a few more minutes, and then he sent her to
her room to start packing. Alex sat in a chair and stared into the fire for a long
time. It had been a terrifying gamble, but it had turned out well. And even though
he would miss her terribly, he knew he had done the right thing for Marianne.

When Alex took Marianne to the station at seven the next morning, there were mostly
soldiers getting on the train, and a few old farmers. She was the only woman, and
she looked panicked for a minute, as she held a suitcase in each hand and set them
down in her compartment. Alex had bought her a first-class ticket, and she looked
very grown up in a dark blue coat and a black hat with a small face veil, and ladylike
high-heeled black shoes. She looked seriously dressed, well born, and demure. He had
instructed her to hide most of the money he gave her under her clothing, and keep
only a small amount in her purse.

“You’ll be fine,” her father reassured her. He had already given her her travel papers
and her passport and as much money as seemed sensible, and she was clutching her purse
as she looked at her father with tears bulging in her eyes. She could barely speak.
She had no idea when she would see him again, and she was trying to engrave this image
of him in her memory in every detail.

“I’ll miss you so much, Papa,” she said, as she hugged him and clung to him.

“I’ll miss you too,” he said, trying to keep his voice strong for her, and his face
calmer than he felt. “Charles will write to me through friends in New York to tell
me you’ve arrived. Be careful, Marianne. Don’t talk to anyone.” After changing trains
at the border, she would get to Ostend in nine or ten hours, and she would cross the
channel that night to Ramsgate, catch another train, and be in Hertfordshire by morning.
She would have to take a taxi from the station to the Beaulieus’, since they didn’t
know when she was arriving, and he had no way to tell them. But Alex knew that she
was responsible and enterprising enough to get there on her own. He just hoped that
none of the soldiers bothered her on the way. And her papers were in order. He checked
them himself. And with a colonel of the high command having signed them, no one would
dare give her trouble. “Be a good girl, Marianne,” he said in a hoarse voice as the
train whistle blew. He hugged her fiercely one last time and then left her compartment
and hopped off the train. She opened the window and leaned out to him, with her hat
slightly askew. She looked beautiful, and he knew he would see her forever this way
in his mind. It would have to last him until Germany was a safe place for her to be
again.

“I love you, Papa!” she shouted, as the train started to move, and he stepped back,
waving at her with a broad smile, hoping she couldn’t see his tears.

“I love you too!” he shouted back, as he began to disappear with the station. Tears
were pouring down her cheeks, and she was alone in the compartment. He was only a
speck by then, and the train rounded a bend, and he was gone. She closed the window,
and sat on the banquette crying softly. She still couldn’t believe that he had made
her leave and go to people she barely knew. She couldn’t even remember the Beaulieus
or what they were like, and now she was
going to have to live with them, maybe for years. All she wanted to do was go back
home and hide under the covers, or look for her father in the stables. She was leaving
everything she held dear and that was familiar to her, going to strange people in
a strange land. And she thought of Nick then, and Toby, and remembered what her father
said about how brave they had been when they left sixteen months before. It seemed
as though they’d been gone so much longer. And once she got to England, she was going
to write to Toby and tell him what had happened to her.

Alex left the station with his head down, and tears rolling down his face. He got
into his car and felt like a thousand-year-old man as he drove slowly home. There
was nothing to look forward to now, nothing to wait for, no one to come home to at
night, until after the war. He drove past Nick’s schloss and saw all the soldiers
standing outside, talking and walking in and out. And as he drove by, he saw the colonel
leave the courtyard on Favory, and Alex slowed to watch him. The colonel turned and
caught his eye, and Alex saluted him smartly in a gesture of thanks. The colonel returned
the salute, and Alex drove home, thinking of his daughter on the way to Belgium. It
had been a good trade. The best one of his life.

When Marianne reached the Belgian border, she changed trains carrying both her suitcases.
They were heavy, but she could manage them. She was confused for a minute about which
track her train would be on. She asked for directions and found it after that, and
settled into the compartment. She had passed through customs with no problem, and
the train went straight to Ostend. She dozed on the way, and didn’t eat all day. She
felt sick every time she thought of leaving her father. She could still remember his
face in the station.
She woke up crying a few times, and when they got to Ostend, she was exhausted. She
had to take a taxi to the ferry, and several other passengers were going there too.
It was raining, but the sea looked smooth when she got there. She had heard horror
stories about crossing the English Channel, but it was a peaceful moonlit night, as
she stood on deck and watched Belgium fade away behind her. Germany already seemed
light-years away. The passengers had been warned that they could be torpedoed although
it was unlikely on a Belgian ferry, but she wore a life jacket anyway.

It took an hour for the little ferry to reach Ramsgate, and it was nearly midnight
when they arrived. A single customs officer stamped her passport, and although she
was German, he let her through. She was pretty and young, and he decided to be lenient
about it. He could have stopped her pending further inquiry, but he didn’t. There
were two taxis parked at the dock, and she took one of them to the train station,
and had to wait an hour for her train to arrive, and then for the first time all day,
she finally ate. She was ravenous. She hadn’t eaten since six o’clock that morning.
She ate a sandwich of sausages, and ordered a cup of tea, and by the time she walked
back to the platform with her bags, the train was pulling into the station. She got
on it and settled into the darkened compartment with a little blue light on. There
was already a woman on the opposite banquette sound asleep, as she set her bags down
and a porter helped her put them in an upper rack. And then she sat down, and watched
the darkness as they slid past the British countryside. She had been in three countries
that day, and she finally fell asleep.

The conductor woke her when they were pulling into Hertfordshire, and she put her
hat back on without combing her hair. She was too tired and sad to care how she looked.
She already missed her father terribly. She had brought a whole box of photographs
of
him in her suitcase, and a few of her mother. She found a cab easily at the station.
It was eight o’clock in the morning, twenty-five hours after her journey had begun.
She had traveled easily out of Germany with the papers the colonel had given her father
in exchange for the Lipizzaner stallion. Her life in trade for a horse.

She told the driver at the station that she was going to Haversham Castle, and he
glanced at her in the rearview mirror. He was an old man, and had been driving a taxi
for years. He didn’t ask her where she was coming from—she looked as though she didn’t
want to talk, as she watched the countryside around them. There were cows in pastures,
and sheep, and fields, and a few houses scattered here and there, and finally the
castle came into view. It was ten times the size of their schloss, and terrifying-looking,
as though it would be full of ghosts and scary old people, and she wanted to burst
into tears as they arrived at the front gate, which was open, and the battered old
car drove into the courtyard and she got out. She paid the driver, and he drove away
as she banged the enormous brass knocker on the front door. She had no idea what to
expect as she stood between her two suitcases, and a butler in a morning coat came
to find her, rumpled and exhausted, with her hat half falling off her blond hair.

She looked up at him with enormous frightened eyes and nearly choked, while she said
her name in a whisper. “Marianne von Hemmerle. I believe the marchioness of Haversham
is expecting me.” Her English and her manners were excellent, but she looked like
an orphan, and he felt sorry for her. He took her bags and led her into the main hall,
which was a long, dark corridor filled with portraits of their ancestors. It was a
gloomy place and freezing cold, as he led her into a small parlor near the front door.
And the moment he left her, he went out to the garden to find the marchioness, who
was already gardening, which she did most of the time. She was a youthful
woman, with a girlish face and prematurely white hair the color of snow, which she
was wearing in a long braid down her back. She was wearing an old plaid jacket, yellow
gardening boots, and a heavy sweater. The butler bowed politely as soon as he approached
her. He seemed much more respectable than she did.

“Ma’am, there’s a young lady to see you. Miss von Hemmerle. She looks as though she’s
had a long journey,” he said sympathetically. “She arrived by taxi from the train
station, I believe, with two bags. Should I take her upstairs to a room?” He was used
to people coming and going at Haversham. The Beaulieus were hospitable, and frequently
entertained their friends, their children’s friends, and people they barely knew.

“Oh my Lord!” the marchioness said, as she dropped her gardening tools, and ran toward
the morning room door. “Marianne … the poor child … where is she, William?” She turned
to him with worried eyes.

“In the front parlor, ma’am, with her bags,” he answered as she rushed past him, and
burst into the room where Marianne was sitting with a terrified expression. And as
the woman with the long white braid exploded into the room, Marianne stood up, and
vaguely remembered meeting her as a child. She was very thin then, very athletic,
very British, and very pretty, in a disheveled aristocratic way. And before Marianne
could say a word, the woman threw her arms around her and hugged her, and then backed
up to observe her and gently stroked the tangled blond hair.

“My poor darling. Did you have a terrible trip?” She was all sympathy and kindness
as two big hunting dogs came into the room and wagged their tails, and a Jack Russell
followed a minute later, barking at his mistress and their guest.

“Oh, Rupert! Will you stop!” she shouted at the small dog, and
went back to fussing over Marianne and insisted that she come to the breakfast room
for something to eat and a cup of tea.

“William, please ask Cook for a decent breakfast and a pot of tea,” she said. “I’m
sorry, darling, we’ve been on rationing for two months, but she’ll come up with something.”
The butler disappeared immediately, as Isabel led Marianne to the morning room, and
she sank down next to Isabel on an overstuffed blue velvet couch, and looked around
the room. There were bright chintzes and soft colors everywhere, an enormous fireplace,
and a wall full of books, and through the windows and open door, Marianne could see
gardens and trees and a lake, and the beautiful grounds of the castle. She felt as
though she had landed in a dream, someone else’s surely but not her own, as her hostess
sat next to her holding her hand and trying to make her feel at home. She had never
met anyone with such kind eyes. Everything about her was welcoming and warm, and she
punctuated everything she said with giggles and little bursts of laughter and silly
jokes, and then scolded the dogs. And as the delicious breakfast came in on an enormous
silver tray, Marianne looked at her with wide eyes. The cook had come up with oatmeal,
scones, and some jam she’d been saving.

“Thank you for having me. I’m so sorry to come as such a surprise.”

“We were expecting you,” Isabel Beaulieu said with a warm smile. “Now eat, and then
I’ll take you up to your bedroom so you can settle in.” As she said it, one of the
hunting dogs stole a piece of scone, and Isabel scolded him, and they both laughed.
Despite the enormous, daunting castle they lived in, Marianne had never met a kinder,
friendlier woman in her life. She was like the mother Marianne had never had and always
wished she did. And it wasn’t scary
being here at all. “And how is your father? Charles was quite worried about the two
of you.”