The Wasserburg was at its best in autumn; the mosquitoes gone, the sunsets magnificent, the sky trailing skeins of geese, duck, snipe and pochard which it was once more possible to shoot, and it was with real emotion that Maxi surveyed his reprieved domain.
The day after receiving Herr Rattinger’s letter, he went to Vienna and withdrew Spittau from the market. Then he went round to the Klostern Theatre to give the good news to Tessa and ask her out to lunch.
The backstage world of the theatre had become familiar to Maxi, but nothing could reconcile him to Fricassée and it was with a grimace of distaste that he clambered over the railway platform, made his way round the bed shaped like a mouth – and found Tessa in the scene dock painting the signal from which Raisa, in Act Two, was supposed to hang herself.
She was pleased to see him and overjoyed about the reprieve of Spittau. ‘Oh, Maxi, I’m so terribly glad.’ To her surprise, she had continued to see quite a lot of Maxi, who had clearly taken his rejection in good part and often came to the theatre. ‘It makes me feel less guilty about things. At least it makes me feel less awful about us not being married,’ said Tessa, who felt that morning just about as awful about everything else as it was possible to feel. ‘But what a miracle it all is! How did you hear about this Strasbourg Commission?’
‘Herr Farne put me on to it.’
‘Guy!’ Tessa had spun round, her brush dribbling red paint on to the floor.
‘Yes. I met him outside the agent’s and he told me what to do. And I’m sure it’s only because of him that they pushed it through like that. He rang up Rattinger himself. Farne seems to be like God with all these people; you would think he’d saved Rattinger’s kid from drowning. Well, maybe he did, I wouldn’t put it past him. They answered in two weeks, believe it or not.’ He looked intently at Tessa. ‘Are you all right, Putzerl? You look a bit odd.’
‘Yes. I’m all right. Fine.’ Tessa pushed her fringe aside with the back of her hand and began to mop at the spilt paint with a rag dabbed in turpentine. One day, she thought bitterly, in two or three thousand years, perhaps, she would be able to hear Guy’s name without feeling as though she had been put through a wringer.
‘Well, anyway, what I wanted to say, Putzerl, was that if you ever feel like changing your mind, I’d still be terribly pleased. I mean, Spittau’s there and it wouldn’t matter about the money now. Of course, we wouldn’t have much but we could manage. You wouldn’t be able to have any fuss – but if you decided, after all, we could ask down Father Rinaldo (the one who used to make such a pet of you when he was chaplain at Schönbrunn) and just a handful of people. I won’t keep asking you, but . . . well, if you thought it might work after all, just let me know.’
‘Thank you, Maxi, you’re very sweet.’ Tessa was genuinely touched. Her childhood friend seemed to have become nicer and more perceptive in the last weeks, and amidst the perpetual grime and dust of the theatre, Spittau, with its wide skies and fresh winds, seemed far from unattractive. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen . . . you’ve probably heard that things aren’t very good here. I mean, I’ve spent a terrifying amount of money and the bank manager was really unctuous and beastly. And I don’t know . . . I mean, I’m not quite as musical as the others and sometimes I don’t feel absolutely sure that Fricassée is—’ She broke off. ‘But that’s silly. I have to go on. I promised.’
‘That’s all right. I just want you to know there’s somewhere to go. What about some lunch?’
‘Maxi, I can’t. We’ve got a costume fitting at one and then the publicity people are coming.’
‘Well, if you can’t,’ said Maxi, flushing slightly, ‘do you think your little friend would come? Heidi Schlum-berger?’
‘Oh, yes! What a good idea. You’ll find her in the chorus dressing-room. It will do her good to have a treat; she’s been looking a bit peaky lately.’
An hour later, therefore, Maxi sat opposite the Littlest Heidi at a white-painted table beneath a golden lime tree in the Prater. Not, however, the Hauptprater, with its fashionable chestnut allées and formally tended beds, but the Wurscht’lprater – that lusty, noisy, bustling fun-fair with its shooting booths and roundabouts and the famous giant wheel which Maxi particularly adored. How he had yearned to ride up there when he was a little boy, compelled to sit stiffly between his parents in their embossed, gold-wheeled carriage as it rolled relentlessly away from the high hedge behind which the ‘hoi polloi’ disported themselves.
The late September day was gentle: a golden leaf floated down and landed on Heidi’s adorable blonde head adorned by a pink satin bow which matched her blouse. Heidi, like Tessa, had been delighted by Maxi’s news, and now said shyly that she was sure Tessa would soon change her mind and become mistress of Spittau. ‘She must do . . . I mean, one couldn’t not. . .’ she said, looking worshipfully at Maxi out of her huge blue eyes.
Maxi patted her hand. ‘Have some more sauerbra-ten,’ he suggested.
But Heidi, who usually loved her food, made a little moué and said, ‘No, thank you, you’re very kind, but I couldn’t. And no more wine either, thank you.’
But though she felt so queasy, Heidi did not feel in the least like cutting short the meal. While they sat here quietly in the open air, she could manage without disgracing herself. True, the smell of hot engine-oil coming from the roundabouts was bad, as were the occasional disgusting whiffs of frying faschingskrapfen which once, incredibly, had been her favourite food. But here, under the trees, there was also a fresher, reviving breeze which came from the adjoining park and carried only the scent of moist earth and autumn leaves.
For the reprieve would not be for long. That Maxi would want to take her on the giant wheel was inevitable. He was in a festive mood and had already won her a fluffy blue rabbit in a shooting booth. Gentlemen always wanted to go on the giant wheel and Heidi knew just how to make it enjoyable for them: when to say, ‘Ooh!’ and ‘Aah!’; when to be so frightened (about three jerks before their carriage got to the very top) that they had to put their arms round her. And at the moment when the wheel seemed to be stuck, on the way down, she had learned to give a little, terrified scream – though everyone knew, of course, that the man who worked the wheel did it on purpose and that they were not really stuck at all. It had given great pleasure, that scream; Heidi would have been foolish not to be aware of that.
Looking down at the amber wine which she could not have drunk for a year’s wages, Heidi Schlumberger thought of all the satisfied gentlemen in whose arms she had gazed at the blue and golden panorama of her native city. Aldermen and councillors, industrialists and officers – ever since she was fifteen years old, she had not been without protectors. And now, all that was in the past. Since she had met Maxi at Pfaffenstein, she had not felt able to oblige a single gentleman. It was madness, of course, for there was the future to think of and the rent to pay.
But the future was best not thought of at the moment. Even the most obscure of the cleaning ladies knew that the writing was on the wall for Witzler’s company. Tessa’s small finger might be resolutely plugging the dyke, but the waves were breaking over the top. ‘And anyway,’ thought Heidi, managing at the same time to smile enchantingly at one of Maxi’s jokes, ‘who would go on employing me now?’
The moment had come. Maxi had summoned the waiter and was paying the bill.
‘I thought we’d go on the giant wheel, eh?’ he said happily. ‘It’s just the day for it, nice and clear and not too many people.’
‘Yes.’ She gathered up her blue rabbit, her handbag.
‘You want to, katzerl, don’t you?’ asked Maxi anxiously, caught by something listless and apathetic in Heidi’s usually quick movements.
‘Of course I want to. Of course!’
She took Maxi’s arm and together they walked towards the carriages of the great wheel, now swaying ominously in the freshening breeze.
Oh, Saint Theresa of the Little Flowers, Protector of the Poor and the Sorrowful, please don’
t let me be sick, prayed the Littlest Heidi – discovering as the Princess of Pfaffenstein had done before her, how really awful love can be.
17
At the beginning of October, Guy left for Geneva. If all went as he hoped with the loan, Austria would find herself on the road to financial stability, and his task completed. After which he would return to Pfaffenstein to finalize the plans for his wedding.
It was during his absence that Nerine’s relatives, escorted by her brother Arthur, arrived in force: Mrs Croft, Nerine’s mother, her Uncle Edgar, her Uncle Victor, her portly cousin Clarence and – preceded always by murmurs of obeisance and respect – her Aunt Dorothy, the aunt who was an Honourable.
The honour that Aunt Dorothy, the daughter of a textile manufacturer promoted to the peerage, had conferred by marrying Mrs Croft’s brother, had never dimmed. Now widowed and in her sixties, obese, opinionated and petty, she still held undisputed sway over the family.
More of Nerine’s relatives were due shortly, but even those who had arrived seemed to fill the castle. Speaking loudly in English on the assumption that foreigners were deaf, they gave orders to the servants, demanded mineral water and British newspapers and could be heard everywhere braying cheerily at their own jokes.
It was only when she was with her own kith and kin again that Nerine realized how much she had missed them, and their admiration of Pfaffenstein’s grandeur was balm to her soul. Yet her pleasure was tinged with regret, for they had brought distressing news.
Just two weeks before their departure, an English nobleman, Lord St Henry, his wife and both his young sons had been drowned in a tragic boating accident off the Isle of Wight. Mrs Croft had waited until there was no further doubt – in other words, until the bodies of all four victims had been recovered, undoubtedly dead – before writing an agitated letter of condolence to Lord Frith in his crenellated tower in the Grampians. Frith’s answer, received just before she left for Austria, had been suitably grief-stricken, but it had also been unequivocal. Yes, it was true that his elder brother, St Henry, had died, along with his two sons; the loss was one which had shattered not only himself, but his old father who had aged by ten years and was not expected to live much longer. And yes, Frith had added, it was true that he himself would now inherit his father’s title, but as she could imagine being the Duke of Aberfeldy would mean little when set against the tragic loss of his brother, his two nephews and his brother’s wife. He had ended, as always, with concerned enquiries about Nerine, whose stay abroad must surely soon be coming to an end?
‘You haven’t told him about your marriage?’
Nerine shook her head. ‘There seemed no point until afterwards.’
Mrs Croft frowned. She was in the state bedroom, inspecting her daughter’s trousseau. The full-length chinchilla, the Russian sable, the jacket of Canadian lynx were spread across the bed. The diamond necklace, the double row of pearls and a few other trinkets which Nerine had picked up in Vienna were displayed on the dressing-table.
‘And I’m getting this silver lily,’ said Nerine. ‘It’s a Pfaffenstein heirloom and absolutely priceless. Arthur found out that the Museum of Antiquities in New York offered fifty thousand dollars for it, and that was before the war!’
Mrs Croft nodded. She could not blame Nerine for her choice, but the blow dealt her by Frith’s news was hard to bear. ‘My daughter, the Duchess of Aberfeldy.’ How inevitable it sounded, how right.
‘You would have thought God could have managed it better,’ said Nerine, throwing open the wardrobe to her mother’s awed gaze. ‘Just when one’s really happy He sends along something like this to spoil it.’ She pulled out an ermine-lined theatre cape and held it against her body, watching the play of light on the gold brocade. Yes, she had made the right choice, but really life could be amazingly cruel!
If Aunt Dorothy was pleased with her first sight of Pfaffenstein, its liveried retainers and sumptuous rooms, she received a nasty shock at dinner on the first night.
‘It was a shock, Alice,’ she said to Nerine’s mother when they had retired to the blue salon. ‘I was not prepared for it, you see. Though how one could be prepared for such a thing . . .’
‘I can see that,’ Mrs Croft replied, and Uncle Victor, Cousin Clarence and Nerine’s brother Arthur all agreed that it had been a shock.
‘I know, but you see Guy is so fond of her,’ explained Nerine. ‘There’s really nothing I can do. He’s taken Mr Tremayne with him and the head steward makes all the seating arrangements now, but even when everybody was here it was the same.’
‘But right opposite me! At the head of the table!’ exclaimed Aunt Dorothy. ‘That accent! I could hardly understand a word she said!’
‘Nor I,’ said Uncle Edgar, who had been on Martha’s right at dinner. ‘I must say, Nerine, I think it’s most unwise of Guy to foist her on you socially. Of course, you wouldn’t expect him to forget her – that would be quite wrong. Money should be sent, and a hamper at Christmas. But I cannot help seeing it as an affront—’
No!’ Nerine was definite about that. ‘Guy thinks it’s the biggest treat in the world to sit next to Martha Hodge at dinner. He put the Austrian Foreign Minister there, specially, when he came last week.’
‘Really?’ Aunt Dorothy was increasingly disturbed by this turn of events. ‘You see, dear, it’s all right for foreigners – they probably wouldn’t notice her accent, though how one could fail to . . . Or her lapse with the finger bowls. But, after all, Pfaffenstein is only a stage, isn’t it? In the end, to take your place in real society, you’ll have to return to England. And if this Hodge person has become accustomed to living as one of the family you will find acceptance very hard to come by, especially in view of—’
Here she paused, unable to put into words the matter of the Fish Quay, the piece of sacking, and what she referred to as ‘All that’.
‘Yes, I see what you mean. I’ve worried about it myself, Aunt Dorothy. But if one dares to criticize her, Guy just flies off the handle.’
‘My dear, there’s no need to criticize her, that would be quite wrong. We must just make her see, without any rancour, that it would be best for everyone if—’
She broke off as a plump, homely figure appeared in the doorway. Arthur, who had instinctively risen at the sight of a woman, was frowned down by Uncle Victor and sank shamefacedly back on to the couch.
Watched in silence by everyone in the room, Martha said good evening, moved over to a low chair by the window and took out the sock she was proudly knitting with the wool hooked over the left finger as demonstrated by Frau Keller.
‘It’s a grand evening an’ all,’ she said pleasantly. ‘I never seen stars like the ones ’ere. Not that you can see much doon our way, what with all the muck blowin’ off the chimneys.’
No one answered and Martha lifted her head. For a moment her kind face puckered and a look of grief, as unalloyed as it was unmistakable, appeared in her soft, grey eyes. Then she bent again to her task.
An hour later she rolled up her wool, said good night and went to her room. Not a single word had been addressed to her all evening. The education of Martha Hodge, which was to have such far-reaching consequences, had begun.
In the days that followed the Crofts, led by Aunt Dorothy, avoided no opportunity of snubbing Martha. They stopped talking the moment she entered the room, raised their eyebrows when she joined them at table and greeted with pitying smiles her cheerful reports of events in the village.
Nerine joined dutifully in this policy of humiliation, but she found herself in a quandary, for she had discovered in this plainly dressed, working-class woman, an unexpected talent. Three days earlier, crossing the courtyard fresh from her afternoon rest, she had come upon Martha who had spent a most satisfactory afternoon teaching the innkeeper’s wife how to bake a ‘Singin’ Hinny’, and greeted her future daughter-in-law with a quick, involuntary shake of the head.
‘What is it?’ said Nerine sharply.
‘
Well, love,’ said Martha, facing it out, ‘it’s the way that scarf’s knotted. The suit’s grand – that soft grey sets you off a treat – but the neckline’s too fussy with that knot right in the middle. Maybe if you was to wear it open, sort of casual like, with the scarf just folded in a bit . . .’
‘Yes,’ said Nerine quickly. ‘I’ve been worried myself. Come upstairs.’
There followed many absorbing sessions in Nerine’s bedroom, for Pooley, usually so jealous, took to Martha Hodge at once. Together they pored over fashion magazines, selected braids and trimmings, pondered the precise tilt of a hat. Martha’s taste was unerring, her attention inexhaustible, but she was not afraid to speak her mind and Nerine, parading up and down in her trousseau, listened to her suggestions with eager interest. If only she had been a servant, thought Nerine, how easy it would be.
As for Martha, who endured with gentle dignity the snubs and pinpricks she had to face downstairs, she found these sessions hard to bear. In her own way she understood that Nerine’s greed and self-absorption were akin to those of an artist or composer who will sacrifice everything and everyone in the service of his own gift, only Nerine’s gift was her own beauty. She also realized that since there was nothing evil or vicious in this girl which would sicken Guy and thus release him, he was doomed.
‘I go to Schalk!’ pronounced Raisa, sitting on the bed shaped like a mouth in which she would never, now, be ravished by the capitalist mill-owner. But her voice was forlorn and a tear forced itself out of her greedy almond eye and rolled down her cheek.
Disaster had struck the International Opera Company. Two weeks earlier, the owners of the theatre had given Jacob an ultimatum. In view of Herr Witzler’s unsatisfactory record in the past, they were only willing to renew the lease – at a considerably increased rent, of course – if Herr Witzler could pay them six months’ rent in advance. Failing this, they intended to offer the tenancy to Herr Kitzbuhler who, for a long time, had been looking for a theatre in which to play farce.