The Dark Frontier by A. Decker (best books to read non fiction .txt) 📕

“Excuse me?” said her travelling companion.

“Sorry, I was just talking to myself.”

Ellen was excited by this discovery. It sang to her like a ploughed field that had released up some archaeological treasure. She wondered what other secrets might be buried in these words. Although she had no stomach to dig deeper, she wanted desperately to take the paper in her hand again and examine its strange message. But the elegant lady beat her to it.

It was probably the sense of tidiness that comes with age that prompted her to seize on the piece of paper, scrunch it as tightly round the cork as her slim wrists would allow, and throw both into the bin under the table.

Deep down, Ellen was grateful to the woman for sparing her the pain of any further curiosity. And, almost as if she knew what was going through Ellen’s mind, she smiled sweetly across the table at her.

For the next half an hour or so, as the train rumbled north along the foot of the Vosges Mountains and their neat tawny fringe of sleepy vineyards, they sat smiling at each other over the bottle of wine, only occasionally exchanging pleasantries.

“Are you going all the way?” Ellen asked.

“Pardon me?”

“To Paris?”

“Oh no. Only as far as Strasbourg today. I shall be travelling on to Normandy next week.”

“How on earth will you manage with all your luggage?”

“You’re quite right, my dear. Porters are not so easy to find nowadays. But I shall manage somehow.”

The words gave Ellen the distinct feeling that she was the one who would be recruited to the task. But she could not begrudge her this, especially when her travelling companion later offered to share her wine with Ellen.

“I think it’s been breathing long enough, don’t you?” she said. “Would you care to have lunch with me?” And from her Louis Vuitton bag she took two glasses, together with a small parcel. This she unwrapped and passed over to Ellen. It was a makeshift plate of sandwiches.

“Please take one. They have cheddar cheese inside. Not easy to find in Switzerland, unless you know where to look.”

She then poured the wine and handed Ellen one of the glasses. “A rather special Bordeaux. Couldn’t resist opening it now.”

Ellen lifted the bottle and examined the label. Château Haut-Brion 1913. She knew nothing about wine, but it seemed a trifle old to her. And the scepticism in her face did not escape her companion.

“You’ll find it’s survived the passage of time rather well,” she assured Ellen. “I picked up a job lot of six bottles at an auction. Quite a stroke of luck.” Then she raised her glass to Ellen and took a sip. “It goes rather well with the cheddar, don’t you think?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know very much about wine,” Ellen confessed, but at once the lady put her at her ease.

“Between you and me, even if it had not been jolted around over the last few days, it could not be said in all honesty to have aged awfully well. But it’s a very special vintage for me, and sentiment plays funny tricks on an old woman.”

“Would it be very indiscreet of me,” Ellen said, “if I asked where you learned to speak English so well? I remember you said you had a very good teacher, but I can’t imagine you learned it in school.”

Frank had always admonished her for being too inquisitorial. She knew that, had he been with her now, she would certainly never have been so bold. But her travelling companion did not seem at all put out by Ellen’s clumsy question. On the contrary, she beamed a sweet smile across the compartment and broke into a litany of nostalgic reminiscence so private that Ellen almost felt something of an intruder.

“I did warn you that I can be rather sentimental,” she said, as if to apologise for causing Ellen any discomfort. “England was home for me during the war,” she continued, “thanks to a dear old friend who took me in when the rest of Europe was under threat. He was a colonel in the British army. Retired. A very dear friend.”

“Judging from the slight trace of an accent, I assume your home before the war was France.”

“I suppose it was, yes.” It seemed an oddly uncertain answer to Ellen.

“That is to say, if you mean my country of birth. But I spent much of my childhood in Germany and also studied in Switzerland, so I have always been a little rootless. That’s why those years in England were so important to me. They gave me somewhere I could put down roots when the rest of Europe was being devastated. They even gave me a surrogate father. They were probably the happiest years of my life.”

“Did you not have a father?” Ellen asked, and instantly sensed that her tactlessness had gone too far. It seemed to have touched a central nerve. “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. You must think me terribly nosy.”

“Oh, it’s all such a long time ago now, my dear.” She paused, as if in need of time to find the right words. “A lot of ghastly things were happening in Europe at the time. That’s why my father sent me to Switzerland to study. Unfortunately, I was unable to keep an eye on him while I was there.” She paused again, only for longer this time, before adding: “I did what I could.”

Ellen sensed a tearfulness in her eyes and had the impression she wanted to say more, then thought better of it. She rearranged the scarf around her neck instead and turned her gaze to the grey industrial estates that slid past the window as the train rolled quietly through the outskirts of Colmar.

“Why didn’t you stay in Switzerland?” (Oh Frank, you would be so ashamed, Ellen said to herself.)

“I couldn’t.”

The reply was abrupt when it came, and Ellen sensed the sweet sentiment of her companion turn sour with unspoken