He belonged to the old tradition of knight errant: the chevaliers sans peur et sans reproche who ask of their lady only that she is beautiful and willing to be served in order to ride to the ends of the earth at her bidding. Valiant, selfless — and generally slain — the Lochinvars and Lancelots of this world, however, were not granted the benison that was now to be bestowed on Guy: a prolonged, close and domestic sojourn with the beloved.
‘Come!’ said Guy now, holding open the door of the car. ‘I want to show you everything.’
She smiled up at him, lovely as daybreak. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Oh yes, my darling. Yes.’
But in the room in the West Tower where the Duchess and the Margravine were waiting with David Tremayne to greet them, anticipation and excitement had suddenly drained from the day.
‘She can’t come at all?’ said the Margravine, her plump face puckered. ‘Not even for the reception and the ball? Not for her birthday?’
‘I’ve read you what she says,’ said the Duchess, holding out the letter which had just been delivered. She was regally dressed for the occasion in a grey silk dress entirely devoid of cobwebs or even the smallest piece of clinging cheese, but the hooded old grey eyes were suddenly bleak and lifeless. ‘She has asked her professor for leave, but she is needed in Vienna; she cannot be spared.’
The Margravine groped for her handkerchief and surreptitiously wiped her cheeks. ‘It won’t be the same without Putzerl,’ she said, and the pug — hearing the name which meant walks, games and being scratched in exactly the right place on the stomach — shot out of his cope and (as was his wont) began to slither, yapping, round the floor.
David was silent, but he too had to fight down a sudden sense of desolation. He had worked unstintingly over the past three months, turning Pfaffenstein into a place in which Le Roi Soleil himself would have been pleased to dally during a summer progress through the countryside. But though he had worked for Guy and thus for the woman at whose feet Guy wished to lay the castle, it was the image of the small princess of whom everyone spoke with such warmth that he had held in his mind. It was the thought of pleasing her, of showing her that her home was in good hands, which had given a special zest to his labours. Now, suddenly, everything seemed pointless and flat.
‘She will come later,’ said the Duchess, laying down the letter. ‘She promises that.’
But she was eighty-one, her sister-in-law only two years younger. The word ‘later’ was entirely without significance for them. They wanted their great-niece, with her loving heart, her power to make them laugh, in the only time that they still counted on; the present — now.
‘Oh, be quiet, Quin-Quin!’ snapped the Margravine as the agitated dog continued to yap and ricochet off the furniture.
But as they recaptured the pug the eyes of the old ladies met, anticipating another and even more formidable disappointment. All the guests due to arrive on the following day would miss Putzerl badly, but for Maxi and his mother her absence would be a disaster. Maxi was definitely going to settle things with Putzerl, the Swan Princess had made this clear. Maxi was serious. He was bringing the dogs.
‘They are here,’ said David. His sharp ears had heard a car drive into the main courtyard. The servants would already be mustering in welcome. Time, then, to go forward and greet Pfaffenstein’s new master and his chosen bride.
Nerine had been assigned the state bedroom in the main facade with three long windows overlooking the lake. An incredible room with its vast bed carved with cupids and peacocks and canopied in yellow, hand-painted Lyons silk. The jewelled Sèvres toilet set of sixty pieces which Marie Antoinette had sent to an earlier Princess of Pfaffenstein lay on the rosewood and ivory dressing-table. Drifts of sandalwood rose from a pair of agate perfume burners and curled languorously between the glittering drops of the chandeliers.
‘It used to be Putzerl’s room — our great-niece’s room,’ explained the Duchess. ‘She inherited it when her father died.’
‘But we used to find her sleeping on the floor,’ put in the Margravine.
‘So she moved to a room in the West Tower,’ said the Duchess.
‘Thank you, the room is quite delightful,’ said Nerine in the careful German that no one could fail to learn under the strict tutelage of Frau von Edelnau.
‘The Archduchess Frederica usually has it when she comes but—’ the Duchess broke off for the ‘but’. Though unpleasant to contemplate, this was no longer her affair. Pfaffenstein now belonged to Herr Farne and the task of explaining to this most disagreeable of relations that she had been ousted by the Englishwoman would fall to him or his nice young secretary.
The ladies departed and Nerine, despatching her maid to unpack in the dressing-room, was left alone.
It was unbelievable… staggering! Pfaffenstein was hers! Pfaffenstein! If only her mother could see her, and those girls at Frau von Edelnau’s who made such a fuss every time they danced with a count! Well, they would see her! Everyone would see her. She would be married here, of course. To think she had almost accepted poor Frith with his draughty tower and gloomy moors.
But she must not be idle. She must be generous. She must give. In twenty-four hours she would stand beside Guy at the reception, welcoming in ownership a veritable Almanach de Gotha of guests.
Like a general checking the supplies before a battle, Nerine surveyed the room. Yes, there were plenty of mirrors. The oval one, framed in porcelain flowers, on the dressing-table; three hand mirrors in the Sèvres toilet set; a large Venetian one set between the silk panels on the wall and a free-standing cheval glass on clawed legs which could be turned to the light. With the small magnifying mirror that travelled with her everywhere and the built-in double mirrors of the painted wardrobe in the dressing-room, she ought to be secure.
She glanced at her watch. There was no time to lose: in an hour Guy was coming to give her ‘The Ring’: ‘I want everyone to know that you’re mine,’ he had said as they drove up to the castle. ‘Everyone. And now.’
The ring, he had explained, was part of a parure. He was going to give her the necklace before some opera or other which he was staging in the theatre and the earrings on their wedding morning. How she loved such gestures! The romance of it all…
She seated herself at the dressing-table and began to smooth her eyebrows. ‘Quick, Pooley,’ she called. ‘I want the yellow peignoir — it will take up the colour of the bed hangings. And I want my hair dressed very high.’
‘Yes, ma’am. Would you want the yellow mules as well, or the gold sandals?’
‘The mules. I want everything very informal, flowery… no jewels. Hurry, girl, for heaven’s sake!’
Pooley loosened her mistress’s hair, and the knee-length, unbelievably luxuriant blue-black tresses mantled the snowy shoulders and flowed down her back. The Bible was right, Nerine thought, there was power in hair like that. She would never follow the fashion for short hair, never! Staring eagle-eyed into the mirror, she watched as Pooley braided her hair and dressed it in shining coils. Then, as the last pin was in place, she changed her mind.
‘Undo it again. Brush it out.’ She had not yet meant to let Guy see the full glory of her unbound hair. But Pfaffenstein… In procession she saw in her mind the incredible rooms through which they had come. The great hall with its domed ceiling… the blue salon… the vast marble staircase — what an entrance she would make down those stairs! Yes, her impulse was right. She would be wholly giving: he should see even her hair.