‘Do you want her to?’
‘Well… when we’re married… Spittau isn’t… Of course, she could play the piano. It’s a bit warped but I expect it could be put right. Spittau,’ he explained, ‘is very low-lying.’
Guy did not answer. ‘When we are married’, the prince had said. Everyone was right, then, to take the engagement for granted. Well, it was none of his business. He too aimed; he, too, fired and hit — and in the lull that followed, turned to attend to the sprightly, skeletal Prince Monteforelli, fresh from his morning’s injection of monkey gland, and to parry with courtesy and skill the old courtier’s questions about Guy’s business with the Chancellery.
By the time Guy’s guests met at luncheon, a meal served informally at small tables in the yellow salon, there was no doubt that the house party was a resounding success. The buzz of talk, the laughter, the popping of champagne corks bespoke a total satisfaction with the hospitality of the Englishman. The members of the shooting party did not find themselves impeded, by the consumption of their English breakfast, from partaking of the staggering quantities of food fetched for them from the sideboard. The guests who had been fishing commented on the excellence of the catch, those who had played billiards on the beautifully renovated tables.
The presence of an entire opera company was also noted with approval. This was a return to the great days of patronage to which they themselves had once been accustomed. A glimpse from his bedroom window of the Middle Heidi doing her pliés had affected the Uhlan captain with the wooden leg so powerfully that he had choked on his Odol mouthwash, and the Archduke Sava, sitting beside Monteforelli, was in a state of glazed fulfilment. On the way to visiting his bear in the stables, he had crossed the Fountain Courtyard and found Raisa Romola splayed on a rush mat, sunbathing. A music lover and a bosom man, finding his two passions thus united in a single body had proved almost too much for the Archduke who, with gestures, was trying to convey to the old prince just what the sight had meant to him.
Only on the table containing the aunts, the Swan Princess and the Archduchess Frederica, was there a slightly less abandoned and roistering air. Not that the Archduchess was off her food: on the contrary, she was systematically concealing in a bag specially brought down for the purpose, all the more durable delicacies which the servants piled on her plate. But the revelation of Putzerl’s activities in Vienna had naturally come as something of a shock, and Tante Augustine and Tante Tilda could not help feeling that their niece, dearly as they loved her, had been a little bit inaccurate in her description of her work, for ‘studying music’ did not seem adequately to describe the moving of furniture, combing of wigs and stitching of hems.
‘If only we could see her settled,’ said the Duchess. ‘Of course she will always have a home with us but…’
‘Don’t worry,’ said the Swan Princess grimly, beckoning the flunkey to demand another slice of ham. ‘Maxi knows his duty. We shall have an announcement any minute now.’
Nerine, sitting between Guy and her brother Arthur, looked round with utter satisfaction. Twenty-four hours had completely changed her view of Guy. For Mama had been mistaken about him: low-born or not, he seemed to have an extraordinary power of attracting people — and not only young Tremayne and the rest of his staff who obviously worshipped him. One could say that Guy had simply bought the company of these aristocrats, but she could see in none of his guests the slightest sign of contempt despite the fact that he made no secret of his origins. In fact, some of the women were already being extremely silly: that oil-stained dowd and the fat Italian marchesa who had fluttered her eyelashes at him at the ball. As for the young Princess of Pfaffenstein, Nerine intended to make sure that she never set foot in the castle after the house party was over, which meant that her aunts, too, would have to go. True, Guy in explaining their past encounter had spoken of her with obvious dislike, but Nerine had seen Tessa’s face when she had first caught sight of him — and there was going to be no more of that!
Yes, Guy must marry her here and marry her soon, thought Nerine. Later, of course, they would return to England: ‘abroad’ was never quite the same, but as a setting for a wedding, Pfaffenstein was unbeatable. She would need a few months to get an adequate trousseau together, but then… And turning to her brother Arthur, she found that he was able to inform her of the exact cost of the fireworks purchased for the night’s display.
The aunts had offered to accompany Guy on a tour of the picture gallery, suggesting that he and his fiancée might care to know a little of the history and background of the family. After luncheon, therefore, they set off — together with David Tremayne who was now almost as familiar with the castle as the ladies themselves — for the long, panelled room which adjoined the great hall and connected it, on the eastern side, with the ante-room to the theatre.
‘We’re sorry our great-niece has so little time,’ said the Duchess as the sound of violins, followed by Hungarian expletives, floated towards them.
‘We would have liked her to show you everything, but she is so occupied with her work,’ said the Margravine who was carrying the pug, informally wrapped for daytime in a quatrocento dressing-gown.
Nerine, who was delighted that the princess intended to spend her days out of sight grubbing about in a dirty theatre, replied suitably and they entered the gallery.
Row upon row of Pfaffensteins confronted them. Men in every possible uniform stretching back through time: men in the sombre black of the House of Spain with their lace ruffs and intricate daggers, men in the service of the Austrian court sporting their medals and sashes… There were Pfaffensteins astride rearing horses, Pfaffensteins with their wives or more often, with their dogs… Pfaffensteins in the scarlet of cardinals, in armour, in opera cloaks, in tails…
A supercilious lot of devils, thought Guy, noting again and again among the men in slashed hose and doublet, the women in hooped skirts or riding habits, the fawn, almost amber hair of Witzler’s under wardrobe mistress, her auburn eyes.
Nerine, never bored when there were clothes to be studied, was walking gravely along the rows. There were one or two useful ideas here. That muslin cape over the brocaded sleeve was very effective: gossamer lightness against the firmness. She liked the way that chain of gold beads was looped over the low bodice… and that coif-like head-dress — if she had that copied and sewn with sequins for evening it would suggest a very special sort of innocence. And at every third or fourth picture she paused, carefully studying her own reflection in the glass. Yes, she had been right to wear only a cool, white blouse open at the throat, a simple navy pleated skirt, so that the eye sated by the splendour of the pictures would return to her own fresh simplicity.
‘We could never get her to sit still,’ said the Duchess to David Tremayne, who had paused at a simple pencil sketch of a child with tumbled hair. Her voice, as always when she spoke of her great-niece, had softened and grown warm. ‘But there’s a painting of her by Scharnach in my bedroom if you’d care to see it.’
‘In her confirmation dress,’ put in the Margravine.
Guy, who had passed the drawing of the young princess with studied indifference, was examining something which interested him more than the actual portraits. The same motif in many of the carved and gilded picture frames, on the shields and flags held aloft by the sitters, and again worked into the mosaic of the gallery’s lovely birchwood and maple floor: a lily, stylized and graceful, a surprisingly peaceful emblem for these warlike princes.