The Longest Winter
Read The Longest Winter Online
Authors: Mary Jane Staples
When Baroness Sophie von Korvacs meets British painter James Fraser one hot summer’s day in Vienna, the attraction is instant. A whirlwind romance follows, with Vienna bathed in the brilliance of the last days of the emperor. And when James proposes to Sophie it seems a fitting end to that wonderful, enchanting summer.
But darker days are on the horizon as Europe teeters on the brink of war. James must make the ultimate choice: love for King and Country or love for Sophie. Before he knows it, his difficult decision is made for him, and he and Sophie are on opposite sides of a bloody and devastating conflict.
Four bleak years of fighting and death roll by. Will Sophie’s long winter ever end and can their love conquer all?
THE LONGEST
WINTER
Mary Jane Staples
friend and counsellor
He appeared, and I did not think of disaster then
Or of love
For he was only another man
And most men are ordinary
But on a day unlike all other days
He became a hero, his badge shining so sternly bright
That I, as much in fear as all unpretentious mortals,
Stood palely in his shadow
And when the trumpets brayed to call the heroes to war
He was more than a hero
And far above earthly men in his godlike infallibility
Showing neither the smallest weakness nor spark of love
But paying his tributes only to Mars
It is war
And though eagles soar to vanish and the hawk ascends invisible
He flies higher
I am destroyed, for once I was myself and now am nothing,
Living only to despise him
Yet I love him with such unrequited hunger
That even if every other joy were a banquet
I should still die famished
Is this what such men make of women,
Starvelings?
Vienna
December 1917
BOOK ONE
THE LAST SUMMER
He was very old. As he slowly crossed an inner court of the Hofburg he looked as if he had lived for a thousand years. Perhaps he had burdened himself with all the years of his dynasty. But he still wore his uniform each day and still rose at dawn to go to his daily work. That was how it had been from the time he had ascended the throne.
But work, with its mountains of paper and its demands for orders and decisions, was not quite so easy to come to terms with now. It had kept him a prisoner for how long? Centuries? He would have preferred to have taken command of his empire from the saddle of a horse, not from a desk. But because he was what he was, the servant of his people, he had accepted his chains without complaint. Sometimes, however, he did wonder if his people had not made him more of a bureaucrat than an emperor.
It was not a change of heart which made the mountains more difficult to move these days. It was simply age. There were occasions when, having reached his desk, he would stand before it
uncertain as to whether it was time to commence or time to go.
But there was one thing he was sure of. And that was that his life, his times, his triumphs and his tragedies were of the past. He had been Emperor for almost sixty-six years. It had been a long, long reign. The longest. That in itself was history. There could be only a little time left before he was laid side by side with Elizabeth.
Elizabeth. His Sisi, his empress. Assassinated years ago in Geneva. Everyone knew how much he had spoiled her. No one knew how much he had loved her.
Rudolph, his only son. Gone long ago in the tragic, wintry mists of Mayerling.
Maximilian, his brother. Barbarously executed in Mexico. An eternity ago.
Who was left to succeed? Who would come after him to ensure the continuance of an empire that was so self-divisive and yet so enduring?
He could not for the moment remember.
Ah, yes. His nephew, Franz Ferdinand. A strong-minded archduke who had obstinately contracted a morganatic marriage with some obscure lady-in-waiting. The archduke had his own ideas about what might be good for stabilizing the empire. Such as turning the Dual into the Triple Monarchy by making a kingdom of the South Slav peoples, this to act as a buffer between Austria and Hungary. Neither Austria nor Hungary would like that.
Nor would Serbia, which considered there was
an ethnic case for incorporating all the South Slavs within the framework of a Greater Serbia.
Ah well, it would be Franz Ferdinand’s problem, and of his own making. But even under Franz Ferdinand the empire would survive. The man would at least be conscientious. And the dynasty, around which the empire revolved, was indestructible.
It was a beautiful day. Was it May? April? June?
It was May and it was a beautiful day indeed, the harbinger of a long hot summer.
He hesitated before a door, its meaning and his purpose escaping him for a second or so. Then, with the ghost of a smile, His Apostolic Majesty Franz Josef I walked from the sunlight into the shadow of the waiting mountain.
‘You don’t know,’ said the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in a letter to his affectionate stepmother, Maria Theresia, ‘how happy I am with my family.’
He was indeed happy, despite his critics, of whom there were many, some in high places. Various were their complaints. He was too taciturn and too sensitive. He was uncommunicative and gruff. His ideas concerning the well-being of the empire were too radical or too impractical. Nevertheless, Franz Ferdinand, well aware that the empire was showing signs of falling apart, persisted in his belief that entirely new policies were necessary, and he was preparing himself for the day when he would
become Emperor. His policies would be strong but sympathetic. There were a dozen different nationalities to consider. He must win them all over.
Meanwhile, as Inspector General of the Imperial Army, he accepted an invitation from General Potiorek, Governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to attend manoeuvres in Bosnia at the end of June. General Potiorek had also asked the archduke to set aside a day when he could attend a reception in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. Franz Ferdinand agreed.
News that the archduke would definitely grace Sarajevo with his august presence on 28 June reached the higher echelons of the anarchist organization, the Black Hand, in Belgrade. The information was passed on to Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijevic, Chief of the Serbian Army Intelligence and the shadowy figurehead of the Black Hand. The colonel, so industrious a plotter that he was known as Apis, the Bee, did not take long to decide what was required.
Simply, a select band of bomb-throwers willing to face subsequent martyrdom.
Among those who answered the call was Gavrilo Princip, a nineteen-year-old Bosnian student. Also interested was Boris Ferenac, a musician.
Vienna, 1914. The city of the Habsburgs, where the Hofburg, a maze-like complexity of administrative buildings, reached out to peer into streets, invade gardens and overlook parks. Through its ancient arch in the Michaeler Platz bowled the carriages of those privileged to attend its glittering social functions. If one did not have the entry through that arch, then in the eyes of Vienna one had so little standing socially that one was a nobody.
Vienna, which the waltz kings had made eternally gay and haunting, was in 1914 at the peak of its splendour, its colour, its culture. Its Ringstrasse captured imagination, its women were the most elegant in Europe, its officers the most dazzling and its emperor the most incorruptible. It was the city of the imperishable
Merry Widow
, of Lehar, Strauss and Mozart, of writers, poets, love and scandal. For the rich there was everything, for the people there were the dance halls and the Vienna Woods.
Baroness Teresa von Korvacs adored Vienna and thought the family residence could not have
been better situated. It was on the nicer side of the Salesianergasse and within easy reach of elegant shops and fashionable restaurants. And not far away was the Hofburg, where the dear old emperor still kept his eye on everything, including the Hungarian Magyars, the most acquisitive people in the empire. They were always after more than they knew they were entitled to. Her husband Ernst said that was how they always got as much as they actually wanted. And Ernst should know. He had served the emperor in more than one of his ministries. He was in the Foreign Ministry now.
Their house, with its domed vestibule leading to a baroque-style staircase and a chandeliered ballroom the envy of the exalted, was fronted by a paved forecourt, high iron railings and a gilded, ornamental gate bearing their coat of arms. Nearly ninety years old, the house had the appearance of being graciously mellowed by time while remaining impervious to change.
The bright morning room overlooked the Salesianergasse. When she was in a busybody mood the baroness liked to observe who was driving by with whom. Open carriages and trotting horses gave the thoroughfare an air of dash and elegance. It was a pity motor cars had been allowed to intrude. The baroness did not think automobiles suited a city like Vienna. Berlin, yes, because that city was all boisterous bustle, the noisy upstart of Europe. Vienna was the established, cultured Queen.
Motor cars were only a fad, of course. They
would never last. Carl, their only son, wanted one simply because other young men did. Ernst had said he would see. Carl had smiled and said he would see that his father saw. The baroness hoped that whatever was seen would not be allowed.
The drawing room was her favourite. It was wallpapered in old gold on which clusters of roses danced. The printed chintzes were softly subtle, the deeply upholstered armchairs designed for comfort. Tall windows looked out on to gardens stretching as far as the boundary of the Modena Palace. Through the windows one could watch the four seasons come and go. In the spring the blossom hung fragrant in the sun or scattered sensitively before the wind. In summer the lawns were a green canvas for every other colour.
The gardens were lovely today. She mused on them from the quiet of the room, then turned her attention to new fashion plates. Heavens, ostrich feathers were in again. Ridiculous. And impossibly expensive, besides leaving the poor ostriches bald and bereft. Baroness von Korvacs, forty-four, was fair, aristocratic and still a handsome dresser. But she could do without ostrich feathers.
Life was very agreeable. Other mothers worried about their children. She did not. Well, very rarely. She was blessed with perfect offspring. Well, almost perfect. Carl at twenty-four was the most good-natured of young men. Anne, eighteen, was a delightful girl. A little impulsive, perhaps. And Sophie, just twenty, was
so elegant and intelligent. But it was just a little disconcerting that she was not yet engaged. She could have been. A charming and infatuated French diplomat had enquired after her hand. The baroness received the enquiry cordially. Sophie did not. Neither did her father.
‘I’m sorry, Mama, but really, he’s too fat,’ said Sophie.
‘Darling, his figure is robust, that’s all,’ said her mother.
‘He’s not only too fat, he’s too old,’ said her father.
‘He’s mature,’ said the baroness.
