Missing

1. Of Honour and Duty

Erzingen, Germany — Monday 10 May 1915

David paused, nosed his wine, looked from face to face and said, "But let's get back to here, back to us, back to these superb wines and to these delicious meats. I'm so delighted to have met you, Tante Bethia."

They enjoyed a long, rambling conversation through the evening, sharing stories and reminiscences as they slowly cleared the platters and savoured the wines to depletion. Shortly after the clock had cuckooed ten, Bethia stood. "I must go prepare your rooms, make your beds, get towels ..."

"I'll come with you." Maria rose to join her. "Four hands will make it much easier."

As they reached the top of the stairs, Bethia paused for a breath and looked back down, then into Maria's eyes. "What a magnificent man you have found. We mustn't let him get away. Come, let's prepare a love nest for you in the corner room."

She led Maria along the cross hall to the doorway at the end, pushed the door the rest of the way open, and stepped in. "This was our room, but a few months ago I decided the stairs were too much every night, so I now use the side parlour downstairs."

"What a delightful room. So many windows."

"Look out here." Bethia took her hand, led her to a pair of doors, and opened them. "My little Juliet balcony. It looks over the courtyard a hundred metres into Switzerland."

"This is so beautiful." Maria stepped out. "It must be a marvellous view in daylight."

"The summer sunsets are over there." Bethia pointed toward the right. "And over there, over the other corner are our vineyards only seventy metres away – tough to see them in the dark. But come, Sweetheart, let's make you a love nest."

"Sweetheart," Maria said with a warm smile, "that's what Mama calls me."

"That's what I used to call her. You're both such sweethearts. I'm so delighted she has kept her free spirit and is passing it along."

As they pulled satin sheets and pillowcases out of drawers, fluffed pillows, stuffed a duvet into a cover and slowly arranged the room, Bethia asked many questions about David. They paused often as Maria freely shared her experiences.

"He is such a magnificent man, but I've said that so many times already, Sweetheart. I haven't had warm loins like this. Not been wet this way for such a long while."

"He did that to me the first time I saw him. I don't know what it was. His face was bandaged. I couldn't see how handsome he was, only hints of it. But it was the way he looked at me. It was as if he was looking deep into my soul. I tingled all over each time I approached his table. I quickly became wet. He must have smelled it. He loves my aroma."

"That aroma is part of God's design," Bethia paused and shook her head, then continued, "Like the beautiful cover he has on his huge sausage. That is huge, Sweetheart. Huge. I had never imagined that's how they're supposed to be. Oh, to be young again and exploring."

"I don't know if you've ever done this, but the first evening in the gasthaus, after he started me wetting, I went to the back and dipped my fingers under my skirts to relieve the buzz. I dabbed some of my wetness between my breasts and behind my ears, and when I returned to his table, he became much more interested."

"That's nature's original perfume, Sweetheart, and still the most successful one. I'm so pleased Rachel passed that on to you."

"She didn't. I love the aroma and thought it must be there for a purpose. I thought it made sense and did it."

"You are a natural; you truly are. Come, let's do fresh towels in your bathroom," Bethia said as she led Maria into the attached room. "After that, we'll make up your mother's rooms."

They finished a quarter-hour later and rejoined Rachel and David, who were in a deep discussion. "We'll continue this later," Rachel said as David rose when the ladies entered the room.

"You come from a formal background," Bethia said. "Obviously, from a very polite one. We rarely see that here anymore."

"Mamère is French, from Castelnaudary, east of Toulouse. Her father was a baron, but the hereditary peerage system had changed so much with the Revolution, with Napoleon, Louis Eighteen ... He did nothing with the title, he had no sons, so the title died with him. In an equal world, my mother would be a baroness, and she raised us strictly, properly and politely."

"I sensed a nobility about you when Maria introduced us," Rachel said. "It's even more obvious now with our discussions."

"Your father, where is he from?" Maria asked.

"His family was from Galway, Ireland. They had fled the potato famine in the 1840s for Canada, and as the country expanded, they continued moving west, finally stopping on the banks of the Columbia River, surrounded by mountains. They were the first settlers in the area."

"So how did he meet your mother, a French woman way out there?"

"On a train in the Rockies. I've never dug into the story, and they've never shared much of it. I know they became friends when they were snowbound in a blizzard west of Banff. They spent four days on the train over Christmas waiting to be dug out."

His eyes widened, and he looked around, smiling. "I now understand what he meant when he told me they found creative ways to stay warm. That's where I started; I was born nine months later."

"So you're part restless Irishman, part French baroness, and part mountain blizzard. What a wonderfully wild and noble combination." Maria looked at him, then at her mother with a wide grin. "He followed me home, Mama. Can I keep him?" She added with a giggle, "You let me keep the cat."

"He's the one who has to decide that, Sweetheart," Rachel said in a serious tone. "You simply have to make him want to come back."

"Come back?" She shook her head. "What do you mean, come back?"

"Sweetheart, he has responsibilities. Responsibilities that reach far beyond here. He's a soldier sworn to the King to defend against the Germanic aggression. He has to continue the fight. As easy and pleasant as it would be for him to do so, and as much as he wants to, he cannot stop here. His integrity and his character won't allow him to. He's deeply in love with you, but he's honour-bound. We've just spent the past half-hour discussing it."

Maria began to sag like a rag doll gradually losing its stuffing as she listened to this. David moved up behind her wilting form and wrapped his arms around her, gently kissing her neck and shoulder, whispering, "I love you."

Tears streamed down her face as she trembled, trying to hold her composure. She twisted in David's arms, buried her face into his chest and let the sobs deepen, allowing the convulsions to pummel her body, doing nothing to muffle the sounds of her crying. She tightened her grip around him. Then tighter.