Magic Flutes

But as Guy drove skilfully round the hair-raising bends that led up to the Burg, David was frowning. His instructions had been simple: to find an impressive and imposing castle (‘toffee-nosed’ was the word his employer had used, reverting to his origins) which the owners were willing to rent or preferably to sell.

Only why? This was something Guy Farne had not chosen to reveal to his otherwise trusted secretary, and the whole enterprise seemed totally out of keeping with what David knew of his employer’s tastes and inclinations. A millionaire he might be, and several times over, but his personal habits were spartan to a degree which caused deep pain to Morgan his chauffeur, to Miss Thisbe Purse, his stenographer, and at times to David himself. Farne’s indifference to comfort, his ability to go without food or sleep, his detestation of pomp were a byword, nor had he troubled to conceal his contempt for those post-war profiteers who conned the newly-poor out of their houses and possessions. True, his sojourn in Austria was likely to be of some duration and he needed a base – but why this gigantic castle? In Brazil, where other men of his wealth had bought palaces, he had lived in a simple if lovely facienda by the river, his only extravagance a steam yacht with which he explored the mazed waterways of the Amazon. In London he lived in an apartment in the Albany, in Paris in a roof-top flat in the Ile St Louis which but for the glory of its plumbing might have belonged to any Left Bank painter or poet. Only on movement – elegant boats, fleet cars and (his latest acquisition) a small bi-plane – did Farne habitually spend the awe-inspiring sums which betrayed his stupendous wealth.

They had negotiated that last hairpin bend, crossed the drawbridge, been sneered at by the griffins on the gatehouse arch and now drew up in a vast and silent courtyard.

Ten minutes later, having followed an ancient retainer in the Pfaffenstein livery of crimson and bottle-green along an immense groin-vaulted corridor and through a series of shrouded and magnificent rooms, they found themselves in the presence of the two old ladies who were now the castle’s sole occupants.

Augustine-Maria, Duchess of Breganzer, was in her eighties, her eagle’s beak of a nose and fierce grey eyes dominating the wrinkled, parchment face. The Duchess wore a black lace dress to the hem of which there adhered a number of cobwebs and what appeared to be a piece of cheese. A cap of priceless and yellowing lace was set on her sparse hair and her rather dirty, arthritic hands rested on a magnificent ivory cane which had belonged to Marie Antoinette.

Her sister-in-law Mathilde, Margravine of Attendorf and Untersweg, was a little younger and in spite of recent shortages, resolutely round-faced and plump. Unlike the Duchess who had received them standing, the Margravine remained seated in order to embrace more efficiently the quivering, shivering form of a goggle-eyed and slightly malodorous pug whose lower extremities were wrapped in a gold-embroidered Medici cope.

Driven back room by room by their poverty, the demands of the war (which had turned Pfaffenstein into a military hospital) and their own increasing age and infirmity, the ladies had taken refuge in the West Tower, in what had been an ante-room connecting the great enfilade of state rooms on the southern facade with the kitchens.

Its round walls were hung with tapestries which Guy suspected had been chosen more for their capacity to exclude draughts than for their artistic content, for they mainly depicted people holding heads: Judith that of Holofernes, Salome of John the Baptist and St Jerome of a dismembered stag. The Meissen-tiled stove was unlit; dust lay on the carved arms of the vast chairs fashioned, it seemed, for the behinds of mountain ogres – but the condescension and graciousness of the ladies was absolute.

‘Welcome to Pfaffenstein, Herr Farne. We trust you found your journey enjoyable.’

Guy, kissing the extended hand and replying suitably, noticed with pleasure that the Duchess spoke what was called ‘Schönbrunner Deutsch’, a dialect which the high nobility shared with the cab drivers of Vienna. And indeed both ladies had been attendant on the Emperor Franz Joseph’s family in the palace of Schönbrunn outside Vienna where the gruelling Spanish ceremonial, the staggering absence of lavatories and the indifferent food had proved an excellent preparation for their present way of life.

Refreshment was offered and refused, the necessary courtesies were exchanged. Then Guy, whose German was fast and fluent, came to the point.

‘You will know already that I would like to buy Burg Pfaffenstein. My solicitors have mentioned the terms?’

The Duchess inclined her head. ‘They are fair,’ she conceded, ‘and we are willing. But as I have already informed your secretary, for a final decision we are awaiting a reply from Putzerl.’