Magic Flutes

They inspected the chapel with its Eichendorfer altar piece, climbed up yet another massive flight of stairs to the weapons room bristling with flintlock pistols and percussion guns; the museum packed with the heads of wolves, boars and the last auroch in the Forest of Pfaffenstein which Kaiser Wilhelm II had shot, only to be bitten in the leg by the three-year-old Putzerl for his pains . . . And down again, passing the well into which a seventeenth-century princess of Pfaffenstein, who had not cared for the matrimonial arrangements made on her behalf, had thrown herself on her wedding day.

‘Which was extremely silly of her,’ added the Duchess, ‘because he would have had Modena and Parma had he lived.’

‘Oh, Augustina, but he had no nose,’ expostulated the gentler Margravine. ‘It was all eaten away, you know,’ she explained to Guy, blushing, ‘by a . . . certain disease.’

‘Putzerl used to sit here on the rim of the well for hours when she was little,’ said the Duchess, ‘waiting for a frog to come.’

‘She wanted to throw it against the wall, like in the fairy tale, and turn it into a prince.’

‘And then one day a frog really did come and she cried and cried and cried.’

‘The frog was so much prettier than a prince, you see – even than Schweini, and he had the most lovely curls!’

‘So she kept it in the oubliette as a pet. Now here,’ continued the Duchess, opening a studded door from which a flight of slime-green steps led down into the darkness, ‘we must be a little careful. But you’ll be interested in the third Count’s collection of torture instruments. It is arranged exactly as the Inquisition left it!’

But at last they were back in the tower room, solicitors’ names exchanged, contracts mentioned and a bottle of Margaux ’83 brought up from the cellar.

‘And how soon would you wish us to leave?’ asked the Duchess, her voice carefully expressionless.

Guy leaned back in his carved chair and, the ladies having given him permission to smoke, selected a Monte Cristo, rolled it between his long fingers and began the careful husbandry that precedes the lighting of a great cigar.

‘There is no need for you to leave at present unless you wish to,’ he said. ‘On the contrary. In fact, you could say that in proposing to purchase Pfaffenstein I am endeavouring to secure your services.’

The ladies, whose small breath of relief had not escaped him, looked at him in puzzlement. ‘What had you in mind, Herr Farne? Not tourists? Because I’m afraid we couldn’t countenance that.’

No, no,’ said Guy soothingly. ‘Nothing like that. I propose to give a house party here at Pfaffenstein. It will last for a week and include a ball, a banquet, possibly a regatta on the lake – and finish with an entertainment here in the theatre. And I want you to select the guests.’

‘Us?’ faltered the Duchess.

Guy inclined his head. ‘I only ask that they should belong to your social circle.’

‘You wish to entertain our friends to a banquet and a ball?’ said the stunned Margravine.

‘And a house party to follow,’ repeated Guy. ‘I myself shall bring only one guest: a lady.’

Guy’s voice had been carefully expressionless but David leaned forward, aware that he had touched the heart of the mystery. At the same time he felt an inexplicable sense of unease.

‘A lady to whom I hope to be married,’ Guy continued. And answering David’s look of bewilderment, the slight hurt in the boy’s face, he added, ‘She is the widow of an officer wounded in the war and her period of mourning will only end in June, so no formal engagement exists as yet.’ He paused, and David saw the extraordinary change in the colour of his eyes as he remembered happiness. ‘I knew her years ago in Vienna.’

‘She is Austrian?’ enquired the Duchess.

‘No, English, but she loves your country. I should add perhaps that I am myself a foundling and was discovered in circumstances so disreputable that they must entirely preclude my seeking an entrée into the nobility. Indeed, my ambitions in that direction are non-existent. It is otherwise, however, with Mrs Hurlingham. Her aunt,’ said Guy, who had been made well aware of the fact, ‘was an Honourable.’

The ladies exchanged glances. ‘That is not a very high rank, Herr Farne,’ said the Duchess reprovingly.

‘Nevertheless she wishes, most understandably, to take her place in society. And I,’ he went on, his voice suddenly harsh, ‘do not wish her to suffer from being married to a man who is not even low-born but not “born” at all.’

‘It will be difficult,’ stated the Duchess.

‘She is not perhaps a Howard? Or a Percy – the aunt?’ enquired the Margravine hopefully.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Oh, dear.’ The Duchess was perplexed. Well versed in the ways of the world, she was aware that the attractive Herr Farne with his wealth and obvious indifference to what anybody thought of him would be accepted far more easily than a fiancée with aspirations. ‘You see, our friends are rather particular. Prince Monteforelli, for example . . .’