Magic Flutes

7

The great hall at Pfaffenstein, two storeys high, with its columns of agate-coloured marble, its statue-packed niches and ceiling frescoes by Tiepolo, was reached from the main courtyard by a set of massive double doors. Opposite this another set of doors, emblazoned with the Pfaffenstein arms in hammered gold, led to the ballroom which looked over the lake. At the far end, however, to the right as one entered, the hall ended in that apogee of baroque ceremonial: the grand staircase. It was at the foot of this staircase with its wide balustrade, its stone griffins, its famous jewelled corona lit by a hundred and twenty lamps, that Guy now stood with Nerine beside him to receive his guests.

The aunts had advised on the maximum of formality for the reception preceding the opening ball. Even relations they had dandled on their knees were to approach in order of rank, to be announced, and introduced by them to Pfaffenstein’s new owner. Later, they had suggested, Guy could follow his own inclinations but if a foundling, however gifted, intelligent and rich wished to establish his lady with the nobility, he would do well to call on all the protocol that was available. Guy himself, always and only concerned for Nerine, had concurred in their arrangements and had further heightened the theatricality of the occasion by remaining out of sight until this moment, instructing David and Thisbe to see to the welfare of his guests.

Now, standing on one side of the dais made by the wide sweep of the lowest step, he looked down at the assembled throng, concealing his amusement.

If the most potent scent in the room was not of the ladies’ perfume or the men’s pomade, but of moth-balls, the massed effect was nevertheless most spectacular. The men in crimson and light blue and felden green with their gold epaulettes, their braid and rows of medals, were the most impressive, but the ladies in their brocade and lace, wearing those of their jewels that still remained unpawned, were no mean sight either. Only a professional grouser would have pointed out the piece of astrakhan apparently chewed out of the aged Prince Monteforelli’s frogged tunic, or the streaks of oil on the satin train of the Countess Waaltraut as she pushed her gout-ridden mother’s decrepit bath chair closer for a look at Farne.

For the new owner of Pfaffenstein was undoubtedly a surprise. The munificence of the entertainments laid on for them, coupled with the tasteful arrangements made for their comfort, had already deprived his guests of the hope that the Englishman would provide good sport by being vulgar and uncouth. A man whose secretary could provide accommodation for the Archduke Sava’s bear and persuade the Archduchess Frederica, who was outranked only by the Princess of Pfaffenstein, that a move from the State Bedroom would benefit her health, was clearly a man to be reckoned with, and the rumours at first discredited that he was engaged in some kind of cloak-and-dagger business with the Chancellor on Austria’s behalf were fast gaining ground. Not that he was handsome — but in the dark evening clothes which contrasted so strongly with the glittering uniforms of the men, he had an air of undoubted distinction, and the slight look of arrogance on his sombre face did him no harm in the eyes of his audience. As for the fiancée, men and women alike saw no mystery there. Here was beauty, unquestionable and absolute — the reward since time began for power, achievement and wealth.

Guy turned to smile at Nerine, wanting to share a moment of intimacy before the ceremony began. But Nerine, dazzling in gold brocade with slashed sapphire-velvet sleeves, was absorbed in her moment of triumph, her lips moving rapidly in a litany of rank. It was unbelievable, all of it! She and Arthur had watched from his window most of the day as princes and dukes and cardinals rumbled into the courtyard in their carriages and cars. Only when the theatre company had arrived, in their shabby lorries, had she been able to tear herself away and had gone to dress. Now, down among the guests, Arthur was blissfully counting… Five princes in his part of the hall alone… twenty-three flunkeys… two hundred bottles of champagne…

Guy glanced at his watch and raised enquiring eyebrows at the Duchess and the Margravine. If they were to get through the hundred or so people assembled there before supper and the ball, it was surely time to begin?

‘Yes… yes.’ The eyes of the ladies were bright and eager. They were looking at him with tremendous expectancy and he had the absurd feeling that they had some special surprise in store for him, a kind of rabbit they were going to pull out of their hat. Earlier this had not been so. They had seemed depressed; the arrogance and aplomb he admired in them had been dimmed, and David too, though nothing could impair his efficiency, had seemed downcast. But then, just after Witzler’s troupe had arrived, everything had taken off and the kind of happy expectancy which precedes a party was everywhere.

The master of ceremonies, sumptuously braided, stepped forward. But before he could announce the first of the guests, something happened.

A ripple spread through the hall, an excited murmur — and then, in a single motion like a wave, every woman sank into a curtsy and every gentleman bowed his head.

Mystified, Guy turned in the sudden hush and, tilting his head upward, saw that the oak-studded door which led from the first-floor vestibule into the mediaeval West Tower had opened to reveal a small figure in white who stood for a moment, perfectly still, in the frame of the dark stone arch. His first image — that of a banished child disturbed in sleep coming for solace — was dismissed as she moved forward across the landing, turned to gather the train of her dress with practised ease, and began her slow descent.

Down below, the master of ceremonies tapped his staff and cleared his throat, but was stilled by a single shake of the head from the slim figure on the stairs. But if, by thus silencing her former steward, Her Highness the Princess Theresa-Maria of Pfaffenstein, Princess of Breganzer, Duchess of Unterthur, Countess of Malk, of Zeeberg and of Freischule, hoped to enter unobtrusively, her hope was to be unfulfilled. The eye of every curtsying woman was upon her; every man, his head respectfully bowed, awaited her.

‘Mein Gott, her hair!’ hissed the Archduchess Fred-erica above the hush of absorbed expectancy.

Still moving very slowly, one hand guiding her skirt into a perfect fall, she continued her descent. The blue sash of the order of St Hubert, awarded only to descendants of ruling houses, bisected her small breasts; the jewelled wheel of light above her head struck fire from the tiara set on the shorn, sleek head.

Guy alone of all the men had failed to bow his head. The first shock, which sent the blood from his face, had not for an instant broken his scrutiny. He felt, as if in his own bones, every movement she made; saw, as she came closer, her gravity, the degree of her concentration. How small she was against the vastness of the staircase, how slight — yet never dwarfed. She held it all in the hollow of her hand: this place, these people — and for a moment his throat tightened in pity and an exalted awe.

She had reached the bottom. A smile broke like a grace-note across the serious little face and as she raised her hand, in its white satin glove, every woman present rose from her curtsy, every man straightened his head.

It was that imperious gesture in the smooth white glove, so different from the wrinkled kid from Traviata she had worn on the first night he saw her, that changed Guy’s mood to sudden fury. How could he have been so blind, so idiotic as to miss the clues that had been left for him everywhere? Her perfect English, her exquisite courtesy to Morgan… Frau Sacher’s admonition — for of course, that staunch royalist must have recognized her. This was the girl he had wanted to protect and succour: this girl at whose finger-flick the nobility rose and fell like ninepins! How dared she trick him like that — how dared she?

And Nerine, whose moment of triumph this should have been — dear God, he had actually forgotten Nerine!

Tessa had turned and was coming towards her aunts whose unguarded faces as they watched her betrayed, for a moment, the full extent of their love. But as she reached them, they composed themselves and the Duchess said, ‘Theresa, we would like to present to you the new owner of Pfaffenstein, Herr Farne.’

It was only now that she saw him and joy, overwhelming and unbidden, blazed in her face. Guy, the owner of Pfaffenstein! Guy, the man who had so miraculously restored her home, who would make, she knew already, the best possible master for the castle.

Radiantly she smiled up at him and extended her hand for his kiss.

‘I am honoured, Your Highness.’ The words were cold, the eyes as he straightened again as glacial and green as the waters of the Pfaffenstein See.

The happiness drained from her face. She looked at him, puzzled.

But Tante Augustine was now presenting the woman who stood beside Guy and who, as she sketched a curtsy, still kept her left hand, bearing its gigantic diamond, with firm ownership on Guy’s arm.

Tessa scarcely heard the name because the woman, in her magnificent gold dress, was the most beautiful she had ever seen. Tall as Tessa herself was not, full-breasted as Tessa yearned uselessly to be, with an enchanting, heart-shaped face, long-lashed gentian eyes and jet-black hair. Thick, high-piled hair which caught the highlights from the chandeliers and would, when unloosed, reach to her knees in a ravishing cascade, thought Tessa as one of her own white-gloved hands stole for an instant to her own bare nape.

How stupid not to have remembered earlier Guy’s words at Sachers: ‘As for me, Tessa, I am waiting for someone I love and hope soon to marry.’

It was for this woman who was everything that Tessa herself could never be, that Guy had bought her home. This was the new mistress of Pfaffenstein.

And of course it had to be so. A man like Guy would love only a woman as beautiful as this, would want, when he had her by his side, to have nothing to do with someone like herself.

Fighting down the desolation which threatened her, she spoke a few friendly words to Nerine and then the reception began.

Ponderously announced, the guests came forward to be introduced to Guy and welcomed by him to Pfaffenstein. The obese Archduchess Frederica… the red-bearded Archduke Sava, smelling of bear… the aged, cadaverous Prince Monteforelli, squinting down the lovely widow’s décollétage…

Tessa faultlessly played her part, for she was in familiar country. How often in her short life had she stood thus, clamping down personal misery, to pursue a tedious and interminable duty.

‘His Highness, Prince Maximilian of Spittau,’ announced the master of ceremonies, and Maxi advanced.

All had gone well with Maxi. Only one of the dogs had been sick on the train, his uniforms had been redeemed from the ravages of mildew, his mother was incapacitated with a migraine. Of course there had been that panic when they thought Putzerl was not coming, but here she was and looking very fetching too. His mother had been shocked by her hair, but Maxi liked it.

Always correct, he kissed first of all the small hand of his intended (for Putzerl outranked her aunts), then those of the aunts themselves, and was introduced to Herr Farne and the luscious fiancée. The Englishman surprised him; he spoke excellent German and if one had not known better one would have taken him for a gentleman.

But it was Putzerl’s welcome that warmed Maxi’s manly and bemedalled chest. She really seemed pleased to see him.

And indeed she was. Too much had happened to Tessa that day, more overwhelmed than she realized by the sight of the home she would soon leave for ever. The shock of suddenly finding herself at Pfaffenstein, of being forced by her aunts’ eager entreaties into her old role, and the hurt of Guy’s rejection had left her, beneath the inbred poise, defenceless and forlorn.

So Maxi, coming towards her in the absurd Artillery uniform he loved so much, was safety and familiarity, was the whole landscape of childhood with its escapades and jokes. All the others were dead, the boys she had played with, but here now was Maxi.

The young Princess of Pfaffenstein, trained from the age of three in etiquette and protocol, gave no outward distinguishing sign of pleasure but her eyes were warm, the smile she gave him came from her heart, and as Maxi prepared to cede his place to the Duke of Oberkirchen, she leaned forward and whispered very softly, ‘Have you brought the dogs?’