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THE   FOX 

IN 

THE  ATTIC 

by  RICHARD  HUGHES 

Hero,  after  many  years,  is  the  new 
novel  by  the  author  of  that  acknowl- 
edged  modern  classic,  A  High  Wind  in 
Jamaica  (which  some  remember  as  The 
Innocent  Voyage).  The  secret  mind  of 
childhood,  revealed  so  brilliantly  in  the 
earlier  novel,  has  in  this  book  become  the 
secret  mind  of  humanity  at  large. 

It  is  1923.  A  tragic  accident  has  forced 
23-year-old  Augustine  to  leave  his  agree- 
able English  manor  and  shelter  among 
cousins  at  their  home  near  Munich.  It  is 
Augustine's  obsession  to  refrain  from  the 
slightest  exercise  of  power  over  anyone. 
In  England,  thankfully  at  peace  after  the 
monstrous  blood-letting  of  a  world  war, 
such  high-minded  conduct  can  be  in- 
dulged in.  But  in  Germany,  riding  the 
nightmare  of  defeat  and  inflation,  Au- 
gustine's fine  fastidiousness  is  out  of 
place.  There  everyone — not  even  except- 
ing the  lovely  Mitzi — is  deep  in  various 
fanatic  schemes  to  reshape  events 
through  desperate  action.  One  such  en- 
thusiast, Adolf  Hitler,  his  beer-hall 
putsch  aborted,  cowers  in  a  country  attic, 
awaiting  arrest. 

All  Hughes'  remembered  virtues  and 
subtleties  are  here:  the  startling  vivid- 
ness of  scene,  the  march  of  narrative, 
often  violently  exciting,  and  a  delicacy 
and  depth  of  human  insight.  No  human 
being,  young  or  old,  lunatic  or  sane,  lies 
outside  his  uncanny  awareness.  And,  in 
The  Fox  in  the  Attic,  these  powers  are 
employed  in  a  work  of  enormous  scope 
and  significance — a  re-creation  of  the 
inner  life  of  an  entire  generation. 


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http://www.archive.org/details/foxinatticOOrich 


THE  FOX  IN  THE  ATTIC 


THE  FOX  IN  THE  ATTIC 

Copyright  ©   1961   by  Richard  Hughes 
Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


All  rights  reserved. 
No  part  of  this  book  may  be 
used  or  reproduced  in  any  man- 
ner whatsoever  without  written 
permission  except  in  the  case  of 
brief  quotations  embodied  in 
critical  articles  and  reviews.  For 
information  address  Harper  & 
Brothers,    49    East    33rd    Street, 

New  York  16,  N.  Y. 


Library  of  Congress  catalog  card  number:  61-12232 


NOTE 

The  Fox  in  the  Attic  is  the  first  of  a  group  of  novels, 
The  Human  Predicament,  which  is  conceived  as  a 
long  historical  novel  of  my  own  times  culminating 
in  the  Second  World  War.  The  fictitious  characters 
in  the  foreground  are  wholly  fictitious.  The  historical 
characters  and  events  are  as  accurately  historical  as  I 
can  make  them:  I  may  have  made  mistakes  but  in  no 
case  have  I  deliberately  falsified  the  record  once  I 
could  worry  it  out. 

R.  H. 


TO   MY  WIFE 

and  also  my  children 

(especially  Penelope) 

in  affectionate  gratitude 

for  their  help 


CONTENTS 


Polly  and  Rachel 

BOOK  TWO 

The  White  Crow 

BOOK   THREE 

The  Fox  in  the  Attic 


BOOK  ONE 

Polly  and  Rachel 


Chapter  i 

Only  the  steady  creaking  of  a  flight  of  swans  disturbed 
the  silence,  labouring  low  overhead  with  outstretched 
necks  towards  the  sea. 

It  was  a  warm,  wet,  windless  afternoon  with  a  soft 
feathery  feeling  in  the  air:  rain,  yet  so  fine  it  could  scarcely 
fall  but  rather  floated.  It  clung  to  everything  it  touched; 
the  rushes  in  the  deep  choked  ditches  of  the  sea-marsh 
were  bowed  down  with  it,  the  small  black  cattle  looked 
cobwebbed  with  it,  their  horns  were  jewelled  with  it. 
Curiously  stumpy  too  these  cattle  looked,  the  whole  herd 
sunk  nearly  to  the  knees  in  a  soft  patch. 

This  sea-marsh  stretched  for  miles.  Seaward,  a  greyness 
merging  into  sky  had  altogether  rubbed  out  the  line  of 
dunes  which  bounded  it  that  way:  inland,  another  and 
darker  blurred  greyness  was  all  you  could  see  of  the  solid 
Welsh  hills.  But  near  by  loomed  a  solitary  gate,  where  the 
path  crossed  a  footbridge  and  humped  over  the  big  dyke; 
and  here  in  a  sodden  tangle  of  brambles  the  scent  of  a  fox 
hung,  too  heavy  today  to  rise  or  dissipate. 

The  gate  clicked  sharply  and  shed  its  cascade  as  two 
men  passed  through.  Both  were  heavily  loaded  in  oilskins. 
The  elder  and  more  tattered  one  carried  two  shotguns, 
negligently,  and  a  brace  of  golden  plover  were  tied  to  the 
bit  of  old  rope  he  wore  knotted  round  his  middle:  glimpses 
of  a  sharp-featured  weather-beaten  face  showed  from 
within  his  bonneted  sou'-wester,  but  mouth  and  even  chin 
were  hidden  in  a  long  weeping  moustache.  The  younger 
man  was  springy  and  tall  and  well-built  and  carried  over 
his  shoulder  the  body  of  a  dead  child.  Her  thin  muddy 
legs  dangled  against  his  chest,  her  head  and  arms  hung 

13 


14  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

down  his  back;  and  at  his  heels  walked  a  black  dog — 
disciplined,  saturated,  and  eager. 

Suddenly  the  older  man  blew  through  the  curtain  of  his 
moustache  as  if  to  clear  it  of  water  before  speaking,  but 
he  thought  better  of  it  after  a  quick  glance  round  at  his 
companion.  There  was  no  personal  grief  in  the  young 
man's  face  but  it  was  awe-struck. 

An  hour  later  the  two  men  had  left  the  sea-marsh  behind 
them:  they  had  reached  higher  ground  where  a  lofty  but 
tangled  and  neglected  wood  traversed  a  steep  hillside.  So 
soft  was  this  south-western  Welsh  climate,  and  so  thick 
the  shelter  of  all  that  towering  timber  round,  that  here  a 
glade  of  very  old  azaleas  planted  in  a  clearing  had  them- 
selves grown  almost  into  gangling  trees  and  dripping 
rhododendron-scrub  had  spread  half  across  what  had  once 
been  a  broad  gravelled  carriage-drive.  Deep  black  ruts 
showed  where  in  the  war  years  the  steel  tires  of  heavy 
farm-wagons  had  broken  through  the  crust  of  this  long- 
derelict  drive;  but  nowadays  in  places  the  roadway  was 
blocked  altogether  with  newly-fallen  trunks  and  branches 
that  nothing  could  pass. 

Soon  however  the  two  men  turned  off  by  a  short-cut,  a 
steep  footpath  squeezed  between  a  ferny  rock  the  size  of 
a  cottage  and  a  watery  plantation  of  twenty-foot  bamboos. 

Beyond  the  bamboos  their  path  tunnelled  under  a 
seemingly  endless  ancient  growth  of  rhododendrons  and 
they  had  to  duck,  for  though  the  huge  congested  limbs 
of  this  dark  thicket  had  once  been  propped  on  crutches 
to  give  the  path  full  headroom  many  of  these  were  now 
rotten  and  had  collapsed.  At  the  very  centre  of  this  grove 
the  tunnel  passed  by  a  small  stone  temple;  but  here  too 
the  brute  force  of  vegetation  was  at  work,  for  the  clearing 
had  closed  in,  the  weather-pocked  marble  faun  lay  face 
down  in  the  tangle  of  ivy  which  had  fallen  with  him,  the 
little  shrine  itself  now  wore  its  cupola  awry.  Thus  it  was 
not  till  the  two  men  had  travelled  the  whole  length  of  this 


POLLY   AND   RACHEL  15 

dark  and  dripping  tunnel  and  finally  reached  the  further 
border  of  all  this  abandoned  woodland  that  they  really 
came  right  out  again  at  last  under  the  open  whitish  sky. 

Here,  a  flight  of  vast  garden  terraces  had  been  cut  in 
the  hillside  like  giant  stairs.  Downwards,  these  terraces  led 
to  a  vista  of  winding  waterlily  lakes  and  distant  park  with 
a  far  silver  curl  of  river:  upwards,  they  mounted  to  a  house. 
The  walking  figures  of  the  two  men  and  the  dog,  ascend- 
ing, and  presently  turning  right-handed  along  the  topmost 
of  these  terraces,  looked  surprisingly  small  against  that 
house — almost  like  toys,  for  this  ancient  pile  was  far  larger 
than  you  had  taken  it  for  at  first.  Nevertheless  there  was 
no  hum  from  this  huge  house,  no  sign  of  life  even:  not  one 
open  window,  nor  a  single  curl  of  smoke  from  any  of  its 
hundred  chimneys.  The  men's  sodden  boots  on  the  stone 
paving  made  little  sound,  but  there  was  none  other. 

This  topmost  terrace  ended  at  a  tall  hexagonal  Victorian 
orangery  projecting  rather  incongruously  from  the  older 
building,  the  clear  lights  in  its  Gothic  cast-iron  traceries 
deep-damasked  here  and  there  with  dark  panes  of  red  and 
blue  Bristol.  In  the  angle  this  projection  made  with  the 
main  structure  a  modest  half-glazed  door  was  set  in  the 
house's  ancient  stone-work,  and  here  at  last  the  two  men 
halted:  the  young  man  with  the  small  body  over  his 
shoulder  took  charge  of  the  guns  as  well  and  sent  the 
furtive,  feral-looking  older  man  away.  Then  the  young 
man  with  the  burden  and  the  wet  dog  went  in  by  them- 
selves, and  the  door  closed  with  a  hollow  sound. 


Chapter  2 

Augustine  was  the  young  man's  name  (the  dog's  name 
J  forget). 

Augustine  had  the  thick  white  skin  which  often  goes 
with  such  sandy  red  hair  as  his,  the  snub  lightly-freckled 
nose,  the  broad  intelligent  forehead.  Normally  this  young 
face  was  serene;  but  now  it  was  beginning  to  show  the  first 
effects  of  shock  and  for  a  full  minute  he  stood  stockstill  in 
his  dewy  oilskins,  staring  round  the  familiar  walls  of  this 
warm  and  cosy  room  with  new  and  seemingly  astonished 
eyes.  Then  Augustine's  dilated  pupils  focused — fascinated, 
as  if  seeing  it  for  the  first  time — on  his  great-grandfather's 
gun.  This  stood  in  the  place  of  honour  in  the  tall  glass- 
fronted  case  which  was  the  room's  chief  furnishing:  a 
beautiful  double-barrelled  hammer-gun  damascened  with 
silver,  its  blue-black  barrels  worn  paper-thin  with  firing. 
Pinned  to  the  wooden  back  of  the  case  behind  it  there  was 
an  old  photograph  of  someone  short  and  bushy  standing 
with  this  very  gun  over  his  arm;  and  with  him  two  bowler- 
hatted  keepers,  equally  bushy.  The  print  was  faded  to  a 
browny-yellow,  but  now  as  Augustine's  abnormal  gaze  lit 
on  it  the  faint  figures  seemed  to  him  to  clarify  and  grow — 
to  take  on  for  him  an  advisory  look.  At  that  his  gaze 
widened  to  include  the  whole  family  of  these  beloved  guns 
racked  in  that  great  glass  gunroom  case  there:  guns  of  all 
calibres  from  rook-rifles  and  a  boy's  20-bore  by  Purdey  to 
a  huge  4-bore  punt-gun:  grouped  round  the  veteran,  they 
too  now  seemed  veritable  councillors. 

Then  his  eyes  shifted.  In  a  corner  of  the  room  stood  the 
collection  of  his  fishing-rods.  Their  solid  butts  were  set  in 
a  cracked  Ming  vase  like  arrows  in  a  quiver;  but  he  felt 
now  as  if  their  wispy  twitching  ends  were  tingling,  like 
antennae — his  antennae.  Above  them  the  mounted  otters'- 
masks  on  the  peeling  walls  grinned.  The  tiny  wisp  of  steam 

16 


POLLY   AND   RACHEL  17 

from  the  ever-simmering  kettle  on  the  round  coke-stove 
seemed  to  be  actively  inviting  the  brown  teapot  that  stood 
on  the  shelf  above — the  loaf,  and  the  knife,  and  the  pot  of 
jam.  In  short,  these  guns  and  rods  of  his,  and  even  the 
furniture,  the  kettle  and  the  loaf  had  suddenly  become 
living  tentacles  of 'him'.  It  was  as  if  he  and  this  long-loved 
gunroom  were  now  one  living  continuous  flesh.  It  was  as 
if  for  the  time  being  'he'  was  no  longer  cooped  up  entirely 
within  his  own  skin:  he  had  expanded,  and  these  four  walls 
had  become  now  his  final  envelope.  Only  outside  these 
walls  did  the  hostile,  alien  'world'  begin. 

All  this  passed  in  a  matter  of  seconds:  then  mentally 
Augustine  shook  himself,  aware  that  his  state  was  more 
than  a  little  abnormal  and  reminded  at  the  same  time  of 
that  dead  mite  of  alien  world  he  had  brought  in  here  and 
carried  on  his  shoulder  still. 

An  old  lancet  window  suggested  this  had  been  a 
domestic  chapel  once;  all  the  same,  not  even  for  a  moment 
could  he  put  her  down  in  here. 

In  the  middle  of  the  room  a  round  oak  table  stood  nowa- 
days; but  under  the  morning's  crumbs,  under  the  oil- 
stains  where  for  years  guns  had  been  cleaned  on  it  and 
under  the  bloodstains  where  game  had  been  rested  on  it 
there  were  still  discernible  faded  inkstains  and  blurred 
inscriptions  and  knife-cuts  from  its  earlier  days  in  the 
schoolroom.  As  Augustine  moved  towards  it  to  lay  the 
guns  down  his  own  initials,  'A.L.P.-H.',  suddenly  leapt 
out  at  him  from  the  dark  wood,  pricked  there  with  his 
compass-points  and  coloured  (he  recalled)  one  drowsy 
morning  in  the  schoolroom  long  ago — in  imitation  of 
Henry,  his  godlike  elder  cousin.  For  though  this  house  had 
not  been  actually  his  childhood  home,  much  of  Augus- 
tine's childhood  had  in  fact  been  spent  here:  from  his 
earliest  age  his  two  old  great-uncles  used  to  invite  him  on 
prolonged  visits,  as  company   for   Henry  chiefly.  ,  .  ah, 


18  THE    FOX    IN    THE    ATTIC 

now  Henry's  'H.P.-H.'  had  leaped  out  of  the  smudges  too 
(ten  times  more  elegantly  tattooed  than  his,  of  course). 

That  little  Purdey  20-bore  behind  the  glass  (momentarily 
it  stood  out  from  the  background  of  its  fellows  as  the  figure 
in  a  painted  portrait  does)  had  been  Henry's  first  gun. 
When  Henry  quite  grew  out  of  it,  it  had  descended  to 
teach  Augustine  too  to  shoot.  That  of  course  was  before 
191 4:  in  the  halcyon  days  before  the  war  when  the  two 
old  men  were  still  living  and  Henry  was  the  heir. 

Augustine,  still  humping  the  little  body,  moved  towards 
the  telephone  bracketed  to  the  wall  behind  the  door.  This 
was  a  peculiar  apparatus,  evidently  built  to  order.  It  had 
two  hinged  ear-pieces,  installed  one  on  each  side  in  case 
one  ear  or  the  other  should  be  deaf;  and  it  was  ancient 
enough  to  have  a  handle  to  wind.  Augustine  wound  the 
handle  and  asked  for  the  police,  addressing  the  instrument 
in  the  toneless  but  very  articulate  manner  habitual  to 
someone  a  solitary  by  his  own  act  and  choice  who  prefers 
to  use  his  voice  as  seldom  and  as  briefly  as  he  can. 

Then  the  machine  answered  him.  The  upshot  was  that 
the  sergeant  would  come  out  this  evening  on  his  bicycle 
to  view,  but  doubted  he  could  get  an  ambulance  to  fetch  it 
till  the  morning.  For  tonight  it  must  just  stay  where  it  was. 

When  at  last  (in  a  remote  and  half-darkened  formal 
place  of  elegance,  a  room  he  never  used)  Augustine  did 
lift  the  morsel  off  his  shoulder,  he  found  that  it  had  stif- 
fened. This  had  ceased  to  be  'child'  at  all:  it  was  total 
cadaver  now.  It  had  taken  into  its  soft  contours  the  exact 
mould  of  the  shoulder  over  which  it  had  been  doubled  and 
it  had  set  like  that — into  a  matrix  of  him.  If  (which  God 
forbid)  he  had  put  it  on  again  it  would  have  fitted. 

Augustine  was  absolutely  alone  with  it  in  all  this  huge, 
empty  house.  He  left  it  dumped  there  on  the  big  dust- 
sheeted  drawing-room  sofa  and  hurried  across  the  silent 
stone  hall  to  wash  his  creeping  hands. 


Chapter  j 

For  a  while,  cleaning  the  two  guns  and  towelling  the 
dog  took  all  Augustine's  attention;  but  then  he  was  at 
a  loss  till  the  sergeant  should  come.  He  craved  for  and 
gulped  a  spoonful  of  sugar  but  otherwise  could  not  eat 
because  he  had  become  aware  of  his  hands  again:  they 
felt  large,  and  as  if  he  had  not  washed  them  enough.  Indeed 
he  was  loth  to  taint  with  them  even  the  pages  of  a  book. 

In  this  dilemma  he  wandered  from  the  gunroom  almost 
without  knowing  it  into  the  billiardroom.  This  smelt  of  old 
carpeting  and  perished  leather;  it  was  a  place  he  seldom 
went  these  days,  but  unlike  most  of  the  rest  of  the  house 
it  was  unshuttered  and  now  there  was  still  enough  of  the 
failing  daylight  in  here  to  see  by. 

Billiardrooms  are  never  small.  In  childhood  this  one  used 
to  seem  to  Augustine  as  interminable  as  the  vaults  of 
heaven:  it  had  always  been  a  room  of  wonder,  moreover, 
for  what  might  not  happen  in  a  room  where  a  rhinoceros 
— lurking  in  an  Africa  that  must  have  been  just  behind 
the  plaster — had  thrust  head  and  horn  clean  through  the 
wall?  (Often  as  a  small  thing  he  had  peeped  in  fearfully 
before  breakfast  to  find  if  during  the  night  that  rhinoceros 
in  his  wooden  collar  had  inched  any  further  through.) 

This  had  been  a  man's  room,  which  no  woman  except 
housemaids  ever  entered.  So,  traditionally,  it  had  given 
asylum  to  everything  in  the  house  no  woman  of  taste  or 
delicacy  could  stand;  and  Augustine  himself  had  altered 
nothing.  The  paint  was  a  sour  chocolate  brown.  The  chairs 
and  settees  were  uniformly  covered  in  leather.  This  faded 
purple  leather  covered  even  the  top  of  a  kind  of  stool  made 
from  a  huge  elephant's-trotter  (Great-uncle  William  had 
ridden  the  beast  in  battle  or  shot  it  in  the  chase,  Augustine 
could  never  remember  which). 

19 


20  THE    FOX    IN   THE    ATTIC 

In  a  tall  china-cabinet  here  there  were  some  lovely 
pieces  of  porcelain — Sevres,  Wedgwood,  Dresden,  Wor- 
cester— and  other  exquisite  objects  too:  a  large  conch  in 
silver-gilt,  engraved  with  the  royal  arms  of  the  Wittels- 
bachs  and  held  out  invitingly  by  a  nymph:  again,  a  deli- 
cate tureen-like  receptacle  in  Pacific  tortoiseshell  which 
had  stood  (so  the  printed  card  stated)  in  the  cabin  of  Cap- 
tain Cook.  You  wondered,  perhaps,  to  see  such  beauties 
banished  here — till  you  realised  that  this  was  Uncle 
William's  unique  collection  of  rare  spittoons. 

But  there  was  even  worse  here  than  leather  and  brown 
paint  and  china  of  equivocal  uses.  The  engravings  on  the 
walls  for  instance:  if  you  looked  at  them  closely  and  with 
not  too  innocent  an  eye  you  found  they  tended  to  be 
coarse — or  even  French. 

Those  two  good  old  Tory  bachelors,  those  noble  Vic- 
torian figures — Great-uncle  Arthur!  Great-uncle  William! 
Indeed  what  a  powder-magazine  of  schoolboy  naughtiness 
it  had  pleased  them  to  sit  on,  in  here!  Hardly  anything  in 
this  room  was  quite  what  it  seemed  at  first  sight.  That 
ribbed-glass  picture  looked  at  first  just  an  innocent  rustic 
scene,  but  as  you  walked  past  you  saw  from  the  tail  of 
your  eye  the  billy-goat  going  incessantly  in  and  out,  in 
and  out.  Again,  the  top  of  that  elephant-foot  stool  was 
hinged,  and  lifted.  Absently,  Augustine  lifted  it  now:  it 
housed  a  commode  of  course,  and  there  was  a  dead  spider 
in  it;  but  until  this  very  moment  he  had  never  noticed 
that  under  the  spider  and  the  dust  you  could  just  descry, 
printed  in  green  under  the  glaze  on  the  bottom  of  the 
china  pot,  the  famous — the  execrated  face  of  Gladstone. 

That  had  been  typical  of  the  fanatical  way  those  two 
Tory  old  children  felt  about  Liberals.  Their  treatment  of 
Augustine's  own  father  was  a  case  in  point.  Though  a 
Conservative  himself  he  had  married  the  daughter  of  a 
house  traditionally  W'hig  and  for  this  he  had  never  been 
forgiven,  never  asked  here  again.  Thus  Augustine's  own 


POLLY  AND   RACHEL  21 

childhood  visits  here  had  always  been  paid  either  alone 
or  with  a  nurse.  As  if  the  taint  was  one  clinging  to  the 
female  line,  even  his  elder  sister  Mary  had  never  once 
been  asked  here  to  Newton  Llantony  (in  fairness  for  this 
deprivation,  Mary  had  been  sent  alone  to  spend  one  whole 
summer  holidays  in  Germany,  where  they  had  cousins. 
That  must  have  been  1913:  she  was  to  have  gone  again, 
only  next  year  the  Kaiser  invaded  Belgium  and  the  war 
came). 

In  addition  to  improper  pictures,  many  of  the  lesser 
family  portraits  were  hung  here  in  this  billiardroom — 
'lesser'  in  the  sense  that  either  the  sitter  or  the  painter  was 
better  forgotten:  black  sheep  and  frail  ladies;  and  the 
pseudo-Lely,  the  Academy  rejects.  But  as  soon  as  Augus- 
tine's father  had  married  a  Liberal,  even  the  lovely  draw- 
ing Rossetti  had  done  of  him  as  an  infant  angel  with  a 
tabor  could  no  longer  be  hung  anywhere  at  all  at  Newton 
Llantony — not  even  in  here!  Augustine  had  lately  found 
this  drawing  hidden  away  upstairs  in  his  grandmother's 
bedroom  drawer:  whereas  Henry's  portrait,  posthumously 
painted  by  a  limited  company  from  photographs— that 
vast  act  of  worship  in  oil-paint  hung  over  the  fireplace  in 
the  largest  drawing-room. 

Henry  even  while  he  lived  had  been  the  apple  of  every 
eye.  The  uncles  had  built  him  his  own  squash-court:  when 
he  was  killed  at  Ypres  in  permanent  mourning  for  him  the 
court  was  not  played  in  any  more:  it  became  where  the 
larger  stuffed  animals  were  housed,  including  a  giraffe. 

So  much  bitter  fanaticism  in  those  two  old  Tories:  yet 
in  practice  so  much  actual  kindness  to  many,  including 
Augustine  himself — the  "Liberal  Woman's"  child!  The  two 
things  seemed  hard  to  reconcile.  Over  the  carved  autumnal 
marbles  of  the  empty  fireplace  there  hung  a  huge  presen- 
tation portrait  of  Uncle  Arthur  as  Master,  his  otterhounds 
grouped  around  him;  so  Augustine  fell  to  studying  the 
face  now,  in  the  gloaming,  in  the  hope  of  discovering  its 
secret.  But  all  it  showed  was  that  years  of  concentration 


22  THE    FOX    IN    THE    ATTIC 

on  the  animal  had  made  the  Master  himself  grow  so  like 
an  otter  it  was  a  wonder  his  own  hounds  had  not  rent  him, 
Actaeon-wise.  And  Uncle  William?  The  only  portrait  of 
him  here  was  a  small  lady-like  watercolour  in  full  uniform 
painted  by  an  artistic  colour-sergeant  at  Hongkong.  It 
showed  the  General's  eye  large  and  liquid  as  a  Reynolds 
cherub's,  the  rounded  cheek  as  innocent  (there  can  have 
been  no  Liberals  in  Hongkong  for  Uncle  William  to  look 
so  much  at  peace). 

The  sky  was  darkening,  but  the  mist  seemed  to  have 
cleared  now:  through  the  tall  uncurtained  window  what 
seemed  like  a  single  low  star  suddenly  winked  out,  blurred 
only  by  the  runnels  on  the  glass. 

Augustine  raised  the  sash.  That  'star'  must  be  the  lamps 
in  distant  Flemton  being  lit  (Flemton  was  a  little  mediaeval 
rock-citadel  eight  miles  away  guarding  the  river  mouth: 
a  kind  of  Welsh  Mont-St. -Michel,  or  miniature  Gibraltar). 
For  a  minute  or  two  he  stood  watching,  his  solid  height 
silhouetted  against  the  window,  what  little  daylight  re- 
mained illumining  his  freckled,  sensitive,  sensible  young 
face.  But  although  his  thoughts  were  distracted  now,  his 
features  still  wore  the  imprint  of  the  shock  he  had  had — 
like  yesterday's  footprints  still  discernible  on  dewy  grass. 


Chapter  4 

Uncle  Arthur  the  otter  and  Uncle  William  the  faded 
general.  .  .  Augustine  had  been  fond  of  both  old  men 
when  he  was  a  child,  and  he  warmed  to  their  memory  now 
— but  fond  of  them  as  objects  rather  than  as  people,  for 
what  grotesques  they  were!  Too  old  even  for  billiards  in 
the  end,  they  had  sat  here  day-in  day-out  winter  and 
summer  one  each  side  of  a  roaring  fire  while  dust  settled 
on  the  cover  of  the  ever-shrouded  table.  Uncle  Arthur 
was  stone  deaf  in  the  left  ear,  hard  of  hearing  in  the 
right:  Uncle  William  stone  deaf  in  the  right  ear,  hard 
of  hearing  in  the  left  (hence  that  peculiar  custom-built 
telephone).  Both  used  enormous  ear-trumpets:  Uncle 
William  was  nearly  blind  too,  so  used  a  powerful  monocle 
as  well. 

Suddenly  it  struck  Augustine  with  force:  how  was  it  so 
great  a  gulf  divided  his  own  from  every  previous  genera- 
tion, so  that  they  seemed  like  different  species? 

The  kind  of  Time  called  'History'  ended  at  the  Battle  of 
Waterloo:  after  that,  Time  had  gone  into  a  long  dark 
tunnel  or  chrysalis  called  the  Victorian  Age.  It  had  come 
out  into  daylight  again  at  the  Present  Day,  but  as  some- 
thing quite  different:  it  was  as  impossible  to  imagine  one- 
self born  a  Victorian  or  born  in  'History'  as.  .  .  as  born 
a  puma. 

But  wherein  did  the  difference  demonstrably  lie?  For 
the  moment  he  could  not  get  beyond  his  starting-point 
that  all  previous  generations  had  been  objects,  whereas  his 
were  people:  that  is,  what  mattered  were  their  insides — 
what  they  thought,  what  they  felt.  Not  their  outsides  at 
all:  the  natural  face  in  the  shaving-glass  was  not  him,  only 
the  invisible  mind  and  the  erupting  ego  within  it  ranked 
as  him.  Whereas  those.  .  .  those  ancient  objects  his  uncles 

23 


84  THE    FOX    IN    THE   ATTIC 

and  their  generation  were  outsides  only:  hollow  bundles 
of  behaviourist  gestures,  of  stylised  reactions  to  stimuli  like 
Pavlov's  dogs.  Their  only  'reality'  was  the  grotesques  they 
looked,  the  grotesqueries  they  did. — Take  Uncle  William's 
story  of  old  Sir  Rhydderch  Prydderch,  a  neighbour  said 
to  have  torn  out  his  staircase  at  the  age  of  seventy  and 
thereafter  swarmed  up  a  rope  every  night  to  go  to  bed: 
had  such  a  grotesque  any  reality  except  as  an  imagined 
spectacle  halfway  up  a  rope? 

Or  take  the  story  of  that  disastrous  fox-hunt  (it  had 
been  Uncle  Arthur  speaking  this  time,  sitting  on  Augus- 
tine's little  bed  one  evening  and  feeding  him  with  bread- 
and-milk).  Wolves,  imported  by  a  noble  Polish  exile  to 
make  his  new  Pembrokeshire  home  more  homelike,  were 
alleged  to  have  crossed  with  the  local  foxes  and  brought 
forth  monstrous  hybrid  young:  hence,  ultimately,  Uncle 
Arthur's  bedtime  story  of  those  little  terrified  figures  in 
Pink  clinging  in  trees  with  a  pack  of  huge  red  ravening 
foxes  howling  underneath  (the  story  had  been  told  with 
relish,  for  the  Master  of  Otterhounds  had  despised  fox- 
hunters  "sitting  dry-arse  on  their  horses  all  day"  almost  as 
he  had  despised  Liberals). 

These  particular  grotesques  were  only  hearsay,  and  per- 
haps even  fabulous.  But  as  well  as  his  uncles  there  were 
plenty  of  other  notable  'outsides'  Augustine  had  seen 
among  his  elders  with  his  own  eyes.  There  was  Dr.  Brinley, 
for  instance:  who  was  legendary,  but  living  still.  Dr.  Brinley 
was  an  aged  adored  fox-hunting  coroner  never  even 
half  sober  even  when  on  a  horse.  Once  Augustine  as  a 
schoolboy  had  pulled  off  his  cap  in  the  High  Street  at 
Penrys  Cross  out  of  respect  for  the  dead;  but  it  proved 
to  be  the  coroner  not  the  corpse  they  were  carrying  into 
Court. 

Another  notable  grotesque  here  had  been  the  late 
rector:  parson  not  person,  a  mere  clerical  keeper  of  pigs 
that  used  to  get  loose  during  Service.  From  his  pulpit  he 
could   see  into   his  rectory  garden,   and   Sunday  after 


POLLY  AND   RACHEL  25 

Sunday  what  he  saw  there  made  him  falter  and  repeat 
himself  and  then  suddenly  explode  into  a  cry  of'PigsF  that 
startled  strangers  no  end.  At  that  cry  the  rectory  children 
(they  had  left  the  sty  open  deliberately  of  course)  would 
rise  and  sidle  out  of  their  pew,  bow  to  the  altar  before 
turning  their  backs  on  it,  mince  down  the  aisle  with  their 
muffs  and  prayer-books  and  Sunday  hats.  .  .  and  the 
moment  they  were  through  the  church  door  burst  into 
loud  whoops  as  they  scampered  off. 

The  late  bishop  (who  had  a  beard  like  old  Kruger's) 
came  to  luncheon  here  at  Newton  one  day:  it  was  1916, 
and  Henry  was  home  on  embarkation  leave.  The  rector 
was  there,  but  the  reverend  wits  had  now  begun  notice- 
ably to  fail  and  so  Uncle  Arthur  asked  the  bishop  himself 
to  say  Grace.  The  rector  protested — etiquette  was  for  him 
to  say  Grace,  and  he  struggled  to  his  feet.  But  after  'For 
what  we  are  about  to  receive.  .  .'  the  usual  form  of  words 
must  have  escaped  him,  for  he  stumbled  on  ex  tempore: 
"The  plump  chicken,  the  three  excellent  vegetables.  .  ." 
Then  he  sat  down,  seething  with  indignation  and  mutter- 
ing what  sounded  like  "May  the  Lord  in  His  mercy  blast 
and  braise  us  all!" 

Next  Sunday  he  announced  from  the  pulpit  a  momen- 
tous discovery:  Johns  the  Baptist  and  Evangelist  were  one 
and  the  same  person!  He  was  stuttering  with  excitement, 
but  Augustine  heard  no  more  because  Uncle  William, 
startled  at  the  news,  dropped  his  eyeglass  in  his  ear- 
trumpet  and  began  fishing  for  it  with  a  bunch  of  keys. 
Uncle  Arthur  in  his  senior  corner  of  the  family  box-pew 
kept  commenting  "Damn'  young  fool!"  (he  was  unaware 
of  the  loudness  of  his  own  voice,  of  course)  "Oh  the  silly 
damn'  fool!"  then  snatched  the  ear-trumpet  from  his 
brother's  hand  and  dislodged  the  eyeglass  by  putting  the 
trumpet  to  his  lips  and  blowing  a  blast  like  the  horn  of 
Roland. 

As  the  scene  came  back  to  him  now  Augustine  burst 
out  laughing  in  the  echoing,  comfortable  room  those  two 


a6  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

old  men  had  made:  which  should  have  been  Henry's:  but 
which  instead  was  his. 

A  breath  of  wind  came  through  the  opened  window. 
In  the  dusk  something  white  fluttered  off  the  marble  fire- 
place shelf  where  it  had  been  propped  and  Augustine 
struck  a  match  to  look  at  it.  It  was  an  engraved  and 
emblazoned  invitation-card: 

The  High  Steward  and  Worshipful  Court 

of 

FLEMTOM 

Request 

— and  then  his  name,  and  so  on. 

At  the  sight  of  that  card  his  conscience  pricked  him; 
for  the  annual  Banquet  was  tonight  and  he  had  not  even 
remembered  to  answer.  His  two  old  uncles,  of  course,  had 
attended  the  High  Steward's  Banquet  yearly  to  the  last; 
but  wild  horses  could  not  drag  Augustine  to  any  function 
of  that  kind  and  surely  the  sooner  people  ceased  even 
inviting  him,  the  better!  Bucolic  banquets,  flower-shows, 
the  magistrate's  bench,  audit-days,  hunt  balls — the  young 
squire  of  Newton  was  absolutely  determined  not  to  get 
'involved';  and  surely  the  neighbourhood  ought  to  be  only 
too  thankful— nobody  wants  a  Heavy  Squire  these  days! 
In  1923  it's  quite  out  of  date.  At  the  very  least  he  wouldn't 
be  missed:  there  are  plenty  of  noisome  little  creatures  who 
like  doing  that  sort  of  thing.  Thus  he  could  feel  his  lip  curl 
a  little  in  derision — though  quite  involuntarily — as  he 
turned  himself  in  the  dusk  to  contemplate  once  more  that 
low  fixed  star  which  was  all  the  lights  of  distant.  .  .  of 
gregarious,  festive  Flemton. 

For  the  moment  he  had  clean  forgotten  what  had  just 
happened  on  the  Marsh;  and  yet  in  his  face  that  look  of 
yesterday's  footmarks  had  still  persisted  even  while  he 
laughed. 


Chapter  5 

Flemton,  the  object  of  Augustine's  mild  involuntary 
derision.  .  . 

That  long  line  of  dunes  dividing  the  seven-mile  stretch 
of  sea-marsh  from  the  sea  ended  in  a  single  precipitous 
peninsular  outcrop  of  rock,  and  this  was  washed  by  the 
mouth  of  a  small  smelly  tidal  river  which  served  as  creek 
still  for  a  few  coasting  smacks  (though  the  trade  was  already 
dying) .  The  tiny,  unique  self-governing  township  of  Flem- 
ton was  crowded  right  on  top  of  this  rock,  the  peeling 
yellow  stucco  of  its  Regency  houses  bulging  out  over  its 
mediaeval  walls  like  ice-cream  from  a  cornet. 

This  was  Flemton's  great  night — the  night  of  the  ban- 
quet— and  now  the  rain  had  stopped.  Princes  Street  was 
decorated:  Chinese  lanterns  hung  in  the  pollarded  limes: 
signal-flags  and  other  bunting,  coloured  tablecloths,  tanned 
sails,  even  gay  petticoats  and  Sunday  trousers  streamed 
from  some  of  the  poorer  windows.  The  roadway  milled 
with  happy  citizenry  hoping  for  a  fight  presently  but  not 
yet:  little  Jimmy- the-pistol  was  bicycling  up  and  down 
among  them  letting  off  rockets  from  his  handlebars,  the 
pocket  of  his  jacket  on  fire. 

Moreover  the  aged,  famous  Dr.  Brinley  had  driven 
himself  over  early  from  Penrys  Cross  along  the  sands  in 
his  pony- trap.  Dr.  Brinley  knew  Flemton  of  old:  each 
elegant,  rotting,  fungusy  house  and  the  men,  women  and 
children  who  swarmed  in  them.  He  saw  all  these  people 
as  he  tended  to  see  the  whole  world — and  indeed,  as  the 
world  too  saw  him — with  a  heightening,  Hogarthian  eye; 
but  he  loved  them  and  needed  them  none  the  less.  The 
scene  tonight  was  meat  and  drink  to  Dr.  Brinley  and  he 
paused  to  enjoy  it. 

A  group  of  women  in  the  middle  of  Princes  Street  had 

27 


28  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

their  heads  together:  "Can't  think  where  that  Dai  of  mine 
has  got  to,"  Mrs.  Dai  Roberts  was  saying. 

She  seemed  to  speak  with  difficulty.  'That  woman  has 
mislaid  her  false  teeth  and  the  ones  she  has  borrowed  are 
a  poor  fit,'  thought  Dr.  Brinley  in  the  shadows,  chuckling. 

"Down  on  the  Marsh,  shooting  with  Mr.  Augustine  he 
was  very  usual,"  said  a  yellow-haired  young  man  with  a 
hare-lip:  "Happen  they've  stopped  on  for  the  evening 
flight." 

"My  Dai'll  never  give  the  Banquet  a  miss,  I  know  that!" 
said  Mrs.  Roberts. 

"Will  Mr.  Augustine  be  attending  this  year,  Mrs. 
Roberts,  do  you  know?"  a  woman  asked  her  diffidently. 

Mrs.  Roberts  spat  like  a  man  and  returned  no  other 
answer;  but  the  quivering  of  her  goitre  made  her  look  like 
an  angry  turkey  and  the  others  took  their  cue: 

"It's  a  crying  shame,"  said  someone. 

"Shut  away  in  that  great  house  all  alone — it's  not 
natural,"  said  another. 

"Clean  mental,  to  my  way  of  thinking,"  said  someone 
else.  Then  she  lowered  her  voice  a  little:  "There's  men- 
tality in  the  blood,  they  say." 

"Mentality!"  exclaimed  Mrs.  Roberts  contemptuously: 
"Wickedness  you  mean!"  Then  she  too  lowered  her  voice 
to  a  sinister  tone:  "Why  for  should  he  shut  hisself  away 
like  that  if  his  life  was  fit  to  be  seen?" 

A  knowing  and  a  scandalised  look  descended  on  them  all: 

"Flying  in  the  face  of  Almighty  God!" 

"Enough  to  bring  his  uncles  back  from  the  grave." 

There  was  a  brief  pause.  Then: 

"Poor  young  Mr.  Henry.  .  .  Pity  he  got  hisself  killed  in 
that  old  war." 

"The  little  duck!  I  seen  him  guv  his  bath  once,  the  little 
angel!  Loviest  little  bit  of  meat.  .  ." 

"Aye,  it's  always  that  way:  while  them  as  could  be 
spared.  .  ." 

"Rotten  old  Kayser!" 


POLLY   AND   RACHEL  29 

"Still:  if  most  days  he's  out  shooting  with  your  Dai.  .  ." 
"  'Days'!  But  what  about  the  nights,  Mrs.  Pritchard? 
Answer  me  that!" 

Mrs.  Pritchard  evidently  couldn't. 

Dr.  Brinley  strolled  on,  but  now  another  early  arrival 
had  paused  for  breath  after  the  steep  ascent.  This  was  the 
new  bishop,  whose  first  visit  to  Flemton  it  was.  Meanwhile 
the  talk  had  been  continuing: 

'  ''All  alone  there  with  no  one  to  see — it  just  don' t  bear  thinking  on! ' ' 

"/  wouldn't  go  near  the  place — not  if  you  paid  me." 

"Quite  right,  Mrs.  Locarno!  Nor  I  wouldn't  neither!" 

"Mot  even  by  daylight  I  wouldn't!" 

The  bishop  sighed,  closing  his  fine  eyes.  These  unhappy 
women!  So  palpably  striving  to  warm  their  own  several 
loneliness  and  unlikeability  at  the  fires  of  some  common 
hatred.  .  .  They  were  closing  in  like  a  scrum  now — 
huddling  over  the  little  hellish  warmth  they  had  kindled, 
and  hissing  their  words.  But  why  this  anathema  against 
solitariness?  'Women  who  have  failed  to  achieve  com- 
panionship in  their  homes,  in  their  marriages:  women  with 
loneliness  thrust  upon  them,  I  suppose  they're  bound  to 
be  outraged  by  anyone  who  deliberately  chooses  loneliness.' 

A  man  of  orderly  mind,  the  bishop  liked  to  get  things 
generalised  and  taped  like  that.  Now,  his  generalisation 
achieved,  the  tension  in  his  dark  face  relaxed  a  little. 

Meanwhile  Dr.  Brinley  had  poked  in  his  nose  at  the 
'Wreckers'  Arms'  (as  he  always  called  the  place).  Here, 
and  in  the  Assembly  Room  behind,  preparation  of  the 
banquet  was  going  ahead  with  equal  enjoyment  whether 
their  rich  neighbour  Augustine  was  going  to  honour  them 
with  his  presence  or  not. 

All  that  morning,  while  the  tide  was  out,  farm  carts 
from  the  mainland  had  driven  down  the  river  bank  to 
where  the  track  ended  at  a  wide  bight  of  smooth  hard 
tidal  sand.   This  divided   the  last  stretch  of  low-water 


3o  THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

river-channel  from  the  saltings  of  the  Marsh;  traversing  the 
length  of  it,  they  had  reached  the  final  sickle  of  the  dunes 
and  the  way  up  into  Flemton.  These  carts  had  carried 
chickens,  geese,  turkeys,  even  whole  sheep;  or  at  least  a 
sack  of  flour  or  a  crock  of  butter,  for  the  High  Steward's 
Banquet  was  something  of  a  Dutch  treat  and  few  of  the 
guests  came  quite  empty-handed. 

But  that  was  over,  now.  Now,  the  evening  tide  had 
welled  in  through  the  river  mouth  and  round  behind  the 
rock,  flooding  the  sandy  bight  and  turning  it  from  Flem- 
ton's  only  highway  into  a  vast  shallow  lagoon.  In  the  dark 
the  shining  water  was  dotted  with  little  boats  nodding  at 
anchor  and  the  slanting  poles  of  fish-traps.  Flemton  was 
now  cut  off,  except  for  an  isthmus  of  hummocky  sand 
leading  only  to  the  dunes.  But  already  ducks,  chickens, 
geese,  turkeys,  legs  and  shoulders  of  mutton,  loins  of  pork, 
sirloins  of  beef,  sucking-pigs — there  was  far  more  prov- 
ender than  the  Wreckers  ever  could  have  cooked  alone, 
and  according  to  custom  it  had  been  farmed  out  among 
all  the  private  ovens  in  the  place. 

Now,  with  all  these  and  with  huge  home-cured  hams 
boiled  in  cider  as  well,  with  pans  of  sausages,  apple-pies, 
shuddering  jellies  in  purple  and  yellow,  castellated  blanc- 
manges, bedroom  jugs  of  congealed  Bird's  custard,  buckets 
of  boiled  potatoes,  basins  of  cabbage — every  matron  of 
Flemton  was  gathered  in  the  Wreckers'  big  kitchen  and  full 
of  jollity.  Even  a  happy  plumber  and  his  mate  had  man- 
aged to  choose  this  day  to  install  the  new  sink,  and  were 
doggishly  threatening  the  ladies'  ankles  with  their  hissing 
blowlamp. 

Barrels  of  beer  were  discharging  into  every  shape  of  jug 
and  ewer. 

When  the  female  kitchen  company  caught  sight  of  Dr. 
Brinley  they  all  hilariously  shrieked  together.  He  raised 
an  arm  in  acknowledgement,  then  slipped  quietly  into  the 
deserted  bar  from  behind. 


Chapter  6 

Ostensibly  Flemton  banquet  was  an  occasion  for 
men  only.  Only  men  were  invited,  sat  down  at  table, 
delivered  speeches  and  sang  songs.  But  the  women  cooked 
and  waited,  teased  and  scolded  the  banqueters,  heckled  the 
speeches  and  encored  the  songs  if  they  felt  like  it;  and  the 
women  certainly  enjoyed  it  all  quite  as  much  as  the  men. 

To  tell  the  truth,  the  men  were  inclined  to  be  a  bit 
portentous  and  solemn.  Indeed  the  only  really  happy  and 
carefree  male  in  the  whole  Assembly  Room  seemed  to  be 
that  fabulous  Dr.  Brinley  the  Coroner — who  was  eighty- 
five,  and  already  very  drunk,  and  knew  that  everybody 
loved  him. 

They  had  tried  to  steer  Dr.  Brinley  away  from  sitting 
next  to  the  bishop,  who  was  new  to  the  mitre  and  fifty  and 
cold  teetotal:  "That  seat's  Mr.  Augustine's,  Doctor  bach: 
come  you  along  this  way. . ."  But  the  old  man  looked  round 
in  astonishment:  "What!  Is  the  boy  actually  coming,  then?" 

It  was  no  good:  he  read  the  answer  in  their  faces  and 
sat  down  without  more  ado. 

Presently  the  doctor  nudged  the  bishop  with  his  elbow, 
at  the  same  time  pointing  dramatically  across  the  table  at  a 
certain  Alderman  Teller.  Alderman  Teller  was  trying  in  vain 
to  settle  his  huge  chins  into  his  unaccustomed  high  collar. 

"Do  you  keep  fowls,  my  lad?"  the  doctor  asked:  "My 
Lordl  should  say:  forgive  an  old  man,  laddie,  tongue's  taken 
to  slipping." 

"Yes,  yes,"  said  the  bishop:  "That  is.  .  .  no:  not  now, 
but  as  a  boy.  .  ." 

Leaving  his  outstretched  arm  at  the  point  as  if  he  had 
forgotten  it  Dr.  Brinley  turned  even  more  confidentially 
towards  the  bishop,  breathing  at  him  a  blast  of  whiskey 
and  old  age:  "Then  you're  familiar  with  the  spectacle  of 

3i 


32  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

a  very  big  broody  hen  trying  to  get  down  to  work  on  a 
clutch  of  eggs  in  a  bucket  that's  too  narrow  for  her?"  At 
this  the  bishop  turned  on  him  a  face  like  a  politely  enquir- 
ing hatchet;  but  the  doctor  seemed  to  think  he  had  made 
his  point  quite  clearly  enough. 

Opposite,  Alderman  Teller — hearing,  but  also  not 
catching  the  allusion — pushed  an  obstinate  fold  of  jowl 
into  his  collar  with  his  finger,  then  opened  his  little  pink 
mouth  and  rolled  his  eyes  solemnly.  "Perfect!"  shouted 
Dr.  Brinley  with  a  whoop  of  laughter.  "Your  health, 
Alderman  Teller  dear  lad!" 

As  they  clinked  glasses  the  alderman's  face  broke  into 
a  delighted  smile  as  sweet  as  a  child's:  "Rhode  Islands, 
Doctor!  That's  what  you  ought  to  have,  same  as  me.  But 
you're  right,  they  do  tend  to  lay  away." 

However  the  doctor  was  no  longer  listening.  He  had 
turned  in  his  seat  and  was  now  pointing  along  the  table 
at  the  High  Steward  himself.  The  High  Steward,  bashful 
in  his  seat  of  honour,  was  giving  nervous  little  tugs  at  the 
gold  chain  of  office  hung  round  his  neck.  "Penalty  Five 
Pounds  for  Improper  Use,  Tom !"  the  doctor  cried  suddenly. 
"And  I  doubt  the  banquet  will  stop  for  you,  at  that!" 

This  time  the  bishop's  lip  did  twitch. 

"Shut  up,  Doc,"  muttered  the  High  Steward,  amiably 
but  just  a  little  nettled:  "You're  bottled."  Then  he  turned 
round  to  look  at  the  old  man  with  a  wonder  not  quite 
free  of  envy:  "Why — and  we  haven't  even  drunk  'The 
King'  yet!" 

That  was  true.  The  bishop  began  counting  the  twenty 
or  more  toasts  on  the  toast-list  in  front  of  him — a  toast 
and  a  song  alternately:  with  such  a  start,  could  Dr.  Brinley 
possibly  last  the  course?  'The  King'.  .  .  'The  Immortal 
Memory  of  the  Founder'.  .  .  'The  Fallen  in  the  Great  War\  .  . 
Dr.  Brinley  was  down  to  sing  'Clementine'  immediately 
after  'The  Fallen\  he  saw.  And  then  he  noticed  further 
down  it  was  Dr.  Brinley  who  was  to  propose  'The  Lord 
Bishop' !  In  his  missionary  days  in  Africa  he  had  attended 


POLLY   AND   RACHEL  33 

some  curious  gatherings,  but  this  bid  fair.  .  .  indeed  he 
began  to  wonder  if  it  had  been  prudent  to  accept. 

"Glad  you  came,"  said  the  old  man  suddenly — apropos 
of  nothing,  as  if  reading  his  thoughts — and  patted  him  on 
the  shoulder:  "Good  lad!.  .  .  Good  Lord"  he  corrected 
himself  under  his  breath,  and  chuckled. 

Meanwhile,  the  banquet  continued.  The  banqueters  ate 
fast  and  in  almost  total  silence:  only  Dr.  Brinley's  sallies 
kept  ringing  out  in  quick  succession.  "A  kind  of  licensed 
jester,  I  suppose,"  the  bishop  ruminated.  "But  really! 
At  his  age!" 

"My  Lord,"  said  Dr.  Brinley,  breathing  whiskey  and 
bad  teeth  in  his  face  again:  "I  wonder  would  you  help  an 
old  man  in  his  difficulties,  eh?"  He  pushed  his  face  even 
closer,  and  waited  for  an  answer  open-mouthed. 
"If  I  can.  .  ." 

"Then  tell  me  something  very  naughty  you  did  as  a 
little  nipper." 

The  bishop's  indrawn  breath  was  almost  a  gasp — for 
memory  had  taken  him  quite  unawares.  'A  blow  below 
the  apron,'  the  doctor  thought,  reading  his  gasp,  and 
chuckled:  "No,  laddie — not  that  one,"  he  said  aloud: 
"Nothing  really  shaming.  .  .  just  something  for  a  good 
laugh  when  I  come  to  speak  to  your  health." 

"You  must  give  me  time  to  think,"  the  bishop  said 
evenly.  That  sudden  ancient  recollection  of  real  wrong- 
doing unexpiated  had  shaken  him,  and  he  was  too  sincere 
a  man  to  force  a  smile  about  it. — But  was  'a  good  laugh' 
quite.  .  .? 

"They'll  like  you  all  the  better  for  it,"  the  old  man 
cajoled,  as  if  yet  again  reading  his  thoughts. 

But  there  the  matter  rested,  for  someone  was  forcing  his 
way  through  the  crowd  of  women  serving — the  coroner 
was  wanted  on  the  phone.  The  police  at  Penrys  Cross,  it 
was;  and  they  wouldn't  take  no  for  an  answer,  he  was 
told.  Dr.  Brinley  sighed  and  left  the  table. 


34  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

The  telephone  was  in  the  stillroom,  but  even  above  the 
clatter  of  the  banquet  his  voice  could  be  heard  every- 
where: "Eh? — No,  not  tomorrow:  not  possible,  hounds 
meeting  at  Nant  Eifion.  .  .  No,  nor  Wednesday  neither: 
they're  meeting  at  the  Bridge.  .  .  Tell  ye  what,  I'll  hold 
the  inquest  Thursday.  .  .  Eh?  You  ought  to  be  thankful, 
laddie:  gives  you  longer  to  find  out  who  she  was.  .  .  Not 
local:  you're  sure  of  that?" 

A  screech  of  laughter  from  the  kitchen  drowned  the 
next  few  words,  but  everyone  heard  what  followed:  "Mr. 
Augustine  did  you  say? — Then  that's  that!  Mr.  Augustine 
will  have  to  be  summoned." 

Dr.  Brinley  seemed  quite  unaware  of  the  general  hush 
as  he  made  his  way  back  to  the  table.  He  sat  down, 
grumbling.  But  at  his  elbow,  arrested  in  the  very  act  of 
draining  a  whiskey-bottle  into  his  glass,  stood  Mrs.  Dai 
Roberts — and  her  triumphant  eyes  were  now  on  stalks: 
"Summonsed?  What's  he  been  caught  doing,  Sir?" 
"Who?" 

"Why  that  Mr.  Augustine,  of  course!" 
The  coroner  turned  and  looked  at  her  judicially:  "Hasn't 
your  Dai  told  you  anything  yet?" 

"He's  not  come  home.  Missing  the  banquet  and  all,  I 
just  can't  understand.  .  ." 

So,  Dai  had  gone  to  earth  again!  Just  like  him,  rather 
than  face  the  witness-box.  Shy  as  a  wild  thing.  .  .  ordin- 
arily Dr.  Brinley  sympathised  with  Dai's  disappearances, 
married  to  that  woman;  but  it  was  awkward  now,  just 
when  his  evidence  would  be  badly  wanted  at  the  inquest. 
"No  Dai,  eh?"  he  murmured  to  himself. 

"Tell  me,  Doctor  bachV  she  wheedled.  But  he  fixed  his 
eye  indignantly  on  his  half-filled  glass: 

"Woman!  Is  that  how  you  pour  a  drink?" 
"Means  opening  another  bottle,"  she  answered  impati- 
ently: "Mr.  Augustine,  you  were  just  saying.  .  .?" 

"Then  fetch  one  and  open  it,"  he  replied  implacably. 


Chapter  J 

Dr.  brinley  was  happy.  The  room  had  begun  to  rock 
gently  but  only  like — like  a  cradle:  the  motion  was  not 
unpleasant  yet. 

It  was  good  to  see  old  customs  kept  up.  Flemton 
Banquet  claimed  to  be  as  old  as  Flemton's  Norman 
charter — old  as  the  titular  High  Stewardship  itself  and 
the  little  mediaeval  garrison  of  Flemish  mercenaries  out 
of  which  the  place  had  grown  (to  this  day  no  Welsh  was 
spoken  within  Flemton,  though  all  the  mainland  talked 
it).  It  had  been  well  worth  the  long  pony-drive  from  the 
Gross!  Eh?  It  was  good — good  to  be  here  among  all  these 
good  fellows.  Laddies,  and  lassies  too:  they  all  liked  him. 
They  liked  his  jokes.  . .  That  was  the  point:  he  was  among 
them  and  they  all  loved  him  so  now  he  was  on  top  of 
things.  .  . 

He  surveyed  the  room.  It  was  time  now  to  think  up  a 
new  joke,  else  they'd  forget  him  and  start  talking  among 
themselves.  A  good  one  .  .  .  well  then  a  bad  one,  any- 
thing. .  . 

But  his  cudgelled  brains  went  suddenly  as  obstinate  as  a 
cudgelled  ass. 

Perhaps  another  glass? — A-a-a-ah!  Thank  God  for  His 
good  gift  of  whiskey!  Drinking.  .  .  Yes,  drinking  and 
hunting:  those  were  the  only  two  times  he  really  felt  'We3 
were  all  one,  felt  he  truly  belonged. 

Whiskey.  .  .  yes,  and  hunting  too — in  the  past,  but  now 
you  were  old,  now  you  could  do  no  more  than  jog  to  the 
Meet  and  back.  .  . 

This  motion,  now:  was  it  a  cradle,  or  was  it  a  galloping 
horse  titty-tup  titty-tup.  .  .  ? 

"Hup!  And  over!"  he  suddenly  exclaimed  aloud. 

The  room  faded  and  he  was  away:  hounds  in  full  cry, 

35 


36  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

Black  Bess  (or  was  it  Dandy?)  between  his  thighs,  leading 
the  field.  Hup!  Black  Bess  it  was:  how  beautifully  she 
changed  feet  on  top  of  the  bank  and  then  the  downward 
plunge,  the  miraculous  recovery  and  away. — Aren't  you 
afraid? — Yes  of  course  he  was  afraid.  Broken  neck,  crushed 
ribs  .  .  .  but  damn  it! 

That  gap  to  the  right  looks  a  trifle  easier.  .  .  Well,  perhaps, 
but.  .  .  Curse  her  she's  going  for  the  highest  place  of 
a-a-a-all!  Hup!— Oh,  thank  God! 

"Gentlemen,  The  King!" 

Dr.  Brinley  was  on  his  feet  before  any  of  them,  and 
added  a  fervent  "God  bless  him!"  when  he  had  emptied  his 
glass. — Good  lad,  George  Five!  But  that  boy  of  his  (the 
Prince)  would  break  his  neck  one  of  these  days  if  they  let 
him  go  on  riding. 

Yes,  hunting  was  the  thing  .  .  .  of  course  no  doctor  could 
practise  and  hunt  three  days  a  week  as  well!  Be  damned  to 
private  practice,  then!  They  could  go  on  their  bended 
knees.  .  . 

Was  that  the  real  reason,  or  just  you  were  a  rotten  bad  doctor? — 
Eh? — Did  you  leave  your  practice?  Or  did  your  practice  leave  you? 

An  angry  tear  rolled  slowly  down  his  nose. 

A  drunken  doctor,  a  sot? — Well,  they'd  made  him  Coroner, 
hadn't  they?  That  showed  they  respected  him,  didn't  it? — 
Maybe  they'd  rather  trust  you  with  the  dead  than  with  the  living. . . 

"Gentlemen,  The  Memory  of  the  Fallen!" 
A  bugle  sounded— shatteringly,  in  that  enclosed  space. 
Again  the  whole  room  rose  stiffly  to  attention.  Most  had 
their  memories  (for  that  1914  war  had  been  a  holocaust): 
all  wore  faces  as  if  they  had. 

Briefly  and  gravely  the  bishop  said  his  piece.  As  he  did 
so  he  tried  to  keep  staring  at  the  Legion  banner  on  the 
wall  opposite,  but  his  gaze  was  drawn  down  willy-nilly  to 
a  young  man  under  it  with  ribands  on  his  chest.  All  that 
young  man's  face  except  mouth  and  chin  was  hidden  in  a 


POLLY  AND  RACHEL  37 

black  mask  which  had  no  holes  for  eyes  .  .  .  and  suddenly 
the  whole  room  reeked  overpoweringly  of  beer. 

The  Fallen  ...  as  Dr.  Brinley  drank  the  melancholy 
toast  his  hand  trembled,  and  his  heart  was  torn  anew  at 
the  tragedy  that  he  himself  should  have  been  too  young  to 
serve.  For  what  bond  can  equal  the  bond  which  unites  for 
ever  those  who  have  once  been  heroes  together,  however 
long  ago?  'I  was  at  the  Alma,  I  was  at  Inkermann.  .  .'  Oh 
to  have  been  able  to  say  today  'I  charged  with  the  Light 
Brigade'!  But  they  wouldn't  have  him;  for  alas,  in  1853  he 
was  only  aged  fifteen. 

The  Fallen  ...  at  one  with  them,  perhaps,  in  their  ever- 
lasting blank  sleep:  or  conscious  only  at  this  annual 
moment  of  the  raised  glasses  that  he  too  was  one  of  the 
forever-unforgotten.  But  now  he  must  die  in  any  case,  and 
die  alone.  .  . 

For  Dr.  Brinley  believed  he  was  at  least  doctor  enough 
to  know  that  in  a  very  few  months  he  himself  would  have 
to  take  to  his  bed.  For  a  while  the  invaluable  Blodwen — 
the  fat,  white,  smiling  Blodwen — would  look  after  him. 
But  only  for  a  while.  Blodwen  was  a  wonderful  nurse,  so 
long  as  she  thought  you  might  recover:  but  not  for  'the 
dying  part'.  She  couldn't  do  with  that.  A  village  woman  of 
fifty,  drawn  to  sick  beds  like  a  moth  to  a  candle  and  never 
yet  had  she  seen  a  body  dead!  No,  at  a  given  stage  and 
with  nothing  said  Blodwen  disappeared  and  her  sister 
Eirwen  took  her  place.  For  Eirwen  was  wonderful  with 
'the  dying  part',  kind  Eirwen  had  closed  more  eyes  than 
any  woman  at  the  Cross.  They  always  knew  what  it 
meant  when  Blodwen  left  them  and  Eirwen  took  her  place. 

Meanwhile? — Meanwhile,  he  drained  another  glass. 

He  felt  now  he  was  set  on  a  pinnacle:  he  supposed  it 
must  be  the  pinnacle  of  his  own  approaching  death.  Any- 
way, from  his  pinnacle  how  remote  tney  all  suddenly 
began  to  seem,  this  crowd  he  had  courted  all  his  life!  This 
crowd  here  jabbering  and  eating  .  .  .  hoping  .  .  .  young. 


38  THE   FOX   IN  THE   ATTIC 

From  his  pinnacle  (it  swayed  a  little  as  in  the  wind, 
from  all  the  whiskey  he  had  drunk)  he  now  saw  all  the 
hearts  of  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  outspread,  on  offer 
— such  as  all  his  life  he  had  coveted.  But  a  change  seemed 
somehow  lately  to  have  seeped  into  his  soul  from  the  very 
bottom:  he  found  now  he  did  not  desire  them  any  more. 

Suddenly  his  pinnacle  shot  up  to  a  towering  height  from 
which  these  people  looked  no  more  than  minute  gesticulat- 
ing emmets.  Moreover  his  pinnacle  was  swinging  violendy 
to  and  fro,  now,  in  a  full  gale:  he  had  to  set  his  whole 
mind  to  clinging  on. 

He  hoped  the  motion  would  not  make  him  sea-sick. 

The  bishop,  covertly  watching  him,  saw  that  grey  look, 
the  sagging  and  trembling  jaw:  "This  man  has  at  last 
begun  to  die,"  he  said  to  himself.  But  then  he  saw  also  the 
transparent  empty  eyes,  and  recalled  looking  in  through 
other  eyes  like  them — younger  eyes,  but  opening  onto  the 
same  unbottomed  vacant  pit  within:  "Also  he  is  very, 
very  drunk,"  he  told  himself  understandingly. 

Maybe — reckoning  from  the  bottom  up — the  old 
doctor  was  indeed  three  parts  dead  already:  for  already 
there  was  so  much  nothing  in  him  down  there  where  once 
the  deeper  emotions  had  been.  But  at  the  still-living  trivial 
brink  of  his  mind  there  was  something  stirring  even  now: 
something  which  teased  and  foxed  him,  for  he  could  not 
quite  recognise  what  it  was.  .  . 

"Thursday!"  that  something  said. 

Moreover  his  eyes  had  begun  to  prick  with  tears!  Was 
there  something  wrong  about  'Thursday',  then?  lThurs- 
dayV  'THURSDAY!'  The  word  was  booming  insistently  in 
his  head  like  any  bell.  He  took  another  sip  of  whiskey  to 
recall  his  wandering  memory.  A-a-a-ah!  Now  it  had  come 
back  to  him.  The  telephone  call,  the  little  body  ...  he  had 
to  hold  an  inquest.  .  . 

At  that  the  lately  too-penetrable  eyes  clouded  over,  the 
jaw  closed,  the  drooping  cheeks  tautened  to  expression  of 


POLLY  AND   RACHEL  39 

a  kind.  He  turned  and  gripped  the  bishop's  arm  with  his 
bridle  hand  and  his  face  was  all  puckered  to  suit  his 
words:  "My  Lord!"  he  gulped,  "It's  a  mere  little  maid!" 
The  bishop  turned  towards  him,  attentive  but  mystified. 
"A  green  child,"  Dr.  Brinley  went  on.  "Yet  here's  me  still, 
andjow/" 

The  bishop  still  looked  mystified;  and  the  doctor  was 
mildly  shocked  to  find  how  littie  his  own  pathetic  words 
moved  even  himself.  So  he  tried  again — and  at  least  his 
old  voice  now  quavered  dramatically  enough:  "A  wee 
maid  scarce  six  years  of  age,  they  said.  Dead!  Tell  me  the 
meaning  of  it,  you  man  of  God!" 

Then  he  hiccuped,  burst  altogether  into  tears  and  upset 
his  glass.  They  all  turned  kindly  faces  on  him. 

"Come  on,  Doc,"  he  heard  the  High  Steward  saying: 
"Give  us  'Clementine'." 


Chapter  8 

Midnight,  back  now  at  Newton  Llantony.  .  . 
As  the  clouds  broke  and  the  bright  moon  at  last 
came  out,  the  single  point  of  light  to  which  distance 
diminished  the  lamps  of  all  roystering  Flemton  paled. 

In  the  big  Newton  drawing-room  the  shutters  did  not 
quite  reach  to  the  semi-circular  tops  of  the  windows,  and 
through  these  high  openings  the  moon  sent  bars  of  light 
into  the  black  gloom  within.  It  shone  on  the  shapeless 
holland  bag  which  enclosed  the  great  central  chandelier: 
threw  criss-cross  shadows  on  the  dust-sheets  covering  the 
furniture  and  covering  the  old  mirrors  on  the  walls.  It 
shone  on  the  new  gilt  frame  of  the  life-size  khaki  portrait 
above  the  fireplace:  glinted  on  the  word  'Ypres',  and  the 
date  and  the  name,  inscribed  on  brass. 

It  glinted  on  the  painted  highlights  in  the  dead  young 
man's  eyes. 

It  shone  on  the  small  shapeless  dark  shape  in  the  middle 
of  the  big  sofa  opposite,  the  outstretched  arms.  Glinted  on 
the  little  slits  of  eyeball  between  the  half-open  lids. 

Augustine,  in  his  white  attic  bedroom  under  the  roof, 
woke  with  the  moon  staring  straight  in  his  eyes. 

Round  him  the  house  was  silent.  In  all  its  hundred 
rooms  he  knew  there  was  no  living  being  that  night  but  him. 

Downstairs  a  door  banged  without  reason.  His  scalp 
pricked  momentarily,  and  the  yawn  he  was  beginning 
went  off  at  half-cock. 

He  who  so  loved  to  be  alone  felt  now  a  sudden  un- 
mitigated longing  for  living  human  company. 

His  sister  Mary.  .  . 

Her  child  Polly,  that  little  niece  he  loved.  .  . 

For  a  moment,  being  but  half-awake,  he  thought  Polly 

40 


POLLY  AND   RACHEL  41 

had  crept  into  his  bed  and  was  sleeping  there,  tiny  and 
warm  and  humid,  her  feet  planted  firmly  against  his 
chest.  But  when  he  stirred  she  vanished:  the  bed  was 
empty  and  cold. 

Where  would  they  be  now,  Polly  and  her  mother?  He 
had  an  idea  they  were  away  from  home,  there  had  been 
something  in  Mary's  last  letter.  .  . 

Instinctively  Augustine  knew  that  this  eremitical  phase 
of  his  life  was  now  over,  had  finally  served  its  turn:  indeed 
he  was  tempted  to  get  out  his  Bentley  that  very  minute 
and  drive  to  London,  drive  right  through  the  night  as  if 
he  meant  never  to  come  back  to  Newton.  'London/'  He  re- 
called it  now:  that  was  where  Mary  was  taking  Polly  for  a 
day  or  two,  she  had  written;  and  he  could  be  with  them 
there  by  breakfast. 

But  he  decided  after  all  to  wait  till  morning.  He  must 
at  least  be  still  here  when  the  ambulance  arrived,  he 
remembered.  .  . 

Meanwhile  he  lay  where  he  was,  neither  awake  nor 
asleep,  in  his  familiar  boyhood  bed,  cold  and  sweating. 

Something  in  the  room  creaked. 


Chapter  g 

A  ugustine  waited  till  the  morning  before  starting;  but 
./~\the  belt  of  rainy  weather  travelled  eastward  ahead  of 
him  across  Carmarthen  and  Brecon.  Clearing  even  the 
eastern  counties  of  Wales  about  midnight,  long  before 
dawn  it  had  arrived  in  London  (where  Polly  was).  There 
it  poured  heavily  and  steadily  all  day.  All  that  wet  Tuesday 
it  felt  in  London  as  if  thunder  was  about,  though  none  was 
heard. 

On  the  opposite  side  of  Eaton  Square  from  Polly's  there 
was  a  certain  tall  house  which  Polly  always  passed  slowly 
and  with  evident  respect.  It  belonged  to  Lady  Sylvia 
Davenant,  but  Polly  called  it  'Janey's  house'.  Seen  from 
a  window  of  the  upstairs  drawing-room  of  this  house,  the 
umbrellas  in  the  street  below,  that  Tuesday,  looked  like 
mushrooms  on  the  run  (thought  Sylvia  Davenant),  and 
the  tops  of  the  cars  like  special  sleek  slugs — also  very  much 
on  the  run,  as  they  cleft  a  passage  through  the  mushrooms. 

'A  good  simile,'  thought  Lady  Sylvia,  'because  mush- 
rooms and  slugs  both  are  creatures  of  the  rain,  the  very 
thought  of  them  evokes  wetness — but  no,  a  bad  simile 
because  mushrooms  never  move  at  all  and  even  slugs 
are.  .  .  sluggish.  But,  "run.  .  ."?  What  does  run  in  the  rain? 
— Only  colours  I  suppose,'  she  concluded  rather  wildly. 

With  an  effort  she  recalled  her  attention  to  Janey  at  her 
side.  For  this  was  litde  Janey's  'Hour':  her  drawing-room 
hour  with  her  aunt  between  tea  and  bedtime.  Janey  had 
flattened  her  nose  against  the  pane,  thus  clouding  it  with 
her  breath  so  that  she  could  hardly  see  out  at  all. 

"Darling,"  said  Lady  Sylvia  brightly,  "what  do  you 
think  those  umbrellas  look  like?" 

"Like  umbrellas,"  said  Janey  perfunctorily.  "Auntie, 
why  does  rain?" 

42 


POLLY  AND  RACHEL  43 

"Darling!"  said  Lady  Sylvia,  "You  know  I  don't  like 
being  called  'Auntie',  it  sounds  like  someone  old.  Why 
can't  you  just  call  me  'Sylvia'?  Don't  you  think  that's  a 
pretty  name?" 

"You  are  old,"  said  Janey.  "Anyway,  Sylvia's  a  girl  in 
the  Gardens  already.  .  .  'Saliva',  /  call  her." 

"Darling!" 

Janey  withdrew  her  face  an  inch  or  two  from  the  misted 
glass,  put  out  her  tongue  and  licked  herself  a  neat  round 
peephole. 

"Look!"  she  cried,  pointing  through  the  trees  at  a 
sudden  light  which  appeared  in  a  top  window  on  the  far 
side  of  the  Square:  "There's  Polly- wolly  going  to  bed 
HOURS  BEFORE  ME— YAH!"  she  yelled:  "Polly- 
wolly-doodle !  Pollyollywollyollydoodle-O  O  D  L  E  -  O  O  - 
OOO!" 

The  yell  could  not  possibly  have  carried  across  the  wide 
Square  but  it  nearly  split  her  aunt's  eardrum:  extra- 
ordinary it  could  come  from  so  very  small  a  body! 

"Darling  pleasel  Not  quite  so  loud!  And  who  is  this 
'Polly'?" 

"Oh,  just  a  person  in  the  Gardens  sometimes.  .  .  soppy 
litde  kid."  Janey  paused,  glanced  at  the  clock,  considered, 
and  added  with  a  perceptible  effort:  "I  bet  she  wets  her 
bed." 

Janey  looked  sidelong  at  her  aunt.  The  'Hour'  had  still 
twenty  minutes  to  go,  but  now  already  Her  Ladyship  was 
crossing  the  room  to  ring  for  Janey's  gouvernante.  'Goody!' 
thought  Janey,  with  a  chapter  to  finish  upstairs. 

Janey  was  an  only  child  (and  the  result  of  a  mechanical 
accident  at  that).  She  had  been  parked  on  her  Aunt 
Sylvia  for  a  couple  of  months  interminable  to  both  of 
them  while  her  parents  were  getting  their  divorce. 


Chapter  w 

Janey  was  quite  right  about  the  light  opposite.  Polly 
was  going  to  bed,  and  going  to  bed  rather  earlier  than 
usual. 

Nanny  had  lit  the  gas,  although  it  was  not  really  dark 
yet,  to  combat  all  that  wet  and  gloom  outside.  Now  she 
sat  in  front  of  an  enormous  blaze  of  coal  mending  her 
stockings  (which  were  of  black  cotton  with  white  toes  and 
heels).  The  heat  of  the  fire,  and  the  steam  rising  from  the 
round  zinc  bath  on  the  middle  of  the  carpet,  made  the 
room  with  its  tight-shut  window  like  a  hothouse;  and 
Polly's  face  was  shiny  with  perspiration.  Nanny  had  lit  the 
light  against  the  gloom  but  Polly  wanted  to  look  out:  she 
was  feeling  sad,  and  the  rain  and  gloom  outside  and  all 
those  wet  hurrying  people  suited  her  mood. 

Polly  had  a  slight  cold — it  always  happened  when  she 
came  to  London!  This  was  the  reason  she  was  to  have  her 
bath  in  the  nursery  tonight  instead  of  going  down  the 
draughty  stairs  to  the  big  mahogany  bathroom  two  floors 
below.  Moreover,  Polly  had  been  today  to  the  dentist. 
That  also  seemed  always  to  happen  whenever  she  came  to 
London.  He  seldom  hurt  her,  but  he  did  indignities  to  the 
secret  places  of  her  mouth — shrivelling  its  sensitive  wet 
membranes  with  a  squirt  of  hot  wind,  plastering  a  dry 
cloth  onto  her  wet  tongue,  poking  wads  of  dry  cotton  wool 
into  her  cheek,  hooking  over  her  bottom  teeth  a  bubbling 
sucking  thing  which  plucked  at  the  roots  of  her  tongue.  .  . 
by  the  end  she  had  felt  as  if  her  dried-up  mouth  had  died 
of  drought  and  would  never  be  able  to  wet  itself  again. 
Nor  could  she  quite  breathe  through  her  nose  because  of 
her  cold.  .  .  almost  she  had  wished  he  would  hurt,  to  take 
her  mind  off  that  horrible  dryness  and  off  the  thought  that 
any  moment  her  nose  might  run  and  she  not  able  to  get  at  it. 

44 


POLLY   AND   RACHEL  45 

But  most  of  all  Polly  was  sad  because  she  was  lonely — 
and  that  happened  only  when  she  came  to  London!  She 
never  felt  lonely  at  home  in  Dorset;  for  at  Mellton  Chase 
there  were  animals  to  play  with,  but  in  London  there  were 
only  children. 

Kensington  Gardens,  you  would  have  thought,  were  full 
of  'suitable'  playmates  for  Polly.  But  all  those  children 
were  Londoners — or  virtually  Londoners.  Already  they 
had  formed  their  own  packs,  and  nothing  their  nannies 
could  say — Polly's  Nanny  was  high  in  their  hierarchy,  so 
the  nannies  tried  their  best — would  make  them  treat  the 
little  country  child  as  one  of  themselves.  Under  orders, 
they  would  take  her  kindly  by  the  hand  and  lead  her  away; 
but  once  out  of  sight  they  turned  her  upside  down,  or 
stood  round  her  in  a  ring  jeering  her  ignorance  of  their 
private  shibboleths. 

They  would  call  her  derisively  "Little  Polly-wolly- 
doodle",  or  even  worse  names  such  as  "Baby-dolly-lulu". 
Any  name  with  'baby'  in  it  was  hard  to  bear,  for  Polly's 
age  was  just  five  and  her  struggle  out  of  the  slough  of 
babyhood  so  recent  a  memory  that  the  very  word  'baby' 
seemed  still  to  have  power  to  drag  her  back  into  it. 

Of  all  these  groups  in  the  Gardens,  the  most  exclusive 
and  the  most  desirable  was  'Janey's  Gang'.  This  gang  had 
a  rule:  no  one  could  join  it  who  had  not  'Knocked  down  a 
Man'.  This  was  not  impossible  even  for  quite  small 
children,  for  nothing  in  the  rule  required  that  he  should  be 
looking;  and  if  you  had  made  him  fall  into  water  you  were 
an  Officer  straight  away. 

Janey  herself  was  huge:  she  was  turned  seven.  Janey 
claimed  three  Men  to  her  credit,  two  of  them  in  water  and 
the  third  in  a  garden  frame.  She  had  done  it  so  skilfully  (or 
her  curls  were  so  golden,  her  blue  eyes  so  wide)  that  not 
one  of  the  three  had  suspected  the  push  was  intentional. 
No  wonder  the  gang  was  titularly  'Janey's  Gang' ! 

Grown-ups  were  ex  officio  Enemy  to  all  these  children, 


46  THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

to  be  out-smarted  on  every  occasion:  so,  their  scores  rose. 
But  even  if"  Polly  had  been  old  enough  and  clever  enough 
properly  to  understand  the  Rule  (she  was  not,  in  fact, 
particularly  intelligent),  she  could  never  even  have  made 
a  beginning.  For  Polly's  own  grown-ups  were  not  'Enemy', 
that  was  the  rub:  they  were  infinitely  kind,  they  made 
little  pretence  of  not  adoring  Polly  and  it  never  occurred 
to  Polly  to  make  any  pretence  at  all  of  not  loving  them 
back.  Loving,  indeed,  was  the  one  thing  she  was  really 
good  at:  how  then  could  she  ever  bring  herself  to  'knock 
a  Man  down'? 

Mr.  Corbett,  for  example:  the  head  gardener  at 
Mellton  Chase,  and  indeed  the  greatest  potentate  on 
earth:  the  massive  sloping  buttress  of  his  front — his  gold 
watch-chain  marked  the  halfway  line  of  the  ascent — held 
him  upright  like  a  tower,  and  nowadays  his  hands  never 
deigned  to  touch  fork  or  spade  except  to  weed  Miss 
Polly's  little  garden  for  her;  or  to  pick  fruit,  except  when 
he  saw  Miss  Polly  coming.  .  . 

It  was  unthinkable  to  inflict  on  Mr.  Corbett  the  in- 
dignity of  falling! 

Or  even  on  dear  Gusting  (her  uncle  Augustine,  that 
was).  Of  course  he  was  a  lesser  dignitary  in  the  world's 
eyes  than  Mr.  Corbett;  but  she  loved  him  even  more. 
Admired  and  loved  him  with  every  burning  cockle  of  her 
heart! 

There  was  magic  in  Gusting's  very  smell,  his  voice. 


Chapter  u 

"r-piiME  you  got  undressed,  Miss  Polly,"  said  Nanny. 

JL  Slowly  Polly  wandered  across  to  have  her  jersey 
peeled  off. 

"Skin-a-rabbit,"  said  Nanny,  mechanically,  as  she 
always  did. 

"Ow!"  said  Polly,  as  she  always  did  (for  the  neck  of  her 
jersey  was  too  tight),  and  wandered  off  again  nursing  her 
damaged  ears.  Nanny  just  had  time  to  undo  the  three 
large  bone  buttons  on  her  back  before  she  was  out  of  reach, 
and  as  she  walked  away  the  blue  serge  kilt  with  its  white 
cotton  'top'  fell  off  around  her  feet. 

The  rest  of  her  undressing  Polly  could  do  herself,  given 
time  and  her  whole  attention.  It  was  chiefly  button  work: 
she  wore  a  'liberty  bodice',  a  White-Knight  sort  of  under- 
garment to  which  everything  nether  was  buttoned  or  other- 
wise attached  (constricting  elastic  being  bad  for  you).  But 
tonight  her  fingers  fumbled  feebly  and  uselessly,  fainting  at 
the  very  first  button;  for  her  attention  was  all  elsewhere. 

Gusting  had  a  game  which  only  he  played,  the  Jeremy 
Fisher  Game.  A  little  mat  was  a  waterlily  leaf  and  Gusting 
sat  on  it  cross-legged,  fishing  with  a  long  carriage-whip, 
while  Polly  swam  round  him  on  the  polished  floor  on  her 
stomach,  being  a  fish.  .  .  Polly  began  now  to  make  em- 
bryonic swimming  movements  with  her  hands. 

"Stop  dawdling,"  said  Nanny,  but  without  much  hope. 
Polly  made  a  brief  effort:  something  else  fell  off  her,  and 
she  stepped  out  of  it  where  it  lay.  "Pick  it  up,  dear,"  said 
Nanny,  again  without  much  hope. 

"Ninjun!"  said  Polly  indignantly  (Augustine  had  once 
said  her  wandering  manner  of  undressing  and  scattering 
her  clothes  was  like  a  Red  Indian  blazing  his  trail,  and 
that  had  hallowed  it). 

Minutes  passed.  .  . 

47 


48  THE    FOX    1\     1  HE   ATTIC 

"Wake  up,  Miss  Polly:  stop  dawdling,"  said  Nanny. 

Another  brief  effort,  and  so  it  went  on  till  at  last  Polly 
had  on  nothing  but  a  clinging  woollen  vest  as  she  stood 
at  the  window,  her  chin  reaching  just  above  the  sill,  look- 
ing out  through  the  watery  glass. 

In  the  street  far  below  people  were  still  scurrying  past. 
There  seemed  no  end  to  them.  That  was  what  was  wrong 
with  London:  "If  only  there  were  fewer  people  in  the 
world  how  much  nicer  it  would  be  for  we  animals,"  Polly 
told  herself.  .  . 

'We  animals'! — Polly  could  think  a  rabbit's  kind  of 
thoughts  much  easier  than  a  grown-up's  kind,  for  her 
'thinking'  like  an  animal's  was  still  more  than  nine  parts 
emotion.  Except  for  Augustine  it  was  only  with  animals 
she  could  form  friendships  on  at  all  equal  terms;  for  she 
had  no  child-friends  of  her  own  age,  and  her  love  for  most 
grown-ups  was  necessarily  more  like  a  dog's  for  a  man 
than  something  between  members  of  the  same  species.  All 
the  most  interesting  hours  of  the  day  still  tended  to  be 
spent  on  all  fours,  and  even  in  bodily  size  she  was  nearer 
to  her  father's  spaniel  than  she  was  to  her  father.  The  dog 
weighed  more  than  the  child,  as  the  see-saw  had  shown. . . 

"Wake  up!"  said  Nanny — still  without  much  hope. 
"Vest!"  A  final  effort  and  the  vest  too  lay  on  the  floor. 
Nanny  made  stirring  sounds  in  the  bath:  "Gome  on,"  said 
Nanny,  "or  the  water'll  be  half  cold." 

"I'm  busy!"  said  Polly  indignantly.  She  had  found  a 
cake-currant  on  the  floor  and  was  trying  to  fix  it  in  her 
navel,  but  it  wouldn't  stay  there.  "If  only  I  had  some 
honey,"  she  thought.  .  .  but  at  that  moment  felt  herself 
lifted  in  the  air,  carried — her  feet  weakly  kicking — and 
plumped  down  in  the  middle  of  the  large  shallow  bath. 
Nanny's  patience  was  exhausted. 

Polly  seized  her  celluloid  frog  Jeremy,  and  once  more 
her  thoughts  were  away:  so  far  this  time  they  were  not 
even  fully  recalled  when  Nanny  dragged  off  her  hands  and 
soaped  her  protesting  ears. 


POLLY  AND   RACHEL  49 

"Now!"  said  Nanny,  holding  up  the  huge  turkey  towel 
she  had  been  warming  on  the  fender:  "Or  I'll  have  to 
count  Three!" 

But  Polly  was  loth  to  move. 

"One.  .  ." 

"Two.  .  ." 

Then  the  nursery  door  opened  and  in  walked  Augustine. 

Dropping  into  a  chair,  Augustine  just  had  time  to 
snatch  the  towel  from  Nanny  to  cover  himself  as  Polly 
sprang  squealing  straight  from  the  water  into  his  lap — 
with  half  the  bath  following  her,  it  seemed. 

Well!  Bursting  in  like  that  without  knocking!  Nanny 
pursed  her  lips,  for  she  didn't  at  all  approve.  Nanny  was  a 
Catholic  and  believed  it  is  never  too  young  to  start  teach- 
ing little  girls  Shame.  They  ought  to  mind  men — even 
uncles — seeing  them  in  their  baths,  not  go  bouncing  onto 
their  laps  without  a  stitch.  But  she  knew  it  was  as  much  as 
her  place  was  worth  to  breathe  a  word  to  the  child,  for 
Mrs.  Wadamy  was  Modern,  Mrs.  Wadamy  had  Views. 

Meanwhile  Polly,  lonely  no  longer,  was  in  the  seventh 
heaven  of  delight.  She  tore  open  Augustine's  waistcoat  to 
nuzzle  her  damp  head  inside  it  against  his  shirt,  where  she 
could  breathe  nothing  but  his  magic  smell,  listen  to  the 
thumping  of  his  heart. 

Reluctant  at  first  to  let  his  still-tainted  hands  themselves 
even  touch  the  sacred  child,  he  dabbed  with  a  bunch  of 
towel  tenderly  at  the  steaming,  flower-petal  skin.  But 
with  her  head  inside  his  waistcoat  she  grabbed  his  hand 
tyrannically  to  her  and  pressed  its  hard  hollow  palm  tight 
over  her  outside  cheek  and  temple  and  little  curly  ear,  so 
that  her  lucky  head  should  be  quite  entirely  squeezed 
between  him  and  him.  But  that  very  moment  he  heard 
Mary's  voice  from  the  stairs,  calling  him:  he  must  come  at 
once. 

Augustine  was  wanted  on  the  telephone:  it  was  a  trunk 
call. 


Chapter  12 

This  was  the  dead  child  asserting  precedence  over  the 
living  one;  for  the  untimely  call  was  from  the  police  at 
Penrys  Cross.  But  it  was  only  to  say  the  inquest  was  put 
off  till  Friday  as  the  coroner  was  indisposed. 

Flemton  Banquet  had  ended  as  usual— in  a  fight.  This 
year  the  occasion  had  been  the  final  torchlight  procession: 
it  had  fired  some  of  the  street  decorations,  and  Danny 
George  declared  the  burning  of  his  best  trousers  had  been 
deliberate.  Flemton  had  been  happy  to  divide  on  the  point, 
and  in  the  fracas  Dr.  Brinley's  old  pony  took  fright  and 
galloped  him  off  home  in  the  rocking  trap,  splashing 
across  the  sands  through  the  skim  of  ebb  that  still  glistened 
there  in  the  moonlight.  He  had  been  properly  scared  and 
shaken.  Thus  he  had  missed  the  Tuesday  and  Wednesday 
Meets  after  all,  taking  to  his  bed  with  a  bottle  instead. 

The  experienced  Blodwen  had  been  firm  with  them: 
Friday  was  the  earliest  the  Coroner  could  be  fit  for  duty. 

The  next  day,  Wednesday,  Mary  was  taking  Polly  back 
to  Dorset.  The  extra  day  just  gave  Augustine  time  to  go 
with  them  and  spend  one  night  there  before  having  to  be 
back  in  Wales. 

The  weather  had  cleared,  and  Augustine  and  Polly 
wanted  to  travel  together,  in  the  Bentley;  but  Nanny 
objected.  She  said  it  was  crazy  in  any  weather  to  let  a 
child  with  a  cold  travel  in  a  thing  like  that;  for  Augustine's 
3-litre  Bentley  was  an  open  two-seater — very  open  indeed, 
with  a  small  draughty  windscreen  and  with  even  the  hand- 
brake outside.  Mary  Wadamy,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
rather  in  favour.  A  big  wind,  she  argued,  must  blow  germs 
away.  And  it  would  soon  be  over;  whereas  in  the  stuffy 
family  Daimler,  with  the  luggage  and  Nanny  and  Mary's 

50 


POLLY   AND   RACHEL  51 

maid  Fitton  and  Mary  herself,  the  journey  would  take  the 
best  part  of  the  day. 

Trivett,  their  old  chauffeur,  was  carriage-trained  and 
had  no  liking  for  speed.  But  even  at  twenty  miles  an  hour 
he  drove  dangerously  enough  for  the  most  exacting: 
"Best  anyway  not  put  all  your  eggs  in  one  basket  when  the 
basket  is  driven  by  Trivett!"  said  Augustine  grimly. 

As  for  Polly,  speech  was  so  inadequate  to  express  her 
longing  that  she  was  silently  dancing  it,  her  tongue  stuck 
out  as  if  in  exile  for  its  uselessness.  That  decided  Mar/: 
"Being  happy's  the  only  cold-cure  worth  a  farthing,"  she 
said  to  herself,  and  gave  her  consent. 

So  Nanny,  her  face  full  of  omens,  wrapped  the  child 
into  a  woollen  ball  where  only  the  eyes  showed,  and  set 
it  on  the  leather  seat  beside  Augustine. 

Augustine  was  a  brilliant  driver  of  the  youthful  passion- 
ate kind  which  wholly  identifies  itself  with  the  car.  Thus 
once  his  hands  were  on  the  wheel  this  morning  he  forgot 
Polly  entirely.  Yet  this  didn't  matter  to  Polly.  She  too 
knew  how  to  merge  herself  utterly  in  dear  Bentley 
(another  of  her  loves):  the  moment  the  engine  broke  into 
its  purring,  organ-like  roar  she  uncovered  her  mouth  and 
began  singing  treble  to  Bentley's  bass,  and  for  two  hours 
Bentley  and  she  did  not  for  a  moment  stop  singing, 
through  Staines  and  Basingstoke,  Stockbridge,  Salisbury, 
out  on  the  bare  downs. 

On  the  tops  of  those  empty  high  downs,  above  the 
hanging  woods  of  ancient  yews  clinging  to  their  chalky 
sides,  there  was  only  a  thin  skin  of  rabbit-nibbled  turf  that 
was  more  thyme  than  grass  and  a  sky  full  of  larks.  Polly  had 
got  her  arms  free  now  and  waved  to  the  larks,  inviting 
their  descant  to  make  a  trio  of  it. 

Mellton  lay  in  a  deep  river-valley  folded  into  these  bare 
chalk  downs.  In  the  flat  bottom  land  as  they  neared  the 
house  there  were  noble  woods  of  beech  and  sweet-chestnut, 
green  pasture,  deep  lanes  that  Bentley  almost  filled,  little 


52  THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC 

hidden  hamlets  of  mingled  flint  and  brick  with  steep 
thatched  roofs.  Bentley  and  Polly  sang  together  for  them 
as  they  passed. 

As  Bentley  rounded  through  the  ever-open  wrought-iron 
gates  and  purred  his  careful  way  on  the  last  lap  through 
the  park,  Polly  was  now  entirely  free  of  her  cocoon  and 
standing  bolt  upright  against  the  dashboard,  using  both 
arms  to  conduct  the  whole  chorus  of  nature.  "Home!"  she 
was  chanting  on  every  note  she  could  compass,  "Home! 
Home!  Home!"  And  to  Polly's  ears  everything  round  her 
intoned  the  answer  "i/om^/" 

Then  at  the  front  door  of  Mellton  Chase  Augustine 
switched  off  the  engine  and  Polly  and  Bentley  both  fell 
silent  together. 

Augustine  wiped  her  nose  and  lifted  her  out. 

Mellton  was  large,  nearly  as  large  as  Augustine's 
lonely  hermitage  Newton  Llantony.  It  was  all  an  Eliza- 
bethan house,  entirely  faced  and  mullioned  with  stone  and 
with  a  little  half-naive  classical  ornament.  It  had  originally 
been  built  as  a  hollow  square  on  the  four  sides  of  a  central 
quadrangle,  like  a  college.  In  the  middle  of  the  facade 
there  was  still  a  great  vaulted  archway  like  a  college  gate: 
once,  you  could  have  ridden  on  horseback  under  it  right 
into  the  quadrangle  without  dismounting,  but  now  the 
arch  was  blocked  and  a  modern  front  door  had  been 
constructed  in  it. 

The  well-known  music  of  Augustine's  Bentley  could  be 
heard  afar,  and  the  butler  was  standing  waiting  for  them 
outside  this  front  door  when  they  arrived.  Wantage  was 
his  name. 

Wantage  was  a  thin  man,  prematurely  grey:  his  eyes 
stood  out  rather,  for  he  had  thyroid  trouble. 


Chapter  13 

Polly  greeted  Mr.  Wantage  warmly  but  politely  (he 
was  Mr.  Wantage  to  her,  by  her  mother's  fiat).  Once 
inside  the  door  she  sat  herself  expectantly  on  the  end  of  a 
certain  long  Bokhara  rug:  for  as  usual  on  first  getting  home 
she  wanted  to  set  out  at  once  for  the  North  Pole  drawn  on 
her  sledge  by  a  yelping  team  of  Mr.  Wantage  across  the 
frozen  wastes  of  ballroom  parquet. 

For  no  longer  was  there  any  open  quadrangle  here  at 
Mellton  that  all  the  business  of  the  house  had  to  criss- 
cross, wet  or  fine.  A  Victorian  Wadamy  had  arisen  who 
disliked  so  draughty  a  way  of  living.  Fired  by  the  example 
of  the  new  London  railway-stations  and  of  Paxton's  Crystal 
Palace,  he  had  roofed  the  entire  thing  over  with  a  dome 
of  steel  and  glass.  So  now  in  the  middle  of  the  house  there 
was  nearly  an  acre  of  parquet  dotted  with  eastern  rugs, 
instead  of  the  former  lawn  and  flagged  paths.  What  now 
stood  waiting  at  the  far  side  by  the  old  mounting-block 
with  its  tethering-ring,  at  the  foot  of  the  stone  steps  leading 
up  to  the  State  Rooms  and  the  Solar,  was  a  grand  piano. 

The  quadrangle  was  now  called  the  Ballroom.  Few 
mansions  in  the  county  had  ballrooms  half  its  size:  tradi- 
tion said  that  on  one  Victorian  occasion  two  thousand 
couples  had  danced  there,  watched  by  the  Prince  and 
Princess  of  Wales.  But  this  vast  'room'  was  still  lit  by  the 
glazed  sky  above.  Its  walls  of  weathered  stone  were  still 
unplastered.  Windows  and  even  balconies  still  looked 
down  into  it.  Yet  alternating  with  these  windows  and 
balconies  steel  armoured  fore-arms  now  projected  from 
the  walls  gripping  outsize  electric  light  bulbs  in  their 
gauntletted  fists;  for  this  had  been  one  of  the  very  first 
houses  in  Britain  to  adopt  the  new  fighting,  with  current 
generated  by  its  own  watermill. 

53 


54  THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

Polly  and  Wantage  may  have  been  looking  for  the  North 
Pole,  but  what  they  found  at  the  far  side  of  all  this  was 
Minta  the  under-nurse.  She  carried  Polly  off  at  once,  and 
Polly  went  with  her  readily  enough  because  Polly  was 
always  docile  when  she  was  happy  and  at  the  moment  she 
was  full  of  happiness — full  as  an  egg. 

As  soon  as  Polly  was  gone  with  Minta  and  Augustine 
was  washing  his  hands,  Wantage  vanished  rather  nervously 
into  the  dining-room.  He  wanted  to  assure  himself  that 
the  cold  sideboard  carried  everything  it  should  for  Mr. 
Augustine's  solitary  luncheon.  Wantage  knew  of  old  that 
Mr.  Augustine  preferred  not  to  be  waited  on  yet  objected 
strongly  to  having  to  ring  for  something  which  had  been 
forgotten.  If  he  was  like  this  by  twenty-three,  Wantage 
often  wondered,  what  would  he  be  like  at  fifty- three?  "A 
holy  terror  and  no  mistake!"  was  Mrs.  Winter's  forecast — 
unless  he  got  married,  of  course. 

WTantage  straightened  a  fork  that  was  slightly  out  of 
plumb:  nothing  else  seemed  amiss. 

By  rights  Wantage  was  'off'  now,  and  ought  to  be  able 
to  put  up  his  feet  in  peace.  But  there  was  still  Mr.  Augus- 
tine's bag!  Passing  out  through  the  serving-pantry  he 
ordered  a  rather  bucolic  boot-and-knife  boy,  in  tones  of 
concentrated  venom,  to  fetch  the  luggage  out  of  the  car 
and  carry  it  up  the  back  way. 

That  venomous  tone  of  voice  meant  nothing:  it  was 
merely  the  correct  way  for  Upper  Servants  to  speak  to 
Boys  (indeed  Wantage  had  rather  a  soft  spot  for  Jimmy — 
hoped  one  day  to  make  quite  a  proper  Indoor  of  him).  It 
meant  no  more  than  the  tones  of  deferential  benevolence 
he  always  used  to  all  Gentry — who  were  stupid  sods,  most 
of  them,  in  his  experience.  True,  their  word  was  their 
bond;  but  they  acted  spoilt,  like  babbies.  .  . 

Not  that  all  babbies  were  spoilt — not  his  little  Miss 
Polly-oily  she  wasn't!  It  was  her  Nanny  was  the  spoilt  one 
— that  Mrs.   Halloran  the  blooming  nuisance.   .   .   and 


POLLY   AND   RACHEL  55 

Minta  the  Under  aiming  to  take  after  her:  a  little  bitch 
hardly  turned  eighteen,  I  ask  you!  A  slipper  to  her  back- 
side would  do  her  a  power. 

Mrs.  Winter  agreed  with  him  about  those  two,  but 
constitutionally  Nursery  was  a  self-governing  province 
where  even  a  Housekeeper's  writ  did  not  run. 

Wantage's  back  was  giving  him  gyp;  but  he'd  got  that 
bag  to  unpack  before  he  could  look  to  a  proper  sit-down. 
'Off-duty'  didn't  mean  a  thing  nowadays,  not  since  the 
War  with  everywhere  understaffed.  Time  was,  he  had 
known  four  footmen  here  at  the  Chase:  but  now — just 
fancy  Mellton  and  the  butler  having  to  valet  visiting 
gentlemen  himself!  How  was  he  to  keep  his  end  up  with 
Mrs.  Winter — her  with  all  those  girls  under,  and  him  with 
no  one  under  his  sole  command  but  Jimmy? 

All  those  girls.  .  .  Mrs.  Winter,  with  her  black  silk  and 
her  keys,  was  hard  put  to  it  to  count  them  all.  But  that's 
what  the  Gentry  (the  old  ones:  war  profiteers  weren't 
Gentry)  were  come  down  to  nowadays  indoors :  girls.  Why, 
some  houses  and  quite  good  ones  too  nowadays  they  even 
let  women  clean  the  silver!  'Parlourmaids'.  .  .  Mellton 
hadn't  fallen  as  low  as  that  yet,  thank  God. 

But  where  was  the  satisfaction,  rising  to  the  top  in 
Service  and  still  no  men  under  you?  That  was  the  sting. 
Outdoors,  two  keepers  and  a  water-bailiff:  an  estate 
carpenter:  six  men  in  the  Gardens  still — and  three  (even 
not  counting  the  exiled  Trivett)  in  Stables!  Only  Indoors 
was  so  depleted,  that's  what  was  so  unfair. 

Mean!  The  Master  ought  to  bear  in  mind  what  was  due 
from  a  Wadamy  of  Mellton  Chase.  .  . 

As  Wantage  fitted  the  links  into  Augustine's  white  shirt 
ready  for  the  evening  he  heaved  a  deep  sigh  that  turned  to 
a  hiccup  and  left  a  nasty  taste  of  heartburn  in  his  mouth. 
Dead  Sea  Fruit!  That's  all  his  promotions  had  amounted 
to  ever  since  he  entered  Service,  from  first  to  last. 


Chapter  14 

When  at  last  Wantage  was  free  to  relax  it  was  the 
Housekeeper's  Room  he  went  to  that  afternoon,  not 
his  own  Pantry;  and  he  slumped  into  a  comfortable  basket 
chair  there  as  near  as  possible  to  a  breezy  window. 

Mrs.  Winter  was  sitting  bolt  upright  before  the  fire  on 
a  straight-backed  hard  chair  loose-covered  in  a  flowered 
chintz.  Her  hands  were  folded  in  her  lap.  Mrs.  Winter 
never  slumped — never  appeared  to  wish  to,  even  if  her 
whalebone  would  have  let  her.  Wantage  studied  her. 
Nowadays  she  looked  like  something  poured  into  a  mould: 
just  brimming  over  the  rim  a  little  but  not  enough  to  slop. 
She  didn't  seem  to  possess  a  Shape  of  her  own  any  more. 
It  was  hard  to  believe  that  once  'Mrs.  Winter'  had  been 
Maggie  the  lithe,  long-legged  young  under-housemaid 
game  as  any  for  a  spot  of  slap-and-tickle. 

That  was  at  Stumfort  Castle,  when  he  himself  was  a 
half-grown  young  footman — years  before  they  had  met 
again  at  Mellton  Chase.  Wantage  licked  his  lips  at  certain 
recollections.  Jimminey!  He'd  gone  a  bit  too  far  with  her 
that  one  time!  Might  both  have  lost  their  places  only  they 
were  lucky  and  she  didn't  have  it  after  all.  .  . 

He'd  happened  on  her  sudden,  up  the  Tower — in  the 
Feather-room,  sitting  on  the  floor  refilling  a  featherbed 
and  herself  half  drowned  in  feathers.  .  .  with  her  ankles 
showing.  Her  ankles — and  the  sight  of  her  Shape  sunk  in 
all  that  sea  of  soft  feathers — had  been  too  much  for  him. 
Too  much  for  both  of  them,  seemingly. 

But  afterl  Picking  hundreds  of  downy  little  feathers  off 
his  livery  against  time  before  going  on  duty  in  the  Front 
Hall,  sweating  he'd  miss  some  and  they'd  find  him  out.  .  . 

"A  penny  for  your  thoughts,  Mr.  Wantage,"  said  Mrs. 
Winter  sweetly. 

56 


POLLY  AND  RACHEL  57 

"Dead  Sea  Fruit,  Maggie,"  he  answered  hollowly. 

He  hadn't  called  her  "Maggie"  for  years!  Mrs.  Winter 
lifted  both  white  plump  hands  slightly  from  her  lap, 
fitting  the  tips  of  the  fingers  together  and  contemplating 
them  in  silence.  Then: 

"Times  have  certainly  changed,"  she  said. 

Mr.  Wantage  closed  his  eyes. 

Suddenly  he  opened  them  again:  Polly  was  climbing 
into  his  lap.  Polly  was  the  only  person  in  the  whole  house 
Front  Stairs  as  well  as  Back  who  dared  wander  informally 
into  the  sacred  'Room'  like  that.  "I've  come!"  she  said 
unnecessarily,  and  added:  "That  Jimmy's  got  a  crown!" 

"Careful,  Duck,"  said  Mr.  Wantage:  "Mind  my  poor 
leg." 

"What's  the  matter  with  it?"  she  asked. 

"Got  a  bone  in  it!"  he  answered  dramatically.  "Minta'll 
be  looking  for  you,"  he  went  on,  with  quite  a  wicked  look 
in  his  bulging  eyes. 

"Yes  she  will!"  said  Polly,  equally  delighted:  "Looking 
everywhere!" 

"Hunting  all  over!"  echoed  Mr.  Wantage:  "You  won't 
half  cop  it  if  she  finds  you  here!" 

But  he  knew,  and  she  knew,  that  this  was  a  sanctuary 
where  even  Minta'd  never  dare. 

Mrs.  Winter's  thoughts  were  browsing  very  gently  on 
the  visitor,  Mr.  Augustine.  For  a  brother  and  sister,  how 
unlike  in  their  ways  he  and  the  Mistress  were !  And  yet,  so 
fond.  A  pity  to  see  him  wilfully  living  so  strange:  no  good 
could  come  of  it,  you  can't  cut  loose  from  your  Station,  no 
one  can.  .  .  yet  he  had  proved  the  soul  of  kindness  about 
Nellie's  Gwilym's  old  mother — took  endless  pains  to  find 
her  somewhere  on  his  own  property,  now  that  the  birth- 
place she'd  hankered  back  to  was  become  a  waterworks. 
Mr.  Augustine  was  better  than  he'd  let  himself  be,  there 
were  some  like  that.  .  . 


58  THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC 

Then  Mrs.  Winter's  stomach  rumbled,  and  she  looked 
at  the  clock.  But  that  very  moment  came  the  expected 
knock  and  the  door  opened,  briefly  releasing  into  the 
'Room'  a  distant  merry  burst  of  young  west-country  voices 
and  wild  laughter  with  even  a  snapshot  through  it  of 'that 
Jimmy',  ham-frill  for  crown  and  sceptred  with  toasting- 
fork,  prancing  in  the  midst  of  a  veritable  bevy  of 'all  those 
girls'. 

It  was  Lily,  the  fifteen-year-old  scullery-maid,  who  had 
just  come  in,  with  her  cheeks  flushed  and  her  eyes  still 
flashing.  Lily  had  brought  their  tea,  of  course,  with 
hot  buttered  scones  straight  from  the  oven,  and  cherry- 
cake: 

"Like  a  nice  slice  of  cake,  Love?"  Mrs.  Winter  asked 
Polly.  Even  the  glace  cherries  in  it  were  Mellton-grown 
and  of  her  own  candying.  But  Polly  shook  her  head.  Her 
cold  had  spoiled  her  appetite.  Instead  she  begun  plunging 
her  hand  in  each  of  Mr.  Wantage's  pockets  in  turn  to  see 
what  she  could  find.  Gently  he  began  to  prise  open  her 
fingers  to  rescue  his  spectacles;  but  she  insisted  on  placing 
them  on  his  nose. 

Mrs.  Winter  also  was  putting  on  her  spectacles,  for  the 
tea-tray  bore  her  usual  weekly  letter  from  her  younger 
sister  Nellie.  .  .  Poor  Nellie!  The  clever  one  of  the  family — 
and  the  one  Life  had  treated  hardest. — Still,  Nellie  had 
Little  Rachel  to  comfort  her.  .  . 

'Mrs.'  Winter's  own  title  only  marked  professional 
status,  like  'Dr.'  or  'Rev.';  but  Nellie  had  married,  and 
married  young.  She  had  married  a  budding  minister,  a 
Welsh  boy  out  of  the  mines.  Clever  as  paint — but  not 
strong,  though,  ever.  Nellie  was  wed  as  soon  as  the  young 
man  got  his  first  Call,  to  a  chapel  in  the  Rhondda  Valley. 

When  the  War  came,  being  a  minister  of  religion  he 
didn't  have  to  go — and  how  thankful  Nellie  had  been! 
But  her  Portion  of  Trouble  was  coming  to  her  just  the 
same.   1915 — three  years  married,  the  first  baby  at  last 


POLLY  AND   RACHEL  59 

and  born  big-headed!  Water,  of  course.  .  .  Six  months  he 
died,  the  second  already  on  the  way. 

Wasn't  it  anxiety  enough  for  Nellie,  wondering  after 
that  how  the  new  one  would  turn  out?  Yet  Gwilym  (that 
was  the  father's  outlandish  name)  must  needs  add  to  it.  He 
took  on  now  in  a  crazy  fashion.  He  reckoned  some  sin  of 
his  had  made  the  first  one  born  that  way:  he  must  expiate 
his  sin  or  the  second  would  be  the  same. 

Not  to  sit  comfortable  preaching  the  word  in  the 
Valleys  to  the  ticking  Chapel  clock  while  other  men  died! 
That's  how  the  notion  took  him.  But  the  Army  wouldn't 
have  him  for  a  chaplain:  so  he  said  he'd  go  for  a  stretcher- 
bearer,  in  the  Medical  Corps.  It  was  for  the  unborn  baby's 
sake  he'd  got  to  go,  so  he  couldn't  even  wait  for  little 
Rachel-to-be  to  be  born.  Nellie  couldn't  hold  him. 

Nor  could  his  angry  deacons  either:  they  were  of  a 
very  pacifist  turn,  and  counted  stretchering  nearly  as  bad 
as  downright  shooting — they'd  never  have  him  back 
after,  not  once  he'd  put  on  any  kind  or  shape  of  army 
uniform!  When  he  still  went,  they  turned  Nellie  out  of  the 
Chapel  house;  for  they'd  have  no  soldier's  brat  born  there. 

Once  Rachel  was  weaned,  Nellie  got  a  war-job  teaching 
infant  school  in  Gloucester. 

As  for  Rachel — the  sweetest  little  maid  she  grew  and 
clever  as  a  little  monkey!  A  proper  little  fairy.  No  wonder 
her  mother  was  all  wrapped  up  in  her!  Her  Aunt  Maggie 
was  downright  fearful  sometimes  of  the  mother's  doting,  it 
was  so  greedy:  yet  even  a  mere  aunt  couldn't  help 
marvelling  at  the  little  thing,  and  doting  a  bit  likewise. 


Chapter  15 

Thus  Mrs.  Winter  had  never  quite  succeeded  in  setting 
Polly  on  a  pedestal  as  the  rest  of  the  household  at  the 
Chase  all  did:  for  she  couldn't  help  comparing  Polly  with 
Nellie's  Little  Rachel.  Polly  was  a  nice  little  thing,  but 
nothing  to  write  home  about. 

Rachel  was  a  year  older  than  Polly,  true;  but  anyway 
she  was  twice  as  clever,  twice  as  pretty,  twice  as  good.  A 
little  angel  on  earth.  And  what  a  Fancy!  The  things  she 
said\  Nellie's  letters  were  always  full  of  Rachel's  Sayings 
and  her  aunt  used  to  read  them  aloud  to  Mr.  Wantage: 
she  couldn't  help  it. 

Polly  never  said  wonderful  Sayings  like  that  you  could 
put  in  a  book!  Yet  it  was  Polly  who  would  grow  up  with 
all  the  advantages.  .  .  This  made  Mrs.  Winter  bitterly 
jealous  at  times:  but  she  tried  to  curb  her  jealousy.  It 
wasn't  Polly's  fault,  being  born  with  the  silver  spoon: 
there  was  no  sense  or  fairness  taking  it  out  on  her. 

When  Gwilym  came  back  from  the  war  his  deacons 
kept  their  word:  they  wouldn't  even  see  him.  So  he  took 
on  a  tin  mission  church  in  Gloucester,  down  by  the  docks. 
But  then  their  troubles  began  afresh.  For  now,  six  years 
after  Rachel's  birth,  Nellie  was  expecting  again.  She 
hadn't  looked  for  it  or  intended  it  and  somehow  she  sort 
of  couldn't  get  used  to  the  idea  at  all. 

The  fact  was,  by  now  Nellie  had  got  so  wrapped  up  in 
Little  Rachel  she  just  couldn't  bear  the  thought  of  having 
another!  She  positively  blamed  the  intruder  in  her  womb 
for  pretending  to  any  place  in  the  heart  that  by  rights  was 
wholly  Rachel's. 

Moreover  she  had  a  good  open  reason  too  for  thinking 
this  child  ought  never  to  be  born.  Everyone  knows  that 

60 


POLLY  AND  RACHEL  61 

whatever  doctors  say  the  Consumption  is  hereditary,  and 
six  months  ago  Gwilym  had  started  spitting  blood. 

Gwilym  was  away  in  a  sanatorium  now;  so  once  more 
Nellie  was  left  to  face  childbirth  alone,  but  this  time  hating 
the  baby  to  come  and  with  a  conviction  it  would  be  born 
infected — if  not  a  downright  monster  like  the  first. 

Thus  it  was  with  rather  a  troubled  face  that  Mrs. 
Winter  opened  the  envelope  and  took  out  the  carefully- 
written  sheet  of  ruled  paper.  But  the  news  on  the  whole 
was  good.  Gwilym  had  written  to  say  he  felt  ever  so  much 
better,  they'd  be  bound  to  let  him  home  soon.  Nellie 
herself  was  in  good  health  considering,  though  the  birth 
might  begin  any  hour  now  at  the  time  of  writing.  No 
'Sayings',  for  once,  of  Little  Rachel's.  .  .  But  of  course! 
Rachel  was  away  visiting  with  her  Grandma.  The  doctor 
had  insisted  on  hospital  when  Nellie's  time  should  come — 
ill  though  they  could  afford  it;  so  the  child  had  been  sent 
off  a  week  ago. 

Mrs.  Winter  put  the  letter  down  and  began  to  muse. 
She  was  troubled — not  by  the  letter  but  in  her  own  mind, 
at  herself.  Why  had  she  allowed  Little  Rachel  to  be  sent 
to  a  grandmother  none  too  anxious  to  have  her,  instead  of 
asking  Mrs.  Wadamy  to  let  the  child  come  here  for  a  week 
or  two?  Mrs.  Wadamy  would  have  been  willing,  no  doubt 
of  it:  quite  apart  from  her  natural  kindness  of  heart  she'd 
have  been  glad  of  a  nice  little  playmate  for  Polly.  No,  Mrs. 
Winter's  reluctance  had  come  from  somewhere  in  her  own 
self. 

"Proper  Pride,"  she  tried  to  tell  herself:  a  not  wanting 
to  be  "Beholden".  But  she  knew  in  her  own  heart  that 
wasn't  the  real  reason.  .  .  Mrs.  Winter  couldn't  bear  the 
thought  of  seeing  those  two  children  together,  that  was  the  fact! 
Miss  Polly  with  all  the  world  open  to  her:  Rachel.  .  . 
Rachel,  probably  working  in  a  shop  by  fourteen  years  of 
age  and  her  ankles  swelling  with  the  standing. 

But  once  she  had  tracked  down  the  reason  in  her 


6a  THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

own  mind  Mrs.  Winter  characteristically  decided  that  it 
wasn't  good  enough — sheer  selfishness!  It  wo\ild  be  lovely 
for  Rachel  here,  do  her  all  the  good  in  the  world;  and  it 
would  be  good  for  lonely  little  Polly  too,  having  a  real 
child  to  play  with  instead  of  just  dumb  animals.  The 
children  themselves  wouldn't  worry  about  their  unequal 
futures:  they'd  be  happy  enough  together,  love  each  other 
kindly!  At  that  age,  Rachel  the  little  leader  no  doubt  and 
Polly  the  devoted  little  slave. 

So  Mrs.  Winter  made  up  her  mind.  It  wasn't  too  late, 
thank  goodness,  even  now:  Gwilym's  old  mother  would  be 
glad  not  to  have  the  child  longer  than  could  be  helped — 
she  didn't  find  it  too  easy  getting  about  these  days,  Nellie 
had  said,  yet  the  longer  (Mrs.  Winter  felt)  the  poor  little 
new  baby  had  a  clear  field,  the  better  its  chances  of 
arousing  the  mother-love  so  strangely  withheld. 

She  would  ask  Mrs.  Wadamy  this  very  evening  if 
Rachel  couldn't  come  here  after  the  grandmother  was 
done  with  her.  For  a  week,  say,  till  they  saw  how  things 
went.  Tonight  as  ever  was  she'd  write  to  Nellie.  .  . 

"A  penny  for  your  thoughts,  Mrs.  Winter,"  said  Mr. 
Wantage,  pretending  to  topple  Polly  off  his  knee. 

Mrs.  Winter  rose  in  silence  and  gave  Polly  so  unusually 
loud  and  loving  a  kiss  that  they  both  looked  at  her 
wonderingly. 


Chapter  16 

Presently  evening  closed  in  on  Mellton  Chase:  all 
over  the  house  the  sound  of  curtains  being  drawn, 
everywhere  the  lights  going  on — front  stairs  as  well  as 
back. 

In  spite  of  Trivett  Mary  had  got  home  in  time  to  ask 
Jeremy  Dibden  (an  Oxford  friend  of  Augustine's,  and  a 
Mellton  neighbour)  over  to  dine  with  them.  A  party  of 
three;  for  Parliament  was  sitting  and  Gilbert  (Mary's 
husband)  was  detained  in  London,  though  probably  he 
might  be  coming  later. 

Jeremy  was  tall  and  very  thin,  with  narrow  shoulders. 
'He  must  have  been  very  difficult  to  fit,'  thought  Mary 
(noting  how  well  his  dinner-jacket  in  fact  did  fit  him): 
'especially  with  that  arm.'  Polio  in  childhood  had  wilted 
his  right  arm:  when  he  remembered  he  lifted  it  with  the 
other  hand  into  appropriate  attitudes,  but  otherwise  it 
hung  from  him  like  a  loose  tail  of  rope. 

Mary's  own  face  resembled  her  brother's:  it  was  broad, 
intelligent,  honest,  sunburned  to  a  golden  russet  colour 
that  toned  with  her  curly  reddish  hair,  and  lightly  freckled. 
It  was  almost  a  boy's  face,  except  for  the  soft  and  sensitive 
lips.  Jeremy's  face  on  the  other  hand  had  much  more  of  a 
girl's  traditional  pink-and- white  briar-rose  delicacy  of 
colouring:  and  yet  the  cast  of  Jeremy's  features  was  not 
effeminate — it  would  be  fairer  to  say  they  had  the  regular 
perfection  of  the  classical  Greek.  In  spite  of  his  faulty 
body  Jeremy  reminded  Mary  a  little  of  the  Hermes  of 
Praxiteles:  his  lips  tended  to  part  in  that  same  half-smile. 
'Yes,  and  he's  aware  of  the  likeness,'  she  thought;  for  his 
exquisite  pale  hair  was  allowed  to  curl  so  perfectly  about 
his  forehead  it  might  well  be  carved  marble. 

63 


G4  THE    FOX    IN   THE    ATTIC 

'Somehow,  though,  his  face  isn't  at  all  insipid  because 
of  the  life  in  it:  just  very,  very  young.' 

Now,  dinner  was  ended.  The  white  cloth  had  been 
taken  away,  Waterford  glass  gleamed  on  the  dark 
mahogany  by  candlelight. 

Undoubtedly  the  proper  time  had  come  to  leave  the  two 
young  men  to  their  port  (or  rather,  their  old  Madeira — port 
being  out  of  fashion).  But  as  Mary  rose  the  talk  had  just 
reached  the  theme  of  the  meaning  of  human  existence. 
"Don't  get  up  and  go,"  said  Jeremy,  disappointed,  "just 
when  we've  started  discussing  something  sensible  at  last." 

Mary  glanced  hesitantly  from  her  brother  to  his  friend. 
"Very  well,"  she  said  slowly,  sitting  down  again  a  little 
reluctantly  (was  she  perhaps  become  lately  a  shade  less 
interested  than  she  used  to  be  in  these  abstract  discus- 
sions?): "But  only  for  a  minute  or  two:  Mrs.  Winter  has 
asked  to  see  me  about  something." 

"And  so  you've  got  to  go! — That's  typical,"  exclaimed 
her  brother.  "Admit  I'm  dead  right,  cutting  loose  from 
the  whole  thing." 

"It's  known  as  Service,"  said  Jeremy  to  Augustine  re- 
provingly, his  light  tongue  flicking  more  meanings  than 
one  out  of  the  single  word.  Then  he  turned  to  Mary:  "But 
tell  me;  there's  one  thing  I've  always  wanted  to  know: 
what  is  it  makes  you  continue  to  jeopardise  your  life  being 
driven  by  Trivett?"  Augustine  snorted.  "Trivett,"  de- 
clared Jeremy,  "can't  even  change  down  with  the  Daimler 
in  motion:  he  stops  dead  at  the  foot  of  every  rise  while 
he  struggles  into  bottom!  Trivett — the  sound  of  whose 
horn.  .  ."  he  pursued,  lilting,  "makes  old  women  climb 
trees.  He  only  accelerates  round  corners  and  at  crossroads. 
I  believe  the  sole  time  he  has  ever  consistently  stuck  to  the 
left  side  of  the  road  was  that  time  you  took  the  car  to 
France." 

Augustine  gave  a  delighted  chuckle. 

"Surely  in  Gilbert's  bachelor  days  he  used  to  be  head 


POLLY  AND   RACHEL  65 

groom?  Whatever  possessed  you,  then,  to  make  him 
chauffeur?" 

The  question  sounded  candid  enough;  but  Mary 
glanced  at  Jeremy  with  a  flicker  of  distrust,  for  wasn't  the 
reason  obvious?  The  bride  had  wanted  to  bring  her  hunters 
to  Mellton  and  if  the  old  duffer  refused  to  retire  volun- 
tarily on  pension  what  else  could  one  do?  For  with  Mary's 
upbringing  one  never  entrusted  a  horse  to  the  tender 
mercies  of  a  Trivett.  True,  whenever  he  drove  the  car  her 
heart  was  in  her  mouth  and  one  day  he'd  surely  kill  them 
all;  but  similarly,  one  doesn'tgive  way  tofear. — But  neither 
for  that  matter  does  one  discuss  one's  servants  with  one's 
friends!  Momentarily  her  eyes  took  on  quite  an  angry  look. 

"Touchee?"  Jeremy  murmured  a  little  wickedly:  "Be 
there  or  be  there  no  some  method  in  Augustine's  madness?" 

Augustine  snorted  again.  These  relics  of  feudalism! 
Such  relationships  were  so  wholly  false;  equally  ruinous 
to  the  servant  and  the  served:  he  was  well  quit  of  such. 

Augustine  had  grown  up  from  childhood  with  a  rooted 
dislike  of  ever  giving  orders.  Any  relationship  which 
involved  one  human  being  constraining  another  repelled 
him.  But  now  Jeremy  executed  a  volte-face  and  attacked 
him  on  this  very  point:  the  most  ominous  harbinger  and 
indeed  prime  cause  of  bloody  revolution  is  not  the  man 
who  refuses  to  obey  orders  (said  Jeremy),  "it's  the  man 
like  you  who  refuses  to  give  them." 

"What  harm  do  I  do?"  Augustine  grumbled. 

"You  expect  to  be  allowed  to  let  other  people  alone!" 
blazed  Jeremy  indignantly.  "Can't  you  see  it's  intolerable 
for  the  ruled  themselves  when  the  ruling  class  abdicates? 
You  mark  my  words,  you  tyrant  too  bored  to  tyrannise! 
Long  ere  the  tumbrils  roll  here  to  Mellton  your  head  will 
have  fallen  in  the  laps  of  Flemton's  tricoteuses." 

Augustine  snorted,  and  then  cracked  a  walnut  and 
examined  its  shrivelled  kernel  with  distaste.  Funny  you 
could  never  tell  by  the  shells.  .  . 


Chapter  iy 

"T  A  That  do  you  suppose  would  happen,"  Jeremy  con- 

VV  tinued,  "if  there  were  more  people  like  you?  Man- 
kind would  be  left  exposed  naked  to  the  icy  glare  of 
Liberty:  betrayed  into  the  hands  of  Freedom,  that  eternal 
threat  before  which  the  Spirit  of  Man  flees  in  an  ever- 
lasting flight!  Post  equitem  sedet  atra  —  Libertas!  Has 
there  ever  been  a  revolution  which  didn't  end  in  less 
freedom?  Because,  has  there  ever  been  a  revolution  which 
wasn't  essentially  just  one  more  desperate  wriggle  by 
mankind  to  escape  from  freedom?" 

'A  flight  from  freedom?  What  poppycock,'  thought 
Augustine. 

As  was  his  wont,  Jeremy  was  working  out  even  the 
direction  of  his  argument  while  he  talked,  leaping  grass- 
hopper-like from  point  to  point.  His  voice  was  pontifical 
and  assured  (except  just  occasionally  for  an  excited 
squeak),  but  his  face  all  the  time  was  childishly  excited 
by  the  sheer  pleasures  of  the  verbal  chase.  Augustine, 
watching  rather  than  really  heeding  the  friend  he  so 
admired,  smiled  tolerantly.  Poor  old  Jeremy!  It  was  a 
pity  he  could  only  think  with  his  mouth  open,  because  he 
was  an  able  chap.  .  . 

'Poor  old  Augustine!'  Jeremy  was  feeling  at  the  same 
time,  even  while  he  talked:  'He  isn't  believing  a  word  I 
say!  A  prophet  is  not  without  honour.  .  .  ah  well,  never 
mind.  .  .  I'm  really  on  to  something  this  time — the  flight 
from  freedom.  .  .'  If  he  had  read  the  signs  of  the  times 
aright  this  was  only  too  true.  .  . 

Mary  began  to  tap  the  floor  rhythmically  with  her  foot. 
Jeremy's  oratory  quite  drowned  the  impatient  little  noise, 
but  she  too  was  scarcely  listening  any  more.  Once  on  a 

66 


POLLY  AND   RACHEL  67 

time  she  had  thought  Jeremy  absolutely  brilliant:  she  still 
did  in  a  way,  but  somehow  nowadays  she  seemed  to  be 
losing  the  power  of  Ustening  when  he  talked.  One  goes  on 
growing  up  (she  realised  suddenly)  even  long  after  one  is 
grown-up. 

Jeremy  had  the  tiresome  knack  of  making  even  sound 
sense  appear  fantastic  nonsense,  and  moreover  didn't 
seem  himself  to  know  which  was  when:  yet  any  moment 
he  might  reveal  some  real  fragment  of  new  truth,  in  a 
sudden  phrase  like  a  flashlight  going  off — something  the 
plodders  wouldn't  have  got  to  in  a  month-of-Sundays. 
Tonight,  though,  that  'flight  from  freedom'  idea  was 
surely  going  too  far.  True,  some  people  don't  like  pursuing 
freedom  as  fast  as  others  but  it's  only  a  question  of  relative 
speed:  surely  men  never  turn  their  backs  on  their  own 
freedom,  it's  tyrants  who  wrest  it  from  them. . .  Liberalism 
and  democracy  after  all  isn't  just  a  fashion,  it's  the  per- 
manent trend,  it's  human  nature.  .  .  progress. 

How  profoundly  Gilbert  distrusted  brilliance  of  this 
sort:  Jeremy — Douglas  Moss — all  that  Oxford  kidney! 
"They're  hounds  who  can  find  a  scent  but  not  follow  it," 
he  had  said:  "They're  babblers,  they  run  riot.  .  ."  Gilbert 
didn't  really  share  her  passion  for  hunting  (or  he  could 
never  have  tolerated  a  Trivett  in  his  stables)  but  he  liked 
its  language:  he  used  it  in  the  House,  to  tease  the  Tories. 

Augustine  seemed  to  prize  independence  and  solitude 
above  everything.  But  surely  (thought  Mary)  the  pattern 
of  man's  relationships  with  man  is  the  one  thing  specifi- 
cally human  in  humanity?  And  so,  to  the  humanist,  dis- 
believing in  God,  that  pattern  is  the  supremely  sacred 
thing?  You  can't  just  contract  out  of.  .  .  out  of  Mankind,  as 
Augustine  seemed  to  think. 

Then  Mary  found  herself  wondering  what  it  could  be 
that  Mrs.  Winter  was  so  anxious  to  see  her  about.  She 
must  go  in  a  minute — the  very  first  time  Jeremy  paused 
for  breath. — Where  had  he  got  to? 

"You  anarchists. . ."  she  heard  him  saying  to  Augustine. 


68  THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

But  (thought  Mary)  to  do  away  with  all  government  like 
anarchists  you'd  have  to  cut  the  Imperative  mood  right 
out  of  human  grammar;  for  'government'  isn't  just  some- 
thing  tucked  away  on  a  high  shelf  labelled  POLITICS 
— governing  goes  on  in  every  human  relationship,  every 
moment  of  the  day.  One's  always  governing  and  being 
governed.  The  Imperative  mood  is  the  very  warp  on 
which  that  sacred  pattern  of  humanity  is  woven:  tamper 
with  those  strong  Imperative  threads  and  the  whole  web 
must  ravel.  .  . 

"No!"  cried  Augustine  giving  the  table  such  a  thump 
the  glasses  rang  {Heavens!  How  much  of  all  this  nonsense 
could  she  have  been  saying  out  loud?)  "Your  web  can't  ravel, 
because.  .  .  Emperor's  New  Clothes!  There  is  no  web! 
There's  no  thread,  even,  joining  man  to  man — nothing!" 

"I  see,"  broke  in  Jeremy,  delighted.  "You  mean,  train- 
bearers  and  train-wearers  alike  human  society  is  but  a 
procession  of  separate,  naked  men  pretending?  'Whom 
God  hath  put  asunder,  let  no  man.  .  .'  " 

One  of  the  wine  glasses  was  still  singing  and  Mary 
hushed  its  tiny  voice  with  her  finger.  "I  really  must  go 
now,"  she  said:  "I  told  Mrs.  Winter  'Nine'.  If  Gilbert  and 
his  friends  arrive.  .  ." 

"Don't  go!"  said  Augustine.  "You  never  know  with 
these  Parliament  boys:  maybe  they  won't  turn  up  at  all!" 

"But  how  are  they  getting  here?"  asked  Jeremy,  "Is 
dear  Trivett  meeting  their  train  at  Templecombe?" 

His  voice  was  innocent  but  his  eye  unholy,  and  Mary 
was  secretly  smiling  as  she  left  the  room.  The  incompati- 
bility of  Jeremy  and  Gilbert  really  was  more  comfortable 
displayed  like  this  than  hidden. 


Chapter  18 

A  ugustine  closed  the  door  he  had  held  for  his  sister 
jL~\.and  sat  down  again. 

"The  voice  is  the  voice  of  Gilbert!"  said  Jeremy  sadly. 
"She  never  used  to  talk  like  that." 

"Logically  it's  not  many  steps  from  Mary's  'web'  to 
horrors  like  the  Divine  Right  of  Kings,"  said  Augustine, 
"once  you  start  valuing  mankind  above  each  separate 
man." 

"Only  one  step — in  History's  seven-league  boots,"  said 
Jeremy.  "One  glissade,  rather.  .  .  Hegel!  Br-r-r! — Then 
Fichte!  Treitschke!  Von  Savigny!  Ugh-gh!" 

Augustine  forebore  to  ask  him  why  he  wasted  his  time 
reading  such  forgotten  German  metaphysicians — knowing 
that  probably  he  didn't.  They  refilled  their  glasses. 

"Politicians!"  said  Jeremy:  "They  wholly  identify  their 
own  with  their  country's  interests."  He  allowed  himself  a 
quick  sardonic  smile  at  his  own  quip.  "These  upright 
Gilberts — so  guiltless  of  favouritism  they'll  sacrifice  a 
friend  as  readily  as  an  enemy.  .  .  if  their  career's  at  stake. 
Poor  Mary!" 

At  Oxford  (that  intense  white  incandescence  of  young 
minds)  everyone  had  been  agreed  that  only  inferior 
people  feel  an  itch  for  power,  or  even  consent  to  have  it 
thrust  upon  them.  "Qualities  of  leadership" — as  Douglas 
Moss  once  put  it — "reveal  the  Untermensch."  "Ambition 
is  the  first  infirmity  of  ignoble  minds."  And  so  on.  That 
might  not  be  the  kind  of  language  Augustine  used  himself 
but  it  was  doctrine  to  which  the  very  marrow  of  his  bones 
responded.  To  Augustine,  even  honest  statesmen  and 
politicians  seemed  at  best  a  kind  of  low-grade  communal 
servant — like  sewer-cleaners,  doing  a  beastly  job  decent 

69 


70  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

men  arc  thankful  not  to  have  to  do  themselves.  And  indeed 
the  ordinary  citizen  does  only  need  to  become  aware  of 
his  system  of  government  if  it  goes  wrong  and  stinks.  .  . 

And  Gilbert  was  an  M.P.!  Augustine  had  hated  his  own 
sister  marrying  beneath  her  like  this — into  that  despised 
'Sweeper'  caste.  Now  inevitably  she  herself  was  begin- 
ning to  think  'Sweeper'  thoughts. 

"Poor  Mary!"  said  Jeremy  again.  But  then  a  comforting 
thought  struck  him:  "Perhaps  in  her  case  though  it's  only 
old  age?"  he  suggested  charitably:  "How  old  is  she,  by  the 
by?" 

Augustine  had  to  admit  his  sister  was  now  twenty-six 
and  Jeremy  nodded  sagely.  After  all — as  both  these  young 
men  recognised — no  intellect  can  hope  to  retain  its  keenest 
edge  after  twenty-four  or  -five. 

"Eheu  fugaces!"  said  twenty-two-year-old  Jeremy,  sigh- 
ing. "Give  the  decanter  a  gentle  push,  dear  boy." 

Silence  for  a  while. 


Sipping  her  solitary  coffee  in  the  drawing-room  after 
Mrs.  Winter  had  left  her,  Mary  began  to  muse.  It  was 
time  Augustine  grew  out  of  friends  like  Jeremy — unless 
Jeremy  himself  was  capable  of  growing  up,  which  she 
rather  doubted. 

Dear  Augustine!  That  queer  isolated  life  he  chose  to 
lead.  .  .  Now,  of  course,  he  was  going  to  be  dragged  back 
into  society  by  the  short  hairs — inquests,  newspapers  and 
all  that:  was  this  possibly  a  blessing  in  disguise?  She  was 
sure  he  had  great  talents,  if  only  he  would  apply  them  to 
something. 

Mary  sighed.  Nature  is  as  wasteful  of  promising  young 
men  as  she  is  of  fish-spawn.  It's  not  just  getting  them 
killed  in  wars:  mere  middle  age  snuffs  out  ten  times  more 
young  talent  than  ever  wars  and  sudden  death  do.  Then 
who  was  she,  that  she  dared  to  hope  her  young  brother 


POLLY  AND   RACHEL  71 

whom  she  had  so  cherished  and  so  admired  was  going  to 
prove  that  one  little  fish-egg  out  of  millions  destined  to 
survive  and  grow? 

Mary  set  down  her  cup  half  drunk:  the  coffee  seemed 
too  bitter.  .  .  She  might  be  going  to  have  another  baby!  It  was 
high  time,  for  Polly's  sake.  She'd  know  in  a  day  or  two.  .  . 

If  it  was  a  boy  it  would  begin  all  over  again,  the  cherish- 
ing and  the  sisterly  admiring — but  this  time,  in  little 
Polly. 


In  the  dining-room  the  long  silence  was  broken  at  last. 

"Was  it.  .  ."  Jeremy  began  to  ask  a  little  hesitantly: 
"was  it.  .  .  well,  an  upper-class  child  do  you  think?" 

Augustine  started,  and  suddenly  paled.  "Hard  to  tell," 
he  said  at  last,  slowly.  "N-n-no,  I  wouldn't  say  it  was." 

"Good!"  said  Jeremy,  relieved.  "That's  something  to 
be  thankful  for." 

The  blood  came  back  into  Augustine's  face  with  a  rush: 
"Jeremy!"  he  said,  very  gently,  "what  a  beastly  thing  to 
say!" 

Now  Jeremy  blushed  too — hotly,  horrified  at  himself. 
"God  it  was!"  he  blurted  out  honestly.  Then  he  recovered 
himself  a  little  and  went  on:  "But  you  know  what  I  mean: 
not  your  own.  .  .  tribe,  you  don't  feel  it  quite  the  same. 
Makes  it  less  near  home,  somehow."  Whereon  instantly 
the  same  thought  sprang  into  both  minds:  Suppose  it  had 
been  Polly? 

Augustine  jumped  to  his  feet  and  ground  the  stopper 
into  the  neck  of  the  decanter:  "Shall  we  join  the  lady?"  he 
said  roughly,  already  making  a  beeline  for  the  door. 


Chapter  ig 

They  found  Mary  in  the  drawing-room  reading  Lytton 
Strachey's  'Eminent  Victorians'  while  she  waited  to 
pour  their  cooling  coffee  for  them. 

"But  the  only  really  eminent  Victorians  were  Marx, 
Freud  and  Einstein!"  said  Jeremy.  "People  poor  dear 
Lytton  has  probably  never  heard  of.  And  the  greatest  of 
these  is  Freud." 

"I  suppose  there  can't  have  been  three  such  figures  alive 
at  the  same  time  since  Confucius,  Buddha  and  Pythagoras," 
said  Mary,  interested. 

"An  apt  parallel,"  said  Jeremy:  "Society,  the  individual 
soul,  mathematics.  .  ." 

"Sugar,"  said  Mary. 

"Marx  is  certainly  the  least  of  them,"  said  Augustine, 
stirring  his  cup  absently,  "partly  because  the  one  most 
eminently  Victorian.  .  ."  He  began  to  explain — with  that 
sudden  excessive  rush  of  words  to  which  the  solitary  is 
liable  now  and  then — that  all  'Victorian'  science  had  been 
dogmatic:  its  aim,  systems  of  valid  answers.  Now,  when 
Einstein  had  lifted  modern  science  onto  the  altogether 
higher  level  of  systems  of  valid  questions.  .  . 

"Fair  enough!"  put  in  Jeremy:  "You  can  make  machines 
to  answer  questions  but  you  can't  make  a  machine  to  ask 
them." 

"...  Marxism  is  a  science  still  fossilised  at  the  Victorian, 
dogmatic  level  of  mere  answers,"  Augustine  continued. 

"And  therefore,"  Jeremy  nipped  in,  spooning  the  sugar 
out  of  the  bottom  of  his  cup  with  relish,  "rapidly  degenera- 
ting into  a  religion!  No  wonder  only  a  backward,  religious 
people  like  the  Russians  take  Marxism  seriously  nowa- 
days." 

"Whereas  Freud.  .  ."  Augustine  was  resuming,  but  then 

72 


POLLY  AND   RACHEL  73 

stopped  thunderstruck.  The  great  revelation  which  was  Freud! 
He  had  been  right,  then,  in  the  billiardroom:  his  own 
generation  really  was  a  new  creation,  a  new  kind  of 
human  being,  because  of  Freud!  For  theirs  was  the  first 
generation  in  the  whole  cave-to-cathedral  history  of  the 
human  race  completely  to  disbelieve  in  sin.  Actions  nowa- 
days weren't  thought  of  as  'right'  or  'wrong'  any  more: 
they  were  merely  judged  social  or  anti-social,  personal 
fulfilment  or  frustration.  .  . 

"But  that  lands  us  with  two  dichotomies  instead  of  one," 
said  Jeremy,  "and  sometimes  they  clash.  .  ." 

Soon  they  were  at  it  again,  hammer  and  tongs.  But  on 
one  thing  Augustine  and  Jeremy  were  agreed:  theirs  was  a 
generation  relieved  of  the  necessity  even  of  active  evangel- 
istic atheism  because  the  whole  'God'  idea  had  now  sub- 
sided below  the  level  of  belief  or  disbelief.  'God'  and  'Sin' 
had  ceased  to  be  problems  because  Freudian  analysis  had 
explained  how  such  notions  arise  historically:  i.e.,  that 
they  are  merely  a  primitive  psychological  blemish  which, 
once  explained,  mankind  can  outgrow.  .  . 

"Conscience  is  an  operable  cancer.  .  ." 

In  the  age  of  illimitable  human  progress  and  fulfilment 
now  dawning  the  very  words  'God'  and  'guilt'  must 
atrophy  and  ultimately  drop  off  the  language.  People 
would  still  be  born  with  a  propensity  for  being  what  used 
to  be  called  'good';  but  even  goodness  would  become 
innocent  once  its  name  was  forgotten. 

Meanwhile  Mary  busied  herself  with  her  quilting:  a 
simple,  peasant  little  coverlet  for  Polly's  bed.  Suddenly 
she  frowned.  Suppose  that  child  she  had  invited  (Mrs. 
Winter's  little  niece)  turned  out  to  be  religious?  Wasn't 
her  father  some  sort  of  dissenting  minister?  She  ought  to 
have  thought  of  that  before  accepting  her  as  a  fit  com- 
panion for  Polly. 

Children  talk  so! — Of  course  children  should  talk  freely 
about  sex,  and  about  excreta  and  so  on;  but  there  are  still 


74  THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

w<  nds  and  ideas  that  tender  childish  ears  like  Polly's  ought 
to  be  shielded  from,  at  least  till  they  are  old  enough  to 
resist  or  succumb  of  their  own  free  will:  such  words  as 
'God'  and  'Jesus'.  In  Mary's  own  case  and  Augustine's 
those  words  had  been  knotted  in  their  very  navel- 
strings.  .  . 

Wantage  must  be  made  to  go  to  bed  but  she  must 
remind  him  to  leave  the  whiskey  out  in  case  Gilbert  and 
his  friends  were  very  late.  Some  sandwiches  too:  railway 
food  was  practically  uneatable.  And  Gilbert  had  said 
these  guests  might  be  important.  There  was  a  movement 
on  foot  for  reuniting  the  liberal  party,  with  much  coming 
and  going  in  the  inner  councils.  Gilbert  wasn't  perhaps 
quite  'in'  those  councils  yet,  but  he  was  a  rising  young  man 
with  his  foot  in  the  door  at  any  rate:  he  could  be  a  Go- 
between  even  if  he  wasn't  yet  quite  a  Gone-between. 

Gilbert  hoped  to  be  bringing  someone  important  down 
to  Mellton  that  night — Mond,  perhaps,  or  Simon,  or 
Samuel.  If  a  significant  step  towards  Liberal  reunion  was 
taken  at  a  Mellton  houseparty  it  would  be  a  feather  in 
Gilbert's  cap  worth  wearing.  .  . 

Gilbert  had  told  her  the  Little  Man  (Lloyd  George) 
seemed  ready  enough  to  be  reconciled:  it  was  Asquith  who 
was  being  rather  wary  and  uncordial.  "He  acts  as  if  he  has 
something  on  his  chest!"  So  L.G. — surprised  at  it,  ap- 
parently— had  confided  to  someone  who  had  confided  it 
to  Gilbert.  Said  L.G.,  "The  old  boy  is  different  to  me,  he 
just  doesn't  know  when  to  forget." 

In  private  life  (she  continued  musing)  it  would  be 
looked  on  as  rather  despicable  if  an  Asquith  did  'forget' — 
if  he  ever  spoke  to  a  Lloyd  George  again,  the  nasty  little 
goat.  But  now,  even  his  own  friends  were  blaming  him. 
For  in  public  life  you  aren't  free  to  act  on  your  inclinations 
or  even  your  principles:  in  order  to  acquire  power  you 
have  to  forfeit  free-will,  which  seems  rather  paradoxical. 

And  how  much  more  so  must  it  be  in  a  dictatorship! 
A  man  like  Lenin  must  have  about  as  much  choice  and 


POLLY  AND   RACHEL  75 

freedom  of  action  as  the  topmost  acrobat  in  a  human 
pyramid.  .  . 

Mary  opened  her  ears  for  a  moment:  but  the  boys' 
discussion  had  reached  the  late-evening  stage  of  merely 
going  round  and  round.  "It's  eleven  o'clock,"  said  Mary: 
"I  think  I'm  going  to  bed,  but  don't  you.  .  ."  Whereon 
Jeremy  sprang  to  his  feet,  full  of  apologies  for  outstaying 
his  welcome. 

Augustine  saw  Jeremy  to  the  front  door  and  helped  him 
light  his  bicycle  lamp.  For  Jeremy's  father  was  a  country 
parson  and  far  from  well-off  (Jeremy  might  even  have  to 
go  into  the  Civil  Service). 

"Well  I  have  enjoyed  myself!"  Jeremy  exclaimed,  with 
an  enthusiasm  bordering  almost  on  surprise:  "I  don't 
know  when!"  He  flung  his  leg  over  the  saddle  and  pedalled 
off  one-handed  down  the  drive. 

Augustine  set  off  for  bed.  He  was  just  crossing  the 
ballroom  when  he  heard  that  distant,  desolate  scream. 


Chapter  20 

For  Polly  was  having  a  nightmare — Polly,  the  child  so 
cushioned  on  love! 

Often,  when  Polly  was  just  dropping  asleep,  the  air 
would  suddenly  be  full  of  hands.  Not  threatening  hands: 
just  hands.  Hands  coming  out  of  the  floor,  reaching  down 
from  the  ceiling,  coming  out  of  the  air — small  as  she  was, 
there  was  hardly  room  to  wriggle  between  them.  That 
wasn't  exactly  frightening;  but  tonight  she  was  having  a 
proper  nightmare — the  worst  she  had  ever  had. 

It  began  in  Mr.  Wantage's  serving  pantry,  where  Mrs. 
Winter  was  sitting  in  Sunday  bonnet  and  cape.  But  this 
wasn't  quite  Mrs.  Winter.  .  .  actually,  it  was  more  a  lion 
dressed  in  Mrs.  Winter's  clothes  and  it  said  to  Polly  in 
quite  a  pleasant  voice:  "We're  going  to  have  you  for  our 
supper." 

Shrinking  back,  she  now  saw  many  of  the  other  grown- 
ups who  best  loved  her  ranged  stiffly  round  the  wall,  sur- 
rounding her.  All  were  principally  turned  to  beasts  of 
prey,  even  if  they  didn't  entirely  look  it. 

That  was  the  moment  she  caught  sight  of  Gusting, 
standing  idly  by  the  baize  swing-door  which  led  to  the 
kitchen  passage.  .  . 

This  surely  was  entirely  Gusting,  for  he  could  never  turn! 
She  dashed  to  him  for  protection. 

But  even  as  she  flung  herself  into  his  arms  she  saw  what 
a  big  mistake  she  had  made:  for  this  was  in  fact  a  huge 
gorilla  in  disguise,  stretching  its  arms  across  the  door  of 
escape  and  smiling  down  cruelly  at  her  with  exactly 
Gusting's  face. 

A  trap,  baited  with  Gusting's  convincing  image!  At  this 
moment  of  panic  and  betrayal  she  began  to  wake.  She 
still  saw  him  there,  but  now  realised  with  a  flood  of  relief 

76 


POLLY  AND  RACHEL  77 

she  was  dreaming — this  monster  wasn't  real.  So  she  hit  him 
in  the  stomach  with  her  fist  and  cried  triumphantly:  "I'm 
not  afraid  of  you!  I  know  you're  only  a  dream!"  Then 
she  opened  her  mouth  to  scream  herself  entirely  awake, 
only. . .  only  to  find  she  was  not  as  near  waking  as  she  had 
thought,  and  the  scream  wouldn't  come.  She  had  only 
'woken'  from  one  level  of  sleep  to  the  level  next  above — 
and  now  she  was  slipping  back.  .  .  the  figure  was  growing 
solid  again. 

"Oho,  so  I'm  only  a  dream,  am  I?"  he  said  sardonically, 
and  his  dreadful  hands  began  to  close  on  her  murder- 
ously. .  .  Gusting's  hard  hands  which  she  always  so  much 
loved. 

In  this  extreme  of  terror  her  strangled  voice  just  came 
back:  she  managed  at  last  to  scream,  and  woke  herself  in 
floods  of  tears — with  the  Gusting-Gorilla  still  shadowy 
against  the  billowing  darkness  of  her  room  (where  no 
night-light  was  kept  burning,  for  modern  atheist  children 
have  no  need  to  fear  the  dark). 

When  Augustine  on  his  way  to  bed  heard  that  scream 
he  raced  up  the  stairs  three  at  a  time,  but  Nanny  had 
reached  the  night-nursery  before  him  and  was  already 
rocking  the  sobbing,  nightgowned  little  figure  in  her  arms. 

Polly  was  quieter  already;  but  now  at  the  sight  of 
Gusting  really  standing  in  her  bedroom  doorway  she 
began  to  scream  again  so  wildly  and  in  a  voice  so  strangled 
with  fear  it  was  more  a  hysterical  coughing  than  a  proper 
scream,  and  she  was  arching  her  spine  backwards  like  a 
baby  in  a  fit. 

Nanny  signed  to  him  so  imperiously  to  be  gone  that  he 
obeyed  her;  but  only  with  feelings  of  violent  jealousy  and 
distrust.  "That  woman  ought  to  be  sacked!"  he  muttered 
loudly  (half  hoping  she  would  hear),  as  he  retreated  down 
the  nursery  passage.  For  of  course  it  was  all  her  fault — she 
must  have  been  frightening  the  child.  .  .  goblins.  .  .  tales 
of  black  men  coming  down  the  chimbley  if  you  aren't 


78  THE  FOX   IN  THE  ATTIC 

good.  .  .  What  on  earth  was  the  use  of  Mary  trying  to 
bring  the  child  up  free  of  complexes  in  the  new  way  while 
confiding  her  to  an  uneducated  woman  like  Nanny?  "You 
can  never  trust  that  class!"  Augustine  added  bitterly. 

-—There  is  no  hell  of  course  but  surely  there  ought  to 
be  one  for  such  a  woman,  who  could  deliberately  teach  a 
child  to  be  afraid!  Augustine's  anger  with  that  horrible 
woman  gnawed  so  he  would  have  liked  to  have  it  out  with 
Mary  there  and  then:  but  alas,  she  had  gone  to  bed. 

He  knew  there'd  be  a  fight,  for  Mary  seemed  almost 
hypnotised  by  Nanny  Halloran:  which  was  surprising, 
seeing  how  often  and  how  deeply  they  disagreed.  .  . 

There's  no  need  nowadays  for  any  child  even  to  know 
what  Fear  is — nor  Guilt!  Not  since  the  great  revelation 
which  was  Freud.  . 


Halfway  down  the  long  drive,  Jeremy  on  his  way  home 
was  dazzled  by  the  lights  of  an  approaching  car.  He  jumped 
off  and  dragged  his  machine  right  into  the  bushes. 

But  it  wasn't  Trivett  driving  at  all.  This  was  a  big 
limousine  with  brass  and  mahogany  upperworks  like  a 
yacht,  and  lit  up  inside:  the  hire-car  from  the  Mellton 
Arms,  which  the  Wadamys  sometimes  bespoke  on  these 
occasions. 

It  seemed  full  to  bursting  with  young  men  with  sleekly 
brushed  hair  and  black  overcoats,  and  they  were  all 
turned  inwards — like  bees  just  beginning  to  swarm  on  a 
new  queen — towards  the  central  figure  wrapped  in  a 
tartan  rug  in  the  middle  of  the  back  seat:  the  elongated 
figure  and  well-known  hawklike  face  of  Sir  John  Simon. 


Chapter  21 

Wantage  had  been  shocked  at  the  idea  he  should  go 
to  bed  before  the  Master  got  home,  and  was  there  to 
attend  to  his  needs.  But  Mary  was  already  asleep  when 
Gilbert  and  his  guests  arrived,  and  it  must  have  been  an 
hour  or  two  later  that  she  woke  abruptly.  Something  was 
worrying  her — what  someone  had  said  earlier  about 
religion  subsiding  "below  the  level  of  belief  or  disbelief". 
Surely  that  wasn't  quite  right?  'Below  the  level  of  argu- 
ment' he  ought  to  have  said.  We  have  learned  to  distin- 
guish these  days  between  concepts  which  are  verifiable 
and  those  by  nature  unverifiable — and  which  therefore 
can't  be  argued  about:  so  really  we  now  need  two  words 
for  'belief  and  two  for  'truth',  since  we  don't  mean  the 
same  things  by  'belief'  and  'truth'  in  both  cases. 

After  all,  even  Aquinas  spoke  of  faith  as  an  act  involving 
the  will:  that  distinguishes  it  entirely  from  verifiable  truth 
— which  is  the  only  real  truth,  of  course,  she  hastened  to 
assure  herself. 

Through  the  dressing-room  door  Mary  could  hear 
Gilbert  snoring:  so  he  had  arrived  all  right.  She  hoped 
they  would  pull  off  Liberal  Reunion  this  time.  .  .  it  was 
bound  to  come  sooner  or  later,  of  course — it  takes  more 
than  a  rift  of  personalities  to  dissipate  so  mighty  a  force 
as  Liberalism.  In  fact,  Gilbert  had  said  this  Asquith  v. 
Lloyd  George  split  was  just  a  repetition  of  the  Rosebery- 
Harcourt  split  at  the  turn  of  the  century;  and  that  had 
been  prelude  to  the  solidest  victory  the  Liberals  had  ever 
achieved,  the  general  election  of  1906. 

Mary  could  still  remember  being  driven  to  the  village, 
that  sunny  January  polling-day,  in  the  governess-cart  with 
little  Augustine:  everyone  wore  coloured  rosettes  and  even 

79 


80  THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC 

the  politest  gentry  children  put  out  their  tongues  at 
children  of  a  different  colour. 

At  this  rate  (she  forecast)  the  Liberals  should  be  back  in 
power  by  1930  or  so;  and  by  that  time  Gilbert.  .  . 

Having  tidied  in  her  mind  these  two  incongruous  loose 
ends,  Mary  sighed  and  went  to  sleep  again. 

But  now  she  dreamed — the  first  time  for  many  years — 
of  her  German  cousin,  Otto  von  Kessen. 

It  was  in  19 13 — ten  years  ago — that  Mary  had  gone 
on  her  visit  to  Schloss  Lorienburg.  Walther,  the  eldest  von 
Kessen  brother  and  owner  of  Lorienburg,  was  already 
married  then  of  course — he  had  at  least  two  sweet 
children,  ten-year-old  tow-haired  Franz  and  the  wide- 
eyed  little  Mitzi.  But  Otto  was  "married  to  his  regiment", 
they  said.  Handsome  in  uniform  as  some  Ouida  hero,  in 
white  flannels  Otto  played  tennis  with  the  beauty  and 
vigour  of  a  leaping  white  tiger.  .  .  Mary  had  been  sixteen 
at  Lorienburg,  that  last  summer  before  the  war,  and  the 
magnificent  Otto  thirty.  Mary  had  fallen  blindly,  hope- 
lessly in  love;  and  had  developed  a  boil  on  her  unhappy 
chin. 


Augustine  that  night  was  a  long  time  getting  to  sleep  at 
all,  for  the  moment  he  was  alone  his  mind  reverted  un- 
controllably and  quite  fruitlessly  from  the  living  to  the 
dead  child.  He  was  still  racked  with  pity,  and  he  thought 
of  the  coming  inquest  with  foreboding. 

Pictured  on  the  darkness  he  kept  seeing  again  the  deep 
black  pool,  the  sixpenny  boat  floating  just  out  of  reach, 
then  the  whitish  something  in  the  water. .  .  He  had  had  no 
choice,  when  they  found  she  was  quite  dead,  but  to  carry 
her  home;  for  on  the  Marsh  a  duck  shot  at  dusk,  if  the 
dog  failed,  was  no  more  than  a  scatter  of  feathers  by  the 
time  daylight  came.  Thus  when  Augustine  fell  asleep  at 


POLLY  AND   RACHEL  81 

last  he  dreamed  horribly  of  those  hungry  rats  that  the 
whole  Marsh  teemed  with. 


Mrs.  Winter  also  stayed  awake  late,  but  deliberately. 
She  was  sitting  up  in  bed,  wearing  the  little  bed-jacket 
Mrs.  Wadamy  had  given  her  last  Christmas  over  a  white 
linen  nightgown  with  a  high  frilled  collar,  and  writing  a 
letter — by  candlelight,  for  there  was  no  electricity  in  the 
servants'  rooms. 

Mrs.  Winter's  'shape'  looked  natural  now,  comfortably 
buxom:  her  whalebone  stays  were  neatly  rolled  on  a  chair. 
But  her  greying  hair  looked  unusually  skimpy;  for  it  owed 
its  daytime  bulk  to  certain  brown  pads,  and  these  now 
lay  on  the  dressing-table.  Her  cheeks  too  looked  sunken, 
for  her  pearly  teeth  also  were  on  the  dressing-table.  They 
stood  in  a  tumbler  of  water  between  two  photographs  in 
velvet  frames:  one  was  her  late  father,  the  other  showed 
Nellie  holding  the  baby  Rachel. 

"Dear  Nellie,"  she  wrote,  "I  spoke  to  Madam  about 
you  and  Gwilym  and  darling  Rachel  and  she  was  kindness 
itself.  She  said  at  once.  .  ."  Mrs.  Winter  wrote  slowly, 
weighing  every  word.  For  now  she  had  made  up  her  mind 
she  had  come  to  want  more  than  anything  else  in  the  world 
that  Nellie  should  consent. 

It  would  be  lovely  having  Rachel  here.  Pausing,  she 
tried  to  picture  dear  little  Rachel  now  as  she  must  be  that 
very  moment,  asleep  in  bed  somewhere.  But  that  was 
difficult,  for  she  had  never  visited  the  parts  where 
Gwilym's  mother  was  living  these  days. 


Augustine  was  woken  at  six  in  the  morning  by  the  jack- 
daws arguing  in  his  wide  bedroom  chimney.  He  lay  awake 
listening  to  them,  for  he  was  interested  in  birds'  minds 


82  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

and  would  have  liked  to  be  able  to  make  out  what  all  the 
palaver  was  about.  Jackdaws  are  notoriously  social  birds, 
and  it  sounded  very  much  as  if  they  were  holding  some 
sort  of  court  of  justice:  certainly  someone  was  getting 
generally  pecked.  .  . 

'Getting  generally  pecked'! — Yes  (he  thought),  that's 
about  all  Social  Co-operation  ever  seems  to  amount  to  in 
practice.  Then  surely  it's  high  time  we  humans  gave  up 
behaving  like  birds? 

But  just  then  the  door  clicked.  It  was  Polly,  and  she 
climbed  quickly  onto  his  bed  in  expectation  of  a  story. 


At  eight  that  same  chilly  morning,  when  the  postman 
arrived,  Mrs.  Winter  had  already  licked  and  stamped  her 
letter  for  him  to  take.  But  he  had  a  telegram  for  her, 
from  Gloucester:  it  was  a  boy,  and  mother  and  child  both 
doing  well. 

Nellie's  pains  had  begun  the  previous  evening  and  the 
doctor  had  carried  her  off  to  hospital  in  his  car  himself. 
The  birth  was  quite  normal:  it  was  the  baby's  safety  after 
birth  the  doctor  had  been  anxious  about  in  the  mother's 
unnatural  mood;  but  in  fact  Nellie  gave  her  breast  quite 
readily  when  they  brought  the  infant  to  her,  because  in 
her  drowsy  state  she  believed  it  was  somehow  Baby 
Rachel  come  again. 

Mrs.  Winter  added  a  few  words  on  the  back  of  the 
envelope,  then  re-addressed  her  letter  to  the  hospital;  for 
the  sooner  now  it  was  fixed  about  Rachel  coming  here  the 
better. 


Another  telegram  to  the  sanatorium  told  Gwilym,  even 
this  little  buff  envelope  bringing  an  unmistakably  'out- 
side' smell  into  the  faint  odour  of  illness  which  tainted 
everything  round  him  there.  The  news  excited  him  wildly 
and  brought  on  a  fearful  fit  of  coughing. 


POLLY  AND   RACHEL  83 

A  son\  Then  his  name  should  be  called  Sylvanus.  .  . 

How  pleased  little  Rachel  would  be!  How  he  longed  to 
be  watching  her  face  the  first  time  they  let  her  hold  her 
baby  brother!  Surely  the  doctors  must  let  him  go  home 
now  (indeed  they  probably  soon  would — but  because  they 
needed  his  bed  for  some  less  hopeless  case). 

Little  Rachel.  .  .  how  long  would  it  be  before  she  got 
the  news,  he  wondered?  Wales  must  be  a  nice  change  for 
her  after  Gloucester  Docks  but  the  place  was  terribly  cut- 
off. For  his  mother's  new  home  had  been  a  lonely  sluice- 
keeper's  cottage  once — in  the  piping  days  of  farming, 
when  the  sluices  were  still  kept  on  Llantony  Marsh. 


None  of  these  people  knew  yet  that  Rachel  lay  under  an 
official  rubber  sheet  in  the  mortuary  at  Penrys  Cross. 


Gwilym's  old  mother  lived  alone,  and  on  Tuesday  had 
somehow  walked  alone  the  whole  nine  miles  to  the  Cross 
to  report  the  child  missing.  She  knew  already  that  what- 
ever his  letters  said  her  son  was  dying;  she  knew  that 
Nellie  was  about  to  be  brought  to  bed  at  any  hour:  they 
showed  her  the  body  on  the  slab  and  she  collapsed.  She 
recovered,  but  for  the  time  being  had  lost  the  power  of 
speech. 

Thus  Augustine  had  already  left  for  the  inquest  at 
Penrys  Cross  by  the  time  the  news  reached  Mellton. 


Chapter  22 

The  cold  had  come  early  to  the  Continent  that  fall: 
in  the  next  few  days  it  crossed  over,  driving  Dorset's 
late  mellow  muggy  autumn  away  before  it. 

Mary's  mind  at  Mellton  these  days  was  full  of  the 
tragedy:  she  was  cudgelling  her  brains  how  best  Nellie 
behind  the  barrier  that  was  Mrs.  Winter  could  be  helped; 
but  now  the  cold  had  come  and  her  brains  refused  to 
respond.  Dorset  never  got  quite  so  cold  as  central  Europe 
of  course;  but  at  Mellton  she  had  not  those  gigantic  porce- 
lain stoves  she  had  once  laughed  at  in  Schloss  Lorienburg, 
nor  the  double  windows,  nor  even  central  heating:  houses 
in  Britain  were  nowadays  no  warmer  than  before  the  war 
— yet,  as  if  they  had  been,  women  had  ceased  wearing 
wool  next  to  the  skin,  ankle-length  drawers  and  long  thick 
petticoats.  Thus  in  a  large  and  draughty  place  like  Mell- 
ton Mary  always  found  it  difficult  in  winter  to  think:  her 
blood  kept  being  called  away  to  do  battle  in  her  ex- 
tremities, leaving  her  brain  on  terribly  short  commons. 
Thus  Mary  in  winter  had  to  do  most  of  her  thinking  in 
her  bath,  where  her  brain  responded  to  the  hot  water  like 
a  tortoise  in  the  sun:  she  saved  up  most  of  the  day's  knot- 
tier problems  for  the  bath  she  took  each  evening  before 
dressing  for  dinner:  and  it  was  in  her  evening  bath  that 
Mary  now  had  her  brainwave  about  the  Hermitage  as 
somewhere  for  Nellie  with  her  baby  and  her  diseased 
husband  to  live. 

That  morning  Mrs.  Winter  had  told  her  the  doctors 
were  going  to  send  Gwilym  home.  There  had  been  a 
pleading  look  in  Mary's  eye  as  she  offered  to  help,  for  she 
was  deeply  moved  and  longed  to  be  allowed-to.  Nellie 
must  be  desperately  hard-up:   naturally  there  was  no 

84 


POLLY  AND   RACHEL  85 

question  of  Gwilym  working  'yet'  (that  'yet'  which 
deceived  no  one  except  Gwilym  himself!) :  with  a  husband 
to  nurse  and  a  new  baby  Nellie  couldn't  go  out  to  work, 
even  if  she  could  find  work  now  there  were  millions 
unemployed.  .  . 

But  Mrs.  Winter  had  shaken  her  head.  Not  money:  in  a 
life-time  of  domestic  service  she  herself  had  saved  nearly 
three  hundred  pounds,  and  that  should  at  least  last  out 
Gwilym's  brief  time:  it  was  her  own  privilege  to  support 
her  sister,  not  an  outsider's.  Yet  Mrs.  Winter  felt  quite 
sorry  for  her  mistress,  for  Mrs.  Wadamy  looked  so  sad  at 
being  shut  out. 

Moreover  there  was  one  kind  of  help  they  could  surely 
properly  accept.  If  Gwilym  was  'to  get  well'  they  had  to 
find  somewhere  to  live  right  out  in  the  country:  some- 
where high  up  and  windswept,  such  as  the  chalk  downs. . . 

Mary's  face  had  lightened  at  the  'chalk  downs':  she 
would  speak  to  the  Master  about  it  at  once.  But  when  she 
did  so,  Gilbert  had  astonished  her  by  being  'difficult':  he 
had  practically  ticked  her  off  for  even  suggesting  he 
might  let  these  people  have  a  cottage!  In  the  end  she 
hadn't  dared  confess  to  him  she  had  virtually  promised 
Mrs.  Winter. 

Now,  while  Mary  lay  long  in  the  hot  water  thinking 
about  the  Hermitage  as  a  solution,  Gilbert  was  already 
tying  his  evening  tie  and  also  thinking.  His  brisk  game  of 
squash  with  the  doctor's  son  ought  to  have  left  him  enjoy- 
ing unalloyed  that  virtuous  feeling  which  is  the  chief 
reward  of  exercise  when  you  are  sedentary  and  thirty;  but 
thoughts  of  the  morning's  argument  with  Mary  were 
troubling  him. 

A  most  pathetic  case.  .  .  yes,  but  a  question  of  Principle 
was  involved.  Yet  he  doubted  if  Mary  even  in  the  end  had 
hoisted  in  fully  how  right  he  had  been  to  refuse — and  the 
doubt  pained  him,  for  he  loved  Mary.  The  point  was  that 
these  people  were  strangers.  His  first  duty  was  to  his  own 


86  THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

people,  he  had  tried  to  show  Mary;  and  cottages  were 
scarce:  at  the  moment  even  his  own  new  carpenter  was 
having  to  live  in  lodgings  till  a  cottage  fell  vacant  for  him. 
But  Mary  had  seemed  unimpressed  (her  picture  of  the 
dying  Gwilym  refusing  to  be  ousted  from  her  mind).  The 
bachelor  carpenter  was  quite  comfortable  at  the  Tucketts, 
she  had  urged:  couldn't  he  wait? 

Couldn't  Mary  see  it  would  be  morally  wrong  to  give 
strangers  a  Mellton  cottage  over  Mellton  heads?  If  you 
don't  draw  the  line  somewhere  (Gilbert  argued),  you 
soon  cease  being  able  to  do  your  duty  by  your  own  people, 
the  people  to  whom  it  is  owed.  One's  duty  to  mankind  at 
large  isn't  in  that  same  way  a  personal,  man-to-man 
relationship:  it's  a  collective  duty,  and  one's  services  to 
Liberalism  rather  are  its  proper  discharge — not  random 
little  drop-in-a-bucket  acts  of  kindness.  Surely  no  one 
supposed  he  ought  to  rush  off  to  Turkey  personally  to 
rescue  a  massacred  Armenian  or  two?  But  he'd  certainly 
make  time  to  address  that  Armenian  Atrocities  Protest 
Meeting  next  month;  and  similarly  his  correct  Liberal 
response  to  these  strangers'  plight  was  to  campaign  for 
improved  National  Insurance,  more  Houses  for  the  Poor: 
not  try  to  take  these  particular  poor  under  his  own  personal 
wing.  .  . 

As  Gilbert  stood  there  tying  his  tie  the  lean  face  which 
looked  back  at  him  from  the  glass  ought  to  have  been  re- 
assuring: with  its  firm  jaw  and  permanently  indignant 
grey  eyes  it  was  so  palpably  the  face  of  a  Man  of  Principle. 
But  was  Mary  truly  a  woman  of  Principle?  That  was  the 
trouble.  Alas,  Mary  yielded  all  too  easily  to  irrational 
instinct!  There  were  times  lately  you  almost  sensed  a  dis- 
taste in  her  for  all  a-priori  reasoning,  however  clearly  it 
was  put.  .  . 

Gilbert  loved  Mary;  but  was  he  perhaps  a  little  afraid 
of  her  always  in  any  ethical  context? 

Gilbert  was  silent  and  distrait  at  dinner  that  night — not 


POLLY  AND   RACHEL  87 

on  Nellie's  account  however,  or  because  of  the  Poor:  no, 
it  was  something  of  vital  importance.  For  as  he  left  his 
dressing-room  he  had  been  called  to  the  telephone  and 
what  he  had  heard  was  disturbing.  The  speaker  knew 
someone  very  close  to  L.G.  (with  him  now,  on  his 
American  tour).  It  had  been  noised  widely  abroad  that 
lately  the  Litde  Man  seemed  bent  on  concocting  his  own 
little  economic  ideas  unaided,  and  from  what  this  chap 
said  might  not  be  quite  sound  even  about  Free  Trade  any 
more!  Then  the  cat  was  among  the  Liberal  pigeons 
indeed. 

In  short,  Liberalism  just  then  had  problems  on  its  plate 
more  immediate  than  slaughtered  Armenians  and  the 
Poor.  .  .  imprimis,  there  was  the  split  in  the  party  itself 
to  heal — or  to  exploit;  and  Gilbert  was  involved  in  all  that 
up  to  the  neck. 

Thus  at  dinner  Gilbert  hardly  understood  Mary  at  first 
when  she  mentioned  the  Hermitage:  his  mind  flew  first  to 
St.  Petersburg,  then  to  his  wine-cellar. 

"No — up  on  the  downs!  In  the  chase.  As  somewhere  for 
Mrs.  Winter's  sister." 

That  place — for  her  to  live  in? — Lumme.  .  .  but  after  all, 
why  not?  Certainly  no  one  else  would  want  it. 

This  lonely  Hermitage  was  a  little  romantic  folly  in 
18th-century  gothic:  an  architect's  freak,  built  of  the 
biggest  and  knobbiest  flints  they  could  find  and  designed 
to  look  like  a  toothy  fragment  of  ruined  abbey  (the  largest 
window  was  a  lancet,  the  rest  more  like  arrow-slits).  But 
it  had  been  built  for  a  habitable  hermitage:  indeed  a  pro- 
fessional hermit  had  originally  been  persuaded  by  a  good 
salary  to  live  there,  groaning  and  beating  his  breast  duti- 
fully when  visitors  were  brought  to  inspect  him.  Once 
hermits  went  out  of  fashion  however  it  had  mostly  stood 
empty:  it  was  too  remote,  as  well  as  too  uncomfortable. .  . 
the  well  even  was  a  hundred  feet  deep,  which  is  a  long 
way  to  wind  a  bucket  up. 

Aesthetically  in  Gilbert's  opinion  so  arrant  a  sham 


88  THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC 

deserved  dynamite.  However,  it  still  stood;  and  at  least 
you  could  be  sure  the  woman  wouldn't  roost  there  long! 
Moreover  his  consent  would  stop  Mary.  .  . 

'Stop  Mary'  doing  what? — 'Nagging  him'  was  the  dire 
meaning  he  expunged  before  it  could  even  form  in  his 
mind.  (Jeremy  had  once  remarked  unkindly  that  Gilbert 
didn't  know  how  to  be  insincere:  "He  believes  every  word 
he  says — as  soon  as  he  has  said  it!"  Thus  Gilbert  had  to  be 
most  careful  what  thoughts  he  allowed  into  the  reality  of 
words  even  in  the  privacy  of  his  own  head.) 

"By  all  means — an  inspiration,  my  dear!"  he  answered. 
"But  now,  if  you'll  excuse  me.  .  ." 

He  had  much  to  think  over.  Whether  or  not  this  was 
true  about  L.G.  and  Free  Trade  the  Tories  would  soon 
get  wind  of  the  rumour — and  what  then? 

Mary  had  never  been  inside  that  hermitage:  only  seen 
it  in  the  distance.  But  the  site  though  remote  seemed  so 
exactly  what  was  wanted;  and  actually  it  was  only  about 
four  miles  from  the  house,  an  easy  bicycle-ride  for  Mrs. 
Winter  on  her  afternoons-off.  She  was  so  elated  she  told 
Mrs.  Winter  about  it  that  same  evening. 

Mrs.  Winter  was  very  pleased.  She  too  had  never  seen 
the  place;  but  how  lovely  to  have  her  Nellie  at  last  so  near, 
and  be  able  to  share  her  grief! 


Chapter  23 

Discovery  that  the  dead  child  had  been  Mrs.  Winter's 
famous  little  niece  was  not  the  only  shock  the  inquest 
had  had  in  store  for  Augustine.  Apparently  the  deceased 
had  not  died  of  drowning,  the  police-surgeon  said  in 
evidence  as  soon  as  the  proceedings  opened:  he  had 
found  hardly  any  water  in  the  lungs  and  the  skull  was 
cracked. 

He  went  on  to  testify  he  had  found  no  medical  signs 
whatever  pointing  to  violence:  the  child's  skull  was  ab- 
normally thin:  perhaps  her  head  had  hit  something  as  she 
tumbled  in,  reaching  after  her  toy  boat — even  a  floating 
branch  could  have  done  it.  But  this  ghoulish  sawbones  had 
already  had  an  effect  on  the  court  that  nothing  he  said 
later  could  alter  or  undo. 

Moreover  as  it  turned  out  Augustine  had  found  himself 
sole  witness  to  the  finding  of  the  body:  his  companion  Dai 
Roberts  was  still  untraced. 

In  the  front  row  of  the  public  seats  sat  Mrs.  Dai 
Roberts  with  her  Flemton  coven:  as  he  told  his  story  their 
glittering  eyes  never  for  a  moment  left  his  face.  But  the 
jury  seemed  unwilling  to  look  at  him  at  all:  so  long  as  he 
was  in  the  box  they  averted  their  eyes  to  the  well  of  the 
court  where  the  public  sat,  and  their  faces  were  wooden 
and  uneasy. 

The  police  for  their  part  said  they  also  had  found 
nothing  on  the  spot  either  that  suggested  foul  play — 
nothing  at  all.  But  when  the  police-witness  protested 
perhaps  over-much  how  satisfied  they  were,  Mrs.  Roberts 
under  the  eyes  of  the  jury  took  out  her  purse  and  looked 
inside  it.  The  sergeant  at  the  door  reddened  with  anger; 
but  there  was  nothing  he  could  do.  Then  a  juryman  asked 
for  Augustine  to  be  recalled,  and  put  a  suspicious  question 

89 


go  THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

to  him,  in  a  suspicious  voice:  "Whyever  did  you  move  it, 
mun?" 

Throughout  the  still  court  the  questing  breathing  of 
those  Flemton  women  could  be  heard.  .  . 

A  scatter  of  torn  frock  and  a  bloody  bone  half-gnawed 
.  .  .  Augustine's  mind's-eye  flash  of  the  reason  he'd  had  to 
bring  the  body  away  at  once  was  so  beastly  he  just  stood 
there  in  the  box  tongue-tied  and  at  last  Dr.  Brinley  the 
coroner  himself  had  blurted  it  out:  "Rats,  laddie!"  he  said 
to  the  juryman  reprovingly.  The  juryman  of  course  mis- 
understood Dr.  Brinley's  meaning  and  flushed  with  morti- 
fication; but  the  old  man  never  noticed. 

Meanwhile  a  fly  had  settled  on  Dr.  Brinley's  bald  head 
and  polished  its  dirty  legs  while  the  aged  voice  under  it 
continued:  "A  very  natural,  decent  thing  to  do!"  But  on 
this  the  juryman  set  his  jaw  and  looked  more  obstinate 
still. 

Dr.  Brinley  was  troubled.  The  whole  neighbourhood 
had  got  it  in  for  that  boy.  .  .  but  why?  Notoriously  wrong- 
headed,  certainly.  .  .  tactless.  ..  a  bit  of  a  recluse.  .  .  With 
that  inadequate  eggshell  of  a  skull  the  wonder  was  the 
child  had  lived  so  long!  The  very  first  fall  from  her  pony.  .  . 
but  she  wouldn't  have  had  a  pony,  of  course.  .  .  Why,  too 
— Dai  had  been  with  the  boy  when  he  found  her! — Damn 
Dai  for  his  eternal  Law-shy  elusiveness:  his  presence  today 
could  have  made  all  the  difference.  .  . 

But  at  that  point  Dr.  Brinley  was  distracted  by  the 
appearance  of  something  lying  on  the  desk  before  him.  It 
was  a  hand;  and  a  very  old  hand — the  loose  skin  was 
blotched  with  brown  under  the  white  hairs,  and  wrinkled: 
the  joints  were  knobbly,  the  ribbed  nails  horny  and  mis- 
shapen. The  withered  object  was  so  redolent  of  old  age  it 
was  seconds  before  he  realised  that  this  aged  hand  was  his 
own. — Now,  when  he  had  never  felt  younger  or  better, 
when  even  those  pains  a  week  ago  he  had  thought  mortal 
were  quite  gone!  But  if  all  over  he  looked  like  that,  all  these 


POLLY  AND  RACHEL  91 

idiots  here  must  regard  him  as.  .  .  how  dare  they,  puking 
puppies  the  whole  sort  of  them! 

Thrusting  the  offending  hand  out  of  sight  he  glared  at 
his  middle-aged  jury  as  if  he  would  like  to  slipper  the  lot; 
and  they  wriggled  resentfully.  .  .  the  old  fool! 

When  the  evidence  was  all  taken  the  coroner  strongly 
suggested  a  verdict  of  accidental  death;  but  the  verdict 
the  jury  obstinately  returned  was  an  'open'  one. 

The  Flemton  women  looked  gleeful:  Dr.  Brinley  looked 
worried. 

Meanwhile  the  police  had  found  the  Bentley  in  the 
street  outside  with  its  windscreen  smashed,  and  belatedly 
had  set  a  guard  on  it.  After  adjourning  his  court  Dr. 
Brinley  took  one  look  at  the  damaged  Bentley  and  then 
surprised  Augustine  by  asking  him  for  a  lift  home  in  it.  He 
ignored  someone  else's  offer  and  insisted  he  wouldn't 
mind  the  draught  from  the  broken  windscreen;  but  in  fact 
his  old  eyes  watered  painfully  the  whole  way  back  to  his 
house. 

The  pavements  in  the  High  Street  as  they  passed  were 
unnaturally  deserted — but  not  the  windows. 


At  Newton  that  night  two  of  those  unshuttered  billiard- 
room  windows  got  smashed  and  late  flowers  in  the  garden 
were  deliberately  fouled.  But  of  that  Augustine  knew 
nothing,  for  straight  after  dropping  Dr.  Brinley  he  had 
started  for  the  north.  He  was  embarked  on  what  was 
presently  to  prove  a  none-too-satisfactory  visit  to  Douglas 
Moss — the  former  Oxford  luminary  and  leading  philo- 
sophic wit.  This  was  their  first  meeting  since  both  went 
down.  But  Douglas  was  a  native  (surprisingly)  of  Leeds 
and  already,  alas,  beginning  to  revert  to  native  ways:  he 
was  out  all  day  at  the  'Works',  leaving  Augustine  to  his 
own  devices — and  then  Augustine  couldn't  get  that  in- 
quest out  of  his  mind,  his  thoughts  kept  returning  to  it. 


92  THE  FOX  IN  THE  ATTIC 

The  Mosses'  home  was  a  vast  and  almost  bookless  man- 
sion in  grimy  crimson  brick,  built  on  the  outskirts  of  the 
city.  The  old  people  made  him  as  welcome  as  they  could, 
but  still  the  inquest  continued  to  rankle.  That  accusing 
question:  Why  had  he  moved  the  body?  That  juryman's 
suspicious  voice,  asking  him  "Why  ever  did  you  move  it> 
muri?" 

The  whole  thing  was  indeed  an  intractable  cud  to 
chew.  .  . 

What    was    that   phrase  Jeremy    had    once    used? — 
"Flemton's  tricoteuses." 


Chapter  24 

Waking  next  morning  Mary  did  wonder  a  moment 
if  she  had  been  rash,  telling  Mrs.  Winter  without 
having  even  seen  the  place:  but  it  was  all  settled  now,  so 
she  put  the  thought  from  her.  After  breakfast,  though,  she 
would  ride  that  way.  .  .  there  might  be  repairs  needed. 
There  might  even  be  no  sink! 

It  was  a  golden  mid-October  morning  when  Mary 
started  out:  sun  above,  and  in  the  hollows  mist.  There  was 
a  smell  of  frost  in  the  air  but  none  properly  in  the  ground 
yet,  and  the  oaks  in  the  park  still  held  their  yellow  leaves. 

Polly  was  out  exercising  her  pony  there,  under  a 
groom's  surveillance:  a  tiny,  narrow  piebald  pony  off  the 
Prescelly  hills  Augustine  had  given  her  like  a  miniature 
Arab,  and  perfectly  schooled.  Polly  had  a  remarkable 
natural  seat  for  so  young  a  child,  and  the  beauty  of  their 
effortless  performance  together  under  the  trees  that 
autumn  morning  plucked  at  Mary's  heart.  Should  she 
take  Polly  with  her  for  company,  then?  But  no,  it  might 
be  too  far  (or  was  the  real  reason  a  fear  Polly  might  not 
like  the  Hermitage?) — Anyway,  Mary  rode  on  alone,  col- 
lecting her  mare  to  take  the  low  wall  from  the  park  into 
the  stubble  (no  wire  was  allowed  anywhere  on  Mellton 
land,  however  much  the  farmers  grumbled). 

The  soil  in  the  valley  was  still  soggy  with  autumn  water 
though  today  the  tufts  were  frosted;  but  once  on  the  high 
downs  where  lay  the  chase  (a  misnomer  nowadays,  with 
its  ten-mile  circuit  of  high  wall)  the  going  was  crisp  and 
solid,  and  the  air  was  sharp. 

As  she  entered  the  chase  at  last  by  the  crumbhng 
castellated  gateway  even  the  green  unrutted  track  she  had 
followed  came  to  an  end,  and  Mary  realised  fully  for  the 

93 


94  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

first  time  how  ungetatable  this  hermitage  was.  Once  more 
she  felt  a  twinge  of  anxiety;  but  again  drove  it  from  her, 
for  Mrs.  Winter  would  be  bitterly  disappointed  by  adverse 
reporting  now. 

Moreover  as  Mary  neared  the  Hermitage  all  practical 
thoughts  were  banished  by  the  beauty  of  its  setting.  This 
chase,  this  tract  of  land  preserved  unchanged  by  man  for 
a  thousand  years  or  more,  was  a  piece  of  Ancient  Britain 
itself.  In  the  middle  distance  red-deer  grazed  warily:  this 
was  where  they  had  always  grazed  since  the  dawn  of  time, 
for  this  turf  under  the  wide  sky  had  never  known  the 
plough — not  since  ploughs  were  invented.  These  thickets 
had  never  known  the  axe,  these  huge  hollow  yews  and 
holly  and  random  natural  timber  all  tangled  in  old-man's- 
beard  and  bryony. 

This  was  the  very  Britain  King  Arthur  knew!  In  this 
setting,  even  the  romantic  fragment  of  the  Hermitage 
looked  almost  true.  In  this  setting,  Mistress  Mary  Wadamy 
felt  quite  mediaeval  herself.  .  .  she  hitched  her  palfrey  to 
a  thornbush  and  let  herself  in. 

The  kitchen  was  smaller  even  than  most  town  kitchens. 
It  was  darker  and  gloomier  too  because  of  that  ruby-tinted 
lancet  which  provided  the  only  light.  Mary's  heart  sank 
.  .  .  still,  it  would  probably  just  take  a  table  for  two.  .  . 
the  stained-glass  in  the  lancet  could  be  replaced  with  clear 
(and  perhaps  even  made  to  open) :  white  walls  would  work 
wonders,  and  in  any  case  whitewash  is  far  healthier  than 
wallpaper  when  there  are  germs  about. 

The  reason  the  kitchen  was  so  cramped  was  that  two- 
thirds  of  the  space  in  the  Hermitage  was  occupied  by  the 
grandiose  beginnings  of  an  ascent  of  corkscrew  stone  stairs. 
This  stairway  had  been  concocted  so  wide  and  ornate  as 
proof  of  the  fabulous  dignity  and  wealth  of  this  abbey- 
which-never-had-been:  seen  from  outside,  the  stairs  ex- 
tended several  feet  even  above  the  facade  of  the  building, 
then  the  corkscrew  broke  off  dramatically  against  the  open 


POLLY  AND   RACHEL  95 

sky  (effectively  masking  from  sight  the  kitchen  chimney 
but  perhaps  rather  spoiling  its  draught) . 

Off  these  stairs,  just  before  they  emerged  through  a  trap 
into  the  open,  a  low  door  led  into  the  hermitage's  only 
room  other  than  the  kitchen:  an  attic  bedroom,  contrived 
in  the  small  space  available  under  the  sloping,  hidden  roof. 
It  had  no  window — but  surely  a  skylight  is  adequate  venti- 
lation for  quite  so  tiny  a  room?  The  slightly-slanting  floor 
was  triangular,  and  so  were  the  only  two  walls  (on  the 
third  side  the  roof  itself  sloped  to  floor-level).  Presumably, 
though,  it  was  here  the  hermit  had  set  his  truckle-bed.  .  . 
and  indeed  there  would  just  be  room  here  for  a  single  bed 
for  the  mother  if  she  didn't  sit  up  too  suddenly,  and  even 
for  the  child's  cot  too. 

As  for  the  invalid,  Mary  had  made  up  her  mind  before 
starting  out:  an  opensided  wooden  shed  out-of-doors 
should  be  built  for  him  such  as  she  had  seen  in  Swiss 
sanatoria.  She  was  thankful  there  was  no  possible  room 
for  Gwilym  here  in  the  house:  it  saved  argument.  In  times 
past,  when  the  warm  sweet  breath  of  cows  was  thought 
sovereign  for  consumption,  folk  would  have  contrived  him 
a  little  dark  loft  in  some  crowded  cowhouse  close  over  the 
cows  and  there  they'd  have  been  shut  up  all  winter,  he 
and  his  raging  tubercles  and  the  milking-cows  together. 
A  more  scientific  age  now  realised  the  danger  to  the  cows) 
so  they  prescribed  chalk  downs,  and  the  warm  sweet 
breath  of  a  loving  wife  and  child.  .  .  Mary  had  little 
patience  with  doctors  who  sent  infectious  cases  home  to 
their  families  like  this:  they  seemed  too  much  like  farmers 
doing  a  grim  seeding  for  next  year's  crops. 

As  her  eyes  got  more  used  to  the  half-dark  in  the  kitchen 
she  saw  now  there  was  moss  growing  on  some  of  the  beams. 
The  place  could  certainly  do  with  a  good  drying  out,  and 
Gilbert  must  provide  a  sink  (there  was  no  piped  water  or 
drainage,  but  a  sink  can  be  served  with  buckets).  Work- 
men must  be  sent  up  at  once,  so  that  the  woman  could  move 
in  and  have  it  ready  for  her  husband  when  he  arrived. 


96  THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC 

As  her  eyes  grew  still  more  used  to  the  ruby-tinted 
gloom  she  saw  that  the  open  grate  was  nearly  solid  with 
wet  ashes.  The  chimney-throat  was  plugged  with  a  wet 
sack:  Mary  poked  it  with  her  crop  and  it  collapsed,  dis- 
charging a  barrow-load  of  sodden  soot  and  jackdaw  nests. 
Under  this  weight  the  front  of  the  grate  fell  out  too. 

As  Mary  rode  home  she  wondered  how  best  to  describe 
the  place  to  Mrs.  Winter.  It  was  indeed  a  fairy-tale  little 
place;  but  its  charms  were  not  altogether  too  easy  to  put 
into  simple  words. 

However,  when  Mary  got  home  she  found  a  new  prob- 
lem awaiting  her  to  consider  in  her  bath  that  night.  A 
letter  from  Augustine  in  Leeds:  he  told  her  he  thought  of 
travelling  in  China  for  a  bit. 


Chapter  23 

Even  before  the  inquest  Augustine  had  known  the 
Hermit-of-Newton  phase  of  his  life  was  ended.  His 
obsession  that  every  man  is  an  island  remained,  but  his 
craving  for  physical  solitude  had  been  transitory  and  was 
now  gone.  It  had  been  succeeded  by  a  similar  compulsive 
craving  to  'see  the  world'. 

Because  of  the  war,  Augustine  had  come  to  manhood 
without  ever  setting  foot  even  on  the  further  shores  of  the 
Channel.  Even  Calais  would  have  been  strange  to  him. 
But  his  temperament  was  not  one  ever  to  do  things  by 
halves,  and  hence  his  letter  to  Mary  that  he  thought  of 
going  to  China.  He  had  'once  met  a  chap  who  had 
actually  set  out  to  walk  to  China  and  had  got  as  far  as 
Teheran  when  the  war  broke  out  and  stopped  him.  Per- 
haps. .  .' 

Mary's  answer  suggested:  'Fine,  but  first  why  not  go  to 
Germany?'  She  could  write  to  Lorienburg.  .  .  And  now 
Douglas  had  commented:  "After  all,  why  not? — If  you 
don't  mind  remoteness;  for  Germany  of  course  is  so  much 
remoter  than  China." 

The  friends  were  alone  together,  after  dinner,  in  the 
huge  but  darkling  and  unventilated  pillared  pannelled 
'lounge'.  Tonight  Douglas  seemed  a  little  more  like  his  old 
self:  business  forgotten  for  once,  he  lay  on  his  back  in  a 
deep  armchair  with  his  long  legs  higher  than  his  head  and 
his  suede-shod  feet  tinkling  the  bric-a-brac  beside  them  on 
the  top  shelf  of  the  chiffonier,  while  he  purported  to 
be  composing  a  love-letter  in  modern  Greek.  Augustine 
looked  at  him  hopefully.  There  was  sound  truth  in 
what  he  had  said:  Germany  was  indeed  singularly  're- 
mote', in  the  sense  that  Germany  was  somewhere  utterly 
different. 

97 


98  THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC 

On  Augustine's  wartime  mind  of  course  had  once  been 
deeply  impressed  the  concept  of  Germans  as  quintessential 
'they' — as  Evil  Absolute,  the  very  soil  of  Germany  being 
poisoned.  Since  then,  victory  had  somehow  set  all  one's 
wartime  'we-they'  axes  in  a  flat  spin.  However,  that  hadn't 
made  Germany  'ordinary'  soil  again:  the  evil  magic  eman- 
ating from  it  had  not  been  dis-spelled,  it  had  become  good 
magic.  Today  it  was  rather  one's  own  country  and  one's 
own  wartime  allies  that  tended  to  look  black  in  young 
English  eyes  like  Augustine's,  while  Darkest  Germany  was 
bathed  in  a  mysterious,  a  holy  light.  .  . 

"The  new  Germany?  Hm.  .  .  I  see  what  you  mean.  .  ." 

"Yes-s-s-s!"  Douglas  almost  whistled,  with  all  his  old 
Oxford  sibilance:  "The  new  Germany!" 

Except  for  those  hissing  sounds  his  voice  was  always 
quiet,  and  he  had  learned  to  make  this  sort  of  speech  with- 
out the  least  betraying  tinge  of  irony  in  his  tone  as  he 
continued:  "For  it  is  indeed  utterly  new,  isn't  it?  The 
Kaiser  being  gone,  the  power  of  the  Prussian  Army  forever 
broken,  out  of  the  shattering  of  that  hard  and  horny 
chrysalis  has  emerged  the  new  German  s-s-soul.  .  .  a  tender 
and  shimmering  angel,  helpless  among  the  cynical  guilty 
victors  and  yet  with  so  much  to  teach  them!  Yes-s-s — 
well  worth  a  visit!  A  Weimar  Germany — all  Werfels, 
Thomas  Manns,  Einsteins,  Ernst  Tollers — all  nesting 
swallows,  democracy  and  peace!" 

"Shut  up!"  said  Augustine,  stirring  uneasily.  "All  the 
same,  I  think  I'll  go." 

"Do,  dear  boy,  do.  .  ."  said  Douglas  absently,  appear- 
ing to  bury  himself  again  in  his  Demotic.  But  in  fact  he 
was  silently  wondering  what  accounted  for  these  fantastic 
notions  about  Germany  'everybody'  now  held.  It  could 
hardly  be  just  that  little  bit  of  eloquence  from  Keynes 
.  .  .  nor  even  just  the  blessed  word  'Weimar'  brightening 
Ebert's  aura  with  a  few  rays  from  Goethe's  and  Schiller's 
.  .  .  then  too  there  had  been  the  shock  of  victory,  coming 
just  when  the  pendulum  had  reached  the  other  furthest 


POLLY  AND   RACHEL  99 

teetering-point  of  the  absurd.  .  .  'Perhaps  any  picture  so 
garishly  coloured  as  our  wartime  one  of  Germany  must 
inevitably  reverse  its  colours  if  stared-at  till  suddenly  the 
eye  tires.'  Moreover  the  concrete  British  imagination  tends 
always  to  project  its  fictive  Utopias  onto  some  map — and 
it  was  still  at  Germany  that  the  atlas  lay  open. 

— But  in  any  case,  this  dear  naif  was  better  among  new 
scenes  for  a  bit,  after  that  beastly  business.  .  .  though  not 
quite  so  far  off  as  China! 


Chapter  26 

Th  1  s  was  the  post-war  generation — Augustine  and 
Douglas  and  the  like.  Unconsciously,  and  from  below, 
those  four  war  years  would  condition  their  thinking  and 
feeling  all  their  lives  through. 

Five  years  had  now  passed  since  the  war's  ending,  and 
already  it  was  difficult  for  an  Augustine  consciously  to 
remember  that  so  short  a  while  ago  unnatural  death  had 
been  a  public  institution;  that  there  had  indeed  been  a 
time  when  the  tiny  thud  of  such  a  falling  farthing  spar- 
row as  Little  Rachel  would  have  gone  quite  unheard 
in  all  the  general  bereavement  (except  by  the  ears  of 
God).  Even  the  impression  of  the  Armistice  was  growing 
dim.  It  had  come  like  waking  with  a  jolt  out  of  a  bad 
dream,  that  sudden  victorious  ending  of  the  'Great  War' 
in  1 9 18:  one  moment  in  the  grip  of  nameless  incubi,  the 
next — sweating,  but  awake  and  incredulously  safe  between 
the  crumpled  sheets.  "Everyone  suddenly  burst  out  sing- 
ing"— so  wrote  Sassoon  at  Armistice-time:  "O,  but  every- 
one was  a  bird,  and  the  song  was  wordless,  and  the  singing 
will  never  be  done!"  But  now,  even  that  brief  singing 
aftermath  seemed  to  be  forgotten  too:  at  least,  by  the 
young.  It  had  quickly  subsided,  together  with  the  bad 
dream  it  ended,  below  the  threshold  of  recollection — as 
dreams  do. 

But  buried  beneath  that  threshold  the  war  years  per- 
sisted in  these  young  men  indestructible — as  dreams  do. 
Thus  it  is  imperative  for  us  to  draw  for  our  own  eyes  some 
sort  of  picture,  however  partial — some  parable  of  the 
impact  of  this  war  upon  them,  and  of  the  reasons. 

That  impact  had  been  from  the  first  on  British  minds 
something  unique  in  history;  for  in    19 14  Britain  had 


POLLY  AND  RACHEL  101 

known  no  major  war  for  ninety-nine  years — a  unique  con- 
dition; and  most  folk  in  Britain  had  come  to  believe  in 
their  bones  such  wars  were  something  Western  man  had 
quite  outgrown.  Thus  its  coming  again  in  19 14  had  been 
over  the  head  of  a  bottommost  belief  it  couldn't.  So 
people's  reactions  tended  to  be  'as  if'  they  were  now  at 
war  rather  than  'that'  they  were  at  war:  almost  more 
appropriate  to  make-believe  than  to  belief. 

Yet  there  is  reason  to  talk  as  we  have  done  of  their  state 
rather  on  the  analogy  of  'dream'  than  of  'make-believe' : 
for  this  was  no  voluntary  make-believe,  they  were  soon  to 
discover — this  was  true  dreaming:  compulsory,  compul- 
sive, like  Polly's  nightmare.  If  their  state,  then,  was  dream- 
like, was  this  war  'dream'  at  least  in  part  a  projection 
of  some  deep  emotional  upheaval  such  as  compulsive 
Freudian  dreams  like  Polly's  are  born  of — an  upheaval  by 
which  familiar  things  and  people  were  all  changed,  just  as 
in  dreams?  An  upheaval  from  the  very  roots  of  being,  like 
earth's  queasy  belly  abruptly  gurgling  up  hot  lava  onto 
the  green  grass? 

That  could  be,  if  modern  man  had  been  trying  to 
ignore  (as  perhaps  he  had  been)  what  seems  to  be  one  of 
the  abiding  terms  of  the  human  predicament. 


Primitive  man  is  conscious  that  the  true  boundary  of  his 
self  is  no  tight  little  stockade  round  one  lonely  perceiving 
'I',  detached  wholly  from  its  setting:  he  knows  there  is 
always  some  overspill  of  self  into  penumbral  regions — the 
perceiver's  footing  in  the  perceived.  He  accepts  as  naturally 
as  the  birds  and  beasts  do  his  union  with  a  part  of  his 
environment,  and  scarcely  distinguishes  that  from  his 
central  'I'  at  all.  But  he  knows  also  his  self  is  not  infinitely 
extensible  either:  on  the  contrary,  his  very  identity  with 
one  part  of  his  environment  opposes  him  to  the  rest  of  it, 
the  very  friendliness  of  'this'  implies  a  balancing  measure 
of  hostility  in — and  towards — 'all  that'.  Yet  the  whole 


io2  THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

tale  of  civilised  man's  long  and  toilsome  progress  from  the 
taboos  of  Eden  to  the  psychiatrist's  clinic  could  be  read  as 
a  talc  of  his  efforts,  in  the  name  of  emergent  Reason,  to 
confine  his  concept  of  self  wholly  within  Descartes'  incon- 
testable cogitating  T;  or  alternatively,  recoiling  rebuffed 
off  that  adamantine  pinpoint,  to  extend  'self  outwards  in- 
finitely— to  pretend  to  awareness  of  every  one  as  universal 
'we',  leaving  no  'they'  anywhere  at  all. 

Selfhood  is  not  wholly  curtailed  within  the  T:  every 
modern  language  still  witnesses  the  perpetuity  of  that 
primitive  truth.  For  what  else  but  affirmations  of  two 
forms  of  that  limited  overspill  of  '/'-ness  are  the  two  words 
'we'  and  'my'  (the  most  potent  words  we  have:  the  most 
ancient  meanings)?  These  are  in  the  full  sense  'personal' 
pronouns  for  they  bring  others  right  inside  our  own  'per- 
son'. Moreover  the  very  meaning  of  'we'  predicates  a 
'they'  in  our  vocabulary,  'meum'  and  'alienum'. 

That  primitive  truth  about  selfhood  we  battle  against  at 
our  peril.  For  the  absolute  solipsist — the  self  contained 
wholly  within  the  ring-fence  of  his  own  minimal  innermost 
*F  and  for  whom  'we'  and  'my'  are  words  quite  without 
meaning — the  asylum  doors  gape.  It  is  the  we-they  and 
meum-alienum  divisions  which  draw  the  sane  man's  true 
ultimate  boundary  on  either  side  of  which  lie  quantities 
of  opposite  sign,  regions  of  opposite  emotional  charge:  an 
electric  fence  (as  it  were)  of  enormous  potential.  Yet 
emergent  Reason  had  attempted  to  deny  absolutely  the 
validity  of  any  such  line  at  all!  It  denied  it  by  posing  the 
unanswerable  question:  Where,  in  the  objective  world,  can 
such  a  line  ever  reasonably  be  drawn?  But  surely  it  is  that 
question  itself  which  is  invalid.  By  definition  the  whole 
system  of  'self  lies  within  the  observer:  at  the  most,  its 
shadow  falls  across  the  objective  observed.  Personality  is 
a.  felt  concept:  the  only  truth  ever  relevant  about  selfhood 
must  be  emotional,  not  intellectual  truth.  We  must  answer 
then  that  objectively  the  we-they  dividing  line  'reasonably' 
lies. .  .  wherever  in  a  given  context  the  opposing  emotional 


POLLY  AND   RACHEL  103 

charges  for  the  moment  place  it:  wherever  it  brings  into 
balance  the  feelings  of  owning  and  disowning,  the  feelings 
of  loving  and  hating,  trusting  and  fearing.  .  .  'right'  and 
'wrong'.  For  normally  (at  least  up  to  now)  each  of  these 
feelings  seems  to  predicate  its  opposite,  and  any  stimulus  to 
the  one  seems  to  stimulate  the  other  in  unregenerate  man. 
In  short,  it  is  as  if  it  were  the  locus  of  this  emotional  balance 
that  circumscribes  and  describes  the  whole  self,  almost 
as  the  balance  of  opposite  electrical  forces  describes  the 
atom. 

Perhaps  in  the  neighbourhood  of  death  or  under  the 
shadow  of  heaven  man,  in  a  dissolution  as  potent  as  the 
splitting  atom  his  analogue,  can  experience  love  only.  .  . 
or,  in  the  shadow  of  madness  and  hell,  conceivably  hate 
only.  But  normal  man  seems  not  to  be  able  to,  normally, 
unaided;  and  even  the  all-loving  Christ  still  kept  one 
counterbalancing  'they'  outside  for  utter  hatred  and 
spurning:  Sin. 

In  terms  of  our  picture  of  the  'self,  then — of  this  our 
parable  of  a  system  contained  within  the  observer,  its 
shadow  (only)  shifting  like  the  shadow  of  a  cloud  across 
the  landscape — 'objectively'  old  we-they  dichotomies  will 
appear  to  be  continually  replaced  by  new.  On  the  scale  of 
history,  old  oppositions  such  as  Christian  and  Paynim  will 
in  time  give  way  to  Papist  and  Protestant:  these  in  turn 
to  distinctions  of  colour  and  race,  local  habitation,  social 
class,  opposite  political  systems:  but  whatever  the  changing 
content  of  the  opposing  categories,  the  love-hate  balances 
of  kinship  and  alienation  inherent  in  man  would,  un- 
affected, continue. 

But  suppose  that  in  the  name  of  emergent  Reason  the 
very  we-they  line  itself  within  us  had  been  deliberately  so 
blurred  and  denied  that  the  huge  countervailing  charges 
it  once  carried  were  themselves  dissipated  or  suppressed? 
The  normal  penumbra  of  the  self  would  then  become  a 
no-man's-land:  the  whole  self-conscious  being  is  rendered 
unstable — it  has  lost  its  'footing':  the  perceiver  is  left 


io4  THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

without  emotional  adhesion  anywhere  to  the  perceived, 
like  a  sea-anemone  which  has  let  go  its  rock. 

Then  surely,  in  this  entropy  of  the  whole  self,  the 
depleted  voltages  must  cry  out  for  a  re-charge  and  dicho- 
tomies new!  In  comparison  with  that  psychic  need 
material  security  will  suddenly  seem  valueless.  Reasonable 
motive-constructs  such  as  'Economic  Man'  and  the  like 
will  be  revealed  as  constructs,  their  motivation  being  quite 
overthrown  or  adapted  as  conduits  for  much  deeper 
springs.  In  such  a  state  the  solipsist-malgre-lui  may  well 
turn  to  mad  remedies,  to  pathological  dreaming;  for  his 
struggles  to  regain  his  'footing'  would  indeed  be  an  up- 
heaval from  being's  very  roots.  .  .  gurgling  up  hot  lava 
suddenly  onto  the  green  grass. 


Chapter  2J 

ESPECiALLYin  modern  England  had  it  been  held  to  be  the 
measure  of  man's  civilisation,  how  much  they  strove  to 
kick  against  these  particular  pricks.  Elsewhere,  nationalism 
or  the  class-struggle  were  in  the  comforting  ascendant;  but 
here,  Liberal  'Reason'  had  done  its  utmost  to  keep  both 
emotionally  weak.  Thus  here  there  had  been  no  adequate 
replacement  for  the  once-unbridgeable  hereditary  castes 
and  trades  which  had  now  so  long  been  melting:  now,  too, 
that  derided  nigger-line  at  Calais  was  growing  shamefast, 
weakening:  so  was  the  old  damnation-line  between  Chris- 
tian and  heathen;  and  even  (since  Darwin)  the  once- 
absolute  division  between  man  and  beast. 

Moreover  in  the  last  century  the  once-dominant  Liberal 
mystique  of  Laissez-faire  had  called  on  man  to  renounce 
even  his  natural  tendency  to  love  his  neighbour — the 
workless  starving  craftsman,  stunted  women  sweating  in 
the  mills,  naked  child-Jezebels  dying  in  the  mines  and  the 
sore  chimney-boys.  Ignoring  what  an  unnatural  and 
dangerous  exercise  this  is  for  ordinary  men  (this  trying 
not  to  love  even  mildly  even  such  neighbours  as  those), 
the  earliest  English  'Liberals'  had  loudly  denounced  that 
strong  implanted  urge:  not  only  as  a  Tory  obstacle  to 
economic  progress,  but  worse — as  a  blasphemy  against 
their  rational  doctrine  of  total  separation  of  persons,  a 
trespass  on  the  inalienable  right  of  the  helpless  to  be 
helped  by  no  one  but  himself. 

Now,  coming  full  circle,  you  were  called  on  to  love  all 
mankind  at  large,  coupled  for  good  measure  with  all 
created  nature!  The  Humanist  'we'  of  infinite  extension. 
Yes,  but  how?  For  'Sin'  nowadays  evoked  nothing  stronger 
than  a  mild  distaste — the  lifted  eyebrow,  not  the  lifted 
rod;  and  they  had  found  no  substitute  for  Sin. 

105 


io6  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

In  19 1 4,  then,  there  was  something  of  an  emotional  void 
in  England:  and  into  it  war-patriotism  poured  like  Noah's 
Flood.  For  the  invasion  of  Belgium  seemed  once  again  to 
present  an  issue  in  the  almost-forgotten  terms  of  right  and 
wrong — always  incomparably  the  most  powerful  motive  of 
human  conduct  that  history  has  to  show.  Thus  the  day 
Belgium  was  invaded  every  caged  Ego  in  England  could 
at  last  burst  its  false  Cartesian  bonds  and  go  mafficking 
off  into  its  long-abandoned  penumbral  regions  towards 
boundaries  new-drawn. 

The  effect  was  immediate.  The  boy  Jeremy,  lying  on 
his  sickbed  paralysed  throughout  that  hot  19 14  summer, 
had  seen  with  the  clear  and  detached  eye  of  the  child  who 
has  nearly  died  just  such  an  extraordinary  change  over- 
take his  elders  when  'war'  was  declared — so  he  told  Augus- 
tine afterwards,  wondering:  he  had  seen  his  father  that 
gentle  clergyman  suddenly  lift  up  his  nose  and  begin 
baying  for  blood  as  naturally  as  any  foxhound. 

The  dim  world  had  come  out  for  them  all  in  clear  con- 
trasting colours  again,  like  a  landscape  after  rain:  every- 
thing, taking  sides  at  last,  looked  nobler  or  more  villainous. 
And  thus  in  simple  minds  and  minds  not-so-simple  too  had 
quickly  been  conjured  all  that  whole  new  potent  'we-they' 
dream-phantasmagoria  typical  of  19 14  (thought  Jeremy): 
Martyred  Belgium.  . .  our  brave  Utile  Servia,  with  the  big  benignant 
Russian  Bear  lumbering  to  his  rescue;  and  against  them, 
Decrepit,  tyrannical  Austria,  with  chiefest  'they'  of  al.1  GER- 
MANY, Belgium's  Ravisher,  who  now  unmasked  features  of 
wickedest  quintessential  they! 

Their  'we'  too  had  been  re-born;  for  the  two-ended  com- 
pass needle,  ceasing  to  dither,  cannot  point  to  the  north 
without  faithfully  pointing  to  the  south  as  well.  If  war  (and 
lesser  crime  too,  for  that  matter)  pointed  to  hate  alone, 
would  man  find  the  difficulty  he  palpably  does  find  in 
renouncing  them  both — war,  and  crime?  Surely  the  love, 
rather,  is  the  lode:  it  is  the  love  two-ended  war  points  to 
which  will  always  suck  us  into  it  if  deprived  of  enough 


POLLY  AND   RACHEL  107 

natural  loving  to  do  in  the  ways  of  peace.  Certainly  the 
enthralment  over  Britons  in  19 14  of  this  their  war-dream 
was  not  hate  but  that  it  enabled  Britons  to  love  Britons 
again.  Officers  found  themselves  now  able  to  love  the 
Regiment,  soldiers  their  officers:  the  non-combatant  loved 
both — every  uniform  designated  a  Hero  and  a  gallant 
grave  among  the  nodding  poppies  of  Flanders  was  to  be 
their  guerdon,  so 

So  sing  with  joyful  breath: 

For  why,  you  are  going  to  death.  .  .  . 

The  public  dream  was  now  in  full  pelt:  moreover  as  the 
dream  deepened  everything  grew  even  more  symbolical. 
Grey  hordes  of  'THEY'  raven  on  the  lovely  virginal  flesh  of  La 
Belle  France:  the  Russian  Bear  turned  into  a  Steamroller, 
but  was  thrown  back  on  his  haunches  in  an  agonising 
halt:  indeed,  now  tridented  Britannia  herself  stands  with  her 
back  to  the  wall;  but 

Loudly  over  the  distant  seas 
The  Empire's  call  rang  across  the  breeze: 
"Children  of  mine!  Tour  liberties 
Are  threatened  now  by  might!" 

Then  Britain's  bronzed  sons  overseas  lay  down  the  sheep-shears 
and  the  reaping-hook,  hastening  at  the  Mother's  call,  and 

Tramp,  tramp,  tramp,  the  boys  are  coming.  .  . 

After  the  war,  in  a  'waking'  state,  it  was  just  such  potent 
love-fantasies  as  these  which  came  most  particularly  to  be 
derided:  the  most  implausible  materialist  motives  were 
invented  to  account  for  the  Empire's  whole-hearted  entry 
into  the  war  (as  for  Britain's  too).  Yet  surely  all  this  had 
been  true  dreaming!  Why  need  there  have  been  anything 
faked,  anything  despicable,  an)  thing  wrong  or  ridiculous 
about  these  love-fantasies?  Surely  for  the  most  part  they 
were  noble  and  quite  true — come  through  the  Gate  of  Horn. 

After  the  war,  war-emotion  was  assumed  ex  hypothesi 


io8  THE  FOX  IN  THE  ATTIC 

to  be  all  hatred  because  men  then  wished  to  believe  war- 
making  something  easy  to  slough  off;  and  hatred  is  akin 
to  suffering.  .  .  so  what  sane  man  ever  positively  wishes 
to  hate? 

They  deliberately  forgot  the  love  war  stimulates  too. 

The  public  dream  was  now  in  full  pelt:  but  not  yet  the 
public  nightmare  it  was  presently  to  become. 

A  private  nightmare  too  can  begin  nobly,  pleasurably. 
Silver  ponies  skimming  summer  meadows.  .  .  a  soaring  on 
wings  among  restless  star-fronted  towers,  over  alabaster 
domes  mirrored  in  shining  lakes.  .  .  but  then  suddenly  the 
dream  changes  phase,  the  wings  shrink  to  a  tight  winding- 
sheet  and  the  dreamer  plummets,  the  topless  towers  turn 
to  dizzy  unbanistered  stairways  climbing  to  nowhere  up 
nothing. 

Then  the  translucent  lakes  become  the  rocking  oceans 
paved  with  accusing  faces:  then  come  the  staring  idiot 
monkeys  and  the  hollow  derisive  parakeets,  the  stone 
coffin  at  the  heart  of  the  pyramid,  the  'cancerous  kisses  of 
crocodiles'  the  slimy  things  and  the  Nilotic  mud.  .  . 

The  Flanders  mud,  the  slime  of  putrefying  bodies.  The 
accusing  sunken  eyesockets  trodden  in  the  trench  floor. 
The  gargled  pink  froth,  and  an  all-pervading  smell. 


Chapter  28 

There  had  never  been  so  much  death  in  any  earlier 
war:  nothing  comparable. 

In  the  one  battle  of  Passchendaele  alone  the  British 
alone  lost  nearly  half  a  million  men.  But  mostly  it  was  war 
hardly  separable  into  battles — a  killing  going  on  all  the 
time:  without  apparent  military  object,  although  in  fact 
a  deliberate  military  policy  called  'attrition'.  For  while  so 
many  men  on  both  sides  were  still  alive  between  the  Alps 
and  the  Narrow  Seas  the  generals  on  both  sides  had  no 
room  for  manoeuvre;  and  in  manoeuvre  alone  (they  both 
thought)  lay  any  hope  of  a  decision. 

But  so  prolific  had  civilised  western  man  become  it 
proved  no  easy  task,  this  killing  enough  in  the  enemy  ranks 
and  your  own  to  make  room  to  move.  Even  after  some 
four  years,  when  some  fourteen  million  men  all  told  had 
been  killed  or  maimed  or  broken  in  nerve,  it  had  scarcely 
been  achieved.  Always  there  seemed  to  be  new  boys  in 
every  country  growing  to  manhood  to  fill  the  gaps; 
whereon  the  gaps  had  to  be  made  all  over  again. 

Boys  of  Augustine's  age  had  been  children  when  the  war 
began  and  as  children  do  they  accepted  the  world  into 
which  they  had  been  born,  knowing  no  other:  it  was  normal 
because  it  was  normal.  After  a  while  they  could  hardly 
remember  back  before  it  began;  and  it  hardly  entered 
their  comprehension  that  one  day  the  war  could  end. 

Merely  they  knew  they  were  unlikely  to  live  much 
beyond  the  age  of  nineteen;  and  they  accepted  this  as  the 
natural  order  of  things,  just  as  mankind  in  general  accepts 
the  unlikelihood  of  living  much  beyond  eighty  or  so.  It 
was  one  of  those  natural  differences  between  boys  and 
girls:  girls  such  as  Mary  would  live  out  their  lives,  but  not 
their  brothers.  So,  generation  after  generation  of  boys  grew 

109 


mo  THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC 

big,  won  their  colours,  and  a  few  terms  later  were.  .  . 
mere  names,  read  aloud  in  chapel  once.  As  list  succeeded 
list  the  time  of  other  littler  boys  for  the  slaughterhouse  was 
drawing  nearer;  but  they  scarcely  gave  it  a  thought  as  they 
in  turn  grew  into  big  boys,  won  their  football  colours. 

After  all,  it  is  only  grown  men  ever  who  think  of  school 
as  a  microcosm,  a  preparation  for  adult  life:  to  most  boys 
at  any  time  school  is  life,  is  itself  the  cosmos:  a  rope  in 
the  air  you  will  climb,  higher  and  higher,  and — then, 
quite  vanish  into  somewhere  incomprehensible  anyhow. 
Thus  in  general  they  seemed  quite  indifferent.  Yet  some- 
times the  death  of  someone  very  close — a  brother,  or  a 
father  perhaps — would  bring  home  to  them  momentarily 
that  being  killed  is  radically  different  from  that  mere 
normal  disappearing  into  the  grown-up  shado w- world : 
is  being  no  more  even  a  shadow  on  the  earth. 

When  Augustine's  cousin  Henry  was  killed — the  heir  to 
Newton  Llantony — the  change  in  Augustine's  'prospects' 
had  meant  nothing  to  him  at  all;  for  his  real  prospects 
were  still  unchanged:  to  tread  the  universal  path  that 
Henry  had  just  trodden.  But  Henry's  death  did  make  a 
deep  impression  on  him  of  this  other  kind,  a  sudden 
blinding  intimation  of  mortality. 

Augustine  at  this  time  had  been  seventeen,  a  sergeant 
in  the  school  Officers'  Training  Corps.  That  afternoon 
with  his  mother's  opened  letter  in  his  pocket  he  was  taking 
a  squad  of  little  boys  in  bayonet-practice.  Scowling  as 
savagely  as  he  could  he  jerked  out  the  staccato  commands 
"In! — Out! — On  guard!"  while  the  little  boys  struggled 
with  their  heavy  rifles  and  bayonets  to  jab  the  swinging 
sacks  of  straw  called  'Germans',  piping  as  they  did  so  the 
officially-taught  obscenities  supposed  to  arouse  blood-lust 
in  them. 

Suddenly  the  moment  of  self- revelation  came  to  Augus- 
tine, more  vividly  than  he  had  ever  felt  it  since  the  first 
time  in  childhood — the  realisation  that  within  his  'we'  and 


POLLY  AND   RACHEL  in 

distinct  from  it  there  was  too  one  irreplaceable  T.  But 
this  time  there  came  with  it  the  awful  corollary:  it  is  the 
'I'  which  dies.  .  .  '/  shall  die.  .  .'  and  at  the  same  moment 
he  felt  the  tender  flesh  of  his  belly  and  the  very  guts 
within  shrinking  back  as  from  a  stabbing  bayonet-point. 

For  a  moment  his  face  went  grey  with  fear. 

Just  then  a  pretty  four-foot  choirboy  shrilled:  "Knock 
his  b  ...  s  out  of  the  back  of  his  bloody  neck!" — The  child 
took  a  flying  punt-kick  at  the  swinging  sack  and  landed 
on  his  behind  in  the  mud,  the  rifle  clattering  from  his  hand. 

Some  bigger  boys  laughed.  But  Augustine  angrily 
reproved  their  frivolity  and  the  solemn  bayonet-practice 
went  on. 

Augustine  had  left  school  and  was  on  the  last  lap  of  all 
— at  a  training  camp  for  young  officers — when  the  guns 
stopped. 

The  war  had  ended.  He  was  eighteen.  The  shock  was 
stupendous. 

No  one  had  warned  him  he  might  after  all  find  himself 
with  his  life  to  live  out:  with  sixty  years  still  to  spend, 
perhaps,  instead  of  the  bare  six  months  he  thought  was  all 
he  had  in  his  pocket.  Peace  was  a  condition  unknown  to 
him  and  scarcely  imaginable.  The  whole  real-seeming 
world  in  which  he  had  grown  to  manhood  had  melted 
round  him.  It  was  not  till  Oxford  he  had  even  begun  to 
build  a  new  world — he,  and  his  whole  generation — from 
the  foundations  up. 

Perhaps  then  the  key  to  much  that  seems  strange 
about  that  generation  is  just  this:  their  nightmare  had  been 
so  vivid!  They  might  think  they  had  now  forgotten  it,  but 
the  harmless  originals  of  many  of  its  worst  metamorphoses 
were  still  charged  for  them  with  a  nameless  horror.  .  . 
Just  as  Polly  that  night,  when  after  waking  she  saw  Augus- 
tine's harmless  real  figure  standing  in  her  bedroom  door- 
way, had  screamed  at  it  so.  Just  as  next  morning,  her 
dream  ostensibly  forgotten,  she  had  yet  lain  away  from 


lis  THE   FOX   IN  THE  ATTIC 

him  on  the  mattress's  extreme  edge — as  companionable  as 
a  three-foot  plank  of  wood. 

Oxford  is  always  luminous;  but  at  first  in  those  post-war 
days  Oxford  had  been  an  older  and  more  hysterical  society 
than  in  normal  times.  Colonels  and  even  a  brigadier  or 
two  twisted  commoners'  gowns  round  grizzled  necks: 
young  ex-captains  were  countless.  But  between  the  Augus- 
tines  who  had  never  seen  the  trenches  and  these,  the 
remnant  who  for  years  had  killed  yet  somehow  had  not 
been  killed  back,  an  invisible  gulf  was  fixed.  Friendship 
could  never  quite  bridge  it.  Secretly  and  regretfully  and 
even  enviously  the  men  yet  felt  something  lacking  in  these 
unblooded  boys,  like  being  eunuchs;  and  the  boys,  deeply 
respecting  and  pitying  them,  agreed.  But  the  older  men 
understood  each  other  and  cherished  each  other  charitably. 
They  knew  they  sweated  sometimes  for  no  reason,  and  the 
sweat  smelt  of  fear.  Their  tears  came  easily,  making  the 
boys  ashamed:  they  had  moments  of  violence.  They  tended 
to  find  knowledge  difficult  to  memorise. 

That  was  in  the  first  twelve  months  or  so,  before  they 
hardened  over;  and  in  two  years  most  of  them  were  gone. 
The  young  ex-captains  and  the  uncrowned  kings  like 
Lawrence  departed,  their  places  were  taken  by  freshmen 
younger  than  Augustine  still — the  Jeremies,  milk-fresh 
from  school.  But  one  belief  had  been  shared  absolutely  on 
both  sides  of  the  gulf,  and  in  England  continued  for  a  long 
time  to  be  held  by  those  who  came  thereafter:  it  was  built 
into  the  very  structure  of  Augustine's  new  world:  never  till 
the  end  of  Time  could  there  be  another  war. 

Life  in  the  years  so  unexpectedly  to  come  might  hold 
many  hazards  for  this  and  for  succeeding  generations;  but 
that  hazard  could  be  discounted. 

Any  government  which  ever  again  anywhere  even  talked 
of  war  would  next  minute  be  winkled  out  of  Whitehall 
or  the  Wilhelmstrasse  or  wherever  by  its  own  unanimous 
citizens  and  hanged  like  stoats. 


BOOK  TWO 

The  White  Crow 


Chapter  i 

In  his  little  office  in  Lorienburg,  the  castle  Mary  had 
visited  in  her  girlhood  before  the  war,  sat  the  mag- 
nificent Otto  von  Kessen  she  had  so  lately  dreamed  of.  He 
was  rubbing  his  chin,  which  felt  pleasingly  rough  to  the 
touch  after  the  papers  he  had  been  fingering  all  afternoon. 

'Thursday  November  the  Eighth'  said  the  calendar  on 
the  wall.  The  cold  had  come  early  to  Bavaria  this  autumn, 
with  ten  degrees  of  frost  outside.  But  this  office  was  in  the 
thickness  of  the  castle's  most  ancient  part:  it  was  a  tiny 
twilight  room  with  a  sealed  double  window,  and  it  was  like 
an  oven.  There  were  beads  of  sweat  on  Baron  Otto's  fore- 
head, and  the  hot  air  over  the  huge  blue  porcelain  stove 
quivered  visibly:  it  kept  a  loose  strip  of  wallpaper  on  the 
wall  in  constant  agitation  like  a  pennon. 

This  monumental  stove  was  too  big:  with  its  stack  of 
wood  it  more  than  half  filled  the  room  and  the  space  left 
only  just  housed  the  safe  and  the  little  kneehole  desk  Otto 
was  sitting  at.  On  the  desk  stood  a  huge  ancient  type- 
writer of  British  make,  built  like  an  ironclad  and  with  two 
complete  banks  of  keys  (being  pre-shiftlock),  and  that 
incubus  also  took  up  far  too  much  space:  the  files  and 
ledgers  piled  high  beside  it  leaned,  like  Pisa.  In  such  a 
cubbyhole  there  was  no  possible  place  to  put  the  big  wire 
wastepaper  basket  other  than  under  the  desk,  yet  that  left 
a  man  nowhere  to  stretch  his  artificial  leg  in  comfort  and 
now  the  socket  was  chafing:  a  nerve  in  the  mutilated  hip 
had  begun  to  throb  neuralgically  against  the  metal  of  the 
heavy  revolver  in  Otto's  pocket. 

Otto  tried  hard  to  concentrate  on  the  sheets  of  accounts 
in  front  of  him  (he  acted  as  factotum  for  his  half-brother 
Walther  these  crippled  days).  These  were  the  last  and 
craziest  weeks  of  the   Great  Inflation  when   a  retired 

115 


n6  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

colonel's  whole  year's  pension  wouldn't  cobble  him  one 
pair  of  shoes:  Walther's  cheques  however  vast  were  still 
honoured,  but  only  because  he  was  able  to  keep  his  bank 
account  nowadays  in  terms  of  the  corn  he  grew  and  a 
cheque  drawn  for  trillions  of  marks  would  be  debited  as 
so  many  bushels  according  to  the  price  that  actual  hour. 
This  galloping  calculus  of  the  currency,  this  hourly 
acceleration  in  the  rise  of  all  prices  and  the  fall  of  all  real 
values,  made  endless  difficulties  for  Otto;  and  now  the 
shooting  pains  in  the  leg  which  wasn't  there  were  getting 
worse.  .  . 

'November  the  Eighth'  said  the  calendar:  almost  five 
years  to  the  day  since  the  old  world  ended. 


The  sound  of  wind.  .  .  the  bitter  Munich  wind  which 
had  swept  down  the  wide  spaces  of  the  Ludwigstrasse  that 
scudding  winter  day  nearly  five  years  ago,  alternating 
with  moments  of  unearthly  calm:  whipping  the  muffling 
rags  of  the  uncertain  crowd,  wildly  flapping  the  revolu- 
tionary red  banners  on  the  public  buildings  and  then 
leaving  them  pendulous  and  despondent. 

The  sound  of  marching  feet.  .  .  it  was  in  one  of  the  lulls 
of  the  wind  that  Otto  had  first  heard  that  dead  thudding 
sound,  and  a  sudden  stirring  and  a  murmur  had  passed 
through  the  crowd  for  this  could  be  none  of  Eisner's  'Red 
Guard'  rabble,  only  trained  Imperial  troops  marched 
with  such  absolute  precision.  But  to  Otto's  professional 
ear,  keen  as  a  musician's,  from  the  first  there  was  some- 
thing wrong  in  the  sound  of  that  marching.  A  hollowness 
and  a  deadness.  No  spring  in  the  step — it  sounded.  .  . 
wrong:  like  the  knocking  of  an  engine,  which  is  also  a 
precise  and  regular  sound  yet  presages  a  breakdown. 

Then,  through  the  front  ranks  of  the  crowd,  a  blur  of 
field-grey  and  steel  helmets  as  the  first  men  began  to  pass. 
Many  were  without  packs:  some  even  without  rifles:  their 
uniforms  were  still  caked  with  French  mud.  Someone  in 


THE  WHITE   CROW  117 

the  crowd  tried  to  cheer — for  this  was  their  menfolk's 
homecoming,  home  from  the  war,  home  to  be  demobil- 
ised; but  the  solitary  cheer  ended  in  a  fit  of  coughing  and 
nobody  took  it  up. 

The  men  marched  in  close  formation,  in  small  parties 
that  were  token  platoons,  detachment  after  detachment, 
with  wide  spaces  between,  so  that  the  dead  sound  of 
marching  came  in  waves,  rising  and  falling  regularly,  like 
sea-waves  on  shingle — only  varied  by  the  sullen  rumbling 
of  a  baggage-wagon  like  boulders  rolling. 

A  small  child,  pushed  forward  a  little  in  front  of  the 
crowd,  stood  motionless,  a  bunch  of  wilting  flowers  held 
out  in  front  of  her  in  a  chubby  fist;  but  no  soldier  accepted 
it,  no  one  even  looked  at  her,  not  one  smiled:  they  did  not 
even  seem  to  see  the  crowd.  They  marched  like  machines 
dreaming. 

Even  the  officers — the  first  these  five  chaotic  weeks  to 
appear  on  the  Munich  streets  in  uniform — wore  that 
empty  basilisk  look,  marching  with  men  they  hardly 
seemed  to  see;  but  at  this  sight  of  officers  there  rose  from 
the  onlookers  here  and  there  a  faint  and  almost  dis- 
embodied growl.  .  .  someone  behind  Otto  on  his  new 
crutches  jostled  him  aside  and  pressed  right  forward  out  of 
the  crowd,  right  past  the  child  too:  a  big  elderly  woman 
with  a  massive  bosom  and  a  huge  protruding  stomach, 
upright  as  a  ramrod  from  carrying  all  that  weight  in 
front:  a  flaunting  hag  with  a  lupus-ridden  face  and  hang- 
ing dewlaps,  wisps  of  grey  hair  under  a  railwayman's 
peaked  cap.  Deliberately  she  spat  on  the  ground  just 
where  a  young  major  was  about  to  tread.  But  he  seemed 
to  see  nothing,  not  even  that.  For  a  moment  it  looked  as 
if  she  was  going  to  attack  him;  but  then,  as  if  appalled, 
she  didn't. 

If  there  was  any  expression  at  all  on  any  of  these  wooden 
military  faces  it  was  a  potential  hatred :  a  hatred  that  had 
found  no  real  object  yet  to  fasten  on,  but  only  because 
nothing  in  the  somersaulted  world  around  seemed  real. 


u8  THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC 

God!  That  German  soldiers  should  ever  have  to  look 
like  that,  marching  through  a  German  crowd! 


Why  had  God  chosen  to  do  this  thing  to  His  German 
Army — the  very  salt  of  His  else-unsavoury  earth? 

Otto  bundled  his  papers  into  the  safe  and  locked  it,  for 
that  obsessive  dead  sound  of  marching  made  work  im- 
possible :  then  hoisted  himself  to  his  feet,  facing  the  window. 


Chapter  2 

In  England  the  ending  of  the  war  had  come  like  waking 
from  a  bad  dream:  in  defeated  Germany,  as  the  signal 
for  deeper  levels  of  nightmare.  The  symbols  and  the 
occasion  had  changed  but  in  Germany  it  was  still  that 
same  kind  of  compulsive  dreaming.  The  ex-soldier,  ex- 
pelled from  the  crumbled  Gemeinschaft  of  army  life,  had 
stepped  out  into  a  void.  The  old  order  had  shattered:  even 
money  was  rapidly  ebbing  away  from  between  men, 
leaving  them  desperately  incommunicado  like  men  ren- 
dered voiceless  by  an  intervening  vacuum:  millions,  still 
heaped  on  top  of  each  other  in  human  cities  yet  forced 
to  live  separate,  each  like  some  solitary  predatory  beast. 

Now  in  1923  prices  were  already  a  billion  times  the 
pre-war  figure  and  still  rocketing.  These  were  the  days 
spoken  of  by  Haggai  the  prophet,  when  'he  that  earneth 
wages,  earneth  wages  to  put  it  into  a  bag  with  holes' :  by 
Monday  a  workman's  whole  last-week's  wages  might  not 
pay  his  tramfare  back  to  work.  The  smallest  sum  in  any 
foreign  currency  was  hoarded  for  it  would  buy  almost 
anything;  but  nobody  held  German  money  five  minutes. 
Even  beer  was  an  investment  for  presently  you  got  more 
for  the  empty  bottle  than  you  had  paid  for  it  full. 

The  salaried  and  rentier  classes  were  becoming  sub- 
merged below  the  proletariat.  Wages  could  rise  (even  if 
always  too  little  and  too  late);  but  interest  and  pensions 
and  the  like,  and  even  salaries,  were  fixed.  Retired  senior 
officials  swept  the  streets.  The  government  official  still  in 
office  had  to  learn  to  temper  his  integrity  to  his  necessities: 
had  he  tried  to  stay  strictly  honest  a  little  too  long,  he 
would  have  died. 

When  the  solid  ground  drops  utterly  away  from  under 
a  man's  feet  like  that  he  is  left  in  a  state  of  free  fall:  he  is 

"9 


lao  i  HI     POX    IN   THE    ATTIC 

in  a  bottomless  pit  —a  hell.  Moreover  this  was  a  hell 
where  all  were  not  equitably  tailing  equally  together.  Some 
fell  slower  than  others:  even  peasants  could  resort  to 
barter  (you  went  marketing  with  your  poultry,  not  your 
purse);  and  many  rich  men  had  found  means  of  hardly 
falling  at  all.  There  they  were  still,  those  Walther  von 
Kessens  and  the  like,  tramping  about  solidly  up  there  like 
Dantes  in  full  view  of  all  the  anguished  others  who  were 
falling.  People  who  could  buy  things  for  marks  and  sell 
them  for  pounds  or  dollars  even  rose. 

A  hell  where  justice  was  not  being  done,  and  seen  not 
being  done. 

Consumption  has  always  to  be  paid  for.  Their  war  had 
been  very  conspicuous  consumption  but  in  Germany 
there  had  been  virtually  no  war-taxation  to  pay  for  it  on 
the  nail.  Thus  there  was  nothing  really  mysterious  about 
this  present  exhaustion  into  outer  space  of  every  last 
penn'orth  of  new  value  as  fast  as  it  was  created:  this  was 
a  kind  of  natural,  belated  capital-cum-income  levy — 
though  levied  now  not  equitably  by  any  human  govern- 
ment but  blindly,  by  Dis  himself.  Of  this  rationale  how- 
ever the  sufferers  had  no  inkling.  They  could  not  under- 
stand their  suffering,  and  inexplicable  suffering  turns  to 
hatred.  But  hatred  cannot  remain  objectless:  such  hatred 
precipitates  its  own  they,  its  own  someone-to-be-hated. 
In  a  hell  devoid  of  real  ministering  devils  the  damned 
invent  them  rather  than  accept  that  their  only  tormentors 
are  themselves  and  soon  these  suffering  people  saw  every- 
where such  'devils',  consciously  tormenting  them:  Jews, 
Communists,  Capitalists,  Catholics,  Cabbalists — even 
their  own  elected  government,  the  'November  Criminals'. 
Millions  of  horsepower  of  hatred  had  been  generated, 
more  hatred  than  the  real  situation  could  consume: 
inevitably  it  conjured  its  own  Enemy  out  of  thin  air. 

On  the  heels  of  that  hatred  came  also  the  inevitable 
reacting  love.  All  those  egos  violently  dislodged  from  their 


THE  WHITE   CROW  121 

old  penumbral  settings  were  now  groping  desperately  in 
the  face  of  that  dark  enveloping  phantasmal  they  to 
establish  a  new  'footing',  new  tenable  penumbral  frontiers 
of  the  Self:  inevitably  they  secreted  millions  of  horsepower 
of  love  that  the  actual  situation  also  couldn't  consume, 
and  therefore  precipitating  its  own  Active  we — its  myths 
of  Soil  and  Race,  its  Heroes,  its  kaleidoscope  of  Brother- 
hoods each  grappling  its  own  members  with  hoops  of 
steel. 

Its  Freikorps,  its  communist  cells:  its  Kampfbund,  with 
all  its  component  organisms:  its  Nazi  movement. 

After  the  official  cease-fire  in  1 9 1 8  fighting  still  went  on 
for  a  time  in  the  lost  Baltic  provinces  that  the  Armistice 
had  raped.  These  freelance  wars  were  a  more  amateur  and 
even  obscener  carnage  for  they  were  an  ill-armed  and 
merciless  Kilkenny-cats  all-against-all,  where  fanatical 
bands  of  Germans  in  a  state  of  bestial  heroism  fought  with 
Latvians,  Lithuanians,  Poles,  Bolsheviks,  British — even 
Germans  of  the  wrong  kidney.  It  was  one  way  of  staving 
off  this  generation's  Nemesis  of  Teace'. 

Otto's  young  nephew,  Franz  (the  'ten-year-old  tow- 
haired  Franz'  of  Mary's  pre-war  memories),  had  a  best 
schoolfriend  called  Wolff;  and  in  19 18  Wolff  had  enlisted 
in  those  wars  when  not  quite  sixteen. 

There  Wolff  had  vanished;  but  these  were  wars  fought 
without  benefit  of  war-office  and  published  no  casualty 
lists.  Even  now  no  one  could  say  for  certain  that  Wolff  had 
been  killed. 

Wolff's  younger  brother  Lothar  (for  one)  would  never 
believe  it.  Before  the  debacle  this  Lothar  had  been  sent  to 
the  same  fashionable  cadet-school  as  Wolff  and  Franz 
(their  father  the  gaunt  old  Geheimrat  Scheidemann  was  a 
retired  colonial  governor,  an  ex-colleague  in  Africa  of 
Goering  pere).  But  come  the  inflation  the  Scheidemanns 
had  not  the  same  solid  resources  as  the  von  Kessens,  nor 
foreign  investments  like  the  Goerings.  The  old  widower 


122  THE    FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC 

was  too  arthritic  now  to  work:  he  let  lodgings  in  his  big 
flat  near  the  'English  Garden'  in  Munich,  but  there  was 
not  much  left  nowadays  under  any  of  those  lofty  ornate 
ceilings  of  his  except  hard-lying  lodgers,  several  to  a  room. 
Eighteen-year-old  Lothar  who  was  supposed  to  be 
studying  law  thought  himself  lucky  to  have  landed  a  part- 
time  desk-clerk  job  at  the  Bayrischer-Hof  hotel  in  Munich 
where  most  of  the  clerks  and  waiters  were  sons  of  just  such 
middle-class  families  as  his,  and  were  nowadays  virtually 
their  families'  sole  support.  At  the  Bayrischer-Hof,  too, 
some  at  least  of  Lothar's  meals  were  provided.  But  no  one 
could  expect  so  good  a  job  all  to  himself,  and  Lothar 
shared  his  turn-about  with  a  fellow  student.  On  his  off- 
days  he  lived  chiefly  on  memories  of  his  hotel  meals, 
dining  in  retrospect.  One  night  when  he  was  supperless 
like  this  he  dreamed  he  had  been  sacked,  and  woke 
screaming:  other  times  he  dreamed  of  his  brother  Wolff — 
the  wild  one  who  had  vanished — and  woke  in  tears. 

This  morning  at  the  hotel  Lothar  had  had  a  windfall:  a 
young  Englishman  who  had  spent  the  night  there  asked 
him  to  change  an  English  ten-shilling  note. 

Lothar  had  changed  it  out  of  his  own  pocket:  no  one 
would  be  such  a  fool  as  to  put  good  English  money  in  the 
till.  He  buckled  it  safely  inside  his  shirt.  He  had  changed  it 
into  marks  for  Augustine  quite  fairly  at  the  rate  current 
that  morning;  but  even  by  midday  it  was  worth  ten  times 
as  much. 


Chapter  3 

So  Augustine  with  his  pocket  full  of  marks  caught  the 
mainline  train  for  Kammstadt  where  he  had  to  change, 
and  soon  after  his  departure  Lothar  came  off  duty. 

Habitually  Lothar  spent  most  of  his  time  off  duty  at  a 
certain  gymnasium  near  the  Southern  Station.  The  neigh- 
bourhood was  a  bit  medical,  but  convenient  for  the 
Teresienwiese  Sportsground  with  its  running-tracks.  He 
went  there  for  physical  training  and  to  meet  his  friends  as 
in  Sparta  of  old;  for  the  company  he  met  here  was  indeed 
a  noble  sodality,  the  very  flower  of  German  youth;  and 
Lothar  was  proud  and  humble  to  be  accepted  as  one  of 
them. 

He  found  here  that  decent,  modest,  manly  kind  of 
idealism  as  necessary  to  youth  everywhere  as  desert 
watersprings.  'True',  thought  Lothar,  'we  are  come  here 
to  exercise  only  our  brute  bodies;  but  in  fact  how  inno- 
cently do  Body  and  Spirit  walk  hand  in  hand!  How  much 
more  often  the  Eye  of  Horns' — their  private  name  for  that 
rare  hawklike  eye  that  pierces  to  the  spiritual  behind  every 
material  veil — 'is  found  in  the  faces  of  simple  athletes  than 
of  philosophers  or  priests!'  Lothar  himself  was  intelligent 
enough  but  had  found  it  only  a  hindrance  in  this  company; 
and  he  had  the  more  need  for  friends  now  that  his  brother 
the  noble  Wolff  was  gone. 

So  Lothar  with  Augustine's  half-Bradbury  still  safe 
inside  his  shirt  betook  himself  to  his  gymnasium;  and  at 
the  first  whiff  of  all  the  delicious  manliness  within  its 
echoing  portals  he  snorted  like  a  horse.  The  abiding  smell 
of  men's  gymnasiums  is  a  cold  composite  one,  compounded 
of  the  sweet  strawberry-smell  of  fresh  male  sweat,  the 
reek  of  thumped  leather  and  the  dust  trampled  into  the 
grain  of  the  floor  and  confirmed  there  by  the  soapy  mops 

123 


124  THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

of  cleaners;  but  to  eighteen-year-old  Lothar  this  tang 
meant  everything  that  the  wind  on  the  heath  meant  to 
Petulengro  and  he  snorted  at  it  now  like  a  horse  let  out 
to  spring  grass. 

Today  Lothar  began  with  a  few  loosening-excrcises, 
starting  with  neck  and  shoulders,  then  the  fingers,  and 
ending  with  ankles  and  insteps.  After  that  he  hung  from 
the  wall-bars,  raising  and  lowering  his  legs  to  strengthen 
the  abdomen;  for  that  muscular  wall  is  of  the  greatest 
importance,  since  not  only  does  it  control  the  body's 
hinge  on  which  everything  else  depends  but  it  also  pro- 
tects the  solar  plexus  with  its  sacred  emotions. 

At  the  far  end  of  this  bare  hall  filled  with  the  echoes  of 
young  men's  staccato  voices  the  wall  was  painted  a  light 
green  with  a  broad  off-white  band  at  the  height  of  a 
tennis-net,  for  solo  practice.  Lothar  was  fond  of  tennis, 
but  alas  in  May  19 19  when  von  Epp  was  'cleansing' 
Munich  someone  had  stood  Reds  against  it  so  now  the 
brickwork  (particularly  in  and  close  to  that  white  band) 
was  too  badly  bullet-pocked  for  a  tennis-ball  ever  again  to 
return  off  it  true.  Thus  if  the  arms  and  shoulders  of  some 
quill-driver  like  Lothar  needed  building  up  he  had  really 
nothing  more  interesting  to  turn  to  than  dumb-bells  and 
Indian  clubs.  Today  moreover  when  he  came  down  off 
the  wall  Lothar  found  the  vaulting-horse  crowded  and 
also  the  parallel  bars;  so  he  went  straight  to  the  mat  of  the 
small  pug-nosed  world  war  sergeant  who  taught  them  all 
jiu-jitsu. 

Jiu-jitsu  (or  Judo),  being  the  art  of  using  unbearable 
pain  for  the  conquest  of  brute  force,  has  an  irresistible 
attraction  for  young  imaginations,  boys'  almost  as  much 
as  girls'.  Lothar  was  obsessed  by  it  these  days.  Since  it  is 
the  technique  of  unarmed  self-defence  the  instructor 
taught  you  how  to  take  your  enemy  unawares  and  break 
arm  or  leg  before  he  can  even  begin  his  treacherous  assault 
on  you :  how  to  fling  spinning  out  of  a  window  a  man  big 
enough  to  be  your  father,  and  so  on.  Lothar  was  slightly, 


THE  WHITE   CROW  125 

almost  girlishly  built  but  he  had  a  quite  exceptional 
natural  quickness  of  movement,  and  lately  at  political 
meetings  or  the  like  he  had  sometimes  had  occasion  to  use 
that  natural  quickness  and  these  acquired  skills  outside 
and  in  earnest.  At  grips  with  some  older  and  angrier  and 
stronger  but  helplessly-fumbling  human  body  he  had  then 
been  astonished  to  find  how  deeply  his  aesthetic  emotions 
could  be  stirred  by  his  own  impeccable  performance.  The 
aesthetic  satisfaction  of  that  culminating  moment  could 
be  almost  epileptically  intense:  Lothar  was  not  uncul- 
tured, but  surely  no  poem  nor  even  music  had  ever 
offered  him  one  tenth  part  of  this. 

O  happy,  happy  youths — hungry  and  happy! 

'Isn't  life  wonderful!'  thought  Lothar,  towelling  his  lean 
body  in  the  changing-room  that  afternoon:  'What  a  dis- 
pensation of  Providence  that  we,  the  German  Remnant, 
should  have  found  each  other  in  this  predestined  way  and 
grappled  ourselves  so  tight  with  our  comradely  love!'  For 
with  the  secret  enemies  of  Germany  ever  ceaselessly  at 
work  tension  these  last  few  weeks  was  everywhere  mount- 
ing: surely  any  minute  now  the  storm  must  break.  . . 

But  then  suddenly  Lothar  remembered  that  this  was  a 
Thursday,  and  at  that  his  heart  leapt.  At  weekends  most 
of  this  same  sodality  went  out  from  Munich,  drawn  by  the 
silence  and  the  purity  of  the  ancient  German  forests,  to 
sing  ancient  German  songs  together  as  they  marched  down 
the  rides  between  the  echoing  tree-trunks:  to  meet  in 
secret  deer-haunted  glades  to  perfect  their  formation-drill: 
to  practise  in  that  pine-sweet  air  such  quasi-military 
pastimes  as  'the  naming  of  parts'. 

Such  times  as  Captain  Goering  himself  was  coming  the 
whole  band  of  brothers  wore  death's-heads  in  their  caps, 
and  carried  arms. 


Chapter  4 

Schloss  lorienburg  was  built  on  a  precipitous  tree- 
clad  mound  in  a  bend  of  the  stripling  Danube.  Under 
the  small  window  of  Otto's  office,  in  its  deep  embrasure, 
there  was  a  nearly  sheer  drop  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  feet 
or  so  into  tree-tops,  so  that  everything  nearby  was  hidden 
from  where  he  stood.  All  he  could  ever  see  from  here  was 
the  far  distance  dimmed  and  diminished  by  its  remoteness 
— today,  a  horizonless  pattern  of  small  dark  patches  that 
were  forest  a  little  darker  than  the  canopy  of  cloud,  and 
small  patches  a  little  lighter  and  yellower  than  the  cloud 
that  were  rolling  withered  winter  fields  under  a  thin 
scumble  of  rime:  the  high  Bavarian  plateau,  stretching 
away  into  purple  immensities  under  a  purplish  slate  sky. 

Otto  could  not  see  the  river  for  it  was  almost  directly 
beneath  him.  He  could  not  see  the  village,  crowded 
between  the  river  and  the  hill's  foot.  He  could  not  even  see 
the  valley,  but  he  could  hear — though  faintly,  through  the 
two  thicknesses  of  glass — the  melancholy  mooing  of  the 
little  daily  train  as  it  wound  its  way  down  the  branch  line 
from  Kammstadt;  and  that  recalled  him.  The  unknown 
English  cousin  was  arriving  on  that  train — cause  of  all  his 
unease. 

Bavarian  Otto  had  served  in  Bavarian  Crown-Prince 
Rupprecht's  Sixth  Army  during  the  war,  being  posted  to 
the  1 6th  Reserve  Regiment  of  Foot.  It  was  at  Bapaume 
he  had  lost  his  leg,  to  an  English  mortar-shell.  Nearly  all 
the  time  it  had  been  the  English  he  was  fighting — Ypres, 
Neuve-Chapelle,  the  Somme.  So  what  was  it  going  to  feel 
like,  meeting  an  Englishman  again  for  the  first  time  since 
the  Western  Front? 

Relatives  of  course  are  in  a  special  category:  indubitable 
bonds  transcending  frontiers  connect  them.  Not  that  this 

126 


THE  WHITE   CROW  127 

was  a  close  kinship,  it  was  merely  the  kind  that  old  ladies 
like  to  keep  alive  by  a  lifetime  of  letter-writing.  In  fact, 
these  Penry-Herberts  were  really  the  Arcos'  relatives 
rather  than  their  own.  It  was  some  niece  of  someone  in  the 
Arco  tribe  who  had  married  a  Penry-Herbert,  generations 
ago:  but  the  Kessens  and  the  Arcos  were  themselves 
related  many  times  over,  so  it  came  to  the  same  thing  in 
the  end — and  even  the  remotest  relationships  ought  to 
count. 

Moreover,  this  was  the  younger  brother  of  that  little 
English  Backfisch — he  had  forgotten  her  name,  but  she 
came  to  stay  at  Lorienburg  the  summer  before  the  War, 
and  rode  in  the  bullock-race. 

Somebody  had  told  him,  too,  this  boy  was  quite  a 
promising  young  shot.  His  grandfather  of  course  had  been 
the  world  famous  shot — even  in  his  eighties  still  one  of  the 
finest  in  Europe:  Otto's  own  father  had  felt  it  a  great 
honour  when  invited  to  Newton  Llantony  for  the  snipe. . . 
or  would  that  have  been  this  boy's  gra2£-grandfather?  It 
was  getting  difficult  to  remember  how  quickly  the  genera- 
tions pass.  Indeed  what  Otto  found  hardest  of  all  to 
envisage  as  he  faced  the  wintry  prospect  beyond  the 
window  was  that  the  little  brother  that  girl  had  so  prattled 
about  in  19 13  was  now  a  grown  man — the  master  of 
Newton  Llantony — and  yet  had  been  too  young  to  serve 
in  the  War. 

Beneath  his  clipped  correctness  of  manner  Otto  was  a 
devout  Catholic  with  tinges  of  mysticism. 

Most  Imperial  German  officers  those  days  were  avowed 
Christians.  Perhaps  they  found  in  the  code  of  their 
Officers'  Corps  the  closest  earthly  simulacrum  possible 
(in  their  eyes)  to  the  selfless  ethics  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  and  in  'Germany'  an  identical  name  under  which 
to  worship  God.  Be  that  as  it  may,  Man,  among  all  God's 
vertebrate  creatures  is  in  fact  the  only  species  which  wages 
war — man  alone,  in  whom  alone  His  image  is  reflected — 


128  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

and  how  could  that  awful  monopoly  mean  nothing?  War, 
surely,  is  a  pale  human  emblem  of  that  Absolute  of  Force; 
and  human  power,  a  portion  of  His  attribute  incarnate  in 
us  His  earthly  mirror-images:  fighting,  His  refiner's 
furnace  to  brighten  the  gold  and  burn  away  the  material 
dross. 

Otto's  present  deep  conviction  that  all  this  is  the  true 
teaching  about  war  had  come  to  him  more  slowly,  perhaps, 
than  to  many;  for  he  had  seen  the  'dross'  burn  (some  of  it) 
with  so  very  lurid  a  light.  But  in  the  end  it  had  come  even 
to  him  ineluctably,  for  it  seemed  to  derive  honestly  from 
his  own  experience  of  himself  and  those  around  him  in 
four  years  of  war.  For  instance,  at  Bapaume  when  his  leg 
was  shattered  three  willing  volunteers  in  turn  had  carried 
him  from  the  front  line,  succeeding  each  other  instantly 
as  each  was  shot:  a  thing  no  man  could  easily  forget,  or 
ignore. 

Because  of  his  pride  in  his  calling  Otto  was  personally 
humble  but  he  was  not  one  whose  convictions  once  formed 
were  easily  shaken  or  complicated.  He  had  not  argued  all 
this  out  with  himself  step  by  step  but  had  reached  much 
the  same  frame  of  mind  as  if  he  had:  he  believed  that  for 
every  man  war  is  the  essential  means  of  Grace. 

Whatever  a  cripple  could  do,  working  secretly,  towards 
the  rebuilding  of  the  proscribed  German  Army,  Otto  was 
doing.  But  hostilities  were  suspended  now,  Germany  so 
shattered  and  the  civil  crowd  so  rotten  that  it  might  be 
many  years  before  war  could  be  resumed;  and  suddenly 
he  was  moved  by  a  deep  pity  for  this  young  English  cousin 
such  as  he  felt  for  his  own  German  nephew  Franz.  He 
must  needs  pity  that  whole  generation  everywhere  whose 
loss  it  was  that  the  last  war  had  ended  just  too  soon:  for 
the  next  might  come  too  late. 

Presently  one-legged  Otto  left  his  office  and  made  his 
way  with  difficulty  (the  stone  treads  being  sloping  and 
uneven)   down  the  stairs.   Reaching  the  courtyard,   he 


THE   WHITE   CROW  129 

caught  sight  of  his  brother  Walther  who  was  crossing  it 
towards  the  Great  Gate.  In  spite  of  Walther's  abnormal 
size  and  massive  strength  he  walked  lightly  and  springily 
like  a  cat;  it  was  all  on  the  ball  of  the  foot,  his  was  a 
hunter's  gait  rather  than  a  soldier's.  .  . 

It  was  typical  of  Walther's  courtesy  (Otto  thought  with 
affection)  to  feel  he  must  go  to  the  station  himself  to  meet 
even  so  young  a  guest. 


Chapter  j 

Meanwhile  in  the  crowded  one-class  branch-line 
train  from  Kammstadt  Augustine  was  agog  with 
interest.  These  peaceful  fenceless  fields!  These  forests,  that 
looked  cared-for  as  chrysanthemums — so  utterly  unlike 
wild  natural  English  woods!  These  pretty  pastel-coloured 
villages  with  pantile  roofs,  onion-top  churches.  .  .  all  this, 
rolling  past  the  half-frosted  windows — all  this  was 
Germany!  Moreover  these  friendly  people  in  the  compart- 
ment with  him.  .  .  they  looked  almost  ordinarily  human 
but  were  they  not  in  fact  all  'Germans' — even  the  quite 
small  children? 

The  old  peasant  opposite  Augustine  had  the  kind  of 
belly  which  made  him  sit  with  knees  wide  apart,  and  he 
was  smoking  a  decorative  hooked  pipe  which  smelled  like 
fusty  hay.  His  face  was  brimming  over  with  curiosity: 
earlier  he  had  tried  to  talk  to  Augustine  but  Augustine's 
Swiss-taught  school  German  could  alas  make  little  of  this 
slurry  dialect  even  with  the  words  tapped  out  for  him  on 
his  knee.  The  old  man's  wife,  too,  had  a  kindly  wrinkled 
face  with  intensely  wild  humorous  eyes.  .  . 

How  happily  Augustine  could  spend  the  rest  of  his  days 
among  such  simple,  friendly  people!  He  had  no  feeling 
here  of  being  in  enemy  country.  But  for  want  of  a  better 
vehicle  he  could  only  project  his  love  on  a  broad  and 
beaming  smile. 

The  little  train,  raised  high  on  trestles  above  a  stretch 
of  frozen  flood,  hooted  a  warning  to  itself  as  it  neared  a 
bend.  With  a  warm  forefinger  Augustine  melted  himself  a 
further  peephole  in  the  window-ice. 

From  under  the  voluminous  black  skirts  of  the  old 
peasant-woman  opposite  there  came  the  faint,  drugged 
crooning  of  a  half-suffocated  hen.  A  moment  later  the 

130 


THE   WHITE    CROW  131 

woman's  whole  nether  person  began  to  heave  with  unseen 
poultry.  She  leaned  forward  and  slapped  at  her  skirts 
violently  to  reduce  them  to  silence  and  stillness,  but  at  that 
the  vocal  hen  only  woke  up  completely  and  answered  the 
more  indignantly;  and  then  others  began  to  join  in.  She 
glanced  anxiously  towards  the  Inspector — but  luckily  his 
back  was  turned.  .  . 

What  lovely  people!  Augustine  began  to  laugh  out  loud,, 
whereon  the  old  woman's  eyes  flashed  back  at  him  with 
pleasure  and  merriment. 

Last  night  Augustine's  express  from  the  frontier  had 
reached  Munich  after  dark:  that  was  how  it  happened 
that  his  first  night  on  German  soil  had  been  spent  at  the 
old  Bayrischer-Hof  hotel.  Since  then  it  has  been  rebuilt, 
but  Augustine  had  found  it  a  majestic  yet  rather  worn  and 
despondent  hostelry  those  days.  As  he  had  stood  signing 
himself  in  that  evening  it  had  struck  him  that  all  the 
clerks  and  waiters  there  seemed  distraits — as  if  they  had 
something  rather  more  important  on  their  minds  than 
running  hotels.  This  surprised  and  rather  charmed  him: 
he  sympathised  with  them,  for — coming  of  a  class  which 
practically  never  used  hotels — Augustine  disliked  and 
despised  them  all.  No  wonder  the  characteristic  stale 
hotel-foyer  smells  here  seemed  to  irk  their  clean  young 
noses:  these  diluted,  doctored  alcohols,  the  coffee-sodden 
cigar-ends:  the  almost  incessant  rich  eating  which  must  go 
on  somewhere  just  upwind  of  this  foyer  where  he  stood  so 
that  even  its  portieres  smelt  permanently  of  food;  and  the 
nearer,  transient  smells  of  brand-new  pigskin  suitcases  and 
dead  fur,  of  rich  Jews,  of  indigestion  and  peppermint,  of 
perfumes  unsuccessfully  overlaid  on  careless  womanhood. 

Later  on  it  had  greatly  surprised  this  novice  traveller, 
too,  to  find  on  his  machine-carved  bed  a  huge  eiderdown 
in  a  white  cotton  cover  but  no  ordinary  top-sheet  or 
blanket  to  tuck  round  him.  And  it  had  surprised  him  yet 
further   to    find,    half-hidden   by   the    washstand,    such 


132  THE    FOX    IN    THE   ATTIC 

mysterious  scribbles  on  the  bedroom  wall.  .  .  for  there, 
among  mere  lists  of  names,  he  thought  he  had  made  out 

this: 

A.D.  igig  February  2j 
With  six  others,  innocent 
hostages.  .  . 

(then  something 
undecipherable,  and  then:) 
ADELIE!  FAREWELL!!! 

Authentic  dungeon-scribbles — in  a  hotel  bedroom? — 
But  then  Augustine  had  taken  more  particular  notice  of 
the  date.  '19 19'?  Since  the  war?  '1919'? — Why,  that  was 
surely  the  Golden  Age  when  the  young  poet  Ernst  Toller 
and  his  friends  had  ruled  Munich!  The  thing  was  im- 
possible. 

The  message  was  scrawled  in  a  difficult  Gothic  hand.  .  . 
he  must  have  read  it  wrong — or  else  it  was  a  hoax. 

In  the  morning  Augustine  had  perforce  to  pay  his  bill 
with  English  money.  He  had  only  tendered  a  ten-shilling 
note  but  the  German  change  he  was  given  appeared  to  be 
noughted  in  billions!  What  a  joke!  That  pleasant-looking, 
dark-eyed  young  desk-clerk  with  the  speed  and  dexterity 
almost  of  a  conjurer  had  whipped  billions  loose  out  of  his 
pocket,  flipping  them  like  postage-stamps.  .  .  'Lothar 
Scheidemann'  the  desk-card  named  him;  and  the  name 
as  well  as  the  face  somehow  fixed  itself  in  Augustine's 
memory. 

Augustine  would  have  liked  to  talk  to  him,  for  he 
looked  certainly  educated;  but  on  a  second  glance 
decided — N-n-no:  perhaps  rather  too  formal  and  de- 
tached a  chap  for  any  such  casual  approach. 

Now,  in  the  train,  Augustine  took  out  his  new  German 
money  to  count  those  incredible  noughts  yet  once  more. 
It  was  quite  true:  today  he  was  indeed  a  billionaire!  It 
made  his  head  swim  a  little.  But  then  through  his  peep- 


THE  WHITE   CROW  133 

hole  in  the  frosted  window  he  sighted  a  familiar  flight  of 
mallard:  these  at  least  were  in  normal  non-astronomical 
numbers  even  in  Germany,  and  his  brow  cleared.  In- 
voluntarily he  crooked  his  trigger-finger,  and  smiled.  .  . 

'Lothar  Scheidemann,  Lothar  Scheid.  .  .'  the  train  wheels 
repeated;  and  Augustine's  smile  faded.  For  there  had  been 
something  in  the  eyes  of  that  attractive  young  clerk  he 
couldn't  quite  get  out  of  his  mind.  Then  suddenly  the 
train  passed  off  its  trestles  onto  solid  earth  again  with  a 
changed  sound. 


Chapter  6 

at  Lorienburg  station  the  engine  of  Augustine's  train 
XJLhalted  on  the  very  brink  of  the  swift  unfrozen  Danube 
and  stood  there  hissing.  Augustine  climbed  happily  down 
and  followed  the  other  passengers  across  the  tracks. 

On  the  low  station  'platform' — so  low  it  hardly  de- 
served the  name  of  one — a  tall  truculent  young  Jew  was 
chaffing  with  a  group  of  farmers,  gesticulating  with  the 
duck  he  held  by  its  fettered  feet.  These  farmers,  like  the 
ones  on  the  train,  all  seemed  to  wear  a  kind  of  civilian 
uniform:  thick  grey  cloth  trimmed  with  green,  and  huge 
fur  collars.  One  was  affectionately  nursing  a  hairy  piglet 
in  his  arms:  another,  a  murmuring  accordion. 

But  now  a  burly,  almost  gigantic  figure  was  making  a 
beeline  for  Augustine.  His  little  corded  and  feathered 
'Tyrolean'  hat  bobbed  high  above  the  crowd.  He  wore  the 
same  kind  of  uniform  the  peasants  wore  but  newer  and 
better  cut:  strong  as  it  looked — that  acreage  of  heavy 
close-woven  cloth — the  muscles  of  his  massive  shoulders 
seemed  almost  bursting  it.  He  walked  with  the  gait  of 
someone  who  likes  to  be  out-of-doors  walking  all  of  every 
day.  . . 

Behind  him  followed  a  small  dark  man  with  a  monkey 
face,  some  sort  of  servant  who  seized  Augustine's  luggage. 
So  this  must  be  Cousin  Walther — the  Freiherr  von  Kessen 
come  in  person  to  meet  his  guest! 

It  must  be.  .  .  and  yet  it  surprised  Augustine  to  find  his 
host  wearing  such  obviously  German  clothes.  Somehow  he 
hadn't  thought  of  the  Kessens  as  being  Germans,  the  way 
those  peasants  were.  Surely  gentlemen  were  much  the 
same  everywhere:  a  sort  of  little  international  nation, 
based  more  or  less  on  the  English  model.  However,  he 
soon   found   that   the   Baron   talked   excellent   informal 

i34 


THE  WHITE   CROW  135 

upper-class  English,  except  that  his  slang  was  ten  years 
out  of  date. 

Walther  shook  Augustine  warmly  by  the  hand,  then 
captured  his  arm  and  whisked  him  through  the  tidy 
village,  enquiring  the  while  after  English  relations  most  of 
whom  neither  of  them  had  ever  met  and  at  the  same  time 
answering  jovially  the  soft,  respectful  greetings  on  every 
hand:  "Griiss  Gott,  Herr  Baron.  .  ." 

"Griiss  Gott,  £usammen!" 

"  'ss  Gott  z'sammen!"  It  sounded  almost  like  'Scotch 
salmon!'  the  abbreviated  way  this  Bavarian  baron  said  it, 
Augustine  thought — and  smiled.  How  spick-and-span 
everything  was  here,  he  noticed.  The  butcher's  window 
did  not  look  very  well  stocked  by  English  standards,  but  it 
was  orderly  as  a  shrine :  in  comparison,  what  slatterns  the 
English  were! 

Augustine  wished  his  boisterous  cousin  would  give  him 
time  to  look  about  him  at  all  these  wonders — he  was 
almost  having  to  trot.  Indeed  it  was  a  mystery  how 
the  man  managed  to  keep  his  own  footing  so  securely  on 
this  icy  ground,  for  rounding  a  sudden  corner  in  the 
village  by  a  chemist's  Augustine  himself  skidded  al- 
together and  cannoned  into  an  old  Jew  peddling  laces,  so 
that  both  of  them  nearly  fell.  Just  then,  too,  descending 
the  side-street  and  missing  the  pair  of  them  by  a  hair's- 
breadth,  something  shot  by  like  an  arrow.  This  was  a 
youth  on  skis.  The  skis — to  their  detriment — rattled  and 
sparked,  almost  uncontrollable  on  the  iron-hard  surface 
(for  there  was  no  proper  snow  at  all) ,  and  it  was  only  by  a 
miracle  of  sheer  balance  that  the  skier  managed  to  swerve 
just  clear  of  an  ox-cart  in  the  middle  of  the  cross-roads. 
Then  he  shot  away  down  a  steep  bye-road  towards  the 
frozen  water-meadows. 

Walther  was  just  beginning  to  explain  "Ahah!  The 
eldest  of  my  young  devils,  Fr.  .  ."  when  something  else 
followed,  but  this  time  something  more  like  a  low  ricochet- 
ting  cannon-ball  than  like  an  arrow.   It  was  a  small 


136  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

toboggan  with  two  little  girls  on  it  rounded  out  to  pack- 
ages with  extra  clothing,  the  two  pairs  of  pigtails  standing 
straight  out  behind  them  with  the  acceleration  of  their 
transit.  They  too  just  managed  to  skid  past  the  slow- 
moving  ox-cart.  But  they  failed  to  make  the  counter- 
swerve:  the  toboggan  hit  a  pile  of  gravel  icebound  into 
concrete  and  somersaulted. 

The  two  children  rose  into  the  air  and  landed  on  their 
heads.  The  wonder  was  they  weren't  clean  stunned,  or  even 
kiiled.  But  no — for  they  got  up;  though  slowly,  dazed. 
They  were  obviously  quite  a  lot  hurt  and  Augustine's 
tender  heart  went  out  to  them.  The  knees  of  both  were 
wavering  under  them.  Then  one  began  lifting  her  fist  un- 
certainly towards  her  eyes.  .  .  but  at  that  Walther  in  a 
brutal  voice  shouted  something  mocking,  and  instantly 
both  stiffened. 

They  hadn't  seen  their  father  was  there  watching  them 
till  then;  but  now  they  didn't  even  stop  to  rub  their 
bruises.  They  managed  to  right  their  toboggan — giddily, 
though  without  quite  toppling  over  again — and  dragged 
it  away  (though  still  moving  as  if  half-drunk)  after  their 
brother  and  out  of  sight. 

"Little  milk-sops:  they  make  me  ashamed,"  said 
Walther;  but  he  sounded  quite  proud  and  pleased,  as  if 
expecting  to  be  contradicted. 

Augustine  said  nothing:  he  was  too  deeply  shocked.  He 
had  omitted  to  take  stock  of  his  cousin's  face  when  they 
first  met  and  now  needed  all  his  eyes  for  the  going;  but 
from  that  voice,  that  behaviour,  that  massive  bulk,  he 
assumed  now  it  must  be  very  like  an  ogre's,  or  some 
gigantic  stony  troll's. 


Chapter  y 

That  icy  sunk  lane  leading  up  from  the  village,  the 
lane  the  skis  and  the  toboggans  had  just  traversed,  was 
very  steep;  but  Walther  took  it  still  at  the  same  breathless 
speed.  Augustine  began  to  suspect  his  cousin  (who  must 
have  been  more  than  twice  his  age)  of  trying  to  walk  him 
off  his  legs;  but  Augustine  had  got  his  second  wind  now 
and  could  hold  his  own. 

Ultimately  the  castle  on  its  mound  was  approached  from 
the  high  ground  behind  it  along  a  raised  causeway  lined 
with  linden-trees,  ending  in  a  wooden  bridge.  Just  where 
you  reached  this  bridge  there  stood  on  one  side  of  the  way 
a  little  closed  summer  beerhouse  shanty — rather  decrepit, 
and  with  a  deserted  skittle-alley  full  of  dead  leaves.  But 
on  the  other  side  stood  a  life-size  crucifix,  skilfully  carved 
and  realistically  painted;  and  this  crucifix  looked  as  if  it 
was  brand  new — its  newness  astonished  Augustine  more 
than  anything  else  he  had  seen  here  yet. 

The  heavy  ironbound  gates  in  the  massive  gatehouse 
stood  open.  Times  were  quieter  now  and  they  were  only 
closed  at  sunset,  Walther  explained:  all  the  same,  some 
of  the  iron  sheathing  on  them  also  looked  brand  new  and 
this  was  surely  almost  as  odd  an  anachronism  as  the  new 
crucifix.  In  the  porter's  cubbyhole  a  lynx-eyed  old  woman 
sat  permanently  knitting.  She  rose  and  curtseyed  to  them, 
but  her  dropped  hands  did  not  even  cease  their  knitting 
while  she  curtseyed. 

The  first  court  of  the  castle  they  now  entered  had  long 
byres  built  against  its  high  crenellated  walls  and  from  the 
nearest  of  them  there  came  a  gentle  lowing,  the  slow  clank 
of  headchains.  The  cobbled  yard  itself  was  as  clean  as  a 
drawing-room  floor,  the  dung  stacked  tidily  in  masonry 
tanks  that  steamed  in  the  frosty  air:  'Still,  what  a  queer 

i37 


138  THE    FOX    IN   THE    ATTIC 

approach  to  one's  front  door!'  thought  Augustine.  He  was 
used  of  course  to  lawns  and  wide  carriage-sweeps  leading 
to  gentlemen's  houses:  to  rhododendrons  and  begonia- 
beds,  with  the  facts  of  country  life  tucked  well  out  of  sight. 

In  the  second  court  there  did  seem  to  be  some  attempt 
at  a  garden  but  now  all  the  beds  were  covered  with  spruce- 
boughs  against  the  frost.  .  .  but  surely  it  could  never  get 
much  sun  in  here  even  in  summer,  for  nowhere  was  the 
court  surrounded  by  less  than  fifty-foot  lowering  walls.  .  . 

" HerunterV  Walther  suddenly  bellowed  against  Augus- 
tine's ear:  "The  little  imps  of  Satan! — Rudi!  Heinz!" 

Augustine  looked  up.  High  overhead  against  the  sky, 
almost  like  tight-rope  performers  there  on  the  narrow  un- 
protected cat-walk  of  the  battlemented  wall  which  formed 
the  castle  enceinte,  two  six-year-old  boys  were  riding  little 
green  bicycles.  At  their  father's  shout  they  wobbled  wildly, 
and  Augustine  gasped;  but  somehow  they  dismounted 
safely.  Walther  called  out  again  in  rapid  German  and  they 
scuttled  into  a  turret  doorway. 

Then  Walther  turned  to  Augustine:  "That  is  something 
forbidden.  They  shall  be  punished."  The  bull-like  voice 
sounded  calm;  but  the  iron  hand  which  still  gripped 
Augustine's  upper  arm  was  actually  trembling;  and  the 
face.  .  .  surprisingly,  Walther  proved  to  have  just  an 
ordinary,  anxious,  human  parent's  face — not  at  all  a  stony 
troll's.  The  features  were  small  and  fine  and  by  no  means 
commanding.  The  brows  beetled  a  bit  but  the  brown  eyes 
under  them  peeped  down  at  Augustine  almost  timidly: 
"Don't  you  agree?  I  mean,  would  not  even  an  English 
father  also  forbid?"  When  Augustine  non-plussed  said 
nothing  he  added  rapidly:  "Not  that  /'m  a  fusspot — but 
if  their  mother  knew.  .  ." 

The  main  house  itself  now  towered  in  front  of  them. 
There  were  four  storeys  of  stuccoed  stone  and  then  four 
more  of  steep  pantiled  roof  with  rows  of  dormers  in  it  all 
boarded  up.  On  the  topmost  roofridge  was  fixed  a  wagon- 


THE  WHITE   CROW  139 

wheel,  supporting  a  tattered  old  stork's  nest.  Augustine 
took  this  all  in  at  a  glance,  for  today  he  was  still  absorbing 
everything  with  the  unnaturally  observant  eye  of  first 
arrival  somewhere  totally  strange:  not  till  tomorrow  would 
he  even  begin  to  notice  less. 

Now  Walther  opened  a  wicket  in  an  imposing,  church- 
size  door  (remarking  lugubriously:  "Twins/  It  is  fated  that 
they  will  die  together!")  and  Augustine  found  himself 
ushered  into  a  darkling,  stone-vaulted  space.  This  seemed 
to  be  a  kind  of  above-ground  cellarage  or  crypt,  for  it  had 
no  windows  and  immensely  stout  squat  pillars  upheld  the 
weight  of  the  castle  overhead.  Between  these  in  the  half- 
dark  were  parked  a  Victoria  and  a  wagonette,  together  with 
two  horse-sleighs  and  various  other  vehicles.  Right  at  the 
back  there  was  a  pre-war  vintage  Benz — as  cobwebby  as  a 
bin  of  port,  and  evidently  long  out  of  use. 

Again,  what  a  curious  front-entrance  for  a  gentleman's 
house!  But  it  was  indeed  from  here,  apparently,  that  the 
main  staircase  led. 

This  narrow,  twisting  stairway  too  proved  to  be  merely 
massive  and  defensible  between  its  whitewashed  stone 
walls:  the  stairs  themselves  were  treaded  with  solid  tree- 
trunks  roughly  squared  with  the  adze. 

At  the  first  floor  a  heavy,  wormy  door  opened  straight 
off  these  stairs.  It  offered  none  of  the  flattering  perspec- 
tives for  entrances  and  exits  social  architects  use — yet 
how  magnificent  the  hall  that  hulking  door  opened  into! 
Augustine  caught  his  breath,  for  the  sight  was  so  unex- 
pected. Not  only  was  this  hall  quite  vast  in  size:  its  length 
stretched  nearly  the  whole  width  of  the  house:  its  propor- 
tions seemed  to  Augustine  quite  perfect — a  most  civilised 
room! 

The  floor  was  flagged  with  squares  of  some  pale  yellow- 
ish stone  so  shiny  they  reflected  the  chalky  blues  and 
faded  crimsons  of  the  primitive  unvarnished  portraits 
hung  on  the  white  walls — reflected  even  the  dove-grey  that 
the  many  doors  opening  off  it  were  painted,  and  their 


i4o  THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC 

delicate  fillets  picked  out  in  gold  leaf.  Some  of  these  stone 
floor-tiles  were  cracked  and  loose,  clinking  under  them  as 
they  walked.  .  . 

"Adele!"  roared  Walther  so  that  the  painted  rafters 
echoed:  "Here  is  our  guest  and  cousin!" 

Walther  Hung  open  the  double  doors  at  the  far  end  of 
the  hall,  and  stood  aside  in  the  outrush  of  hot  air  for 
Augustine  to  pass.  A  rather  faded  lady  in  her  forties  rose 
from  an  escritoire.  She  had  very  bright  blue  eyes,  an 
aquiline  nose,  and  a  slightly  pursed  mouth  which  only  just 
knew  how  to  smile;  but  in  general  her  pale  sandy  face 
seemed  to  Augustine  of  a  rather  unmemorable  kind.  She 
thrust  her  hand  firmly  into  Augustine's,  English  fashion; 
for  she  guessed  he  would  be  embarrassed  if  he  thought  he 
ought  to  kiss  it. 

Once  the  greetings  were  over,  and  the  introductions  (for 
there  was  a  girl  there  too,  and  some  middle-aged  brother 
of  Cousin  Walther's  who  seemed  to  be  lame),  Augustine 
began  looking  about  him  again.  It  seemed  to  him  sadly 
incongruous  with  the  room's  simple  hexagonal  shape  and 
the  delicate  Adamsy  traceries  of  its  high  coved  ceiling  that 
the  place  should  be  quite  so  crowded  with  furniture  and 
knicknackery. 

The  walls  were  thick  with  pictures:  amateur  water- 
colours,  mostly,  and  photographs.  Most  of  these  photo- 
graphs were  inclined  to  be  old  and  faded;  but  there  was 
one  big  enlargement  in  a  bright  gilt  frame  surmounted  by 
a  big  gilt  crown  and  this  frame  looked  new,  while  the 
photograph  itself  looked  also  pretty  recent — at  anyrate 
post-war.  It  showed  an  outdoor  group  centred  on  a  rather 
dishevelled  old  gentleman  in  baggy  trousers,  with  a  grey 
beard  and  steel  spectacles.  .  .  certainly  not  the  Kaiser,  even 
in  retirement;  and  yet  the  frame  looked  unequivocally 
regal. . .  the  background  was  some  mammoth  forest  picnic: 
there  were  some  forty  or  fifty  children  in  their  Sunday 
best — but  also  a  bit  dishevelled,  the  thing  must  have  ended 
in  a  most  un-regal  romp! 


THE  WHITE   CROW  141 

In  a  firm  but  old  man's  hand  it  was  signed:  'Ludwig'. 
But  of  course — 'Ludwig  of  Bavaria'!  Thinking  of  'Ger- 
many' one  tended  to  forget  that  Bavaria  had  remained  a 
sovereign  state-within-a-state,  with  her  own  king  (down 
to  the  revolution  five  years  ago),  and  her  own  government 
and  even  army.  Moreover  Augustine  remembered  hearing 
that  this  peaceable-looking  old  gentleman  had  carried  to 
his  recent  grave  a  Prussian  bullet  in  his  body:  a  bullet 
from  the  war  of  '66,  before  there  was  any  'Germany' — a 
war  when  Prussia  and  Bavaria  had  been  two  sovereign 
countries  fighting  on  opposite  sides.  To  an  Englishman, 
used  to  long  perspectives  and  slow  changes,  this  was  indeed 
History  telescoped:  as  if  King  George  V  had  been  wounded 
at  Bannockburn. 

'Germanf:  that  formidable  empire  which  had  lately  so 
shaken  the  whole  world — its  entire  lifetime  then  had  lasted 
less  than  a  normal  man's,  a  bare  forty-eight  years  from 
its  cradle  to  its  present  grave!  Even  the  still  adolescent 
U.S.A.  was  three  times  'Germany's'  age.  Everything  here 
confused  one's  sense  of  time!  There  was  something  Vic- 
torian about  Augustine's  hostess,  Cousin  Adele,  with  her 
lace  and  her  chatelaine;  but  equally  something  of  an 
earlier,  sterner  century  too.  .  . 

There  was  something  at  least  pre-war  even  about  the 
young  girl  standing  behind  her.  That  cold  and  serious 
white  face,  with  its  very  large  grey  thoughtful  eyes.  The 
carefully-brushed  straight  fair  hair  reaching  nearly  to  her 
waist,  tied  back  in  a  bunch  with  a  big  black  bow  behind 
her  neck.  The  long  straight  skirt  with  its  shiny  black  belt, 
the  white  blouse  with  its  high  starched  collar.  .  . 

But  he  mustn't  stare/  Augustine  lowered  his  gaze  deliber- 
ately; and  behold,  curled  on  the  sofa  in  an  attitude  of 
sleep  but  with  his  bright  eyes  wide  open,  lay  a  fox. 


Chapter  8 

They  dined  that  night  off  wild-boar  steak,  grilled  (it 
tasted  more  like  young  beef  than  any  kind  of  pork), 
with  a  cream  sauce  and  cranberry  jam.  There  was  spag- 
lutti,  and  a  smoky-flavoured  cheese.  They  drank  a 
tawny  Tyrolean  wine  that  was  light  on  the  palate  but 
powerful  in  action.  Augustine  found  it  all  delicious:  there 
wasn't  much  'starving  Germany'  here,  he  thought. 

Franz  (the  young  skier)  had  shot  the  boar,  he  learned, 
marauding  in  their  forests — though  Heaven  knows  where 
it  had  come  from,  for  they  were  supposed  to  be  extinct 
hereabouts.  Baron  Franz — Lothar's  former  schoolfellow, 
Mary's  'ten-year-old,  tow-haired  little  Franz' — was  now  a 
lad  of  twenty.  He  was  very  fair,  and  smaller  than  his  father 
but  with  all  his  father's  energy  of  movement.  His  manner 
towards  Augustine  was  perhaps  a  little  over-formal  and 
polite  as  coming  from  one  young  man  to  another,  but  in 
repose  his  face  wore  permanently  a  slightly  contemptuous 
expression.  This  the  father's  face  totally  lacked  and  it  made 
Augustine's  hackles  rise  a  little  in  the  face  of  somebody 
quite  so  young,  quite  so  inexperienced  in  the  world  as  this 
Franz — his  own  junior  by  three  years  at  least. 

The  only  other  male  person  present  was  that  rather  dim 
ex-officer  with  a  game  leg,  Walther's  brother.  He  swal- 
lowed his  food  quickly,  then  shook  hands  all  round  mur- 
muring something  about  "work  to  do"  and  vanished. 
Augustine  ticketed  him  'Cheltenham'  and  thought  no 
more  about  him;  thus  he  missed  the  quick  glance  of 
intelligence  that  uncle  and  nephew  exchanged,  Franz's 
almost  imperceptible  shrug  and  shake  of  the  head. 

At  dinner  the  conversation  was  almost  entirely  a  mono- 
logue by  Walther.  The  mother  and  that  eldest  daughter 
(the  younger  children  were  in  bed,  presumably)  hardly 

142 


THE   WHITE   CROW  143 

spoke  at  all.  Augustine  had  failed  to  catch  the  girl's  name 
on  introduction  and  no  one  had  addressed  her  by  it  since, 
so  he  didn't  know  what  name  to  think  of  her  by;  but  he 
found  himself  peeping  at  her  more  and  more.  It  never 
entered  his  head  to  think  her  'beautiful'  but  her  face  had 
a  serenity  which  promised  interesting  depths.  Her  eyes 
hardly  roamed  at  all:  he  never  saw  her  glance  even  once 
his  way;  but  already  he  surmised  she  might  be  going  to 
prove  rather  more  sympathique  than  that  cocky  brother, 
once  she  opened  out  a  little. 

She  looked  always  as  if  she  were  just  going  to  speak: 
her  curving  upper-lip  was  always  slightly  lifted  and  indeed 
once  he  saw  her  lips  actually  begin  to  move;  but  it  proved 
to  be  only  a  silent  conversation,  with  herself  or  perhaps 
some  absent  friend.  In  fact,  she  'wasn't  there':  she  seemed 
to  have  shut  her  ears  entirely  to  what  was  going  on  around 
her.  Perhaps  she  had  heard  them  all  before  too  often, 
these  stories  her  father  was  interminably  telling? 

Walther  had  begun  his  harangue  with  the  soup,  asking 
Augustine  how  many  seats  the  Socialists  held  in  the  new 
British  parliament  elected  last  winter.  From  stopping  his 
ears  inadequately  when  at  Mellton  Augustine  had  a  vague 
idea  the  Socialists  had  temporarily  outstripped  the 
Liberals  who  had  suckled  them,  but  that  was  the  most  he 
knew.  He  tried  to  convey  without  downright  rudeness  that 
he  neither  knew  nor  cared;  such  things  were  none  of  his 
business. 

Walther  looked  incredulous.  "Ah!"  he  said  earnestly: 
"Their  leader,  that  Macdonald:  he's  a  gaol-bird,  isn't  he? 
How  can  you  trust  him?  England  ought  to  take  warning 
by  what  happened  herel" 

And  so  the  tale  began. 

Five  years  ago,  on  the  night  of  November  7th,  19 18 — 
almost  the  actual  eve  of  the  war's  ending — Walther  and 
some  fellow-members  of  the  Bavarian  parliament  had  met 
in  the  blacked-out  Park  Hotel.  Bavaria  had  reluctantly  to 
make  certain  constitutional  changes  (such  as  instituting 


144  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

the  formal  responsibility  of  the  royal  ministry  to  parlia- 
ment) as  a  gesture  to  the  American,  Wilson:  so  these  legis- 
lators had  met  to  discuss  the  next  day's  necessary  measures. 
Most  of  the  Centre  Party  deputies  were  there,  except  those 
away  with  the  army  or  stricken  by  'flu. 

Another  problem  they  had  discussed  was  the  coming 
demobilisation.  But  everything  was  already  taped,  it 
seemed:  the  plans  were  ready  and  the  men  would  go 
straight  into  jobs,  so  his  friend  Heinrich  von  Aretin  assured 
the  company.  Industry  would  need  all  the  labour  it  could 
get,  in  the  switch  to  peace-production.  But  then  someone 
(said  Walther)  casually  mentioned  a  socialist  mass-meeting 
happening  out  on  the  Teresienwiese  Sportsground  that 
very  hour.  .  .  Eisner,  the  demagogue  from  Berlin,  was 
addressing  them.  .  .  and  Gansdorfer,  the  blind  farmer.  .  . 
'Hetzpropaganda'.  But  it  seemed  that  too  was  taped:  the 
police  were  confident,  and  Auer  (one  of  the  Socialists'  own 
leaders)  was  assuring  everybody  there'd  be  no  sort  of 
rumpus.  Indeed  only  Aretin  had  seemed  even  faintly 
anxious:  "How  little  even  we  knew  then  of  the  unscrupu- 
lous Socialist  mentality!"  said  Walther  pointedly.  "You 
are  aware  what  happened,  of  course?" 

"What?"  asked  Augustine,  half  polite,  half  curious.  To 
Augustine,  who  elected  to  ignore  public  events  anyway, 
the  events  of  19 18  already  seemed  centuries  ago — lost  in 
the  mists  of  time;  but  even  now  Walther  could  hardly 
pronounce  Eisner's  name  in  a  normal  voice — the  rabble- 
rousing  animal  Eisner,  from  Berlin,  with  his  straggling 
beard  and  floppy  black  hat  like  a  seedy  professor  of  piano- 
forte. .  .  marching  into  the  city  that  night  with  lorry-loads 
of  all  the  hooligans  of  Munich  at  his  heels!  It  was  red 
revolution,  of  course.  .  . 

"They  tore  off  my  uniform  in  the  Odeonsplatz,"  said 
Walther.  "I  was  lucky  to  get  home  safely  in  borrowed 
mufti,  I  can  tell  you!  And  the  dear  old  King  chased  from 
his  bed:  Bavaria  is  to  be  a  republic,  forsooth,  after  a 
thousand  years  of  Wittelsbach  rule!  And  Ei.  .  .  that  Kurt 


THE   WHITE    CROW  145 

Ei.  .  .  Ei.  .  .  Eisner,  with  a  gang  of  Galician  Jews  like  him- 
self for  his  cabinet — lunatics,  lamp-lighters,  gaol-birds, 
Judases.  .  ." 

Having  reached  this  surprising  (but  in  fact  literally 
truthful)  peroration  Walther  had  to  pause  for  the  moment 
for  breath  and  for  his  blood  to  cool;  and  Franz  at  once 
slipped  into  the  breach,  speaking  suavely  and  rapidly, 
hoping  to  head  him  off:  "The  careful  demobilisation-plans 
— torn  up,  of  course.  No  one  any  more  did  what  he  was 
told.  Even  years  afterwards.  .  .  Papa,  do  you  remember 
how  we  found  a  gang  of  deserters  still  living  in  the  forest 
years  afterwards,  when  we  were  out  with  the  Bristows? 
You  were  shooting  particularly  well  that  day,"  he  added 
cunningly. 

As  the  conversation  seemed  now  to  be  taking  a  turn 
towards  sport  Augustine  pricked  up  his  ears.  But  it  all 
sounded  very  un-English.  Indeed  he  soon  jumped  to  the 
conclusion  that  here  in  Germany  people  shot  wild-boar, 
roe-deer,  foxes  and  wandering  cats  indiscriminately,  from 
platforms  built  high  among  the  trees  like  an  Indian  tiger- 
shoot. 

Augustine  in  turn  tried  to  describe  the  hides  which  at 
home  he  used,  to  dig  in  the  half-frozen  tidelands:  water- 
logged mudholes  where  he  was  happy  to  crouch  for  hours 
waiting  for  the  honking  of  the  wild  geese  in  the  dawning 
half-light. 


Chapter  g 

But  the  dinner-table  talk  of  gentlemen  ought  to  be  on 
serious  subjects,  not  sport!  Walthcr  was  itching  to  get 
back  to  politics.  The  bolshevik  danger  was  after  all  world- 
wide and  Augustine's  indifference  truly  alarming. 

A  few  polite  enquiries  about  Augustine's  journey  soon 
gave  Walther  his  cue,  for  he  learned  that  Augustine  had 
spent  last  night  at  the  Bayrischer-Hof.  "I  hope,"  said 
Walther,  "they  made  you  more  comfortable  than  they 
made  me,  the  last  time  /  was  a  guest  there?"  An  almost 
audible  sigh  and  a  shifting  in  their  chairs  went  round  the 
table.  Franz's  diversion  had  failed!  Papa  was  off  again. 
"That  of  course  was  February  19 19 — the  time  when  Toni 
had  just  shot  the  animal  Eisner;  whereupon  the  Red 
Guards.  .  ." 

"You  ought  to  meet  our  joint  eminent  kinsman,  Count 
Toni  Arco- Valley,"  Franz  told  Augustine,  desperately. 
"He's  been  in  prison  of  course  for  the  last  four  years  or 
more,  but  I'm  sure  Papa  could  get  you  a  pass.  .  ." 

"The  Red  Guards  arrested  me,"  Walther  swept  on, 
frowning  at  Franz.  "They  dragged  me — your  Bayrischer- 
Hof  Hotel  was  their  headquarters  in  those  days,  four  years 
and  nine  months  ago,  and  I  was  locked  up  there  with  the 
others:  six  of  us,  innocent  hostages.  They  told  us  we  should 
all  be  slaughtered  at  Eisner's  funeral — a  human  sacrifice 
on  their  hero's  pyre!" 

"Prison,  did  you  say?"  Augustine  asked  Franz:  "The 
chap  who  actually  shot  Thingummy  only  prison?  How 
didn't  he  get  killed?" 

"Toni  was  killed,"  Walther  said  coldly,  resenting  the 
interruptions  more  and  more:  "Or  so  they  thought:  five 
bullets  instantly  in  his  neck  and  mouth,  kicked  half  across  the 
street. . .  but  to  return  to  myself  in  the  Bayrischer-Hof. . ." 

But  Cousin  Adele  was  clearing  her  throat  rather  like  a 

146 


THE   WHITE   CROW  147 

clock  that  is  going  to  strike,  and  now  she  spoke  for  the 
first  time:  "Toni  counted  the  bullets  as  they  hit  him,"  she 
said,  speaking  English  slowly  and  distinctly  but  without 
expression,  her  eyes  on  Augustine:  "They  were  using  his 
own  revolver,  and  he  tried  to  remember  how  many  shots 
were  left  in  it." 

"In  the  Bayrischer-Hof.  .  ." 

"One  bullet  knocked  over  a  wisdom-tooth,"  Adele  per- 
sisted. "His  throat  was  full  of  blood.  He  was  choking,  and 
they  were  kicking;  but  he  dared  not  move  because  if  they 
knew  he  was  not  yet  dead  they  would  have  tore  him  in 
pieces  and  suddenly  he  very  much  wanted  to  live."  She 
was  crumbling  a  piece  of  bread  nervously  as  she  went  on: 
"They  dragged  him  into  the  courtyard  of  the  Ministerium 
and  there  left  him  as  dead;  but  not  before  he  heard  some- 
one say  that  Eisner  was  dead  first,  and  he  rejoice.  After  a 
time  a  bandage  was  put  round  his  neck  but  presently 
again  someone  tore  it  off." 

"Then  the  police  picked  him  up,"  said  Walther  re- 
signedly, "and  Sauerbruch,  the  great  throat-surgeon.  .  . 
but  that  Toni  of  all  people  should  have  done  it!  A  boy  of 
twenty  nobody  had  ever  looked  at  twice!" 

Instantly  memories  of  his  own  twentyishness  at  Oxford 
flashed  across  Augustine's  mind  and  he  recalled  touchy  old 
Asquith's  visit  to  the  Union.  Shooting  politicians!  In  Eng- 
land it  was  inconceivable.  "Was  it  a  conspiracy?"  he 
asked:  "Was  he  detailed  for  the  job?" 

"No  conspiracy — just  Toni,"  said  Adele,  her  brow 
puckered. 

"There  were  people  he  told,"  said  Walther,  "but  they 
never  dreamt  of  taking  him  seriously." 

"Such  as,  he  told  the  maid  in  his  flat  to  run  a  specially 
hot  bath  because  he  was  going  to  kill  Eisner  that  morning," 
said  Adele.  "Then,  as  he  waited  in  the  street  for  Eisner 
to  pass,  a  friend  stopped  and  asked  him  to  dinner.  'Sorry!* 
say  Toni,  'I  shall  be  engaged — I'm  going  to  shoot  Eisner.' 
His  friend  looked  only  a  little  startled." 


148  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

"Eisner  left  the  ministry  on  his  way  to  parliament  and 
passed  Toni  quite  slowly,  with  a  crowd  following  him," 
said  Walther.  "I  understand  that  Toni  carried  a  map  to 
hide  his  revolver." 

"Eisner's  staff  were  close  all  round  that  awful  man!" 
said  Adele.  Then  her  voice  went  suddenly  gruff:  "Toni 
kept  saying  to  himself 'I  must  be  brave,  I  must  not  shoot 
any  innocent  man — only  Eisner!'  Then  at  two  metres' 
range  he  shot  him;  and  a  second  later  comes  the  beginning 
of  to  be  shot  himself." 

To  end  the  long  ensuing  pause  Augustine  asked  Walther 
how  he  had  escaped  "being  slaughtered  on  Eisner's  pyre". 
He  was  told  the  police  had  somehow  got  hold  of  the 
hostages  and  transferred  them  to  Stadelheim  Gaol:  "There 
we  had  quite  a  welcome — 'Prosit,  Servus/'  And  lanky 
Poehner — later  he  was  Chief  Commissioner  of  Police  for 
Munich,  but  then  he  was  the  prison  governor  at  Stadel- 
heim and  he  did  his  best  for  us,  every  privilege.  As  well 
as  myself  there  was  General  Fasbender,  Fritz  Pappenheim, 
Lehmann  the  publisher,  Buttman,  Bissing  and  both  the 
Aretins — all  the  elite  of  Munich!  We  had  most  interesting 
talks.  It  was  far  worse  for  our  poor  wives,  without  news 
except  rumours  that  we'd  been  shot  already."  The  look 
of  love  and  reverence  with  which  he  now  glanced  at  Adele 
astonished  Augustine  on  so  middle-aged  a  face:  "Ah,  she 
was  the  heroine  then! — My  Adelie,  my  Sunshine!" 

At  that  the  expression  on  Adele's  faded  sandy  features 
scarcely  altered  but  a  faint  flush  mounted  halfway  up  her 
neck.  Even  Walther  had  never  known  the  lengths  she  went 
to,  that  awful  time,  less  than  five  years  ago.  The  twins  had 
been  babies  then,  scarcely  weaned.  .  .  and  all — for  what? 

But  already  Walther  had  begun  to  laugh:  "Ha!  Heini 
Aretin — that  was  very  funny!  Somehow  his  wife  got  news 
of  his  danger  sent  to  Haidenburg — smuggled  a  note  to  the 
village  priest  in  a  prayerbook.  Whereon  the  Haidenburg 
innkeeper  comes  to  Munich,  barges  his  way  with  his  big 
shoulders  into  the  so-called  'Central  Council',  bangs  his 


THE  WHITE   CROW  149 

fist  on  the  minister's  desk  and  says  he  can't  have  his  brewer 
shot  or  where's  he  to  get  his  beer? — Heini  owns  the  Allers- 
bach  brewery,  you  know.  After  that  they  decided  to  let  us 
go.  They  saw  that  anyhow  Poehner  would  never  let  them 
kill  us." 


Chapter  10 

Walther  was  drinking  the  Tyrolean  wine  copiously 
(it  came  from  his  last  bin,  broached  in  Augustine's 
honour)  and  his  neck  had  begun  to  sweat. 

Augustine's  own  head  was  getting  a  little  dizzy.  All  this 
— it  was  straight  from  the  horse's  mouth  indubitably,  but 
it  sounded  so  unreal!  The  sort  of  thing  which  happened 
to  people  in  'history',  not  people  today,  not  real  people. 
Anyway  it  was  surely  over  now.  .  .  well — if  only  those 
crazy  vindictive  Frenchmen  in  the  Ruhr.  .  . 

Meanwhile  Walther  rambled  on  with  great  seriousness 
and  much  emphasis.  Eisner  had  seized  power  in  November 
1918:  but  his  'Red  Guards'  (Walther  related)  were  sailors 
from  the  Kiel  mutiny,  Russian  ex-prisoners  and  such-like 
riff-raff:  their  maraudings  hardly  endeared  Eisner  to  the 
peasants,  and  he  had  little  following  outside  Munich  itself 
and  industrial  towns  like  Augsburg.  Thus,  after  a  few 
months  of  office,  in  the  January  Bavarian  elections  he  had 
only  won  three  seats!  But  he  intended  to  cling  to  power. 
For  as  long  as  he  could  he  prevented  the  new  parliament 
from  meeting;  and  then,  for  its  opening  session,  prepared 
a  second  coup-d'etat:  he  packed  the  public  gallery  with  his 
armed  communists.  He  was  on  his  way  to  that  very  session 
when  he  was  killed. 

Proceedings  began — but  where  was  Eisner?  Then  the 
news  of  his  death  reached  the  Chamber.  Instantly  a 
fusillade  from  the  gunmen  planted  in  the  gallery:  two 
members  killed  outright,  Auer  wounded,  the  blind 
Gansdorfer  escaping  down  a  drainpipe. 

The  Munich  mob  went  mad.  Walther's  own  arrest.  .  . 
the  Red  Reign  of  Terror:  March,  April.  .  . 

Then  May  Day  1919  at  last,  the  blessed  Day  of  Libera- 
tion! At  long  last  General  von  Epp's  valiant  forces  from 

150 


THE   WHITE   CROW  151 

outside  advanced  on  Munich  to  free  it  from  Bolshevism. 
At  that  point  Walther  turned  a  beaming  gaze  on  his  son: 
"Our  brave  young  Franz  here.  .  ."  But  Franz  at  once 
put  on  so  glittering  a  frown  that  his  father  looked  non- 
plussed, and  began  to  mumble:  "Von  Epp  enters  the  city 
.  .  .  the  dear  white-and-blue  flag  again!  Bavaria  a  republic 
still,  alas — but  decent  people  in  control:  von  Kahr, 
Premier.  .  ." 

Just  then  Augustine's  brain  having  long  stopped  listen- 
ing gave  an  unexpected  and  uncomfortable  lurch.  He 
pushed  his  wine  glass  resolutely  from  him:  this  wine  was 
too  potent,  the  people  across  the  table  were  beginning  to 
slide  past  like  a  procession  starting  off.  So  he  chose  that 
passing  girl  opposite  for  an  experiment:  fixed  his  eyes 
resolutely  on  her  and  with  a  big  effort  willed  her  to  a 
halt. 

That  crystal  and  yet  unfathomable  face  of  hers  was  like 
a  still  pool.  .  .  Augustine  found  himself  acutely  wishing 
his  eyes  could  pierce  its  baffling  surface,  could  discern  the 
silent  thoughts  that  must  all  this  while  be  gliding  to  and 
fro  in  the  lucid  maiden  mind  beneath,  like  little  fish.  .  . 
but  no,  not  the  flick  of  a  tail  could  he  descry  tonight,  not 
a  freckled  flank,  not  a  fin! 

Girls'  minds.  .  .  Of  course,  when  they  know  you're 
watching  they'll  deliberately  send  all  the  little  tiddlers  in 
them  dimpling  to  the  surface,  start  fretted  rings  of  ripples 
which  meet  and  cross  and  render  everything  opaque!  But 
in  unsuspecting  tranquillity  like  this  they're  transparent 
...  or  so  at  least  they  should  be. 

Girls'  clear  minds.  .  .  In  tranquillity  like  this  how  lovely 
they  often  are  to  watch!  First,  a  whitish  motion,  deep  in 
the  bottom-darkness:  an  irised  shadow  on  the  shining 
gravel.  .  .  then  suddenly,  poised  beautiful  and  unwitting  in 
the  lens-clear  medium,  that  whole  dappled  finny  back  of 
some  big  thought — as  blue  as  lead.  .  . 

But  this  girl's  mind?  Here  surely  it  must  be  that  the 
thoughts  swum  altogether  too  deep:  lurking  in  the  dark- 


i52  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

ncss  of  some  unnatural  shadow,  perhaps,  hiding  in  some 
deep  pit. 

While  Walther's  mind?  Hoo-hoo!  Just  old  dry  bones 
shaken  endlessly  under  one's  nose  in  a  worn-out  basket 
that  cried  "Look!  Look!" 

Augustine  just  managed  not  to  hiccup — but  indubitably 
he  was  now  more  than  a  little  drunk. 

Augustine  was  startled  by  a  sudden  silence.  Walther's 
voice  had  tailed  off  and  stopped.  Walther  was  looking 
from  face  to  face.  That  young  Englishman  with  so  much 
to  learn — conceited  flushed  young  fool!  Obviously  his 
attention  had  wandered.  But  then  Walther  looked  at  his 
own  wife  as  well,  his  two  children:  their  attitudes  also 
were  politely  attentive  and  their  faces  blank. 

Walther  so  much  loved  them!  He  had  learned  at  his  own 
painful  costs  how  the  world  wagged — and  Gott  in  Himmel 
wasn't  it  the  very  world  they  too  would  have  to  live  in? 
Yet  whenever  he  tried  to  tell  them  they  shut  themselves 
in  their  shells  like  this  and  stopped  their  ears.  Their  own 
dear  papa  had  suffered  these  perils  and  done  these  deeds — 
not  some  stranger.  .  .  Ah,  if  only  he  had  been  born  a  poet 
with  winged  words  hooded  on  his  wrist  ready  for  the 
slipping!  But  Walther  had  been  born  instead  proud  heir 
to  the  long  line  of  Knights  of  Lorienburg — so  damn  all 
snivelling  low-born  poets! 

Walther  took  a  deep  breath  and  tried  again:  "The 
Red  rabble  that  faced  von  Epp  that  spring,  four-and-a-half 
years  ago — -just  imagine!  It  appointed  for  itself  a  self- 
styled  poet  in  command,  the  Jewish  scribbler  Toller." 

"Toller.  .  ."  In  all  Walther's  rigmarole  that  name  had 
come  to  Augustine  as  the  first  tinkle  of  the  Germany  of 
his  supposings,  the  'real'  Germany  he  had  come  to  see: 
the  Germany  of  Toller,  Georg  Kaiser,  Thomas  Mann, 
Werfel,  Einstein,  the  world-famous  architect  Mendelssohn. 
Here  at  last,  perhaps,  was  the  moment  for  knowledgeable 
comment:  "Ernst  Toller?"  said  the  rather  fuddled  Augus- 


THE   WHITE   CROW  153 

tine  helpfully:  "Surely  one  of  the  greatest  German  drama- 
tists of  all  time! — A  feather,"  he  added  acutely,  "in 
Munich's  crown." 

There  was  a  stilly  pause.  Franz's  gasp  was  audible,  while 
Walther  looked  vastly  startled — as  if  Augustine  had  sud- 
denly used  improper  language  in  mixed  company.  "In- 
deed? I  have  not  had  the  privilege  of  reading  the  young 
scoundrel's  works,"  he  said  presently  with  cold  distaste. 

Augustine  had  not  read  them  either:  he  was  only 
repeating  Oxford  tattle,  where  it  was  known  that  Romain 
Rolland  had  praised  them,  and  Bjorn  Bjornsen. 

Augustine  hadn't  of  course  had  any  intention  of  giving 
offence.  But  now  Adele  rose.  The  girl  rose  too:  she  passed 
quickly  round  the  table,  trailing  her  finger  negligently 
along  the  edge:  then  she  held  and  kissed  her  father's 
frowning  forehead  and  vanished  from  the  room  behind 
her  mother. 

On  that,  Augustine  found  himself  actually  wondering 
for  one  brief  moment  what  impression  he  might  be  making 
on  them. — Lord,  he  supposed  he  had  better  watch  his 
step.  .  .  he  must  make  things  right  with  Walther,  straight 
away. 

Suddenly  though  he  realised  that  Walther  also  was 
bidding  him  good-night. 


Chapter  n 

Augustine's  bedroom  was  a  large  low  one  opening  off 
Lthe  stairs,  with  white  walls  and  dark  furniture.  It 
was  heated  by  an  iron  stove  standing  out  in  the  middle  and 
the  wood  was  crackling  so  merrily  when  he  went  to  bed 
that  a  foot  or  more  of  the  long  iron  flue-pipe  glowed  red- 
hot.  Augustine  wrestled  in  vain  with  a  window  in  the 
hope  of  letting  out  some  of  all  this  heat.  He  was  not  used 
to  a  heated  bedroom  and  it  made  him  somehow  afraid  to 
go  to  sleep.  Thus  he  lay  awhile  in  his  bed  awake,  watching 
the  flue-pipe  glowing  in  the  dark. 

As  the  wine  receded  his  mind  began  to  race,  rather  like 
an  engine  with  a  slipping  clutch;  but  presently  its  chaotic 
involuntary  plungings  began  to  take  shape  as  a  new  poem: 

Oft  have  I  stood  as  at  a  river's  brim 
In  girls'  clear  minds  to  watch  the  fishes  swim: 
Rise  bubbling  to  their  eyes,  or  dive  into  places 
Deep,  yet  visible  still  through  crystal  faces.  .  . 

He  was  rather  pleased  with  that  beginning,  at  first — 
its  detached  attitude  was  so  adult.  But  then  he  grew  dis- 
gruntled with  its  idiom.  Why  didn't  his  few  poems,  when 
they  came,  arrive  spontaneously  in  modern  idiom — the 
idiom  of  Eliot,  or  the  Sitwells?  They  never  did.  .  .  'Oft.  .  .' 
This  idiom  was  positively  Victorian.  Victorian  idiom.  .  .? 
"Idiom  Makyth  Man,"  Douglas  Moss  had  once  said;  and 
the  recollection  gave  him  now  a  most  uneasy  feeling. 

In  the  night-silence  he  could  hear  someone  in  the  far 
distance  somewhere  playing  a  piano.  It  was  too  powerful 
for  a  girl's  playing,  these  swelling  thunderous  chords  were 
a  very  Niagara  oilacrimae  rerum.  It  must  be  Cousin  Walther, 
not  in  bed  yet — or  else  unable  to  sleep. 

Augustine  began  to  wonder  about  people  like  Walther. 

i54 


THE   WHITE   CROW  155 

Were  they  actually  the  way  they  talked — unreal  creatures, 
truly  belonging  to  that  queer  fictive  state  of  collective 
being  they  seemed  to  think  was  'Life'  but  which  he  thought 
of  as  'History'?  Or  were  they  what  they  looked — real 
people,  at  bottom  just  as  human  and  separate  as  English- 
men are?  Was  Walther  the  freak  he  seemed?  Were  all  the 
others  here — indeed,  all  Germans — like  him?  Perhaps  he'd 
be  nearer  the  answer  when  he  got  to  know  the  girl  better 
...  or  even  Cousin  Adele.  For  Women  (he  told  himself 
sagely  and  now  very  sleepily)  are  surely,  surely  always  the 
same,  the  whole  world  over, 

In  every  time.  .  . 

In  every  clime.  .  . 
Every  time.  .  . 
Clime.  .  . 
Climb.  .  . 

Augustine  found  himself  climbing  a  long,  long  rope  to 
get  to  his  bedroom.  He  was  at  Mellton  and  very  reasonably 
he  had  had  the  staircase  taken  out — Gilbert  was  on  it — 
and  put  on  the  lawn.  It  was  somewhere  out  there  on  the 
lawn  now,  with  Gilbert  still  mounting  it. 

Presently  a  queer,  high-pitched  howling  mingled  itself 
with  these  dreams.  It  was  shriller  and  more  yappy  than  a 
dog's  and  almost  too  heartless  to  sound  sorrowful.  It  came 
first  from  the  big  hall:  then  presently  something  passed 
his  half-open  door  and  the  howling  began  again,  above. 


Squatting  in  her  thick  dressing-gown  high  in  the  middle 
of  her  hard  huge  bed  of  dark  carved  wood,  by  the  shaded 
bedside  light  of  a  focused  reading-candle,  the  girl  (this  was 
Mary's  'wide-eyed  little  Mitzi',  of  course,  and  she  was 
now  seventeen)  sat  writing  a  letter.  Her  face  looked  very 
different  now  in  spectacles — much  livelier  than  at  dinner: 
kinder,  and  cleverer  too;  and  her  head  was  cocked  on  one 


156  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

side  with  one  cheek  almost  on  the  page,  like  an  infant 
child's.  .  . 

She  wrote  to  Tascha  every  night,  in  her  big  straggly 
writing  that  she  couldn't  read  herself.  If  she  missed  even 
one  night  Tascha  thought  she  had  stopped  loving  her  and 
sent  Mitzi  a  keepsake  damp  with  reproachful  tears  (Prin- 
cess Natascha  was  a  Russian  girl  of  her  own  age  with  a 
deep  contralto  voice  and  lived  in  Munich). 

Mitzi  paused  and  laid  the  letter  on  the  quilt  beside  her. 
Then  she  hunched  up  her  bare  bony  knees  inside  her 
nightgown  against  her  bare  soft  chest  and  hugged  them 
extravagantly,  considering:  what  should  she  say  this  time? 

Papa  at  dinner  had  been  awful  again,  but  that  wasn't 
news.  .  . 

Usually  the  words  came  with  a  run,  even  when  nothing 
had  happened.  Nothing  much  ever  did  happen,  at  Lorien- 
burg.  .  .  but  today  there  had  surely  been  a  real  event — 
the  arrival  of  this  young  Englishman  in  a  house  where 
visitors  were  rare. 

It  was  difficult  to  guess  what  he  was  really  like,  inside 
his  outside;  hard  to  know  if  he  would  turn  out  to  be  nice 
inside  or  not.  Hard  enough  to  imagine  what  the  mere 
feeling  of  being  any  Englishman  must  be  like,  that  un- 
known breed,  without  distinguishing  between  them.  As  for 
his  'outside*.  .  .  he  talked  German  haltingly  and  with  a 
rather  unpleasing  accent  (rather  like  that  Swiss  tutor  who 
once  looked  after  Franz).  But  when  he  talked  his  own 
English  his  voice  was  quite  different:  she  hadn't  thought 
of  'English' — that  dour  schoolroom  task — as  capable  of 
ever  sounding  like  that!  An  honest,  feeling  voice:  one  you 
could  trust  not  to  laugh.  His  clothes  had  an  extraordinary 
smell:  a  wistful  smell,  rather  like  wood-smoke — no,  peat. . . 
his  shoes  were  curiously  silent:  they  must  have  rubber  soles. 

The  sudden  howling  in  the  hall  just  outside  her  door 
sent  momentarily  a  goose-shiver  down  her  spine.  She 
jumped  out  of  bed  and  went  to  investigate.  As  soon  as 
she  opened  her  door  the  howling  stopped  abruptly.  She 


THE   WHITE   CROW  157 

whistled,  softly;  but  the  little  fox  didn't  come  to  her, 
instead  she  heard  his  almost  soundless  stealthy  padding 
towards  the  stairs.  For  a  moment  she  stood,  hstening:  he 
went  up,  not  down. 

The  night  was  turning  colder  still. 

After  she  was  back  in  bed  and  settled  again  wholly 
within  the  warmed  spot  in  it  she  faintly  heard  the  howling 
resumed;  but  now,  high  in  one  of  the  desolate  uninhabited 
storeys  overhead  where  nobody  ever  went. 

The  obvious  thing  was  to  write  to  Tascha  about  him — 
the  unknown  English  cousin  'Augustin'.  His  coming  was 
important.  But  it  was  almost  a  heard  voice  within  her  that 
kept  warning  her:  "JVb,  Mitzi:  better  not!" 


When  Otto  left  the  table  he  went  to  his  office  and  for 
some  hours  worked  on  the  papers  he  had  abandoned 
earlier.  Then  he  looked  at  his  watch:  it  was  time  to  put 
through  his  call  to  Munich. 

It  had  begun  to  snow.  Outside  the  pane  a  succession  of 
flakes  like  white  moths  fluttered  through  the  beam  of  light. 

But  when  he  asked  for  his  number  they  told  him  there 
were  "no  lines  to  Munich".  So  he  asked  for  his  call  to  be 
kept  in  hand;  but  they  told  him  no  calls  for  Munich  were 
being  accepted  tonight. — Were  the  lines  down? — They 
didn't  know,  but  they  could  accept  no  calls. — But  this  is 
to  the  Minister  himself,  Herr  Doktor.  .  .  There  was  a 
pause,  and  then  another  voice  answered,  coldly,  that 
regrettably  that  made  no  difference — no  calls  were  being 
accepted. 

Kahr's  orders,  presumably;  or  General  Lossow's?  Or 
perhaps  actually  Colonel  Seisser's  (he  was  now  police 
chief).  What  were  they  up  to,  then,  those  Munich  trium- 
virs? Otto  hung  up  the  receiver,  and  his  brow  was  wrinkled. 
The  snow  was  falling  faster  but  clearly  this  wasn't  a  ques- 
tion of  faulty  lines:  something  was  happening  in  Munich 
tonight! 


158  THE    FOX    IN    THE   ATTIC 

As  he  creaked  along  the  dark  passages  on  his  way  to  his 
room  he  wondered  what  it  was,  this  time;  there  were  so 
many  things  it  might  be.  The  situation  was  so  tense  it 
could  only  break,  not  bend;  but  there  were  half-a-dozen 
places  the  fracture  could  occur. — Still,  no  use  worrying. 
He  put  his  keys  under  the  pillow,  then  oiled  his  revolver 
and  put  it  in  a  drawer.  Then  he  undressed,  unstrapped  his 
leg  and  laid  it  on  a  chest,  and  hopped  to  his  bed. 

But  once  in  bed  the  pain  began  again:  extraordinary 
how  difficult  it  is  to  lie  comfortably  in  bed  with  only  one 
leg! 

"JVo  calls  to  Munich  accepted.  .  ."  On  second  thoughts  he 
got  out  of  bed  again,  hopped  to  the  drawer,  fetched  his 
revolver  and  put  it  under  the  pillow  with  his  keys. 

When  Otto  heard  the  howling  he  wondered  what  ailed 
Reineke;  for  surely  the  mating  season  was  three  months 
off  as  yet? 


Indeed  there  was  only  one  person  in  the  whole  house- 
hold seriously  perturbed  by  that  faint,  high-pitched 
howling  when  it  sounded  from  the  desolate  upper  regions. 

This  was  Franz.  As  soon  as  he  was  sure  where  the  sound 
now  came  from  he  slipped  a  dark  coat  over  his  pyjamas,  blew 
out  his  light  and  quietly  opened  his  door.  The  hall  outside 
was  pitch-black.  He  listened:  no  one  else  was  stirring.  As 
he  stealthily  felt  his  way  up  the  stairs  in  the  dark  his  bare 
feet  were  even  more  noiseless  than  reynard's  own  had  been. 

Here,  in  the  curving  walls  of  the  stair-pit,  the  howling 
echoed  eerily.  On  the  first  half-landing  he  passed  Augus- 
tine's room — the  last  room  inhabited.  The  door  must  be 
ajar;  for  he  could  hear  Augustine  muttering  in  his  sleep. 
So,  as  he  passed  it  on  his  way  up,  Franz  felt  for  the  Eng- 
lish cousin's  door  and  quietly  closed  it;  for  least  of  all  did 
Franz  want  him  rendered  inquisitive  about  those  floors 
above. 


Chapter  12 

In  Munich  tension  had  risen  all  that  day — to  fever-level. 
Everyone  knew  that  von  Kahr  (who  had  lately  been 
appointed  a  dictator  in  the  old  Roman,  caretaker  sense) 
was  holding  a  meeting  that  evening  at  which  fatal  decisions 
were  expected.  Kahr  wanted  Prince  Rupprecht  on  the 
throne  of  his  fathers:  an  independent  Bavaria,  perhaps. 
The  meeting  was  private  but  all  the  bigwigs  in  Bavaria 
had  been  invited  and  several  from  outside. 

The  situation  was  indeed  so  tense  it  could  only  break, 
not  bend:  no  wonder  those  young  clerks  and  waiters  at 
the  Bayrischer-Hof  had  seemed  to  Augustine  that  morning 
to  have  something  more  important  on  their  minds  than 
running  hotels!  At  the  gymnasium  too  all  nerves  had  been 
on  edge  today:  even  the  pug-nosed  instructor  was  so  distrait 
he  nearly  broke  Lothar's  pliant  back  in  a  new  lock  he  was 
teaching  him. 

Lothar  himself  was  not  consciously  aware  of  nervous- 
ness or  foreboding,  but  he  was  moved  by  a  sudden  over- 
weening upsurge  of  the  love  he  felt  for  all  these  his 
friends  and  for  that  incomparable  brotherhood  to  which 
they  all  belonged.  Presently  a  gust  of  it  almost  swept 
him  off  his  feet  as  he  stooped  in  the  changing-room 
tying  his  shoes. 

On  that  the  lace  broke,  and  while  he  knotted  it  his 
mind's  eye  contemplated  this  signal  image:  Germania,  a 
nymph  chained  white  and  naked  to  the  cruel  Rock  of 
Versailles.  Her  soft  skin  was  ravened  and  slobbered  by  the 
sated  yet  still  gluttonous  Entente  Powers;  but  it  was  being 
even  more  cruelly  mauled  and  torn  (he  saw)  by  the  talons 
of  her  hungry  secret  enemies — the  Bolsheviks,  the  Berlin 
government,  the  Jews.  .  .  the  hooded  Vatican  and  her 
Bavarian  separatist  brood.  But  just  then  in  the  nick  of 

i59 


160  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

time  Lothar's  boyhood  hero  and  present  commander  the 
brave  young  Hermann  Goering  (that  nonpareil  among 
Birdmen!)  swooped  down  in  shining  armour  to  save  her — 
with  Lothar  at  his  side. 

Before  that  picture  Lothar's  heart  quite  brimmed  over 
with  love;  and  while  the  mood  was  still  on  him  he  slipped 
his  precious  ten-shilling  note  almost  surreptitiously  into 
the  Party  chest. 

In  the  throng  behind  Lothar  as  he  did  this  his  comrade 
the  massive  (though  rather  muscle-bound)  Fritz  nudged 
young  Willi,  and  pointed:  "Watch  out!"  he  whispered 
hoarsely:  "The  artful  little  bourgeois  scab — what's  he 
trying  to  pull?" 

Fritz's  indignant  croak  was  meant  to  be  confidential, 
but  it  had  come  out  louder  than  intended.  At  once  his 
suspicious  eyes  blinked  and  he  glanced  round  anxiously 
over  his  huge,  humped  shoulder:  for  Fritz  was  working- 
class  (his  father  being  a  skilled  burglar),  and  he  feared 
that  most  of  these  bourgeois  wet  rags  here  already  looked 
on  him  as  no  better  than  a  Red.  Who  knows?  That 
perishing  little  twister  young  Scheidemann!  With  his 
foreign  Valuta  he  might  have  wormed  his  way  in  with  the 
Top  Ones  here  already.  .  .  in  which  case  poor  clumsy  Fritz 
had  put  his  foot  in  it  proper. — Look!  Even  Willi  the  pariah 
was  edging  away  from  Fritz  now.  .  .  or  was  it  Lothar 
Scheidemann  Willi  was  giving  the  cold  shoulder  to? — 
Which? — God's  Mother,  which? 

(Willi  was  edging  away  from  both,  probably;  for  with 
a  'Roman'  nose  like  Willi's  for  sole  birth-certificate  it  was 
surely  only  prudent  for  a  young  Trooper  to  tread  a  bit 
delicately.) 

But  this  evening  there  was  to  be  not  much  time  for 
prudent  little  manoeuvres  like  these.  For  while  Lothar  was 
still  dreaming  about  Germania  and  Willi  was  still  debating 
in  his  mind  who  to  stand  next  to  at  roll-call  it  was  an- 
nounced that  the  troop  had  special  orders  tonight.  They 
were  to  cross  the  western  sector  of  the  city  in  twos  and 


THE  WHITE   CROW  161 

threes  by  different  routes  and  to  rendezvous  at  the  Drei 
Katzen — an  obscure  but  spacious  beerhouse  just  off  the 
Nymphenburger  Strasse  past  the  Lowenbrau.  There  the 
'Hundred'  they  were  enrolled  in  would  mobilise,  with 
certain  other  'Hundreds',  and  be  told  what  to  do. 

Nothing  more  was  said  to  them  now  than  just  that:  no 
word  about  Kahr's  meeting  at  the  Biirgerbrau  beyond  the 
river,  on  which  all  day  all  surmise  had  centred:  yet  there 
was  something  electric  in  the  air,  and  everyone  knew  that 
at  last  this  was  no  routine  assignment.  At  once  all  prudent 
little  manoeuvres  were  forgotten  quite,  for  at  once  all  the 
jealousies  and  suspicions  which  inspired  them  had  van- 
ished like  smoke.  You  could  almost  hear  the  click  as  those 
'hoops  of  steel'  settled  into  place,  binding  all  these  ardent 
young  men  together  into  one  body  like  well-coopered 
barrel-staves. 

As  dark  fell  they  had  set  out:  in  twos  and  threes,  as 
ordered.  Larger  numbers  might  attract  attention:  to  go 
alone  would  be  imprudent,  for  it  was  at  any  time  none 
too  safe  after  dark  in  certain  streets  near  here  for  these 
known  Galahads  alone — even  partly  armed,  as  they  were 
tonight.  The  Reds  had  been  driven  underground — the 
treacherous  beasts.  .  . 

Thus  the  uncouth  but  sterling  Fritz  lingered  in  the  door- 
way for  his  friend  Lothar  (who  had  a  quick  hand  and  a  cool 
head  in  a  scrimmage,  as  Fritz  well  remembered),  and  the 
two  linked  arms;  whereon  they  both  of  them  felt  almost 
frightened  at  the  intensity  of  the  comradeship  each  other's 
touch  engendered. 

Arm-in-arm  like  that  they  had  moved  off,  keeping  well 
to  the  middle  of  the  roadway,  well  clear  of  doors  and  alley- 
ways. Each  had  one  hand  on  the  bludgeon  in  his  pocket, 
each  with  his  weather  eye  searched  the  shadows  his  side. 
They  were  confident  even  without  having  to  look  round 
that  the  trusty  Willi  was  following  a  pace  or  two  behind 
and  guarding  their  rear. 


i6a  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

But  there  were  no  Reds  on  the  streets  this  bitter  evening: 
only  other  young  men  like  themselves  moving  purposefully 
in  twos  and  threes;  and  heavy  covered  lorries,  which 
roared  along  the  streets  in  increasing  numbers  and  skidded 
round  the  icy  corners  with  crashing  gears. 

Crossing  the  Stiglmaierplatz,  however,  our  Lothar  and 
Fritz  and  Willi  had  several  reminders  that  (Reds  apart) 
theirs  was  by  no  means  the  only  'patriotic'  private  army 
in  Munich  those  days.  There  were  other — and  potentially 
hostile — loving  'German  Brotherhoods'.  The  Lowen- 
braukeller  they  saw  was  full  to  the  gills  with  men  of  the 
Reichskriegsflagge,  with  steins  in  their  hands  and  their 
danders  up,  roaring  their  heads  off.  .  .  well,  these  (as 
Willi,  who  had  an  insatiable  curiosity  about  such  things, 
pointed  out  to  them)  were  Captain  Roehm's  own  men 
now,  since  the  show-down — and  Roehm  seemed  to  be  a 
grand  chap,  it  was  he  indeed  who  had  put  our  own  leaders 
on  the  map!  So,  on  Willi's  instructions  the  three  young 
musketeers  hailed  Roehm's  men  in  passing.  But  in  that 
uneasy  alliance  under  old  Ludendorff 's  titular  presidency 
called  the  'Kampfbund'  these  two  were  almost  the  only 
component  parts  which  could  fully  trust  each  other.  Those 
'Oberland'  men  outside  the  Arzbergerkeller — Weber's 
crowd.  .  .?  Well  (said  Willi)  these.  .  .  and  perhaps 
Rossbach's  henchmen  too.  .  .  these  might  be  trustworthy 
up  to  a  point,  but  there  were  others — the  'Vikings'  for 
example — who  were  an  altogether  different  kettle-of-fish. 
The  'Vikings'  resembled  Captain  Goering's  gymnasium 
brotherhood  only  in  their  love  for  their  country  and  hatred 
of  its  government  and  of  public  order:  they  were  too 
Catholic  and  monarchist  by  half  to  stomach  the  blas- 
phemies of  a  Ludendorff  or  a  Rosenberg.  These  would  be 
Kahr's  men  and  Prince  Rupprecht's  if  brass-rags  were 
ever  irrevocably  parted  with  those  two. 

These  'Vikings'  were  Commander  Ehrhardt's  chickens. 
Ehrhardt,  of  course,  was  already  famous:  a  veteran  of  the 
guerilla  fighting  that  raged  for  two  whole  years  after  the 


THE  WHITE   CROW  163 

19 1 8  'armistice'  in  the  lost  Baltic  provinces,  it  had  been 
he  too  who  had  led  the  Naval  Division  in  the  Kapp  Putsch 
on  Berlin.  And  Rossbach  as  well  was  famous:  he  also  was 
one  of  those  young  veteran  outlaws  of  the  Baltic  shambles 
who  had  gone  to  ground  in  Bavaria  when  cowardly  Berlin 
disowned  their  private  wars.  Lone  warrior-patriots  of  the 
lost  lands  in  the  East,  such  as  prove  lodestones  to  angry 
young  men  any  time,  anywhere!  What  a  godsend,  then, 
it  had  been  to  an  unknown  unglamorous  little  H.Q.  bell- 
hop with  his  own  splinter-party  to  build  when  at  last  he 
had  been  able  to  counter  the  attractions  of  such  heroes  as 
these  with  the  prestige  of  his  young  Captain  Goering!  For 
Hermann  (the  old  African  governor's  handsome  son)  had 
been  the  ace  of  Richthofen's  famous  wartime  'Flying 
Circus',  and  now  had  all  the  panache  on  him  of  his  Pour  le 
Merite  (Germany's  V.C.). 

By  the  time  they  had  reached  the  Drei  Katzen  and 
reported,  that  too  was  filling  up:  older  men,  mostly — 
ex-soldiers;  but  all  their  own  men  however,  except  for  a 
small  and  rather  secluded,  unwanted  knot  of  'Vikings' 
(who  seemed  all  eyes  and  ears). 

Two  hours  later  they  were  still  at  the  Drei  Katzen, 
waiting — with  steins  in  their  hands  now  and  their  danders 
up,  roaring  their  heads  off — when  a  car  drew  up  outside 
with  a  squeal  of  brakes.  Hermann  Esser  was  in  it  (Esser 
the  young  journalist  and  scandal-buster).  He  looked  wild- 
eyed  and  feverish  tonight.  They  crowded  round  him: 
Esser  had  come  straight  from  the  Biirgerbrau  and  he  gave 
them  the  news:  thirty-five  minutes  ago  precisely  the  bal- 
loon had  gone  up!  They  cheered  till  the  building  shook. 
Then  Esser  gave  them  their  orders:  to  march  in  parade 
order  right  through  the  heart  of  the  city  to  the  Biirgerbrau. 
It  was  'action'  at  last! 

As  Lothar's  company  with  banners  flying  and  drums 
beating  swung  down  the  Brienner  Strasse  by  lamplight — 
with  guns  in  their  hands  now  and  their  danders  up,  roaring 


164  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

their  heads  off — people  poured  everywhere  out  of  the  side- 
streets:  men  women  and  children  marched  with  them  and 
behind  them  and  in  front  of  them  and  all  round  them, 
cheering  wildly  for  the  'Revolution' — though  just  whose 
revolution  most  of  them  scarcely  knew.  Was  this  the 
Catholics'  monarchist  and  separatist  one,  or.  .  .  whatever 
the  Kampfbund  themselves  were  after? — Cross  or  Haken- 
kreuz? — Either  meant  mud-in-the-eye  for  Berlin:  thus 
both  were  almost  equally  attractive  to  Bavarians  after 
fifty  years  of  Prussia  calling  the  tune. 

So  they  traversed  the  Konigsplatz  in  style,  with  one 
proud  little  boy  just  in  front  of  the  marching  column  doing 
handsprings,  handsprings — handsprings  all  the  way. 

It  was  a  cold  night  all  night  in  Munich — that  exciting 
night  of  Thursday  November  the  eighth — but  still  no 
snow  there;  and  bitter  and  windy  was  the  'Kahr-Freitag' 
morning  which  followed. 


Chapter  13 

AT  Lorienburg,  when  Augustine  had  gone  to  bed  last 
.x\night  the  room  had  been  too  hot;  but  by  morning  his 
bedclothes  had  slipped  off,  the  stove  was  dead  and  the 
room  down  to  freezing-point.  There  was  ice  in  the  jug  on 
his  wash-stand. 

Here  at  Lorienburg  moreover  there  had  been  quite  a 
heavy  fall  of  snow  in  the  night.  This  morning  the  sky  was 
still  as  slaty-grey  as  before,  but  with  all  that  whiteness  out- 
side indoors  it  was  appreciably  lighter  than  yesterday.  As 
Augustine  on  his  way  to  breakfast  entered  the  hall  he 
found  the  few  touches  of  colour  in  it  picked  out  by  the 
snowlight:  the  blue  tablecloth  on  the  little  round  table, 
a  green  chair,  the  gold  scroll-work  on  the  big  black  settle. 
The  ancestral  paintings  looked  brighter  than  yesterday, 
and  the  pale  cafe-au-lait  stone  floor-tiles  glistened  as  if 
they  were  wet. 

Then  came  a  brief  flicker  of  shadow  over  everything  as 
a  cloud  of  snow  slipped  silently  off  the  steep  roof:  not  in 
one  heavy  lump  as  when  it  melts,  but  more  like  a  slowly 
falling  cloud  of  smoke.  Augustine  turned,  and  through  the 
window  saw  it  drifting  away  like  smoke  on  the  almost 
imperceptible  breeze.  Someone  (he  noticed)  had  left  a 
bottle  of  beer  on  the  sill  overnight:  it  had  frozen  solid  and 
then  burst,  so  that  the  beer  still  stood  there — an  erect  bottle- 
shape  of  cloudy  amber  ice  among  the  shattered  glass! 

As  he  turned  again  from  the  window  Augustine  caught 
sight  of  two  little  girls.  They  were  half  hidden  in  the 
embrasure  of  a  door;  but  he  recognised  them  as  the  tobog- 
ganers by  the  bumps  on  their  foreheads,  glistening  like  the 
floor-tiles.  He  smiled  at  them;  but  they  didn't  smile  back: 
they  were  too  intently  watching  something,  with  shocked 
expressions. 

165 


166  THE    FOX    IN   THE    ATTIC 

It  was  only  by  following  their  eyes  that  he  caught  sight 
of  the  twins  also,  Rudi  and  Heinz.  Those  perilous  trick- 
cyclists  were  crouched  now  under  a  tall  Gothic  bread- 
chest,  withdrawn  as  far  as  possible  from  sight;  but  they 
couldn't  quite  hide  that  they  were  wearing  heavy  brass- 
studded  dog-collars  and  were  chained  by  them  to  the  legs 
of  the  chest  with  long  dog-chains.  Ashamed — not  at  all  of 
yesterday's  crime  but  acutely  of  today's  punishment — 
they  glared  out  at  Augustine  with  unruly  and  unfriendly 
eyes. 

With  her  back  to  him,  and  squatting  on  her  heels  so 
that  the  long  fair  tail  of  hair  hanging  down  her  back  was 
actually  touching  the  ground,  that  older  sister  who  had 
so  interested  him  last  night  was  dipping  hunks  of  bread 
in  a  bowl  of  coffee  and  feeding  them.  Intent  on  scowling 
at  Augustine  one  of  the  boys  got  a  crumb  in  his  windpipe 
and  choked,  coffee  and  other  liquids  pouring  from  nose 
and  eyes.  In  a  paroxysm  of  embarrassment  Augustine  tip- 
toed past  with  averted  head,  hoping  against  hope  the  girl 
would  not  look  round  and  see  him. 

At  breakfast  there  was  an  atmosphere  of  suppressed 
excitement  mounting.  It  bewildered  Augustine,  who  knew 
nothing  of  the  night's  mysteries. 

At  six  that  morning  Otto  had  got  up  and  again  tried  to 
telephone  to  Munich;  but  still  'no  lines'.  He  had  then 
rung  the  railway-junction  at  Kammstadt  and  learned  that 
during  the  night  no  trains  had  arrived  from  Munich  and 
no  news  either.  What  could  have  happened?  Services  else- 
where, they  told  him,  were  normal.  This  narrowed  the 
field  somewhat;  for  if  Berlin  had  marched  on  defiant 
Munich — or  Munich  on  Berlin,  for  that  matter.  .  .  or  if 
Kahr  and  Lossow  had  loosed  the  Freikorps  mobilised  on 
the  Thuringian  border  against  Bavaria's  leftist  neigh- 
bours. .  . 

No:  this  must  be  something  confined — for  the  moment 
— to  Munich  itself.  And  since  Kahr  was  in  control  in 


THE   WHITE    CROW  167 

Munich,  surely  something  Kahr  himself  had  started:  that 
could  only  be  one  thing,  the  thing  everybody  expected 
Kahr  to  start. 

Walther  thought  so  too,  when  he  heard  the  meagre 
facts:  it  could  only  mean.  .  .  and  now  Walther  was  finding 
the  suspense  unbearable,  waiting  for  the  expected  news  in 
front  of  his  untouched  coffee  dumb. 

Franz  also  looked  pre-occupied;  but  withdrawn,  as  if 
his  anxiety  was  his  own  and  something  neither  his  father 
nor  even  his  uncle  shared  (nor  he  theirs) .  Yet  it  was  Franz 
alone  who  remembered  to  ask  Augustine  politely  how  he 
had  slept  (had  the  little  fox  woke  him?  No?),  and  to  pay 
him  the  other  small  attentions  of  a  host.  Franz  was  heavy- 
eyed,  as  if  he  himself  had  not  slept  at  all,  his  expression 
more  contemptuous  than  ever. 

'Heavens!'  thought  the  simpleton  Augustine,  looking 
from  face  to  face:  'What  hangovers  they've  all  got!' 

It  was  at  that  moment  Mitzi  entered  the  breakfast 
room,  followed  by  her  two  little  sisters.  She  too  seemed 
curiously  inattentive;  for  she  would  have  collided  with  a 
displaced  chair  if  Franz,  polite  as  ever,  had  not  whisked 
it  out  of  her  way. 

'Dreaming  again!'  thought  Augustine. 

At  breakfast  Augustine  found  himself  noticing  how 
strangely  Mitzi  spread  her  fingers — like  antennae,  like 
feelers — when  stretching  out  her  hand  for  something  small 
such  as  a  spoon,  or  a  roll  off  the  dish.  Sometimes  it  would 
be  the  little  finger  which  touched  it  first,  whereon  the  others 
would  instantly  follow.  But  even  at  twenty-three  he  was 
still  at  an  age  when,  as  in  childhood,  there  are  things 
which  can  be  deemed  too  bad  to  be  true.  Thus  this  bad 
truth  was  bound  to  be  slow  in  forcing  an  entry  into  so 
young  and  happy  a  head  as  his — the  truth  that  already, 
at  seventeen,  those  big  grey  eyes  of  Mitzi's  were  almost 
completely  blind. 

"Listen!"  said  Otto. 


168  THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

Churchbells — no  doubt  of  it!  Faint  but  wild,  the  church- 
bells  in  the  village  below  had  begun  ringing.  Hard  upon 
the  sound  came  Walther's  foreman  forester,  his  dark  hair 
powdered  with  fine  snow  off  the  trees,  panting  and  jubi- 
lant with  the  news  he  carried.  It  was  the  expected  news  of 
course  (the  first  news  always  is).  Solemnly  Walther  filled 
glasses  and  passed  them  round.  "Gentlemen!"  said 
Walther  (everyone  had  already  risen  to  his  feet):  "I  give 
you — The  King!" 

"Rupprecht  und  Bayern!  HochI"  There  was  a  tinkle  of 
broken  glass. 

'What  fun!'  thought  Augustine,  and  drained  his  glass 
to  King  Rupert  with  the  rest  and  smashed  it:  'What  non- 
sense— but  what /ma!' 

Neither  Augustine  nor  anyone  else  noticed  that  Franz 
smashed  his  glass  with  the  drink  in  it  untouched. 


Chapter  14 

The  first  wave  of  rumours  which  spread  nearly  every- 
where across  the  Bavarian  countryside  that  Friday 
morning  spoke,  quite  simply,  of  a  Wittelsbach  restoration. 
No  one  quite  knew  whence  the  news  came  or  exactly 
what  had  happened:  only  that  there  had  been  'a  great 
upheaval'  last  night  in  Munich  and  now  Prince  Rup- 
precht  the  Field-Marshal  was  to  be  king  of  Bavaria  (his 
father,  the  ex-king  Ludwig  III  with  his  Prussian  bullet  in 
him,  had  died  two  years  ago). 

No  one  was  surprised.  Kahr  was  back  at  the  helm  these 
days  with  special  powers,  and  everyone  knew  Kahr  was 
an  open  royalist  who  was  manoeuvring  to  declare  the 
Bavarian  monarchy  restored  the  first  ripe  moment.  Pre- 
sumably his  recent  deliberate  defiances  of  the  federal 
authorities  in  Berlin  were  no  more  than  moves  in  that 
separatist  game.  Lately  moreover  there  had  been  no  lack 
of  know-alls  to  whisper,  knowledgeably,  that  now  it  was 
only  a  matter  of  days.  Last  Sunday  at  the  big  Totengedenk- 
tag  march-past  in  Munich  it  was  Rupprecht  who  had 
taken  the  salute,  not  Kahr  and  not  the  Minister-president! 
Everyone  had  commented  on  that. 

So  now  it  was  only  the  expected  which  had  happened. 
Mostly,  people  were  jubilant.  Ghurchbells  rang  and 
villages  were  beflagged.  In  the  past  people  had  tended  to 
laugh  a  little  unkindly  at  the  late  ex-king's  concertina- 
trousers  and  his  passionate  interest  in  dairies;  but  in 
Bavaria  fanatical  republicans  had  always  been  few.  Even 
since  the  republic  villages  still  used  to  be  beflagged  and 
churchbells  rung,  children  dressed  in  their  holiday  best 
and  fire-brigades  paraded,  for  ex-king  Ludwig's  'private' 
visits.  When  Ludwig  died  two  years  ago  Munich  gave  him 
a  state  funeral.  It  turned  into  the  warmest  demonstration 

169 


i7o  THE    FOX    IN    THE   ATTIC 

of  public  affection  you'd  have  found  anywhen  in  all  that 
'thousand  years  of  Wittelsbach  rule'. 

Thus  today  there  were  only  a  few  who  wore  long  faces: 
but  those  were  the  very  few  who  allowed  themselves  to 
wonder  What  next?  For  surely  this  must  make  the  present 
open  breach  with  Berlin  final,  must  make  wastepaper 
of  the  Weimar  constitution?  An  independent  Bavarian 
kingdom,  then.  .  .  but  where  do  we  go  from  there?  Other 
German  states  had  their  would-be  separatists  too;  as  well 
as  royalist  Bavaria  there  was  red  Saxony;  there  were 
rebellious  reds  in  Hamburg;  and  at  Aachen  there  were 
those  despicable  paid  stooges  of  the  French  who  even 
talked  of  an  'independent'  Rhineland. 

But  Walther  von  Kessen  was  not  among  these  long- 
faced,  long-sighted  ones  as  in  bubbling  spirits  he  saw  to 
the  hoisting  of  flags,  ordered  the  firing  of  feux-de-joie, 
plotted  processions  and  ox-roastings,  planned  thanks- 
giving Masses  with  the  village  priest,  even  bruited  a 
memorial  obelisk  on  the  Schwartzberg.  Moreover  Augustine 
had  caught  the  infection  and  was  bubbling  too:  possibly 
the  drinking  of  toasts  (no  heel-taps)  in  plum-brandy  at 
breakfast  contributed  to  his  care-free  attitude  of  'Ruri- 
tania,  here  we  come.  .  .'  Presently  he  waved  his  glass  and 
asked  "M'Lord  Baron"  for  a  boon:  surely  so  happy  an 
occasion  should  be  celebrated  by  granting  a  pardon  to  all 
poor  prisoners  in  the  castle,  chained  in  durance  vile? 

For  several  seconds  Walther  gazed  at  him  pop-eyed,  as 
if  Augustine  had  gone  stark  mad:  for  Walther's  mind  had 
been  far  away,  and  in  any  case  he  was  somewhat  unused 
to  fooling.  But  at  last  the  light  dawned — and  then, 
Walther  was  delighted.  How  very  charming  of  Augustine! 
What  an  appropriate  sentiment  and  how  wittily  ex- 
pressed! Walther  indeed  was  quite  astonished:  for  the 
first  time  he  felt  for  his  young  English  cousin  something 
that  was  almost  affection,  and  clapped  him  on  the  shoulder 
till  the  dust  flew.  Then  he  commanded  that  the  boys'  dog- 
collars  should  of  course  be  undone   ("That  was  your 


THE   WHITE   CROW  171 

meaning,  wasn't  it?  I  have  divined  rightly?")  and  sent  the 
two  little  sisters  happily  scurrying  to  see  to  it. 

For  the  fact  was  that  Walther  was  only  too  glad  of  this 
excuse  for  an  amnesty.  It  was  forced  upon  him  that  in  this 
exemplary  punishment  he  had  let  his  sense  of  fitness  run 
away  with  him:  the  boys  were  taking  it  harder  than  he 
had  expected.  There  was  nothing  naturally  cruel  in 
Walther — only  a  belief  that  in  punishing  children  one 
ought  to  be  imaginative  as  well  as  stern:  that  the  modern 
parent  doesn't  go  on  just  unintelligently  beating  his 
children  for  ever. 

Thereafter  Walther  had  to  go  about  his  feudal  festive 
occasions  with  Otto:  so  the  three  young  people,  feeling 
excited  and  pent-in,  went  down  to  the  courtyard,  Franz 
and  his  sister  arm-in-arm,  out  into  the  keen  cold  air.  The 
courtyard  was  deep  in  snow.  The  ramparts  on  its  sur- 
rounding walls  where  yesterday  the  boys  had  bicycled 
were  now  covered  in  a  slope  of  untrodden  snow,  the 
crenellated  twiddles  of  the  parapet  smoothed  out  by  snow. 
A  snow-hush  was  on  all  the  world  this  morning,  in  which 
the  distant  sounds  of  loyal  merriment — the  churchbells 
and  the  sleigh-bells  and  the  gunshots  and  some  far  singing 
— floated  unaccompanied:  the  only  near  sound  was  the 
tiny  (indeed  infinitesimal)  shriek  of  the  snow  you  trod. 

They  passed  through  the  Great  Gate.  Below  them, 
white  snow  blanketed  the  treetops  and  the  village  roofs, 
the  church-tower  rocking  under  its  bells;  and  all  the 
forests  and  fields  beyond  were  also  a  dead  white  under  the 
dun  sky.  In  all  that  whiteness  the  tints  of  the  painted 
crucifix  outside  the  castle  gate  took  on  a  special  brilliance: 
the  crimson  gouts  of  blood  that  trickled  from  the  snow- 
covered  crown  of  thorns  and  down  the  tired  face:  the 
glistening  pinks  and  ivories  of  the  emaciated  naked  body 
with  its  wisp  of  loin-cloth:  the  blood  and  blue-white  snow 
round  the  big  iron  spike  driven  through  the  twisted, 
crossed,  riven  feet.  Under  the  cross  but  quite  unconscious 
of  it  stood  a  group  of  small  mites  who  had  just  toiled  up 


172  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

there  from  the  village  with  their  toboggans:  red  caps  and 
yellow  curls,  shell-pink  faces  intoxicated  with  the  snow, 
they  stood  out  against  the  background  colourlessness  as 
rich  as  butterflies,  they  and  the  Christ  together. 

Here  Franz  halted  the  trio  and  they  stood  in  contem- 
plation. "Griiss  Gott,"  the  children  whispered. 

Augustine  peered  inquisitively  down  through  the  tree- 
tops  towards  the  half-hidden  village  celebrating  beneath. 
But  Franz  and  Mitzi,  their  arms  still  linked,  stood  with 
their  two  smooth  yellow  heads  close  against  the  crucified 
knees.  Franz's  face  was  working  with  emotion.  Instinc- 
tively Mitzi  at  his  side  turned  towards  him  and  with  her 
free  hand  felt  for  and  stroked  his  shoulder.  As  if  that 
released  something  he  began  speaking:  his  face  was 
averted  from  Augustine  but  his  voice  intended  for  him.  .  . 
this  English  Augustin  even  though  English  was  young 
and  so  must  understand  him! 

"Papa,"  said  Franz  (and  each  word  was  charged  with  its 
peculiar  tension),  "is  a  monarchist:  we  are  not,  of  course." 
He  paused.  "You  see,  Papa  is  a  Bavarian,  but  I  am  a 
German."  With  a  careful  but  unconscious  finger  he  was 
pushing  the  snow  off  the  spike  through  Christ's  feet.  One 
after  another  the  children  on  their  toboggans  and  bob- 
sleighs dived  head-foremost  into  the  trees  below,  leaving 
the  three  alone.  "Papa  lives  in  the  Past!  We  live  in  the 
future,  I  and  Mitzi." 

"...  And  Uncle  Otto,"  Mitzi  added  quietly. 

"Uncle  Otto  too?  Yes,  and  no.  .  .  not  without  reserva- 
tion. 

At  that,  Mitzi  drew  a  sudden,  startled  breath. 

As  they  passed  in  through  the  great  gate  and  saw  the 
house  again  Augustine  glanced  up  at  the  roof,  for  from 
the  tail  of  his  eye  he  seemed  to  have  caught  a  flicker  of 
movement  there.  That  open  dormer  on  the  fifth  floor: 
yesterday  surely  it  had  been  boarded  up  like  all  the  rest? 


Chapter  15 

"all  the  same,"  Franz  was  saying  as  the  trio  re- 
Xxentered  the  garden  court,  "to  me,  this  morning's 
news  is  good  news.  .  .  so  I  think.  .  .  for  now  things  will 
begin  to  move."  Just  then  the  twins  appeared  in  a  door- 
way, watching  them.  Augustine  stooped  to  make  a  snow- 
ball, but  these  little  fellows  looked  so  solemn  they  might 
take  it  for  a  deadly  affront.  "Kahr — Rupprecht — they  are 
themselves  of  no  importance,"  Franz  was  explaining. 
"Gustav  von  Kahr  is  merely  the  Finger  of  Fate:  'Fate's 
Little  Finger,'  if  I  may  be  permitted  the  trope.  Supposing 
it  possible  to  harness  too-great  forces  to  too-small  ends, 
today  he  has  released  in  Germany  disruptive  powers  he 
will  not  be  able  to  control.  And  certainly  no  one  in  Berlin 
will  be  able  to  control  them  now  Walther  Rathenau  is 
dead. — That  was  why  the  great  Rathenau  had  to  die,"  he 
added  in  a  curious  husky  parenthesis,  his  eyes  suddenly 
large  and  gloating  and  horribly  human. 

"But  if  things  do  get  quite  out  of  control.  .  .  what  is  it 
you're  hoping  to  see  happen?"  asked  Augustine,  idly 
amused. 

"Chaos,"  said  Franz,  simply  and  sombrely.  "Germany 
must  be  re-born  and  it  is  only  from  the  darkness  of  the  hot 
womb  of  chaos  that  such  re-birth  is  possible.  .  .  the  blood- 
red  darkness  of  the  hot  womb,  etc,"  he  corrected  himself, 
sounding  for  the  moment  very  young — a  child  who  had 
only  imperfectly  learned  his  lesson. 

"Golly!"  murmured  Augustine  under  his  breath.  This 
queer  German  cousin  was  proving  a  rather  more  entertain- 
ing character  than  he  had  suspected. 

But  just  then  Augustine's  attention  was  distracted  from 
Franz,  for  Mitzi  stumbled  over  something  in  the  snow. 
Franz  was  still  holding  her  by  the  arm  but  had  ceased  to 

i73 


174  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

pa)  much  heed  to  her,  so  that  now  she  almost  fell.  "Whoa 
there,  hold  up!"  cried  Augustine  blithely,  and  slipped 
from  his  place  to  take  her  other  arm. 

Usually  Augustine  rather  avoided  touching  people,  if  he 
could:  girls,  especially.  So  that  now  he  had  deliberately 
taken  a  girl's  arm  it  was  somewhat  a  strange  experience  to 
him.  True,  it  seemed  quite  devoid  of  any  electrical  dis- 
charges; but  it  was  embarrassing  all  the  same.  Thus  at 
first  he  found  himself  gripping  the  Limp,  sleeved  thing 
much  too  hard.  Then  he  would  have  liked  to  let  go  of  it 
again  but  found  he  didn't  know  how,  gracefully,  and  so 
had  to  keep  hold  of  it  willy-nilly.  All  the  while  he  was 
acutely  anxious  lest  Mitzi  should  take  him  for  one  of  the 
pawing  kind. 

Whereon  in  a  curiously  emphatic — indeed  almost 
tragic,  and  yet  unhurried  voice,  Mitzi  ignoring  him  began 
to  talk  to  her  brother  about  their  uncle.  Perhaps  (she 
admitted)  Franz  had  been  right  in  his  'reservations';  for 
one  had  to  admit  that  Uncle  Otto  did  not,  in  his  every 
endeavour,  show  signs  that  he  sought  absolute  chaos  and 
ensued  it.  Indeed,  the  work  he  was  doing  for  the  Army.  .  . 

"I'm  afraid  that  is  in  fact  so,"  said  Franz,  frowning. 
"Our  uncle  has  not,  I  regret,  so  clearly  understood  the 
philosophical  pre-necessity  of  chaos  before  creation  as  we 
have,  you  and  I  and.  .  .  and  certain  others."  Now  that 
his  brain  was  active  and  his  emotions  engaged,  Franz's 
habitual  conceited  and  contemptuous  expression  had 
given  place  to  something  a  good  deal  simpler  and  nobler: 
"Hence  arises  our  uncle's  mistake — to  be  working  too 
soon  for  the  re-birth  of  the  German  Army,  when  he  ought 
to  be  working  first  rather  for  the  re-birth  of  the  German 
Soul.  He  sets  too  much  store  by  cadres  and  hidden 
arsenals  and  secret  drilling:  too  little  by  the  ghostly  things. 
He  forgets  that  unless  a  nation  has  a  living  soul  to  dwell 
in  the  Army  as  its  body,  even  an  Army  is  nothing!  In 
present-day  Germany  an  'Army'  would  be  a  mere  soul- 
less zombie.  .  ." 


THE  WHITE   CROW  175 

"Hear-hear!"  Augustine  interrupted:  "Naturally!  This 
time  the  soul  of  the  new  Germany  has  to  take  unto  itself  a 
civilian  'body'  of  course — and  that  can't  be  an  easy  pill  for 
soldiers  like  old  Otto  to  swallow." 

"The  soul  of  Germany  take  a  civilian  body?"  Franz 
looked  startled,  and  there  was  a  prolonged  pause  while  he 
turned  this  strange  idea  over  in  his  mind:  "So!  That  is 
interesting.  .  .  you  carry  me  further  than  I  had  yet 
travelled.  You  think  then  that  our  classical  Reichswehr, 
with  its  encumbering  moralistic  traditions,  will  prove  too 
strait  an  outlet  for  so  mighty  an  upsurge  of  spirit?  So,  that 
the  re-born  Soul  of  Germany  will  need  to  build  for  itself 
some  new  'body'  altogether — some  'body'  wholly  German, 
wholly  barbaric  and  of  the  people?  Is  that  your  thought?" 

Now  it  was  Augustine's  turn  to  look  startled.  In  some 
way  they  had  got  at  cross-purposes  but  just  how?  And 
where? 

But  before  he  could  gather  himself  to  answer  Franz  had 
begun  again:  "The  ghostly  things:  those  must  indeed  not 
be  lost  sight  of.  Do  you  know  what  General  Count 
Haesler  said  even  thirty  years  ago? — Not?  I  will  tell  you. 
It  was  in  an  address  to  the  Army:  'It  is  necessary  that  our 
German  civilisation  shall  build  its  temple  upon  a  mountain  of 
corpses,  upon  an  ocean  of  tears,  upon  the  death-cries  of  men 
without  number.  .  .' — Prophetic  words,  profoundly  meta- 
physical and  anti-materialist:  an  imperative  to  the  whole 
German  race!  But  how  to  be  fulfilled,  please,  Augustin, 
excepting  through  the  Army?" 

So  Franz  continued,  yet  even  while  he  was  speaking  his 
words  were  growing  faint  in  Augustine's  ears — fading,  as 
at  a  departure,  into  silence.  For  suddenly  and  when  least 
expected  the  magic  moment  had  come.  That  soft,  living 
arm  in  the  thick  insulating  sleeve — Mitzi's  arm,  which  his 
fingers  had  almost  forgotten  that  they  held — had  warmed 
.  .  .  had  thrilled.  Now  it  seemed  to  be  rapidly  dissolving 
between  his  tingling  fingers  into  a  flowing  essence:  an 
essence  moreover  that  felt  to  him  as  if  it  hummed  (for  it 


176  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

was  indeed  more  a  feeling  than  a  sound,  this  humming) 
like  a  telegraph-wire  on  a  still  evening.  Then  all  at  once 
his  own  trembling  hand  which  did  the  holding  began  too 
to  dissolve  away  in  this  'Essence',  like  a  sandcastle  in  a 
rising  tide.  Now  there  was  direct  access — a  direct  union 
between  the  two  of  them  through  which  great  pulses  of 
Mitzi's  soul  seemed  to  be  pumped  up  his  arm,  thence 
gushing  into  his  empty  chest,  his  head,  his  singing 
ears. 

Augustine  turned  himself  and  stared  down  into  Mitzi's 
face,  wild-eyed.  What  must  she  be  thinking  about  this 
extraordinary  thing  which  was  happening  between  them? 
For  it  was  surely  happening  to  her  arm  and  his  hand  alike 
— it  was  happening  to  them  both,  to  the  very  separateness 
of  their  being.  Her  enormous  soul  was  pouring  every 
moment  more  deafeningly  in  and  out  through  the  steam- 
ing gates  of  his,  while  the  whole  world  clanged  about  them. 
Yet  Mitzi's  expression  was  cool  and  calm  and  unfathom- 
able as  ever:  her  incredibly  beautiful  face  perhaps  even 
stiller. .  . 

'Beautiful'? — Why,  this  young  face  out  of  the  whole 
world  was  the  sole  incarnate  meaning  of  that  dumb  word 
'beauty'!  In  the  whole  world's  history,  the  first  true  licence 
for  its  use!  Her  inscrutable  face  under  his  gaze  was  so  still 
it  hardly  seemed  to  breathe.  Her  wide  grey  eyes  neither 
met  his  nor  avoided  them — seemed  to  ignore  them, 
rather. 

'Her  wide.  .  .'  It  was  then  at  last  that  the  truth  about 
those  purblind  eyes  struck  home  to  him!  Struck  him  more- 
over with  a  stab  of  panic — for  pity  as  well  as  fear  can 
attain  the  mad  intensity  of  panic. 

Evidently  Franz  was  expecting  an  answer.  Augustine 
had  quite  ceased  hearing  him  talking  yet  now  heard  him 
stop  talking,  sensed  his  expectancy.  So  Augustine  hurriedly 
searched  his  ears  for  any  unnoticed  words  which  might  be 
lingering  there,  like  searching  sea-caves  for  old  echoes. 


THE  WHITE   CROW  177 

"Well:  surely  lately  we've  had  enough  of  all  that  in  all 

conscience!"  he  said  at  last,  half  at  random. 
"Enough  of  all  what?"  asked  Franz,  puzzled. 
"Of.  .  .  well,  corpses  and  tears  and  what's-it." 
"How  'enough',  when  Germany  is  not  yet  victorious?" 

Franz  countered,  now  even  more  puzzled  still  by  this 

queer  English  cousin. 


Chapter  16 

Already  by  mid-morning  more  detailed  rumours 
^about  what  had  happened  last  night  in  Munich  were 
reaching  Lorienburg.  But  once  these  stories  began  to 
contain  even  a  scrap  of  truth  they  began  to  sound  quite 
incredible.  For  now  the  name  of  General  LudendorfT 
came  into  them — and  what  part  had  he  in  Rupprecht? 

The  legendary  LudendorfT!  For  the  last  half  of  the  late 
war  he  had  been  supreme  arbiter  of  a  German  realm  that 
stretched  from  the  North  Sea  to  the  Persian  Gulf.  On  the 
collapse  in  191 8  prudently  he  had  withdrawn  to  Sweden 
for  a  while  (leaving  it  to  Hindenburg  to  get  the  defeated 
armies  home  unaided):  but  he  had  reappeared  lately,  and 
had  immured  himself  in  a  villa  near  Munich  at  Lud- 
wigshohe,  where  he  practised  ancient  pagan  rites  (it  used 
to  be  rumoured)  and  kept  pretty  queer  company:  suc- 
couring conspirators,  baiting  the  Jesuits  from  time  to  time, 
and  abusing  the  Bavaria  he  lived  in.  Yet  now  Rumour 
was  saying  that  today  the  great  Feldherr  had  come  out  of 
his  retirement  like  an  Achilles  from  his  tent:  that  he  had 
thrown  in  his  lot  with  Rupprecht:  that  the  Bavarian 
restoration  had  grown  to  a  'National'  revolution. 

Rupprecht  (said  Rumour)  was  to  be  not  only  Bavarian 
king  but  German  Kaiser,  and  LudendorfT  and  Rupprecht 
were  to  march  on  Berlin  shoulder  to  shoulder!  Otto  and 
Walther  looked  at  each  other  completely  disbelieving,  for 
how  could  two  such  sworn  enemies  ever  join  forces?  Was 
it  conceivable  for  His  Most  Catholic  Majesty  to  begin  his 
reign  by  countenancing  in  any  way  the  discredited  Luden- 
dorfT— a  professed  anti-Christian,  an  unblushing  Prussian, 
a  parvenu  moreover  whose  forbears  were  hardly  any  of 
them  even  noble?  It  was  inconceivable  that  Rupprecht 
would  accept  an  Imperial  crown  at  LudendorfT's  hands. 

178 


THE   WHITE   CROW  179 

Yet  Ludendorff's  name  persisted,  even  when  the  stories 
grew  more  circumstantial.  Other  lesser  names  too  began 
to  be  added:  Colonel  Kriebel  (Ludendorff's  Kampfbund 
leader)  and  Major  Roehm  of  von  Epp's  staff,  and  even 
some  egregious  pocket-demagogue  of  Roehm's  who  (it 
appeared)  also  tagged  in  somehow  with  the  Kampfbund: 
all  these  were  in  some  way  involved.  There  seemed  no 
doubt  that  Ludendorff  was  indeed  playing  a  big  part: 
rather,  it  was  the  part  played  in  all  this  by  Rupprecht 
which  seemed  as  time  went  on  to  grow  more  and  yet  more 
nebulous.  Indeed,  was  Rupprecht  even  in  Munich?  And 
where  was  the  Cardinal? 

At  last  someone  declared  that  since  last  Sunday's  'Un- 
known Soldier'  parade  Prince  Rupprecht  had  positively 
never  left  his  castle  in  Berchtesgaden.  Had  he  been  made 
even  King  of  Bavaria  at  all,  then?  Once  that  was  doubted, 
someone  else  was  positive  that  the  restoration  wasn't  even 
scheduled  to  be  triggered  for  three  whole  days  yet. 

These  counter-rumours  too  flew  fast.  Down  in  the  vil- 
lage, whoever  it  was  had  been  pealing  the  bells  got  tired 
of  it  and  stopped.  Up  in  the  castle,  Walther  put  what  was 
left  of  his  plum-brandy  back  in  the  cupboard  and  locked 
it.  There  seemed  to  be  reasonable  doubt  whether  any- 
thing had  happened,  or  even  was  going  to  happen.  At 
least,  anything  fit  to  celebrate:  Walther  had  no  desire  at 
all  to  celebrate  Ludendorff's  pranks.  He'd  save  his  liquor  for 
Monday.  .  .  if  Rupprecht  really  was  to  be  made  king  on 
Monday  (the  'emperor'  idea  he  had  dismissed  wholly  from 
the  start). 

All  this  passed  quite  unheeded  by  Augustine:  his  mind 
was  too  full  of  Mitzi.  For  Augustine  had  fallen  in  love, 
of  course.  As  a  well-made  kid  glove  will  be  so  exactly  filled 
with  hand  that  one  can't  even  insert  a  bus-ticket  between 
them,  so  the  membrane  of  Augustine's  mind  was  now 
exactly  shaped  and  stretched  to  hold  Mitzi's  peerless 
image  and  nothing  more:  it  felt  stretched  to  bursting  by 


180  THE    FOX    IN    THE   ATTIC 

it  and  couldn't  conceivably  find  a  hair's-breadth  room  for 
anything  else. 

Augustine  navigated  now  whenever  he  crossed  a  room. 
I  mean,  like  the  yachtsman  working  along  the  coast  who 
takes  some  point  on  his  beam  to  steer  by  instead  of  looking 
straight  ahead — some  bold  headland,  or  rock-girt  light- 
house— and  fills  his  mind  with  that  cynosure:  keeps  taking 
new  bearings  on  it,  and  reckoning  his  changing  distance 
from  it.  This  was  very  much  the  way  Augustine  now 
shaped  his  course  across  any  room  that  had  Mitzi  in  it. 
Even  when  his  back  was  turned  to  her  the  very  skin  under 
his  clothes  seemed  aware  of  the  direction  Mitzi  lay:  just 
as  the  body  through  its  clothes  can  feel  the  direction  of 
the  sun's  rays  falling  on  it. 

Augustine  was  now  twenty-three:  but  had  he  ever  been 
in  love  like  this  before?  Certainly  not. . .  at  least,  not  since 
his  kindergarten  days. 


Chapter  17 

Presumably  the  whole  party  had  luncheon  presently, 
but  Augustine  was  too  deeply  besotted  to  be  conscious 
of  such  things  any  more.  Afterwards  however  came  some- 
thing that  he  had  to  take  cognizance  of:  Mitzi  vanished, 
and  reappeared  dressed  all  in  furs.  Franz  too  appeared, 
looking  handsome  and  mediaeval  in  a  long  sleeveless  belted 
sheepskin  jerkin  (he  liked  his  arms  free  for  driving,  he 
said).  Then  Walther  insisted  on  lending  Augustine  his  own 
fur  coat,  a  magnificent  sable  of  dashing  but  antique  cut — 
and  much  too  large  for  Augustine,  which  caused  great 
hilarity.  Finally  Adele  produced  a  sealskin  cap  for  him, 
and  as  she  fitted  it  to  his  head  with  her  own  hands  her  face 
suddenly  went  young  again:  fleetingly  it  was  almost  as  if 
Mitzi  herself  peeped  out  of  it. 

Apparently  it  had  been  arranged  a  long  time  ahead  that 
this  afternoon  Augustine  was  to  be  shown  to  some  neigh- 
bours. These  were  the  Steuckels,  who  lived  very  comfort- 
ably in  a  large  villa  at  Rottningen  ten  miles  away. 
Originally  it  had  been  planned  for  the  whole  Lorienburg 
family  to  descend  on  Rottningen  in  force,  but  in  view  of 
the  dubious  political  situation  surely  Dr.  Steuckel  would 
understand.  .  . 

— Anyway,  now  it  was  to  be  just  the  three  young  people 
alone. 

The  Steuckels  (Augustine  was  informed)  were  not 
nobility;  but  they  were  distinguished  intellectuals  (a  class, 
Walther  explained  carefully,  which  he  considered  deserv- 
ing of  every  respect).  Dr.  Steuckel  owned  an  old-estab- 
lished Munich  publishing  firm  of  high  repute,  which — 
like  the  even  more  famous  Hanfstaengl  outfit — specialised 
in  Fine  Art;  and  he  controlled  an  exhibition-gallery  and 
picture-business  as  well  (pounds  and  dollars!)  in  a  very 

181 


18a  THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

good  position  on  the  Promenadestrasse.  That  was  Ulrich 
Steuckel  of  Rottningen,  of  course — 'Dr.  Ulrich':  his 
brother  Dr.  Reinhold  (the  eminent  Munich  jurist)  had 
once  been  like  Walther  himself  a  Centrist  member  of  the 
Landtag  but  now  (also  like  Walther)  by  his  own  wish  kept 
out  of  party  politics.  He  still  knew  everybody,  though. 

Dr.  Reinhold  was  particularly  able.  .  .  here  Walther 
digressed  to  describe  one  of  the  previous  season's  meetings 
of  'Gaa'  (a  serious  and  distinguished  circle  whose  pro- 
ceedings began  with  an  authoritative  lecture  on  some 
worth-while  subject  and  continued  with  brilliant  informal 
discussions  over  veal  sausage  and  free  beer).  Walther  him- 
self had  been  present  on  that  occasion  but  had  hardly 
dared  to  speak,  whereas  Reinhold  Steuckel  had  covered 
himself  with  glory  by  totally  confounding  the  lecturer  over 
some  technicality  of  monetary  theory — the  lecturer  being 
no  less  a  person  than  Dr.  Schacht  himself,  the  great  Dr. 
Hjalmar  Schacht.  "People  are  saying,"  Walther  now 
digressed,  "that  Schacht  will  shortly  be  called  on  to  direct 
the  financial  affairs  of  the  nation.  .  ." 

But  at  that  point  Mitzi  started  off  down  the  stairs, 
whereon  Augustine  (to  whom  in  any  case  the  name  of 
Schacht  meant  nothing)  instantly  closed  his  ears  against 
Walther  and  followed  her  hot-foot. 

When  they  reached  the  courtyard  Augustine  realised 
the  reason  for  all  these  furs  and  this  wrapping-up.  They 
were  to  travel  perched  high  on  a  light  one-horse  sleigh, 
sitting  abreast  there  the  three  of  them  as  open  to  the 
weather  as  three  birds  on  a  branch. 

Augustine's  heart  leapt;  but  Franz  chose  to  sit  in  the 
middle  between  them,  alas,  since  he  was  driving. 

As  soon  as  the  little  monkey-faced  man  let  go  of  the 
horse's  head  and  the  sleigh  moved  off — even  while  still  at 
a  walk — Augustine  was  assailed  by  a  curious  giddy,  swim- 
ming feeling;  for  the  sleigh  began  slipping  about,  like  a 
car  in  an  uncontrolled  skid.   Instinctively  Augustine's 


THE   WHITE    CROW  183 

motoring  foot  felt  gingerly  for  a  brake,  his  motoring  hands 
clutched  for  a  steering  wheel.  The  sleigh  was  yawing  about 
behind  the  horse  like  a  raft  on  tow.  But  horse-sleighs, 
Augustine  soon  found,  don't  mind  yawing  and  skidding: 
they  are  not  intended  to  behave  like  staid  vehicles  on 
wheels:  they  don't  even  need  to  stick  to  the  road.  As  soon 
as  they  were  free  of  the  perils  of  the  causeway  Franz  left 
the  road  altogether.  He  turned  aside  into  the  fields  at  a 
canter,  his  sleigh  sliding  and  pitching  on  its  squeaking 
runners  in  the  rushing  clear  cold  air,  taking  his  own  beeline 
across  this  open  unfenced  country  like  a  hunt. 

Once  Augustine  was  able  to  persuade  his  muscles  to 
relax,  and  to  acquiesce  in  this  helpless-feeling  motion  as  a 
baby's  would  do,  he  found  his  mind  also  relaxing  (in  sym- 
pathy) into  a  state  that  was  almost  infantile.  He  felt  an 
overwhelming  desire  to  sing:  not  any  proper  song  with  a 
regular  tune,  but  just  to  warble  aloud  in  Mitzi's  honour 
much  as  a  bird  sings  when  it  is  in  love — much  as  Polly 
had  'sung'  that  day  they  had  driven  down  to  Mellton. 
Moreover,  when  he  had  slammed  his  ears  tight  shut  in 
Walther's  face  just  now  Walther's  last  meaningless  syllables 
had  got  caught  inside:  "Schacht!  Schacht!  Doktor.  .  .  Hjalmar 
.  .  .  Schacht"  Augustine  began  to  carol.  Then  he  stopped, 
to  comment  in  his  ordinary  speaking  voice:  "  'Hjalmar'! 
What  an  in^ably  ridiculous  name!  I  bet  he  parts  his  hair 
in  the  middle — eh,  Franz?" 

But  Franz  paid  no  attention:  his  mind  was  all  elsewhere, 
was  in  the  past.  .  .  von  Epp's  crusade  of  four  years  ago  to 
turn  the  Reds  out  of  Munich.  .  . 

Papa  last  night  had  wanted  to  make  a  great  fuss  over 
coupling  Franz's  name  with  it  all  as  if  it  wasn't  a  matter 
of  course  that  Franz  had  volunteered!  Hadn't  he  been 
already  a  trained  cadet  by  then,  and  turned  sixteen? — No 
younger  than  his  friend  Wolff;  and  by  then  the  dedicated 
Wolff  had  already  been  away  fighting  in  the  Latvian 
marshes  for  the  past  six  months.  There  had  been  plenty 


184  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

of  others  from  Franz's  cadet-school  too  with  von  Epp. 
Even  Wolff's  little  brother  Lothar — ex-Governor  Scheide- 
manii  s  other  boy — had  wanted  to  join,  and  they'd  have 
taken  the  lad  if  Lothar  hadn't  looked  so  obviously  only  a 
child  .  .  .  Lothar's  voice  hadn't  broken  even. 

Why  then  had  Franz  minded  it  so  last  night  when  Papa 
blurted.  .  .  after  all,  it  was  not  true  any  more  to  say  that 
.  .  .  that  whatever-it-was  had  happened  to  'him':  it  had 
happened  to  a  boy:  the  very  sixteen-year-old  boy  as  it 
chanced  that  he  used  to  be — but  he  wasn't  that  boy  now. 

Toller.  .  .  last  night  those  two  had  both  spoken  Toller's 
name  (the  Reds'  young  commander);  and  that  had 
touched  something  on  the  quick. 

There  had  been  that  day  when  the  Reds  counter- 
attacked unexpectedly  and  for  a  few  hours  Franz  had 
found  himself  Toller's  prisoner.  .  .  The  loathsome  taste  of 
imminent  death  bitter  on  his  lips  whenever  he  licked  them 
(and  he  had  kept  on  licking  them  as  he  stood  there  with 
tied  hands  expecting  it):  was  that  the  sensitive  spot? 

If  not,  what  else? 

After  their  Spring  campaign — the  gun-booms  and  the 
bomb-bangs,  the  excitement  and  the  fright — May  Day 
19 1 9  had  been  the  final  day  of  triumph  for  the  White 
forces,  the  day  of  victory  and  glory.  There  had  been  a 
cock-a-hoop  triumphal  march  into  Munich  under  arms, 
down  the  broad  but  battered  and  littered  Ludwigstrasse, 
across  the  Odeonsplatz — goose-stepping  between  the  Resi- 
denz  and  the  stately  Feldherrnhalle  and  down  the  narrow 
canyon  of  the  Residenzstrasse,  past  the  Max-Josefs  Platz  to 
the  gothickated  Marienplatz  beyond.  There  had  been  a 
Te  Deum  and  an  open-air  Mass:  the  Red  Flag  has  been 
hauled  down  and  the  'dear  white-and-blue  flag'  of  old 
Bavaria  had  been  hoisted  over  the  city  again. 

That  surely  was  the  end:  after  May  Day,  volunteers 
such  as  the  schoolboy  Franz  had  hoped  to  go  straight 


THE  WHITE   CROW  185 

home.  But  there  had  been  work  still  to  do,  it  seemed: 
Munich  had  not  only  to  be  freed  it  had  to  be  cleansed.  .  . 
That  'cleansing'.  .  .  suddenly  Franz's  hands  on  the  reins 
trembled  and  the  galloping  horse  threw  up  its  head  and 
snorted:  for  suddenly  twenty-year-old  Franz  was  sixteen 
and  living  that  boyhood  whatever-it-was  over  again. 


Chapter  18 

The  triumphal  May  Day  was  over:  Munich  entirely 
in  'white  hands'  but  seething  still.  .  . 

Mechanically  Franz's  hands  still  guided  the  sleigh  with 
his  sister  and  Augustine  in  it,  but  he  was  scarcely  con- 
scious of  it  for  in  his  reverie  he  was  transported  backward 
in  time  to  an  enormous  hostile  Munich  tenement-building 
on  the  far  side  of  the  river  Isar  right  beyond  the  Burger- 
braukeller:  it  was  the  grey  small  hours  of  the  morning, 
and  Franz  was  quite  alone  there,  and  lost. 

This  young  cadet  had  never  been  in  such  a  place  as  this 
before:  he  had  scarcely  in  his  life  before  even  seen  the 
urban  poor.  But  now  he  was  left  alone  here,  alone  in  this 
dark  would-be-clean  but  old  and  rotting  and  hence  stink- 
ing wet  warren  of  endless  decaying  dark  corridors  and 
broken  stairs  and  stuffed-up  windows:  surrounded  in  the 
darkness  by  innumerable  woken  waspish  voices  repeating 
"Toller!"  in  different  tones — and  rude  things  about  him 
(little  Franz)  and  fierce  blood-curdling  threats. 

Franz  had  been  sent  here  with  a  patrol  which  was 
searching  for  Toller;  for  this  was  the  sort  of  place  Toller 
might  be  expected  to  take  refuge  in.  Most  of  the  other 
Red  leaders  had  been  caught  and  shot  by  now  or  clubbed 
to  death;  but  Toller  had  hidden  himself,  the  dirty  Jew! 
The  patrol  had  brought  Franz  along  because  he  alone  had 
ever  seen  Toller  face-to-face. 

That  of  course  was  the  day  Franz  had  been  Toller's 
prisoner:  the  day  the  Reds  had  surprise-attacked  in  front 
and  then  armed  women  from  the  local  munitions- works 
had  suddenly  taken  the  Whites  in  the  rear  as  well,  and 
while  most  of  the  Whites  had  managed  to  escape  to 
Pfaffenhofen  Franz  had  stuck  loyally  close  to  his  com- 
mandant, until.  .  .  Hey,  presto!  The  canny  White  com- 

186 


THE  WHITE   CROW  187 

mandant  himself  had  escaped  from  the  little  town  solo  on 
a  railway-engine  and  Franz  and  the  few  who  had  remained 
with  him  were  taken. 

At  last  they  had  been  brought  before  the  bloodthirsty 
Toller:  a  slim,  small-bodied  young  student-ogre  with  big 
brown  dramatic  eyes  and  wavy  black  hair.  They  thought 
that  now  they  would  surely  be  shot.  But  instead  Toller 
had  said  something  sentimental  and  a  huge  navvy  had 
untied  the  blond,  childlike  Franz  and  given  him  his  own 
hunk  of  sausage:  whereon  Franz  had  burst  into  tears  under 
Toller's  very  eyes  and  Toller  had  turned  all  his  prisoners 
scot-free  loose — the  dirty  Jew! 

So  now,  in  the  grey  dawn  that  as  yet  had  scarcely  pene- 
trated indoors,  they  were  searching  this  place  for  Toller 
the  fugitive;  and  Franz  was  there  to  identify  him,  if  he 
were  found. 

"Open!  Open!"1  The  doors  seldom  opened  quickly 
enough,  and  again  and  again  the  sergeant  had  to  kick 
down  these  doors.  Doors  entering  on  rooms  with  sagging, 
gravid  ceilings  and  with  lamps  hastily  lit.  Entering  on  dark 
rooms  filled  to  the  peeling  walls  with  beds.  Collapsing 
rooms,  filled  with  threadbare  beds  laden  with  whole  bony 
families — whole  families  which  night  after  night  had  bred 
on  them  those  innumerable  bone-thin  children  now  smell- 
ing, in  the  darkness,  of  urine  and  of  hate. 

All  the  same,  they  had  not  found  Toller;  and  presently 
for  some  reason  Franz  had  been  left  alone  like  this  in  the 
darkness  to  guard  the  stairs  while  the  rest  of  the  patrol 
moved  on  elsewhere.  .  . 

Just  at  that  point  in  his  recollections  Franz  turned  the 
horse's  head  towards  the  forest.  All  at  once  the  sleigh 
plunged  in  among  the  trees  down  a  broad  ride,  and  Augus- 
tine in  his  snow-bound  loving  ecstasy  gave  loud  utterance 
to  a  hunting-cry.  At  that  happy,  wholly  animal  sound  a 
tremor  passed  across  Franz's  quailing,  hunted  face:  for 
now  in  the  paling  darkness  countless  shadowy  figures  in 


188  THE    FOX    IN   THE    ATTIC 

their  ghostlike  nightclothes  were  hustling  him  and  again 
hustling  him,  and  the  tide  of  them  had  begun  to  carry  him 
away — in  a  twinkling  that  woman  had  snatched  at  his 
rifle  and  underfoot  the  child  had  writhed  and  bitten  him 
and  his  falling  gun  had  gone  off  lethally  right  among 
them,  the  women  and  the  children — a  deafening  bang, 
and  then  the  howling.  .  . 

Augustine  failed  to  notice  that  tremor,  for  he  was  lean- 
ing right  forward  so  as  to  be  able  to  see  past  good  old 
Franz  and  steal  a  glance  at  Mitzi. — Aha!  At  the  happy, 
noble,  British  animal  sound  he  had  just  emitted  her  parted, 
frost-pink  lips  had  smiled. 

Augustine  leant  back  again  in  his  place,  content. 

Mitzi  had  smiled.  .  .  but  surely  the  smile  lingered  on 
her  lips  rather  overlong?  Indeed  in  the  end  it  seemed 
frozen  to  a  mere  physical  configuration,  no  pleasure  nor 
humour  remaining  in  it. 

Once  Mitzi's  childhood  cataracts  had  been  removed  the 
only  vision  she  ever  had  when  without  spectacles  to  give 
things  some  semblance  of  shape  (those  spectacles  which 
might  never  be  worn  in  public)  was  a  sort  of  marbled 
mingling  of  light  and  shade.  But  this  morning  she  had 
woken  plagued  with  dark  discs  floating  across  things — 
discs  which  even  the  spectacles  could  not  dispel;  and  now 
these  swimming  discs,  or  globules,  had  begun  to  coalesce 
in  a  queerly  solid  black  cloud,  curtaining  totally  one  part 
of  the  field.  Now  too  that  black  cloud  had  begun  to  emit 
minute  but  brilliant  blue  flashes  along  its  advancing  edge 
.  .  .  for  it  was  advancing,  every  now  and  then  the  cloud 
jerked  forward  a  little  further  and  blocked  out  a  little  more 
of  the  field  (moreover,  in  such  an  absolute  way!). 

Six  months  ago  without  even  this  much  warning  one 
eye  had  wholly  collapsed,  ceased  to  be  a  sense-organ  at 
all.  "The  retina  had  detached,"  they  said.  But  that  was 
the  eye  which  had  always  been  the  weaker,  quite  apart 


THE   WHITE   CROW  189 

from  those  cataracts  in  both  of  them;  and  the  doctors  were 
so  full  of  comforting  assurances  about  the  remaining, 
stronger  eye!  Until  now  she  had  completely  believed  them; 
but  was  after  all  the  same  thing  now  happening  to  her 
'good'  eye  too?  In  a  matter  of  hours  or  minutes — hastened 
perhaps  by  the  jolting  of  the  sleigh — might  she  find  herself 
for  ever  afterwards  stone  blind? 

That  was  the  sudden  premonition  which  had  made 
Mitzi  so  suddenly  abandon  that  smile  of  hers  and  leave 
it  lying  derelict  on  her  lips,  discarded  and  forgotten  while 
she  prayed: 

Mary,  Mother.  .  .  Oh  Mary,  Mother.  .  .  Heart  of  Jesus.  .  . 

So  the  sleigh  glided  on  with  them,  and  slid — all  three 
swaying  together,  these  three  separate  identities  bundled 
up  in  one  bundle:  a  trio,  pressed  flank  to  flank  in  such 
close  physical  communion  as  almost  to  seem  physically  one 
person.  On  and  on  through  the  whiteness  and  the  black- 
ness of  the  endless  snow-burdened  forest. 

In  the  ears  of  all  three  of  them  similarly  the  silvery 
music  of  their  sleigh's  sweet  bells  echoed  off  the  endless 
equidistant  serried  boles. 


Chapter  ig 

It  surprised  Franz  when  at  last  they  arrived  at  Rott- 
ningen  to  find  Dr.  Reinhold  there.  The  eminent  jurist 
was  a  busy  man  and  seldom  came  to  his  brother's  house; 
but  now  Franz  heard  his  unmistakable  throbbing  voice  as 
soon  as  they  entered  the  hall. 

It  seemed  to  come  through  the  open  library  door  where 
Dr.  Ulrich  had  just  appeared  to  greet  them:  "Two  shots!" 
the  exciting  voice  thrilled  in  tones  rich  with  pathos: 
"Straight  through  the  ceiling!  Phut-phut!  Surely  a  remark- 
able way  of  catching  the  chairman's  eye  at  a  meeting.  .  . 
and  indeed  he  caught  every  eye,  balancing  there  erect  on 
a  little  beer-table — all  those  grandees  in  full  fig,  and  him 
in  a  dirty  mackintosh  with  his  black  tails  showing  under 
its  skirts — like  a  waiter  on  the  way  home.  In  one  hand  a 
big  turnip-watch,  and  a  smoking  pistol  in  the  other.  .  ." 

A  subdued  buzz  of  appreciation  was  audible  from  the 
library.  In  the  meanwhile  Franz  had  been  trying  to  mur- 
mur his  parents'  excuses,  but  Dr.  Ulrich  seemed  in  a 
towering  hurry  and  wouldn't  stop  to  listen  to  them — he 
would  scarcely  let  the  Lorienburg  party  get  their  furs  off 
before  he  shepherded  them  in  front  of  him  into  the  already 
crowded  library  and  pushed  them  into  chairs.  "S-s-s-sh!" 
he  admonished  them  excitedly:  "Reinhold  was  there,  he 
saw  everything!  He  left  Munich  before  dawn  and  has  just 
got  here  by  way  of  Augsburg.  They're  all  in  it — Luden- 
dorff,  Kahr,  Lossow,  Seisser,  Poehner.  .  ." 

"You  muddle  everything,  Uli!  It's  all  that  Hitler!"  said 
Reinhold  plaintively,  "I  keep  telling  you!" 

".  .  .  and  Otto  Hitler  too,"  Dr.  Ulrich  added  hurriedly: 
"One  of  Ludendorff's  lot,"  he  explained. 

"Adolf.  .  .  "  his  brother  corrected  him.  "But  not  'and 
Adolf  Hitler  too'!  As  I'm  trying  to  explain — only  you  will 

190 


THE   WHITE   CROW  191 

keep  running  in  and  out — little  second-fiddle  Hitler 
entirely  stole  the  show!  Ludendorff,  today?  Kahr?"  he 
continued  with  ironical  disdain,  and  snapped  his  fingers: 
"Pfui/ — For  months  those  two  have  both  been  stringing  this 
Hitler  along,  each  trying  to  use  that  empty  brain  and 
hypnotic  tongue  for  his  own  ends:  now  Hitler  has  turned 
the  tables!" 

"It  must  all  have  been  richly  comic,"  someone  remarked 
comfortably. 

"But  on  the  contrary!"  Dr.  Reinhold  was  palpably 
shocked.  "How  can  I  have  conveyed  to  you  any  such  idea? 
— No,  it  was  deeply  impressive! — Macabre,  if  you  like:  a 
mis-en-scene  by  Hieronymus  Bosch:  but  in  no  way  comic!" 

Once  more  everybody  settled  down  to  listen.  "The  hall 
was  packed — by  exclusive  invitation  only,  for  a  pro- 
nouncement of  Great  Importance.  Everybody  who  was 
anybody  was  there  including  our  entire  Bavarian  cabinet 
— and  Hitler  too  of  course,  he'd  somehow  been  invited. . ." 

"When  was  this,  and  where?"  Franz  whispered  to  Ulrich, 
aside. 

"Last  night.  Munich." 

"But  WHERE?" 

"S-s-s-shf  The  Biirgerbraukeller:  Kahr  had  engaged  their 
biggest  hall" 

"We  all  knew  what  we'd  been  summoned  for,  of  course 
— more  or  less.  It  would  be  monarchy,  or  secession — or 
perhaps  both.  .  .  federation  with  Austria,  even.  But  Kahr 
seemed  in  no  hurry  to  come  to  brass-tacks.  He  droned  on 
and  on.  That  tiny  square  head  of  his — for  anthropo- 
metrically  he's  a  veritable  text-book  Alpine,  that  old  boy, 
and  his  little  head  sank  lower  and  lower  on  the  expanse  of 
his  chest  till  I  truly  thought  it  would  end  up  in  his  lap! 
Nothing  about  him  looked  alive  except  those  two  little 
brown  eyes  of  his:  from  time  to  time  they'd  leave  his  notes 
and  take  just  one  peep  at  us — like  mice  from  the  mouths  of 
their  holes!  Eight-fifteen — eight-twenty— on  and  on — eight- 
twenty-five — still    endlessly    saying    nothing — eight-twenty- 


i92  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

tight,  turnty-nine,  and  then — you  should  have  seen  Kahr's 
look  of  outrage   at  the  interruption — that  inexplicable 

Phut!  Phutr 

Rrinhold  paused  dramatically,  palpably  waiting  till 
someone  asked  him,  "What  happened  then?" 

"Silence,  at  first — a  moment  of  utter  silence!  But  the 
watch  in  Hitler's  hand  was  fully  as  significant  as  his  pistol. 
On  the  very  stroke  of  eight-thirty — at  the  very  moment 
he  first  pulled  the  trigger — the  door  burst  open  and  in 
tumbled  young  Hermann  Goering  with  a  machine-gun 
squad!  Steel  helmets  seemed  to  appear  instantly  out  of 
nowhere:  at  every  door,  every  window,  all  over  the  hall 
itself.  And  then  Pandemonium  broke  loose!  Shrieks  and 
shouts,  crashing  furniture  and  smashing  beer-jugs.  .  . 
punctuated  by  that  short  sharp  ululation  peculiar  to 
women  in  expensive  furs.  .  . 

"Hitler  jumped  off  his  table  and  began  pushing  to  the 
front,  revolver  still  in  hand.  Two  of  Goering's  strong-arm 
boys  half-lifted  him  onto  the  platform,  and  Kahr  was 
shoved  aside.  So  there  he  stood,  facing  us.  .  .  You  know 
those  piercing,  psychotic,  popping  eyes  of  his?  You  know 
that  long,  comparatively  legless  body?  ('Incidentally  you're 
another  Alpine,  dear  boy,'  I  thought:  'You're  certainly  no 
Nordic.  .  .')  But  oh  the  adoring  gaze  those  brawny  pin- 
head  gladiators  of  his  kept  turning  on  him  from  under  their 
tin  skull-cups,  those  ant-soldiers  of  his  (and  there  seemed 
to  be  legions  of  them,  let  me  tell  you,  there  last  night) ! 

"Now  in  a  moment  it  was  so  quiet  again  you  could  hear 
Hitler  panting — like  a  dog  circling  a  bitch!  He  was  pro- 
foundly excited.  Indeed  whenever  he  faces  a  crowd  it 
seems  to  arouse  him  to  a  veritable  orgasm — he  doesn't  woo 
a  crowd,  he  rapes  it.  Suddenly  he  began  to  screech:  'On 
to  Berlin!  The  national  revolution  has  begun — /announce 
it!  The  Hakenkreuz  is  marching!  The  Army  is  marching! 
The  Police  are  marching!  Everybody  is  marching!'  "  Dr. 
Reinhold's  voice  rasped  harsher  and  harsher:  "  'This  hall 
is  occupied!  Munich  is  occupied!  Germany  is  occupied! 


THE   WHITE   CROW  193 

Everywhere  is  occupied!'  "  In  his  mimicry  Dr.  Reinhold 
glared  round  the  room  with  quivering  nostrils,  as  if  daring 
anyone  to  move  in  his  seat.  Then  he  continued:  "  'The 
Bavarian  government  is  deposed!  The  Berlin  government 
is  deposed!  God  Almighty  is  deposed — hail  to  the  new 
Holy  Trinity  Hitler-Ludendorff-Poehner!  Hoch!'  " 

"Poehner?"  said  someone  incredulously:  "That.  .  .  long, 
stuttering  policeman?" 

"Once — Gaoler  of  Stadelheim! — Now,  Bavaria's  new 
prime  minister!"  said  Reinhold  with  ceremony:  "Hoch!" 

"And  Ludendorff.  .  .  so  Ludendorff  is  behind  it  all," 
said  someone  else. 

"Ye-es — in  the  sense  that  the  tail  is  'behind'  the  dog," 
said  Reinhold:  "Commander-in-chief  of  a  thrice-glorious 
(non-existent)  National  Army — Hoch!  It's  Lossow  who's  to 
be  minister  of  war.  I  tell  you,  when  Ludendorff  at  last  came 
on  the  scene  he  was  in  a  smoking  rage:  it  was  perfectly 
obvious  Hitler  had  bounced  him — he'd  known  nothing 
about  the  coup  till  they  got  him  there.  He  spoke  honeyed 
words,  but  he  looked  like  a  prima  donna  who's  just  been 
tripped  into  the  wings." 

"And  Egon  Hitler  himself?" 

"  i Adolf,"  please.  .  .  our  modest  Austrian  Alpine?  He 
asks  so  little  for  himself!  Only.  .  ."  Reinhold  stood  exag- 
geratedly at  attention — "Only  to  be  Supreme  Dictator  of 
the  Whole  German  Reich— Hoch!  Hoch!  HOCH!" 

Someone  in  Reinhold's  audience  made  a  more  farm- 
yard noise. 

"My  friend — but  you  ought  to  have  been  there!"  said 
Reinhold,  fixing  him  with  his  eyes:  "I  couldn't  understand 
it.  .  .  frankly,  I  can't  understand  it  now  so  perhaps  you 
clever  people  will  explain  it  to  me?  Hitler  retires  to  confer 
in  private  with  Kahr  &  Co. — at  the  pistol-point  I've  little 
doubt,  for  Kahr  and  Lossow  were  flabbergasted  and  palp- 
ably under  arrest — while  young  Hermann  Goering  in  all 
his  tinkling  medals — all  gongs  and  glamour — is  left  to  keep 
us  amused!  Back  comes  Hitler:  he  has  shed  his  trench-coat 


194  THE    FOX    IN    THE   ATTIC 

now  and  there  his  godhead  stands  revealed — our  Titan! 
Our  New  Prometheus! — in  a  slop-shop  tail-coat  nearly 
reaching  to  his  ankles,  das  arme  Kellnerlein!  But  then  Hitler 
begins  to  speak  again:  'November  criminals'  and  'Glorious 
Fatherland'  and  'Victory  or  Death'  and  all  that  gup.  Then 
Ludendorff  speaks:  'On  to  Berlin — there's  no  turning  back 
now.  .  .'  'That's  spiked  Kahr's  separatist,  royalist  guns 
pretty  thoroughly,'  I  thought:  'and  just  in  the  nick  of  time! 
Prince  Rupprecht  is  right  out  of  it  from  now  on — he's 
missed  his  cue.  .  .'  But  no!  For  then  the  notoriously  anti- 
royalist  Hitler  chokes  out  some  intentionally  only  half- 
audible  laudatory  reference  to  'His  Majesty':  whereon 
Kahr  bursts  into  tears  and  falls  into  Hitler's  arms,  babbling 
about  'Kaiser  Rupprecht'!  Ludendorff  can't  have  heard 
what  Hitler  said  or  Kahr  said  either — fortunately,  for  he'd 
certainly  have  burst  asunder.  .  .  but  as  it  is,  everyone 
shakes  hands  all  round.  .  .  then  State-Commissioner  Baron 
von  Kahr  speaks,  then  Commanding-General  von  Lossow, 
then  Chief-of-Police  Colonel  von  Seisser — all  licking  the 
Austrian  ex-corporal's  boots!  All  pledging  him  their  sup- 
port! Not  that  I'd  trust  one  of  them  a  yard  if  I  were  Hitler 
.  .  .  any  more  than  I'd  trust  Hitler's  new-found  reverence 
for  royalty  if  I  were  Rupprecht. 

"So  much  for  the  stage  and  the  professionals:  in  the 
audience  we're  all  jumping  on  our  seats  and  cheering  our- 
selves silly.  'Reinhold  Steuckel,  you  level-headed  eminent 
jurist!'  I  kept  telling  myself.  'This  isn't  politics,  it's  Opera. 
Everyone's  playing  a  part — but  everyone!'  " 

"Grand  Opera — or  Opera-bouffe?"  asked  someone 
behind  the  speaker. 

Reinhold  turned  right  round  in  his  chair  and  looked  at 
his  interrogator  very  seriously:  "Ah,  that's  the  question! 
And  it's  early  days  really  to  know  the  answer,"  he  added 
slowly.  "But  I  think  it's  what  I  hinted  earlier:  something 
not  quite  human. — Wagner  you  say?  You're  thinking  of 
that  early,  immature  thing  of  his,  Rienzi?  Perhaps.  Yes, 
the  score  is  recognisably  at  least  school  of  Wagner.  .  .  ah, 


THE   WHITE   CROW  195 

but  those  ant-soldiers — all  those  sinister,  animated  insects 
and  those  rabbits  and  weasels  on  their  hind  legs.  .  .  and 
above  all,  Hitler.  .  .  Yes,  it  was  Wagner,  but  Wagner 
staged  by  Hieronymus  Bosckl" 

He  said  all  this  with  such  compelling  earnestness, 
enunciating  those  last  words  in  so  sibilant  a  whisper,  that 
a  chill  hush  fell  on  the  whole  room.  Dr.  Reinhold  had  not 
gained  that  courtroom  reputation  of  his  for  nothing. 


Chapter  20 

DR.  ulrich  kept  bees,  and  the  little  honey-cakes  which 
were  being  served  (with  liqueurs)  were  a  speciality  of 
the  house:  "Famous!"  his  guests  exclaimed:  "Wonderful 
— delicacies  of  the  most  surpassing  excellence!"  It  quite 
shocked  English  Augustine  to  hear  men  sitting  around  and 
all  talking  so  excitedly  about  food. 

"Hitler  would  adore  these  cakes  of  yours,  Uli,"  said 
someone. 

"But  Herr  Hitler  adores  anything  sweet  and  sticky,"  said 
someone  else:  "These  little  beauties  would  be  wasted  on 
him."  The  speaker  smacked  his  lips. 

"That  must  be  why  he's  got  such  a  pasty  complexion," 
(it  was  only  Dr.  Ulrich  himself,  it  seemed,  who  had  hardly 
heard  of  Adolf). 

"Does  anybody  know  just  when  Hitler  clipped  his 
moustache?"  Franz  asked  his  neighbour  suddenly.  But 
nobody  did.  .  .  "Because,  the  first  time  I  ever  saw  him  it 
was  long  and  straggling." 

"No!" 

"He  was  standing  on  the  kerb,  haranguing.  And  nobody 
in  the  street  was  listening:  not  one.  They  walked  past  him 
as  if  he  was  empty  air:  I  was  quite  embarrassed.  .  .  I  was 
only  a  boy,  then,  really,"  Franz  added  apologetically. 

"That  must  indeed  have  been  most  embarrassing  for 
you,  Baron,"  put  in  Dr.  Reinhold  sympathetically.  "What 
did  you  do?  Did  you  manage  to  walk  by  too?  Or  did  you 
stop  and  listen?" 

"I  .  .  .  couldn't  do  either,"  Franz  confessed:  "It  was  all 
too  embarrassing.  I  thought  he  was  someone  mad,  of 
course:  he  looked  quite  mad.  In  the  end,  rather  than  pass 
him  I  turned  back  and  went  by  another  street.  He'd  a 
torn  old  mackintosh  which  looked  as  if  he  always  slept  in 

196 


THE   WHITE   CROW  197 

it  yet  he  wore  a  high  stiff  collar  like  a  government  clerk. 
He'd  got  floppy  hair  and  staring  eyes  and  he  looked  half- 
starved.  .  ." 

"A  stiff  white  collar?"  interposed  Dr.  Reinhold:  "Prob- 
ably he  slept  in  that  too.  What  the  title  of  'Majesty'  on 
the  lips  of  his  pawnbroker  means  to  an  exiled  monarch  at 
Biarritz,  or  the  return  of  his  sword  to  a  vanquished  general, 
or  his  dinner-jacket  to  an  English  remittance-man  on  the 
Papuan  beaches — that  clerkly  collar!  His  inalienable  birth- 
right as  a  Hereditary  Life-member  of  the  Lower  Middle 
Classes — Hoch!" 

"It  can't  have  been  my  lucky  day,"  Franz  pursued, 
smiling  wryly.  "There  was  another  prophet  in  the  next 
street  I  turned  along,  too!  And  he  was  dressed  only  in  a 
fishing-net:  the  chap  thought  he  was  St.  Peter." 

Augustine  liked  Dr.  Reinhold:  intellectually  he  was 
obviously  in  a  different  class  altogether  from  Walther  and 
Franz  (surely  it  was  symptomatic  how  much  Franz  him- 
self seemed  to  alter  in  Dr.  Reinhold's  company!).  So  now 
Augustine  slipped  out  of  the  seat  he  had  been  planted  in, 
made  his  way  over  to  Dr.  Reinhold  and  began  talking  to 
him  without  more  ado  about  a  boy  at  his  prep-school  who 
hadn't  just  thought  he  was  God — he  knew  it.  The  boy  (a 
small  and  rather  backward  and  inky  specimen)  knew  it 
beyond  any  shadow  of  doubt.  But  though  he  was  Almighty 
God  in  person  he  had  been  curiously  unwilling  to  admit 
it  openly  when  questioned  in  public — even  when  taxed 
with  it  by  someone  big  and  important,  with  a  right  to  a 
straight  answer  even  from  God  (some  prefect,  say,  or  the 
captain  of  cricket):  "Leighton  Minor!  For  the  last  time- — 
Are  you  God  or  aren't  you?"  He'd  stand  on  one  leg  and 
blush  uncomfortably  but  still  not  say  Yes  or  No.  .  . 

"Was  he  ashamed  of  His  Godhead?  Considering  the 
state  He's  let  His  universe  get  into.  .  ." 

"I  don't  think  it  was  that:  n-n-no,  it  was  more  that  if 
you  couldn't  spot  for  yourself  something  which  stood  out 


198  THE    FOX    IN    THE   ATTIC 

a  mile  like  that  it  was  hardly  for  Him  to  make  a  song 
about  it — altogether  too  self-advertising.  .  ." 

Dr.  Reinhold  was  delighted:  "But  of  course!  Incarnate 
in  an  English  boy  how  else  could  God  behave?  It's  how 
you  all  do  behave,  in  fact."  Then  he  enquired  of  Augustine 
in  the  meekest  of  voices:  "Mr.  Englishman,  tell  me  please 
because  I  should  be  so  interested:  are  you  God?" 

Augustine's  jaw  dropped. 

"You  see!"  cried  Dr.  Reinhold  triumphantly.  But  then 
he  turned  to  Franz  and  said  in  tones  of  contrition:  "Intro- 
duce us,  please."  And  thus — rather  late  in  the  day — 
Reinhold  and  Augustine  formally  'met'. 

The  German  clicked  his  heels  and  murmured  his  own 
name,  but  Augustine  just  went  straight  on  talking:  "Some- 
times we  had  to  twist  his  arm  like  anything  to  make  him 
own  up  to  it." 

"Himmel!"  Dr.  Reinhold  regarded  his  new  friend  with 
owlish  anxiety:  "Considering.  .  .  who  He  was,  wasn't  that 
just  a  tiny  bit  unsafe?"  Then  he  clapped  his  hands: 
"Listen,  everybody!  I  want  you  to  meet  a  young  English- 
man whose  idea  of  a  wet-afternoon's  harmless  amusement 
for  little  boys  is  twisting  the  arm  of.  .  .  of  Almighty  God!" 

"He'd  better  meet  Hitler  then,"  said  a  square  woman 
sourly. 

"It  isn't  as  if  the  Kampfbund  themselves  took  Hitler 
seriously,"  said  someone.  "He's  not  one  of  their  big  men." 

"It's  all  Putzi's  fault,"  someone  else  was  saying,  "for 
bringing  him  to  people's  parties:  it  has  given  him  ideas." 

"He  ruins  any  party.  .  ." 

"Oh  no!  When  he  talks  about  babies  he's  really  rather 
sweet.  .  ." 

"Putzi  Hanfstaengl  was  with  him  last  night  looking  like 
Siegfried,"  Reinhold  murmured:  "Or  rather,  looking  as 
if  he  felt  like  Siegfried,"  he  corrected  himself. 

"It  isn't  only  under  the  Hanfstaengls'  wing:  nowadays 
some  people  actually  invite  him.  .  ." 


THE   WHITE   CROW  199 

"Then  they  deserve  what  they  get.  I  remember  one 
dinner-party  at  the  Bruckmanns.  .  ." 

"What — the  famous  occasion  he  tried  to  eat  an  arti- 
choke whole?" 

"Even  two  years  ago  in  Berlin,  at  Helene  Beckstein's. . ." 

"At  Putzi's  own  house — his  country  cottage  at  Uffing. . ." 

"The  formula  is  much  the  same  everywhere  these  days," 
said  a  rather  squat  actor-type,  rising  and  moving  down 
centre:  "First:  a  portentous  message  that  he'll  be  a  bit 
late — detained  on  most  important  business.  Then,  about 
midnight — when  he's  quite  sure  that  his  entrance  will  be 
the  last — he  marches  in,  bows  so  low  to  his  hostess  that 
his  sock-suspenders  show  and  presents  her  with  a  wilting 
bouquet  of  red  roses.  Then  he  refuses  the  proffered  chair, 
turns  his  back  on  her  and  stations  himself  at  the  buffet. 
If  anybody  speaks  to  him  he  fills  his  mouth  with  cream  puffs 
and  grunts.  If  they  dare  to  speak  a  second  time  he  only 
fills  his  mouth  with  cream  puffs.  It  isn't  just  that  in  the 
company  of  his  betters  he  can't  converse  himself — he  aims 
to  be  a  kind  of  social  upas,  to  kill  conversation  anywhere 
within  reach  of  his  shadow.  Soon  the  whole  room  is  silent. 
That's  what  he's  waiting  for:  he  stuffs  the  last  cream  puff 
half-eaten  into  his  pocket  and  begins  to  orate.  Usually  it's 
against  the  Jews:  sometimes  it's  the  Bolshevik  Menace: 
sometimes  it's  the  November  Criminals — no  matter,  it's 
always  the  same  kind  of  speech,  quiet  and  winning  and 
reasonable  at  first  but  before  long  in  a  voice  that  makes 
the  spoons  dance  on  the  plates.  He  goes  on  for  half  an 
hour — an  hour,  maybe:  then  he  breaks  off  suddenly, 
smacks  his  sticky  lips  on  his  hostess's  hand  again,  and.  .  . 
and  out  into  the  night,  what's  left  of  it." 

"How  intolerable!"  exclaimed  a  youngish  woman, 
angrily.  She  had  an  emancipated  look  rather  beyond  her 
years, 

"At  least  there's  this  about  it,"  said  Dr.  Reinhold 
thoughtfully:  "No  one  who  has  once  met  Herrn  Hitler  at 
a  party  is  likely  to  forget  it." 


aoo  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

"But  they'll  remember  him  with  loathing!" 

"Dear  lady,"  he  answered  sententiously,  "there's  one 
thing  even  more  important  for  a  rising  politician  than 
having  friends;  and  that  is — plenty  of  enemies!" 

"That  doesn't  make  sense." 

"It  does.  For  a  politician  rises  on  the  backs  of  his 
friends  (that's  probably  all  they're  good  for),  but  it's 
through  his  enemies  he'll  have  to  govern  afterwards." 

"Poppycock!"  said  the  sensible  young  woman — but  too 
sweetly,  she  calculated,  for  it  to  sound  rude. 

Suddenly  Mitzi,  forgotten  in  a  corner,  gave  a  startled, 
poignant  cry.  But  in  that  buzzing  room  almost  nobody 
heard  it — not  even  Augustine,  for  Dr.  Reinhold  had  just 
offered  to  show  him  Munich  and  Augustine  was  just 
saying  with  alacrity  "When  shall  I  come?" 

"Tomorrow,  if  you  like,"  Dr.  Reinhold  smiled.  "But  no 
— I  was  forgetting  the  revolution. . .  better  give  that  a  day 
or  two.  .  .  say,  early  next  week?" 

Thus  Augustine  was  one  of  the  last  to  notice  Mitzi's 
curious  behaviour.  The  room  had  dropped  almost  silent, 
for  after  that  cry  she  had  stepped  forward  a  pace  or  two 
and  was  now  standing  with  both  groping  hands  held 
straight  out  in  front  of  her.  The  tears  of  final  defeat  were 
running  down  her  face. 

"Is  that  child  drunk?"  asked  the  sensible  young  woman, 
loudly  and  inquisitively. 

But  in  almost  no  time  the  now  stone-blind  Mitzi  had 
got  control  of  herself  again.  Hearing  the  question  she 
turned  and  laughed,  good  humouredly. 


Chapter  21 

There  had  surely  been  something  a  little  brittle  and 
heartless  about  that  party  at  the  Steuckels  all  through 
(or  so  it  seemed  to  Augustine  and  even  Franz  too  looking 
back  on  it  afterwards):  the  talk  was  all  just  a  trifle  noisier 
than  need  be,  the  attitudes  more  striking:  there  was  an 
evident  bravura  and  a  bravado  about  all  these  people. 
For  these  were  in  fact  all  people  somehow,  some  way, 
riding  the  Great  Inflation.  Thus  in  their  manner  they 
reminded  one  rather  of  skaters  caught  far  out  too  late  in 
a  thaw,  who  know  their  only  but  desperate  hope  lies  in 
speed.  The  ice  is  steaming  in  the  sun  and  there  can  be 
no  turning  back.  They  hear  anguished  cries  behind  them 
but  they  lower  their  heads  with  muffled  ears,  they  flail 
with  their  arms  and  thrust  ever  more  desperately  with 
their  legs  in  their  efforts  to  skate  even  faster  still  on  the 
slushy,  cracking,  sinking  ice. 

Anything  rather  than  get  'involved':  whereas  Lothar 
and  his  lost  like  pursued  'involvement'  as  if  that  were  in 
itself  salvation. 

Franz  felt  he  never  wanted  to  see  the  Steuckels  again — 
he  was  done  with  all  that  sort. 

They  got  back  to  Lorienburg  soon  after  dusk,  just  as 
the  new  moon  was  setting. 

Naturally  it  was  not  till  the  first  shock  to  them  of  Mitzi's 
disaster  had  begun  to  wear  off  and  they  were  alone 
together  late  in  the  evening  that  Franz  told  his  father  and 
uncle  the  story  of  the  Beer-hall  Putsch. 

"What  stupidity!"  said  Walther.  "It  almost  passes 
belief." 

"So  our  'White  Crow'  has  managed  to  push  his  nose 
into  the  big  stuff  at  last,"  said  Otto.  "Well,  well!" 

201 


202  THE    FOX    IN   THE    ATTIC 

"You  said  once  he  had  served  under  you  during  the 
war,"  said  Franz.  "What  on  earth  was  he  like  as  a 
soldier?" 

"As  a  lance-corporal?"  Otto  corrected  him  a  trifle 
pedantically:  "He  was  a  Regimental  Messenger,  which 
rates  as  a  one-stripe  job.  .  ."  Then  he  considered  the  ques- 
tion conscientiously:  "adequate,  I  suppose — by  wartime 
standards:  he  hasn't  the  stuff  in  him  for  a  peacetime 
Regular  N.C.O.  of  course."  Otto  set  his  lips  grimly. 

"Who  are  you  talking  about?"  asked  Walther  absently. 

"After  the  war,"  Otto  continued,  "Roehm's  intelligence 
outfit  at  District  Command  found  him  a  job  as  one  of  their 
political  stool-pigeons — spying  on  his  old  messmates  for 
pay,  not  to  put  too  fine  a  point  on  it.  That  started  him: 
now,  he  seems  to  consider  himself  something  of  a  politician 
in  his  own  right — in  the  beer-hall  and  street-corner  world, 
he  and  his  fellow-rowdies.  But  it's  Roehm  still  pulls  the 
strings,  of  course." 

"Oh,  that  chap  of  Roehm's? — Yes,  I've  seen  his  name 
on  the  placards,"  Walther  remarked. 

"But  in  the  regiment?"  Franz  persisted. 

"I  can't  really  tell  you  much,"  said  Otto  a  little 
haughtily.  "He  did  what  he  was  told.  He.  .  .  he  wasn't  a 
coward,  that  I'm  aware  of."  Otto  paused,  and  then  con- 
tinued a  little  unwillingly:  "I  never  cottoned  to  him. 
Damned  unpopular  with  the  men  too:  such  a  silent,  kill- 
joy sort  of  cove.  No  normal  interests — he  couldn't  even 
join  the  others  in  a  good  grumble!  That's  why  they  all 
called  him  the  'white  crow':  in  anything  they  all  took  part 
in,  Lance-corporal  Hitler  was  always  the  odd  man  out." 

"I  don't  much  like  your  Captain  Roehm  either,  what 
I've  heard  of  him,"  said  Walther. 

"Able  fellow,"  said  Otto:  "A  fine  organiser!  He's  in- 
valuable to  the  Army. — But  it's  that  snort  of  his,  chiefly: 
though  he  can't  help  it — nose  smashed  in  the  war.  But  it 
makes  him  seem  a  bit  abrupt,  and  he's  conscious  of  it. — 
Don't  call  him  'my'  Captain  Roehm,  though:  he  wasn't 


THE   WHITE   CROW  203 

in  the  regiment. — We  had  his  young  friend  'Gippy'  Hess 
for  a  time,"  Otto  suddenly  grimaced:  "Frankly,  in  the 
List  Regiment  we  were  a  pretty  scratch  lot,  all  told." 

No  one  commented:  they  both  knew  it  had  been 
quixotic  of  Otto  to  accept  that  wartime  infantry  posting. 

In  the  pause  which  followed  Otto's  mind  must  have 
reverted  to  his  'white  crow';  for  ". . .  half-baked  little  back- 
street  runt!"  he  muttered  suddenly — and  with  surprising 
feeling,  for  an  officer,  considering  that  Hitler  had  been 
merely  an  'other  ranks'.  Franz  eyed  him  curiously.  Clearly 
there'd  been  some  clash. 

Meanwhile  the  telephone  kept  ringing.  Munich  was 
still  'no  lines'  but  all  that  day  rumour  had  succeeded 
rumour:  rumours  that  the  Revolution  was  marching  on 
Berlin,  rumours  that  the  Revolution  had  failed,  and  that 
Ludendorff  and  Hitler  were  dead.  Dr.  Reinhold  of  course 
had  left  Munich  for  Rottningen  before  dawn  that  morn- 
ing: he  had  known  no  more  than  the  next  man  what  had 
happened  after  that  Bierkeller  scene. 


Lothar  had  been  there,  in  Munich;  but  Lothar's  excite- 
ment that  momentous  night  had  reached  such  a  pitch  that 
in  his  own  memories  afterwards  of  what  had  happened 
there  were  inexplicable  blanks.  Scene  succeeded  scene:  but 
what  had  happened  between  them,  just  how  one  thing  led 
to  another,  seemed  subject  to  total  non-recall. 

Years  later  Lothar  could  still  vividly  remember  the 
mounting  elation  and  the  rhythmic,  stupefying  effect  of 
the  Nazi  march  down  the  Brienner  Strasse,  the  crowd 
growing  like  a  snowball.  .  .  that  absurd  tumbling  urchin 
.  .  .  the  woman  smelling  of  carbolic  soap  who  sprang  for- 
ward out  of  the  crowd  and  kissed  him. . .  that  other  woman 
who  marched  beside  him  and  kept  thrusting  a  crucifix 
under  his  nose  as  if  he  was  a  condemned  criminal  bound 
for  the  scaffold. 

But  the  whole  troop  was  bound  for  the  Biirgerbrau, 


204  Till-    I  OX    IN    THE   ATTIC 

surely  (where  the  Revolution  was),  by  way  of  the  Ludwig 
Bridge?  How  was  it  then  that  the  next  thing  he  could 
remember  he  was  somewhere  different  altogether  and 
quite  alone? 

Scene  Two. 

1 1  was  dark.  Lothar  was  in  some  enclosed  place,  and  the 
darkness  was  only  relieved  by  the  murky  trailing  flames 
of  torches  held  by  hurrying  hooded  monks.  It  wasn't  a  gun 
Lothar  was  carrying  now,  it  seemed  to  be  a  pick.  No 
Fritz,  no  Willi — none  of  his  friends  were  here  with  him; 
but  one  of  those  hooded  faceless  figures  was  padding  along 
ahead  of  him,  guiding  him  and  hastening  him  on.  The 
air  was  warmer  than  the  chill  night  air  outside  but  close 
and  dank — a  sort  of  earthy,  cellar-warmth.  The  smoke  of 
his  guide's  torch  made  him  cough,  and  his  cough  echoed — 
these  were  vaults  .  .  .  there  was  a  damp  smell  of  mould,  a 
smell  of  bones.  .  .  this  was  a  place  of  tombs,  they  were 
deep  underground,  these  must  be  catacombs.  .  .  they  were 
treading  in  a  deep,  down-soft  dust  that  muffled  sound — 
it  must  be  the  dust  of  bones. 

The  small  Nazi  working-party  they  came  to  were  older 
men  mostly — none  of  them  ones  Lothar  knew.  From  a 
different  troop.  They  worked  by  the  light  of  the  monks' 
torches  in  reliefs  of  sixes,  for  there  was  no  room  for  more 
to  wield  picks  and  shovels  at  one  time  and  anyhow  the 
dust  hung  so  heavy  on  this  dead  underground  air  that  one 
soon  tired. 

The  thickness  of  the  masonry  they  were  digging  through 
seemed  endless.  Lothar  found  it  hard  to  believe  this  was 
just  some  bricked-up  vault:  for  who  would  have  bricked 
up  an  entrance  with  masonry  more  than  four  feet  thick? 
When  at  last  they  did  break  through,  however,  the  whole 
thing  was  plain:  for  this  they  were  entering  was  no  ecclesi- 
astical crypt  any  more,  but  the  cellars  under  the  barracks 
next  door.  Efficiently  sealed  off  and  sound-proofed  from 
the  barracks  above,  moreover:  the  reason  being  eight 


THE   WHITE   CROW  205 

thousand  rifles  hidden  here  from  the  Allied  Disarmament 
Commission — and  theirs  for  the  taking! 

"Von  Kahr  himself  signed  our  orders — the  old  fox!" — "Eh? 
Surely  not!" — "Yes  indeed!  Our  officer  had  to  show  them  to  the 
Prior.  .  ." — "But  surely  he'd  have  intended  this  backdoor 
for  royalist  uses;  and  no  doubt  that's  where  these  simple 
monks  think  the  rifles  are  going  even  now!" — "But  Kahr 
has  joined  us  with  Lossow  and  Seisser,  hasn't  he?" — "Ye-es.  .  . 
or  so  Herr  Esser  said:  but  he's  such  a  slippery  cove,  Dr. 
Kahr.  .  ."—"The  old  fox!  But  he's  trapped  at  last.  .  ." 

Eight  thousand  rifles,  well-greased,  neatly  racked — 
what  a  sight  for  weapon-hungry  eyes!  Re-inforcements  of 
friendly  Oberlanders  arrived,  and  a  living  chain  was 
formed  to  pass  the  guns  from  hand  to  hand,  along  the 
tunnels,  up  the  torch-lit  steps,  along  the  corridors  and 
cloisters — all  the  long  way  through  these  dark  and  silent 
sacred  places  out  to  where  Goering's  plain  vans  were 
waiting  in  the  street.  .  . 

It  went  on  for  hours. 

Scene  Three. 

Lothar  was  dripping  wet  and  had  lost  his  boots.  It  was 
early  morning.  He  was  agued  with  cold  so  that  he  could 
hardly  speak.  .  . 

Lothar  must  have  swum  the  river,  but  he  had  little  idea 
why  he  should  have  had  to  swim:  presumably  the  bridges 
wTere  closed — or  he  had  thought  they  might  be.  .  .  or  else, 
perhaps  someone  had  thrown  him  in. 

But  he  had  to  reach  Captain  Goering,  had  to  tell  him. . . 

In  the  gardens  below  the  Burgerbraukeller  brownshirts 
were  bivouacked,  but  it  was  perishing  cold  and  no  one 
had  slept.  Dawn  was  breaking  at  last,  still  and  grey  with 
an  occasional  lone  flake  of  snow,  as  Lothar  picked  his  way 
among  them.  In  the  entrance-corridor  of  the  Keller  was 
huddled  a  civilian  brass  band,  the  kind  one  hires  for 
occasions:  they  had  just  arrived,  they  were  in  topcoats  still 
and  with  shrouded  instruments.  They  were  arguing:  they 


2o6  THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

looked  hungry  and  obstinate:  their  noses  dripped.  They 
were  being  shepherded  unwillingly  into  the  hall  where  the 
meeting  had  been,  now  full  of  brownshirts  camped  among 
the  wreckage;  but  the  bandsmen  were  demanding  break- 
last  before  they'd  play  to  them — and  at  that  word  Lothar's 
saliva-glands  stabbed  so  violently  it  hurt  like  toothache. 

Then  someone  took  pity  on  the  shivering  Lothar  and 
pushed  him  into  the  cloakroom,  telling  him  to  help  him- 
self. The  place  was  still  littered  with  many  of  last  night's 
top-hats,  furs,  opera-cloaks,  uniform-coats,  dress-swords. . . 

"They  were  all  in  too  much  hurry  to  bother,"  said  a 
sardonic  voice:  "All  the  upper-crust  of  Bavaria — and  when 
we  said  'Scat!'  they  were  thankful  to  run  like  rabbits. 
Take  your  choice,  comrade." 

The  speaker  was  a  portly  little  brownshirt  with  a  kindly, 
humorous  face.  In  private  life  he  was  an  atheist  and  a 
tobacconist,  without  reverence  for  God  or  man;  and  now 
he  was  drunker  than  he  looked.  It  tickled  him  to  wrap 
Lothar  in  a  fur-lined  greatcoat  with  the  insignia  of  a  full 
general  on  it.  If  Lothar  had  noticed  those  badges  of  rank, 
as  a  good  German  the  very  thought  would  have  burned 
him  to  a  cinder — like  the  Shirt  of  Nessus;  but  now  his  new 
friend  was  pouring  a  hot  mugful  of  would-be  coffee  into 
him,  and  he  noticed  nothing.  Lothar  must  see  Captain 
Goering — and  at  once — about  those  rifles.  .  .  But  no  one 
seemed  to  know  whether  Goering  was  even  in  the  building. 
However,  some  of  the  other  high-ups  had  just  got  back 
from  a  reconnaissance  in  the  city,  someone  said:  they  were 
in  a  room  upstairs.  .  .  Hitler,  General  LudendorfT.  .  . 

So  Lothar,  warmed  a  little  at  last,  wandered  off  upstairs 
unhindered.  The  length  of  this  vast  greatcoat  almost  hid 
his  stockinged  feet,  but  he  was  just  as  wet  underneath  as 
ever  and  left  wet  footprints  everywhere  on  all  the  carpets. 
— He  must  find  Captain  Goering.  .  . 

In  the  half-darkness  of  an  upstairs  corridor  Lothar  met 
a  hurrying  orderly  and  stopped  him  imperiously:  "Where 
are  they?  I  have  to  report!" 


THE  WHITE   CROW  207 

"This  way,  Excellency,"  the  man  said,  saluting  (but 
Lothar  was  too  pre-occupied  to  notice,  for  those  rifles 
might  have  reached  God-knows-whose  trusting  hands  by 
now).  Then  the  orderly  led  him  through  a  little  ante- 
room where  piano 'and  music-stands  had  been  shoved  on 
one  side  to  make  room  for  a  chin-high  pile  of  packages, 
and  opened  a  door: 

".  .  .  be  hanging  from  the  lamp-posts  in  the  Ludwig- 
strasse,"  a  cracking,  nervous  voice  was  exclaiming  within. 


Chapter  22 

ON  the  threshold,  Lothar  checked  himself  in  dismay. 
Goering  wasn't  there;  and  clearly  this  wasn't  a 
Council  of  War  at  all,  for  there  were  only  two  people  in 
the  room  and  by  their  dress  both  seemed  civilians.  In  a 
thick  and  fragrant  haze  of  tobacco-smoke  a  stout  old 
gentleman  all  puffy  dewlaps  and  no  neck  sat  stolidly 
sipping  red  wine  and  pulling  at  his  cigar  alternately:  he 
was  staring  at  Lothar — but  only  as  if  his  gaze  had  already 
been  fixed  on  the  door  before  it  opened — with  dull,  stony, 
heavy-lidded  eyes.  Under  his  scrabble  of  grey  moustache 
the  open,  drooping  mouth  was  almost  fishlike,  and  he  had 
dropped  cigar-ash  all  down  his  old  shooting-jacket. 
Beyond  him  Lothar  glimpsed  some  nondescript  with  his 
back  turned,  gnawing  his  fingernails  and  violently  twitch- 
ing his  shoulders  as  if  some  joker  had  slipped  something 
down  his  neck.  .  . 

A  waiting-room!  But  Lothar  had  no  time  to  waste — he 
must  find  Captain  Goering  at  once  and  tell  him  those 
monastery  rifles  were  useless,  they'd  all  had  the  firing- 
pins  removed. 

Lothar  retreated,  leaving  the  door  ajar.  But  in  the  ante- 
room the  orderly  was  already  gone,  and  Lothar  paused — 
at  a  loss. 

"Tonight  we'll  be  hanging  from  the  lamp-posts  in  the  Ludwig- 
strasse!''''  The  interruption  had  been  so  brief  that  these 
histrionic  words  seemed  still  suspended  on  the  stale  air. 

"Nevertheless  we  march,"  the  seated  one  replied  flatly 
and  with  distaste. 

In  the  ante-room  Lothar  stood  rooted — he  knew  that 
voice  (why  hadn't  he  known  the  face?):  it  was  General 
Ludendorff.  Then  of  course  the  other.  .  .  this  wasn't  at  all 
his  platform  voice,  but  it  must  be.  .  . 

208 


THE   WHITE    CROW  209 

Inside  the  room,  Hitler  turned:  "But  we'll  be  fired-on 
if  we  do,  and  then  it's  all  up — we  can't  fight  the  Army! 
It's  The  End,  I  tell  you!"  Then,  as  if  he  had  forgotten  who 
he  was  talking  to,  he  added,  ruminating:  "If  we  appeal  to 
Rupprecht,  perhaps  he'd  intercede?" 

For  their  impromptu  Revolution  was  already  running 
on  the  rocks.  Hoodwinked  by  the  'earnest  of  good  faith' 
of  those  useless  rifles,  Hitler  had  let  Kahr  go;  then  Kahr, 
Lossow  and  Seisser — the  all-powerful  triumvirate — once 
safely  out  of  his  hands  had  turned  against  him.  Prince 
Rupprecht  had  unequivocally  refused  to  rise  to  Hitler's 
fly — not  with  LudendorfT's  big  shadow  darkening  the 
water;  and  that  had  decided  Kahr.  Lossow  had  been 
virtually  arrested  by  his  own  city  commandant  till  he 
made  clear  his  obedience  to  Berlin.  Seisser  too  had  duti- 
fully bowed  to  the  will  of  the  police-force  he  commanded. 
So  now  the  Kampf bund  was  to  be  put  down  by  force 
unless  it  surrendered. 

Government  re-inforcements  had  been  pouring  into 
Munich  all  night,  and  the  'Vikings'  had  already  deserted 
to  them.  The  Nazis  held  the  City  Hall — for  what  that  was 
worth — while  Roehm  with  his  Reichskriegsflagge  had 
seized  the  local  War  Office  and  now  couldn't  get  out  of  it 
again;  but  all  other  public  buildings  were  in  the  hands  of 
the  Triumvirs.  They  held  the  railways,  the  telephones,  the 
radio  station — indeed  no  one  in  the  Nazi  camp  had  even 
thought  of  securing  those  vital  points,  there  can  seldom 
have  been  a  would-be  coup-d'etat  so  naively  impromptu 
and  unplanned. 

Troops  were  reported  to  be  massing  now  in  the  Odeon- 
splatz,  with  field-guns.  .  . 

Lothar  peeped  in  again  unseen.  The  general  still  sat  his 
chair  as  heavily  as  a  stone  statue  sits  its  horse  and  his  eyes 
were  still  set  in  the  same  stare,  though  lowered  now  to  the 
carpet  just  inside  the  door. 


aio  THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

General  Erich  Ludendorff  was  only  fifty-eight:  not 
quite  the  'old  gentleman'  Lothar  had  taken  him  for,  but 
nevertheless  his  mind  like  his  muscles  was  becoming  a 
little  set.  Nowadays  pre-conceived  ideas  were  not  easily 
shaken  and  if  they  were  tumbled  they  left  a  jagged  gap: 
Ruhr's  double-crossing  Ludendorff  could  take,  for  the 
man  was  a  civilian  and  a  catholic  and  from  someone  in 
the  Cardinal's  pocket  one  could  only  expect  the  moral 
standards  of.  .  .  of  cardinals:  but  a  world  where  a  Lossow 
— Commander-in-chief  of  the  Bavarian  Army — could 
break  his  "word  as  a  German  Officer"  was  a  new  world 
altogether  for  Ludendorff! 

The  old  order  was  ended  for  the  old  war-lord,  and  he 
knew  it;  but  his  puffy  features  were  quite  without  ex- 
pression, as  if  their  soft  surfaces  had  no  organic  connection 
with  nerve  and  muscle  and  bone  and  brain  within,  and 
he  sat  staring  without  visible  surprise  at  those  wet  foot- 
marks on  the  carpet — the  marks  of  two  naked  feet  where 
lately  a  German  general  in  full-dress  uniform  had  stood. 

"Eh? — We  march,"  said  Ludendorff  again.  His  voice 
remained  firm  as  a  lion's,  and  this  time  it  was  unquestion- 
ably a  command. 

But  when  Ludendorff  had  said  "We  march"  (as  he 
presently  explained)  he  hadn't  meant  it  in  the  military 
sense.  No  soldier  would  try  to  capture  Munich — or  even 
to  relieve  Roehm  beleaguered  in  the  War  Office — by  doing 
as  Ludendorff  now  proposed:  by  marching  three  thousand 
men  through  the  narrow  streets  of  the  Old  City  in  a  kind 
of  schoolgirl  crocodile  sixteen  abreast.  But  a  clever  (and 
desperate)  politician  might. 

A  military  operation  would  cross  by  the  Max-Josef 
Bridge  in  a  flanking  movement  through  the  English 
Garden — some  tactic  of  that  kind:  but  what  would  be  the 
use?  That  fellow  Hitler  (thought  Ludendorff)  was  right: 
they  couldn't  fight  the  Army.  But  suppose  that  instead,  in 
all  seeming  confidence  and  trust  like  friendly  little  puppy- 
dogs,  their  whole  companionage  paraded  peaceably  right 


THE   WHITE    CROW  211 

onto  the  points  of  the  Army's  bayonets.  .  .  would  German 
soldiers  ever  fire  on  inoffensive  brother-Germans?  And 
once  contact  was  made,  once  the  officers  saw  their  old 
war-lord  Ludendorff  in  front  of  their  eyes  and  had  to 
choose,  was  it  conceivable  they  would  prefer  to  obey  the 
unspeakable  Lossow  who  had  turned  his  coat  twice  in  one 
night?  Barely  an  hour  ago  the  streets  were  still  placarded 
with  Lossow's  name  linked  with  ours.  .  .  "And  once  the 
Army  obeys  my  orders  again,  the  road  to  Berlin  lies 
open!" 

Lothar  was  so  bewildered  that  he  stood  listening  out- 
side dumbfoundered  and  dripping  among  the  bales  of 
bank-notes  which  half-filled  the  ante-room,  and  scarcely 
noticed  Captain  Goering  as  the  latter  strode  suddenly  past 
him  and  entered  the  room  beyond. 

Goering  listened  to  Ludendorff's  plan;  but  then  his  eye 
met  Hitler's.  These  two  had  rather  less  faith  in  the  magic 
of  the  'old  war-lord's'  name  and  presence  nowadays  than 
the  'old  war-lord'  had  himself.  Ludendorff  had  been 
slipping — didn't  the  old  boy  realise  how  much  he  had 
slipped  these  last  few  years?  That  flight  to  Sweden  in  '18, 
and  all  those  antics  since.  .  . 

Goering  suggested  instead  a  retreat  on  Rosenheim — to 
"rally  our  forces"  there,  he  hastened  to  add.  But  Luden- 
dorff fixed  this  bravest-of-the-brave  with  his  stony  look: 
Rosenheim  was  all  too  convenient  for  the  Austrian 
frontier!  Hitler  also  turned  his  blue  stare  on  Goering:  for 
reasons  best  kept  to  himself,  escape  into  his  native  Austria 
held  no  attractions  for  Hitler. 

Goering  dropped  his  eyes  and  did  not  press  it.  But  the 
suggestion  all  the  same  tipped  the  scales  in  Hitler's  mind, 
for  any  alternative  was  preferable  to  'Rosenheim';  and 
he  turned  to  Ludendorff's  plan  after  all.  Hitler's  own 
'magic'  at  least  was  new;  and  if  that  called  out  anything 
comparable  with  last  night's  cheering  crowds  they  would 
march  behind  such  a  screen  of  women  and  children  that 
no  one  could  fire  on  them! 


212  THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC 

A  coup-d'etat  by  popular  acclamation?  Maybe  it  was  a 
forlorn  hope.  But  at  least  it  meant,  for  Hitler,  sticking  to 
the  one  technique  he  was  yet  versed  in — the  technique  of 
the  public  meeting. 

Blindly  Lothar  wandered  away,  not  knowing  whether 
he  was  mad  or  sane,  awake  or  dreaming.  Goering.  .  .  he 
had  a  message  for  Captain  Goering,  something  about  some 
guns. 


Chapter  23 

One  thing,  the  arch-plotters  agreed,  was  essential:  if 
this  gigantic  confidence-trick  of  LudendorfT's  was  to 
work  the  marching  men  themselves  must  have  no  inkling 
that  Munich  was  in  'enemy'  hands,  for  they  must  positively 
radiate  friendliness  and  trust.  No  one  must  know  the  real 
state  of  affairs  outside  the  innermost  circle.  So,  shortly 
before  eleven,  a  briefing-parade  for  officers  was  held  in  the 
fencing-school  and  there  the  supreme  leaders,  beaming, 
put  their  next  subordinates  'in  the  picture',  assuring  them 
that  everything  in  the  city  was  going  like  clockwork  under 
the  capable  management  of  their  obedient  allies,  Kahr, 
Lossow  and  Seisser,  and  all  ranks  should  be  so  informed. 
Today  the  Kampfbund  would  parade  ceremonially 
through  the  city,  merely  to  'show  the  flag'  and  to  thank 
the  citizens  for  the  warmth  of  their  support:  they  would 
then  take  up  a  position  for  the  night  outside  somewhere 
to  the  north,  and  wait  there  for  regular  troops  to  join 
them.  .  .  and  after  that — Berlin! 

Officers  and  men  alike,  that's  what  they  were  told. 

Lothar  never  did  get  to  Goering;  and  the  Oberland 
adjutant  he  at  length  reported  to  about  the  defective 
rifles,  being  fresh  from  that  'enlightenment'  in  the  fencing- 
school,  took  it  not  at  all  tragically.  He  burst  out  laughing: 
"Kahr — the  old  fox!  He  just  can't  change  his  habits,  that's 
all.  .  .  I  admit  though  I  was  surprised  when  he  volunteered 
those  rifles!"  But  it  didn't  really  matter,  he  explained  to 
Lothar,  for  everything  was  going  swimmingly:  they  could 
collect  and  fit  the  pins  this  evening  at  the  latest,  and  mean- 
while it  was  only  a  parade  the  arms  were  wanted  for. 

Lothar  was  thoroughly  bewildered;  and  Hope  that  wiry- 
young  woman  awoke  anew.  Could  he  have  been  quite 
wrong  about  what  he  thought  he  had  heard  upstairs?  For 

213 


2i4  THE    FOX    IN    THE   ATTIC 

this  was  evidently  the  latest  news,  and  this  was  'official' — 
straight  from  the  horse's  mouth.  .  .  but  yet.  .  . 

The  adjutant  stole  a  doubtful  look  at  Lothar's  dumb- 
foundered  face.  What  ailed  the  boy? — As  for  all  this  about 
the  rifles,  the  men  mustn't  know  they  were  armed  with 
guns  which  couldn't  be  fired:  could  this  lad  be  trusted  to 
hold  his  tongue  or  had  he  better  'disappear' — be  put 
under  arrest  for  something,  perhaps? 

But  just  then  Putzi  Hanfstaengl's  giant  frame  began  to 
be  made  manifest — feet  first,  like  a  proper  deus  ex 
machina;  for  he  was  coming  downstairs  from  the  council 
room  (something  seemed  to  have  wiped  the  grin  off  his 
handsome  great  jaws  for  once — till  he  emerged  into  public 
view).  So  the  adjutant  whispered  to  him;  whereon 
Hanfstaengl  turned,  and  his  powerful  pianist's  fingers 
gripped  Lothar  by  the  arm:  "You're  coming  to  the  city 
with  me,  my  lad!"  he  said. 

Lothar  hardly  reached  to  his  breastpocket,  but  Putzi 
lowered  his  face  almost  level  with  the  bedraggled,  hollow- 
eyed  youth's  to  add  confidentially:  "I  must  have  an  escort 
— to  protect  me!" 

Dr.  Hanfstaengl  was  such  a  famous  tease!  Lothar 
blushed;  and  then,  in  spite  of  the  turmoil  in  his  head, 
climbed  into  the  car  after  his  new  master  as  proud  as 
Punch  to  be  in  such  important  company.  There  he  tried 
hard  to  sit  upright  in  the  back  seat  with  proper  military 
stiffness;  but  before  they  had  even  reached  the  bridge  he 
was  sound  asleep.  Thus  Lothar's  friends  Fritz  and  Willi 
both  took  part  in  the  famous  march  but  not  Lothar,  who 
slept  like  a  log  for  hours. 

When  Lothar  woke  at  last  he  found  himself  on  a  floor 
somewhere.  It  was  the  sound  of  two  voices  talking 
urgently  which  woke  him,  one  of  them  unmistakably 
philosopher-editor  Rosenberg's.  Lothar's  head  was  on  a 
bundle  of  galley-proofs,  and  his  eyes  opened  with  a  start 
only  a  few  inches  from  the  turn-ups  of  Rosenberg's  bright 


THE   WHITE    CROW  215 

blue  trousers  and  dirty  orange  socks  with  clocks.  So  he 
must  somehow  be  in  the  offices  of  the  Volkischer  Beob- 
achter,  he  guessed. 

But  as  the  clouds  of  sleep  began  to  clear  Lothar  realised 
these  people  too  were  both  talking  and  acting  as  if  the 
Revolution  had  failed.  While  he  talked,  Rosenberg  was 
cramming  clothing  into  a  broken  briefcase  on  his  desk  as 
if  for  a  hurried  departure  (doubtless  preferring  brighter 
and  looser  neckwear  than  that  usually  worn  by  politicos  on 
lamp-posts).  For  a  second  or  two  the  stained  tail  of  a 
crumpled  purple  shirt  trailed  across  Lothar's  face;  but  he 
shut  his  eyes  and  listened  and  lay  still,  his  temples  bursting 
with  sweat.  For  what  he  heard  next  was  even  more 
incredible  still.  That  whole  briefing  parade  had  been  one 
deliberate,  colossal  lie!  Indeed,  the  men  "had  had  the  wool 
pulled  properly  over  their  eyes",  said  Rosenberg's  com- 
panion approvingly.  The  march  was  on,  and  they  were  all 
going  like  lambs  to  the  slaughter!  Rosenberg  himself  was 
so  certain  it  would  end  in  a  massacre  that  he  for  one  wasn't 
waiting  to  see  it.  Putzi  Hanfstaengl  too  (one  gathered)  had 
gone  home  to  pack.  .  . 

Even  the  leaders  who  were  marching  had  made  their 
arrangements — or  arrangements  had  been  made  for  them, 
whether  or  not  they  knew  it.  There  would  be  a  car  waiting 
for  Hitler  (Rosenberg's  companion  said)  in  the  Max- 
Josefs-Platz  with  engine  running:  he  could  nip  down 
Perusa  Street  to  it — if  he  survived  that  far.  Goering  too 
had  sent  someone  home  to  fetch  him  his  passport.  .  . 

Now  Rosenberg  was  choosing  his  own  passport — choosing 
it,  he  seemed  to  have  a  whole  drawerful  of  them. 

When  the  two  men  left  at  last  Lothar  was  not  far  behind 
them.  He  thought  of  Fritz  and  Willi  and  all  his  other  noble 
friends  going  unwittingly  to  their  deaths  and  his  bowels 
yearned. 

But  then  once  again  something  black  descended  like  a 
blind  over  Lothar's  power  of  reason.  It  was  simply  not 


2i6  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

possible  (he  told  himself)  that  the  Movement  had  been 
lied  to  deliberately  by  its  leaders  like  that.  Hitler  loved  his 
men,  he  would  never  knowingly  lie  to  them  this  way  and 
lead  them  into  danger;  and  as  for  the  heroic,  gallant 
Goering.  .  .  let  alone  General  Ludendorff! — No,  if  these 
leaders  had  indeed  had  evidence  of  the  Triumvirs' 
treachery  they  hadn't  believed  it  because  they  were  too 
noble  to  believe;  and  it  was  just  this  noble  incredulity  the 
beastly  triumvirate  had  banked  on,  to  lure  the  Army  of 
Light  into  the  depths  of  the  city  so  that  when  the  jaws  of 
the  trap  closed  the  slaughter  might  be  all  the  more 
complete. 

Devils!  Lothar  bounded  down  those  office  stairs  four  at  a 
time,  as  if  every  bound  trod  underfoot  a  triumvir.  Some- 
how he  must  find  Fritz  and  Willi — somehow  he  must 
warn  them.  .  . 

And  warn  Captain  Goering.  .  . 

But  as  he  neared  the  route  the  city  seemed  solid  with 
police,  and  half  the  streets  were  closed. 


Chapter  24 

Five  years  ago  almost  to  the  day  Kurt  Eisner  too  had 
marched  into  Munich — with  flying  beard  and  floppy 
black  hat  like  a  seedy  professor  of  pianoforte,  having  half 
the  hooligans  of  Munich  at  his  heels — and  so  come  to 
power. 

But  November  the  Seventh  19 18  had  been  unseasonably 
warm:  perfect  Putsch  weather.  Eisner  had  the  advantage  of 
surprise  too,  for  he  marched  first  and  announced  his 
revolution  afterwards.  There  was  little  risk  of  organised 
opposition  since  the  troops  were  still  at  the  front  and  the 
whole  city  numbed  by  defeat. 

On  November  the  Ninth  1923  the  prospects  were  chill 
and  grey.  It  was  unseasonably  cold — bitterly  cold,  with  a 
biting  wind  now  and  occasional  flurries  of  snow.  When  the 
march  at  last  began  the  buglers  with  their  chapped  lips 
found  it  difficult  to  blow.  Fritz  and  Willi  shivered  in  their 
cotton  shirts  with  no  tunics  and  their  chins  were  raw:  the 
moment  they  stopped  singing  their  teeth  chattered.  The 
'cheering  crowds  of  spectators'  could  be  counted  in  twos 
and  threes,  and  were  chilled  to  the  bone. 

It  had  been  past  twelve  when  the  march  moved  off 
from  the  Biirgerbrau  and  a  few  yards  down  the  hill  it  had 
halted  again.  Peering  over  the  heads  in  front,  big  Fritz 
could  see  there  was  some  sort  of  scuffle  going  on  down  at 
the  Ludwig  Bridge.  It  was  apparently  the  police-cordon 
there  making  trouble — the  wooden-heads!  But  then  a 
mixed  bag  of  fifty  or  more  leading  Munich  Jews  padded 
past  the  waiting  column  and  on  down  to  the  bridge  at  the 
double.  A  wave  of  laughter  followed  them;  for  whatever 
their  past  dignities  (and  many  were  elderly,  prominent 
citizens),  today  they  were  all  dressed  only  in  underwear 

217 


2i8  THE    FOX    IN   THE    ATTIC 

and  socks:  they'd  been  locked  all  night  in  a  back  room  of 
the  Bilrgerbrau  like  that.  Captain  Goering  himself,  with 
his  elfin  humour,  must  be  taking  the  situation  in  hand. 
Indeed  Goering  must  have  threatened  to  drop  all  these 
hostages  in  the  river  to  drown  if  the  police  didn't  show 
more  sense;  for  almost  at  once  the  column  began  to  move 
forward  again,  and  at  last  the  river  was  crossed. 

Four  hundred  yards  into  the  Old  City  however  they 
halted  a  second  time.  This  time  it  was  their  own  leaders 
who  halted  them,  wanting  to  make  quite  sure  everyone 
was  fully  'in  the  picture'  in  case  of  misunderstandings.  Any 
soldiers  or  armed  police  they  might  meet  (they  were  told) 
would  be  patrolling  the  city  "on  behalf  of  our  revolution, 
understand!  In  the  Odeonsplatz  maybe  we'll  find  a  de- 
tachment of  regulars  drawn  up  apparently  to  face  us:  with 
guns  to  their  shoulders,  even.  .  .  but  don't  be  nervous, 
that's  just  to  cow  any  hostile  rowdies  in  the  crowd  lining 
our  route  so  sing  'em  a  rousing  chorus,  boys,  and  give  them 
a  hearty  cheer  as  we  draw  level  with  them.  .  .  Oh,  and 
just  in  case  of  accidents  in  these  crowded  streets  we'd 
better  not  march  with  rifles  loaded." 

When  the  marching  column  reached  the  Marienplatz 
they  found  the  city  hall  festooned  with  swaztika  flags,  and 
in  the  open  square  in  front  they  were  cheered  by  a  small 
but  milling  crowd.  That  crowd  had  just  been  whipped  up 
by  Julius  Streicher  in  his  juiciest  vein.  Indeed  that  was  why 
Hitler  had  sent  Streicher  on  down  there  ahead;  for  here, 
potentially — if  Streicher  had  really  done  his  stuff — was 
the  human  screen  Hitler  needed. 

If  only  enough  of  these  cheering  citizens  would  tag  along 
with  the  marchers  from  now  on,  keeping  between  the 
moving  column  and  the  guns.  .  .  If  only  it  hadn't  been  so 
beastly  cold  today.  .  . 

But  the  wind  was  indeed  too  bitter.  Struggling  to  reach 
the  Marienplatz  Lothar  could  make  little  progress  against 
the  solid  mass  of  citizenry  hurrying  away. 


Chapter  25 

As  the  procession  moved  off  from  the  Marienplatz  again 
jflXudendorff  took  his  place  in  the  van,  on  foot,  in  front 
of  the  standard-bearers  even.  On  that,  Hitler  and  one  or 
two  other  notables  and  would-be  notables  jostled  their 
way  to  his  side:  they  had  convinced  themselves  by  now 
that  there  would  be  no  shooting,  that  the  trick  would  work. 

The  Odeonsplatz  was  their  objective,  for  that  was 
where  the  troops  were  said  to  be  waiting  for  them:  that 
was  the  psychological  point  d'appui.  From  the  Marien- 
platz two  routes  converge  on  it,  like  the  uprights  of  a 
capital  'A'  with  the  short  length  of  Perusastrasse  for  a 
cross-stroke,  and  that  bit  of  pseudo-Florentine  nonsense  the 
'Feldherrnhalle'  loggia  in  its  tip.  The  route  they  chose  was 
the  left-hand  one,  the  Wein-and-Theatinerstrasse;  and  the 
leaders  were  already  half  way  along  it  before  seeing  that 
the  far  end  was  indeed  blocked  solid  by  a  small  detach- 
ment of  soldiery — with  guns. 

Here  at  last,  then,  straight  ahead,  were  those  bayonets 
Ludendorff  was  to  deflect  with  the  magic  of  his  presence! 
Those  triggers  no  German  finger  could  pull.  .  . 

We  have  only  to  march  straight  up  to  them,  straight  on. . . 

(Was  conviction  weakening?) 

How  far  have  we  got?  Tramp,  tramp.  .  .  just  ahead  lies 
the  corner  of  Perusastrasse — the  last  side-turning,  before. . . 

"Look,"  said  someone  excitedly  to  Lothar  in  the  thin- 
ning crowd,  "there's  Ludendorff!"  The  fabulous,  the 
Army's  idol,  walking  straight  towards  those  Army  guns 
in  his  old  shooting-jacket.  .  .  "And  that  beside  him's 
Hitler,  his  faithful  friend;  and  God-knows- who.  .  ." 

Tramp,  tramp,  and  flags  waving  and  a  band  somewhere 
tootling  and  the  men  singing,  tramp,  tramp.  .  . 

219 


220  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

And  most  of  the  remaining  spectators,  cold  and  bored, 
remembering  their  lunches  and  turning  away  to  go  home. 

Thirty  yards  more.  .  . 

In  the  throes  of  their  fore-knowledge  the  leaders  now 
felt  their  feet  going  up  and  down  like  pistons,  as  if  they 
wire  not  really  advancing  at  all,  tramp,  tramp.  No,  it  was 
the  muzzles  of  the  guns  which  were  all  the  time  moving 
nearer. 

Twenty  yards  more.  .  . 

Hitler  keeps  his  eyes  fixed  sternly  ahead,  yet  out  of  their 
corners  can't  but  be  acutely  aware  of  the  delicately- 
nurtured  schoolgirl  wheeling  her  bicycle  at  his  very 
elbow.  'She's  trying  in  vain  to  match  her  stride  to  my 
stride.  .  .'  Quite  easily,  though,  she  matches  the  men's 
voices  in  song  with  her  surprisingly  deep  contralto. 

Fifteen  yards.  .  .  Ten.  .  .  and  now  on  the  right  the  open- 
ing of  Perusastrasse  is  bearing  irresistibly  down  upon  us, 
an  open  mouth.  .  . 

lMy  God  I'll  give  up  politics!  J^ever  again.  .  .' 

It  came  like  the  sudden  inexplicable  unwilled  lurch  of  a 
planchette  at  a  seance,  that  sudden  unanimous  swing  of 
the  whole  group  of  leaders  into  a  right-wheel  turn — away 
from  the  guns,  straight  into  the  shelter  of  that  side-street! 
It  was  so  sudden  that  the  girl  taken  unaware  fell  over  her 
bicycle  and  tore  her  stockings,  and  that  was  the  last  they 
saw  of  her. 

The  whole  cheering  follow-my-leader  crocodile  fol- 
lowed, of  course — without  a  thought,  without  a  worry, 
singing  their  heads  off  in  the  honour  of  the  troops  whose 
guns  at  point-blank  range  were  still  trained  on  their 
defenceless  flank  as  they  wheeled.  They  still  hadn't  an 
inkling  of  what  they  were  now  right  on  the  very  edge  of. 

For  the  leaders  the  respite  was  brief:  in  a  very  few  yards 
this  short  cross-street  would  reach  the  open  Max-Josefs- 
Platz.  To  the  left,  then,  would  lie  the  narrow  canyon  of 
Residenzstrasse — the    other,    perhaps   less   well-guarded 


THE   WHITE    CROW  221 

route  to  the  Odeonsplatz.  .  .  the  route  in  any  case  they 
now  had  to  take.  .  .  Ah,  but  had  they?  For  also  from  this 
Max-Josef  Square  a  broad,  broad  boulevard  led  back 
totally  unmenaced  straight  to  the  river  again:  the  prim- 
rose way  of  retreat. 

A  primrose-yellow  car  was  parked  there,  by  the  monu- 
ment. As  they  neared  the  corner  it  was  young  von 
Scheubner-Richter  (Ludendorff's  right-hand-man)  who 
recognised  it  as  Hitler's — and  he  sucked  in  his  cheeks. 
Straightway  he  locked  his  arm  very  firmly  in  Hitler's. 
He'd  see  to  it  the  old  general  wasn't  left  in  the  lurch. 

But  now  somebody  had  ordered  another  halt,  another 
rifle-inspection:  officers  were  to  make  quite  sure  again 
that  every  breech  was  empty. 

That  primrose-yellow  car  was  trembling  slightly — so  its 
engine  was  running,  ready!  Max  Erwin  von  Scheubner- 
Richter  at  Hitler's  side  stood  still  and  tightened  his  com- 
radely grip.  Meanwhile,  in  the  ranks  behind,  Willi  was 
yawning  with  the  cold  and  his  stiff  fingers  fumbled  on  the 
bolt.  Was  there  no  end  to  inspections?  He  was  getting 
horribly  bored.  Fritz  blew  on  his  fingers,  and  cursed — he 
had  broken  a  nail.  Were  all  revolutions  as  dull  as  this  one? 
It  was  a  relief  to  them  all  when  the  march  started  again. 

But  the  tense  troop  of  police  waiting  among  the  statues 
in  the  Feldherrnhalle  had  heard  that  echoing  rattle  of 
bolts  as  hundreds  of  breeches  at  one  time  were  flung  open 
for  inspection,  and  drew  their  own  conclusions.  So  the 
rebels  were  loading:  they  meant  with  their  vastly  superior 
numbers  to  rush  it.  And  the  police  were  so  few.  .  .  but  that 
last  hundred  yards  of  the  Residenzstrasse  was  a  Ther- 
mopylae— fifty  men  could  hold  it  against  five  thousand,  if 
they  were  resolute. 

At  the  corner  of  the  Square  Willi  had  thought  he  caught 
a  glimpse  of  young  Scheidemann  near  that  purring  yellow 


aaa  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

car.  He  seemed  to  be  trying  to  signal  to  them,  and  Willi 
nudged  Fritz — but  this  chap  looked  so  doleful  it  surely 
couldn't  have  been  Lothar! 

Funny,  though,  how  empty  the  streets  were,  suddenly: 
what  had  become  of  all  those  cheering  spectators  who  had 
filled  the  Marienplatz?  As  the  troop  in  front  wheeled  left 
there  was  not  a  single  civilian  who  followed  it  into  the 
Residenzstrasse — only  one  funny  little  dog  in  a  winter 
waistcoat  of  Scotch  plaid,  looking  important. 

When  Princess  Natascha  (for  that  girl  with  the  bicycle 
was  Mitzi's  Russian  friend)  had  picked  herself  up,  the 
head  of  the  procession  was  already  out  of  sight  and 
Perusastrasse  chock-a-block  with  them;  but  she  guessed 
they  would  turn  left  again  up  Residenzstrasse.  She  had 
better  get  to  the  Odeonsplatz  ahead  of  them  if  she  wanted 
to  see  the  fun;  and  indeed  she  was  determined  to  miss 
nothing,  for  the  lonely  young  exile  was  impervious  to  cold 
and  quite  intoxicated  with  the  singing  and  the  marching 
and  the  general  community  and  exaltation  of  the  thing. 
She  mounted  her  machine  and  bicycled  up  the  few  re- 
maining yards  of  the  Theatinerstrasse  as  if  the  troops  in 
front  of  her  just  didn't  exist  (and  they  were  in  fact  very 
few). 

"Damn  her!"  muttered  the  officer  in  command.  "She's 
right  in  my  line  of  fire!"  So  he  let  her  through,  and  thus 
Tascha  found  herself  the  only  civilian  in  the  whole  empty 
centre  of  the  Odeonsplatz  with  every  window  looking  at 
her;  but  she  wasn't  embarrassed  at  all,  it  wasn't  her  nature 
to  be.  Pedalling  hard,  she  gave  a  wide  berth  to  the  one 
armoured  car  stationed  there,  but  it  took  no  notice.  Good! 
The  top  of  Residenzstrasse  was  open,  she'd  ride  down  and 
meet  them:  she  could  hear  already  the  tramp  of  the 
approaching  marchers,  and  as  she  got  to  the  corner  she 
caught  the  gleam  of  their  bayonets.  But  just  then  a  troop 
of  armed  police  appeared  out  of  the  Feldherrnhalle  and 
stretched  right  across  the  street  in  front  of  her,  right  to  the 


THE   WHITE    CROW  223 

Palace  wall.  An  absurd  thin  line;  but  she  had  to  jam  her 
brakes  on,  and  dismounted  close  behind  them.  Tramp, 
tramp.  .  .  between  the  policemen  she  could  see  the  pro- 
cession coming  now:  Nazis  with  fixed  bayonets  and  Ober- 
landers  without,  side  by  side,  sixteen  abreast,  a  veritable 
horde.  This  pitifully  thin  string  of  policemen  could  no 
more  halt  them  than  the  winning-tape  halts  a  race,  they'd 
be  trampled  underfoot  if  they  didn't  skip  jolly  quick. 
Tramp,  tramp.  .  .  she  was  dancing  in  time  with  it.  What  a 
juggernaut! 

No  one  was  singing  now,  and  she  heard  a  voice  among 
the  marching  leaders  suddenly  cry  out  to  the  police: 
"Don't  shoot — it's  Ludendorff !"  and  then  a  policeman 
fired. 

It  had  seemed  a  juggernaut;  and  yet  when  that  ragged 
unwilling  volley  at  last  rang  out  it  melted  clean  away. 


Chapter  26 

At  the  sound  of  that  first  shot  Hitler  dropped  so 
Lviolently  to  the  ground  (accelerated  moreover  by  the 
stricken  weight  of  Ulrich  Graf  on  top  of  him)  that  the  arm 
locked  in  Scheubner-Richter's  was  dislocated  at  the 
shoulder.  This  saved  his  life,  however;  for  a  second  later 
young  Scheubner-Richter  collapsed  dead  in  his  stead,  his 
chest  wide  open.  Almost  all  the  leaders,  their  nerves 
already  keyed  to  snapping-point,  had  flung  themselves 
down  instantly  like  Hitler,  performing  the  old  soldier's 
instinctive  obeisance  to  the  flying  bullet:  this  briefly 
exposed  the  dumbfoundered  men  behind  them — till  they 
too  collected  their  wits  enough  to  fall  flat  as  well:  thus  it 
was  they  who  chiefly  suffered,  not  the  leaders. 

The  reluctant  police  were  mostly  pointing  their  carbines 
at  the  ground;  but  that  saved  no  lives,  for  the  flattened 
bullets  bouncing  off  the  granite  setts  only  made  the  uglier 
wounds.  After  those  few  seconds  of  nervous  gunfire  there 
were  many  wounded.  Moreover  there  were  sixteen  men 
stone  dead  or  dying:  the  street  darkening  before  their  eyes, 
their  souls  at  their  lips. 

The  whole  world  was  flat,  the  living  among  the  dead, 
except  for  Ludendorff.  For  generals  tend  to  lose  the  instinct 
to  lie  down  as  well  as  the  agility;  and  the  old  war-lord's 
magic  was  worth  just  this  much  still,  that  no  one  did  aim 
at  Ludendorff.  He  had  stumbled  and  nearly  fallen,  but  then 
with  his  hands  in  his  jacket  pockets  he  continued  his  stroll 
without  one  glance  back  at  the  dying  and  wounded  and 
frightened  men  behind  him,  straight  through  the  green  line 
of  police  (which  opened  to  let  him  pass).  He  seemed  deep  in 
thought.  As  he  passed  Tascha  she  heard  him  murmuring, 
"One,  and  nine,  and  two.  .  ."  Then  he  was  gone. 

No  one  fired  twice — but  it  was  enough.  As  soon  as  the 

224 


THE   WHITE   CROW  225 

noise  ceased  all  who  were  able  sprang  to  their  feet  and 
vanished.  They  were  headed  by  the  little  dog  in  the  plaid 
waistcoat  at  full  speed,  but  Hitler — unhit,  though  stumb- 
ling from  the  pain  and  awkwardness  of  his  shoulder — lay 
a  good  second  in  the  race. 

The  sound  of  the  firing  had  carried  right  to  the  rear  of 
the  column,  and  the  rest  of  the  parade  too  instantly  dis- 
missed. The  police  stood  aghast.  At  that  moment  a  dozen 
men  could  have  rushed  them;  but  there  weren't  a  dozen. 

Stretcher-bearers  appeared. 

In  front  of  Tascha  lay  Ludendorff's  young  von 
Scheubner-Richter:  his  lungs  had  burst  from  his  chest. 
Poor  Max-Erwin!  She'd  met  him  at  parties:  he'd  had  so 
much  charm.  .  .  and  beside  him  lay  someone  else  whose 
brains  spattered  the  roadway  for  ten  yards  round.  Weber, 
the  Oberland  leader,  had  staggered  to  his  feet  and  stood 
leaning  against  the  palace  wall,  in  tears.  Young  Hermann 
Goering  with  two  bullet-gashes  in  the  groin  was  trying  to 
drag  himself  behind  one  of  the  stone  lions  in  front  of  the 
Residenz  palace. 

The  street  was  bright  with  blood.  As  soon  as  the  fumes 
of  the  carbines  cleared  you  could  even  smell  it;  and  at  that 
something  mad  seized  Tascha.  She  jerked  into  the  saddle 
and  bicycled  wildly  down  the  street,  wobbling  her  course 
between  the  dead  and  dying.  Tascha's  one  object  was  to 
get  plenty  of  splashes  of  blood  on  her  bicycle-wheels 
(Hitler's  if  possible:  surely  she  had  seen  him  fall?).  But  in 
point  of  fact  even  before  Tascha  had  mounted,  Hitler, 
legging  it,  had  reached  the  Max-Josefs-Platz  and  been 
hustled  into  that  waiting  yellow  car  and  was  gone.  Lothar 
caught  a  glimpse  of  him  climbing  into  the  car — he  held 
his  arm  queerly  extended,  as  if  carrying  something.  So 
Tascha  had  to  be  content  with  quite  anonymous  blood:  it 
was  mostly  Willi's,  as  it  happened. 

Ludendorff  continued  his  way  unhindered  across  the 


226  THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

empty  square.  As  soon  as  he  had  added  together  the 
digits  of  this  fatal  year  1-9-2-3  and  registered  that  their 
sum  was  15  his  mind  went  suddenly  blank.  He  continued 
to  march  straight  forward  like  a  mechanical  toy — quite 
without  object,  merely  without  impediment,  plod,  plod.  .  . 

He  had  already  turned  into  the  Brienner  Strasse  like 
that,  plod,  plod,  when  all  at  once  he  halted,  thunderstruck 
— his  brain  suddenly  springing  into  action  again.  But  of 
course!  Fifteen  was  the  same  total  i-g-1-4  added  up  to! — Fifteen! 
Ten  and  Five:  applied  to  the  alphabet  these  digits  gave  the 
letters  'J'  and  'E' — the  first  two  letters  in  JEhovah.  .  .  yes, 
and  in  JEsus  too!  Thus  both  years  were  auspicious  years  for 
both  Germany's  joint  enemies — the  JEws  and  the  JEsuits! 

1914.  .  .  the  'JEhovah-JEsus'  year  when  the  noose  of 
International  Jewry-cum- Papistry  had  first  closed  so 
tight  that  Germany  had  been  forced  to  strike  back — in 
vain.  Now,  1923.  .  .  No  wonder  we've  failed! 

But  at  that  moment  a  policeman  dared  at  last  to 
address  him,  politely  requesting  His  Excellency's  attend- 
ance at  the  station.  At  the  station  however  they  were  not 
quite  so  polite.  A  one-eyed  wooden-faced  sergeant  looked 
up  from  his  ledger  and  asked  this  distinguished  client  his 
name  and  address  and  made  him  spell  it.  The  constable 
looked  at  his  superior  in  surprise:  why,  surely  Sergeant 
knew  that  face — and  knew  how  to  spell  Ludendorff?  Hadn't 
Sergeant  lost  his  eye  (he  always  told  them)  in  the  ill-fated 
'Ludendorff  offensive'  of  19 18? 


Chapter  2J 

The  little  dog  in  the  waistcoat  at  last  found  his  master 
again — an  elderly,  frock-coated,  elegant  citizen  with 
so  neat  a  spade  beard  it  deserved  a  prize  (he  slept  with  it 
in  a  net);  and  they  both  rejoiced.  Willi  meanwhile  sat  on 
the  pavement  outside  the  post-office  in  the  Max-Josefs- 
Platz,  applying  a  tourniquet  to  his  own  copiously-bleeding 
leg,  his  head  in  a  whirl.  Tascha  had  the  misfortune  to  have 
her  bicycle  stolen  while  she  was  being  sick  in  a  ladies' 
lavatory,  and  hurried  home  on  foot  to  write  her  letter  (in 
two-inch  script)  to  Mitzi. 

The  public  health  department  cleaned  up  the  messy 
Residenzstrasse  with  wonderful  speed  and  thoroughness: 
is  was  the  sort  of  job  they  excelled  at.  The  police  put  on 
ferocious  airs  as  if  one  and  all  they  habitually  ate  Kampf- 
bund  kids  for  breakfast,  and  made  numerous  difficult  and 
dangerous  arrests  (such  as  Willi,  who  was  too  giddy  to 
stand  up) .  Then  one  by  one  the  shops  and  restaurants  on 
the  route  of  the  march  re-opened  (the  others  elsewhere  had 
never  closed)  and  all  was  as  before.  Lothar  slipped  quietly 
home  for  a  quick  change  and  was  back  as  his  desk  at  the 
Bayrischer-Hof,  shaved  and  in  a  neat  grey  suit,  without 
anyone  quite  seeing  him  arrive  (at  the  Bayrischer-Hof 
few  were  even  aware  any  disturbance  had  taken  place) . 

Meanwhile  the  police  had  already  raided  that  gym- 
nasium. There  they  found  Augustine's  ten-shilling  note  in 
the  till,  and  showed  it  to  the  Press.  Once  again  that  note 
turned  out  a  windfall;  for  wasn't  it  proof  positive  the 
Nazis  were  in  foreign  pay? 

Ludendorff  was  (rather  unflatteringly)  released  on  bail, 
and  carried  his  dudgeon  home  with  him  to  Ludwigshohe. 
Goering's  brownshirt  friends  found  Goering  in  a  rather 
bad  way,  behind  a  stone  Hon  outside  the  palace,  groaning: 
they  took  him  to  a  Jewish  doctor,  who  patched  him  up 

227 


Ba8  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

with  infinite  kindness  (a  kindness  Goering  never  forgot) 
and  hid  him  in  his  own  house:  so  Goering  did  get  in  the  end 
to  Rosenheim  and  thence  into  Austria  as  he  had  all  the 
time  intended.  There  he  found  Putzi  Hanfstacngl  and 
others  who  had  arrived  before  him:  not  Rosenberg, 
though,  who  after  all  was  hiding  in  Munich.  Nor  Hitler, 
of  course:  Hitler  in  a  depressed  state  was  driving  about 
Bavaria  at  top  speed  without  the  least  idea  where  to  go. 
Finally  he  fetched  up  at  Uffing  of  all  places — at  the 
Hanfstaengl  country  cottage,  which  was  bound  to  be 
searched  sooner  or  later — and  was  hidden  in  the  attic 
where  they  kept  their  emergency  barrel  of  flour. 

Most  of  these  things  had  happened  before  the  Steuckels' 
party  had  even  begun;  but  true  news  travels  slowly,  and 
the  party  had  dispersed  before  the  upshot  of  the  Putsch 
was  known.  When  a  full  and  authentic  account  of  it  all 
did  at  last  reach  Lorienburg  with  the  next  morning's 
papers  it  caused  little  stir  there  for  the  only  politically 
important  fact  in  it  was  already  surmised — that  Kahr's 
planned  restoration  of  Rupprecht  had  after  all  not  come  off. 

Moreover  a  miss-fire  like  this  might  mean  that  it  had 
to  be  put  off  for  quite  a  while.  That  led  to  some  desultory 
abuse  of  Ludendorff,  whose  clumsy,  amateurish  interfer- 
ence had  upset  all  von  Kahr's  delicate  timing.  Ludendorff 
would  now  be  totally  discredited  for  keeps:  there  was  at 
least  that  much  to  be  thankful  for.  And  that  silly  little 
Hitler  too:  like  the  frog  in  the  fable  he  had  tried  to  play  a 
role  too  big  for  him  and  burst.  After  this  we'll  hear  no 
more  of  Hitler — and  that  too's  a  good  riddance!  I  expect 
when  they  catch  him  he'll  just  be  pushed  back  over  the 
Austrian  frontier  as  an  undesirable  alien. 

As  a  proved  incompetent,  Exit  the  White  Crow! 

Thus  it  was  all  soon  forgotten.  For  the  Kessen  family 
had  now  something  on  their  plates  even  more  important 
than  politics,  for  once:  a  family  problem — what  to  do  with 
Mitzi  now  she  was  stone-blind. 


BOOK   THREE 


The  Fox  in  the  Attic 


Chapter  i 

In  the  darkness  of  the  unvisited  attics  the  bats  flitted 
endlessly  or  huddled  in  bunches  against  the  cold,  and 
under  the  heavy  pile  of  furs  in  the  corner  the  sleeping 
figure  stirred  and  moaned. 

The  very  young  face  with  its  closed,  wide-set  eyes  was 
contorted.  He  was  having  one  of  his  'red'  dreams,  when 
everywhere  there  was  always  blood.  Tonight  he  was 
dreaming  that  his  legs  were  paralysed  and  he  was  dragging 
himself  on  his  elbows  across  a  heap  of  bodies,  and  from 
their  open  bellies  the  living  entrails  writhed  towards  him. 
When  they  wound  themselves  round  him  they  were 
barbed,  like  barbed  wire;  and  the  fetid,  dully-crimson  air 
was  full  of  twittering  though  there  was  nothing  winged 
here.  .  . 

This  winning,  open-faced  boy  having  his  nightmare  in 
the  attics  was  the  missing  Wolff,  Lothar's  warrior-brother: 
Franz's  best  schoolfriend,  and  still  his  guiding  star. 

Wolff  woke,  half-swallowing  a  scream.  His  lips  were 
dry  and  his  mouth  tasted  of  blood  from  a  bleeding  gum 
(he  had  pulled  his  own  tooth  himself,  the  day  before).  His 
body  was  wet  and  for  a  moment  he  thought  that  was 
blood  too;  but  it  was  only  his  sweat,  under  too  many  furs. 
Hauling  himself  out  of  his  dream  by  main  force  he 
deliberately  recalled  to  the  surface  of  his  mind  that  day 
four  years  ago  when  his  troop  was  storming  the  signal-box 
on  the  Riga  railway  and  he  stumbled  in  the  hidden  wire 
and  fell  into  Heinrich's  body  that  was  burst  and  steaming 
and  the  wire  had  held  him  there,  in  that  motherly  warmth, 
while  round  him  the  bullets  splashed  in  the  waterlogged 
meadow  like  rain. 

Wolff  flashed  his  torch.  The  beam  lit  a  chin-high  stack 

231 


232  THE    FOX    IN    THE   ATTIC 

of  ancient  account-books  covered  with  bat-droppings,  for 
this  hiding-place  of  his  was  a  kind  of  muniment-room — the 
only  room  right  up  here  close  under  the  castle  clock  and  the 
great  water-tank  ever  finished  since  the  castle  was  first 
built.  In  the  shadows  two  red  eyes  were  watching  him, 
and  the  air  smelt  strong  of  fox. 

The  torch-beam  shifted,  and  shone  on  what  looked  like 
a  gigantic  snail.  This  was  a  coil  of  climber's  rope  he  kept 
there,  covered  in  cobwebs.  Even  after  the  Baltic  collapse 
those  dedicated  young  men  Wolff  and  his  like-minded 
fellow  killers  had  kept  on  killing  'for  Germany' — though 
killing  in  Germany  and  killing  secretly  now.  But  ever  since 
Rathenau's  death  the  police-net  had  never  relaxed:  Wolff 
was  deeply  involved,  and  for  the  past  eight  months  had 
never  once  set  foot  on  the  ground  outside. 

In  the  wavering  beam  the  watching  red  eyes  blinked, 
and  Wolff  snapped  out  the  light.  But  he  dared  not  drift 
off  to  sleep  again,  and  to  keep  awake  in  the  dark  and  to 
soothe  his  jangled  nerves  he  made  an  effort  to  think  about 
his  'Lady'.  For  Wolff  had  fallen  deeply  in  romantic  love, 
last  summer,  with  that  fair-haired  girl  in  the  garden 
below  who  was  unconscious  of  his  existence  even. 

But  tonight  she  eluded  him,  for  tonight  he  was  wholly 
in  the  grip  of  images  of  a  sort  yet  more  compulsive  still 
than  hers:  that  cat,  for  instance,  in  the  drawing-room  of 
the  little  deserted  manor  in  the  Livonian  woods.  .  .  a  fat, 
white  cat.  .  .  willy-nilly  he  began  to  recall  it  all,  now, 
nervously  smiling  the  while. 


It  had  been  one  day  they  were  looking  for  a  missing 
reconnaissance-party  of  their  own  men  that  they  came  on 
this  modest  house,  hidden  among  the  birches  and  pines. 
There  were  fresh  pink  English  hollyhocks  round  the  door; 
but  although  it  was  nearly  noon  the  green  shutters  were 
all  closed  as  though  the  house  were  sleeping.  Whoever  had 
been  there  last  had  gone,  and  had  clearly  left  it  empty. 


THE   FOX   IN  THE  ATTIC  233 

But  those  shutters  fitted  so  close  that  coming  in  from  the 
sun  you  couldn't  at  first  see:  only  stand  there  listening  to 
the  drawing-room  clock  that  was  still  ticking,  and  wait 
for  the  dazzlement  to  wear  off.  This  happened  to  be 
Wolff's  sixteenth  birthday,  and  at  the  sound  of  that  clock 
the  boy  had  felt  desperately  homesick. 

Moreover,  he  could  hear  a  purring.  .  . 

But  soon  the  pupils  of  his  eyes  dilated  enough  to  see  that 
the  room  was  heaped  with  bodies — their  missing  friends. 
The  bodies  were  mutilated  in  the  usual  Lettish  way;  and 
these  men  hadn't  died  fighting,  this  had  been  done  to 
them  alive. 

The  purring  cat  had  been  sleeping  luxuriously  on  the 
sofa  in  this  very  room  when  the  searchers  arrived.  But  now 
she  took  refuge  on  the  top  of  that  ornate  mantelpiece 
clock,  arched  and  spitting,  her  drawn  claws  slipping  as  she 
scrabbled  to  keep  her  balance  on  the  smooth  marble. 
Underneath  her  the  clock  whirred,  then  started  to  strike 
with  tuneful  silvery  chimes. 

In  his  rage  he  had  torn  the  cat  to  pieces  with  his  bare 
hands,  then  slipped  in  the  mess  on  the  floor  and  twisted 
his  ankle.  Meanwhile  the  others  had  rushed  outside  to 
search  the  buildings;  but  they  found  nothing  living  out 
there  either  except  one  cow.  Her  they  killed  too:  they'd 
have  killed  even  the  tomtits  if  they  could  have  caught 
them. 

Now  Wolff  himself,  as  he  remembered  it  all,  lay  there 
purring.  .  . 


Conscience  had  first  sent  Wolff  east,  to  those  freelance 
wars  in  the  lost  provinces  where  his  birthplace  was;  and 
a  conscience  blindly  indulged  like  his  tends  to  acquire  a 
stranglehold.  Conscience'  had  now  become  the  one  call 
he  could  no  longer  ever  resist.  The  fighting  had  long  been 
over;  but  those  Baltic  years  of  the  beastliest  heroism  had 
been  the  years  while  Wolff  grew  his  last  inch  of  height  and 


234  THE    FOX    IN    THE    ATTIC 

his  spirit  set  in  its  mould;  and  nowadays  the  dictates  of  his 
conscience  had  become  quite  invarious:  always  the  simple 
command  to  kill. 

Hidden  here,  and  now  no  longer  able  to  go  out  and 
murder,  Wolff  was  in  every  sense  an  exile  from  'life':  even 
from  its  warm  trickles  in  the  house  he  hid  in.  No  human 
sound  reached  here:  only  from  close  overhead  all  night  the 
huge  clock's  slow,  loud,  heavy  ticking. 


Chapter  2 

In  the  roof  the  castle  clock  thumped  the  hour  and  on  the 
last  stroke  Mitzi  woke. 

It  was  pitchy  black,  and  a  smell  of  outdoor  furs.  There 
was  not  even  a  glimmer  from  where  the  window  lay 
opposite  her  bed;  yet  Mitzi  was  broad  awake,  and  agi- 
tated moreover  by  a  sense  of  urgency.  She  reached  for  the 
box  of  matches  by  her  candle  and  struck  one. . .  and  nothing 
happened.  She  heard  the  usual  sputter,  but  it  made  no  light. 

It  was  only  then  that  she  remembered.  But. . .  but  how- 
ever could  a  person  have  forgotten  she  had  gone  blind? 

No  no  no!  Surely  this  sudden  blindness  was  only  a  bad 
dream  Mitzi  had  just  woken  from — in  the  dark! 

But  that  smell  of  furs.  .  .  suddenly  yesterday's  sleigh- 
ride  came  back  to  her.  Moreover  this  wasn't  really  at  all 
the  normal  blackness  of  night:  rather  it  was  the  negation 
of  seeing,  the  absence  of  any  visual  sensation  whatever.  It 
was  merely  Memory  which  had  translated  it  into  the  visual 
terms  of  darkness,  as  being  the  nearest  equivalent  Memory 
knew.  She  tried  by  an  effort  of  will  to  see  it  as  'darkness' 
again,  but  almost  at  once  a  chaos  of  meaningless  sight- 
sensation  began  to  wake  in  the  deprived  optic  nerve — like 
the  sensation  Uncle  Otto  said  he  felt  sometimes  in  the  leg 
which  wasn't  there. 

In  fact,  there  was  not  any  proof  even  that  this  still  was 
night-time!  It  might  just  as  well  be  broad  day — and  hence 
the  feeling  of  urgency  Mitzi  had  woken  with. 

Certain,  now,  she  had  overslept  and  was  going  to  be 
late  for  breakfast  Mitzi  sprang  out  of  bed  to  find  her 
clothes.  Normally  she  folded  them  on  the  chair  by  the 
window,  where  in  the  morning  tne  dazzling  entering  day- 
light would  direct  her  to  them  again;  but  in  the  misery  of 
last  night,  had  she  remembered  to  do  this?  Anyway,  where 
was  that  window?  She  had  taken  a  few  steps  from  her  bed 

235 


236  THE    FOX    IN    THE   ATTIC 

without  thinking,  and  could  no  longer  be  sure  which  way 
she  was  lacing. 

Moreover  those  phantasms  of  colour  and  shape  chasing 
each  other  across  her  mind's-eye  had  now  become 
violently  vivid — like  solid  objects  flung  at  her,  so  that 
involuntarily  she  winced  to  dodge  them.  Panicking,  she 
began  blundering  about  with  her  hands  stretched  out  to 
find  some  bit  of  furniture  whose  touch  she  could  recognise; 
and  in  that  big  room  of  hers  she  was  soon  completely  lost. 
It  was  difficult  to  keep  one's  balance  on  this  ancient  undu- 
lating floor  without  eyes  (even  purblind  ones)  to  help  one: 
her  toe  tripped  on  a  tilted  board  and  she  reached  out  to 
stop  herself  falling.  .  .  her  hand  touched  something,  and 
grabbed  it — but  only  to  feel  an  agonising  pang  of  pain,  for 
it  was  the  nearly  red-hot  iron  flue  of  the  stove  she  had 
seized  for  support. 

The  pain  brought  Mitzi  back  to  her  senses.  She  knew 
now  just  where  she  was,  for  she  could  feel  the  warmth 
coming  from  the  stove  several  feet  away — as  she  ought  to 
have  felt  it  before  if  she  had  kept  her  head  instead  of 
blundering  right  against  it.  As  she  stood  there  with  her 
burnt  fingers  in  her  mouth  it  occurred  to  her  she  must 
henceforth  learn  to  use  such  areas  of  local  heat  and  cold 
for  finding  her  way  about:  she  must  learn  to  steer  by  the 
radiant  heat  of  the  many  stoves,  the  cold  air  near  windows 
and  the  draughts  through  open  doors — no  longer  by  the 
direction  of  the  light  (by  day  from  windows  and  by  night 
from  lamps)  which  formerly  had  fitfully  pierced  her 
private  fog  like  lighthouse  beams. 

Then  Mitzi  remembered  too  the  yapping  of  the  fox  the 
night  before,  and  the  changes  in  resonance  when  first  he 
was  in  the  big  open  hall,  then  on  the  enclosed  stairs,  and 
then  in  the  attics  above.  So  perhaps  she  could  use  reson- 
ance too  to  help  tell  where  she  was — out  in  the  middle  of  a 
room,  for  example,  or  close  to  a  wall? 

Mitzi  began  moving  about  again,  feeling  for  her  clothes. 
This  time  she  quickly  found  the  window-chair — but  they 


THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC  237 

weren't  on  it.  So  as  she  zig-zagged  to  and  fro  across  the 
room  she  began  uttering  little  staccato  fox-like  cries  and 
tried  consciously  to  interpret  their  reverberation  for  she 
was  desperate — she  must  find  her  clothes!  By  now,  the 
level  morning  sunlight  would  be  shining  straight  in — 
though  she  couldn't  see  it.  She  knew  she  was  late,  and 
Papa  hated  one  being  late. 

A  heartfelt  urgency  crept  into  her  feral  yapping. 

* 

Franz  woke,  that  yapping  tingling  in  his  tuned  ears. 

For  a  moment  he  thought  it  really  was  their  little  fox 
as  before;  but  he  soon  realised  this  was  no  natural  fox. 
Indeed  it  was  a  most  queer,  uncanny  sound:  moreover  it 
was  coming  from  the  room  next  his:  from  Mitzi's  room. 
Something  was  in  there  with  Mitzi. 

A  were-fox? — He  shivered,  and  his  skin  prickled  with 
goose-flesh.  But  an  instant  later  he  recognised  the  voice 
for  Mitzi  herself  and  fright  turned  to  anger.  The  little 
fool!  What  was  she  up  to,  rousing  the  whole  house — had 
she  gone  out  of  her  mind?  He  felt  so  cross  with  her  his  hand 
trembled  as  he  lit  his  candle,  and  he  barged  in  on  her 
filled  with  an  elder  brother's  righteous  wrath.  Four  in  the 
morning!  Was  she  out  of  her  senses?  What  a  time  for  a 
girl  to  stand  in  her  nightgown  in  the  pitchdark  in  the 
middle  of  her  bedroom,  yapping! 

Mitzi  could  hardly  believe  him  when  he  told  her  the  real 
time,  and  she  burst  into  tears  as  he  drove  her  back  into  bed. 

But  then  suddenly  Mitzi  heard  a  ringing  slap — and 
Franz's  scolding  voice  ceased  abruptly.  It  was  replaced  in 
her  ears  by  another  voice:  a  cracked  old  voice  that  was 
chanting  a  familiar  little  childhood  jingle: 

"Der  Mops  kam  in  die  Ktiche 
Und  stahl  dem  Koch  ein  Ei: 
Da  nahm  der  Koch  den  Lo'ffel 
Und  schlug  den  Mops  entzwei.  .  ." 


238  THE    FOX    IN    THE   ATTIC 

"Dear  old  Schmidtchen.  .  ."  How  often,  long  ago,  that 
ditty  had  served  to  lull  a  feverish  or  a  fractious  little  Mitzi 
off  to  sleep! 

Mitzi  gave  a  deep  sigh.  But  still  the  saga  continued: 

"Da  kamen  alle  Mopse 
Und  gruben  ihm  ein  Grab.  .  ." 

Candle  in  hand,  the  old  nurse — her  dwarfish  figure 
swathed  in  three  dressing-gowns,  the  few  grey  locks  on  her 
nearly  bald  head  standing  out  like  sea-urchin's  spines — 
bent  over  her  afflicted  young  baroness  and  gave  her  a 
troubled,  searching  look  while  she  continued  to  intone: 

"  Und  setzten  ihm  ein  Denkmal 
Darauf  geschrieben  stand: 
'Der  Mops  kam  in  die  Kiiche 
Und  stahl.  .  .'  " 

— and  so  on,  round  and  round:  for  the  song  is  endless. 

But  already  Schmidtchen's  little  Baroness  was  sound 
asleep;  and  as  for  the  young  Baron,  he  had  long  ago  slunk 
back  to  his  room — his  tail  between  his  legs  and  his  boxed 
ear  still  stinging. 


Chapter  3 

When  that  sluggard  Saturday's  dawn  came  at  last  it 
found  fifteen-year-old  Lies  already  kneeling  on  the 
cold  castle  stairs;  for  the  snow  off  Friday's  boots  still  lay 
there  unmelted,  each  morning  it  had  to  be  swept  up  with 
dustpan  and  brush. 

Augustine  was  not  awake  yet:  by  the  time  he  woke, 
Lies  was  already  in  his  room.  On  his  wash-stand  steamed 
the  jug  of  hot  water  for  his  shaving  wrapped  in  a  towel 
and  the  girl  was  down  on  her  knees  in  front  of  his  stove, 
coaxing  it  with  fir-cones  and  the  breath  of  her  powerful 
young  lungs.  Lies  wore  her  skirts  kilted  for  work,  and 
rolled  her  stockings;  and  on  the  backs  of  her  broad  bare 
white  knees  the  rolls  of  puppy-fat  still  lingered.  Augustine's 
sleepy  eyes  opened  on  them  as  she  knelt  there — surprised 
to  find  legs  could  look  quite  so  soft  (and  indeed  almost 
babyish)  on  any  young  woman  quite  so  stalwart  as  Lies. 

Contemplating  them,  suddenly  the  thought  struck  him: 
'Suppose  you  couldn't  see?' — and  once  again  a  pang  of 
pity  for  Mitzi  racked  him  like  an  angina. 

True,  one  could  learn  to  thread  the  obstacle-race  of 
this  three-dimensional  world  without  eyesight:  that 
Augustine  discounted.  But  to  the  joy  of  seeing  Augustine 
was  perhaps  exceptionally  addicted,  as  if  his  whole  con- 
sciousness were  concentrated  close  behind  his  eyes  and 
almost  craning  out  of  them,  like  someone  who  can't  tear 
himself  from  the  window.  Among  the  five  senses  sight  was 
incomparable.  Indeed,  sometimes  he  thought  he  would  as 
lief  be  deaf  as  not  in  this  world  where  everyone  always 
talked  so  much  too  much:  he  was  not  humanly  musical, 
and  the  only  sound  he  would  really  miss  aesthetically  (he 
thought)  was  bird-song. 

239 


240  THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

Smells  too  were  mostly  unpleasant — since  petrol,  and 
since  even  respectable  women  had  now  taken  to  powder 
and  scent.  Taste.  .  .  Touch.  .  .  even  Movement!  He  would 
rather  break  his  back  and  live  out  his  life  in  a  wheeled 
chair  than  be  blind,  for  there  was  an  almost  infinite  and 
incessant  pleasure  to  be  got  from  just  'looking':  even  (but 
now  he  averted  his  eyes)  at  a  young  peasant-girl's  fat 
knees. 

How  much  Augustine  preferred  watching  people  to 
hearing  them  talk!  When  he  was  a  boy  of  eleven  a  kindly 
astronomer  had  helped  him  build  a  telescope.  It  was 
meant  for  nebulae  and  the  rings  round  Saturn  and  moon- 
mountains  and  so  on;  but  soon  he  was  spending  hours 
with  it  by  daylight  too,  turning  it  onto  people.  Being  of 
the  astronomical  type  it  stood  them  on  their  heads,  but 
one  got  used  to  that.  And  it  was  powerful:  framed  in  a 
circle  like  specimens  in  a  microscope  slide,  his  soundless 
specimens  could  be  observed  unawares  as  closely  as  if  they 
were  with  him  in  the  room.  How  different  people's  faces 
do  look  when  they  think  no  one  sees  them  and  so  they  stop 
gesticulating  at  you  with  their  features!  It  gave  the  boy 
quite  a  Godlike  feeling,  thus  to  'know  their  downsitting 
and  their  uprising,  to  understand  their  thought  afar  off.' 
For  he  was  seeing  natural  human  nature,  which  the 
human  eye  so  rarely  sees  (even  if  he  did  see  everything 
upside  down). 

For  a  time  this  human  bird-watching  had  been  almost 
an  obsession;  but  at  last  it  was  brought  to  its  own  abrupt 
and  wholly  shaming  end.  For  the  view  from  Augustine's 
bedroom  window  at  home  had  included  another  garden, 
and  there  had  been  three  little  girls  who  used  to  play 
there.  They  weren't  quite  gentry  children,  so  he  never 
came  into  normal  naked-eye  contact  with  them — he 
never  even  knew  their  names.  Indeed  he  was  then  at  an 
age  to  shun  little  girls  like  the  plague  in  real  life;  but  this 
was  different,  and  soon  these  three  were  much  his  favourite 
object  of  nature-study.  He  came  to  know  intimately  almost 


THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC  241 

every  hair  of  those  three  heads;  for  the  telescope  brought 
them  seemingly  within  touching-distance.  I  suppose  he 
fell  half  in  love  with  them,  impartially  with  all  three:  a 
little  private,  abstract  seraglio — so  very  close  to  him 
always,  and  yet  ethereal  visionary  creatures  without  even 
voices.  And  so  the  idyll  had  continued,  till  that  day  when 
the  one  he  happened  to  be  watching  wandered  off  from 
the  others  and,  as  he  followed  her  with  his  eye  curiously, 
suddenly  bobbed  down  between  two  bushes. 

When  it  was  over  the  young  peeper  was  appalled:  he 
had  seen  what  no  boy's  eye  ever  ought  to  have  seen,  he 
had  broken  the  strongest  taboo  he  knew.  It  was  weeks 
before  he  used  his  telescope  again  and  then  it  was  only  at 
night,  to  study  the  moon:  the  uninhabited,  infertile, 
utterly  geological  safe  moon. 

That  moon  is  covered  with  mysterious  ring-mountains; 
some  with  a  solitary  peak  rising  at  the  very  centre,  like  a 
little  tongue — surely  utterly  unlike  anything  to  be  seen 
anywhere  on  this  earth?  Soon  he  became  so  enthralled  he 
planned  to  map  the  whole  moon's  surface,  and  tried  to 
draw  pictures  of  those  rings. 

As  for  picturing  more  mundane  things,  it  was  galling 
for  someone  so  eye-conscious  to  have  no  aptitude  for 
painting,  however  hard  he  tried.  But  Augustine's  natural 
skill  at  shooting  was  some  consolation,  for  here  it  was  the 
exact  visually-imagined  pattern  in  space  and  time  of  the 
bird's  flight  intersecting  with  the  brief  trajectory  of  his 
pellets  that  was  the  attraction:  that,  and  the  utter  loveli- 
ness of  the  plumage  of  the  fallen  bird. 

Only  one  thing  equalled  this  last — the  utter  loveliness 
of  Mitzi's  hair;  and  at  the  thought  of  that,  this  morning, 
in  his  warm  body  under  the  warm  bedclothes  his  heart 
glowed  warmer  still. 

Yet  Augustine  this  morning — though  he  would  not 
admit  it — was  really  in  two  minds  about  Mitzi.  His  heart 
might  be  warmed  by  the  generous  fires  of  love  but  the  pit 


843  THE    FOX    IN    THE    ATTIC 

of  his  stomach  had  its  sinking  moments,  its  moments  of 
chill.  He  loved  Mitzi  and  Mitzi  only  and  would  love 
Mitzi  for  ever — and  even  more  so  for  her  blindness!  Yet, 
to  be  coupled  till  death  did  them  part  with  a  blind  girl 
was  a  bit  like.  .  .  like  entering  a  three-legged  race  with  a 
partner  who  has  only  one  leg. 

As  a  budding  lover  Augustine  had  developed  some  at 
least  of  the  instincts  of  a  grown  man  but  he  was  still  an 
egoist  also,  with  still  the  instincts  of  any  normally  self- 
centred  child:  too  much  of  an  egoist,  perhaps,  to  tolerate 
yet  the  full  'we-ness'  of  true  marriage.  So  he  clutched  un- 
consciously perhaps  at  Mitzi's  blindness  as  something  by 
which  his  separateness  seemed  permanently  guaranteed. 
But  the  human  personality  like  the  plant  has  its  'growing- 
point'  with  a  foresight  and  wisdom  all  its  own:  a  foresight 
insistent  (in  this  case)  that  so  infantile  an  egoism  could 
not  last  for  ever,  that  to  seek  to  perpetuate  it  by  a  lame 
marriage  must  prove  a  disastrous  thing.  Hence,  then,  per- 
haps, these  queer  flutters  of  panic.  He  never  for  a  moment 
consciously  contemplated  not  marrying  Mitzi  yet  some- 
thing within  him  prompted  a  curious  lack  of  impatience 
about  going  to  her  and  actually  Saying  the  Word — 
although  he  longed  to  say  it. 

With  luck  there  would  be  an  empty  place  next  to 
Mitzi  at  breakfast.  Thereafter  (Augustine  told  himself)  he 
would  refuse  to  be  parted  from  Mitzi  all  day:  he  would 
devote  himself  openly  and  unequivocally  to  her,  claim  the 
privilege  of  guiding  her  from  room  to  room,  of  fetching 
and  carrying  for  her.  .  . 

But  when  Augustine  got  to  the  breakfast-table  he  found 
no  Mitzi.  Cousin  Adele  was  preparing  a  tray:  Mitzi  would 
be  breakfasting  in  her  own  room,  and  so  after  all  the 
moment  of  final  commitment  was  postponed!  Augustine 
was  desolated;  and  full  of  jokes. 


Chapter  4 

Permission  to  breakfast  in  one's  own  bedroom  was  rare 
in  the  annals  of  Lorienburg:  one  always  had  to  appear 
even  if  one  ate  nothing.  So  Mitzi  was  indeed  grateful  not 
to  have  to  appear  today,  when  such  waves  of  black  despair 
were  rolling  over  her  it  would  be  impossible  to  keep  her 
feelings  from  appearing  in  her  face. 

For  blindness  was  not  an  affliction  which  would  pass — 
like  a  pain,  or  like  an  illness  which  either  gets  better  or 
kills  you.  She  was  blind  now  she  was  young:  she  would  be 
blind  middle-aged:  she  would  still  be  blind  when  she  was 
old — she  would  die  blind.  She  was  going  to  be  blind  all  her 
earthly  life:  only  beyond  the  grave  would  she  again  have 
eyes  to  see. 

The  length  of  life — oh,  its  interminable  length!  Almost 
she  formulated  the  wish  to  be  struck  dead  that  minute; 
but  something  smote  her  inward  lips  as  with  an  actual 
blow  of  the  hand,  preventing  them  from  quite  uttering  any 
wish  so  wicked. 

Why  had  God  done  this  to  her?  What  had  she  done  to 
deserve  it?  When  she  felt  it  coming  on,  had  she  not  prayed 
with  every  breath  of  the  lungs  of  her  soul?  Why  hadn't 
God  answered  her  prayer,  then?  If  He'd  let  her  off  this 
she'd  have  adored  Him  all  her  days  and  laid  her  whole  life 
as  a  thank-offering  on  His  altar,  gone  out  to  nurse 
lepers.  .  . 

Why  had  God  done  this  to  her?  Because  she  had 
sinned?  But  everyone  sins.  Granted  she  was  more  sinful 
than  average,  one  of  the  most  repellent  of  all  His  creatures; 
but  on  the  other  hand  no  sin  can't  be  forgiven  and  she'd 
gone  to  confession  regularly,  received  absolution.  Had  the 
priest's  absolution  then  been  somehow  always  unavailing? 

243 


^44  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

It  must  have  been!  For  a  just  God  would  have  had  to 
count  up  against  her  anforgiven  every  sin  mortal  and 
venial  she  had  sinned  since  babyhood  to  judge  her  worthy 
of  this, 

"Most  merciful  Father.  .  ."  But  the  gates  of  His  mercy 
were  shut  against  Mitzi,  it  seemed.  "Holy  Mary,  never 
was  anyone  who  sought  thy  intercession  left  unaided.  .  ." 
But  Our  Blessed  Lady  had  withheld  her  intercession  from 
Mitzi. 

From  Mitzi — the  pariah  of  Heaven. 

The  meaningless  chaos  of  sensation  in  the  optic  nerve 
still  revolved  without  intermission. 

Would  she  have  never  been  born!  Would  that  the  day 
she  was  to  be  born  could  have  been  left  out  of  the  calendar, 
the  darkness  of  the  night  preceding  it  joined  mercifully 
without  any  intervening  day  to  the  darkness  of  the  night 
that  followed,  rather  than  that  Mitzi  had  ever  come  into 
being  as  the  living  human  soul  in  whom  this  unending 
frenzied  darkness  should  come  into  being!  Why  had  life 
been  given  her,  to  be  so  miserable  in,  so  bitter? 

What  had  God  put  her  into  the  world  for  at  all,  if 
having  put  her  there  He  couldn't  forgive  her? 

But  forgiveness,  she  knew,  is  only  for  the  truly  penitent: 
without  the  sinner's  contrition  absolution  is  a  mere  form 
of  words  snatched  from  the  priest's  lips  by  the  Powers  of 
the  Air,  blown  back  like  smoke. 

Had  Mitzi  never  truly  repented,  then,  in  her  heart,  of 
the  sins  her  lips  had  confessed?  Since  He  had  not  forgiven 
her,  Reason  answered  'that  must  be  so'.  — Then  again  and 
again  she  had  taken  the  Holy  Sacrament  impenitent,  thus 
eating  her  own  damnation! 

At  this  sudden  thought  of  damnation  Mitzi  sweated 
with  the  absolute  of  terror;  for  in  that  case  this  blindness 
was  a  mere  earthly  foretaste  of  the  horror  to  come.  In  that 
case  even  the  grave  could  be  no  'bed  of  hope'  for  a  Mitzi; 


THE   FOX   IN  THE  ATTIC  245 

for  its  bottom  would  open  under  the  weight  of  her  sins  to 
discharge  her  incontinently  into  the  bottomless  everlast- 
ing fires  of  Hell.  .  . 

Oh  how  short  is  that  brief  postponement  of  punishment 
we  call  earthly  life,  and  how  awful  the  everlasting  wrath 
of  God! 

Mitzi's  mind  was  young  and  single,  her  faith  unquestion- 
ing and  her  imaginative  powers  vivid.  Her  agony  of  mind 
was  now  passing  beyond  what  tender  human  nerves  can 
bear:  like  the  point  at  which  some  poor  soul  trapped  in 
the  top  of  a  blazing  building  at  last  makes  the  necessary 
leap  from  the  sixth-floor  window  into  the  smoke. 


Chapter  5 

When  breakfast  in  the  dining-room  was  over  Augustine 
found  himself  at  a  loose  end,  for  Walther  shepherded 
Adele  and  Otto  and  Franz  into  the  drawing-room  and 
shut  the  door.  Evidently  some  sort  of  family  council  was 
going  into  session  (under  the  fatherly  eye  of  Good  King 
Ludwig  III).  Nervous,  and  with  time  to  kill  till  Mitzi 
appeared,  Augustine's  first  thought  was  to  spend  it  making 
friends  with  the  younger  children  at  last.  But  that  might 
not  be  easy:  to  begin  with  there  was  the  difficulty  of  his 
'good'  German,  and  moreover  morning  and  evening  they 
were  all  made  to  file  round  the  table  ceremoniously  to  kiss 
his  hand  which  put  one  on  altogether  the  wrong  footing. 
Better  wait  till  later,  perhaps  (he  had  never  before  funked 
children,  but  he'd  never  before  struck  quite  such  a 
formidable  quartette).  Moreover  he  had  just  remembered 
that  this  was  Saturday:  Augustine  had  spent  three  whole 
nights  in  Germany  without  sending  Mary  so  much  as  a 
picture-postcard  yet. 

Augustine  had  already  had  one  letter  from  Mary,  here. 
"Polly  has  a  cough.  .  ."  (Mary  had  said  nothing  about 
Nellie  and  the  dead  child's  father  coming  to  the  lonely 
neo-Gothic  'Hermitage'  to  live:  she  thought  that  wound 
better  given  a  little  time  to  heal.) 

But  when  Augustine  went  to  his  room  and  began  writ- 
ing he  found  it  difficult  to  keep  bent  on  his  travelogue  a 
mind  that  kept  turning  to  Mitzi.  However,  he  didn't  want 
to  tell  Mary  about  Mitzi  quite  yet:  not  till  he  had  spoken 
to  the  waiting  Mitzi  and  even  her  father  and  it  was  all 
settled.  It  never  occurred  to  him  Mary  could  think  thirty- 
six  hours  from  first  meeting  rather  soon  to  have  made  up 
their  minds:  he  was  sincerely  afraid  if  he  couldn't  tell  her 
something  definite  she  would  think  them  hopeless  ditherers 
to  have  havered  so  long. 

246 


THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC  247 

Thus  Augustine's  letter-writing  limped,  and  presently 
he  laid  down  his  pen  and  mooned  round  the  room 
examining  the  pictures  all  over  again.  There  was  a 
distant  group  of  figures  in  one  of  them,  on  the  banks  of  a 
river,  which  had  intrigued  him  before;  for  they  were  so 
minute  he  couldn't  make  out  what  they  were  at.  Were 
they  bathing — or  ducking  a  witch? 

If  only  he'd  been  standing  on  yon  tufted  abbey  tower 
with  that  telescope  he'd  had  as  a  boy  turned  on  them! 
Vividly  Augustine  recalled  the  pleasure  he  used  to  get 
from  studying  just  such  distant  groups,  himself  unseen.  But 
then  a  new  thought  struck  him:  now — and  without  any 
telescope  at  all — he  could  study  a  blind  Mitzi  just  like 
that!  He  could  gaze  right  in  her  face  at  six  inches  range 
without  giving  her  offence,  just  as  long  ago  he  used  to 
study  those.  .  .  those  distant  little  girls  in  the  garden!  At 
the  queer  thought  of  it  his  heart  jumped  like  a  fish  in  his 
breast. 

The  recollection  of  his  telescope  made  him  turn  auto- 
matically to  the  window,  and  look  down  from  it  into  the 
great  courtyard  underneath.  And  there,  to  his  astonish- 
ment, went  Mitzi  herself — quite  alone,  and  blundering 
through  the  snow. 

Mitzi  (he  saw)  was  purposefully  feeling  her  way  along 
the  facade  of  the  house:  she  had  followed  it  right  into  the 
corner  of  the  court  where  the  snow  had  drifted:  she  was 
floundering  almost  waist-deep  in  snow.  But  then  she 
turned  at  right-angles  along  the  side-wall  (evidently  she 
hadn't  dared  risk  a  bee-line  in  the  open) :  found  the  door 
she  wanted:  unlocked  it,  and  vanished  inside. 


Chapter  6 

For  at  the  moment  when  Mitzi  had  felt  herself  to  be  at 
the  implacable  very  bottom  of  despair,  beating  her 
head  against  the  bars  of  her  imperfectly-remembered 
religious  instruction  like  a  bird  in  a  trap,  a  voice  as  real  as 
the  hand  which  had  smitten  her  inward  lips  had  said: 
"Think,  Mitzi — THINK!"  and  suddenly  the  answer  had 
come  to  her.  There  was  indeed  one  damnable  sin  she  had 
never  repented  nor  even  confessed  for  she  had  never 
noticed  till  now  she  was  sinning  it:  all  her  life  she  had 
allowed  herself  to  feel  afflicted  because  she  could  not  see 
as  other  children  saw:  she  had  never  once  thanked  God  foi 
what  little  sight  she  had. 

Now  she  had  lost  it  she  realised  what  a  treasure  even 
that  purblind  sight  had  been.  Finding  her  way  about  used 
to  seem  difficult — yet  how  easy  it  had  then  been  in  com- 
parison with  now!  Moreover,  how  singular  had  been  the 
beauty  of  that  peculiar  world  once  hers!  Those  soft-edged, 
looming  shapes  things  had:  the  irised  patterns  of  colour 
changing  from  moment  to  moment  as  when  a  kaleidoscope 
is  shaken,  the  flickering  fringes  of  bright  violet  round  where 
windows  were  and  the  gorgeous  coronas  that  meant 
lighted  lamps:  the  veined  and  marbled  skies,  the  moving 
dappled  pillars  that  were  her  friends  and  the  standing  ones 
that  were  the  trees.  .  . 

She,  who  had  always  hovered  halfway  to  blindness — 
surely  this  should  have  been  a  perpetual  reminder  to  her 
that  sight  is  not  intrinsic  to  humanity:  that  sight  is  a  gift 
— which  God  gives,  or  God  withholds.  Yet  all  this  she  had 
enjoyed  and  never  once  thanked  God  for  it. 

It  was  at  this  instant  of  perfect  contrition  for  her  in- 
gratitude to  God,  this  realisation  of  the  worthlessness  of  all 
her  petty  repentances  of  sins  that  were  so  minuscule  in 

248 


THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC  249 

comparison  with  this  one,  that  her  intolerable  nervous 
tension  snapped  and  Mitzi  at  last  made  her  necessary 
'leap'  into  the  stretched  blanket. 

Thereafter  all  fear  of  Hell — all  thought  of  punishment 
even — was  suddenly  gone  as  completely  as  a  finished 
thunder-storm  is  gone.  What  remained  was  a  feeling  of 
floating:  of  floating  on  God's  love.  It  soaked  her  through 
like  sunshine.  She  felt  God  incomparably  nearer  than  ever 
before:  God  held  her  whole  being  nestling  in  the  hollow  of 
His  infinite  hand.  .  .  or  no,  God  wasn't  even  that  much 
outside  her — He  was  running  in  her  veins.  He  was  the 
tongue  speaking  in  her  mind's  ear  and  He  was  the  mental 
ear  which  listened,  He  was  the  very  mind  in  her  which  did 
her  thinking.  There  was  now  no  obstacle  at  all  between 
herself  and  God:  her  will  and  His  were  one.  Once,  Mitzi 
had  made  her  sight  into  a  barrier  between  herself  and 
God:  so  God  had  touched  her  eyes  with  His  healing 
finger  and  now  that  barrier  was  gone.  .  .  and  how  she 
loved  and  adored  Him  for  it! 

Mitzi  believed  herself  already  quite  lost  in  God.  But 
was  she,  wholly?  Surely  there  was  still  one  tiny  part  of 
this  neophyte  which  even  now  watched  the  transaction 
as  it  were  from  outside;  and,  curiously,  that  outsider  was 
the  T'  at  the  transaction's  very  heart.  That  T'  in  her  which 
couldn't  help  feeling  just  a  little  bit  cocky  that  she  had  been 
chosen  for  an  act  of  such  exceptional  grace;  for  after  all,  it 
isn't  everybody  God  thinks  worth  striking  blind  to  bring 
her  to  Him. 

But  it  is  difficult  to  express  this  cavil  at  all  without 
exaggerating  it.  For  the  moment  at  least  the  voice  of  this 
outside  watcher  inside  Mitzi  was  in  comparison  as  faint 
as  the  piping  of  a  gnat  dancing  in  the  spray  of  a  roaring 
waterfall:  the  Mitzi-of-the-Adoration  was  scarcely  aware 
of  it,  and  let  it  pass;  and  presently  her  desire  for  prayer  and 
praise — to  thank  God  for  her  new  blindness  as  the  source 
of  this  ecstasy  she  now  enjoyed,  of  this  foretaste  within 
Time  of  the  Eternal  Life — had  become  so  insistent  her 


250  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

ordinary  weekday  room  could  no  longer  contain  it,  and 
she  felt  her  way  to  the  door. 

No  one  saw  Mitzi  cross  the  hall;  for  that  family  council 
(which  had  met  to  decide  what  was  to  be  done  with  Mitzi) 
was  still  in  session:  a  conference  at  which  the  chairman — 
the  late  King  Ludwig — watched,  but  said  never  a  word. 
Thus  no  one  saw,  no  one  heard  Mitzi  creeping  down  the 
stairs.  Even  Mitzi  herself  never  noticed  when  she  tripped 
and  nearly  went  headlong,  so  intent  was  her  whole 
thought  on  reaching  her  goal. 

It  was  not  till  she  was  right  out  in  the  courtyard, 
fumbling  her  way  through  the  snow  to  find  the  door  which 
led  through  the  vestry  into  the  castle  chapel,  that 
Augustine  alone  at  last  caught  sight  of  Mitzi  from  his 
window — and  darted  down  after  her  with  thumping  heart. 


Chapter  y 

A  ugustine  was  an  adept  wildfowler  and  his  shoes  had 
/jLthick  crepe-rubber  soles.  The  door  Mitzi  had  entered 
still  stood  open  and  he  slipped  inside,  careful  to  make  no 
sound. 

He  found  himself  in  a  room  lined  from  floor  to  ceiling 
with  noble  old  cupboards  and  presses  in  painted  pine — 
like  the  changing-room  of  an  18th-century  football  club, 
he  thought  (if  the  18th  Century  had  had  football  clubs), 
but  this  changing-room  had  a  faint  ecclesiastical  smell  and 
he  observed  a  holy  oleograph  of  exceptional  crudity  (a 
rather  disgusting  surgical  item,  a  bleeding  heart)  on  the 
only  bare  patch  of  wall.  However  there  was  no  Mitzi  here; 
so  he  continued  equally  stealthily  through  a  further  open 
door  and  found  himself  in  what  he  at  once  knew  must  be 
the  chapel:  and  there  he  stood  aghast. 

For  the  little  family  chapel  at  Lorienburg  was  a  baroque 
confection  of  exceptional  splendour.  Augustine  had  been 
reared  in  an  Anglo-Gothic  reverential  gloom;  but  this  was 
all  light  and  colour  and  swelling  curves.  There  was  ex- 
travagantly moulded  plaster  and  painted  trompe-Fceil, 
peeping  angels,  babies  submerged  in  silver  soap-suds  and 
gilded  glittering  rays.  .  .  Augustine  had  heard  of  Baroque 
— as  the  very  last  word  in  decadence  and  bad  taste;  but 
anything  so  outrageous  as  this  was  incredible  in  a  secular 
.  .  .  and  this  was  a  sacred  place !  Even  the  professing  atheist 
could  not  but  be  shocked. 

Yet  Augustine  soon  realised  he  ought  rather  to  be 
reassured.  Hitherto  he  had  shirked  wondering  whether 
Mitzi  was  really  a  believing  Christian;  but  even  if  she 
thought  she  was,  a  religion  which  expressed  itself  in  a  place 
like  this  couldn't  possibly  be  more  than  skin-deep — some- 
thing easily  sloughed,  under  his  teaching.  Yet  could  any 
teaching  of  his  be  needed?  Surely  the  utter  callousness  of 

251 


252  1HE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

what  had  just  happened  to  Mitz;.  must  already  have  taught 
her  more  forcibly  than  any  words  could  that  the  Universe 
has  no  heart.  Mitzi  must  know  now  there  was  no  one  else 
in  heaven  or  earth  to  love  her — only  him. 

But  in  that  case  why  had  she  come  here?  And  where 
was  Mitzi?  For  he  hadn't  found  her,  still. 

Seeking  her,  Augustine  peeped  gingerly  into  the  dark 
confessional;  then  he  tiptoed  to  the  sanctuary  rails.  But 
his  eyes  soon  began  to  wander,  for  though  the  general 
effect  of  this  awful  place  was  so  utterly  wrong  all  the  same 
there  were  details  which  plucked  at  his  eyes  so  that  he 
could  not  help  but  look.  Even  the  billowing  chaos  of 
colour  and  glitter  above  the  altar  once  he  examined  it 
began  to  assume  shape  and  meaning:  patently  it  was  in- 
tended for  an  enormous  storm-cloud  with  the  rays  of  God 
on  top — and  then  suddenly  Augustine  noticed  that  from 
every  cranny  and  interstice  of  that  vasty  tornado  towering 
under  the  God-light  from  above  there  were  miniature 
heads  of  child-angels  peeping!  In  their  rather  sweet  way 
these  were  quite  lovely — and  palpably  all  portraits:  every 
child  in  the  village  that  long-ago  year  must  have  been 
singly  portrayed  here:  this  was  a  whole  child-generation 
of  Dorf  Lorienburg.  One  Sunday  centuries  ago  all  these 
fresh  young  faces  up  there  must  have  been  mirrored  by 
the  First-Communion  young  faces  bowed  over  the  altar- 
rail  below,  each  carved  face  with  its  own  living  counter- 
part. But  whereas  in  time  those  faces  at  the  rail  had  grown 
old  and  disillusioned  and  coarse — and  had  all  died,  gen- 
erations ago — these  through  the  centuries  had  remained 
forever  singing:  immortal,  and  forever  child. 

All  portraits,  and  all  singing:  as  the  eye  travelled  up 
the  cloud  from  parted  lips  to  parted  lips  it  seemed  incon- 
ceivable one  couldn't  hear  that  singing:  the  eye  filled  the 
laggard  ear  with  visionary  sweet  sound.  .  . 

"Gloria  in  excelsis  Deo.  .  ." 
— in   thin,  angelic  treble  unison  the  ancient  and  holy 


THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC  253 

chant  was  floating  on  the  air;  and  with  a  sudden  shiver 
up  the  spine  Augustine  realised  he  could  hear  the  singing. 

Augustine's  scalp  pricked;  but  a  moment  later  he 
realised  this  must  be  only  Mitzi — -just  Mitzi  somewhere, 
and  the  echoes  that  she  woke.  Momentarily  he  felt  furious 
with  her,  as  Franz  too  had  been  furious  when  her  yapping 
duped  him  in  the  night.  What  did  the  little  fool  think  she 
was  up  to,  singing — here,  alone  in  this  empty  frightful 
chocolate  God-box? 

Where  had  she  got  to?  He  turned  where  he  stood,  and 
glared  all  down  the  nave. 

Augustine  found  Mitzi  in  the  end  crouched  before  some- 
thing in  a  far  corner:  something  of  which  he  had  been  half- 
conscious  all  the  time,  for  though  it  was  part-hidden  by  a 
gorgeous  catafalque  it  still  showed  up  incongruously  in  all 
this  welter  of  colour,  being  carved  in  dark  unpainted 
wood:  an  object  palpably  much  older  than  anything  else 
here,  as  well  as  nobly  different  in  style.  It  was  a  great 
13th-century  Deposition,  more  than  lifesize;  and  half- 
hidden  at  its  foot  knelt  Mitzi. 

The  thin  but  almost  faultless  voice  had  finished  the 
ecstatic  Latin  chant,  and  fallen  silent.  Mitzi  was  silently 
praying.  She  was  still,  and  hardly  seemed  to  breathe;  and 
the  big  black  bow  was  coming  off  her  fair  plait  of  hair. 

He  longed  to  retie  it  for  her.  .  .  oh  how  he  loved  her — 
and  what  poles  apart  they  were! 

Mitzi  was  praying  for  a  miracle,  no  doubt — to  that  bit 
of  wood!  Or,  was  she  merely  the  hurt  child  who  clings 
leechlike  but  hopeless  to  her  teddy  bear?  Was  it,  then.  .  . 
was  it  possibly  better  at  least  for  the  time  being  to  leave  her 
with  her  religious  illusions,  if  these  were  a  comfort  to  her? 

Perish  the  thought!  It  can  never  be  better  to  believe  a 
He;  and  surely  'God'  was  the  biggest  he  ever  uttered  by 
the  human  race! 

How  thankful  Augustine  now  was  he  had  yielded  to  his 


254  THE    FOX    IN    THE   ATTIC 

returning  instinct  for  watching  unseen — with  the  sense  it 
conferred  of  almost  supernatural  guardianship  over  the 
loved  one,  on  this  mysterious  solitary  sortie  of  hers! 

But  MitzVs  hair.  .  .  Augustine's  fingers  of  themselves 
were  craving  for  the  touch  of  it  just  as  the  parched  tongue 
itself  craves  for  water;  and  at  once  he  could  think  of 
nothing  else.  Dropping  on  hands  and  knees  he  inched 
forward  across  the  floor-matting  without  sound — himself 
now  scarcely  daring  to  breathe.  Delicately  he  lifted  his 
hand  and  at  last  as  lightly  as  touching  a  butterfly's  wing 
just  touched  the  tip  of  her  hair. 

But  instantly  he  withdrew  his  fingers  for  even  that  con- 
tact had  so  quickened  his  breathing  that  now  she  surely 
could  not  help  but  hear! 


Chapter  8 

Indeed  Augustine's  heart  was  beating  so  wildly  that  only 
her  rapt  religious  state  could  possibly  have  kept  him  un- 
discovered long.  For  although  he  realised  it  would  be  fatal 
to  be  discovered  now  he  had  presently  begun  acting  as 
uninhibitedly  as  if  he  wore  a  cap  of  darkness  indeed — 
fluttering  noiselessly  about  Mitzi,  as  she  moved  from  one 
devotional  spot  to  another,  in  a  kind  of  one-man  unwit- 
nessed ballet.  And  when  at  last  Mitzi  left  the  chapel,  as  she 
locked  the  vestry  door  Augustine  glided  to  her  side  'as  if 
to  take  her  arm  and  guide  her — so  close  their  two  bodies 
were  almost  touching.  They  moved  off  like  that,  too — he 
hovering  over  her  mothlike.  His  right  arm  even  started  its 
own  passionate  makebelieve,  raised  'as  if  round  her. 

Augustine  was  trying  to  will  Mitzi  into  the  right  path 
through  the  snow;  and  they  must  have  looked  unequi- 
vocally a  pair  of  lovers  as  the  two  of  them  plunged  together 
into  snowdrifts  and  out  again  as  if  neither  of  them  had 
eyes  at  all  for  the  outside  world;  for  what  else  could 
prompt  so  wildly  erratic  a  course  but  the  mutual  blindness 
of  love?  But  so  intoxicated  was  Augustine  now  with  his 
role  of  Zvengali-cum-Invisible-Man,  he  had  quite  for- 
gotten that  the  only  eyes  to  which  he  was  really  invisible 
were  Mitzi's.  Thus  it  was  now  Augustine's  turn  to  be 
watched  unwitting — from  the  dormer  so  mysteriously  un- 
boarded — by  the  truly  Invisible  Man  (that  existence  in  the 
attics  nobody  knew  about  except  Franz). 

Nor  was  that  watching  eye  benevolent — or  harmless. 

Augustine  had  meant  to  speak  to  Mitzi  as  soon  as  they 
reached  the  hall — as  if  meeting  her  there.  But  when  they 
got  there  the  two  little  girls  were  framed  in  the  dining- 
room  doorway;  so  he  hesitated,  and  Mitzi  made  a  bee-line 
for  her  room. 

255 


256  THE    FOX    IN    THE   ATTIC 

He'd  lost  her!  But  no  doubt  she'd  be  out  again  soon,  so 
he'd  wait;  and  in  the  meanwhile  Augustine  was  in  such  a 
gay,  exalted  and  rather  fantastical  mood,  so  bubbling  over 
with  makebelieve,  that  children  to  work  it  off  on  seemed  a 
godsend — if  only  he  could  get  these  ones  to  accept  him  at  last ! 

Augustine  advanced  on  the  children  all  smiles,  and 
mooing  like  a  cow  (so  tiresome,  this  language  difficulty!) : 
then,  changing  his  note,  stood  still  and  bleated  like  a  lamb. 
The  effect  was  not  quite  any  one  might  have  expected. 
There  was  the  first  shock  of  bewilderment  of  course  (and 
embarrassment,  for  at  eight  and  nearly  ten  the  two  little 
girls  were  surely  too  old  for  quite  such  nursery  tactics); 
but  what  was  odd  was  that  then  they  ran  towards  him 
apparently  in  an  access  of  extreme  friendliness.  They 
began  chattering  away  to  him  nineteen-to-the-dozen;  and 
so  far  as  he  could  make  out,  they  were  saying  there  was 
something  lovely  they  wanted  to  show  him — to  show  him 
especially,  their  dear  Uncle:  something  quite  wonderful 
.  .  .  downstairs. 

Taken  aback,  Augustine  studied  their  faces:  for  this  just 
wasn't  true!  They  were  laying  on  all  the  charm  of  two 
elderly  experts;  but  behind  all  the  smiles  and  cajoling 
there  was  fright  in  those  four  eyes  like  little  grey  stones. 

Through  the  dining-room  door,  too,  came  the  unmis- 
takable clink  of  metal  on  metal.  Augustine  had  to  use 
sheer  muscular  strength  to  shake  off  their  pulling  and 
plucking,  but  then  he  peeped  through.  The  air  in  the 
dining-room  was  thick  with  feathers.  There  was  white 
down  everywhere,  swirling  in  the  currents  of  hot  air  the 
stove  set  up.  Feathers  covered  the  floor;  and  in  the  midst 
of  it  all,  of  course,  were  the  Twins.  Heavily  armoured 
(indeed  they  could  hardly  move)  in  real  shirts  of  chain- 
mail  reaching  their  ankles  and  even  trailing  along  the 
floor,  and  with  real  swords,  they  were  acting  out  some 
legend  of  their  race.  It  was  evidently  a  fight  in  a  snow- 
storm; for  they  had  slashed  open  a  big  down  cushion  and 
had  hung  it  from  the  great  central  chandelier — and  here 


THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC  257 

an  occasional  whack  from  a  sword  sent  still  more  down 
and  feathers  eddying  on  the  air.  Already  their  well-greased 
armour  was  sicklied  o'er  with  feathers. 

But  at  that  very  moment  Augustine  heard  the  distant 
drawing-room  door  open  and  voices  down  the  hall.  The 
Council  was  at  last  adjourning:  from  the  far  end  of  the 
hall  Walther  was  advancing,  and  behind  him  Adele,  Franz 
and  Otto. 

With  an  urgent  whispered  "Achtung!"  Augustine  turned 
to  face  them.  What  was  to  be  done?  The  two  failed  sentinels 
still  stood  at  their  post  but  their  crestfallen  faces  had  gone 
as  expressionless  as  Christmas  annuals:  they  were  beyond 
even  trying  any  more.  So  it  was  Augustine  himself  who 
babbling  of  forestry  or  something  somehow  contrived  to 
head  Walther  and  the  rest  of  them  off,  and  lead  them 
harmlessly  elsewhere. 

Thereafter  Augustine  returned  to  his  own  waiting-post 
in  the  hall:  he  lingered  there  till  it  was  time  to  eat,  but 
even  then  Mitzi  still  didn't  reappear. 

Luncheon  was  always  rather  a  movable  feast  at  Lorien- 
burg,  but  that  Saturday  it  was  quite  exceptionally  late. 
In  the  meantime  some  skilled  sympathiser  (Augustine  sus- 
pected Lies)  had  been  in  the  dining-room  and  made  a 
wonderful  attempt  at  clearing  up  the  mess  there;  but  when 
the  meal  was  at  last  served  there  were  still  feathers  here 
and  there,  as  Walther — evidently  wholly  bewildered  how 
they  had  got  there — rather  pettishly  kept  pointing  out. 

The  children  ate  their  food  without  seeming  to  hear  him, 
but  Adele  was  profuse  in  her  apologies  to  her  guest:  "It's 
that  little  fox,"  she  explained — "he  must  have  got  in  here 
and  disembowelled  a  cushion  and  played  at  chicken-coops 
with  it.  .  . 

"But  alas!"  said  Adele.  "As  Walther  says,  you  can't 
punish  foxes — they  don't  understand!" 

With  her  serious  watery-blue  eyes  she  fixed  Augustine's 
— and  winked. 


Chapter  g 

So  Lorienburg  went  about  its  normal  business  that  Satur- 
day. Mitzi  kept  to  her  room  while  Augustine  roamed 
restlessly  looking  for  her  the  whole  afternoon:  no  one  men- 
tioned yesterday's  revolution  and  Hitler  seemed  already 
quite  forgotten. 

But  in  the  meanwhile  the  discomforted  Hitler — a  proved 
failure  now,  a  fugitive  hurt  and  hopeless  and  with  the 
Green  Police  on  his  trail — had  finally  gone  to  earth  in 
Ufrlng.  UfBng  is  a  village  on  the  edge  of  the  Staffelsee, 
that  lake  of  many  islands  at  the  foot  of  the  towering 
Bavarian  Alps  where  the  broad  Ammer  valley  leads  up 
towards  Garmisch.  Hitler  went  there  not  because  he  saw 
there  any  hope  of  safety  but  because  the  hopeless  hunted 
animal  tends  always  to  bury  its  head  in  some  familiar  hole 
to  await  the  coup  de  grace.  Some  years  past  Putzi's 
American  mother  had  acquired  a  farm  near  Uffing,  and 
last  summer  Putzi  and  Helene  themselves  had  bought  a 
little  house  there  too:  Putzi  and  Helene,  that  young  couple 
who  alone  perhaps  in  all  Germany  seemed  to  Hitler  to 
be  fond  of  him  for  his  own  sweet  self. 

'Putzi' — or  Dr.  Ernst  Hanfstaengl,  to  give  him  his 
proper  title — as  a  half-American  had  taken  no  part  in  the 
war.  Before  it  broke  out  he  had  been  a  student  at  Harvard 
and  later  he  had  married  a  German-American  girl  in  New 
York.  Here  in  peacetime  Germany,  naturally  this  gifted 
and  musical  German-American  German  couple  moved  in 
circles  more  intelligent  and  civilised  than  any  their  park- 
bench  protege  had  previously  known:  yet  they  didn't  seem 
to  see  Hitler  at  all  like  the  nasty  caricature  Dr.  Reinhold 
and  his  cronies  elected  to  see.  True,  when  they  tried  to 
introduce  into  those  circles  of  the  wealthier  Munich  intelli- 
gentzia this  tiresome  but  vital,  this  incredibly  naif  yet 

258 


THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC  259 

incredibly  gifted  and  indeed  sometimes  entrancing  per- 
forming pet  of  theirs,  then  things  tended  to  happen  which 
embarrassed  and  galled  Hitler,  so  that  Hitler  was  never 
really  at  ease  there  and  retaliated  with  an  assumed  con- 
tempt. But  on  musical  weekends  here  at  Uffing  with  Putzi 
and  Helene  themselves  (alone  or  with  only  the  clammy 
gloomy  young  Rosenberg  for  a  foil)  he  could  always 
entirely  uncurl.  He  could  be  then  all  soul  and  wit:  and 
how  they  responded!  Baby  Egon  in  particular  adored  his 
Tunny  Uncle  Dolf:  for  Hitler  could  always  be  marvel- 
lous with  children  (which  seems  to  be  a  common  corollary 
of  an  addiction  to  chastity,  even  so  secret  and  compulsive 
and  perverse  a  chastity  as  his). 

The  mother's  pretty  farm  was  ten  minutes  out  in  the 
country,  beyond  the  sawmill  and  the  river.  But  the  young 
couple's  was  a  neat  and  homely  little  house  close  to  the 
maypole  and  the  church:  it  was  plumb  in  the  middle  of 
the  village,  though  backing  onto  fields:  squarish,  and  un- 
like its  neighbours  built  of  stone.  Moreover  with  some 
vague  premonition  of  trouble  Putzi  had  surrounded  his 
pocket-size  property  with  a  five-foot  stone  wall  as  if  to 
turn  it  into  a  dwarves'  castle;  and  Hitler  had  only  the 
happiest  memories  of  this  friendly  little  fort. 

Helene  had  been  alone  at  this  'villa'  except  for  her  two- 
year-old  child  and  the  maids  when  Hitler  had  himself 
secretly  dumped  there,  arriving  on  foot,  through  the  fields, 
after  dark,  late  that  Black  Friday  evening,  muddy  and 
hatless  and  his  shoulder  queerly  drooping  and  with  a  man 
each  side  of  him  holding  him  on  his  feet.  "ALto,  doch!" 
she  greeted  him:  for  Helene  herself  had  been  in  Munich 
that  very  morning  yet  had  heard  nothing  there  of  that 
disastrous  march,  and  only  after  her  return  had  heard  (and 
till  now,  disbelieved)  the  village  rumours. 

Helene  learned  little  factual  now,  except  what  was  to 
be  gleaned  from  incoherent  ramblings  about  the  Residenz- 
strasse  and  the  bullets  and  the  blood.  " — But  Putzi.  .  .?" 


a6o  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

she  asked  him.  Putzi  was  all  right,  Hitler  assured  her  with 
unconvincing  conviction.  Ludcndorif  was  dead,  though: 
the  credulous  old  fool  who  had  trusted  the  'honourable' 
von  Lossow!  You  should  never  trust  generals:  with  his  own 
eyes  (he  said)  he  had  seen  Ludendorff  killed.  .  . 

But  the  Hitler  must  be  mad  (thought  Helene)  to  have 
come  here!  This  house  was  bound  to  be  searched  (yes,  and 
the  nearby  farm  as  well)  even  if  only  for  Putzi!  Once  the 
police  came  meaning  business  Putzi's  pitiful  stone  wall 
would  hardly  keep  them  out — it  was  only  an  added 
advertisement  of  mystery.  Perhaps  the  Bechsteins  would 
help?  Ah,  but  it  would  be  crazy  to  use  the  phone.  .  .  All 
the  same,  Herr  Hitler  had  to  be  got  away  again  somehow 
and  smuggled  into  Austria  (yes,  why  on  earth  hadn't  he 
already  crossed  into  Austria  long  ago?). 

Now,  though,  the  man  looked  half  fainting:  for  the 
moment  the  one  thing  he  needed  above  all  else  was  a  bed. 
So  she  told  his  two  friends  to  take  him  away  upstairs. 

Hitler  went  up  with  them  docilely,  in  a  miserable  daze, 
and  they  took  him  to  the  big  attic  he  knew  so  well  of  old — 
all  full  of  Putzi's  books.  But  not  to  bed!  For  once  they  had 
got  him  alone  up  there  they  stretched  him  out  on  the  floor 
and  knelt  on  him.  One  was  a  doctor,  and  they  wrestled 
again  and  again  with  that  dislocated  shoulder  to  get  it 
back  into  joint.  They  had  no  anaesthetics  and  for  a  long 
time  even  downstairs  and  with  the  doors  shut  Helene 
could  hear  him:  while  the  frightened  baby  woke  and 
wailed. 

But  it  was  all  too  inflamed  by  now  to  discover  that  as 
well  as  the  dislocation  the  collarbone  was  broken;  and  so, 
for  all  the  doctor's  skill,  they  failed — and  finally  they  gave 
it  up  and  left  him. 

Hitler  was  left,  all  among  Putzi's  books:  but  he  was 
much  too  distraught  to  read.  He  was  panting,  and  for  a 
moment  he  leaned  against  an  incongruous  open  flour- 
barrel  which  these  queer  Hanfstaengls  kept  too  in  this 


THE   FOX   IN  THE  ATTIC  261 

attic-bedroom  study;  but  then  he  saw  the  bed,  and  the 
bed  had  Putzi's  English  travelling-rug  folded  on  it.  So 
Hitler  rolled  himself  in  the  rug  as  tight  as  a  cocoon  to 
ease  the  pain,  and  lay  there  in  the  corner  with  his  face 
to  the  wall. 

Hitler  had  been  already  half-delirious  with  pain  and 
frustration  when  he  arrived:  now  he  was  growing  more 
feverish  still.  The  torn  and  twisted  sinews  were  shrinking, 
the  broken  bone  grated,  and  pain  was  piled  on  pain.  If 
only  Putzi  had  been  there  to  play  Wagner  to  him,  as 
David's  harp  soothed  Saul!  It  was  faithless  of  Putzi  to 
absent  himself  now  just  when  he  was  needed;  and  mentally 
Hitler  chalked  a  bad  mark  against  him. 

Hitler  was  alone,  in  the  dark,  and  could  not  hope  to 
sleep.  His  mind  was  wandering.  From  below  came  the 
interminable  rise  and  fall  of  voices  like  the  sound  of  rain 
(for  the  doctor  in  his  excitement  was  sitting  up  to  tell 
Helene  his  whole  life-story) .  It  sounded  like  rain.  .  .  or  like 
a  river.  .  .  like  the  Danube  flooding  its  banks  in  the  spring 
rising,  gurgling  into  cellars,  murmuring,  menacing,  still 
rising.  The  sounds  from  downstairs  woke  in  Hitler  his 
obsessional  fear  of  water,  but  he  could  not  escape  for  the 
barrage  of  perpetual  pain  whined  low  overhead  like  the 
English  shells  and  pinned  him  down. 

So,  after  an  immeasurable  time  without  sleep,  daylight 
had  at  last  come  again:  the  same  Saturday  daylight  that 
at  Lorienburg  had  found  Lies  kneeling  on  the  cold  stairs. 
For  Hitler  it  began  a  Saturday  of  conferences  and  alarms 
and  futile  planning.  Even  at  this  stage  of  history  Hitler 
had  already  developed  his  famous  technique  of  that  kind 
of  'leadership'  which  divines  uncannily  what  most  of  the 
conference  wants  and  propounds  that  as  the  Leader's  own 
inexorable  will:  thus  today  he  presently  heard  himself 
propounding  that  the  Bechsteins  must  instantly  send  their 
closed  car  to  drive  him  into  Austria  (he  could  never  go 
to  Austria,  of  course,  or  he'd  have  fled  there  in  the  first 
place  like  those  others.  But  time  enough  to  cope  with  that 


l6fl  THE    FOX    IN    THE   ATTIC 

when  the  car  did  come:  meanwhile,  conferences  and  air- 
castle  planning  at  least  helped  to  hold  captive  his  bal- 
looning fevered  mind). 

Noon:  at  Lorienburg  the  knightly  duel  among  the 
feathers,  and  at  Uffing  the  unquiet  doctor  starting  for 
Munich  to  fetch  a  confrere.  Hitler  himself  had  already 
despatched  the  other  man  to  contact  the  Bechsteins:  so  this 
left  Hitler  alone  with  Helene  (and  the  maids  of  course,  and 
the  child).  Hitler  wanted  to  keep  her  always  with  him, 
talking:  but  she  dared  not  leave  for  long  the  equally 
excited  child:  twice  she  had  just  caught  little  Egon  outside 
trying  to  climb  the  wall,  for  he  wanted  to  shout  to  the 
whole  world  the  good  news  that  Uncle  Dolf  had  arrived. 

Dusk  again.  Why  had  the  Bechstein  car  not  come  yet? 
Hitler  had  forgotten  by  now  it  could  do  no  good  if  it  did 
come:  he  had  sent  for  it  and  so  it  MUST  come. 

Dusk  again,  and  the  baby  at  last  safe  in  bed.  Presently 
a  car  did  come  but  still  this  wasn't  from  the  Bechsteins:  it 
was  only  the  two  medicos  from  Munich  (so  once  more  two 
angels  wrestled  with  their  wretched  Jacob,  and  once  more 
in  vain).  Finally  the  doctor  swathed  Hitler  as  he  was  in 
bandages  like  swaddling-bands,  and  the  car  took  them 
both  off  again  (for  good,  this  time). 

Thus  began  Hitler's  second  night  at  Uffing.  He  was 
again  alone.  Outside  in  the  darkness  and  out  of  due  time 
a  village  cock  crowed.  Then  came  the  knocking.  .  .  or  was 
it  only  in  a  dream  that  there  was  a  strange  man  trying  to 
get  in,  saying  he  had  a  message  from  LudendorfF  'for 
your  visitor  here'?  But  Ludendorff  was  dead.  .  .  a  mes- 
senger from  the  shades,  then — or  a  Judas?  Helene  'had  no 
visitor',  and  sent  the  man  away. 

Midnight,  and  still  no  Bechstein  car  had  come;  but  so 
far,  neither  had  the  police. 

Suddenly  Hitler  started  out  of  a  half-doze,  for  a  calm 


THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC  263 

Sibylline  'voice'  was  ringing  in  his  ears.  It  had  only  spoken 
six  words  and  those  as  if  the  whole  thing  was  ancient 
history,  over  and  done  with.  But  what  it  had  said  was, 
'In  the  end  he  shot  himself.' 
It  was  only  a  dream,  of  course. 


Chapter  10 

With  Sunday's  daylight  the  man  who  had  knocked  was 
back  again.  Hitler  found  he  knew  him  by  sight  so 
this  time  he  was  let  in;  but  he  had  suspiciously  little  to  say 
(except  that  Ludendorff  was  certainly  alive),  and  soon 
went  off  again  no  one  knew  whither.  Why  worry,  though, 
where  the  man  went  or  what  he  told?  For  after  questioning 
him  Hitler  was  overwhelmed  with  such  a  nausea  of  fatigue 
he  went  back  to  his  bed  behind  the  barrel:  he  must,  must 
get  some  sleep. 

Ever  since  the  'March'  Hitler  had  never  quite  slept:  yet 
he  was  never  quite  awake,  and  this  second  day  at  Uffing 
found  it  difficult  to  speak  coherently  or  even  think.  He 
must  rest:  and  yet  it  was  even  worse  alone,  more  difficult 
to  keep  hold.  Now,  as  he  lay  there  on  his  side  sleepless  and 
poring  over  the  past,  even  his  own  legs  would  no  longer 
obey  him:  they  kept  trying  to  run  of  their  own  volition  like 
a  dreaming  dog's.  Indeed  his  whole  nervous  system  seemed 
to  be  dissevering  itself  from  central  control;  that  superb 
instrument  he  had  been  used  to  playing  on  at  will  now 
twanged  suddenly  and  discordantly  like  a  concert-piano 
when  a  cat  jumps  on  the  keys.  He  couldn't  stay  long  in 
one  position.  He  couldn't  keep  his  eyes  either  open  or  shut, 
and  whenever  his  eyes  opened  they  saw  books  leaning 
over  him  in  their  cases.  Hey  presto  before  his  very  eyes 
those  books  had  started  exchanging  titles  like  jugglers 
throwing  balls  to  each  other!  They  were  doing  this  to 
distract  his  attention:  once  they  managed  that  they  were 
planning  to  fall  on  him,  leaning  cases  and  all. 

It  was  at  this  moment  that  suddenly  the  bells  started 
ringing:  the  Sunday  bells  of  Uffing,  beating  on  his  ears 
with  their  frightful  jarring  tintinnabulation.  Whereon 
somebody  must  have  started  pulling  a  clapper  in  Hitler's 

264 


THE    FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC  265 

own  head  too,  for  his  own  head  started  chiming  with  the 
bells  of  Uffing.  His  head  was  rocking  with  the  weight  of 
its  own  terrible  tolling. 

Flinging  back  the  blanket  Hitler  gazed  desperately 
round.  His  trusty  whip  stood  just  out  of  reach,  but  how 
he  longed  to  hear  again  instead  of  those  clanging  bells  the 
whirr  of  its  clean  singing  thong  of  rhinoceros-hide — the 
whirring,  and  the  crackl  If  he  had  given  those  three  traitors 
a  taste  of  it  instead  of  letting  them  through  his  fingers  he'd 
have  been  in  Berlin  by  now — yes,  in  Berlin! 

'Woe  to  the  bloody  city!  It  is  all  full  of  lies  and  robbery.  .  . 
the  noise  of  a  whip.  .  .'  (To  think  that  this  very  hour  he 
should  have  been  riding  triumphant  through  Berlin!) 
'.  .  .  the  noise  of  a  whip,  and  the  noise  of  the  rattling  of  the  wheels, 
and  of  the  prancing  horses,  and  of  the  jumping  chariots.  .  .'  (In 
Berlin,  scourging  the  money-lenders  from  the  temple!  A 
city  in  flames!)  'There  is  a  multitude  of  the  slain,  and  a  great 
number  of  carcases;  there  is  none  end  of  their  corpses,  they  stumble 
upon  their  corpses.  .  .' 

Scourging  the  hollow  barons.  .  .  scourging  the  puking 
communists.  .  .  scourging  the  Lesbians  and  the  nancy- 
boys  with  that  rhinoceros-thong! 

But  that  barrel — it  was  changing  shape:  now  tall  now 
short,  now  fat  now  lean.  .  .  erect,  and  swelling.  .  .  and 
out  of  the  swelling  barrel  a  remembered  figure  was  rising 
— smooth,  and  gross,  and  swaying  and  nodding  like  a  tree. 
It  was  a  man's  figure  from  his  own  penurious  teen-age  in 
Vienna:  it  was  that  smooth-faced  beast  at  the  Hotel 
Kummer,  bribing  the  bright-eyed  hard-up  boy  with  cream 
puffs,  promising  him  all  the  pastries  he  could  eat  and 
daring  to  make  passes  at  him,  at  Adolfus  Hitler! 

Then  under  the  hammering  of  the  bells  the  figure  col- 
lapsed— suddenly  as  it  had  risen. 

Scourging  the  whores,  the  Jews.  .  .  scourging  the  little 
flash  jew-girls  till  they  screamed.  .  . 


266  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

Now  the  dark  corners  of  the  room  were  filling  with  soft 
naked  legs:  those  young  Viennese  harlots  sitting  half-naked 
in  the  lighted  windows  all  along  the  Spittelberggasse 
(between  the  dark  windows  where  'it'  was  already  being 
done).  For  once  upon  a  time  the  young  Hitler  used  to  go 
there,  to  the  Spittelberggasse:  to.  .  .  just  to  look  at  them. 
To  harden  his  will;  for  except  by  such  tests  as  these  how 
can  a  lad  with  the  hair  new  on  him  be  assured  that  his 
will  is  strong?  The  boy  would  stare,  and  walk  on  a  few 
yards;  then  come  back  as  'strong'  as  ever — back  to  the 
most  attractive  and  most  nearly  naked  and  stare  her  out 
again,  pop-eyed. 

He  called  it  "the  Flame  of  Life",  that  holy  flame  of  sex 
in  the  centre  of  a  man;  and  he  knew  that  all  his  whole 
life  his  'Flame'  had  to  be  kept  burning  without  fuel  for 
at  the  first  real  touch  of  human,  female  fuel  it  must  turn 
smoky,  fill  his  whole  Vessel  with  soot.  This  was  Destiny's 
revealed  dictate:  if  ever  Hitler  did  'it'  the  unique  Power 
would  go  out  of  him,  like  Samson  and  his  hair.  No,  at 
most  if  the  adult  male  flesh  itched  intolerably  it  might  be 
deviously  relieved. 

After  all,  how  could  that  monistic  'I'  of  Hitler's  ever 
without  forfeit  succumb  to  the  entire  act  of  sex,  the  whole 
essence  of  which  is  recognition  of  one  'Other'?  Without 
damage  I  mean  to  his  fixed  conviction  that  he  was  the 
universe's  unique  sentient  centre,  the  sole  authentic  incar- 
nate Will  it  contained  or  had  ever  contained?  Because  this 
of  course  was  the  rationale  of  his  supernal  inner  'Power': 
Hitler  existed  alone.  lI  am,  none  else  beside  me.'  The 
universe  contained  no  other  persons  than  him,  only  things; 
and  thus  for  him  the  whole  gamut  of  the  'personal'  pro- 
nouns lacked  wholly  its  normal  emotional  content.  This 
left  Hitler's  designing  and  creating  motions  enormous  and 
without  curb:  it  was  only  natural  for  this  architect  to  turn 
also  politician  for  he  saw  no  real  distinction  in  the  new 
things  to  be  handled:  these  'men'  were  merely  him- 
mimicking  'things',  in  the  same  category  as  other  tools  and 


THE   FOX    IN   THE    ATTIC  267 

stones.  All  tools  have  handles — this  sort  was  fitted  with 
ears.  And  it  is  nonsensical  to  love  or  hate  or  pity  (or  tell 
the  truth  to)  stones. 

Hitler's  then  was  that  rare  diseased  state  of  the  per- 
sonality, an  ego  virtually  without  penumbra:  rare  and 
diseased,  that  is,  when  abnormally  such  an  ego  survives 
in  an  otherwise  mature  adult  intelligence  clinically  sane 
(for  in  the  new-born  doubtless  it  is  a  beginning  normal 
enough  and  even  surviving  into  the  young  child).  Hitler's 
adult  T  had  developed  thus — into  a  larger  but  still  undif- 
ferentiated structure,  as  a  malignant  growth  does. 

In  Mitzi — as  could  perhaps  happen  to  you  or  me — with 
the  shock  of  her  crisis  the  central  T'  had  become  dislodged: 
it  had  dwindled  to  a  cloudlet  no  bigger  than  a  man's  hand 
beneath  the  whole  zenith  of  God.  But  in  this  suffering 
man  always  and  unalterably  his  'I'  must  blacken  the  whole 
vault  from  pole  to  pole. 

The  tortured,  demented  creature  tossed  on  his  bed.  .  . 

'Rienzi-night',  that  night  on  the  Freinberg  over  Linz 
after  the  opera:  that  surely  had  been  the  climactic  night 
of  his  boyhood  for  it  was  then  he  had  first  confirmed  that 
lonely  omnipotence  within  him.  Impelled  to  go  up  there 
in  the  darkness  into  that  high  place  had  he  not  been  shown 
there  all  earthly  kingdoms  in  a  moment  of  time?  And 
facing  there  the  ancient  gospel  question  had  not  his  whole 
being  been  one  assenting  Yea?  Had  he  not  struck  the  ever- 
lasting bargain  there  on  the  high  mountain  under  the 
witnessing  November  stars?  Yet  now.  .  .  now,  when  he 
had  seemed  to  be  riding  Rienzi-like  the  crest  of  the  wave, 
the  irresistible  wave  which  with  mounting  force  should 
have  carried  him  to  Berlin,  that  crest  had  begun  to  curl: 
it  had  curled  and  broken  and  toppled  on  him,  thrusting 
him  down,  down  in  the  green  thundering  water,  deep. 

Tossing  desperately  on  his  bed,  he  gasped — he  was 
drowning  (what  of  all  things  always  Hitler  most  feared). 
Drowning?  Then.  .  .  then  that  suicidal  boyhood  moment's 


B68  the  fox  in  the  attic 

teetering  long  ago  on  the  Danube  bridge  at  Linz.  .  .  after 
all  tlu-  melancholic  boy  had  leaped  that  long-ago  day,  and 
everything  since  was  dream!  Then  this  noise  now  was  the 
mighty  Danube  singing  in  his  dreaming  drowning  ears. 

In  the  green  watery  light  surrounding  him  a  dead  face 
was  floating  towards  him  upturned:  a  dead  face  with  his 
own  slightly-bulging  eyes  in  it  unclosed:  his  dead  Mother's 
face  as  he  had  last  seen  it  with  unclosed  eyes  white  on  the 
white  pillow.  Dead,  and  white,  and  vacant  even  of  its  love 
for  him. 

But  now  that  face  was  multiplied — it  was  all  around 
him  in  the  water.  So  his  Mother  was  this  water,  these 
waters  drowning  him! 

At  that  he  ceased  to  struggle.  He  drew  up  his  knees  to 
his  chin  in  the  primal  attitude  and  lay  there,  letting  him- 
self drown. 

So  Hitler  slept  at  last. 


Chapter  n 

The  sergeant  had  hayseed  down  his  sweaty  neck  and 
had  taken  off  his  cap  for  a  good  scratch.  What  lovely 
clear  cold  weather  this  was!  The  invisible  frost  fell  on 
his  baldness  out  of  the  bright  sky  like  minute  pinpricks, 
and  he  stood  for  a  moment  relishing  it  before  putting  his 
cap  on  again.  The  snowy  mountains  above  Garmisch 
glittered  in  the  evening  sun:  it  was  early  for  really  good 
snow,  but  how  he  wished  he  was  off  up  there  now  for  a 
Sunday's  skiing!  The  Ettaler-Mandl  above  Oberammer- 
gau  was  caught  in  a  particular  gleam. 

'No  rest  for  the  wicked,'  they  say,  but  it's  the  wicked 
rather  who  allow  policemen  no  rest.  They  had  spent  half 
this  lovely  Sunday  afternoon  searching  the  American 
lady's  farm:  they  had  probed  haystacks,  turned  over  the 
fodder  in  the  mangers,  crawled  through  apple-lofts, 
climbed  in  and  out  of  cornbins,  tunnelled  under  woodpiles 
(which  fell  in  on  them) ,  crept  under  the  beds  of  maidservants 
(who  boxed  their  ears),  ransacked  cupboards  and  tapped 
walls:  and  now  those  damned  dogs  of  theirs  had  broken 
into  the  beehouse  and  the  whole  lot  were  howling.  Lord, 
what  a  din!  All  the  same,  through  the  open  door  he  could 
still  hear  the  Lieutenant  bawling  the  old  girl  out  for  trying 
to  telephone — the  silly  old  trout. 

When  her  mother-in-law's  voice  was  suddenly  cut  off 
like  that  Helene  put  back  the  receiver  slowly.  So  this  was 
the  end !  They  had  left  it  too  late  now. 

Today  she  couldn't  make  Herr  Hitler  out.  At  lunch  he 
had  seemed  better  after  his  rest:  he  had  joked  with  little 
Egon,  who  was  much  impressed  with  the  figure  Funny- 
Uncle  cut  in  the  vast  old  blue  bathrobe  of  Daddy's  he  was 
wrapped  in.  Then  when  the  baby  had  gone  to  rest  Hitler 

269 


270  THE    FOX    IN    THE   ATTIC 

bad  begun  to  wax  furious  about  the  Bechstein  car  not 
coming:  yet,  when  she  offered  to  have  him  whisked  over 
the  pass  to  Austria  with  the  plumber's  motor-bike  con- 
cealed in  the  sidecar  (transport  far  less  likely  to  be  searched 
at  the  frontier  than  the  big  Bechstein  Limousine),  he 
would  have  none  of  it.  So  she  had  thought  up  all  sorts  of 
plans  for  hiding  him  in  the  forest,  in  some  woodman's  hut 
the  police  would  never  think  of;  but  he  would  still  have 
none  of  it.  It  was  the  Bechstein  car  in  style,  or  nothing. 
So  now  it  was — nothing. 

Hitler  was  sitting  upstairs  in  a  daze  again  dreaming  of 
suicide  when  his  Mother  walked  into  the  room.  She 
told  him  the  world  was  ended,  and  then  took  out  of  his 
hand  something.  .  .  it  was  something  he  didn't  really 
want. 

That  woman  who  had  come  into  the  room  was  Helene, 
of  course.  And  when  she  told  Hitler  the  police  were  at  last 
on  their  way  here  he  had  gone  apparently  demented:  still 
wound  in  the  big  blue  bathrobe  he  began  turning  like  a 
top  in  his  efforts  to  draw  his  revolver  with  his  one  good 
arm:  "Those  swine!  Never  shall  they  take  me  alive!" 

She  grabbed  at  the  gun  in  his  hand,  but  with  only  one 
arm  to  use  and  all  wound  up  in  the  bathrobe  for  a  moment 
Hitler  still  seemed  to  struggle  demoniacally.  And  yet  it 
was  no  real  struggle,  for  when  she  let  go  of  him  and  told 
him  not  to  be  so  silly  he  gave  up,  and  let  her  take  it. 
Disarmed,  too,  the  frenzy  suddenly  left  Hitler  and  he 
realised  who  this  really  was.  Yet  he  hardly  seemed  to 
realise  what  had  just  been  going  on  here  though  he  him- 
self was  still  panting  from  it:  he  looked  at  her  wonderingly, 
surprised  to  see  the  beautiful  Helene  of  all  people  just  a 
wee  bit  dishevelled.  Then  he  sank  into  a  chair  and  hid 
his  head  in  his  hands  and  groaned. 

To  give  him  something  to  think  about  she  urged  Hitler 
to  compose  his  political  testament  while  there  was  yet 
time;  and  leaving  him  scribbling  she  quietly  dropped  the 


THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC  271 

revolver  into  that  open  barrel  of  flour  harmless.  It  sank 
in  the  soft  flour  without  a  trace. 

Dark  had  just  fallen  when  there  was  a  sudden  roar 
of  powerful  engines:  then  a  screech  of  brakes,  and  the 
ominous  whining  of  big  dogs.  Hitler  sprang  to  the  window: 
he  saw  there  was  a  truck  down  there — two  trucks,  with 
greenfly  swarming  on  them. 

Helene  slipped  quietly  downstairs  and  told  the  girls  to 
keep  Egon  in  the  kitchen  with  them.  As  soon  as  the  door 
of  the  lighted  kitchen  was  closed  she  felt  her  way  in  the 
pitch-dark  to  a  shuttered  window  giving  towards  the 
street. 

Meanwhile  the  police  had  surrounded  the  house,  each 
man  with  a  dog  at  his  side.  Except  for  one  light  upstairs 
the  place  seemed  to  be  in  darkness  and  downstairs  all  the 
shutters  were  closed.  The  sergeant  vaulted  the  wall  and 
crept  close  to  a  window,  hoping  to  peep  in  where  he  thought 
he  saw  a  chink,  and  flashing  his  torch  found  himself 
staring  straight  in  a  woman's  eyes.  Startled,  he  jerked  the 
leash  in  his  hand;  and  startled  in  its  turn  his  dog  barked. 
That  set  them  all  off  and  soon  the  quiet  village  sounded 
like  a  kennels  at  feeding-time. 

As  soon  as  they  were  quiet  again  the  Lieutenant  knocked. 
It  was  Frau  Hanfstaengl  herself  who  answered,  and  taking 
the  sergeant  and  one  man  with  him  he  followed  her  up 
the  stairs.  She  opened  a  door — and  bless  me,  there  the 
blighter  stood,  dressed  up  like  one  of  the  Christmas  Magi! 
So  he  must  have  been  here  in  the  village  all  the  time — 
not  hidden  at  all! 

When  the  officer  rather  apologetically  told  him  he 
would  be  arrested  for  'Treason'  then  Hitler  really  did  let 
fly.  For  at  the  sight  of  those  three  rosy  faces  goggling  at 
him  his  brain  had  cleared.  He  felt  his  'Power'  returning: 
it  was  a  fire  in  his  bones,  it  was  mounting  in  his  throat 
till  it  overflowed,  it  was  new  wine  in  a  barrel  without  a 
vent.  Moreover,  speech  might  be  the  last  shot  in  his  locker 
— but  surely  this  his  last  bullet  was  a  silver  one!  For  you 


272  THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

just  had  to  press  the  right  button  as  so  often  before,  pull 
the  right  lever.  .  .  these  three  should  be  his  first  new  con- 
verts, he'd  march  back  to  Munich  at  their  head! 

'Wiry  little  chap,  yon,'  thought  the  sergeant:  'but  he 
don't  look  as  though  he  meant  to  put  up  a  fight.  .  .  though 
Muttt-r-dottt's  what  a  noise  he's  making!  Voice  like  a  jay 
.  .  .'  For  a  flash  the  sergeant  was  walking  with  his  Gretl  in 
the  June  woods  and  the  jays  were  screaming. 

Not  for  one  moment  did  it  occur  to  the  sergeant  that 
he  might  hear  what  the  prisoner  said,  any  more  than  the 
jays:  for  policemen  have  invisible  scramblers  in  their  ears 
whenever  'the  Prisoner'  speaks.  In  the  context  of  his  arrest 
every  man  is  a  thing  only,  so  any  sounds  he  makes  are 
mere  meaningless  noise  such  as  all  things  tend  to  make — 
doors  slamming,  rivers  roaring,  jays.  .  . 

June,  and  Gretl  in  her  dirndl  with  him  in  the  woods.  .  .  the 
sergeant's  mind's  arm  gave  his  mind's  Gretl  a  hearty,  a 
corset-bursting  squeeze.  But  just  at  that  moment  the  spate 
of  sound  ceased  abruptly,  and  the  prisoner  stood  there 
looking  like.  .  .  Pfui,  for  all  the  world  he  resembled  in 
spite  of  his  queer  get-up  (and  rather  as  some  comical 
mimicking  insect  might)  any  popular  platform-speaker 
waiting  for  the  applause!  One  hand  was  still  held  aloft,  as 
if  ready  to  pluck  fresh  arguments  out  of  the  lamplit  air. 
Whereon  the  sergeant  stepped  forward  and  clapped  him 
briskly  on  that  drooping  shoulder. 

The  night  was  bitter  and  the  trucks  open  ones  so  they 
took  Hitler  downstairs  still  wrapped  in  the  bathrobe 
(though  he  refused  a  beret),  and  trailing  Putzi's  prized 
English  rug  by  one  corner  like  a  child  who  has  been 
playing  Indians  (but  his  whip  was  forgotten).  Then  the 
men  closed  in  and  hustled  him  expertly  into  the  foremost 
truck,  jumped  up  after  him  and  drove  him  off  to  Weilheim 
gaol. 

Egon  had  run  out,  and  the  last  the  sleepy  baby  saw  of 
dear  Uncle  Dolf  once  his  pale  face  had  vanished  among 


THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC  273 

them  was  that  empty  whip-hand,  helplessly  thrumming 
the  air.  Indeed  that  was  all  there  was  to  be  seen  of  him; 
for  now  they  were  all  'things'  together  those  were  bigger 
things  than  he  was. 

The  trucks  left  Uffing  with  Hitler  jammed  among  his 
captors'  bodies  too  tight  to  move;  and  for  a  minute  he  felt 
curiously  at  peace.  But  as  the  fact  sank  in  of  this  his 
incredible  constraint  by  things  and  so  of  his  utter  impotence 
always  over  deaf  adders  who  chose  to  stop  their  ears  his 
belly  griped  suddenly  as  in  a  colic-cramp.  He  felt  in  his 
rage  as  if  he  was  being  assaulted  by  climbing  snakes; 
though  these  were  only  the  cramps  running  up  and  down 
him  from  head  to  foot,  his  own  rebellious  muscles  each 
writhing  of  their  own  volition  all  up  and  down  his  skeletal 
frame. 

But  that  too  soon  passed,  overwhelmed  by  the  nausea 
of  weariness  once  more.  Damn  the  woman  for  taking  his 
gun!  Even  in  that  he  had  failed. 

Did  Hitler  attempt  to  speak  again,  in  the  back  of  that 
truck?  Who  cared?  Who  possibly  knows?  For  one  of  them 
had  brought  his  accordion  and  they  all  began  to  sing. 
The  sergeant  had  a  lovely  baritone,  and  the  song  was 
sickly-sweet. 


Chapter  12 

That  Sunday  of  Hitler's  arrest  was  November  the 
Eleventh:  everywhere  throughout  England  they  had 
been  celebrating  Armistice  Day.  The  fifth  anniversary  of 
the  day  all  war  had  ended.  .  .  but  how  had  that  lovely 
belief  arisen,  and  why  did  it  linger?  Perhaps  for  no  better 
reason  than  that  nothing  less  seemed  counterweight  to  the 
load  of  death  all  their  boys  had  died. 

In  the  morning,  everywhere  the  solemn  two-minute 
silence.  It  fell  like  an  enchantment:  indoors  and  out  no 
one  spoke,  nothing  moved:  the  cars  and  buses  and  drays 
in  the  streets  halted,  the  carts  in  the  lanes,  the  cowman 
in  the  stall  stood  still.  Then,  as  the  buglers  in  the  churches 
everywhere  sounded  the  last  note  of  the  resurrectional 
Last  Post,  came  the  moment  of  release — like  the  prince's 
kiss.  Men  in  their  civvies  ramrod-stiff  at  attention  relaxed 
and  smoked.  Women  spoke,  children  ran,  cars  started, 
hooves  trotted. 

But  now  it  was  tea-time.  Mellton  church  was  empty — 
only  their  guerdon  of  Flanders  poppies  and  the  carved 
names  remained  there,  while  at  the  vicarage  the  Vicar  of 
Mellton  munched  fruit-cake  and  put  the  last  touches  to 
his  evening  Armistice  sermon. 

At  the  lonely  Hermitage  on  the  downs  Nellie  had  just 
set  the  wash-tub  in  the  new  sink. 


In  Gwilym's  sanatorium  the  nurses  all  wore  poppies, 
and  there  were  poppies  pinned  to  the  King's  portrait  on 
the  wall.  Gwilym  was  already  putting  his  things  in  order 
— tearing  up  letters,  and  so  on — ready  tomorrow  to  go 
home;  for  he  had  been  quite  right  of  course,  he  was  now 
so  much  better  they  had  to  let  him  go  home.  Gwilym  had 

274 


THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC  275 

few  possessions,  but  there  was  a  pencil-sharpener  he  could 
give  his  friend  in  the  next  bed  to  remember  him  by.  As  an 
afterthought  he  gave  him  a  red  pencil  too,  and  they  both 
wept. 

The  Sister  had  told  Gwilym  well  in  advance  that  he  was 
going,  in  the  hope  of  distracting  his  mind  from  the  death 
of  his  little  girl.  But  it  had  been  difficult  for  even  the 
doctor  to  make  him  understand  it  must  be  months  "before 
he  could  work  again".  They  put  this  down  to  his  throat, 
for  his  throat  is  a  preacher's  most  precious  organ:  in 
particular  Gwilym  must  rest  his  throat! 

As  a  matter  of  fact  Gwilym's  throat  had  been  cauterised 
too  drastically  and  the  vocal  cords  had  been  completely 
destroyed.  It  was  impossible  he  should  ever  speak  again 
except  in  a  whisper,  but  that  they  hadn't  told  him. 

"How  long  must  I  rest  it?" 

"Oh.  .  .  six  months,  at  the  very  least." 

(Gwilym,  they  thought,  could  hardly  last  six  months.) 

Six  months!  For  someone  expecting  to  die,  so  short  a 
reprieve;  but  to  Gwilym,  expecting  to  live,  an  intermin- 
able time  to  have  to  wait  for  his  health  back.  And  yet  it's 
a  queer  thing,  this  Spes  Phthisica:  though  confident  he 
would  soon  be  a  giant  refreshed  and  raring  for  the  pulpit 
at  the  same  time  Gwilym  knew  perfectly  well  he  would 
never  get  better  and  was  going  to  die.  His  mind  just 
kept  both  bits  of  knowledge  apart  so  they  need  not 
contradict. 

At  the  times  when  he  contemplated  death  his  heart 
welled  over  with  pity  for  poor  Nellie.  So  soon  would  he  find 
Little  Rachel  waiting  on  Jordan's  further  shore  to  greet 
him;  he  would  enter  his  Maker's  presence  with  that  dear 
hand  warm  in  his.  But  Nellie  might  have  many  dreary 
years  to  wait  before  seeing  her  lost  child  again.  Two 
children  dead,  and  now  her  husband  dying:  poor  emptied 
heart  of  Nellie's!  Gwilym  prayed  with  all  his  soul  that 
little  Sylvanus  might  grow  to  fill  it  again.  Indeed  Gwilym's 


276  HIE    FOX    IN    THE   ATTIC 

mind  dwelt  much  on  this  baby  he  had  not  yet  even  seen. 
As  soon  as  he  was  fit  again  he  and  Nellie  must  visit 
Rachel's  grave  on  the  bare  hill  above  Penrys  Cross;  and 
they  would  take  Sylvanus  with  them,  for  he  must  be 
taught  from  the  first  to  love  and  revere  the  sister  he  had 
never  known — that  little  angel  God  had  lent  them  for 
awhile,  who  now  from  heaven  was  loving  him  and  watch- 
ing him  grow.  They  must  teach  Sylvanus  to  try  to  live 
always  worthy  of  that  angelic  love:  never  to  do  anything 
or  even  think  anything  it  would  pain  those  innocent  eyes 
to  see.  Bit  by  bit  the  boy  must  be  brought  to  realise  that 
always  from  heaven  his  Sister  was  watching  him. 

For,  apart  from  religion,  the  happiest  thing  Gwilym  had 
to  dream  about  now  was  the  joy  of  bringing  up  his  son. 
He  made  endless  plans  for  it  (particularly  in  the  evenings, 
after  his  temperature  had  risen) :  all  the  tilings  he  and  the 
boy  would  do  together,  as  the  boy  grew. 

'The  boy  and  he  together'? — Ah,  there  lay  the  sharpest 
of  all  death's  stings. 


The  Sunday  paper  discarded  on  Gwilym's  bed  carried 
little  news  of  the  Putsch  in  Munich — and  spelled 
'Hitler'  wrong.  It  was  all  of  no  interest  to  Gwilym, 
naturally.  But  in  Mary's  paper  'Munich'  caught  her  eye, 
though  only  because  her  brother  must  have  been  there 
about  then.  She  jumped  to  the  conclusion  he'd  have  seen 
the  whole  thing  and  his  first  letter  would  be  full  of  it:  she'd 
better  know  what  it  was  all  about.  But  Gilbert  would 
hardly  look  at  the  paragraph:  Bavarian  antics  were  of  no 
conceivable  importance  to  England,  and  a  politician  must 
always  keep  his  eye  on  the  ball.  For  these  were  crucial 
times!  Baldwin  had  forestalled  Lloyd  George  in  calling 
for  'Protection'  and  this  had  driven  L.G.  back  onto  un- 
compromising Free  Trade,  of  course.  Baldwin's  change  of 
heart  moreover  was  a  complete  ratting  on  his  party's 
election  pledges  only  last  spring,  so  it  meant  yet  another 


THE   FOX   IN  THE   ATTIC  277 

General  Election  almost  at  once;  and  that  closed  the 
Liberal  ranks  willy-nilly — for  the  next  week  or  two. 

"What  chance  have  we  got  of  turning  out  the  Tories?" 
— Today's  cake  had  seeds  in  it,  and  absently  Gilbert 
picked  his  teeth  with  the  wire  stem  of  his  poppy  while  he 
pondered. 


Chapter  ij 

at  the  lonely  Hermitage  on  the  downs  Nellie  had  just 
Xl.set  the  wash-tub  in  the  new  sink.  Beside  her,  in  a  warm 
corner  near  the  fire,  baby  Sylvanus  (now  three  weeks  old) 
was  sleeping  in  his  basket.  Cold  water  from  the  bucket, 
hot  from  the  steaming  kettle  on  the  hob.  .  .  Nellie  tested 
the  temperature  with  her  bare  elbow  to  get  it  just  right, 
and  then — discarding  her  poppy  for  fear  the  wire  might 
scratch  the  infant — lifted  the  tiny  object  out  of  its  warm 
snuggle  and  laid  it  on  her  knees  to  undress  it. 

Waking  abruptly  it  wailed,  and  began  to  quiver.  She 
had  laid  it  face-down,  and  in  its  anger  the  scalp  blushed 
reddish  through  the  sparse  black  hair.  The  simple  seminal 
ego  within  it  was  awash  with  rage.  In  the  transports  of  its 
rage  the  transparent  skin  on  its  tiny  naked  back  suddenly 
marbled  with  quick-flushing  veins,  while  the  helpless 
waving  fists  were  drained  of  their  blood  and  turned  a 
bluish-grey.  Then  she  rolled  the  object  over  face-up  again. 
Now  apparently  it  was  too  angry  to  cry  out  at  all — it 
hadn't  the  breath;  but  the  chin  quivered  like  the  reed  of 
a  musical  instrument  and  the  whole  face  crinkled. 

Competently  and  gently,  like  dusting  fragile  porcelain 
— but  a  bit  absently,  as  if  the  porcelain  was  unloved — 
Nellie  wiped  the  eyes  with  a  swab  of  cotton-wool.  Then 
she  made  little  spills  of  the  cotton-wool,  dipped  them  in 
oil  and  twiddled  them  in  those  defenceless  ears  and  nostrils. 
The  infant's  head  was  too  heavy  for  it  to  be  able  to  move 
it  but  every  other  inch  of  its  body  jerked  and  shook  in 
paroxysms  of  rage  and  sneezing,  and  at  every  such  move- 
ment all  its  tender  contours  crumpled  and  collapsed  like 
a  half-deflated  balloon. 

It  was  only  now  Nellie  remembered  to  swathe  it  in  the 
towel  which  hung  warming  before  the  fire. 

Indoors  the  light  was  already  failing,  and  Nellie  stopped 

278 


THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC  279 

for  a  moment  to  light  the  lamp.  But  from  outside  through 
the  open  door  still  came  the  sound  of  sawing;  for  Sunday 
or  not  the  carpenter  had  to  get  that  shed  finished  in  time, 
and  it  was  quite  an  elaborate  piece  of  work. 

Sighing  (from  mild  indigestion)  Nellie  soaped  the 
wobbling  heavy  head,  then  held  it  out  over  the  sink  to  rinse 
it.  Next,  her  large  hands  began  soaping  the  convulsive,  pre- 
hominid  little  body  and  limbs.  But  now  the  carpenter's 
dog  Charlie — a  young  spaniel  with  a  talent  for  comedy — 
had  grown  disgusted  with  the  smell  of  sawdust  outside 
with  his  master  and  wandered  into  Nellie's  kitchen.  After 
one  quick  apologetic  smirk  at  his  hostess  he  began  nosing 
around  eagerly;  but  each  time  he  found  some  new  smell 
that  amused  him  he  glanced  again  momentarily  at  Nellie, 
and  smirked  his  thanks  politely.  With  her  eyes  on  this 
engaging  dog  and  hardly  aware  what  she  was  doing  Nellie 
submerged  the  baby's  body  and  rinsed  that  too.  At  the 
benevolent  touch  of  the  warm  water  rage  instantly  sub- 
sided; but  his  moment  of  comfort  was  brief,  for  she  lifted 
him  out  to  dry  him — and  instantly  rage  returned. 

Then  Nellie  opened  her  own  box  of  powder  that  she 
had  set  ready  on  the  Windsor  chair  at  her  side.  It  was  a 
cheap  brand,  and  the  scent  drove  the  dog  completely 
dippy.  Doing  the  familiar  job  by  rote  Nellie  watched  him 
— and  broke  into  a  smile  for  the  first  time  for  ages.  For 
Charlie  would  fawn  towards  the  powder-box  and  then 
halt,  humbly,  at  least  two  feet  from  it.  There  he  bowed 
deeply,  right  to  the  ground,  and  took  one  distant  sniff. 
Then  he  danced  round  the  room  like  a  ballerina  till  his 
ecstasy  was  expended:  then  he  fawned  back  again,  praying 
to  the  gracious  box  for  yet  one  more  replenishing  sniff. 
When  Nellie  actually  began  powdering  the  baby,  for  a 
dog's  nose  no  doubt  that  scent  billowed  on  the  air  and  so 
his  state  of  religious  ecstasy  was  rendered  continuous.  He 
ran  round  the  tiny  room  at  incredible  speed;  though 
how  he  avoided  colliding  with  the  crowded  furniture 
was  pretty  miraculous,  for  he  ran  with  his  eyes  rolled  up 


28o  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

to  heaven  till  the  whites  showed — and  Nellie  laughed 
aloud. 

Engrossed  as  she  was  in  watching  Charlie,  none  the  less 
she  powdered  the  baby's  body  expertly  all  over  in  every 
crease:  with  scarcely  a  glance  she  folded  clean  napkins  and 
put  them  on  him  and  pinned  them,  and  wrapped  him 
again  in  the  flannelette  nightgown  that  did  up  at  the  back 
with  tapes.  But  there  was  one  item  of  common  practice 
Nellie  left  out.  I  don't  mean  just  that  she  had  forgotten 
to  oil  his  bottom  before  putting  the  napkins  on  (she 
remembered  that  afterwards,  when  it  was  all  finished  and 
he  was  back  in  his  Moses-basket — but  what  the  hell,  just 
for  once!):  no,  I  mean  that  she  hadn't  kissed  him.  That 
was  something  as  yet  Nellie  had  never  ever  done. 

Before  he  was  born  Nellie  had  hated  him.  But  now  she 
was  completely  indifferent  to  him,  for  Rachel's  death  had 
numbed  her.  That  indifference  wouldn't  last  much  longer, 
however;  for  if  Nellie  couldn't  escape  like  Mitzi  out  of 
disaster  into  God,  neither  could  she  long  remain  like  Hitler 
— cooped  up  with  his  disaster  in  the  prison  that  was  the 
ring-fence  of  himself  \  For  Nellie's  central  T  was  minimal. 
Hers  was  a  'self 'consciousness  only  really  vivid  ever  towards 
its  periphery — at  its  sensitive  points  of  contact  with  other 
people:  whatever  happened  at  the  centre  to  Nellie  always 
surfaced  out  there  sooner  or  later,  transmuted  into  enig- 
matic compulsions  of  love  or  hate.  Before  long,  Nellie's 
numbness  must  melt  in  a  very  cataract  of  feeling:  but  of 
love.  .  .  Sylvanus  her  only  son  and  she  a  widow?  Or  of 
hate.  .  .  had  Sylvanus  never  been  conceived  Little  Rachel 
need  never  have  died?  Or  both? 

Tonight,  as  Nellie  carried  the  bathwater  to  empty  it 
outside,  she  caught  sight  of  Little  Rachel  smiling  down  at 
her  from  her  fretwork  frame  on  the  kitchen  wall  and  burst 
into  tears. 

Charlie  nuzzled  her  knee  with  his  soft  nozzle.  How 
passionately  she  wished  that  Charlie  was  hers!  But  now 
the  carpenter  was  whistling  for  Charlie:  Gwilym's  shed 


THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC  281 

was  almost  ready — and  just  in  time — but  the  daylight  was 
quite  gone  now  and  he  had  to  stop. 

Packing  his  tools,  the  carpenter  hoped  kind  Mrs. 
Tuckett  had  saved  him  a  good  tea.  '"Night,  Missus: 
marnin'  to  finish  un'!" 

Somehow  Nellie  managed  to  answer  "Goodnight."  The 
man  and  the  dog  were  gone;  and  only  the  faint  evening 
churchbells  of  distant  Mellton  floated  to  Nellie  on  the  still 
air,  sounding  infinitely  remote. 


Chapter  14 

Past  midnight  now;  and  the  only  light  still  showing  in 
all  snowy  Lorienburg  shone  from  the  window  of  Otto's 
office,  for  Sunday  or  no  Otto  would  go  on  working  just 
so  long  as  he  could  keep  awake:  Otto  dreaded  his  bed. 
Everyone  else  seemed  to  be  sleeping.  All  their  sealed 
windows  were  dark.  Heavy  curtains  occluded  even  the 
nightlight  burning  in  the  twins'  room:  within,  its  gleam 
just  revealed  them  as  two  mere  molehills  in  the  middle 
of  the  blankets  evidently  not  needing  to  breathe.  And  like- 
wise (through  the  door  he  always  left  open  onto  the  stairs) 
the  faint  glow  from  his  overheated  stove  just  showed 
Augustine:  he  was  smiling  in  his  sleep,  and  stroking  the 
pillow.  But  elsewhere  the  darkness  of  the  silent  house  was 
everywhere  profound.  Mitzi,  in  her  own  private  darkness 
within  it,  dreamed  she  was  weightless  and  climbing  a 
ladder;  but  each  rung  beneath  her  vanished  as  she  took 
her  foot  off  it,  ^nd  the  ladder  was  topless. 

Only  in  the  billowing  darkness  of  the  attics  above  two 
eyes  were  open,  and  staring.  Endlessly  cooped-up  there, 
knowing  he  could  never  again  leave  these  attics  alive, 
something  long  under  intolerable  strain  in  Wolff  was 
beginning  to  break  at  last. 

November  the  Eleventh:  in  Wolff's  eyes  and  many 
others  'blackest  day  in  the  calendar,  day  that  the  traitors 
sold  Germany  down  the  river.  .  .' 

Germany  had  not  been  defeated:  whatever  the  world 
pretended,  she  had  not  been  defeated!  For  in  childhood 
the  axiom  that  Germany  could  not  be  defeated  had  been 
imbedded  in  Wolff  deep  in  his  core  of  intuited  knowledge, 
far  below  all  corrective  reach  of  perception  or  reason. 

This,  then,  was  the  early  but  abiding  disaster  of  Wolff 

282 


THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC  283 

and  his  kind:  transcendental  truth  had  set  them  at  logger- 
heads with  all  reality,  a  deadlock  Wolff  could  not  break. 
However,  in  the  course  of  his  self-immolation  on  the  altar 
of  'Germany'  Wolff's  over-altruist  self  had  by  now  so 
atrophied  it  could  no  longer  contain  this  his  Disaster:  yet 
of  its  nature  that  disaster  allowed  no  normal  outlet — 
neither  into  God  nor  man.  Final  escape  could  be  only  into 
the  absolute  unreality  of  death;  but  in  the  meantime 
Wolff  had  turned,  as  to  Death's  twin  and  surrogate-on- 
earth,  to  Romantic  Love:  sole  comparable  realm,  with 
Death's,  of  the  Unreal. 

Thus,  in  the  same  knightly  way  as  Palamon  in  his 
Athenian  tower,  this  Wolff  had  also  fallen  deeply  into 
romantic  love  last  summer  with  the  unknown  girl  seen 
'romen  to  and  fro'  beneath  him  in  the  garden.  For  Mitzi's 
yellow  hair  too  was 

"broyded  in  a  tresse 
Bihinde  hir  bak,  ayerde  long  I  gesse" 

and  like  Palamon,  the  moment  he  saw  it  Wolff  too  had 

"bleynte,  and  cryde  'A!9 
As  if  he  stongen  were  unto  the  herte." 

Wolff  still  knew  nothing  about  Mitzi;  for  she  was  too 
sacred  to  speak  of  even  to  Franz.  They  could  never  meet: 
this  girl  he  called  'his'  must  never  know  he  existed.  .  . 
But  that  was  all  as  it  should  be,  for  this  kind  of  loving  alone 
could  have  suited  Wolff,  and  his  love  was  all  the  more 
deep  and  poignant  for  being  unreal. 

Now  Reality  had  broken  into  even  this  charmed  circle 
too,  so  that  tonight  Wolff  knew  his  jangled  nerves  might 
no  longer  turn  for  solace  to  what  had  lately  become  its 
habitual  source  for  him — to  inward  dramas  of  killing  him- 
self in  Mitzi's  presence,  to  the  exquisite  pleasure  of  dying 
with  his  face  bathed  in  Mitzi's  scalding  tears.  Yet  even 
tonight  his  homing  thoughts  unwatched  kept  creeping 
back  willy-nilly  towards  this  their  usual  performance,  and 


284  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

each  such  time  his  reverie  was  shattered  anew  by  the 
recurring  shock  of  those  two  lovers  seen  stumbling  together 
through  the  snow! 

Each  such  blow  left  something  defenceless  in  Wolff 
weaker,  till  finally  the  intolerable  tension  snapped  at  last. 
.1  Herman  girl  who  accepted  an  Englishman's  advances,  and  this 
her  guilty  lover.  .  .  THEY  MUST  BE  KILLED.  It 
was  a  very  voice  from  outside:  the  most  compulsive  call 
of  Conscience  even  this  addict  had  ever  heard. 

Why  had  Wolff  not  plunged  on  them  from  his  window 
that  first  moment  he  saw  them  together — like  a  plummet, 
like  an  avenging  Lucifer  destroying  himself  and  them 
together  all  three? 

Perhaps  he  might  have — had  they  come  near  enough. 
Yet  for  him  that  would  surely  have  been  altogether  too 
soon!  For  this  was  murder;  and  surely  the  essence  of 
murder  lies  always  less  in  the  final  perfunctory  act  than  in 
the  malice  prepense:  in  the  turning  it  over  and  over  and 
over  beforehand  in  one's  mind.  No,  this  must  be  carefully 
planned.  Wolff  was  ignorant  even,  as  yet,  who  slept  where 
in  those  storeys  downstairs  he  had  never  entered.  No  pre- 
cipitate act,  this;  but  rather,  a  passionless  duty  he  had  to 
perform,  a  punishment  he  had  to  inflict:  his  last  and 
supreme  sacrifice  to  offer  on  Germany's  altar,  this  was 
an  act  to  be  done  in  the  coldest  of  cold  blood.  .  .  yet  at 
the  very  thought  of  coming  on  Mitzi  asleep  and  killing 
her  an  excruciating  flame  lit  in  the  pit  of  his  stomach, 
constricting  his  breathing! 

The  supernatural  voice  had  hit  Wolff  at  first  with  the 
suddenness  and  violence  of  an  electric  shock,  striking  him 
rigid;  but  now  the  rigor  had  passed,  leaving  all  over  him 
a  heavenly  glow.  Vividly  now  Wolff  saw  himself  creeping 
through  the  dark  and  silent  house  like  the  angel  of  death: 
he  saw  himself  silently  opening  a  door,  within  which  lay 
Mitzi  still  and  white  on  her  bed  with  her  eyelids  closed 


THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC  285 

and  her  hair  all  dispread :  he  stretched  himself  on  her  like 
Elisha  on  the  Shunammite  child.  .  .  and  saw  his  two  hands 
close  to  his  own  eyes  as  they  smothered  her  with  the 
pillow.  .  . 

Wolff  was  huddled  the  while  face-down  on  his  attic 
floor,  and  the  heart  in  his  breast  thumped  wilder  and 
wilder  for  beneath  his  taut  overlaying  weight  on  the  lump- 
ish furs  he  could  feel  Mitzi's  heart  beating  under  him.  He 
could  feel  it  flutter,  and  stop.  At  that  a  thunder  as  of 
falling  towers  was  all  about  him,  setting  his  ear-drums 
ringing:  he  felt  giddy  to  bursting,  almost  as  if  about  to 
vomit. 

Or,  ought  Mitzi  perhaps  to  die  by  the  knife  rather?  Yes: 
for  'I  ABHOR  THINGS  STRANGLED'  came  from 
the  darkness  the  cold  divine  command. 

Repeating  his  scene  da  capo  Wolff  now  dwelt  on  his 
teasing  point  pricking  through  the  thin  nightgown  to  the 
naked  skin  so  that  she  half- woke:  then  the  sudden  thrust 
into  the  throbbing  heart  itself,  the  knife  pumping  in  the 
wound,  the  withdrawal  and  the  hot  blood  welling  to  his 
elbow.  And  this  time,  how  peaceful  that  moment  of  vision! 
Wolff's  giddiness  was  gone:  in  spite  of  his  heart's  thumping 
his  troubled  spirit  was  nearer  tranquillity  now  than  for 
many  months  past. 

'A  passionless  duty.  .  .?'  Wolff  was  contrite.  But 
nothing  could  still  the  new  life  which  coursed  in  his  veins 
tonight  as  he  slipped  quickly  out  of  his  wraps,  in  the  dark, 
and  crept  down  the  stairs  in  his  socks. 


Chapter  15 

at  nightfall  the  day's  drowsing  doubts,  like  roosting 
iVowls,  tend  to  take  wing  and  hoot.  Alone  in  his  office 
tonight  Otto  could  nohow  get  Mitzi  out  of  his  mind.  It 
was  their  decision  at  Saturday's  conclave  that  gave  him 
no  peace:  Had  it  been  right,  that  decision?  For  what,  after 
all,  had  been  their  real  motive  in  reaching  it? 

One  thing  Otto  couldn't  forget  was  the  tone  of  Walther's 
voice  exclaiming  that  there'd  never  been  a  blind  Kessen 
ever  before:  he  had  sounded  almost  accusing,  as  if  being 
born  physically  faulty  meant  she  deserved  to  be  banished 
from  everyone's  sight.  No  one  had  seemed  to  consider  if 
she'd  be  happy  'there':  how  to  make  up  to  Mitzi  for  her 
affliction. 

Surely  there  was  doubt  she'd  be  even  accepted! 
Normally  they'd  never  take  someone  so  handicapped:  at 
the  least  it  meant  special  permissions. 

Otto  sighed.  He  knew  very  well,  really,  that  Influence 
could  cope  with  all  that.  There'd  be  benefactions.  They'd 
never  refuse.  .  .  not  a  hope.  And  if  they  did  refuse,  what 
was  the  alternative?  (Otto  was  holding  his  list  of  timber 
prices  close  to  his  eyes  but  they  still  wouldn't  focus: 
annoyed,  he  turned  his  oil  lamp  even  higher;  but  it  only 
smoked.)  He  had  to  admit  Adele  had  been  unanswerable: 
marriage  was  out  of  the  question,  for  what  sort  of  a 
Schweinhund  would  ever  marry  a  blind  girl?  Some  insensi- 
tive climbing  clerk,  for  her  dowry  and  connections?  Surely 
even  this  was  better  than  that! 

What  other  solution  was  there? 

Mitzi  wasn't  to  be  told  yet.  .  .  yes,  and  how  would  she 
take  it  when  they  did  tell  her?  But  Otto  was  aware  this 
was  something  no  one  would  ever  quite  know.  Mitzi  had 

286 


THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC  287 

too  much  courage — too  much  self-control.  When  they  told 
her,  she'd  just  obey  orders,  poker-faced:  make  the  best 
of  it. 

Looked-at  like  that  the  whole  thing  was  near-blasphemy! 
But  reason  told  him  there  must  be  plenty  of  similar  cases. 

Otto  was  still  turning  this  treadmill  when  the  clock 
struck  two. — Bed!  He  was  doing  no  good  here.  So  at  last 
he  lit  his  carrying-candle  and  put  out  the  lamp.  But  this 
dimmer  light  only  made  vivider  his  mental  image  of  the 
niece  he  was  soon  so  totally  to  lose.  Mitzi  had  never  been 
his  favourite  among  Walther's  children  (surely  one  always 
likes  boy-children  better  than  girls?)  but  he  was  deeply 
concerned  for  her;  and  now  as  he  passed  her  door  on  his 
way  to  his  own  room  this  concern  turned  to  an  impulse 
so  strong  it  surprised  him:  he  must  see  how  she  was! 
Quietly  he  opened  the  door,  and  listened  candle  in  hand 
to  the  darkness  inside. 

Not  a  sound.  She  seemed  to  be  sleeping,  but  he'd  better 
make  sure.  So  Otto  pushed  the  door  wider,  and  went  in 
to  look. 


Chapter  16 

As  Wolff  had  reached  habitation-level,  the  first  door  he 
ilcame  to  stood  open  onto  the  stairs.  Since  it  was  right 
on  his  line  of  retreat  (this  room  normally  not  used),  he 
slipped  inside  to  investigate;  and  by  stovelight  recognised 
his  English  rival. 

'THIS  ONE  SHALL  DIE  BY  FIRE.  .  .'  The  Voice 
was  so  loud  Wolff  wondered  it  didn't  wake  the  sleeper; 
but  Augustine  never  stirred. 

Fire.  .  .  Wolff  knew  at  once  what  to  do,  when  the 
time  came  (for  he  had  done  the  same  thing  once  before, 
to  a  police-spy  at  Aachen) :  he  must  drag  this  young  man 
out  of  bed  pinioned  in  the  sheet  and  too  suddenly  for  any 
struggle  and  kill  him  by  holding  his  head  against  the  red- 
hot  stove.  Already  (remembering  Aachen)  Wolff  heard 
the  sizzle,  smelt  cooking  bone  and  hair.  It  ought  to  be 
quite  easy — when  the  time  came:  but  that  was  not  yet, 
might  not  even  be  tonight.  For  this  kind  of  killing  was  not 
like  a  quiet  stabbing:  even  if  he  gagged  his  victim  too 
with  the  bedsheet  he  could  hardly  count  on  no  noise  at 
all;  there  was  Mitzi,  and  he  must  not  risk  rousing  the 
house  till  there  was  only  himself  left  to  kill. 

He  knew  now  where  the  Englishman  slept.  But  Mitzi 
came  first:  it  might  be  more  difficult  to  discover  which 
room  was  Mitzi's,  nevertheless  that  was  the  next  thing 
Wolff  had  to  find  out. 

Augustine  stirred,  and  half- woke  just  as  a  reddish 
shadow  vanished  through  his  door. 

Quiet  as  any  shadow  Wolff  prowled  on  down  into  the 
pitch-dark  hall.  Here  there  were  many  doors.  But  here 
again  Fate  was  smoothing  his  path  tonight;  for  one  door 
stood  ajar,  with  a  light  inside.  Through  the  chink  Wolff 

288 


THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC  289 

could  just  see  the  head  of  the  bed;  and  at  what  he  saw 
there  his  skin  flushed  hot  from  head  to  foot — for  it  was  all 
coming  true.  That  hair  spread  over  the  pillow  in  the 
candlelight  was  Mitzi's! 

The  candle  which  lit  the  room  was  hidden  from  outside, 
where  Wolff  stood.  But  just  then  the  shadow  shifted,  and 
warned  him  just  in  time  that  someone  else  was  in  there 
before  him!  He  checked  himself  on  the  threshold. 

Standing  at  the  foot  of  the  bed,  Otto  had  just  raised 
his  candle  to  look  at  her. 

Asleep  (Otto  thought),  with  her  hair  all  loose  undone, 
Mitzi  looked  not  even  a  young  girl  yet— only  a  child. 
Asleep,  he  saw  with  relief,  she  shut  her  eyes  exactly  as 
everyone  else  does:  asleep,  no  one  could  tell. 

Walther  and  Adele — even  Franz — had  they  no  imagina- 
tion? Surely  they  loved  her  more  even  than  he  did:  then 
had  they  no  notion  what  the  life  they  were  sending  her 
to  must  be  like  for  her?  For  someone  so  immature  still,  so 
human,  so.  . .  earthly?  Almost  one  heard  those  great  gates 
creak  as  they  slowly  crushed  shut  on  her! 

Otto  pitied  his  niece  so  deeply  that  almost  (he  thought) 
it  were  better  the  poor  girl  had  died. 

Outside  in  the  hall  a  loose  tile  clinked  as  Wolff  retreated. 
He  was  back  in  his  attics  long  before  Otto  had  left  Mitzi 
and  gone  to  his  room. 

Wolff  knew  now  where  they  both  slept:  he  could  do  it 
whenever  he  liked!  Fate  whose  servant  he  was  wasn't  fickle 
(said  Wolff  to  himself  as  he  ousted  the  fox  from  its  nest 
in  those  warm  abandoned  furs):  Fate  was  helping  him; 
and  Fate  wasn't  fickle!  When  the  time  did  come  for  a 
killing  she  always  gave  him  the  signal:  till  then,  he  must 
wait. 


Chapter  iy 

Morning  again!  Monday's  wintry  sun  up,  and  those 
twin  molehills  in  the  blankets  erupting  into  two  little 
boys  pulling  on  leather  knickerbockers  much  blackened 
and  polished  at  the  knees  and  seats:  buckling  on  belts 
which  each  carried  a  decorative  sheath-knife,  its  handle  a 
roe-deer's  foot. 

After  breakfast  Augustine  praised  those  knives  loudly;  for 
he  saw  they  were  cherished  cult-objects  and  he  hoped  to  give 
pleasure.  But  this  marked  praise  seemed  only  to  cause  con- 
sternation; and  it  mystified  him  still  further  when,  in  a  solid 
glum  lump,  all  four  children  followed  him  to  his  room. 

For  a  moment  the  lump  blocked  his  doorway  in  silence. 
Then,  "Have  you  told  yet?"  ten-year-old  Trudl  asked 
him  in  a  deep,  harsh  voice. 

Trudl  was  speaking  'good'  German  carefully,  for 
Augustine's  benefit;  but  what  did  she  mean  by  'told',  he 
wondered? — Ah,  about  that  fight-in-a-snowstorm  of 
course!  But  after  himself  saving  the  situation  for  them  why 
on  earth  should  she  think  he'd  'tell'? 

"No,"  said  Augustine,  smiling. 

Trudl  nodded  (after  all,  if  he  had  told  Papa  they'd 
have  heard  of  it!).  Then  she  signed  to  the  two  little  boys, 
and  with  yard-long  faces  they  began  unbuckling  their 
belts.  Trudl  snatched  both  the  knives  and  held  them  out 
to  Augustine:  "Here  you  are,  then,"  she  said,  and  watched 
him  intently. 

"It's  a  waste!"  said  the  younger  girl,  Irma.  She 
addressed  the  ceiling  cynically:  "If  he  takes  them  he  can 
still  'tell'  just  the  same." 

"No!  D-d-don' t  give  them  yet!"  stammered  Rudi. 
"Make  him  swear  first!" 

"  'Make  him  swear''  !"  jeered  Irma.  "When  he's 
English,  you  little  nit-wit?  What  good's  that?" 

290 


THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC  291 

"B-b-but.  .  ."  Augustine  was  so  flabbergasted  he  even 
caught  Rudi's  stammer:  "I-I-I. . .  I  don't  want  your  knives!" 

"We  all  thought  that  was  what  you  meant,"  explained 
Trudl,  non-plussed.  "You  as  good  as  said  so!" 

For  answer,  Augustine  thrust  back  the  two  knives 
violently — and  they  fell  to  the  ground. 

"He  wants  something  else,  then,"  said  Irma,  flatly. 
Heinz  fumbled  out  a  rather  sticky  pre-war  fifty-pfennig 
piece,  looked  at  it  disparagingly  and  returned  it  to  his 
pocket.  There  was  a  pause. 

Then,  "What  will  you  take,  to  promise?"  asked  Trudl 
anxiously.  "If  it  isn't  the  knives  you  want?" 

"I  expect  all  he  wants  is  to  tell — when  he's  ready,"  Irma 
suggested.  "He  likes  keeping  us  waiting:  it's  fun  for  him." 

But  at  this  Trudl  flung  herself  furiously  on  Augustine, 
grabbing  his  jacket  as  if  she  was  trying  to  shake  him.  "You 
must  say  what  you  want!"  she  cried:  "You  must  you  must 
you  must!" 

"Yes,  now's  your  chance,  Greedy!"  said  Irma,  address- 
ing Augustine  directly  for  the  first  time.  Then  she  ex- 
changed glances  with  the  twins:  "Else  we'll  tell  Papa 
ourselves  and  take  our  whacking — and  that  way  you'll  get 
nothing!"  she  added  spitefully. 

"Yes — serve  him  right!"  said  Rudi,  refixing  his  knife  to 
his  belt.  After  all,  even  a  caning  might  be  better  than  black- 
mail: "Who  minds  a  sore  b-b-bum?"  he  added,  lordly. 

"/do.  .  .  he  must  promise,"  Trudl  miserably  muttered. 
Astonished,  the  others  stared  at  her  hostile  and  uncompre- 
hending: "I'm  too  old  to  be  beaten,  now.  .  .  it  gives  me 
the  'funny  feeling'.  I'm  older  than  any  of  you!" 

The  situation  was  so  bizarre  Augustine  hardly  knew  if 
he  was  on  his  head  or  his  heels.  In  vain  he  tried  to  convince 
them  he'd  hate  for  them  to  be  beaten:  that  he'd  no 
intention  of  telling  tales — but  all  gratis,  he  wanted  nothing: 
but  no,  his  silence  had  to  be  bought!  Their  attitude  was 
that  otherwise  no  Englishman's  word  could  be  trusted. 
This  astounded  Augustine,  for  surely  'an  Englishman's 


a92  THE    FOX    IN    THE    ATTIC 

word  is  his  bond'  is  known  the  world  over?  (It  astounded 
this  anti-patriot,  too,  to  discover  how  angry  this  ignorant 
attitude  made  him!) 

In  the  end,  Augustine  gave  in.  "Very  well,"  he  said,  "I'll 
tell  you."  There  was  an  anxious  silence,  while  resources 
were  inwardly  totted.  "I  want  the  biggest  snowman  there's 
ever  been;  and  you've  jolly  well  got  to  build  it  for  me." 

They  stared  at  him  in  paralytic  astonishment.  A  grown- 
up want  a  snowman?  Mad.  .  .  utterly  mad!  Eight  eyes 
fixed  on  him  fearfully,  the  whole  body  retreated  backwards. 

"Before  lunch!"  Augustine  called  after  them  cheerfully: 
"It's  a  bargain — don't  forget!" 

Whew!  he  thought:  and  these  were  her  brothers  and 
sisters — the  same  flesh  and  blood  as  his  Mitzi! 

What  a  fool  he'd  been,  Saturday,  not  to  take  his  chance 
in  the  chapel  and  speak  to  Mitzi!  He'd  had  no  other  chance 
since;  and  indeed  so  long  as  she  kept  to  her  room  how  could 
he — short  of  going  to  Walther  and  demanding  to  see  her? 

No  doubt  Cousins  Walther  and  Adele  were  wondering 
what  he  was  waiting  for;  but  what  did  the  old  idiots 
expect?  Augustine  was  quite  prepared  to  ask  Walther's 
leave  for  the  marriage  after  speaking  to  Mitzi,  but  it  was 
just  too  Victorian  if  Walther  expected  to  be  asked  for 
permission  before!  'Leave  to  address  my  attentions.  .  .'  yes, 
it  looked  very  much  as  if  that  was  what  Walther  did 
expect,  hiding  Mitzi  away  like  this! 

As  for  Mitzi  herself,  what  must  she  be  thinking?  She'd 
be  feeling  deserted,  she'd  be  asking  herself  what  sluggard 
sort  of  lover  was  this:  she  might  think  he'd  had  second 
thoughts.  .  .  she  might  even  suppose  that  sacred  moment 
of  one-ness  in  the  courtyard  had  meant  nothing  to  him! 

All  eyes  were  upon  him — so  Augustine  supposed: 
everyone  was  waiting  for  Augustine  to  speak!  It  never 
occurred  to  him  no  one — not  even  Mitzi  herself — had 
noticed  him  falling  in  love. 


Chapter  18 

Mitzi  was  indeed  feeling  deserted  that  morning;  but 
deserted  by  God,  not  Augustine. 

Waking  (for  Mitzi  that  morning)  had  been  like  waking  in 
an  unexpectedly  empty  bed:  God  wasn't  there — it  was  as 
simple  as  that!  Yesterday  God  talked  in  her  ear,  breathed 
over  her  very  shoulder:  wherever  she  turned  there  wasn't 
the  tiniest  interstice  but  God  was  there:  yet  today,  when 
she  called  to  Him  she  could  hear  the  words  of  her  prayer 
travelling  outwards  for  ever  into  infinite  empty  distances. 
Nothing  even  echoed  them  back  to  her — for  nothing  was 
there. 

So  today  Mitzi  was  indeed  alone  in  her  darkness,  and 
indeed  in  despair. 

Mitzi  had  taken  for  granted  that  first  day's  first 
ecstasy  was  going  to  be  her  condition  from  now  on  for  ever. 
It  had  never  occurred  to  her  once  God  had  found  and 
possessed  her  she  could  ever  lose  Him  again.  Had  her  eyes 
of  the  spirit  also  been  smitten  with  blindness?  Was  that 
possible?  For  God  must  be  there! 

Mitzi  thought  of  that  game  where  the  seeker  is  blind- 
fold but  the  onlookers  help  him  by  saying  "You're  cold!" 
or,  "You're  hotter  now. . ."  Surely  she  was  not  truly  alone, 
with  the  glorious  saints  (she  was  told)  all  around  her? 
Crowds  of  them,  clouds  of  them — onlookers,  all  of  them 
seeing  where  God  was?  Would  none  of  them  say  'hot'  or 
'cold'  to  her?  For  God  MUST  be  there! 

Or  had  Mitzi  but  eyes,  to  read  with!  The  Learned 
Fathers  (she  knew)  had  all  been  here  before  her,  in  this 
'dark  night  of  the  spirit':  at  least  they'd  be  company  for 
her — give  her  hope. 

St.  Teresa  of  Avila.  .  .  Teresa  had  written  of 'seasons  of 

293 


294  THE    FOX    IN    THE    ATTIC 

dryness',  times  when  even  that  greatest  of  the  mystics 
found  prayer  was  impossible;  but  surely  Teresa  had  some- 
thing too,  somewhere,  about  the  'three  waters'  which 
solace  that  dryness?  Mitzi  alas  had  paid  little  attention  in 
school  when  the  nun  read  that  bit  aloud  to  them:  now  she 
hadn't  the  haziest  notion  what  those  'three  waters'  were 
(and  for  that  very  reason  felt  certain  that  here  lay  the  key 
to  her  problem).  The  'first  water'  was.  .  .  what  was  it?  Oh 
had  she  but  eyes,  to  read  that  book  over  once  more! 

But  again,  why  had  God  done  this?  Why  (and  now  her 
soul  trembled  in  mutiny),  why  show  her  the  depths  of  His 
love  if  He  meant  to  withdraw  it?  Oh  cruel  the  love  that 
so  used  her!  Truly  Mitzi  had  welcomed  her  blindness,  if 
nothing  but  blindness  could  open  her  heart  to  His  sweet- 
ness: but  would  she  had  never  known  bliss  rather  than 
know  it  and  lose  it — on  top  of  her  blindness. 

Yet  Teresa.  .  .  Oh  could  she  but  read.  .  .  and  that  was 
the  state  of  her  mind  when  she  heard  a  knock  at  the  door, 
and  her  uncle  walked  in. 


It  had  struck  the  uneasy  Otto  that  morning  how  lonely 
the  girl  must  be  feeling:  so  far  as  he  knew,  no  one  much 
visited  her  except  old  Schmidtchen — and  it  couldn't  be 
good  for  her,  moping  alone  in  her  room  all  day  with 
nothing  to  do.  Leg  or  no  leg  he  must  get  her  to  come  for  a 
walk  with  him.  Of  course,  he  himself  couldn't  walk  far;  so 
perhaps  it  would  be  better  after  all  if  Franz  took  her?  Or 
what  about  that  young  Englishman:  surely  he'd  spare  an 
hour  to  give  the  poor  girl  an  outing? 

He  must  find  out  if  she'd  like  that;  and  so  he  had  come 
to  her  room.  But  one  glance  was  enough:  Mitzi  was  huddled 
in  a  chair  beside  her  untasted  breakfast,  and  her  face  wore 
a  look  of  such  strain  she  was  certainly  fit  for  no  stranger's 
company.  She  answered  incoherently,  too:  she  seemed 
unfit  to  converse,  even  with  him. 


THE   FOX   IN   THE  ATTIC  295 

But  Otto  was  determined  not  to  leave  her  like  this,  now 
he  had  come.  Perhaps  she  would  like  him  to  read  to  her? 
At  that  suggestion  she  trembled,  but  nodded.  "Well: 
what  shall  I  read,  then?" 

But  alas,  to  listen  to  'Teresa'  with  him  watching!  It 
must  strip  Mitzi's  soul  bare,  and  today  her  horrible  soul 
wasn't  fit  to  be  seen — not  by  anyone's  eyes.  Just  because 
she  so  longed  for  Teresa,  then,  Mitzi  chose  at  a  venture 
Thomas-a-Kempis.  Thomas  seemed  safer — more  con- 
gruous too  (she  told  herself)  with  her  uncle's  disciplined 
mind.  And  who  knows?  He  might  even  prove  helpful. 

But  Otto's  calm  unspeculative  voice  made  Thomas's 
dry  mediaeval  apothegms  sound  even  drier  still:  Otto  gave 
the  words  a  sharp  intonation  like  musketry  instructions 
and  Mitzi's  attention  soon  wandered.  She  had  been  green, 
and  now  she  was  cut  down — dried  and  withered  like  grass.  .  . 

"Shut  your  door,  and  call  to  you  Jesus  your  beloved: 
Stay  with  Him  in  your  cell.  .  ." 

— came  Otto's  confident  voice. — Yes,  all  very  well!  But 
suppose  you  call  and  He  won't  come? 

Mitzi  was  getting  sulky  with  Thomas.  God  had  taken  her 
up  like  a  toy.  .  . 

The  thing  finally  and  supremely  necessary  for  the 
Christian  (read  Otto  presently)  was 

"  That,  having  forsaken  everything  else,  he  leave  also 
himself:  go  wholly  out  of  himself,  and  retain  nothing 
of  self-love.  .  ." 

Then  for  a  moment  the  reader  glanced  over  his  shoulder; 
for  silently  Franz  had  looked  in,  made  a  face,  and  with- 
drawn. Perhaps  it  was  that  momentary  tiny  change  in 
Otto's  voice;  or  perhaps  it  was  only  the  image  of  her  own 
unique  ill-treated  'self  so  vivid  that  very  moment  in  her 
mind  that  made  the  bald  words  hit  Mitzi  like  a  thunder- 
clap. She  shuddered  violently:  for  what  did  that  mean? 


Bg6  THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

Was  Thomas  saying  that  if  she  was  to  return  to  God, 
then  even  to  herself  her  'self  must  become  indistinguish- 
able— no  singer  may  single  the  sound  of  her  own  hosanna 
in  the  chorus  of  the  heavenly  host? 

Must  she  forego  even  her  own  'I  am' — the  one  thing  she 
had  thought  nothing  could  take  from  her — not  Death, 
even?  But  how  could  she,  by  sheer  act  of  the  will,  do  just 
that?  How  could  she  forget  she  was  'she'?  The  task  was 
both  unexpected  and  plainly  impossible:  if  God  existed,  so 
must  she. 

For  Science  can  prove  most  things — or  disprove  them, 
sooner  or  later;  but  there  is  one  thing  Science  can't  prove 
or  disprove  and  nobody  asks  it  to  because  everyone  knows 
it  already:  each  knows  his  own  '7-ness'.  Other  people's 
unproven  '7-nesses'  he  is  willing  to  surmise,  by  analogy; 
but  he  can't  be  directly  conscious  of  them  from  within  as 
he  is  of  his  own.  Indeed  there  seems  to  be  no  other  concept 
in  quite  that  same  category — I  mean,  something  without 
intervention  of  the  senses  or  logic  a  direct  object  of  con- 
sciousness— except  for  people  like  Mitzi  conscious  of  God: 
that  is,  of  the  '/'-ness  of  God.  For  it  would  be  an  under- 
statement to  say  that  Mitzi  'believed'  in  God;  she  was 
conscious  of  His  great  'I  AM'  in  the  same  way — in  the 
very  same  breath  of  partaking — as  she  was  of  her  own 
little  T  am'  that  reflected  the  image  of  His.  Say,  rather, 
that  she  'believed'  the  existence  of  the  people  around  her 
— her  Mother,  Franz,  Otto,  Natascha!  But  God's  existing 
Mitzi  'knew' — from  within  it,  just  like  her  own. 

In  the  squeeze  of  the  dilemma  Thomas  had  posed  her, 
for  the  first  time  it  occurred  to  Mitzi  that  being  'with  God' 
is  never  a  static  condition:  it  is  rather  a  journey — and 
endless. 

The  discovery  was  visual.  Far  below  her — like  the  lights 
of  an  inn  left  behind  in  the  valley  when  a  sudden  turn  in 
the  mounting  road  shows  them  again  but  now  directly 
beneath  you — she  saw,  in  the  likeness  of  a  pinpoint  of 


THE   FOX   IN   THE  ATTIC  297 

light  far  down  underneath  her,  that  first  day's  simple, 
sweet  happiness:  and  now  knew  she  could  never  go  back 
to  it.  Nor  did  she  want  to,  she  found!  For  she  who  seeks 
God  must  -press  forward  (thought  Mitzi) :  lost  sight  of,  God 
lies  always  in  front. 

Something  of  that  moment  of  vision  must  have  shone  in 
her  face;  for,  watching  and  part-comprehending  his 
niece's  emotion,  Otto  felt — yet  hardly  dared  feel — a 
sudden  elation.  Could  it  be  after  all.  .  .  against  all  odds. . . 
that  their  decision  was  the  utterly  right  one? 

If  so,  then  some  Saint  had  taken  a  hand  since  everyone's 
motives  in  reaching  it  had  been  so  utterly  wrong. 


Chapter  ig 

Franz  had  looked  in  on  his  sister  because  he  too  was 
growing  uneasy  about  that  decision  as  time  wore  on. 
Franz  too  couldn't  get  Mitzi  out  of  his  mind. 

Yet  surely  Franz  at  least  knew  his  motives  had  been  of 
the  noblest?  For  his  iron  duty  it  was  to  keep  his  hands 
free,  his  back  unburdened  for  whatever  burden  Germany 
might  lay  on  it  (so  Wolff  had  taught  him).  Each  son  and 
daughter  of  Germany  these  desperate  days  must  be  devoted 
wholly  to  Germany;  and  what  could  a  blind  girl  hope  to 
do  for  a  Germany  in  travail  except  one  thing — avoid 
hampering  the  activists,  take  herself  out  of  their  way? 
Like  Agamemnon  at  Aulis,  Franz  had  been  called  to  bind 
his  nearest  and  dearest  on  his  country's  altar.  .  .  and  very 
noble  he  was  to  do  it,  no  doubt. 

Yes.  .  .  but  would  Mitzi  herself  see  it  that  way  unless  he 
explained  to  her?  Franz  must  at  least  have  a  talk  with  his 
sister  and  so  he  had  gone  to  her  room — but  found  his 
uncle  in  there  before  him. 

Uncle  Otto  was  reading  to  Mitzi,  and  reading  moreover 
some  of  that  anaemic  soul-rotting  drivel  no  good  German 
might  believe  any  more.  .  .  Ah,  but  Mitzi  of  course  from 
now  on.  .  .  it  cut  Franz  to  the  quick,  how  far  apart  already 
he  and  his  dearest  sister  had  drifted. 

Disgruntled,  Franz  crept  away  without  interrupting 
them — up  to  the  attics.  For  the  root  of  Franz's  new  feelings 
of  guilt  about  Mitzi  was  undoubtedly  this:  she  was  to  be 
sacrificed  to  the  'Cause',  but  that  Cause  (if  he  would  but 
admit  it)  was  in  fact  in  a  state  of  utter  stagnation.  Ever 
since  Rathenau  (more  than  a  year  ago)  nothing  had  been 
done.  Their  mystic  goal  of  Chaos  seemed  now  remoter  than 
ever:  even  Friday's  enigmatic  upheaval  in  Munich  had 

298 


THE   FOX   IN   THE  ATTIC  299 

only  left  Weimar  stronger.  Meanwhile,  the  legions  of  the 
Activists  were.  .  .  were  inactive.  Kern  their  old  leader  was 
dead,  and  Fischer:  even  the  noble  young  Saloman  was  in 
prison:  weaklings  had  joined  the  Nazis:  that  really  only 
left  Wolff  to  lead  them,  and  Wolff  all  these  long  months. . . 

"Wolff!"  Franz  halted,  trying  to  adjust  his  eyes  to  the 
dusk.  "Wolff,  where  are  you?  I  want  to  talk." 

Huddled  in  his  furs,  the  recluse  was  crouched  in  the 
open  dormer  staring  out  at  the  bright  interminable  sky. 
Wolff  was  the  same  age  as  Franz  but  appeared  even 
younger,  for  the  idealist's  generic  tendency  to  moral 
insanity  had  left  the  generic  innocent  charm  quite  un- 
affected— or  had  even  enhanced  that  youthful  magnetism 
of  altruism  and  singleness  of  purpose. 

At  long  last  Wolff's  climbing  rope  was  uncoiled  again: 
he  was  running  it  like  a  rosary  through  his  fingers.  From 
far  below  in  the  courtyard  the  Englishman's  voice  floated 
up  to  him  (in  his  British  impudence  hectoring  German 
children!  But  his  time  would  be  short.  .  .). 

Reluctantly,  and  with  a  rapt  visionary  look  in  his  blue 
wide-set  eyes,  Wolff  turned  away  from  the  light.  For  the 
last  hour  or  so  Wolff  had  been  absorbed  in  his  dreams  of 
killing  Mitzi  and  naturally  was  loth  to  return  to  earth. 
But  he  must:  for.  .  .  heavens,  what  was  this  good  fellow 
saying?  (It  was  indeed  something  new  to  be  criticised  by 
worthy  little  Franz.) 

"Wolff,  I  do  wish  you'd  listen!  What  I  mean  is,  oughtn't 
you  to.  .  .  well,  in  fact  isn't  it  high  time  now  we.  .  .  look, 
why  don't  you  come  out  of  here  and  put  yourself  at  our 
head?"  Wolff  stared  at  him  in  silence.  "Then  at  least  we 
could  all  die  gloriously  like  Kern  and  Fischer,"  Franz 
added  a  little  lamely.  "But  ever  since  Rathenau.  .  ." 

The  great  Rathenau — the  king-pin  (they  had  thought) 
without  which  the  whole  hated  edifice  must  collapse — 
Weimar's  only  genius!  Walther  Rathenau  was  a  Jew,  and 
had  just  signed  a  treaty  with  the  Bolsheviks;  but  that 
wasn't  the  reason  they  had  killed  him:  that  had  meant 


3oo  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

nothing  to  Kern  and  Wolff  and  all  their  likeminded  fellow 
killers,  for  these  were  no  bourgeois  predictable  Nazis.  No: 
with  the  complete  open-mindedness  only  true  fanatics  can 
afford  they  had  read  all  his  books  with  deepening  admira- 
tion, hung  on  his  lips  till  they  reached  at  last  the  mystic 
conviction  that  here  at  last  was  the  one  wholly  worthy 
sacrifice  for  Germany's  redemption  which  Fate  must 
accept.  It  was  not  till  they  at  last  knew  they  almost  loved 
Rathenau  that  they  had  heard  that  final  categorical 
imperative  to  kill  him. 

With  an  effort  Wolff  forced  himself  to  answer:  "Franz! 
Don't  you  trust  me  any  more?" 

"Yes  of  course,  Wolff,  but.  .  ." 

"Do  you  suggest  I  am  shirking  my  duty?" 

"No  of  course  not!  But.  .  ." 

"Then  can't  you  trust  me  to  judge  when  the  time  is 
ripe?" 

Yet  Wolff's  words  rang  hollow  even  in  his  own  ears;  for 
what  nonsense  they  both  were  talking!  He  would  never 
come  out,  he  knew  that.  Wolff  couldn't  say  so  to  his  only 
disciple,  but  there  was  nothing  left  now  to  put  himself  at 
the  head  of!  All  that  was  kaput — since  Rathenau.  Now 
that  Kern  and  Fischer  (the  protagonists  in  that  sacrificial 
killing)  had  died  fighting  in  a  deserted  tower  of  Saaleck 
Castle  the  whole  Noble  Army  of  Martyrs  was  on  the  run. 
'The  king-pin,  without  which  the  whole  hated  edifice 
must  collapse?'  But  it  had  not  collapsed:  instead,  the 
nationwide  horror  and  revulsion  of  feeling  had  infected 
even  their  own  ranks  and  now  Wolff  had  no  friend  or 
follower  left  in  all  Germany  but  silly  Franz. 

"Wolff,  you  must  break  out — not  stick  here  rotting!  A 
hundred  heroes  call  you!" 

But  Wolff  only  smiled  a  rather  superior  smile.  He  had 
nobler  things  to  think  about  now,  did  Franz  but  know  it. 
Anyway,  how  could  he  wish  to  leave  here  even  if  he  was 
able?  In  a  whole  year  spent  here  he  had  grown  into  a 
unity  with  the  very  timbers  of  these  attics  (to  express  that 


THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC  301 

unity  he  now  knotted  his  rope  to  one).  Look!  Like  the 
bones  in  Ezekiel  already  these  beams  were  covering  them- 
selves with  flesh,  with  skin — and  it  was  his  flesh  and  skin 
they  were  growing  (delicately  Wolff  stroked  the  wood  with 
one  affectionate  finger,  tracing  beetle-paths  in  the  thick 
dust).  He  would  breathe  into  these  dry  beams  soon,  and 
then  these  attics  would  live.  .  . 

Though  perhaps  the  whole  range  of  them  was  too  large 
to  vivify:  enough  his  one  particular  corner,  his  own  bundle 
of  furs.  .  .  Indeed,  better  still  when  he  had  something 
quite  closed-in — say  a  box — to  lie  in.  He  must  ask  Franz 
for  one.  .  . 

"Wolff! !!— -For  the  LAST  TIME!" 

Franz  looked  so  funny  in  his  ignorant,  puny  vexation 
that  Wolff  started  to  laugh.  Little  this  booby  knew  what 
final  exploit  for  Germany  Wolff  was  planning:  that  made 
it  funnier  still!  So  funny,  Wolff  laughed  and  laughed.  .  . 
he'd  a  good  mind  to  tell  Franz  all  about  it  just  to  see  how 
he  took  it. 


Franz  left  finally  almost  in  tears.  But  even  before  he 
was  gone  Wolff  had  forgotten  him,  back  in  his  dreams  of 
destroying  those  two. 

After  all,  he  would  not  do  it  while  they  slept:  no,  he'd 
kill  them  together — and  so  that  they  knew.  One  day  they'd 
go  for  a  walk  in  the  forest;  and  he  would  follow  them.  He 
would  stalk  them,  flitting  from  tree-bole  to  tree-bole.  By 
the  end,  deep  in  the  forest  and  far  from  all  help,  they'd 
suspect  something  was  there  and  yet  never  see  him.  He 
would  circle  them  round — like  this  noose  he  was  knotting. 
Fear  would  seize  them:  they'd  cling  to  each  other,  and — 
hidden — he'd  mock  them.  Then  at  last  he'd  come  out  to 
them,  slowly,  and  kill  them,  and  bury  them  deep  in  the 
snow  where  no  one  would  find  them  till  spring. 


3o2  THE    FOX    IN    THE   ATTIC 

Mitzi's  hair.  .  .  blood,  running  in  its  fine  gold,  running 
down  till  it  crimsoned  the  snow. 

Mitzi's  blood,  spouting — floods  of  it — lakes  of  it,  warm 
and  exquisite! — Seas  of  it.  .  . 

Look!  The  sun  himself  dangled  a  rope  of  glutinous  blood 
from  his  globe — emulous,  wanting  to  join  those  seas  like  a 
waterspout. 

On  a  fountain  of  blood  like  a  bobbing  ball  on  a  water- 
jet  Wolff's  soaring  soul  was  mounting  to  heaven — high, 
high  into  the  interminable  blue.  .  .  but  then  something 
bit  it!  Bat-winged  and  black,  something  sunk  teeth  in  it, 
tore  it. 

The  abominable  attack  was  so  sudden — no  time  to 
recall  Wolff's  soul  to  his  body,  it  was  caught  out  there 
bare:  spirit  to  spirit  in  hideous  unholy  communion. 
Despair!  Down  he  was  rocketing  falling  twisting.  .  .  oh 
agony  agony!  Blackness,  everywhere  black:  noise.  .  .  pain, 
everywhere  pain — unbelievable  pain! 

'I  ABHOR  THINGS  STRANGLED.  .  .' 

From  his  temples  the  sweat  spurted,  and  his  teeth  met 
through  his  tongue. 


Chapter  20 

Below  in  the  sunny  courtyard  the  children  were  wildly 
laughing. 

Augustine  had  driven  them  hard:  he  had  kept  them 
working  on  that  colossal  snowman  a  whole  hour  without 
respite.  But  when  it  was  done  he  had  remodelled  its  nose 
with  his  fingers  a  minute  or  two,  added  his  own  hat  and 
pipe  and  scarf — and  lo,  it  was  him!  Then  Augustine  had 
been  the  first  to  knock  the  hat  off  with  a  snowball,  and 
now  they  were  all  pelting  it  madly  (not  entirely  without 
rancour,  however,  and  the  laughter  was  rather  high- 
pitched)  . 

Otto  was  in  his  hot  little  office  again,  where  almost 
nothing  was  audible  from  outside;  where  the  only  sound 
was  the  slow,  stuttering  thump  of  his  typewriter  as  he  sat 
at  it,  sweating. 

Under  Otto's  window  Franz  was  alone — skiing,  hurtling 
down  the  almost  precipitous  castle  mound  between  the 
close-planted  trees  and  missing  them  by  hairs'-breadths. 
It  was  madly  dangerous,  but  his  spirit  with  its  newly- 
broken  navel-string  was  now  in  that  kind  of  turmoil  only 
deliberate  danger  can  ease.  Walther  had  been  away  since 
early,  in  a  distant  part  of  the  forest  where  there  was  work 
to  be  planned.  Adele  was  down  in  the  village. 

Thus  the  whole  inhabited  house  was  empty  except  for 
Mitzi,  still  in  her  room. 

There,  everything  was  quiet.  Even  the  voices  of  the 
children  she  couldn't  hear;  for  Mitzi's  window  was  on  the 
far  side  of  the  house,  over  the  river.  But  then,  in  the  still- 
ness, her  acute  ears  caught  an  extraordinary  sound:  a 
human  and  yet  inhuman  sound,  a  sound  she  could  only 
describe  to  herself  as  worse  than  groaning  and  it  came  from 
overhead— no  doubt  of  that,  it  came  from  somewhere  in 

303 


304  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

those  empty  floors  above  her.  There  was  someone  up 
there:  someone  who  needed  help. 

Mitzi  went  to  her  door  and  called  Franz:  no  one 
answered  of  course.  Then  she  called  to  her  father;  but  the 
house  was  utterly  still  and  now  she  had  that  certainty  one 
feels  sometimes  in  an  empty  house  that  it  is  empty.  There 
was  nothing  else  for  it :  she  would  have  to  go  up  there  herself. 

Crossing  the  hall  at  a  venture  she  luckily  struck  the  door 
to  the  stairs  first  shot,  and  with  her  hand  on  the  wall  to 
guide  her  began  to  feel  her  way  up  them.  Slowly  passing 
Augustine's  door  (which  stood  open  as  usual)  she  spoke 
his  name  into  it,  quietly— though  certain  he  wouldn't  be 
there.  Then  she  went  on  as  fast  as  she  dared,  to  the  heavy 
door  at  the  top. 

Hinges  and  latch  had  been  recently  oiled:  the  door 
swung  open  without  the  creak  she  expected.  This  second 
floor,  she  remembered,  consisted  of  'rooms',  like  the  first 
floor:  finished,  and  even  furnished — only  not  used  since 
the  war  so  that  everything  here  was  lifeless,  and  shrouded 
moreover  in  dirt  and  dust:  her  sensitive  fingers  abhorred  it. 

She  stood  still  here  a  moment,  and  listened;  but  there 
wasn't  a  sound.  The  groaning  had  ceased.  Something  told 
her,  though,  it  had  come  from  much  higher  than  this — 
that  terrible  groaning. 

As  best  she  could  Mitzi  felt  her  way  to  the  next  flight  of 
stairs  (which  she  dimly  remembered  were  brick  ones)  and 
started  to  mount  them.  These  stairs  were  uneven  and 
narrow:  she  hadn't  been  up  here  for  years  and  no  longer 
could  picture  properly  what  lay  in  front  of  her. 

So  she  reached  the  next  storey,  and  it  was  from  this 
point  she  reckoned  that  nearly  the  whole  building  lay  open 
right  up  to  the  roof:  a  timber  skeleton  only — rooms  never 
partitioned,  floors  that  had  mostly  never  been  planked. 
But  in  that  case,  surely  she  ought  to.  .  .  wouldn't  she  hear 
the  roof-clock  clearly,  not  muffled  like  this? 

She  should  have,  of  course!  And  this  muffled  sound  con- 
vinced her  she'd  made  a  mistake.  So  long  was  it  since 


THE   FOX   IN   THE  ATTIC  305 

she'd  been  up  here  she'd  counted  them  wrong:  there  must 
be  another  flight  yet  before  one  got  to  the  attics.  This  was 
a  whole  storey  of  rooms  she'd  somehow  forgotten.  .  .  and 
just  then  she  tripped  over  a  jug. 

Again  Mitzi  started  to  mount;  but  confused  now,  for 
having  once  made  a  mistake  she  could  no  longer  imagine 
at  all  what  her  eyes  should  be  seeing.  Progress  was  night- 
marishly  slow  although  the  need  for  haste  was  so  desperate 
for  she  had  to  trust  wholly  to  feel,  and  feeling  explored  no 
more  than  one  arm's-length  ahead  every  time. 

Then  her  ears  told  her  she  had  got  there  at  last!  The 
slow,  clear  tick  of  the  clock. . .  a  feeling  of  space  all  around 
her,  the  breath  of  a  draught.  .  .  and  again  Mitzi  stood 
still  and  listened.  Though  clear  and  sharp  it  was  still  far 
above  her,  the  tick.  .  .  took.  .  .  of  that  clock.  From  far 
above,  too,  came  the  sizzle  of  water  that  trickled  into  the 
tank  in  the  roof  through  a  half-frozen  ball-cock.  And  the 
squeaking  of  bats. 

From  here  on,  the  stairs  were  a  makeshift:  little  more 
than  a  ladder.  She  needed  her  hands  to  climb  with.  Then 
she  came  to  what  must  be  some  sort  of  platform,  for  her 
shuffling  foot  felt  an  edge — with  nothing  below;  and  her 
fingers  confirmed  it. 

The  sound  of  the  clock  and  the  sizzling  water  were 
nearer  now.  But  now  there  was  something  else  too — a 
faint  sound  of  movement.  .  .  quite  close  to  her.  .  .  yes,  the 
sound  of.  .  .  Someone  was  there! 

Mitzi  opened  her  lips,  and  licked  them,  and  called: 
"Who  is  it?" 

No  answer;  and  yet  the  faint  sounds  continued. 

"Don't  be  afraid!"  she  called  clearly:  "I'm  coming  to 
help  you!  Where  are  you?" 

No  answer;  yet  still  that  rustle,  of  somebody  moving. 
A  creak — very  close  to  her  now. 

The  fox  had  been  here:  Mitzi  smelt  him.  She  dropped 
to  a  squatting  position  calling  his  name,  and  he  thrust  his 


3o6  THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

wet  nozzle  into  her  hand  with  a  stifled  half-howl.  The 
creature  was  in  a  queer  state:  she  could  feel  it,  and  caught 
the  infection.  Suddenly  she  too  was  thoroughly  frightened. 

That  faint  sound  was  movement — within  feet  of  her 
surely!  Nearer  than  ticking  clock  or  dribbling  water, 
although  so  much  fainter.  Mitzi  wanted  to  call  out  again 
"Who  is  it?"  but  now  her  voice  wouldn't  come.  The  stairs! 
Could  she  find  her  way  back  to  the  stairs  if.  .  .  if  she  had 
to?  But  she  mustn't  think  about  stairs  yet:  she  had  come 
here  to  bring  help. 

"Sub  pennis  ejus  sperabis"  Mitzi  breathed:  "Non  timebis  a 
timore  nocturno.  A  sagitta  volante  per  diem,  a  negotio  perambulante 
in  tenebris,  a  ruina  et  dcemonio  meridiano.  .  ."  As  that  gabbled 
childhood  spell  against  the  dark  had  always  done  long  ago, 
now  too  the  sacred  words  began  to  work  in  her  instantly. 
"Under  His  feathers  thou  shalt  find  hope,"  she  repeated 
(in  German  this  time).  "Thou  shalt  not  be  afraid  for  any 
terror  by  night,  nor  for  the  arrow  that  flieth  by  day.  .  ." 
and  now  fear  totally  left  her:  and  left  of  'her',  seemingly, 
nothing  but  a  love  that  spread  outwards  like  pulsing 
chimes  from  a  bell. 

But  then  in  a  puff  of  sound  the  distant  happy  voices 
of  the  children  floated  up  to  her  followed  by  Franz's 
scandalised  voice  that  admonished  them.  That  recalled 
'Mitzi':  for  the  sound  must  come  through  a  window,  and 
this  meant  that  now  she  knew  where  she  was — somewhere 
close  to  the  dormer!  This  platform  must  be  the  narrow 
planked  catwalk  that  led  to  it. 

On  her  hands  and  knees  she  crept  there.  The  dormer 
was  open!  Something  smelling  of  ammonia  was  close  to 
her.  .  .  She  craned  out  and  called  to  him: 

"Franz! — Quick,  Franz!" 

"COMING!"  he  shouted. 

The  children — this  was  what  had  scandalised  Franz — 


THE   FOX   IN  THE  ATTIC  307 

were  chasing  Augustine  out  through  the  Great  Gate  pelt- 
ing him  with  snow:  so  neither  they  nor  Augustine  heard 
Mitzi.  But  Franz  heard,  and  flight  after  flight  he  bounded 
upstairs,  burst  into  the  attic,  then  up  the  ladder.  .  .  and 
saw  them — there,  by  the  perilous  window!  His  sister  was 
crouched  at  the  low  sill.  Close  behind  her  was  Wolff, 
looming  over  her.  Close  to  Mitzi — as  in  life  he  had  never 
been  close. 

For  this  was  Wolff's  body,  hanged  from  the  beam.  The 
feet  were  clear  of  the  gangway — out  over  nothing.  The 
body  was  swinging  a  little  still,  and  slowly  turned  from 
the  tension  it  put  on  the  creaking  rope. 

Franz's  first  thoughts  were  none  for  his  hideous  friend 
but  all  for  his  sister:  how  could  he  get  her  away  unaware 
of  what  was  hanging  right  over  her?  Any  moment  she'd 
stand  up  and  bump  into  it. 

Franz  grabbed  her,  but  Mitzi  strongly  resisted:  "No!" 
she  cried.  "Idiot.  There's  someone  up  here,  I  heard  him! 
I  called  you.  .  ." 

She  only  gave  in  when  he  told  her,  sharply,  that  Wolff 
was  beyond  help. 


Chapter  21 

Buckets  ringing  like  bells  on  the  cobbles:  the  early- 
morning  carolling  of  boys  with  December  voices  still 
hoarse  from  the  pillow,  with  unwashed  eyes  still  sticky 
from  sleep  and  new-donned  breeches  still  cold  to  their 
bums!  Jinglings  from  the  saddle-room,  whinnyings  from 
the  stalls:  a  smell  of  leather,  metal-polish,  saddle-soap,  of 
linseed  bubbling  on  the  stove,  of  warm  new  dung  being 
shaken,  of  sizzling  urine.  .  .  bobbing  lanterns  haloed  in 
mist,  rime  on  the  great  yard  pump  ghostly  in  the  gloaming 
— and  a  huge  forkful  of  hay  travelling  high  like  a  giant's 
head  on  a  pike.  .  . 

Two  weeks  to  Christmas — and  the  stable  clock  striking 
Six!  For  life  began  mighty  early  in  Mellton  stables  under 
Mary's  regime  even  if  this  wasn't  a  hunting  morning 
(hunting  had  stopped  even  in  this  scrambling  Mellton 
country  because  of  the  iron  frost). 

Polly  in  her  nightgown  hung  out  of  the  nightnursery 
window,  listening  to  it  all  and  trying  to  watch.  Alas  that 
it  was  all  too  far  off  to  be  smelt  also;  for  in  Polly's  nose 
nothing  after  Gusting's  smell  equalled  the  smell  of  stables, 
not  even  a  rabbit-hutch  full  of  her  own  particular  rabbits. 
As  she  leaned  from  the  window  the  December  air  was  raw 
and  her  teeth  started  to  chatter,  but  Polly  paid  no  atten- 
tion: it  was  better  to  be  cold  than  bored.  Polly's  purgatory 
was  that  every  single  day  she  woke  soon  after  five;  and 
unless  Augustine  was  in  the  house,  at  five  no  one  seemed 
to  welcome  a  visit.  But  except  Christmas  and  birthdays 
Polly  wasn't  allowed  to  dress  till  years  later — not  till  Minta 
came  at  the  dreary  hour  of  seven.  If  only  they'd  let  Polly 
take  her  rabbits  to  bed  with  her  or  even  a  kitten  she'd 
have  stopped  on  in  bed,  perhaps;  but  not  just  with  teddies, 
for  teddies  smelt  only  of  shop,  she'd  no  use  for  teddies.  .  . 

308 


THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC  309 

Oh  lucky  stable-boys  (thought  Polly)  allowed  to  get  up 
at  half-past  five  every  day  of  their  lives! 

Polly  had  told  Willie-Winkie  once  how  lucky  he  was; 
but  he  only  made  noises  for  answer,  and  the  noises  were 
rude.  All  the  same.  Wee- Willie-Winkie  was  her  favourite 
(fourteen,  yet  almost  Polly's  own  size) .  Willie  smelt  of  gin 
and  tobacco  as  well  as  of  horses  and  'boy' :  he  was  aimed 
for  a  jockey,  he  told  her.  Willie  was  clever  too:  she  had  seen 
him  bridle  a  hunter  of  seventeen  hands;  he  tempted  its 
head  down  with  an  apple  laid  on  the  ground,  and  then 
when  the  horse's  head  went  up  again  wee  Willie  went  up 
with  it. 

Now  the  stable  clock  struck  half-past,  and  Polly  could 
stand  it  no  longer.  She  would  creep  downstairs  to  see  what 
the  housemaids  were  up-to,  enjoying  their  brief  hour  of 
sovereignty  now  while  the  house  was  exclusively  theirs.  As 
she  opened  the  door  Jimmy  scuttled  past  down  the  pas- 
sage, his  arms  full  of  boots  and  his  mouth  full  of  jokes. 
Then  she  found  Gertie  brushing  the  stairs:  Polly  stepped 
over  her  carefully,  but  Gertie  tickled  her  legs  with  the 
long-haired  banister-brush  as  she  passed. 

When  Polly  got  to  the  drawing-room,  Rosamond  was 
dusting  the  Cupiddy  ceiling  with  a  bunch  of  cock's- 
feathers  on  the  end  of  a  twelve-foot  cane.  Polly  hoped  to 
be  chased  with  it;  but  Rozzie  was  'busy'.  .  .  The  dining- 
room,  then?  But  Violet  was  sweeping  the  dining-room  and 
Violet  was  always  a  cross-patch,  so  Polly  tiptoed  away 
unseen.  However,  in  the  morning-room  she  found  Mabel, 
lighting  the  fire  and  singing.  Mabel  had  polished  the  grate 
till  it  shone,  and  Polly  by  now  was  shivering  (she'd  for- 
gotten her  slippers  and  dressing-gown)  so  sat  herself  down 
on  the  fender  to  admire  it,  watching  the  flames  as  they 
grew  and  warming  her  toes.  She  and  Mabel  were  friends: 
Mabel  let  her  stay  on  (but,  "Now  then,  Polly  Flinders!" 
said  Mabel,  and  stopped  her  playing  with  coal). 

When  Mabel  departed  at  last  she  forgot  her  black-lead, 


3io  THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC 

and  Polly — deeply  admiring  the  shine  on  the  grate — 
thought  suddenly  how  very  much  nicer  the  rocking-horse 
up  in  the  nursery  would  look.  .  .  so  annexed  the  saucer  of 
wet  blacklead  and  the  brushes  and  (remembering  Gertie 
to  pass)  secreted  them  under  her  nightgown.  But  they  were 
awkward  to  carry  that  way,  and  she  dropped  them  twice 
before  she  successfully  got  to  her  room.  Just  as  she  got 
there  moreover  the  clock  chimed  the  three-quarters:  Minta 
might  come  any  minute,  so  prudently  Polly  hid  her  spoils 
in  her  bed  and  climbed  in  on  top  of  them.  Thus  at  Seven, 
when  Minta  did  come  at  last,  against  all  precedent  Polly 
was  fast  asleep. 

At  Eight,  kitchen-breakfast  was  over  and  Lily — you 
remember  young  Lily — was  out  in  the  scullery  washing  it 
up.  For  Lily  this  was  a  fine  coign  of  vantage  for  saucing 
the  postman  (a  light-weight  boxer  of  note);  for  at  Eight 
the  post  was  delivered.  The  mail  for  the  Chase  arrived 
grandly,  in  their  own  private  leather  despatch-box  with 
the  Wadamy  crest:  Mr.  Wantage  it  was  who  unlocked  it 
and  gave  out  the  post,  and  as  usual  he  made  this  a  solemn 
occasion.  The  Master's  and  Mistress's  letters  he  would  sort 
and  set  out  with  his  own  hands  by  their  places  at  breakfast, 
with  the  'halfpennies'  underneath  the  real  letters  (today 
the  Mistress  had  one  with  a  foreign  stamp:  he  would  put 
this  on  top).  Any  letters  for  Kitchens  he  gave  to  Cook  to 
distribute.  Today  there  was  one  for  Mrs.  Winter:  that 
went  to  the  Room.  There  was  a  letter  today  too  for  Nanny 
Halloran;  and  this  he  entrusted  to  Minta. 

Minta  took  Nanny's  letter  up  with  the  Nursery  break- 
fast, and  as  soon  as  Nanny  had  drawn  an  elegant  'P'  in 
golden  syrup  on  Polly's  plateful  of  Force  she  opened  it. 
The  letter  came  from  Minta's  forerunner,  Brenda  (an 
orphan,  Brenda  was  devoted  to  Mrs.  Halloran  and  still 
looked  to  her  for  advice  when  she  needed  it). 

Brenda  had  gone  temporary  now  to  Lady  Sylvia  to  help 
'Mumselle'  with  little  Lady  Jane;  and  the  letter  was  dated 


THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC  311 

from  a  village  near  Torquay,  for  in  spite  of  the  season  Her 
Ladyship  had  packed  Janey  off  into  lodgings — as  far  from 
Eaton  Square  as  she  could.  Now,  Brenda  wanted  advice 
about  giving  her  notice.  "Tchk,  Tchk,"  said  Nanny,  purs- 
ing her  lips  as  she  read  it  and  absently  cooling  her  tea 
in  the  saucer:  for  Janey  (it  said)  the  very  first  day  there 
had  locked  Mumselle  in  her  bedroom  and  gone  off  ferret- 
ing with  some  village  boys.  She  enjoyed  this  so  much  that 
next  day  she  and  the  boy  at  the  lodgings  decided  to  go 
on  their  own;  but,  not  having  a  ferret,  took  the  cat  with 
them  instead.  However,  it  seems  that  when  the  boy  pushed 
his  cat  down  a  rabbit-hole  the  cat  had  objected.  It  tried 
to  get  out,  and  so  Janey  sat  on  the  hole.  Thus  began  a 
battle  of  wills;  for  the  half-suffocated  cat  was  desperate 
and  yet  under  the  boy's  eyes  Janey  just  couldn't  give  in.  It 
bit  and  it  scratched,  but  she  sat  and  she  sat.  In  the  end, 
she  'come  home  with  her  knicks  all  blood  and  fair  tore 
to  rovings' — and  also  minus  the  cat. 

"Tchk,  Tchk,"  said  Nanny,  passing  the  letter  to  Minta. 
Then  she  added:  "Of  such  is  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven!" 
and  sighed  at  the  prospect.  "When  that  one  was  old 
enough,"  Nanny  went  on,  "/'d  send  her  into  the  Navy — 
if  she  wasn't  a  girl." 

"If  she  was  a  boy,  you  mean,"  put  in  Polly. 

"That's  what  I  said:  'z/*she  wasn't  a  girl'." 

"But  she  might  be  a  dog,"  said  Polly,  her  eyes  shining 
with  logic:  "Not  everyone's  boys  or  girls." 

"Eat  up  your  Force,  dear,"  said  Nanny. 


Mrs.  Winter's  letter  was  propped  beside  Mrs.  Winter's 
breakfast  egg  in  its  green  crochet-work  cosy,  and  the  post- 
mark was  'Flemton'  ("Proper  mad-house!"  Mrs.  Winter 
muttered:  "Ought  to  be  certified  the  whole  lot  of  them."). 
The  letter  of  course  came  from  Nellie's  mother-in-law;  and 
it  was  certainly  short.  The  old  lady  was  well  but  wanted 
a  catapult  and  hoped  dear  Maggie  would  send  one. 


Chapter  22 

When  Gvvilym's  mother  first  had  that  seizure  at  the 
mortuary  she  was  taken  to  the  Penrys  Cross  infirmary, 
but  when  she  was  better  they  had  wanted  to  send  her 
home.  Where  should  they  send  her  however?  She  was  a 
bit  'funny'  after  her  illness:  she  certainly  mustn't  live  alone 
any  more.  Could  she  come  to  her  son  at  the  'Hermi- 
tage? 

She'd  have  to  sleep  in  the  kitchen  of  course,  and  if  she 
was  bedridden.  .  .  but  still,  if  they  had  to.  .  .  Nellie  herself 
was  prepared.  All  this  ought  to  have  worried  Gwilym,  no 
doubt;  but  nowadays  Gwilym  seemed  to  have  lost  the 
power  of  worrying  just  as  he  had  lost  the  power  of  using 
his  legs.  It  certainly  worried  Nellie!  But  what  could  be 
done?  Maggie  was  adamant  the  old  lady  mustn't  come 
to  the  'Hermitage';  but  Nellie  couldn't  even  get  away 
to  go  down  there  and  see  to  things  (nor  could  she  have 
borne  to  go  there).  So,  in  the  end,  Maggie  it  was  who 
went. 

This  had  been  Mrs.  Winter's  second  visit  to  Penrys 
Cross:  she  had  gone  to  the  funeral  (sole  family  mourner 
thereat),  and  after  had  called  on  the  coroner  to  learn  all 
she  could.  So  now  she  went  straight  to  the  one  person  she 
knew  at  the  Cross.  Luckily  this  was  one  of  Dr.  Brinley's 
'good'  days:  when  she  showed  him  how  hopeless  it  was 
to  think  of  Gwilym  and  Nellie  he  promised  to  fix  it.  "A 
bit  funny,  you  say?  Then  it  means  finding  suitable  lodg- 
ings." He  would  find  the  old  lady  somewhere  in  Flemton 
(a  place  where  no  one  thought  anyone  inside  the  com- 
munity odd). 

On  the  orders  of  Dr.  Brinley,  therefore,  Alderman 
Teller,  who  combined  a  moribund  sweets-and-drapery 
business  with  marketing  prawns,  agreed  to  let  her  a  room; 

312 


THE   FOX   IN   THE  ATTIC  313 

and  there  Mrs.  Winter  installed  her.  After  that,  Mrs. 
Winter  had  to  go  home. 

The  room  was  lofty,  and  panelled,  and  musty,  with  an 
elegant  marble  mantelpiece  (gone  a  trifle  rhomboidal); 
and  for  company,  plenty  of  mice.  The  mice  had  shocked 
Mrs.  Winter;  but  the  old  lady  took  to  them  and  started 
a  war  at  once  to  protect  them  from  cats.  For  at  Alderman 
Teller's  (all  former  High  Stewards  had  this  courtesy-title 
of  'Alderman')  the  cats  of  the  town  roamed  in  and  out  as 
they  liked.  They  seemed  to  find  Teller  mice  extra-desirable 
— because  (she  supposed)  of  some  special  bouquet  these 
acquired  from  their  diet  of  prawns;  and  soon  it  was  war 
to  the  knife  between  her  and  the  cats.  Thus  the  mice  were 
in  clover  at  Alderman  Teller's:  what  with  unlimited 
prawns,  and  with  snippets  of  velvet  to  upholster  their 
holes,  and  now  the  old  lady's  protection;  and  she  too  was 
in  clover — what  with  the  mice,  and  the  Tellers  couldn't  be 
kinder,  and  even  in  bed  she  could  hear  the  roar  of  the 
sea  which  she  loved  and  the  far-off  occasional  ping  of  the 
cash-till  as  sixpence  went  in. 

True,  she  couldn't  see  out  much  unless  the  window  was 
open;  for  the  glass  was  frosted  with  salt  and  scratched  and 
pitted  by  a  century's  driving  sand.  Some  days  it  had  to 
be  tight  shut,  for  at  times  she  felt  she  was  floating  and 
might  float  out  of  it.  But  the  days  she  felt  stable  enough  to 
risk  it  she  kept  the  window  wide  open — to  harass  the  cats, 
whose  favourite  way  into  the  house  was  a  broken  pane  in 
the  window  directly  below  hers.  At  first  she  was  able  to 
check  them  by  waving  her  arms  out  of  the  window  and 
cursing;  but  in  time  they  got  used  to  that,  and  ignored 
her  and  still  went  in  and  out  as  they  chose.  However, 
someone  had  left  a  salmon-rod  in  her  wardrobe.  So  she 
plugged  up  the  hole  in  the  glass  downstairs,  and  went  back 
to  her  room.  There  she  waited  till  a  queue  of  frustrated 
cats  had  formed  on  the  sill  underneath  her,  then  leaned 
right  out  and  swept  them  all  off  with  the  rod  (two  tabbies, 


314  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

three  tortoiseshells,  one  semi-demi-Persian,  and  the  old 
red  torn  with  one  ear). 

After  that,  as  the  cats  grew  warier  she  too  grew  warier: 
she  developed  her  sport  to  an  art.  As  for  Flemton,  Dr. 
Brinley  was  right:  at  the  spectacle  of  an  old  lady  fishing 
for  cats  all  day  with  a  salmon-rod  from  a  second-floor 
window  not  even  the  children  looked  twice. 

To  get  back  to  the  railhead  at  Penrys  Cross  Mrs.  Winter 
had  travelled  by  carrier's-cart  on  top  of  the  Alderman's 
prawns;  and  His  Worship  the  driver  was  Tom,  the  present 
High  Steward  himself.  From  a  lifetime  of  lifting  weights, 
Tom's  bull-neck  and  shoulders  were  prodigious:  he  was 
solider  far  than  his  horse.  His  manner  was  always  laconic: 
he  drank  like  a  fish:  his  schooling  had  been  kept  to  a 
minimum:  but  Tom  was  no  fool.  Tom's  brother  George 
owned  the  'Wreckers',  Hugh  fattened  store  cattle  on  the 
Marsh  and  together  these  three  were  the  power  in  Flem- 
ton, with  the  'Worshipful  Court'  and  all  that  in  their 
pockets  (there  was  a  fourth  brother  too  but  he  didn't 
count.  Aneurin  was  a  coasting-smack  skipper  whose  ships 
always  sank  and  who  now  had  set  up  as  a  dentist — or  so 
his  brass  plate  described  him,  but  no  one  had  ventured 
inside). 

Jogging  along  the  lanes  Tom  had  given  Mrs.  Winter 
some  news  which  surprised  her:  Newton  was  going  to  be 
sold!  Oh  yes,  Tom  was  sure  of  it:  the  young  squire  had 
decided  to  sell  (Tom  glanced  at  her  sideways)  and  any 
day  now  the  bills  would  be  out  for  the  auction.  .  .  though 
some  said  the  place  had  been  sold  already — a  war- 
profiteer  it  was  who  had  bought  it,  one  who  Lloyd  George 
had  turned  into  a  Lord.  After  all,  why  wouldn't  he  sell? 
Nice  welcome  he'd  get  if  he  ever  come  back  here  (Tom 
glanced  at  her  sideways  again).  "But  some  say  it's  entailed 
and  mustn't  be  sold." 

When  Tom  wanted  to  find  something  out  he  never 
asked  questions:  he  formed  working  hypotheses,  announced 


THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC  315 

them  like  this  and  observed  the  effect.  But  although  Mrs. 
Winter  hadn't  known  this  and  was  taken  by  surprise, 
Tom's  'method'  had  at  last  met  its  match  in  her  habitual 
discretion:  she  listened  politely  but  gave  him  no  shadow 
of  lead.  Tom  lashed  at  his  willowy  dawdling  horse  and 
lapsed  into  silence.  The  point  was  that  just  now  Tom  was 
thinking  of  buying  a  bus  and  this  made  it  vital  to  know 
whether  Newton  was  going  to  be  sold,  for  when  an  estate 
like  Newton  comes  under  the  hammer  there  are  pickings 
which  mustn't  be  missed.  If  Newton  was  up  for  sale,  then 
the  brothers  would  need  all  the  cash  they  could  raise  and 
the  bus  would  be  better  postponed. 

"After  all,''  he  resumed,  "now  Young  Squire  has  turned 
Roman  Catholic  and  settled  in  Rome.  .  .  bought  a  very 
fine  house  there  they  tell  me,  next  door  to  the  Pope.  .  ." 


T.S.,'  wrote  old  Mrs.  Hopkins,  'and  better  send  pellets.' 
'Proper  mad-house  indeed!'  thought  Mrs.  Winter  again 
as  she  buttered  her  toast. 


Chapter  23 

at  Nine,  Mellton's  day  really  began:  for  at  Nine  the 
XxMaster  came  down. 

Gilbert's  post  was  a  large  one,  but  today  he  gobbled  his 
breakfast  and  left  his  letters  to  read  in  the  train.  He  had 
to  get  up  to  Town  in  a  hurry.  The  election  was  over  last 
Thursday,  but  no  one  knew  yet  who  had  won:  the  cards 
had  been  dealt  but  the  hands  had  still  to  be  played. 

Baldwin  had  gone  to  the  country  on  'Protection': 
Liberals  and  Labour  alike  had  stuck  to  Free  Trade. 
Clearly  the  country  rejected  Protection  since  less  than  five 
and  a  half  millions  had  voted  for  it  while  more  than  eight 
and  a  half  voted  against;  but  there  all  clarity  ended,  for 
the  'defeated'  Protectionists  were  still  the  largest  party  in 
a  House  where  no  single  party  had  a  majority  (and  where 
Labour  had  now  somehow  got  thirty-three  more  seats  than 
the  Liberals  had).  Suppose,  then,  that  when  Parliament 
met  in  January  the  Tories  were  forced  to  resign,  who 
ought  to  succeed  them?  The  party  second  in  strength,  the 
Socialists?  But  if  eight  and  a  half  million  votes  had  rejected 
Protection,  nine  and  a  half  must  be  reckoned  as  anti- 
Socialist  votes!  Only  the  Liberals  opposed  both  policies  the 
country  rejected:  thus  in  a  true  sense  only  the  Liberals 
represented  the  popular  will.  The  Liberals  themselves 
then?  No  doubt  some  Tories  would  have  supported  them 
to  keep  the  Socialists  out:  all  the  same,  since  the  popular 
will  had  made  them  the  smallest  group  in  the  House.  .  . 

(Mary's  post  was  more  moderate  in  size  than  Gilbert's, 
but  the  German  stamp  was  on  top  and  she  wanted  to  read 
Augustine's  letter  at  leisure:  she  would  wait  till  Gilbert 
was  gone.) 

.  .  .  The  practical  answer  of  course  was  simple  in  prin- 
ciple. Since  a  Liberal  administration  was  really  out  of  the 

316 


THE   FOX   IN   THE  ATTIC  317 

question  and  the  very  word  'Coalition'  these  days  was 
something  which  stank,  either  the  Protectionists  must  stay 
in  office  but  at  the  price  of  forswearing  Protection,  or  the 
Socialists  must  forswear  Socialism  and  step  into  their  shoes. 
In  either  case  Centrist  policies  would  have  to  be  carried 
out— by  n'importe  qui,  provided  it  wasn't  the  Centrists. 
So  the  Liberals  though  the  smallest  were  today  the  most 
powerful  group  in  the  House,  having  absolute  power  to 
decide  who  should  govern  (provided  that  wasn't  them- 
selves), and  how  they  should  govern,  and  for  how  long.  .  . 

(Without  opening  the  envelope  Mary  pinched  it  with 
her  fingers:  it  was  certainly  bulky.) 

. .  .  Well  then,  which  should  it  be?  Should  the  two  elder 
parties  combine  to  'save  the  country  from  Socialism',  or 
shall  we  let  Labour  in  on  Liberal  leading-strings?  "In  such 
a  dilemma,"  said  Gilbert,  "Ethics  must  guide  us  not 
Interest.  I  abhor  Socialism — at  the  very  thought  of  a 
Socialist  government  my  being  revolts.  But  I  see  this  as 
just  a  plain  question  of  right  and  wrong,  Mary:  whatever 
the  pretext  it  would  be  morally  indefensible  to  cheat 
Labour  of  the  prize  their  electoral  victories  have  earned 
them." 

For  a  moment  Mary  looked  puzzled.  After  all,  which- 
ever party  was  forced  into  office  on  such  miserable  condi- 
tions must  cut  a  pretty  poor  figure  there:  at  the  next 
election  they'd  be  bound  to  be  out  for  the  count.  .  .  In 
other  words,  which  did  the  Liberals  hate  most?  "  'Elec- 
toral victories'?"  she  queried:  "Oh,  I  see  what  you  mean: 
put  them  in  because  they  re  the  ones  who've  been  pinching 
rightful  Liberal  votes!" 

But  Gilbert  was  gone.  Now  his  mind  was  made  up  he 
was  off  to  London  post-haste. 

* 

.  .  .  For  several  days  the  police  were  in  and  out  all  the 
time  [Augustine  had  written],  comic  little  chaps  in  green 
looking  more  like  gamekeepers — no  helmets  even!  Some- 
thing about  a  body  being  found  somewhere  Irma  told  me 


3i8  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

(she  is  one  of  the  children).  Irma  said  he  hanged  himself 
in  the  attic  but  she  must  have  made  that  up  the  little  ghoul 
for  how  could  a  stranger  have  got  in  and  got  up  there? 

(Mary  wondered  if  Mr.  Asquith  would  listen  to  Gilbert: 
he'd  better,  this  was  jolly  ingenious!) 

.  .  .  But  if  it  had  just  been  a  tramp  died  of  cold  in  a  barn 
or  something  why  the  police  buzzing  around  all  that 
much?  Then  a  very  decent-looking  old  boy  turned  up 
who  Trudi  said  was  the  father  [Trudi  is  the  eldest  he  had 
written  in  afterwards]  and  this  is  interesting,  he  had  a  young 
chap  with  him  I  more  or  less  knew,  he  changed  some 
money  for  me  at  that  hotel  I  spent  my  first  night  in 
Munich  at!  It  must  have  been  the  funeral  they  came  for 
but  it  was  all  kept  mighty  quiet.  .  . 

(Jeremy  had  once  defined  'political  instinct'  as  "letting 
one's  transparent  nobility  of  character  compel  one  to 
some  highly  profitable  course  of  action".) 

.  .  .  and  Walther  and  Franz  both  said  nothing  to  me  with 
such  emphasis  it  obviously  wouldn't  have  done  to  ask 
questions. 

(Jeremy's  an  absolute  pig!) 

The  kids  are  a  lot  of  fun  now  though  they  were  a  bit 
sticky  at  first,  I  suppose  my  being  foreign  and  I  don't 
think  anyhow  they  are  used  to  a  grown-up  spending 
most  of  his  time  with  them,  in  their  world,  in  fact  treat- 
ing them  as  fellow-humans  with  equal  rights.  .  . 

With  the  tail  of  her  eye,  through  the  window  Mary 
caught  sight  of  a  groom  walking  her  horse  up  and  down 
(Heavens,  she  was  supposed  to  be  riding  up  to  the  Hermi- 
tage this  morning!).  She  had  better  stop  now  and  get 
changed.  She  would  take  the  letter  upstairs  and  read  some 
more  while  she  dressed.  But  she  mustn't  be  long  or  the  horse 
would  get  cold  (and  Nellie  might  want  to  go  out). 

The  other  day,  Trudi  and  Irma.  .  . 


Chapter  24 

Nellie  had  been  at  the  Hermitage  for  more  than  a 
month  by  now,  and  somehow — with  Mrs.  Wadamy's 
help,  and  Maggie's — a  whole  new  rhythm  of  living  for 
Nellie  had  bit  by  bit  grown  up. 

Milk  had  seemed  an  insuperable  difficulty  at  first,  since 
there  were  no  farms  in  the  chase.  But  Mrs.  Wadamy  had 
evolved  an  ingenious  plan  whereby  a  farm-lad  on  his  way 
home  from  work  every  evening  left  it  in  a  hollow  oak  only 
half  a  mile  from  the  house:  from  there  Nellie  lantern  in 
hand  fetched  it  as  early  as  she  could  fit  in  the  time  (though 
sometimes  this  wasn't  till  near  midnight,  after  the  baby's 
last  feed) .  As  for  the  water,  each  bucket  took  seven  minutes 
to  draw  (it  was  lucky  that  Nellie  for  all  her  book-learning 
was  strong  as  a  horse).  There  was  one  advantage  in  well- 
water,  though:  there  were  no  pipes  to  freeze,  now  that 
even  in  England  it  had  turned  really  cold  (especially  up 
here  in  the  chase). 

In  short,  things  weren't  easy  for  Nellie.  Some  people 
find  even  a  baby  a  whole-time  job,  while  Nellie  had  the 
constant  care  of  an  invalid  as  well  and  on  top  of  all  that 
the  shopping.  In  the  past,  Nellie's  housekeeping  had  been 
of  the  town  kind  which  includes  constant  poppings  round 
the  corner  for  little  things  forgotten,  the  matching  of  rival 
shop-windows  for  bargains — a  penny  off  this  or  that  at 
So-and-so's  this  week.  But  Mellton  village  had  only  one 
shop-of-all-sorts,  and  here  the  prices  were  uniformly  higher 
than  town  prices:  all  the  pennies  were  on,  not  off. 

Mrs.  Wadamy  rode  her  horse  over  three  times  a  week 
to  see  all  was  well  and  generally  she  brought  something 
in  her  saddle-bags,  but  these  little  presents  were  'extras' — 
calves' -foot  jelly  and  the  like:  the  shopping  still  had  to  be 
done.  Maggie  had  lent  her  sister  her  bicycle,  and  this  was 

319 


320  THE    FOX    IN    THE   ATTIC 

.in  enormous  help;  but  even  then  Mellton,  nearly  five 
miles  away,  was  a  major  expedition  to  be  made  as  seldom 
as  possible  and  loads  were  heavy  in  consequence.  Wheeling 
the  old  machine  all  hung  round  with  stores  (and  with  its 
tattered  dress-guard  of  lacing  that  kept  catching  in  the 
spokes  till  Nellie  took  it  right  off)  it  was  a  long  pull  up  the 
hill  to  the  chase  gates;  and  Nellie  was  always  in  a  hurry 
to  get  home,  for  she  was  acutely  anxious  every  minute  she 
had  to  leave  Gwilym  in  his  bed  alone.  Already  the  disease 
had  begun  to  attack  his  spine  and  he  had  bad  bouts  of 
pain. 

Whenever  Nellie  went  out,  Gwilym  insisted  on  having 
the  baby's  Moses-basket  put  in  his  shed  with  him  where 
he  could  look  after  the  little  fellow  and  talk  to  him. 
Gwilym  couldn't  get  out  of  bed  unaided  so  there  was 
nothing  he  could  do  about  it  if  the  baby  did  cry:  this 
distressed  Gwilym,  so  Nellie  made  plentiful  use  of  a 
soothing-syrup  if  ever  she  had  to  go  out.  Thus,  mostly  they 
enjoyed  undisturbed  their  long  conversations  together,  the 
father  and  his  sleeping  poppied  son:  conversations  adapted 
to  whatever  age  the  son  was  supposed  to  have  reached  that 
morning. 

"That's  it,  Syl:  hold  onto  my  finger.  .  ."  (for  today  he 
was  teaching  little  Syl  to  walk).  Another  day  he  would  be 
sitting  by  a  four-year-old's  cot  at  bedtime,  telling  him 
Bible-stories — the  infant  Jesus,  and  Joseph  with  his  many- 
coloured  coat.  "Well,  what  did  they  teach  you  today, 
Syl?" — for  now  a  bright-cheeked  boy  had  just  run  in  from 
school.  His  father  heard  him  his  three-times,  and  (a  few 
years  later)  helped  with  his  prep.  .  .  while  the  baby  lay 
all  the  while  in  his  basket  and  bubbled. 

"Syl!  What's  that  one  called,  Syl?"  For  sometimes  they 
went  for  long  walks  in  the  woods  together,  that  father  and 
his  growing  son,  and  Gwilym  taught  him  the  names  of  the 
birds  and  Syl  showed  him  the  nests  he  had  found.  Then 
they  talked  about  God,  who  created  all  those  beautiful 
birds  and  painted  their  eggs;  and  the  baby  still  bubbled. 


THE   FOX   IN  THE   ATTIC  321 

When  Sylvanus  entered  his  teens  his  Dad  insisted  on 
serious  practical  talks  about  all  possible  sorts  of  jobs, 
though  knowing  full  well  the  one  thing  Sylvanus  wanted 
was  to  be  a  preacher  like  Dad  (but  every  call  to  the 
ministry  has  to  be  tested  like  this).  Whereon  the  baby 
woke  up  and  crowed,  and  opened  a  mouth  toothless  as  a 
tortoise's  in  a  wide  smile,  dribbling  and  showing  his 
gums. 

But  always,  whatever  the  boy's  age  at  that  moment, 
Gwilym  talked  to  him  endlessly  about  that  little  angel  who 
sat  at  a  window  in  Heaven  and  watched  him  whatever  he 
did,  the  guardian-sister  whose  love  he  must  learn  to 
deserve:  "Syl,  if  ever  you're  tempted  to  think  about  girls 
with.  .  .  in  a  way  you  know  to  be  wrong,  just  say  to  your- 
self five  words:  'My  angel-sister  was  one'." 

All  this  made  Gwilym  blissfully  happy,  and  he  often 
thought  how  lucky  he  was.  Nowadays  it  never  struck 
him  as  in  any  way  sad  that  the  boy's  whole  upbringing 
had  to  be  condensed  like  this  into  a  few  months  at 
most. 

On  fine  afternoons — at  least  on  the  days  when  Gwilym's 
back  was  a  little  less  bad — Nellie  used  to  take  both  of  them 
out  for  their  'walk'  together.  She  half-lifted  Gwilym  from 
his  bed  into  an  old  wicker  Bath  chair  Mary  had  lent  them, 
and  tucked  him  up  well  with  blankets  topped  with  an  old 
horse-rug  from  the  Mellton  stables.  Then  she  set  the  baby 
on  Gwilym's  knee,  and  trundled  them  a  few  hundred 
yards  over  the  frozen  turf  to  the  edge  of  the  escarpment 
where  the  whole  deep  river-valley  lay  spread  beneath 
them,  and  there  they  rested  awhile.  It  was  a  perilous 
journey,  for  the  topheavy  Bath  chair  was  not  intended  for 
such  rough  going;  but  the  view  at  the  end  was  well  worth 
it  at  least  so  far  as  Gwilym  himself  was  concerned.  Far 
beneath  them  the  river  curled:  in  the  distance  the  downs 
rolled  and  rolled:  on  clear  days  you  could  even  see  Salis- 
bury spire.  For  now  he  was  ill  Gwilym  found  an  infinite 
pleasure  in  this  beautiful  terrestrial  world:  no  longer  was 


322  THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

it  the  arid  'vale  of  woe'  he  had  once  decried  from  the 
pulpit,  and  he  took  to  writing  poems. 

An  idyllic  life  while  it  lasted:  till  Gwilym's  accident, 
that  later  was  to  leave  such  a  load  of  guilt  on  the  wife  and 
child,  occurred. 


Chapter  23 

The  horse  Mary  was  riding  was  an  old  cob  steady  as  a 
billiard-table  (and  much  the  same  shape),  for  Mary 
was  now  two  months  gone  with  child  and  her  doctor  did 
not  really  approve  of  her  riding  at  all.  But  surely  sitting 
on  Cherry  hardly  counted  as  'riding'!  Cherry  was  more 
stable  than  the  hills;  for  according  to  the  psalmist  the  hills 
can  skip — but  certainly  Cherry  couldn't.  The  doctor 
moreover  had  prescribed  a  daily  walk,  so  for  part  of  the 
way  Mary  got  off  and  led  him.  This  gave  her  an  oppor- 
tunity too  for  another  mouthful  or  so  of  Augustine's  letter: 

...  I  must  say,  they  have  got  plenty  of  guts.  .  . 

(Who?  Oh,  those  everlasting  Kessen  children  of  course!) 

.  .  .  especially  the  twins.  You  remember  that  horse-sleigh 
I  told  you  we  went  out  in  that  day?  Yesterday  the  horse 
bolted  with  it  (empty)  and  little  Heinz  fell  down  right  in 
its  light.  He  just  lay  still,  though,  and  one  of  the  runners 
went  right  over  him  and  I  thought  he  would  be  cut  in 
half  but  he  was  sunk  right  into  the  snow  and  the  empty 
sleigh  was  so  light  it  went  right  over  him  without  the 
runner  even  touching  him.  What  saved  him  of  course  was 
because  he  had  had  the  nerve  to  lie  still.  But  the  others 
just  hooted  with  laughter  and  he  was  laughing  too  when 
he  got  up,  while  the  horse  charged  on  down  the  hill  like  a 
dog  with  a  tin  can  on  its  tail — you  ought  to  have  seen  it! 
The  sleigh  swinging  from  side  to  side  and  banging  on  the 
trees  till  it  smashed  to  matchwood.  End  of  sleigh!  Trudi 
(she's  the  eldest)  laughed  and  laughed  till  it  gave  her  a 
pain. 

Tomorrow  though  I'm  off  to  Munich.  Frankly,  I  have 
been  here  exactly  three  weeks  now.  .  . 

Mary  turned  back  to  look  at  the  date:  yes,  this  had  been 
a  long  time  in  the  post.  .  . 

323 


324  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

exactly  three  weeks  now  and  it  is  high  time  I  saw  some- 
thing of  the  real,  new  Germany  for  a  change.  Lucky  I 
don't  just  judge  present-day  Germany  by  this  place  or  I'd 
come  home  knowing  no  more  than  I  set  out.  Actually  of 
course  all  this  is  right  out  of  the  picture,  the  whole  set-up 
here  is  just  a  left-over  from  the  past.  They  are  even  R.C.'s 
still,  here!  Judging  just  by  here  you  would  hardly  guess  the 
new  Germany  with  its  broad-minded  peace-loving  spirit 
and  its  advanced  ideas  and  its  Art  existed  even,  but  I  met 
an  awfully  nice  chap  that  day  we  went  for  the  sleigh-ride 
and  he  has  invited  me.  .  . 

Even  that  wasn't  nearly  the  end,  but  Mary  pushed  the 
sheets  back  in  her  pocket  and  remounted.  An  odd  sort  of 
letter  from  someone  of  twenty-three  and  intelligent!  That 
last  paragraph — really!  Indeed  the  whole  tone  of  the  letter 
was  childish.  Like  a  kind  of  regression.  What  an  unex- 
pected effect  for  travel  to  have  on  Augustine!  It  worried 
her  rather.  She  knew  he  had  taken  his  guns,  but  no  men- 
tion of  shooting.  .  .  in  fact,  Augustine  seemed  to  like 
messing  around  with  small  children  better  than  being  with 
his  natural  companion  Franz — let  alone  with  Walther  or 
Otto.  Trust  Augustine  to  be  adored  by  the  children 
wherever  he  went — but  not,  not  to  waste  his  whole  time 
with  them  this  way:  he  didn't  do  that  even  with  Polly, 
and  she  was  his  niece.  .  . 

Trudi  the  'eldest',  he  had  said?  Trudi  hadn't  been  born 
.  .  .  Funny  none  of  his  letters  had  mentioned  once  that 
eldest  girl  Mary  remembered.  Little  Mitzi'd  be  now.  .  . 
what,  seventeen?  'I  suppose,'  thought  Mary,  'she  must  be 
away  at  school.' 


In  the  far  distance  a  few  small  patches  of  snow  on  the 
hilltops  seemed  to  float  in  the  haze,  each  with  its  own 
dollop  of  white  mist  like  wool  clinging  close  to  it.  Other- 
wise the  day  was  a  grey  sort  of  day:  dead  still,  with  a  faint 
haze  the  sun  just  showed  through  like  a  small,  watery- 


THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC  325 

yellow  pea.  The  light  was  indefinite:  a  dim,  ominous, 
over-all  glare  that  was  shadowless. 

Slowly  Cherry  plodded  his  uphill  way  on  a  long  rein, 
gently  rocking  under  Mary  like  a  ship.  Fleetingly  for  no 
reason  she  found  herself  recalling  her  father  who  had 
died  when  she  was  a  child.  .  .  tweeds  like  nutmeg-graters 
for  bare  skin  to  sit  on,  and  his  long  moustache  that  smelt 
of  tobacco  and  tickled.  .  .  But  suddenly  Cherry  blew  a 
deep  organ-note  through  his  nostrils — tremolo,  so  that 
with  its  vasty  vibration  Mary's  legs  quivered  like  jellies 
and  the  whole  landscape  shook. 

When  it  settled  again,  lo — there  were  the  chase  gates 
in  sight  now,  and  Nellie  running  towards  her  half  tripping 
over  the  ruts  in  the  turf  that  the  workmen's  cart  had  made 
weeks  ago.  Nellie  was  panting  and  her  eyes  starting  out  of 
her  head:  would  Mrs.  Wadamy  please  go  at  once  for  the 
doctor?  Something  about  Gwilym  being  worse,  and  a 
frightful  accident  yesterday:  it  was  all  Nellie's  own  fault, 
she  would  never  forgive  herself.  .  . 

In  later  years  Gwilym's  'accident'  came  to  loom  so 
large  we  had  better  be  quite  clear  what  did  happen,  that 
frosty  day  on  the  downs. 

Yesterday  the  baby  had  had  a  stomach-upset  and  so 
couldn't  go  out.  But  the  weather  yesterday  had  been 
wonderful,  so  rather  than  do  Gwilym  out  of  his  walk 
Nellie  had  wheeled  him  to  his  usual  viewpoint  and  left  him 
there  by  himself  while  she  dashed  back  to  see  to  the  baby. 
She  meant  just  to  give  Sylvanus  his  peppermint-water  and 
come  straight  back  to  Gwilym  again;  but  the  little  wretch 
wouldn't  stop  crying,  so  she  stopped  with  him. 

Gwilym  must  have  dozed  off,  for  the  heavy  horse- 
blanket  slipped  from  his  knees  and  he  woke  feeling  cold. 
In  trying  to  retrieve  it  he  overbalanced  the  chair  and  was 
spilled  out  on  the  ground.  There  he  lay,  too  weak  to  get 
up.  by  himself.  Nor  could  he  even  shout:  his  cauterised 
throat  could  only  whisper  "Help!".  He  was  blue  with  cold 


3a6  THE   FOX    IN    THE   ATTIC 

and  nearly  unconscious  when  at  last  the  terrified  Nellie  got 
back  to  him.  Strong  as  Nellie  was  she  had  a  terrible 
struggle  to  get  him  back  up  into  his  chair  off  the  ground. 

That  evening  Gwilym's  temperature  had  soared  to  new 
heights,  but  Nellie  dared  not  leave  him  to  go  for  the 
doctor.  How  could  she?  She  had  to  wait  for  the  morning 
and  hope  that  Mary  would  come. 

When  Mary  did  bring  the  doctor  at  last  he  looked  grave: 
a  touch  of  pneumonia,  he  said.  The  patient  might  live 
through  the  attack  but  it  would  certainly  leave  him 
weaker. 

In  Nellie's  mind  as  the  years  passed  it  became  more  and 
more  that  accident  which  had  tipped  the  scales:  without 
it  the  sick  man  might  have — must  have  recovered.  Little 
Sylvanus  was  a  murderer  before  he  was  born,  twice  a 
murderer  ere  he  was  weaned. 


Chapter  26 

Far  more  lay  behind  Augustine's  disgruntlement  with 
Lorienburg  and  his  exeat  to  Munich  than  he  chose  to 
tell  Mary.  At  the  time  of  writing  he  had  been  in  love  for 
a  whole  three  weeks  yet  his  progress  was  nil.  True,  Mitzi 
appeared  at  meals  now,  but  she  seemed  more  distraite  than 
ever  and  vanished  as  soon  as  she  could.  The  only  person 
she  seemed  to  respond  to  ever  was  Otto.  In  short,  Augus- 
tine could  sometimes  feast  his  eyes  on  her  now  (and  he 
certainly  made  the  most  of  it);  but  he  never  again  got  a 
chance  like  the  one  he  had  missed  in  the  chapel  of  talking 
to  her,  he  never  once  saw  her  alone. 

Somehow  it  never  entered  Augustine's  head  to  offer  to 
take  Mitzi  for  a  walk.  But  once,  greatly  daring,  he  did 
summon  up  courage  to  offer  to  read  to  her:  "Schiller  or 
something."  Mitzi  thanked  him  warmly,  which  made  his 
heart  hop  like  a  bird:  but  instead  of  taking  him  to  the 
empty  library  she  led  the  way  to  the  drawing-room,  and 
thus  the  reading  took  place  with  her  mother  there  and  her 
two  younger  sisters  as  well  (for  the  children  shadowed 
Augustine  now  like  dogs  everywhere,  and  they  wanted  to 
make  him  come  out  and  play  in  the  snow) .  The  two  little 
girls  were  palpably  bored  by  Schiller  and  longing  to  carry 
him  off  for  themselves:  Adele  jumped  like  the  toothache  at 
every  mispronounced  word:  Mitzi  showed  no  reaction 
whatever  till  he  paused,  when  she  thanked  him  again  and 
slipped  away  to  her  room.  The  reading  was  not  a  success, 
and  was  never  repeated.  How  he  cursed  the  German 
language!  For  in  English  he  knew  he  read  rather  well. 

To  forget  his  woes  he  did  indeed  make  use  of  the 
children:  he  spent  whole  days  with  them,  for  entering  into 
their  minds  at  least  took  him  out  of  his  own.  But  this 
'regression'  of  Augustine's  was  not  always  wholly  successful 

327 


328  THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

cither:  far  too  often  lie  would  lead  the  twins  into  some 
shocking  piece  of  mischief  and  then  at  the  crucial  moment 
his  mind  would  revert  to  Mitzi,  so  that  by  sheer  inatten- 
tion to  business  he  landed  them  all  in  a  mess.  Walther 
couldn't  understand  Augustine's  behaviour  at  all:  he 
seemed  "totally  lacking  in  seriousness:  quite  irresponsible!" 
As  for  Franz,  overbuoyant  now  with  the  weight  of  the 
world  off  his  shoulders  at  last,  he  was  longing  to  be  off 
to  the  mountains  skiing:  with  his  guest  for  excuse  he  might 
have  wangled  it  if  only  Augustine  had  shown  the  least 
interest.  .  .  Franz  found  him  rather  a  bore. 

The  sensible  part  of  Augustine  knew  well  that  the  sen- 
sible course  was  to  go  away,  at  least  for  a  while.  His  hosts 
would  have  welcomed  it:  indeed  at  the  time  of  Wolff's 
funeral  (it  had  been  touch-and-go,  that  police  inquisition: 
it  had  called  for  endless  pulling  of  strings)  they  had  almost 
openly  wished  he  would  take  himself  elsewhere  at  least  till 
that  business  was  over.  Yet  it  wasn't  till  a  fortnight  after 
the  funeral  that  Augustine  remembered  Dr.  Reinhold's 
offer  to  show  him  Munich:  a  proposal  which  his  hosts, 
when  he  finally  broached  it,  effusively  approved.  So  at 
last  he  wrote  to  Dr.  Reinhold,  and  at  last  his  going  was 
fixed. 


Dr.  Reinhold  had  a  large  flat  on  the  Odeonsplatz  close 
to  the  Theatinerkirche  (he  would  have  had  a  wonderful 
view  of  the  end  of  the  Putsch  if  he  hadn't  left  Munich  so 
soon).  A  bachelor  and  a  bit  of  a  sybarite,  with  a  married 
couple  for  butler  and  cook,  his  place  was  impeccably  run; 
yet  he  seemed  to  be  hardly  ever  in  it  himself,  so  Augustine 
found.  Dr.  Reinhold  went  to  his  office  at  nine,  and  there- 
after his  guest  was  left  to  his  own  devices:  'showing  him 
Munich',  it  seemed,  consisted  chiefly  in  planning  sight- 
seeing tours  which  the  guest  carried  out  on  his  own. 

Moreover,  departure  to  Munich  did  nothing  (Augustine 
discovered)  to  empty  his  mind  of  Mitzi.  Indeed  she  kept 


THE   FOX   IN   THE  ATTIC  329 

cropping  up  in  the  unlikeliest  contexts:  in  the  Dom,  for 
instance,  while  they  were  showing  him  the  Devil's  Foot- 
mark he  spun  round  on  his  heel  for  he  felt  her  right  at  his 
shoulder.  Certainly  'selling  Newton'  was  an  idea  which 
never  entered  his  head:  he  was  far  too  busy  just  now 
envisaging  Mitzi  as  its  mistress  and  major  adornment  for 
that:  Mitzi  under  his  guidance  learning  to  find  her  way 
all  over  the  house:  Mitzi  learning  the  feel  of  the  furniture 
with  his  fingers  covering  hers:  Mitzi  learning  the  changing 
seasonal  smells  of  an  English  garden,  the  songs  of  the  birds, 
the  voices  of  all  his  friends.  .  .  he.  would  get  that  old  harp 
in  the  small  south  drawing-room  restrung  for  her  (blind 
harpists  are  always  the  best). 

Augustine  was  sent,  of  course,  round  the  corner  to  the 
Konigsplatz  where  the  galleries  were.  There  were  wonder- 
ful things  in  them:  acres  of  pictures,  famous  pieces  of 
Greek  and  Egyptian  sculpture  already  familiar  in  photo- 
graphs; but  the  galleries  themselves  were  vast,  altogether 
dwarfing  their  contents.  Thirty  or  forty  minutes  of  looking 
at  masterpieces  Augustine  intensely  enjoyed;  but,  because 
of  this  very  intensity,  he  couldn't  stand  longer.  At  the  end 
of  that  time  he  felt  a  pain  in  the  back  of  his  head:  he 
suddenly  felt  what  a  waste  of  time  everything  was  without 
Mitzi:  he  suddenly  felt  a  passionate  longing  for  beer. 

Hurrying  out  of  the  Glyptothek  thus,  with  his  eyes  un- 
focused to  give  them  a  rest,  he  barked  his  nose  on  the  door. 


Chapter  27 

The  churches  here  Augustine  was  sent  to  admire,  how- 
ever, really  shocked  him;  for  they  all,  excepting  the 
Dom  (late  Gothic)  were  baroque  or  even  rococo.  This 
confirmed  what  he  had  already  felt  at  Lorienburg:  people 
who  found  such  things  beautiful  must  be  essentially  un- 
serious  people:  their  religion  (and  so,  Mitzi's)  must  be  only 
skin-deep:  their  culture,  a  froth  and  a  sham.  Was  it  con- 
ceivable that  the  sensitively  cultured  Dr.  Reinhold  with 
real  Art  in  his  blood  sincerely  admired  these  sugared  mon- 
strosities, or  had  he  his  tongue  in  his  cheek?  The  'Asam- 
Kirche',  for  instance:  where  here  was  the  classic  austerity 
(hall-mark  of  all  true  art),  the  truth  to  nature?  The  bare- 
ness of  line,  the  restraint? 

"Baroque  isn't  even  non-Art,  it's  anti-Art,"  he  tried  to 
argue  with  Reinhold,  but  failed.  "This  must  just  be  a 
blind  spot  in  old  Reinhold,"  he  was  forced  to  decide 
(to  Reinhold  of  course  the  blindness  was  all  in  Augus- 
tine). 

This  argument  happened  one  Sunday  morning.  Outside 
in  the  Square  where  a  few  weeks  back  the  police  had  fired 
on  the  Nazis  a  band  had  struck  up  with  selections  from 
Strauss,  and  the  two  men  moved  to  the  window  to  look. 
In  the  sharp  winter  air  the  notes  of  the  band  swirled  up 
to  the  sky  while  coveys  of  pigeons  swirled  down  to  the 
ground,  and  Reinhold  pointed  out  the  kerchiefed  little  old 
women  assembled  to  feed  them:  the  famous  'Taubern- 
mutterl',  the  'little  dove-mothers'  of  Munich.  The  small 
dog  with  the  plaid  waistcoat  was  back  there  again — brisk, 
intent,  and  important:  his  elderly  dandyfied  master  fol- 
lowed behind  on  a  lead.  The  whole  scene  touched  a  chord 
in  Augustine  and  he  sighed,  windily,  wishing  that  Mitzi 
was  here.  .  . 

330 


THE  FOX   IN  THE  ATTIC  331 

But  Sunday  was  Reinhold's  holiday,  so  presently  he  sug- 
gested a  visit  to  Schwabing  together:  "  'The  Quartier- 
Latin  of  Munich'  they  call  it,"  he  explained  (with  an 
almost  invisible  moue).  "Anyway,  it's  the  home  of  all  the 
Munich  poets  and  painters  who  count."  Augustine  pricked 
up  his  ears:  this  surely  was  what  he  had  come  for  even 
more  than  the  galleries.  "Genius!"  Reinhold  continued, 
observing  his  mood:  "Genius  in  studios,  genius  in  gar- 
rets, genius  in  basements — back-bedrooms — mezzanines: 
Nordic  and  Latin,  Gentile  and  Jew:  genius  spilling  out  on 
the  pavements. . ."  He  sighed.  "So  we'd  better  take  plenty 
of  money  to  pay  for  their  beer." 

"  'Schwabing'  you  call  it?  Is  it  far?" 

"Right  here  on  our  doorstep,"  said  Reinhold.  "In  fact, 
here  we  are  now,"  he  presently  added  as  they  passed  by 
the  Siegestor.  "We're  arrived  at  our  'Chelsea'." 

'Odd,'  thought  Augustine.  'I've  walked  round  here 
dozens  of  times  without  guessing:  it's  more  like  the  Crom- 
well Road.' 

For  a  while  they  moved  in  a  great  half-circle  sampling 
bars  and  cafes  ('For  sheer  joie  de  vivre',  thought  Augus- 
tine, 'they're  much  like  South  Kensington  private  hotels.') 
on  the  look-out  for  celebrities.  But  in  all  those  places  they 
found  only  one  such,  and  this  was  that  selfsame  emanci- 
pated young  woman  from  the  party  at  Rottningen.  At  the 
sight  of  her  Augustine  flushed  blackly  and  stopped  in  his 
tracks  on  the  threshold;  but  Dr.  Reinhold  bowed  with 
empressement,  whereon  she  waved  a  long  cigarette-holder 
and  smiled  invitingly.  Augustine  tugged  at  Reinhold's 
sleeve  and  said  "No!" 

"No?  Too  small  game  for  you?"  Augustine  left  it  at  that 
and  they  beat  a  retreat.  "Come,  these  places  are  no  good: 
I'll  take  you  to  Katty's."  So  they  turned  down  the  Turken- 
strasse,  and  halted  outside  a  little  boite  where  the  sign  was 
a  red  bulldog  baring  his  teeth.  "  'Simplicissimus',"  said 
Reinhold.  "With  luck  we'll  find  old  T.  T.  Heine  here,  and 
Gulbranson." 


332  THE    FOX    IN   THE    ATTIC 

"Who  are  they?"  asked  Augustine. 

"Look!"  said  Reinhold,  nettled:  "What  living  artists 
have  you  heard  of?"  He  paused  on  the  doorstep. 

"John,"  said  Augustine.  He  hesitated  for  more  names, 
then  added:  "Sargent's  no  good  of  course;  but  there's  Eric 
Kennington,  I've  bought  one  of  his." 

"But  apart  from  Englishmen?" 

"Foreign  artists?  Mind  you,  I  genuinely  liked  some  of 
the  settings  for  the  Russian  Ballet,"  he  admitted. 

"Derain  and  Picasso  you  mean?  'The  Three-Cornered 
Hat'?  But  have  you  seen  any  of  their  real  work — or 
Matisse?  Van  Gogh?  Cezanne?" 

"N-n-no.  .  .  but  do  I  really  want  to?  Isn't  that  lot  all 
a  bit.  .  .?" 

Reinhold  groaned.  Then  he  tilted  his  chin,  and  called — 
apparently  into  the  sky:  "Come  down,  Jacinto,  and  have 
a  drink  with  us  horrible  Philistines!  Help  us  to  wash  out 
our  sins." 

Augustine  looked  up.  At  the  top  of  a  tall  lamp-post, 
squatting  cross-legged  on  the  very  lamp  itself  and  in  spite 
of  the  weather  dressed  only  in  vest  and  running-shorts, 
was  a  dark  young  man  who  looked  like  a  prentice  yogi. 
But  the  yogi  up  there  only  shook  his  head  slightly,  finger 
to  lips.  From  the  first-floor  window  beside  him  came  the 
rhythmic  sound  of  a  burgher's  Sunday  siesta. 

"Jacinto's  a  young  Brazilian  sculptor  of  distinct  prom- 
ise," said  Reinhold.  "He's  also  a  first-class  professional 
runner:  he  lives  for  his  art  but  runs  for  his  living."  He 
regarded  the  silent,  immovable  figure  up  there  with 
interest:  "Moreover  he  would  now  appear  to  be  culti- 
vating a  connoisseurship  in  snoring." 

"In  snoring?" 

"Precisely.  Doubtless  he  sprints  from  superlative  snorer 
to  snorer  all  over  the  city — I  bet  he's  just  finished  his 
rounds. — Come  down!"  he  shouted  again.  "You'll  catch 
cold!"  The  solo  ended  abruptly  and  the  agile  young  man 
slid  to  the  ground  and  joined  them.  "Tell  me,"  asked 


THE   FOX   IN  THE   ATTIC  333 

Reinhold  anxiously.  "Is  it  possible  to  translate  the  essen- 
tial rhythms  of  a  snore  like  that  into  marble?" 

For  answer  Jacinto  made  a  rapid  and  complex  series 
of  movements  in  the  air  with  his  hands,  then  dropped 
them  to  his  sides  helplessly. 

"I  was  afraid  not,"  said  Reinhold  sadly,  and  the  trio 
moved  inside. 


Chapter  28 

Reinhold  ushered  them  into  a  tiny  room  too  dark  to 
see  anything  at  first,  and  where  the  only  sounds  were 
the  unmistakable  sounds  of  drinking.  When  their  eyes  got 
used  to  it  the  two  famous  cartoonists  (Gulbranson  and 
Heine)  turned  out  to  be  absent,  but  there  were  other 
celebrities  here:  "That,"  said  Reinhold  behind  his  hand, 
"is  no  less  than  Ringelmatz! — Servus,  Joachim!"  he  called. 
"Join  us,  my  treasure!"  The  sailor-poet  was  drunk  already 
and  joined  them  with  difficulty.  "And  that,"  said  Reinhold 
indicating  the  Jew  in  the  corner,  "is  Tucholsky  himself." 

"Don't  catch  his  eye!"  hissed  Jacinto  through  chattering 
teeth.  "I  dislike  him." 

"So?  All  the  same,  Kurt's  a  brilliant  writer  and  our 
young  English  friend  here.  .  ." 

"If  Tucholsky  joins  you  I  go!"  said  Jacinto  with  such 
finality  that  Reinhold  gave  in,  ordering  beer  for  only  the 
four  of  them.  "  'Our  young  English  friend  here!'  "  quoted 
Jacinto  and  examined  Augustine  owlishly.  "Can  you  run?" 
he  asked  with  a  note  of  anxiety. 

"Yes.  .  .  no,  I  mean  not  like  you  can." 

"What  a  relief!  Then  I  needn't  challenge  you  when  I'd 
far  rather  get  drunk." 

Meanwhile  Ringelmatz  was  clumsily  trying  to  cover  his 
mug  with  a  large  slab  of  cheese:  ".  .  .  keep  out  the  gob- 
lins," he  muttered.  But  the  cheese  fell  into  the  beer  and 
then  when  he  tried  to  drink  got  in  the  way  of  his  nose, 
so  he  burst  into  tears. 

"If  you  don't  run  what  do  you  do?"  Jacinto  pursued. 
"I  mean,  for  a  living?" 

"He  snores,"  said  Reinhold  wickedly.  "London  theatri- 
cal managers  employ  him  to  snore  off-stage  when  it's 
needed  in  plays." 

334 


THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC  335 

But  Jacinto  was  not  to  be  deceived:  "Impossible!  He 
hasn't  the  nose." 

"Nose?"  broke  in  Ringelmatz  angrily.  "Who's  talking 
of  noses?"  His  nose  was  a  large  one  and  he  never  liked 
noses  discussed;  but  especially  now  when  his  own  was 
dripping  with  beer. 

Presently  Ringelmatz  wandered  out  to  the  back,  and 
when  he  returned  he  had  borrowed  Katty  Kobus's  own 
dressing-gown  to  wrap  round  the  shivering  Jacinto.  But 
Jacinto  was  oblivious  of  the  kindness,  for  the  talk  had  got 
onto  Aesthetic  and  Jacinto  had  gone  like  a  person  pos- 
sessed. Reinhold  was  delighting  in  the  scrimmage  he  had 
managed  to  stir  up  between  Augustine  and  Jacinto:  he 
kept  himself  in  the  background  but  from  a  safe  distance 
was  egging  on  both  and  sniping  at  both. 

In  any  such  argument  with  an  Augustine  Jacinto  was 
at  several  advantages.  To  begin  with,  the  Brazilian  could 
talk  with  his  hands  (which  the  subject  required) :  his  hands 
served  Jacinto  as  slides  serve  a  lecturer,  he  drew  so  fast  in 
the  air  the  whole  line  seemed  simultaneously  there.  Second 
came  something  always  essential  for  absolute  clarity  of 
thought:  he  had  read  almost  everything  which  agreed  with 
his  theories  and  nothing  whatever  which  didn't,  whereas 
Augustine's  notions  were  merely  an  unorganised  ten-year 
deposit  from  many  conflicting  sources.  And  third,  most 
important  of  all,  was  his  passion:  hearing  and  seeing  him 
talk  you  realised  that  verily  'Significant  Form'  was  for 
Jacinto  almost  what  the  Cross  of  Christ  Crucified  was  for 
St.  Paul. 

Augustine  admitted  at  once  that  of  course  there  was  more 
in  Art  than  mere  imitation:  there  was  a  something.  .  . 
"like  the  wipe-round  with  garlic  essential  to  a  good  bowl 
of  salad?"  Reinhold  suggested.  .  .  but  it  staggered  Augus- 
tine when  Jacinto  allowed  in  Art  no  role  for  imitation  at 
all.  "But  you  can't  make  a  salad  out  of  only  that  wipe- 
round  with  garlic,"  Augustine  argued.  Jacinto  however 


336  THE    FOX    IN   THE    ATTIC 

took  all  Augustine's  representational  notions  and  tore  them 
to  shreds.  He  lashed  into  Augustine  as  Paul  lashed  into 
the  Galatians  (those  two-timing  Gentile  Christians  who 
hankered  after  obedience  to  Mosaic  injunctions  'as  well'). 
Once  you  discover  Significant  Form  (said  Jacinto)  and 
know  this  alone  is  what  matters  you  must  'stand  fast  in 
that  liberty'  (as  Paul  told  the  Galatians),  and  never  be 
entangled  again  with  the  representational  yoke.  "Sig- 
nificant Form.  .  ." 

"  'The  contemplation  of  beautiful  objects',''  Reinhold 
quoted:  "The  first  of  the  only  two  valid  rules  of  conduct, 
according  to  your  own  Moore's  'Principia  Ethica' — the 
bible  of  Bloomsbury,  Augustine!  Have  you  read  it?" 

".  .  .  is  the  sole  meaning  of  things,"  Jacinto  pursued, 
"without  which  the  universe  were  a  kind  of  visual  gibber- 
ish. .  ."  And  so  on,  and  so  on.  Jacinto  had  a  fourth 
advantage  in  argument:  Augustine  listened,  and  so  was 
pervious  to  conviction  however  unwilling,  but  Jacinto 
listened  to  no  one. 

By  now,  moreover,  Jacinto  had  also  a  fifth  advantage: 
the  powerful  nature  of  Munich  beer.  Ringelmatz  of  course 
had  a  start,  but  now  Augustine  was  becoming  inarticulate 
too. 

Ringelmatz  had  long  been  beyond  interfering — beyond 
listening  even.  Just  now  when  Augustine  had  emptied  his 
pockets  to  pay  for  a  round  he  had  inadvertently  left  on  the 
table  his  last-year's  rover-ticket  for  Lords,  and  this  circle 
of  cardboard  so  beautifully  printed  in  gold  had  fascinated 
Ringelmatz:  indeed  he  admired  it  so  much  that  presently 
he  spread  it  with  mustard:  later  he  had  added  a  slice  of 
salami  and  topped  it  with  beer-washed  cheese  and  now 
he  was  munching  it,  his  thoughts  far  away  on  Parnassus. 

Though  Augustine  liked  drinking  he  hated  getting  too 
drunk  (something  associated  with  mindless  hearties  at  Ox- 
ford). But  tonight,  being  too  deeply  absorbed  in  the  argu- 
ment to  notice  how  much  he  was  drinking,  it  caught  him 
unawares.  The  first  he  knew  of  it  was  a  roaring  in  his  ears 


THE  FOX   IN  THE   ATTIC  337 

that  had  nothing  to  do  with  Jacinto  and  the  coldness  of 
sweat  on  his  forehead:  then  the  slapping  beer  in  his 
stomach  seemed  almost  to  top  his  oesophagus. . .  Augustine 
had  drunk  a  little  too  much  that  first  night  at  Lorienburg 
but  this  was  something  more  dire;  for  the  room  was  losing 
its  equilibrium  and  even  its  shape,  it  resolved  into  separate 
revolving  planes  if  he  didn't  prevent  it  and  only  by  Hercu- 
lean efforts  could  he  hold  it  together  and  upright. 

Augustine  had  no  ears  now  for  Jacinto :  every  effort  had 
to  be  concentrated  on  keeping  control  or  the  ceiling  lost 
its  balance  and  swooped,  while  the  menacing  floor  hung 
over  his  head  by  a  thread.  .  . 

"Significant  F-form.  .  ."  That's  the  thing:  hold  on  to 
Significificant  Fff.  .  .  Fff.  .  . 

So  he  held  on,  as  long  as  he  could:  then  slid  to  the  floor. 


Chapter  2g 

Never  in  his  life  before  had  Augustine  been  so  drunk. 
Even  two  days  later  when  (on  his  way  back  to  Lorien- 
burg)  he  pondered  this  ignominious  ending  of  his  visit  to 
Munich  he  could  still  recall  nothing,  from  the  moment  of 
losing  his  desperate  struggle  to  keep  Space  loyal  to  Euclid, 
till  he  woke  in  his  bed  at  the  flat  and  found  it  was  Monday 
and  midday.  He  was  wearing  pyjamas,  so  someone  had  un- 
dressed him  and  put  him  to  bed.  .  .  it  was  utterly  shaming 
to  think  that  this  must  have  been  Reinhold. 

Lord,  too,  what  a  head  he  had  had!  When  he  first  sat 
up  his  skull  had  come  apart  like  a  badly-cracked  cup  in 
the  hands  of  a  housemaid.  At  that  awful  moment  of  waking 
he  had  thanked  heaven  that  Reinhold  by  now  would  be 
out  for  the  day;  for  how  could  he  ever  face  Reinhold  again, 
he  had  wondered  (yet  when  Reinhold  did  come  home  in 
the  evening  he  had  been  wonderfully  decent  about  it). 
What  a  way  to  repay  Reinhold's  kindness.  .  .  what  must 
his  host  think  of  him.  .  .  what  a  fool  he  had  been! 

After  drinking  a  quart  from  the  water-jug  and  splashing 
his  face  with  the  rest  Augustine  had  felt  better,  and 
dressed.  Then  he  went  for  a  walk,  crossing  the  square  into 
the  Hofgarten,  under  the  arcade.  It  was  there,  in  the 
frosty  air  of  the  Gardens,  that  he  first  realised  the  momen- 
tous thing  which  had  happened  to  him  under  the  shock 
of  the  alcohol:  that  in  spite  of  his  headache  his  mind  was 
unprecedentedly  clear — and  clear  because  it  was  empty! 

Even  now  in  the  train  next  day  Augustine  was  still 
enjoying  the  pristine  freshness  of  that  new  empty-headed- 
ness;  for  all  those  old  outworn  ideas  which  had  cluttered 
his  mind  for  so  long  had  been  swept  away  in  a  kind 
of  spring-cleaning — he  had  been  brain-washed  in  beer 
('Good  Gracious!'  he  thought.  'Perhaps  then  one  ought 

338 


THE   FOX   IN   THE  ATTIC  339 

to  get  drunk  every  two  or  three  years  to  get  rid  of  the 
rubbish!'). 

The  result  of  the  riddance  was  that  two  things  alone 
stood  out  clear  in  his  mind.,  now;  and  one  was  the  image  of 
Mitzi,  washed  free  of  any  last  trace  of  hesitation  or  doubt. 
'Heavens!'  he  had  thought  in  the  Gardens.  'What  on  earth 
am  I  doing  in  Munich  when  I  ought  to  be  back  at  her 
side?  How  can  I  bear  to  stay  away  from  her  one  minute 
longer?  Indeed,  why  on  earth  did  I  ever  come  away  to 
Munich  at  all?'  He  must  go  back  to  Lorienburg  at  once 
and  claim  her  at  once. 

But  beside  Mitzi's  image  stood  now  one  other  idea,  and 
that  was  'Significant  Form'.  In  this  respect,  how  describe 
what  had  happened  to  him?  In  spite  of  himself  that  Gospel 
phrase  'being  born  again  in  the  Spirit'  occurred  to  him; 
for  though  Heaven  forbid  all  this  should  be  concerned 
with  religion,  still  that  done-away-with  clutter  had  indeed 
been  replaced  by  one  single  overwhelming  idea:  the  con- 
cept of  'Significant  Form'  as  an  immanence  in  the  per- 
ceived which  the  painter's  eye  can  uncover.  A  physical 
immanence  mind  you;  for  though  this  transcended  the 
merely  physicist's-real  it  was  still  a  wholly  physical  kind 
of  super-reality.  'I  mean,'  thought  Augustine,  'it  isn't  the 
philosophers  or  the  scientists  any  more  than  the  saints  who 
have  discovered  the  meaning  of  the  universe,  it's  the 
painters!  That  "meaning"  is  something  that  can't  be 
intellectually  expressed,  it's  something  essentially  visual.' 

'The  eye  is  the  light  of  the  body.  .  .'  How  Augustine 
longed  now  to  look  fresh  with  his  under-used  eyes  at 
familiar  pictures — yes,  and  also  to  turn  this  new  'light  of 
the  body'  onto  the  new  art  Jacinto  had  talked  of  so 
reverently — Matisse,  Cezanne  and  the  rest!  If  only  the 
next  stop  was  Paris.  .  . 

But  it  wasn't,  of  course:  the  next  stop  was  Kammstadt, 
and  by  the  time  Augustine  had  changed  trains  and  was 
chug-chugging  up  the  valley  again  from  village  to  village 
more  and  more  was  it  Mitzi  who  filled  all  his  thoughts, 


340  THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

filled  his  very  fingers  and  toes:  less  and  less  (for  the 
moment)  Significant  Form.  For  he  meant  to  go  straight 
to  Mitzi  the  moment  he  got  back.  He  began  rehearsing 
what  he  would  say  to  her — even  filling  in  her  answers.  His 
life's  supreme  moment  was  come.  When  they  were  married 
he  must  teach  Mitzi  about.  .  .  but.  .  .  but  how  on  earth 
do  you  teach  a  blind  person  about  Significant  Form?  Yet 
he  felt  even  that  wasn't  impossible  to  the  strength  of  his 
love. 

When  the  train  at  last  reached  Lorienburg  and  Augus- 
tine jumped  down  on  the  line  he  found  that  the  children 
had  all  come  whooping  to  meet  him.  All  four  of  them 
fought  for  his  bag  (too  heavy  for  even  all  four  of  them), 
then  dropped  it  and  fought  for  his  arms  and  his  hands. 
They  all  talked  at  once  and  no  one  listened  to  the  answers 
he  gave  without  listening  either.  When  they  got  to  the 
village  however  they  stopped  for  Augustine  to  buy  them 
sweets  and  the  atmosphere  grew  calmer:  calm  enough,  at 
least,  for  him  at  last  to  ask  after  Mitzi. 

"You'll  just  be  in  time  to  say  goodbye  to  her:  she's  off 
to  a  convent." 

"For  long?  Are  they  teaching  her  Braille  there  or 
something?" 

"What  do  you  mean,  'long'?" 

"Mitzi's  going  to  be  a  Religious." 

"She's  taking  her  vows." 

"A  Carmelite  Sister:  she's  wanted  to,  ages." 

"They've  accepted  her  now;  and  Papa  says  she  can." 

•  *  *  * 

"Don't  you  understand?  Mitzi's  going  to  be  a  nun.  .  ." 


"Is  something  the  matter?" 

"Come  on,  Stupid,  what  are  you  waiting  for?  You've 
got  your  change  now  so  come  on.  .  ." 


Chapter  jo 

How  the  rest  of  that  day  passed  Augustine  never  knew: 
he  was  a  walking  zombie,  with  no  mind  for  things  to 
make  any  impression  on. 

When  he  woke  next  morning  and  remembered,  his 
heart  went  at  once  so  leaden  in  his  breast  that  it  pressed 
on  his  stomach  and  made  him  feel  quite  sick.  When  he 
opened  his  sticky  eyes  it  was  almost  as  if  he  had  gone  blind 
himself;  the  colour  had  gone  out  of  the  world,  and  all 
solidity.  His  surroundings  were  so  wraithlike  they  were 
more  like  memories  of  things  seen  long  ago  than  fresh 
sense-impressions.  Even  solid  Lies  kneeling  at  his  stove  was 
faded  and  immaterial  as  a  ghost. 

Augustine's  legs  carried  him  to  breakfast:  he  drank  some 
coffee,  but  ate  nothing. 

Today  Walther  and  Adele  (contrite  perhaps  at  their 
own  inhospitable  feelings  of  a  week  or  so  ago)  were  full  of 
plans  for  his  amusement.  The  sleigh  'smashed  to  match- 
wood' had  nevertheless  been  repaired,  and  was  at  his 
disposal:  "Would  you  like  to  see  some  churches?"  asked 
Adele,  explaining  that  one  of  the  finest  baroque  master- 
pieces of  the  Asam  Brothers  was  only  five  miles  away:  or, 
in  the  opposite  direction  there  was  that  little  shrine  with 
its  quaint  votive  pictures  of  every  kind  of  rustic  disaster 
and  disease.  .  . 

"Nonsense!"  said  Walther.  "He'll  have  seen  enough 
churches  in  Munich — haven't  you,  my  boy?"  It  transpired 
that  what  Walther  wanted  was  to  send  him  off  with  the 
foreman  to  a  distant  part  of  the  forest,  there  to  decide 
whether  the  frost  was  yet  hard  enough  for  a  bottomless 
bog  to  bear  heavy  cart-loads  from  the  castle  cesspool  to 
where  their  nutrients  were  needed  most.  "It  takes  longer 
for  that  bog  to  freeze  properly  than  the  Danube  itself!" 

341 


342  THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

Walther  explained:  warmth,  engendered  by  the  decaying 
vegetation  in  it  no  doubt:  Augustine  would  find  it  all  most 
interesting,  and  (he  added  as  a  tactful  afterthought)  he 
would  value  Augustine's  advice.  Franz  too  was  agog  to 
teach  him  skiing:  it  was  a  lovely  day,  and  the  snow  was 
just  right  at  last.  As  for  the  children — their  parents' 
presence  constrained  them  to  silence,  but  they  were 
miming  to  him  imploringly  through  the  open  door. 

Of  the  whole  sort  of  them,  only  Adele  noticed  at  all 
Augustine's  curious  condition.  She  wondered  what  on 
earth  could  have  happened  to  the  young  man  in  Munich: 
bad  news,  perhaps,  from  home?  But  Adele  had  an  un- 
shakable belief  in  the  powers  of  sightworthy  objects  to  dis- 
tract the  mind  and  assuage  the  troubled  heart,  and  only 
pressed  her  sight-seeing  proposals  all  the  more. 

What  Augustine  wanted,  of  course,  was  simply  to  be 
alone;  so  he  let  the  torrent  of  conflicting  plans  roll  over 
him,  made  the  best  excuses  he  could  to  the  adults,  dodged 
the  children  and  set  off  by  himself  for  a  long  tramp  in 
the  snow. 

The  meaningless  sky  was  without  a  cloud,  and  set  in 
it  was  a  sun  that  gave  him  neither  light  nor  warmth. 

At  first  his  legs  felt  nerveless.  He  had  hardly  got  outside 
when  they  wanted  him  to  stop,  and  for  a  while  he  leaned 
over  the  broken  palings  of  the  old  skittle-alley  opposite  the 
great  Crucifix,  contemplating  with  downcast  eyes  three 
dots  sunk  blackly  just  below  the  surface  of  the  snow  under 
the  overhanging  linden.  Three  tiny  shrunken  bats  they 
were,  that  had  frozen  to  death  hanging  in  the  twigs  above 
and  dropped  there. 

.  .  .That ever  Mitzi  should  shrivel  to  a  nun!  In  a  mind's- 
eye  flash  he  saw  Mitzi  lying  white  in  the  unending  dark- 
ness of  her  night  with  tell-tale  toothmarks  on  her  throat. . . 
Augustine  wouldn't  look  up  at  it  but  turning  with  eyes 
still  lowered  shuddered  at  the  very  shadow  on  the  snow  of 
that  (to  him)  grisly  vampire-figure  clamped  too  insecurely 


THE   FOX   IN   THE  ATTIC  343 

to  its  rood  above  him;  and  hurried  off  long-legged  like 
someone  at  nightfall  with  twenty  miles  to  go. 

Augustine  was  already  crossing  the  wide  field  beyond 
the  road  with  the  same  idiot  haste  and  now  knee-deep  in 
snow  when  the  children  from  the  castle  spotted  him  far-off 
and  making  for  the  forest  without  them.  How  had  he  for- 
gotten them?  They  ran  out  after  him;  but  the  snow  was 
soon  too  deep  for  them,  and  to  their  astonishment  he  paid 
no  attention  when  they  yelled  to  him  to  wait.  Yet  they 
wouldn't  give  up  till  a  waist-deep  drift  in  the  middle  of 
the  field  almost  engulfed  them.  Here  even  Trudi  was 
forced  to  a  halt,  and  the  twins  showed  little  but  their  heads 
above  the  snow. 

He  must  have  heard  them,  on  so  still  a  morning!  Yet 
with  lowered  eyes  Augustine  hurried  on,  never  even  look- 
ing behind  him  when  they  called.  At  this  incredible 
betrayal  the  twins  did  what  they  never  did — burst  into  a 
wail,  puncturing  the  surrounding  snow  with  tear-holes 
while  Augustine  vanished  out  of  sight. 

There  had  been  no  new  fall  lately,  and  in  the  thinner 
snow  on  the  fringes  of  the  forest  the  surface  had  recorded 
for  Augustine's  earthbound  eyes  all  the  criss-cross  passages 
of  animals  and  birds  for  the  past  few  nights  and  days.  Idly 
he  scanned  them:  the  neat-punched  slots  two-and-two  of 
roedeer:  the  marks  of  a  fox's  pads,  set  after  each  other  in 
one  straight  line  like  the  track  a  cog-wheel  would  make: 
the  arrowed  tracks  of  all  kinds  and  sizes  of  birds,  with  the 
delicate  imprints  of  their  trailing  tails  and  wings  like 
fossil  ferns.  It  was  as  if  all  these  creatures  had  been  here 
at  the  same  time  together,  summoned  to  a  compulsory 
dance  of  all  creation  without  pattern  or  purpose. 

The  only  living  creature  in  sight  now  was  a  single  black- 
bird about  to  alight.  The  dazzling  snow  made  her  mis- 
judge her  height  as  she  came  down,  so  that  she  tail-slipped 
the  last  two  feet  to  a  false  landing  with  claws  outspread  in 
front  of  her  and  tail-feathers  sticking  into  the  snow.  As 
Augustine  turned  into  the  forest  the  bird  called  after  him; 


344  THE    FOX    IN    THE   ATTIC 

"You're   wdl   out   of  it — you  don't  know  when  you're 
lucky!" 

Augustine  turned  round  in  surprise;  but  he  was  wrong, 
it  was  only  a  bird. 

In  the  airless  gloom  of  the  forest  Augustine  threaded  his 
way  between  the  tree-trunks — smooth  tubular  boles  show- 
ing a  cold  blue-grey  against  the  dull  green  foliage  lining 
the  heavy,  high-overhead  canopy  of  snow.  These  endless 
rows  of  immensely  tall  evergreens  without  branch  or  twig 
for  fifty  or  sixty  feet  were  all  exactly  alike  and  closely  and 
evenly  spaced.  There  was  no  undergrowth.  Because  of  their 
precise  spacing  and  the  lack  of  any  lower  branches  or 
foliage  their  echoing  was  voluminous  and  sinister  whenever 
the  silence  was  broken.  One  yapping  farm-dog  in  the  far 
distance  sounded  like  a  whole  pack  of  hounds  in  full  tongue 
— or  like  a  distant  riot. 

But  presently  Augustine  debouched  from  the  thick  trees 
quite  by  chance  onto  a  broad  drive,  and  for  a  time  fol- 
lowed along  it.  This  was  the  selfsame  drive  that  had  taken 
them  a  month  ago  on  their  way  to  Rottningen;  but  that 
at  first  he  failed  to  notice.  Then  something  familiar  must 
have  struck  him;  for  suddenly  he  remembered  the  sound 
of  their  sleigh-bells,  and  that  frost-pink  face  peeping  from 
her  furs.  .  .  how  happy  he  had  been  even  next-but-one  to 
Mitzi  on  the  box-seat,  that  day  a  month  ago! 

At  first  Augustine  had  been  wholly  numbed  by  despair; 
but  now  that  he  had  begun  seeing  his  surroundings  again 
a  little  he  also  began  again,  just  a  little,  to  think.  Was  it 
after  all  even  now  too  late?  It  was  not  as  if  Mitzi  had  gone 
to  the  convent  already  and  the  gates  had  shut  on  her: 
then,  doubtless,  they'd  never  let  her  go.  But  as  long  as  she 
was  at  home  they  surely  couldn't  compel  her.  Had  he  per- 
haps given  in  too  easily — stunned  by  the  first  obstacle  just 
because  he  had  taken  for  granted  the  prize  was  there  for 
the  plucking  whenever  he  chose?  If  he  went  back  now  and 


THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC  345 

declared  himself,  surely  this  whole  crazy  nunnery-project 
must  vanish  like  smoke!  Surely  (and  at  this  idea  his  heart 
kicked  like  a  back-firing  engine)  Mitzi  was  only  doing  this 
because  she  despaired  of  him:  for  how  could  any  healthy, 
normal  girl  like  Mitzi  want  to  become  a  nun? 

'Fool!'  he  replied  to  himself:  'You  don't  understand  her. 
You  haven't  a  hope.' 

For  that  was  the  point:  if  in  a  human  way  Mitzi  had 
turned  him  down  for  another  chap.  .  .  but  there  wasn't 
one!  Only  that  ever-living  ever-dying  figure  on  the  Cross 
which  Augustine  used  to  think  nothing  of,  but  now  made 
him  shudder  so. 

What  sort  of  a  mediaeval,  then,  must  Mitzi  be — inside 
of  her — that  she  could  even  consider  going  into  a  convent? 
It  beggared  comprehension!  How  could  such  a  person 
nowadays  even  exist?  And  how  could  her  parents  allow  it 
instead  of  sending  for  a  psychiatrist?  He  couldn't  under- 
stand them  either,  not  at  all.  But  then,  did  he  understand 
anyone  here?  Perhaps  not  even  dear  Reinhold.  They  were 
all.  .  .  cock-eyed,  somehow,  when  you  got  under  the  sur- 
face (why,  look  at  Franz!).  You  thought  you  could  see 
how  the  wheels  went  round  but  really  you  couldn't  at  all. 
They  weren't  the  same  kind  of  beings  that  you  were,  these 
Germans. 

These  Germans.  .  .  all  this  passion  for  politics,  as  if  any 
human  'collective'  was  something  that  really  existed! 
These  trees.  .  .  all  these  millions  of  sinister  similar  man- 
grown  evergreen  trees.  .  . 

"Christ  I  want  to  get  out!"  he  shouted  out  loud;  and 
quick  as  a  bullet's  ricochet  the  tree-boles  snapped  back 
at  him  "Get  out/" 


Chapter  ji 

after  trudging  aimlessly  in  the  forest  for  several  hours 
/"^Augustine  suddenly  found  himself  coming  out  in  the 
open.  Here  the  country  before  him  was  strange  to  him. 
Under  the  trees  he  had  lost  sight  of  the  sun,  and  had  no 
idea  even  of  the  general  direction  he  had  taken:  he  might 
have  walked  in  a  circle  so  that  'home'  was  just  round  the 
corner,  or  it  might  be  ten  miles  away.  There  was  nothing 
in  sight  he  could  recognise. 

Augustine  felt  dog-tired.  Normally  he  could  walk  thirty 
miles  without  tiring  at  all,  but  today  the  state  of  his  nerves 
had  set  up  in  his  muscles  numberless  minute  internal  ten- 
sions and  now  these  had  fought  each  other  to  a  standstill: 
he  ached. 

Augustine  had  come  out  of  comparative  darkness  to  the 
edge  of  this  dazzling  snow-field,  so  he  had  to  shade  his 
eyes  with  his  hand  from  below  as  he  scanned  the  landscape 
for  someone  to  tell  him  the  way.  As  luck  would  have  it, 
there  was  a  farm  not  very  far  off,  and  briskly  walking 
towards  it  a  middle-aged  man — thick-set,  and  dressed  as 
a  well-to-do  peasant.  Augustine  forced  himself  to  a  jog- 
trot to  intercept  him;  and  when  the  man  saw  him,  he 
waited. 

When  the  farmer  saw  this  obvious  foreigner  and  obvious 
gentleman,  who  was  also  so  obviously  lost,  trotting  towards 
him  over  the  snow,  three  emotions  combined  to  make  him 
ask  in  the  stranger:  curiosity,  compassion,  and  pride  in  his 
home.  Augustine  was  too  nerveless  to  resist,  and  anyway, 
longed  for  a  chair  to  sit  down  on.  He  followed  his  host  in 
without  looking  round  him — for  once,  he  was  himself  in 
no  mood  to  be  curious.  All  that  really  interested  him  was 
something  to  sit  on  awhile. 

346 


THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC  347 

He  was  taken  into  a  parlour  where  the  walls  were 
covered  with  horns,  and  regaled  there  on  layer-cake  sodden 
in  rum;  but  in  his  present  state  the  cake  seemed  to  him 
tasteless  and  he  could  hardly  swallow  it  down.  But  then 
they  gave  him  a  generous  tot  of  home-distilled  plum 
brandy  and  that  made  him  feel  better  at  once. 

Augustine  began  to  look  round  him  at  last.  Those 
hundreds  of  antlers  and  horns.  .  .  were  they  trophies  of 
the  chase,  decoration,  or  simply  to  hang  your  hat  on  (or 
rather,  your  hundreds  of  hats)?  Instead  of  a  dog  on  the 
hearth-rug — incidentally,  there  wasn't  a  hearth  for  it 
either — the  fur  rug  had  itself  once  been  a  dog!  What  a 
compendious  arrangement.  .  .  he  bent  down  and  tickled 
its  ear  (they  offered  to  fill  up  his  glass,  but  he  firmly 
refused — Gosh  their  plum  stuff  was  strong!). 

Almost  wherever  the  horns  left  room  on  the  walls 
there  was  a  carved  crucifix  or  a  carved  cuckoo-clock — one 
or  the  other:  there  were  also  two  terrible  portraits  in  oils, 
and  it  gave  one  a  jolt  to  see  how  like  was  his  mother's 
picture  as  a  bride  to  this  elderly  farmer  himself,  in  spite  of 
his  whiskers.  Augustine  turned,  and  smiled  at  his  host 
benignly — the  nice  old  three-hundred  weight! 

Again  they  tried  to  fill  up  his  glass,  and  again  he  refused. 

Meanwhile  the  questioning  went  on.  It  was  all  so 
courteous  and  terribly  tactful  that  everything  had  to  be 
carefully  answered.  They  seemed  thrilled  to  learn  he  was 
English,  and  wanted  to  know  all  he  could  tell  them  about 
King  George. 

Before  Augustine  quite  knew  what  was  happening  they 
were  showing  him  round.  Never  had  he  seen  anywhere 
quite  so  crammed  with  possessions.  Bedroom  after  bedroom 
had  three  or  four  beds  in  it:  each  bed  had  three  or  four 
mattresses  and  then  was  piled  high  with  all  kinds  of  other 
things  so  that  no  one  could  possibly  sleep  on  it.  Every 
wardrobe  was  bursting  with  clothes  and  had  cardboard 
boxes  on  top  of  it:  everything  had  to  be  taken  down,  un- 
folded and  shown.  All  these  things  had  accumulated  in 


348  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

dowry  after  dowry  over  three  generations,  he  gathered. 
None  of  them  seemed  to  be  used — they  were  wealth,  like 
the  gold  in  a  bank.  Yet  the  tiptoe  possessors  seemed 
radiant.  .  .  these  were  people  who  knew  beyond  doubt  what 
they  wanted — and  had  it!  Sorrow  suddenly  rose  in  his 
throat,  but  he  swallowed  it  down. 

They  told  Augustine  he  was  not  far  from  the  Danube 
and  also  the  railway,  but  further  on  down  the  line  than 
Lorienburg  was.  The  station  was  two  miles  off,  and  it  was 
getting  time  for  the  train  but  still  they  insisted  he  just  saw 
the  cows — nothing  else — before  he  departed. 

A  door  opposite  the  parlour-door  opened  off  the  front 
hall  straight  into  the  stable  (so  he  had  just  to  look  at  the 
horses).  Beyond  lay  the  piggery  (he  also  looked  at  the  pigs), 
and  furthest  of  all  were  the  cows — rows  and  rows  of  them, 
all  red-and-white  ("What  kind  of  cows  has  King  George 
got  at  Sandringham?"  How  on  earth  should  he  know!). 
But  the  Sandringham  cows  couldn't  be  finer  than  these 
were:  indeed  at  the  sight  of  all  his  own  wonderful  cows 
the  farmer  seemed  ready  to  float;  and  in  spite  of  himself 
Augustine  was  intrigued  by  them.  A  boy  had  just  brought 
in  the  calves  to  be  suckled:  Augustine  couldn't  help 
watching  how  the  milky  little  nit-wits  tried  all  the  other 
mothers  as  well  as  their  own,  and  how  mildly  those  other 
ones  kicked  them  aside. 

Just  as  they  were  leaving  the  cows,  one  of  them  lifted 
her  nose  from  her  calf  and  called  after  Augustine:  "You 
just  don't  know  when  you're  lucky!" 

Augustine  looked  round  in  surprise;  but  he  was  wrong, 
it  was  only  a  cow. 

The  visit  had  done  Augustine  good,  but  as  he  hurried 
off  along  the  lane  once  more  his  melancholy  kept  hitting 
him  in  waves  as  sea-sickness  does.  When  that  happened 
the  colour  in  everything  faded,  and  the  legs  under  him 
almost  refused. 


THE   FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC  349 

Even  at  the  best  of  times  Augustine's  surroundings  in 
Germany  never  seemed  to  him  quite  'real':  they  had  a 
picture-book  foreignness,  down  to  the  smallest  detail.  The 
very  snow  he  was  walking  in  differed  from  English  snow. 
Those  distant  forests  were  coloured  a  'Victorian'  green — 
the  colour  of  art-serge  curtains  rather  than  trees:  the  edges 
of  the  forest  were  all  sharp-etched  (outside  of  them  no 
loose  trees  stood  around  on  their  own)  and  yet  these  plan- 
tations were  formless,  for  their  arbitrary  boundaries  seemed 
to  bear  no  relation  to  Nature  or  the  lie  of  the  land.  Thus 
the  landscape  (in  his  eyes)  had  none  of  the  beauty  almost 
any  English  landscape  (in  his  eyes)  had  got. 

Augustine  kept  passing  wayside  shrines,  and  even  the 
farms  had  each  its  own  little  doll's-chapel  outside  with  a 
miniature  belfry  and  an  apse  as  big  as  a  cupboard.  Taken 
all  together  and  on  top  of  the  churches  they  added  up  to 
a  pretty  frightening  picture.  .  .  Often  these  chapels  were 
almost  the  only  outbuildings  the  farms  had  got,  apart 
from  a  crow's-nest  up  an  apple-tree  for  potting  at  foxes. 

Indeed  these  hardly  looked  like  'farms'  (which  are, 
surely,  essentially  a  huddle  of  big  byres  and  barns  with 
a  tiny  house  tucked  away  in  the  middle?).  These  (because 
the  animals  lived  indoors  on  the  ground-floor)  looked  all 
'house'. 

Since  landscape  changes  like  this  from  country  to 
country  it  must  owe  very  little  to  Nature:  Nature  is  no 
more  than  the  canvas,  and  landscape  the  self-portrait  the 
people  who  live  there  paint  on  it.  But  no,  hold  hard! 
Surely,  rather  the  people  who  have  lived  there;  for  land- 
scape is  always  at  least  one  generation  behind  in  its  por- 
trayal (like  those  other  portraits  that  hung  on  the  parlour 
wall).  This  was  Augustine's  'new'  Germany,  but  the  land- 
scape here  was  unchanged  since  Kaiserdom  or  even  before: 
whereas  the  people.  .  . 

But  at  that  point  Augustine  stopped  dead  in  his  tracks, 
for  something  had  struck  him — something  so  obvious  why 
on  earth  hadn't  it  struck  him  before?  The  people  were  also 


35Q  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

pre-war.  History  has  to  use  second-hand  timber  when  she 
builds  a  new  edifice^  like  those  awkward  post-war  chicken- 
houses  people  build  out  of  bits  of  army  huts  and  old 
ammo-boxes,  with  'W.D.' stamped  all  over  them  and  costly 
enigmatical  fittings  too  much  trouble  to  unscrew.  Likewise 
the  people  the  new  Germany  was  built  of  were  the  self- 
same people  the  old  had  consisted  of  before  the  structure 
was  smashed  and  they  were  ripped  out  of  their  places  in 
the  ruins  and.  .  .  but  could  you  call  the  new  Germany 
'built'?  No!  Just  at  present  these  were  more  like  rocks  sent 
wheeling  about  in  the  sky  when  their  rookery-tree  is  felled. 
One  day  they  would  settle.  .  . 

When  Augustine  at  last  reached  the  plain  of  the  river- 
bed, he  was  surprised  to  find  there  no  snow  at  all.  There 
was  ice  there  instead:  on  the  road  it  had  been  swept  into 
untidy  heaps  like  a  dump  for  shattered  window-panes:  on 
the  fields  it  just  lay  around  on  the  ground  like  more 
window-panes  shattered.  Round  each  of  the  trunks  of  the 
roadside  trees  three  feet  from  the  ground  there  was  a  kind 
of  ring-table  of  ice  you  could  picnic  on.  .  . 

They  explained  it  all  to  Augustine  when  he  called  at 
the  village  Gasthof  for  a  drink  (after  all,  he  had  made 
good  time).  A  week  ago  (they  told  him)  the  Danube  had 
frozen.  Damned  with  the  barrier  its  own  ice-floes  had 
piled  up,  the  river  had  flooded  out  over  the  plain  and 
begun  to  freeze  again,  like  a  lake.  But  then  with  the  weight 
of  the  water  behind  it  the  dam  had  broken  and  the  floods 
had  subsided — deserting  their  new  ice,  which  was  left  in 
the  air  unsupported,  and  broke.  Now,  in  sheets  and  frag- 
ments and  splinters  for  miles  it  lay  in  the  sun  and  glittered: 
only  those  'tables'  of  ice  round  the  trees  remained  as  wit- 
ness to  the  depth  of  the  floods. 

In  the  middle  of  the  village,  the  market-place  had  a  kind 
of  Xanadu-wonder  because  of  the  trees.  For  their  branches 
and  twigs  were  feathered  with  white  ice  that  glittered  in 
the  sun:  they  were  like  cherry-trees  every  inch  in  bloom, 


THE   FOX   IN   THE   ATTIC  351 

and  whenever  the  faint  breeze  breathed  on  them  they 
tinkled  like  tiny  bells. 

The  road  to  the  station  took  Augustine  close  to  the  river 
itself.  Even  now  the  river  was  not  everywhere  frozen:  here 
and  there  where  the  current  was  strongest  there  were 
still  patches  of  dark  grey  water  that  steamed  in  the  sun, 
so  that  the  solitary  swan  indefatigably  swimming  there 
was  half-hidden  in  vapour.  But  elsewhere  the  Danube 
seemed  to  be  frozen  solid  in  heaps.  It  was  wild,  yet  utterly 
still.  Huge  blocks  of  ice  had  jostled  each  other  and  climbed 
on  top  of  each  other  like  elephants  rutting  and  then  got 
frozen  in  towering  lumps:  or  had  swirled  over  and  over 
before  coagulating  till  they  were  curled  like  a  Chinese  sea. 
None  of  them  had  remained  in  the  place  where  first  it  had 
frozen:  each  block  was  complete  in  itself  but  now  out  of 
place — like  a  jig-saw  puzzle  glued  in  a  heap  helter-skelter 
so  that  now  it  could  never  be  solved. 

It  was  all  such  a  muddle!  Although  it  was  utterly  still 
it  expressed  such  terrific  force  it  was  frightening:  the  force 
that  had  made  it — thrusting  floes  weighing  hundreds  of 
tons  high  into  the  air,  and  the  force  it  would  release  when 
it  thawed.  When  that  ice  melted  at  last  it  would  go 
thundering  down  the  river  grinding  to  bits  everything  in 
its  path.  No  bridge  could  possibly  stand  up  to  it.  The 
longer  you  looked  at  its  stillness,  the  greater  your  feeling 
of  panic.  .  .  Augustine  hated  Germany:  all  he  wanted  now 
was  to  get  away  as  quick  as  he  could. 

The  moment  he  got  back  he  would  go  straight  to 
Walther,  tell  him  in  ten  words  that  he  had  to  marry  Mitzi; 
and  then  go  straight  to  Mitzi  and.  .  .  and  not  take  'noJ  for 
an  answer.  For  he  couldn't  possibly  leave  Mitzi  behind  in 
all  this:  no  longer  just  for  his  own  sake  but  for  hers  he  must 
rescue  her — take  her  to  England  (and  make  a  reasonable 
Englishwoman  out  of  her  like  everyone  else). 


Augustine  jumped    from    the    train    the    moment    it 


352  THE    FOX    IN   THE   ATTIC 

stopped.  He  galloped  up  the  hill.  Still  out  of  breath  he 
asked  for  Walther  at  once.  But  the  Baron  (they  told  him) 
was  out.  Augustine  stamped  his  foot  in  fury:  every  minute's 
delay  was  intolerable!  When  would  he  be  back? — The 
Baron  and  Baronin  wouldn't  be  back  till  tomorrow.  .  . 
surely  the  Gentleman  knew  that  today  they  were  taking  the 
Young  Baroness  to  her  convent?  They  had  started  at  noon. 
— No,  she  wasn't  coming  back  with  them  of  course:  the 
Baron  and  Baronin  would  return  alone  in  the  morning. 
But  the  Young  Baron  would  be  here  for  dinner  tonight, 
and  the  Colonel-Baron:  three  gentlemen  dining  alone, 
Good  Appetite  to  them! 

So  this  was  the  end!  From  his  protestant  upbringing 
Augustine  knew  that  what  once  a  convent  has  swallowed 
it  never  gives  up.  .  . 

Flinging  his  things  into  the  old  Gladstone  bag  that  had 
once  been  his  father's  he  could  hardly  see  what  he  was 
doing:  he  was  more  like  a  boxer  practising  on  a  punch-bag 
than  a  young  man  packing  his  clothes. 

Where  was  he  going  to  next?  Anywhere  anywhere  any- 
where! Over  the  frontier  to  whatever  other  country  was 
nearest!  But  then,  as  he  turned  again  to  the  wardrobe  his 
bag  called  after  him:  "You  don't  know  when  you're 
lucky!" 

Augustine  turned  round  in  surprise;  but  he  was  wrong, 
it  was  only  a  bag. 


Acknowledgements 

The  knowledgeable  reader  will  have  recognised  for 
himself  how  deeply  this  volume  is  indebted  to  Bullock, 
Wheeler-Bennett,  Hanfstaengl,  Kubizek,  Saloman  and 
other  published  authorities,  as  well  as  to  private  sources. 

A  long  list  of  these  latter  would  defeat  by  tedium  the 
purposes  of  gratitude  but  I  cannot  leave  unnamed 
Baroness  Pia  von  Are  tin:  she  gave  me  access  to  her 
father's  memoirs  and  in  every  way  she  and  her  family 
have  helped  me  immeasurably.  I  must  also  thank  par- 
ticularly the  only  living  person  in  a  position  to  describe 
to  me  at  first-hand  the  whole  forty-eight  hour  period 
when  Hitler  was  in  hiding  at  Uffing.  (Neither  of  these, 
however,  is  blameworthy  for  my  opinions.) 

At  certain  points  my  narrative  of  the  'Putsch'  diners 
materially  from  others  previously  compiled.  But  I  have 
imported  almost  nothing  fictitious  except  the  little  dog  in 
the  plaid  waistcoat,  and  the  historian  may  be  interested 
to  know  that  much  of  this  narrative — including  the  whole 
episode  in  the  crypt,  the  crucial  briefing  in  the  fencing- 
school  with  all  that  implied,  and  the  correct  route  of  the 
march — is  based  on  a  vivid  contemporary  account  by  an 
actual  Nazi  participant,  a  Major  Goetz.  This  account 
was  contained  in  a  letter  to  a  friend  dated  26th  November, 
j923j  which  some  weeks  later  found  its  way  into  the 
German  press.  Its  very  mistakes  authenticate  it,  but  it 
does  not  seem  to  be  well  known. 


I  am  also  more  deeply  indebted  than  I  can  express  to 
the  skilful  and  patient  private  critics  of  my  manuscript. 

R.  H. 


ABOUT  THE  AUTHOR 

Richard  Hughes  was  born  in  England  in  1900,  attended  Charter- 
house School  and  served  in  the  British  Army  before  going  to 
Oxford.  While  still  an  undergraduate,  he  was  on  the  contributing 
staffs  of  two  London  weeklies,  had  a  play  produced  in  London 
and  published  a  book  of  poems. 

In  1922  he  left  Oxford,  spending  some  time  in  Central  Europe 
before  going  back  to  Wales  and  a  period  of  writing — poems, 
stories  and  three  more  plays.  After  his  second  visit  to  the  United 
States,  he  returned  to  found  a  Welsh  dramatic  company.  At 
twenty-four  he  had  had  three  plays  staged  in   London. 

After  a  trip  to  Ireland  as  a  deck  hand  on  a  small  sailing  vessel 
in  1925,  he  retired  to  an  Adriatic  island,  where  he  began  writing 
A  High  Wind  in  Jamaica — a  book  he  finished  three  years  later 
in  Connecticut.  Its  first  publication  was  in  the  U.S.  under  the 
title  The  Innocent  Voyage,  establishing  his  reputation  as  an 
outstanding  novelist.  A  book  of  children's  stories,  The  Spider's 
Palace,  followed.  His  second  novel,  In  Hazard,  was  published  in 
1938,  and  another  volume  of  children's  stories,  Don't  Blame  Me, 
a  year  later.  During  World  War  II  Mr.  Hughes  worked  as  a 
civilian  for  the  Admiralty,  and  later  collaborated  on  its  official 
history.  For  three  years  he  lectured  periodically  in  London  as 
Gresham  Professor  in  Rhetoric. 

Since  1946,  Mr.  Hughes,  his  wife  and  five  children,  have  lived 
in  North  Wales.  All  his  life,  however,  he  has  "felt  from  time  to 
time  an  impelling  need  to  travel — whether  dabbling  in  Balkan 
revolutions,  shooting  the  Canadian  Rapids  with  Indian  trappers, 
or  bluffing  my  way  unarmed  among  the  Berber  tribesmen  in 
Southern  Morocco." 


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Photo  by  Sandra  Lousada 

RICHARD  HUGHES  was  born  in  Eng- 
land in  1900,  attended  Charterhouse 
School  and  served  in  the  British  Army 
before  going  to  Oxford.  In  1922  he  left 
Oxford,  spending  some  time  in  Central 
Europe  before  going  back  to  Wales  and 
a  period  of  writing  poems,  stories  and 
plays. 

After  a  trip  to  Ireland  as  a  deck  hand 
on  a  small  sailing  vessel  in  1925,  he 
retired  to  an  Adriatic  island,  where  he 
began  writing  A  High  Wind  in  Jamaica 
— a  book  he  finished  three  years  later  in 
Connecticut.  Its  first  publication  was  in 
the  United  States  under  the  title  The 
Innocent  Voyage.  A  book  of  children's 
stories,  The  Spiders  Palace,  followed. 
His  second  novel,  In  Hazard,  was  pub- 
lished in  1938,  and  another  volume  of 
children's  stories,  Don't  Blame  Me,  a 
year  later.  During  World  War  II  Mr. 
Hughes  worked  as  a  civilian  for  the  Ad- 
miralty, and  later  collaborated  on  its  of- 
ficial history. 

No.  0743B 


Jacobus   tenBioek    library 


From  the  first  English 


0160 


THE   FOX   IN  THE  ATTIC 


"There  are  few  living  writers  of  whom  one  would  say  that  they  had  genius 
but  somehow  it  seems  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  to  say  about 
Richard  Hughes.  .  .  .  We  are  reminded  inevitably  of  Tolstoy,  a  comparison 
It w  writers  except  Mr.  Hughes  could  survive." 

CORONWY  REES,  Sunday  Times 

"A  work  of  extraordinary  brilliance  and  authority,  of  a  kind  that  not  even 
A  High  Wind  in  Jamaica  and  In  Hazard  have  quite  prepared  us  for  .  .  . 
It  is  all  utterlv  convincing.  ...  In  a  few  lines  Mr.  Hughes  seems  able  to 
render  any  character  he  chooses  in  flesh-and-blood  actuality.  And  what  one 
finally  takes  away  from  this  superb  book  is  the  feeling  one  receives  from 
Tolstoy,  of  life  itself  being  lived." 

WALTER  ALLEN,  Daily  Telegraph 

"Magnificent,  authoritative,  compassionate,  ironic,  funny  and  tragic  .  .  . 
The  Fox  in  the  Attic  has  that  universal  authenticity  that  is  the  hall-mark 
of  great  writing." 

Times  Literary  Supplement 

"The  design  is  of  the  grandest  sort,  and  one  is  left  in  no  doubt  that  Mr. 
Hughes's  immense  talents  can  bring  it  off.  He  is  absolutely  in  control,  never 
obvious,  never  irrelevant:  the  writing  is  immensely  assured,  a  delight  to 
read.  The  Human  Predicament  [of  which  The  Fox  in  the  Attic  is  the  first 
panel]  looks  like  being  the  major  fiction  event  of  the  'sixties." 

JOHN  FULLER,  Listener 

"A  major  event  in  British  letters  ...  he  engenders  the  same  sort  of  trust 
in  his  reader  that  Tolstoy  does." 

JOHN  DAVENPORT,  Observer 

"Surely  a  work  of  genius  ...  Of  the  book's  innumerable  virtues,  two  should 
perhaps  be  underlined — its  vastness  of  vision,  and  ( a  rarity  in  works  of  this 
stature)  its  sheer  readability."  \ 

Belfast  Telegraph 

HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS 


No.  0743P