Chapter Six

Of Bedrooms ... And Favours

Crawley House, Downton, Yorkshire, England, late May 1941.

"Swallows and Amazons, Chapter Thirteen. The Charcoal Burners," read Edith. Before continuing, she glanced down fondly at Kurt. "Darling, do you know what a charcoal burner is?"

Kurt shook his head; then sighed. He would very much have preferred for Mama to be reading him Chapter Two of The Mask of Fu Manchu. But it seemed that was not to be. At least ...

Schloss Rosenberg, Lower Austria, Christmas Eve, 1931.

"Really? How very un-gallant of you!" Edith smiled; in jest pointed a denunciatory finger at Friedrich. "To accuse a lady of lying is hardly a gentlemanly act, as I am sure you are well aware. By the way, this was positively delicious". Setting down her now empty silver goblet, she warmed her hands once again before the green tiled stove. Friedrich followed suit. Likewise smiled.

"I didn't say you were lying," he said softly. "That was not my intent. Far from it. And if, somehow, my remark has gone astray, has caused you any offence, then I withdraw it and apologise, unreservedly". He grinned. Both of them knew full well that they were playing a game. "No, what I meant was, that somehow I don't think that you have quite told me the whole story. At least not yet. As to when you choose to do so, that, my darling, of course rests with you. It's your decision. But whether you choose to do so now, or, at some later date, I know that you will". Friedrich's eyes lit with mirth and which, if only for an instant, reminded Edith so very much of darling Tom. "In any event, my dear, like little Max, you must be very, very tired. It's Christmas Eve; it's very late and ..." Seeing Edith now signalling to Feist, that he should refill their goblets, Friedrich broke off what he was saying. "What on earth are you doing?"

"What does it look like?"

Friedrich shook his head in disbelief.

"You never cease to amaze me. How your family could never see the remarkable woman they had in their midst".

Edith demurred.

"Save darling Tom and dearest Sybil".

Friedrich smiled.

"Of course. Forgive me, I was forgetting. But you still haven't answered my question". Friedrich glanced up as the butler set down on the table between them the two silver goblets, again brimful with the warming raspberry nectar that had so entranced Edith. "Thank you, Feist. Yes, that will be all".

"Thank you, sir". The elderly butler nodded and discretely withdrew.

The door closed softly behind Feist. Seeing it do so, Edith began her tale.

"You wanted to know what happened tonight? Well, I suppose it all began, when we chanced to meet with Miss Henderson ..."

Westbahnhof, Vienna, Republic of Austria, earlier that same evening.

Although their journey on foot from where they had left the bakery van had taken them rather longer than Edith would have preferred on account of the icy state of the pavements, having to take care that neither she, nor more importantly Max, took a tumble, along with Fritz, mother and son arrived safely at the imposing building which constituted Vienna's Westbahnhof. Their arrival on the south side of the station, as they walked up the steps through the ornamental portal which led to the ticket hall and the departure platforms, did not, however, go unnoticed.

For, even at this late hour, despite it being Christmas Eve, there were still people about, most those awaiting the arrival of friends or relatives, or else, as were Edith and Max, intent on catching one of the last passenger trains to leave the station tonight. And there were others here too, more especially as Mayer had feared there might be, members of the Heimwehr, instantly recognisable, not from their uniforms per se, but by their green loden hats each of which sported the tail feather of a black grouse and which gave rise to the nickname of rooster tails, bestowed upon them by their opponents who thought them ridiculous. The uniform they wore maybe but that the Heimwehr were a force to be reckoned with, Edith had already seen for herself this evening, and before this night was through, was very shortly to do so again.

It was the sight of the dachshund trotting down the platform towards the coaches of the waiting Salzburg express which alerted Leutnant Maecker, formerly of the Tiroler Kaiserjäger, now of the Heimwehr, to something which he recalled seeing earlier this evening, in a street not far from here, when they had been on the way back here to the railway station, having long since given up pursuing those bloody Jews. The elegantly dressed woman looked familiar too; although for the present, try as he might, he couldn't quite place her. Still, no matter. He signalled to two of his men who now stepped forward and abruptly barred her path.

Edith looked questioningly at the men before nodding towards the train.

"Would you kindly let me pass. My son and I are for the express".

"All in good time. Your name please".

"Leutnant, what exactly is going on here?" interposed a voice that was clearly used to giving orders; one which brooked no argument.

Edith breathed a sigh of relief. The man in civilian clothes who had come to stand beside her, and most unexpectedly, was someone she knew; a former pilot and a friend of Friedrich's: Kapitän Conrad Wyss.

"This woman has ..."

"Have a care, Leutnant. This lady is known to me. Is the wife of a former officer with the Kaiserliche und Königliche Luftfahrtruppen for whom, along with her son, I will personally vouch. Now, either stand aside and let them pass, or else take me to see your commanding officer. Which is it to be?"

Maecker flushed; nodded curtly to his men who promptly stepped out of Edith's way. Not that Wyss even deigned to acknowledge the fact, as he escorted Edith and Max swiftly along the platform, as far as the last coach of the express. Here Edith turned to face her own Good Samaritan.

"Thank you for that good lie".

Wyss smiled.

Like Friedrich, he too had lost his wife in the epidemic of Spanish 'flu which had swept across Europe in the aftermath of the Great War. But, unlike Friedrich, he had never found anyone to replace his Elisabeth. If he had chanced to meet Edith before she met Friedrich, then ... But life is full of regrets upon which it does not do to dwell.

"It wasn't so very far from the truth".

"What brings you here tonight, of all nights?"
"My nephew. My sister's boy. I'm meeting him and his wife, off the express from Linz".

"Thank you once again".

"Think nothing of it. Thugs in uniform, is all they are". Wyss jabbed a dismissive thumb towards where the Leutnant and his men were hastily quitting the platform.

"That's what Friedrich says".

"He's right. But I very much fear ... " Wyss lowered his voice.

"Fear what?"
"That, they and their kind will win. Now, remember me to Friedrich".

"Of course".

"As for you young man, I hope you like your Christmas present".

"My Christmas present?" asked Max, clearly mystified. He stifled a yawn.

Edith was mortified.

"Do please excuse him, it's well past his bedtime. But for ... a minor difficulty ... we should have been on the earlier train and back at Rosenberg".

Wyss smiled.

"Don't apologise, please". He touched the brim of his hat, before helping Edith and Max board the express, remaining on the platform to see the train depart.

"Frohe Weihnachten!"

The whistle blew, and in a cloud of steam and smoke, the train pulled smartly out from beneath the cavernous train shed of the Westbahnhof, bound for distant Salzburg by way of St. Pölten and Linz.

St. Johann, north bank of the Danube, Lower Austria, later that same evening.

As Weisman continued to peer ahead of him through the falling snow he now glimpsed two bowed figures, those of a woman, she carrying several parcels, and a young boy, he with a dachshund on a leash, the level of the lying snow already well above the small dog's belly, the animal gamboling and snuffling his way through the drifts like a four-legged rotary snowplough.

It was the sight of that ruddy dog, which, at least for Weisman confirmed, the identity of the two people: Madam and her son. The brat with that blasted mutt of his in tow which, even if he was the adored pet of Master Max, was decidedly not in the good books of the chauffeur for, just last week having disgraced himself on the floor of the motor. That regrettable incident apart, Weisman thought Fritz to be a nasty, snappy little thing.

No doubt Weisman would have been astonished to learn that little Fritz, had he been able to express his views, held an equally low opinion of the chauffeur. Fritz considering Weisman to be an exceedingly unpleasant adult male of the human species who was, when he thought there was no-one else was about to see him be so, rather too free with the use of his boots.

Somewhere over the Isonzo river, Italian Front, Julian Alps, December 1917.

Being among those listed on the day's orders to take part in yet another early morning sortie out over the Italian lines, here in his bedroom of the Villa Alba, requisitioned from its owners, in order to provide accommodation for some of the pilots of Flik 41J of the Kaiserliche und Königliche Luftfahrtruppen, he had been awoken unwillingly from his slumbers while it was yet still dark by his batman.

Had then tumbled befuddled and groggy - a legacy of having drunk too much brandy the previous night - from the cocooned warmth of his camp bed. Both to wash and shave in the hot water Gruber had brought him in a jug, and then to dress; all by the flickering light provided by a couple of hurricane lanterns. Having hurriedly swallowed a cup of coffee, hot, black, and bitter and eaten the croissants, also brought him by his batman, along with the other four pilots, it was outside, braving the bitter chill of an early December morning and into a staff car in which, all bundled together, they were driven the short distance over to the airfield. There to find his Albatross D-III and those of his comrades already rolled out of their canvas hangars and lined up on the frozen grass.

Once out of the staff car, as was his wont, he gave a cursory glance upwards, saw that on this particular winter's morning the clouds were dark grey, hanging ominously low, lowering angrily over the white tipped crests and peaks of the Alps, presaging, he thought, yet more snow, while, south eastwards, over the mountains, towards the Italian lines, the sky was salmon pink, shot with the amber glow of the breaking dawn.

With no time for wasting, dressed in his fur lined flying suit, sporting a leather hood and boots, he did as the others were now doing, in his case clambering hastily up onto the bottom wing and from there scrambling into the cockpit of his own Albatross before, but moments later, the motors of the five machines in the escadrille bursting into life as they were tested, followed by several loud explosions as the five pilots tried out the mechanism of their Schwarzlose machine guns, before then adjusting their gas and air throttles.

"Contact!" he yelled.

Below him on the frozen grass, the mechanic standing in front of the machine now spun the heavy wooden propeller and the engine of the Albatross, followed shortly thereafter by those of his comrades, roared into being. Drawing forward, bouncing across the frozen grass, his compatriots following suit, he gave the 'plane yet more and more throttle, the Albatross picking up speed, now racing across the frozen grass before, a matter of minutes later, the wheels left the grass, and he had taken off, the ground falling away slowly as the machine soared upwards into the cold morning air.

Circling high over the airfield, glancing cursorily at the gauges, including the oil pressure, noting too the time on the clock as to when he had left, now looking round behind him he saw the four other 'planes had also left terra firma, were likewise rising steadily upwards into the chill Alpine air. Somewhere about 1400 metres he eased off on the throttle, waiting for his companions to catch up, and when they had done so, climbing still higher, gulping in mouthfuls of cold air in order to clear his ears as the pressure changed, and heading for the Italian lines …

Here, high above the snow covered peaks of the Julian Alps, it was bitterly cold, and, despite the warmth of his fur lined flying suit, he found himself shivering. Far below, he saw waterfalls, lakes, and the river itself, sparkling in the morning sunlight; glimpsed occasionally the pale ribbon of one of the very few roads, saw too the bright flashes of artillery fire and the subsequent puffs of dirty brown smoke where shells were bursting in and around the lines of the trenches, the mottled earth in their immediate vicinity already heavily pock marked with craters left by past explosions, much like the Albatross itself, which, was a sieve of patched up bullet holes garnered on previous sorties. Puffs of black smoke now began to punctuate the sky from bursts of shrapnel coming from the enemy artillery far below, the noise of the explosions drowned out by the roar of the motor.

And then, with a sickening sense of déjà vu, he saw them; coming out of the cover of the clouds, flying directly towards their escadrille: a squadron of Italian Nieuport 11s ...

Doing his very best to divert the attention of two of the Nieuports from where Weber was struggling to control his already damaged machine, an unequal contest but nonetheless, one that honour demanded that he undertake, at close range, he opened fire at the nearer of the two enemy 'planes; hearing above the roar of the wind and the motor, the rattle of his own machine guns as they sent out a lethal stream of bullets, before he soared away overhead, then dived immediately, so as to be out of range as quickly as possible.

Only then, to his horror, did he see another enemy machine coming straight towards him which, while the Nieuport was still some way off, its pilot opened fire with his machine guns: tut-tut-tut, the staccato hail of bullets peppering the Albatross, ripping into the canvas of both fuselage and wings, tearing it to shreds, before hitting the cowling of the engine, sending the 'plane into a corkscrew, spiralling down and down, as he fought desperately to try and regain control of it ...

... now saw the ground hurtling towards him at an alarming rate of knots before, somehow he managed to regain regained control of his machine before, cut and bruised, the wings and fuselage full of fresh bullet holes, with thick black smoke pouring from the engine, he was landing the Albatross, bump, bump, bump, the machine spinning round, ending up facing towards from whence it had just come, before finally spluttering to an abrupt and final stop in a rutted Alpine meadow on the edge of a snow-covered pine forest.

Wiping a mixture of blood, oil, and sweat from off his face, he lay weakly back in the cockpit …

Schloss Rosenberg, Lower Austria, Christmas Day, December 1931.

And then, just as suddenly, on this bright, cold Christmas morning of 1931, very much to his relief, young Max woke up.

To find, somewhat to his surprise, and also to his infinite relief that, instead of slumped, bloodied and bruised, in the cockpit of a bullet ridden Albatross D-III somewhere in the Julian Alps, he was in fact safe, lying snug and warm in his bed, in his very own room at Rosenberg, with little Fritz licking his face, desirous of being both fussed and petted.

Now, as it so happened, Max had had the same dream before; the reason for which was partly of his own making. For, ever since he had first learned about it, down the years, and usually at his own insistence, he had asked Papa to recount yet again the details of that dogfight, fought back in December 1917, in the Julian Alps, high in the skies over the Isonzo river, and which, despite Friedrich's earlier military service on the Eastern Front, was what had led to him being decorated for bravery by His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty, Karl, late Emperor of Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary and Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia who, back in 1922, had died in exile on the distant island of Madeira far out in the Atlantic Ocean.

With the thick, floor length curtains of his bedroom still tightly drawn, looking above him, in the half-light Max saw once again the familiar, faintly moving shadows cast on the ceiling by the dozen or so wooden model aircraft; all of them painstakingly assembled and painted by himself with help from Papa. Or, to be rather more candid, each carefully put together and liveried by Papa with a little help from Max. And thereafter suspended on differing lengths of white cotton thread from the ceiling high above Max's bed. Among these were a pair of Aviatiks, both the D. I and the D. II. A Hansa Brandenburg B. I bomber, resplendent in buff paint with red and white markings both on its wing tips and tail, and on the latter a crown imperial. A red painted Fokker tri-plane bearing the serial number 425/17 as flown by Baron von Richthofen himself. A Lohner B. VII, as flown by one of Papa's friends, Stabsfeldwebel Julius Arigi, Austria-Hungary's most decorated flying ace, who in one engagement shot down five out of enemy aircraft. And taking pride of place, directly above where Max was now lying, was a model of an Albatross D-III, of the type flown by Papa during the Great War, more especially in his skirmish above the Isonzo river.

Here at Rosenberg, having scrambled out of bed, with the curtains now drawn back and having opened the shutters, even though, so as to avoid the risk of injury to himself, Max had been told to leave their unbarring to Frau Schmidt, kneeling on the window seat, through the double glass Max saw that Christmas morning had dawned bright and crisp; the sky above a pale cold blue. The blizzard of the previous night had blown itself out; the legacy of which lay before him. A snow covered landscape that stretched as far as he could see: the stone flags of the terrace, Mama's much prized rose beds edged with box, in her English Garden, which in summer were a riot of colour and competing scents, the balustrade of the terrace with its lead urns and marble statues, the lawn which stretched all the way down to the lake with, beyond it, a magnificent view of the Schneeberg, the highest peak in the Alps hereabouts, all lay hidden beneath a pristine mantle of white.

The door to Max's bedroom opened and, turning expectantly on the window seat, on seeing who it was, Max smiled happily as his Mama came into the room.

"Merry Christmas, my darling!"

Schloss Rosenberg, afternoon, Christmas Day, December 1931.

So far, at least for the family, Christmas here at Rosenberg had been a decidedly leisurely affair. A late breakfast, followed by the servants being given their presents in the hall beside the Christmas tree after which Friedrich, Edith and Max had adjourned to the Drawing Room to exchange their own gifts to each other in private. Of all the presents young Max received, the one with which he was most delighted was that to which Kapitän Wyss had alluded so enigmatically on Christmas Eve, just as they had been about to board the express at the Westbahnhof.

For what that turned out to be, was a wooden propeller from off an Albatross D-III; the 'plane to which it had belonged, long since broken up, at the the end of the Great War said Papa, when the surviving machines of the Austro-Hungarian Air Force had been surrendered to the victorious Allies. Quite how it had survived and then come into the possession of the Kapitän remained something of a mystery. But survive it had, and, having acquired it, knowing young Max's fascination with all things aeronautical, having no children of his own, the Kapitän had given it to Friedrich and Edith, as a Christmas present for Max; although quite where it would be displayed would, said Friedrich, need some careful thought. Max had the answer to that; on the wall above his bed.

"Perhaps," said Friedrich, "if the wall is strong enough".

At that, Edith smiled; spared a thought for Sybil who, in one of her letters had mentioned in passing that eleven year old Danny's bedroom was cluttered up with bits and pieces from off several old motors: a brass lamp, a wooden steering wheel, and so forth. Predictably enough, wrote Sybil, Tom saw no harm in it; she, on the other hand, thought Danny's room looked like a scrapyard. And when she had said as much to Tom, he had been absolutely no help at all ...

Idrone Terrace, Blackrock, Irish Free State, late June 1931.

Sybil cast a decidedly disapproving eye over Danny's latest prize; a battered radiator from off some motor.

"It's unique, Ma!" She had never heard Danny use the word before; clearly he had learned it from his father which only served to reinforce Sybil's suspicion that Tom had played a part in Danny's newest acquisition.

"I quite agree. It is. I've never seen anything so rusty! Unique or not, it stays outside. In your Da's workshop".

"Oh, Ma!"

It was at this point that Tom wandered in from the garden. And while Danny explained to him that Ma said the radiator would have to stay in the workshop, that she wasn't having his bedroom looking like a scrapyard, husband and wife stood facing each other across the kitchen table, Sybil with her arms folded, Tom with his right arm placed protectively around his son's shoulders.

"Darlin' have yous ever seen a scrapyard, for sure?" asked Tom with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes while at the same time hugging Danny to him.

"No," said Sybil flatly.

"I could take yous to see Donnelly's yard this afternoon, if yous like". Tom grinned.

Honestly, thought Sybil, if darling Papa had still been alive, why, at this time of the year he would have been offering to escort Mama to Ladies' Day at Ascot or to accompany her to view the Royal Regatta at Henley. And here was Tom, proposing to take her to see a bloody scrapyard.

Sybil stood her ground; pointed to the radiator propped against the wall by the back door.

"That! Outside, in the workshop!"

Sybil looked mutinous; much, thought Tom, as General Nivelle must have done, at Verdun, during the Great War, when he famously declared of the Germans, "Ils ne passeront pas!"

And the radiator?

It stayed outside.

In Tom's workshop.

Schloss Rosenberg, Lower Austria, afternoon, Christmas Day, December 1931.

Now, had it not been for Fritz, what happened this afternoon, might never even have occurred.

After luncheon, a light affair, Friedrich and Edith settled down to read in the Drawing Room while, unlike most children of his age and social status who would have been banished to the day nursery, Max played contentedly on the hearth rug before the tiled stove. Some time later, having realised that Fritz had wandered off, Max went in search of him; at last spied the little dog trotting across the hall into the ballroom. For Max, the ballroom was shrouded in mystery; never used and its doors kept shut.

"Ah, there you are!" called Mama. Hearing his mother's voice, Max spun on his heel.

"It's Fritz, Mama, he's gone in there". He pointed towards the doors of the ballroom which this afternoon, for some unaccountable reason, stood ajar.

"Has he? Let's go and find him then".

Taking Max by the hand, Edith pushed open the doors, walked purposefully across the darkened room, over towards the nearest of the half dozen full length windows which gave onto the terrace, opening the shutters before doing the same with all the rest, so that the huge room was flooded with winter sunshine. "There, now. That's much better, don't you agree?"

The interior of the room thus revealed was truly magnificent: the intricate white and gold plasterwork and painted panels of the ceiling, the pictures in their gilded frames, mostly, Edith thought, portraits of Friedrich's forebears, the cut glass mirrors, the candle sconces on the walls, the huge chandeliers, of which there were two, cocooned in dust sheets, as were all of the furnishings, the chairs, the chaises longues, and the marble topped side tables.

"Yes, Mama". Max nodded his head, breathing a sigh of relief when at last he caught sight of the ever inquisitive Fritz who, with his claws clicking on the polished parquet blocks of the floor, now trotted out from beneath a large dust sheet.

"I wonder ..." began Edith.

"Wonder what, Mama?"
"When this room was last ever used?"

Given their own particular circumstances, the fact that Friedrich had been ostracised by his own family, that both he and Edith, or more often, owing to Max's repeated bouts of ill health, these days one or the other of them, usually Friedrich, were out in the Near East on archaeological excavations, the Schönborns entertained but rarely. And when they did so, their guests, like Conrad Wyss, were few, chosen from a select circle of friends, cultured, well read, who shared the same political opinions as their hosts and who, above all, knew of the domestic situation here at Rosenberg and did not disapprove of it.

Crawley House, Downton, Yorkshire, England, late May 1941.

Of all the Walker children who appeared in Swallows and Amazons, and of whom there were four - five including the baby but she didn't really count - Kurt most liked to hear tell about young Roger who, at seven, was almost the same age as he was himself and very resourceful. And if Roger could be resourceful, Kurt could be too.

So when Mama had finished reading all about the encounter with the charcoal burners, had laid aside the book, telling Kurt to be sure to return The Mask of Fu Manchu to Ike at school first thing come Monday morning, tucked Kurt in and then kissed him good night, when she asked, as Mama usually did, if there was anything else he wanted, that gave Kurt the opening he needed ...

A short while later, the bedroom door opened quietly then closed again just as softly. Sitting up in bed, on seeing who it was who had now come in, Kurt smiled, as Claire, placing a forefinger to her lips, tip-toed silently towards him across the room.

"Your Mum ... I mean your Mama, said you wanted me to look in, but I thought you might already be asleep. I've come up to say goodnight," she whispered, before sitting down beside him on the bed.

Kurt grinned. Not only was he very proud to be her brother-in-law, but he also thought Claire to be great fun; liked her a lot and not just because she made his brother Max so very happy.

"Can't you sleep?" asked Claire, in all innocence.

Kurt promptly shook his head.

"Would you like me to read you a story, to help you settle?"

Looking as though butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, slowly - Kurt realising that it wouldn't do to look too eager in all of this - the little boy nodded his head.

"What did you have in mind?"
"Well ..." Once more Kurt's hand slid furtively under his pillow.

Downstairs, the door of the Drawing Room opened and Claire came in; smiled, as she re-joined her husband and her mother-in-law, seating herself on the settee next to Max.

"You've been gone quite a while," he observed.

"Miss me then, did you?"

"No. Not at all. Perhaps. Yes". Max grinned.

"Well?" Edith enquired, laying aside her darning.

"I went up and said goodnight to Kurt and he's gone to sleep. Mind you, I had to read to him for a while ... before he finally nodded off. That's what took me so long".

"I see ..."

"Yes, the second chapter of some story. Max, ..."

Edith's head snapped up.

"The second chapter? But we were much further on with Swallows And Amazons than that".

Claire shook her head.

"Oh, no, it wasn't Swallows and Amazons, it was the book you started reading him last night, darling". Claire glanced sideways at Max. "You remember. The one about Nayland Smith and that evil Chinaman, Fu Manchu ..."

Max grinned.

"Yes, Kurt really enjoyed it. He was hoping you'd read him the second chapter tonight, Mama".

"Was he now?" asked Edith, not deigning to look up for fear that her face might betray her. Concentrated instead on darning the heel of Kurt's threadbare sock. After all, she could hardly be annoyed at Claire; it was not her fault.

At times, she found being the mother of two high spirited sons, who knew their own minds, decidedly taxing. Not that she would have it any other way; speculated, idly, if Mary and Sybil had experienced similar problems. Mary, probably not. After all, she had left the bringing up of her four children in the more than capable hands of the resourceful Nanny Bridges. But no doubt Sybil had gone through many of the same trials and tribulations with her brood as Edith had with Max and Kurt.

And it didn't seem that things became any easier as they grew older.

Far from it.

Whereupon, Edith now fell to wondering, if, when they had been children, Mary, Sybil, and she had been this much trouble to Mama and decided that, on balance, they probably had.

Nonetheless, she would make it her business to see to it that, come Monday morning, The Mask of Fu Manchu was packed off to school in Kurt's satchel, never to return.

Inwardly, Edith sighed. Glanced across at Max and Claire who, sitting on the settee, whispering sweet nothings to each other, were completely oblivious that her eyes were upon them.

No, that was not entirely true. For it was her son at whom Edith was now looking.

When he was the age Kurt was now, darling Max had been just the same.

Known exactly what he wanted.

Would employ any manner of means at his disposal to achieve it.

At that, memory stirred and Edith found herself thinking back to something that had happened, nearly ten years ago, in December 1931, at Christmas, which that year had been spent at Rosenberg, in Lower Austria.

Ballroom, Schloss Rosenberg, Lower Austria, afternoon, Christmas Day, December 1931.

For Edith, the sight of the silent ballroom brought back the past.

So, while mother and son sat together in the quiet of the winter's afternoon, Edith found herself recalling and then bringing to life for Max, the excitement and the glamour of the social whirl from before the Great War, of the dances held at Downton Abbey with the gentlemen in full evening dress and the ladies turned out in the height of fashion, sparkling with jewels. Glossing over, of course, the inevitable assignations and flirtations, although for the most part they had been entirely harmless. Even those of Mary who, with her then penchant for foreign diplomats, had, at the time, appeared to be steadily working her way through the military attachés of each and every Balkan country which had an embassy up in London - Serbia, Montenegro and so forth. Of course, quite what Mary would do when, metaphorically speaking, she reached the Bosphorus, back then Edith didn't know. Perhaps have an affair with someone at the Ottoman Embassy?

"There was one dance, I remember, held in 1912, the very same year the Titanic went down. I was partnered with Freddie Delamere and he would keep treading on my feet! No, don't you laugh. I've never forgotten it. The following morning my toes were all black and blue!"

The lavish dinners: "some with twelve courses, just imagine that!"

The week-end house parties: "where all manner of people came to stay and your dear Grandmama was at her wits' end as to where everyone was going to sleep!"

The shoots, and riding to hounds:"it was only really your late Grandpapa and your Aunt Mary who liked those sort of things. Your Uncle Matthew hates shooting. So does your Uncle Tom".

And, in summer, splendid outdoor picnics, held under the trees down by the lake: "when she was a girl, your Aunt Sybil thought they were the greatest fun, even when she spilled ginger beer all down the front of her silk blouse!"

Then there had been the glittering balls and the elegant receptions, including one for her own coming out held in 1911, "the year I was presented at Court, to the King and Queen" - which her parents had hosted at Grantham House up in house itself, despite strenuous opposition from Mary, now long since sold at Matthew's insistence, as part of his on-going attempt to save the Downton Abbey estate from financial ruin.

A vanished world.

Edith sighed wistfully.

Seated beside his mother, turning his head, glancing out of the window, Max saw the first few flakes begin drifting down from out of the pale blue sky. A moment later and the view from the window vanished entirely; the terrace, the park, the trees, the distant mountains, and the sky, blotted out by a mass of whirling snow.

"Look, Mama, look. It's snowing again!"

"Why so it is". Edith stood up. "I think we should go and find your Papa, don't you?"

But, Max didn't hear what his mother had said.

He felt ...

He didn't know quite how he felt.

Not ill.

Not that.

But as he continued to gaze through the window at the swirling snowflakes, he knew that something was about to happen. And what was more, knew too, that if he remained exactly where he was, sitting here, beside one of the windows of this huge, ornate, empty room, that, if he waited long enough, if he was patient, he would find out what that something was.

Patience is said to be a virtue.

And this time it was rewarded.

And swiftly, too.

For happen it now did.

As from somewhere, seemingly audible only to Max, there came faintly, the tinkling, plaintive notes of a zither.

"Will you teach me, Mama?" he asked suddenly, his tone coaxing, but for all that, quietly insistent; his face lit in childish epiphany.

"Teach you what, my darling?" Edith asked.

She rested her hands lightly upon Max's shoulders; gazed down at him. Saw upon his face the winning smile which he wore, more often than not, when he wanted a favour of her and which always melted her heart. Gazing up at her, looking the way he did now, Edith knew that whatever it was Max wanted, she was powerless to refuse him; was as putty in his hands.

What was more, Max knew it too.

"Teach me, Mama" he persisted. "Teach me to dance".

Author's Note:

Tiroler Kaiserjäger - Tyrolian Rifle Regiment.

Frohe Weihnachten - Merry Christmas.

Kaiserliche und Königliche Luftfahrtruppen - Imperial and Royal Aviation Troops - the air force of the Austro-Hungarian empire until the empire's collapse in 1918.

Stabsfeldwebel Julius Arigi (1895-1981) credited with a total of 32 victories.

Ils ne passeront pas! - They shall not pass!