The Baroness, he reckoned, was dressed about three years behind the Paris times: her hem was barely off the ground and still slightly flared, her hat very wide and decorated with silk flowers. But the newness and craftsmanship showed this was deliberate: the message was quality, good taste, value for money, not fashionableness. And Hornbeam had liked the message, so who was he to criticise?
She sat rigidly upright in the back seat of the Benz, full-breasted – not just quality but a decent helping of it – hands resting on her furled sunshade and gazing out of the window. She totally ignored O’Gilroy until he asked politely: “And which station are ye wanting, m’lady?”
“The Westbahnhof.” She didn’t look at him.
“Mebbe I’ll look up some trains meself. We should be seeing more of the country than jest Budapest.”
“There is nothing to see in Hungary. Only some castles.”
“I was thinking about trade, m’lady.”
This time she did look at him. “I believe trade in Hungary is done by Jews.”
“Is it so?” It was clear that he wasn’t going to learn anything from cosy chat; on the other hand, it was just as clear that she wasn’t interested in – or suspicious of – himself. So he chose to spend the rest of the drive reinforcing his pose as a business bore. “Did ye know that two-thirds of the machinery built in Hungary is for transport? – motor-cars, tram-cars, ships, trains and the like. Now that’s a remarkable amount, when ye consider …”
At the Westbahnhof, a simple elegant iron-and-glass structure designed by Eiffel, of the Paris tower, they both got out. “When I’ve looked up the trains, I’ll be walking to the bank,” O’Gilroy said. “So ye keep the motor-car, m’lady.”
She just managed to squeeze out a Thank you, told the driver to wait, and stalked into the station. O’Gilroy had never planned to keep the car and try to trail the Baroness in it: the sleek, high Benz was far too obvious in Budapest’s mainly horse-drawn traffic. Better to let her drive in a landmark, and if he lost her, Corinna could demand of the driver where he had gone without seeming suspicious.
“Hello, Mr Ranklin, sit down. I’ve explained what I told you to Dr Klapka – and he’s rather worried.”
Indeed, Klapka was bubbling like a fondue, fingers drumming, feet shuffling, mouth opening and closing. “It is not believable,” he burst out, waving the notes they had copied last night. “That somebody should ask … Dr Hornbeam is a great lawyer, yes, but he is not … not of our courts!”
“Oh, sure,” Corinna soothed.
“To be asked for an opinion – on the Habsburg Law – Unbelievable!”
“The Law’s secret, isn’t it?” Corinna asked.
“Yes, but lawyers know it. It is not our concern, that is all.”
Ranklin asked: “What do you think Hornbeam’s trying to do to the Law, then?” He tried to sound businesslike and detached.
“To break it! To break the new amendment! To make it so the Archduke’s wife can be Empress!” His arms waved with the enormity of it; his jacket moved reluctantly and differently, dissociating itself from the opinions of the arms.
Ranklin nodded calmly. “And can this be done?”
“I explain.” Klapka took a deep breath. “Now: when the Archduke Franzie is married, no, before, he must sign that … No. I explain.” He took another breath. “The old Article One says the Habsburg-House is the Emperor, his consort, the Archdukes and Archduchesses, la-la, la-la … you see? His consort. If he marries Sophie, only a Czech countess, she will be Empress when he becomes Emperor – and this they must change. So they make the amendment which is a list of the families in standesgemass – you would say, of proper standing – whose women may be Empress. If he marries one of them, good, if not, pffft. It must be a morganatic marriage. You understand morganatic?”
“Sure,” Corinna said. “Wife doesn’t get husband’s rank.”
“Yes. It is first meaning ‘the morning gift’ that the husband gives after … after the first night, which says ‘This is all you get from marrying me.’ Very romantic, hein? So – this amendment the Archduke must sign if he is to become Emperor, with the Prince Archbishop holding up the cross of Ferdinand over him and all the House looking and then also signing. And after three days only, he marries his Sophie and the Prince Montenuovo, Obersthofmeister of the Court, declares there must be twelve days mourning for some cousin that nobody knows, so nobody can go to the wedding.”
“That Montenuovo would be right at home in Tammany Hall,” Corinna observed. It had just struck her that she, daughter of Reynard Sherring, would not be standesgemass, was unworthy of becoming Empress, and her democratic blood was boiling. Not that she wanted to be, but …
Ranklin had put his empty pipe into his mouth so as to look even more thoughtful and detached. Now he took it out and asked: “And do you think Hornbeam can break this amendment – legally?”
Klapka’s arms flew up again. “You do not understand! You English and American – I apologise, but – this is the Habsburg Law! Perhaps legally it does not work, there may be – you say a ‘loophole’ – but what matter? They get the lawyers, the Prince-Archbishop, the cross – they make a new amendment. Now no loophole.”
They absorbed this, Ranklin less surprised than Corinna. He said: “But nobody – whoever nobody is – told Hornbeam this?”
“That is sure, yes – but still you do not understand. To ask a foreign lawyer – a great one, yes, but … to interfere in the Habsburg Law, this is bad. An insult. But to try at all to make Sophie the Empress, if this is known – ” he threw the notes onto a table, “ – then the Archduke never becomes Emperor.”
*
The Baroness was sitting at a front table of the first-class buffet, so that she could watch the door. This had made it impossible for O’Gilroy to follow, so he resorted to inconspicuous time-wasting within sight of the door. He bought a newspaper he couldn’t read, cigarettes which he hoped not to smoke, and an apple of which he ate half. He also changed his hat. He had come out wearing Ranklin’s folding straw Panama; now he pocketed that and slipped on a flat cloth cap. But he had already realised he would have to be stark naked to look conspicuous in the crowd that changed with every train: landowners in tweeds with servants and gun cases, farmers with live chickens, soldiers in various operatic uniforms and peasant girls in traditional eleven-petticoat finery. And it was only the Baroness he had to fool.
Then suddenly it wasn’t. She was out of the buffet and walking towards the street, escorted by the Military Attache who had bought the code in Paris.
As the waiter went out, Corinna surveyed the tray. “That coffee pot seems to follow me around. How does anybody like their coffee? And if you want a cake, just grab. How can anybody decide that the Archduke can’t become Emperor? I thought it was just a matter of birth …”
“You think like what you are: American. You have the rule of Law, we have the House of Habsburg. You must believe, if enough people do not want, then he will not be Emperor. And those people will be the Emperor himself, Prince Montenuovo, the Court, the House – and the Parliament in Hungary also, they do not like the Archduke Franzie. Last year, the Archduke’s young brother, he married not to the standesgemass. Now he is not an Archduke, he is not a general, he does not even have his medals. You must believe.” He took a cream cake.
Corinna shook her head slowly. She had always assumed – insofar as she thought about it at all – that European royalty survived by playing by the rules, dopey though those rules might be. Now she saw it was the opposite: survival by playing with the rules – which wasn’t nearly so dopey. She glanced at Ranklin.
He was clutching one end of his pipe and chewing the other, frowning intently in a way that always seemed faintly absurd for his boyish face. The poor man, she thought, stuck with a face that people will never quite take seriously. But not a bad face for what you really are, these days, because nobody takes your thinking seriously, either. Except me.