The Europe That Was (8 page)

‘No,' he would answer, ‘nothing dramatic—no police, no bullets! Just sheer clumsiness. After the sentry had been nobbled, Nicu came out onto the platform of the flatcar, and I got down in order to pass Traian up to him. It was a bit of a strain on us two old gentlemen, and I couldn't pull my toes clear of the wheel when the train started. Nicu grabbed, and pushed the rest of me inside the column; but all the medical supplies we had were oil and wine, like the good Samaritan. Well, at my age, a foot is far from a prime necessity. But Nicu! Don't you agree that for me, without him, now, life would be inconceivable?'

HUNGARY

TELL THESE MEN
TO GO AWAY

Miss Titterton was so ashamed of being put inside—as she believed it was now called—and so uneasily certain that she must have committed an offence that it was very difficult to persuade her she was not a criminal. Even the Family could never quite restore her faith in herself.

In the nineteenth century the Family—Miss Titterton always pronounced the word with a coronet over the capital
F
—owned some five hundred square miles of Hungarian soil; by the twentieth this inheritance had been reduced to fifty. Neither chaperones nor husbands could control the females, and no racecourse, marriage, cabaret or casino was safe from the males. The only hope for the future of the Family and its estates was, their lawyers said—and the Emperor graciously supported the recommendation—an English governess who could inculcate a sense of discipline into the infant generation during the formative years.

The choice fell upon Ellen Titterton. Not for a moment did she feel unworthy, but she could not explain it. She had no connections with Nobility or Higher Clergy, and was far too truthful to claim anything but humble birth and a sound education. Though she was never allowed to suspect it, her appointment was simply due to the fact that she had been the fourth candidate to be interviewed. Her prospective employer, the Countess, had languidly remarked that, whether or not English governesses had the inhuman virtues ascribed to them, they were a dying fashion, and nobody could possibly be expected to endure conversing with more than three of them in quick succession.

Miss Titterton settled into the nursery wing, and was immediately adored by her charges. She had never, my dears, felt the necessity for any harsh discipline. At any rate she trained the characters of two generations of the Family with such success that they could without effort appear imperturbably British: a quality which in later life impressed their bank managers and allowed a presumption of innocence in such divorces as were sadly unavoidable.

When Ellen Titterton was sixty-five, the Family, who all loved a generous gesture, pensioned her off and presented to her a gay, distinguished, little doll's house just off the main street of their market
town. She had as well enough savings of her own—she never seemed to spend any money except on felicitous presents to the children—to impress local society with her independence, and she earned a trifle of income by giving delicately efficient English lessons.

She was slim, straight, respected and as reasonable as ever. She had no special enthusiasms. She did not occupy herself unduly with priests or pets or worthy causes, content to contribute the graces of etiquette to her little circle of maiden aunts and major's widows. She read and recommended; she played the piano well; she left the proper cards upon her friends on all the correct occasions. The society which Miss Titterton ornamented was exactly that for which Providence and a Victorian girlhood had prepared her. She was also grateful to Providence for a basic training in languages which allowed her to speak Hungarian with a hardly noticeable accent.

In 1938 the Family saw what was coming and removed themselves to London. They could not persuade the beloved nursery governess to accompany them. At her age, she insisted, she did not chose to be uprooted. As she had always told the children, when one has made one's bed one must lie on it.

Her confidence was justified. Nobody thought of interning her when Hungary entered the war on the German side—or, if anybody did, the proposal was rejected as a waste of time and money. She continued to live her miniature social life and comforted herself by the thought that there was no quarrel between her two countries. It was a mere accident of diplomacy that Hungary had become an enemy nation. The Germans are so self-willed, my dear, though very musical of course.

When German base units were stationed in the little town, the social decencies were eased for her by her friends. Should some veteran German officer be invited to coffee, it was understood that Ellen Titterton must be warned. If, in spite of this, she came face to face with the enemy her dignified bow was a satisfaction to all concerned. It apologized so exquisitely for the fact that international differences prevented any personal relations.

The Germans found great difficulty, Miss Titterton said, in distinguishing between allied and conquered territory; she would have thought it could have been explained to them. So she was puzzled—but still charitable—when a German army truck, half loaded with furniture, called at her house. Out of it stepped an officer and six SS men.

The officer saluted and asked if he might be permitted to inspect the house. Miss Titterton realized that the visit was official, not social, and that her distant bow would be out of place. She followed the high, black boots from room to room and back to the front door. There, on her own doorstep, she was bluntly informed that, since the
only occupants of the house were herself and her little dainty-aproned servant, she did not need more than two bedrooms. No doubt she would be glad to make a free gift of the furniture of the other to some suffering family in the Ruhr which had been bombed out.

Miss Titterton did not approve of this method of collection. Giving to the Hungarian troops she understood—and to hospitals, bazaars, all the scores of war charities. Very willingly she played her tiny part, for after all the Hungarians were not in action against British troops. Even if they had been, it would have made no difference to her pity.

She replied to the demand that she was very sorry, but she could not give up her furniture. That third bedroom, unused and spotless, was specially dear. It was the dream of her retirement that some day one of the Family would come to stay with her.

The officer showed his army authority—German Army—to remove furniture—Hungarian furniture—and regretted that he had no alternative. He ordered two men up the stairs. They seemed to Miss Titterton rather brutal and large, but she reminded herself that removal men had so much heavy lifting to do. All the same, she was outraged. She took the rational but extraordinary step of telephoning to the town police for protection.

The Family could never find out what had happened at the other end of the line. The police, who knew all about the Herrenvolk's requisitioning, could only recommend prompt obedience. Why they took any action at all was beyond conjecture. It may have been that they wondered if the SS was being impersonated by some band of ordinary, less efficient criminals; it may have been that they were just weary of being ignored. Whatever the reason, Sergeant Bacso, sword, pistol, moustache and all, paced round the corner of the main street and halted in front of Miss Titterton's house.

The dressing-table had got as far as the front door. It could go no farther, since Ellen Titterton, drawn up to her full height, was standing in the doorway. She neither protested nor fluttered. To get the furniture out she herself would first have had to be removed to the army truck, stiff and dignified as a piece of Victorian teak.

Sergeant Bacso was also of an older generation. He and Miss Titterton knew of each other's existence and reputation, but had had no dealings together. For Miss Titterton police were like plumbers—necessary and useful but required only in unpleasant emergencies. For the sergeant she was part of a closed world to which emergencies must not be allowed to happen. That at first was the only common ground.

The Family knew Bacso well—far from a hero and not the sort of man to interfere with his own comfort. He was gorgeous, bumbling, incoherent, and harmless as an old turkey cock. He gobbled at Miss Titterton and Hitler's SS. While he recovered from the shock of this forcible collection of free gifts.

The sergeant was not at all the modern policeman with a probation order in one hand and a tax demand in the other. He did not think of himself as representing the arbitrary benevolence of the State; he was just the protector of the haves, however humble, against the have-nots. Not a very worthy ideal. But, such as it was, it absolutely prevented him from pointing out quietly to Miss Titterton that a private individual should not argue with the SS. For Sergeant Bacso property was property.

He drew out his notebook and formally asked Miss Titterton whether she was or was not willing to present the furniture of one bedroom to the Reich. She replied decidedly that she was not. He took down her statement, closed his notebook and put it back in his pocket.

The SS men were grinning at him as if he were a circus clown in policeman's uniform. He had a wide-open escape route from the deadlock if he merely pointed out that Miss Titterton was British and that he washed his hands of her. The Family doubted if it ever occurred to him. He was used to thinking of her as one of the town's old ladies. The only officials likely to remember her nationality off-hand were those of the former British Legation where she appeared once a year for the party on the King's Birthday in some astonishing confection twenty years out of date and carefully pressed and ornamented.

Having decided that his customer's complaint was justified, Sergeant Bacso pulled his splendid moustache and awaited an invitation to act. He got it.

‘Sergeant,' said Miss Titterton, ‘is it not your duty to tell these men to go away?'

It was a gentle inquiry rather than a command. But there was no disobeying. Miss Titterton had developed her confident manner through taking over two generations of spoilt children from dear old peasant nannies who—regrettably but so very naturally—had no idea at all of discipline. Her voice was sufficient. Unlike the SS she had never been compelled to use corporal punishment.

Sergeant Bacso settled his gleaming shako on his head and joined Miss Titterton at the front door. What really bothered him was not so much standing up to a detachment of the most conscienceless thugs in the German Army as giving orders to an officer. Hungarians of his generation had a very great respect for officers.

He saluted and apologized with every second sentence, but he was firm. Miss Titterton's furniture could not be requisitioned without payment, and it was not going to leave her house until he had referred the matter to his superiors.

By this time a small crowd had gathered. They probably did not cheer, but looked as if they wanted to. The two SS men who were still
carrying the dressing-table put it down. Their comrades stood by the truck, lounging and contemptuously interested. The unconscious arrogance of an old lady and a town policeman had surpassed their own.

The officer called them to attention and began to storm at Bacso. The foaming, emphatic German was a little too fast for the sergeant, but not for Miss Titterton—though there were words the meaning of which she preferred to ignore. She stopped the flow with a slight gesture of her hand and remarked that in the great days of the German Army the officers she met were always gentlemen. Women had been slung across the street for less. But Miss Titterton's rebukes were always unanswerable. That phrase ‘the great days' made any violent retort extremely difficult.

The SS were almost about to climb into their truck and visit other free contributors. Afterwards, of course, they would have returned and had the furniture of the whole house off her. But for the moment they were on the defensive. They were back in school with the copybook maxims of truth, courage and good manners.

Sergeant Bacso, triumphant and peaceable, invited his country's allies to accompany him to the police station; he meant that he was only too willing to refer the question of Miss Titterton's bedroom to higher authority if they would be good enough to come with him. But the SS officer, ready for any excuse to reimpose himself on the situation, pretended to believe that the sergeant was threatening arrest. He nodded to his bullies around the truck who intimidatingly strolled forward.

Bacso in a noble access of Magyar defiance drew his pistol. The illusion of civic law and order was destroyed. By resorting to violence he immediately removed himself from the fantastic world which Miss Titterton had created.

It could easily have been his last act; but the Herrenvolk, relieved of unwelcome memories of civilization and back in their familiar environment, decided that he and his pop-gun were merely comic. They disarmed him and, according to Ellen Titterton, deprived him of his nether garments. She was reluctant to give details. Good manners were as needful as always even if you young people chose to call them inhibitions. It appeared that the SS detachment had hustled Bacso round the corner and launched him into the main street by a kick on the bare backside. He had the sympathy of the whole town, but it was recognized that he never would get over the humiliation, never be so professionally fierce and polished again.

Miss Titterton's respectability, too, was gravely compromised. The police came for her at once, and the local magistrate with them. In spite of being a distant cousin of the Family and a frequent visitor—a highly-strung little boy, she remembered, who had been so unnecessarily afraid of the dark—he would not hold any conversation with her
and would not listen. He bundled her off to his court under the eyes of the SS, and promptly gaoled her for insulting glorious allies and creating a disturbance. A common gaol it had been, among common criminals. She had been very glad to see how well the poor women were treated. She was sure that she had been allowed no special privileges beyond permission to decorate her cell with curtains and chintz covers and to invite selected prisoners to coffee. Their moral education had been sadly neglected, and she hoped that her influence on them had been for the good.

Miss Titterton felt that it was very forgiving of the Family to rescue her and fly her back to London immediately after the war. When they explained to her that prison had been the only way of preserving her from a quite certain concentration camp and the very possible attentions of the Gestapo, she tried hard to believe them. But in her experience, she said, justice was always done. She was afraid it stood to reason that she had deserved her sentence—perhaps for not taking enough care with the unruly member, my dear. It was very kind of them all to accept her disgrace so light-heartedly.