A Song for Summer

Mother and son gazed at each other over the enormous dining table, both equally appalled by the prospect. Huge bulls pursued Kendrick in his mind as he tried to give orders to the farm manager; the wheels of threshing machines whirred, blowing chaff into his asthmatic lungs; girls on large horses rode up the drive and despised him ...

"So it has become necessary for you to do your duty, Kendrick. You must marry."

Kendrick blinked at his mother through his thick glasses. She wanted him to marry. And at the word

"marry" there came into his mind, erasing the terrifying prospects of war and agriculture, Ellen's lovely face, the soft mouth, the gentle eyes and floating hair.

"I should like to marry," he said, "but there is only one woman I am prepared to consider."

Patricia stared at her son, who had spoken with unexpected certainty.

"Who is that?"' she asked.

"Her name is Ellen Carr. She's working in Austria at the moment but her home is in London. She is a wonderful person."

"What is she working at? What does anyone do in Austria?"'

"She is a matron in a school. But she also cooks. She is highly trained."

Patricia controlled herself with an effort of will. "A cook! I take it you are joking. Even you would not imagine that a Frobisher could marry a cook?"'

But the image of Ellen had given Kendrick unexpected courage.

"There is no one else I am prepared to marry," he repeated. "But she has refused me."

"Refused you! Good heavens, what is a cook doing to refuse you? Does she know who you are?"'

"Yes. But she is not in love with me. Of course a lot of people have proposed to her, but I shall never give up hope. Never."

Making a heroic effort, Patricia tried

to envisage a cook who had been much proposed to and did not want to espouse a Frobisher.

"What is her background?"'

"Her mother is a doctor. She was a Norchester. There are three sisters who were all suffragettes. They are admirable women. Ellen's father was killed in the last war."

"Good, not the Norchester gals? Phyllis and Charlotte the third one called?"'

"That's right. Well, well--Gussie Norchester's gals--mad as hatters, all of them, tying themselves to railings and God knows what. Gussie had a dreadful time with them--they wouldn't be presented or behave normally in any way."

But the aberrant behaviour of the girls didn't seem to matter, Kendrick found, for Gussie Norchester had been the niece of Lord Avondale and entirely acceptable. If the cooking girl was her grand-daughter the whole thing was obviously another eccentricity and could be overlooked.

"Perhaps you have not been firm enough," said Mrs Frobisher. "Girls like to be dominated. Why don't you go out there--to Austria--and press your suit. If she knows that I am not against the match it might make a difference."

"I did wonder," said Kendrick. He had indeed wondered very much, for the goings-on at Hallendorf as read out in Gowan Terrace had disturbed him increasingly. Ellen had written light-heartedly about Chomsky and the rest, but Kendrick was beginning to have nightmares in which his beloved was subjected to advances by naked metalwork professors or pinned to the wall by red-haired Welshmen.

"Perhaps I could ask her to meet me in Vienna?"'

"A good idea," said Mrs Frobisher.

She did not care for waltzes, but was aware that they were considered beneficial for romance.

But Kendrick's plans for his visit to Vienna were cast in a much more serious vein. If he was to lure Ellen to the Austrian capital, it must be with a worthwhile programme of serious sightseeing as well as visits to concerts, art galleries and museums. Returning home, he was soon closeted in the London Library where the delights of the Austrian capital could be carefully studied.

There was so much to see: the churches of Fischer

d'Erlach (both the Elder and the Younger), at least a dozen equestrian statues of significance and a leprosy sanatorium in the suburbs which was said to represent the pinnacle of Secessionist architecture.

There was the Hofburg, of course, and the vault of the Capuchin church containing the bodies of the Hapsburg Emperors, but not, apparently, their hearts and livers, for which it was necessary to go to the crypt of St Stephen's cathedral. And of course there were all the places where the great composers had been born or died or simply resided. Schubert's spectacles could be visited in Nussdorf, and Beethoven's ear trumpet in the Stadtsmuseum, though the attribution of Mozart's billiard cue in a cafe in Grinzing was seriously disputed.

Best of all would be if he could take Ellen to the opera. After all, the Vienna Opera was the glory of Europe. Surely she would not refuse to come if he could offer her seats for a performance there?