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man.”
    â€œYes … dear Coatsworth … and now my Tony.” She raised her eyes to heaven and cried in anguish: “Wo bist du, Gott?”
    She spoke German only when under great stress, the comforting language of her childhood. She had been ten years old before her father had permitted English to be spoken in the house.
    Martin answered her in German, holding her tightly. God, he said with quiet emphasis, is always with us. He never deserts anyone. He is with her and Anthony. He was with Mr. Coatsworth when he died … bringing the death that is no more than the natural end of life’s phase. As Heine said in a poem … Men will arise and depart. Only one thing is immortal: The love that is in my heart. “Hold on to that love, Aunt Hanna,” he said in English. “It will sustain you.”
    She began to cry softly, pressing the twisted handkerchief against her eyes. When the train pulled into Abingdon she had composed herself and stepped onto the platform dry-eyed and steeled for the worst.
    Charles was there to meet them, looking gaunt and pale. She scanned his face, searching for signs.
    â€œIs he … still alive?”
    Charles embraced her. “Of course he is, Mother. A fortnight in bed and he’ll be good as new.”
    â€œWhat did the doctor say?” Martin asked.
    â€œAngina pectoris.”
    Hanna gasped. “His heart! I knew it!”
    â€œIt sounds worse than it is,” Charles assured her. “More frightening than fatal. He responded instantly to a nitroglycerin tablet. But he must stay in bed. You’ll have to be very firm with him.”
    â€œIf I have to tie him down with ropes!”
    A chauffeur took Martin’s small pigskin valise, containing just a few items of clothing and shaving gear, and led the way to the venerable Rolls-Royce parked in front of the station.
    Charles smiled wryly at his cousin. “It takes a crisis to get you down here for a few days. You will stay through Saturday, won’t you?”
    â€œIf you want me to.”
    â€œI’d appreciate it.” He lowered his voice. “Coatsworth’s funeral. I welcome your moral support.”
    The chauffeur held the car door open for them and a few moments later the gleaming Silver Ghost was pulling away, as smoothly as a bolt of silk swept along the road.
    A village no more, Martin observed as they drove up the High Street. He had first seen Abingdon in the early spring of 1914, a day such as this with great fleecy clouds drifting over the hills and the soft smell of rain on the wind. A quiet place. A cobblestoned main street with one or two automobiles and dozens of horse-drawn carts and wagons. Sheep and cattle being driven in for market day to the pens where the railway station now stood. The nearest station in those days had been Godalming, twelve miles away. Suburbia now. F. W. Woolworth; a Marks & Spencer; an Odeon cinema palace with a garish marquee. And beyond the town, rows of neat little villas with rose bushes, laburnum, greenhouses, and birdbaths.
    The houses ended at the edge of Leith Common with its rolling meadows and tangled undergrowth. There were still herds of deer in Leith Wood—King’s deer protected by the Crown—and foxes that were hunted in the winter. The road skirted the common and Abingdon Pryory came into view, its myriad brick and stone chimneys seen above the beeches and evergreens that screened the house. The chauffeur slowed the car in front of ornamental iron gates as one of the groundkeepers swung them open. Beyond the gates, a mile-long gravel drive meandering to the house.
    Well, Martin thought, some things did not change: the Pryory in all its stunning magnificence, its limestone façade mellow in the afternoon sun. An oasis of richness and stability in a world reeling into chaos. Only serenity here among formal gardens and clipped lawns, broad stone terraces and gently swaying trees.
    Hanna and Charles went