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

memories. She was reluctant to interrupt the long pause that followed. And stared out through the silence now at the vineyards speeding past north of Colmar.

“My English colonel kept in touch, you see,” Ellen’s travelling companion added at last, as if this explained everything. “We corresponded quite frequently for some months. And then, almost a year to the day after we first met, I received a very concerned letter. I remember the day well. It was a Saturday in February 1938. Schuschnigg had just come to an agreement with Germany, and the colonel worried that it was only a matter of time before Hitler marched into Austria. From there it was just a short step to Switzerland, he wrote, and urged me to move to England as soon as possible.”

“So you just upped and left?”

“There was no one to keep me there any longer,” she replied. Ellen could not escape the audible sadness that crept into her voice with those words.

“I’d lost interest in my studies by then as well. And the colonel was right. It felt very unsafe living right on the border in those days. So I left my apartment at the end of the month. And a few days later I got on this same train to Paris and made for England.

“It was a good time to leave, just before the carnival, which can be very tiresome for a foreigner. But more importantly, it was barely a week before Germany marched into Austria, as the colonel had predicted.”

“Did you ever marry your English colonel?” Ellen asked, wanting to bring her back onto the gentler slopes of her past. And her colonel proved to be the right cue. Her eyes twinkled with a private merriment, as she adjusted her scarf again.

“No. He was very much older than I. Just a wonderful friend to me.”

“Age doesn’t have to be an obstacle. A lot of women like to marry a father figure.”

“No, I never married, my dear.” And the twinkle in her eye suddenly faded again as quickly as it had appeared, like the embers of a fire that had long since ceased to burn. Only deep down, beneath the ash, was the trace of an occasional spark exposed by a passing breeze that spoke of the flames which must have danced in her heart at one time. So sad, yet somehow warm and content in her resignation.

“Only once might I have come close to marrying,” she added in a deep reflection that seemed to shut Ellen out entirely. “But I lost him. Poor little squirrel. That’s what I used to call him. But he was more of a swan really. An injured swan adrift in strange waters. Such a fool he was. In the end it was probably his foolishness that betrayed him. Then he just disappeared. As so many people did in those days.”

She paused and took another sip of wine.

“He had a lot in common with my father in some ways. I don’t think he ever realised just how fond of him I was. But it would never have been a great success – we would only have tried to make different people of each other, and heaven knows I had no wish to do that to him.” She carefully mulled over these last words as she put the glass to her lips and took a final sip of the wine. “So, I drink a glass of Chateau Haut-Brion to him now and then, and hope that he can still hear me.”

A smile swept across her face like sunlight racing cheekily over the winter landscape, hunted by clouds. Poor old thing, Ellen said to herself. She carried her past so heavily, and looked far too frail for the burden. But there was something about her, so robust, she would never let the weight drag down the sweetness of her temper. Frank had always had a soft spot for sweet old ladies, and Ellen could imagine he would have been especially taken by this intriguing woman.

She played with her scarf, constantly rearranging it, and stared out onto the passing fields. They looked tired, yellow and drained by the winter. Private reminiscence occupied her eyes where the twinkle had been.

Ellen left her to her thoughts. She could picture her as a young woman in the chequered history that she was going over at this moment. Not conventionally beautiful perhaps, but she had a strength of character in her face that must have been very striking in her youth. And Ellen could imagine she had an allure that must have made quite an impression on the men. But what did she have from it, apart from a fading memory?

She must have sat fidgeting with her thoughts for a good fifteen minutes before eventually jogging herself into action. Horrified, Ellen watched her take another bottle of wine from her suitcase.

“You’ve been such a charming travelling companion,” she said. “Would you do me the honour of accepting this?”

Ellen could hear her English tutor, the colonel, in her choice of words, and smiled at the thought of this quaint liaison.

“That’s very kind of you, but I couldn’t. Really.”

“Don’t be so English. Here,” she insisted, and thrust the bottle into Ellen’s hands. Then, taking a paper handkerchief from her bag, she wiped the wine glasses clean, put them away, and looked at Ellen with an expression that spoke of so much unhappiness which only she would know. Just as only Ellen would ever know her own.

“I have to get out at the next stop. Could I impose upon you one last time?” Her eyes wandered over the luggage. “The porter wanted to put it in the guard’s van, but I preferred to have it all with me. You never know what might happen, do you?”

There was really no way Ellen could refuse even if she had wanted to. So, for the third time on that short journey, she sprang to her feet for the elderly lady, leaving her to continue the stroll through her