Magic Flutes

Though highly entertained by the deep and ingrained snobbery of these old women, whose country on the map now looked like a severed and diminutive pancreas, whose court and emperor were totally defunct, Guy felt it was time he made his position clear. So leaning back, gently lowering a wedge of fragrant ash into the Louis Quatorze spittoon with which he had been provided, he said placidly that if they felt unable to introduce Mrs Hurlingham to European high society he regretted that the sale would be cancelled.

The ladies now retired behind a screen to confer. Though they spoke in whispers, they were sufficiently deaf for their deliberations to be perfectly clear to Guy, who gathered that their desire not to deprive Putzerl of her dowry, along with the lure of the word ‘banquet’ was fast overcoming their reluctance to offend their friends by introducing them to a lady whose aunt, though an Honourable, was unrelated to the great ducal families of Britain.

‘Very well, Herr Farne,’ said the Duchess with a sigh. ‘We will present your friend.’

‘Good,’ said Guy. ‘You should hear from my lawyers in a few days, by which time I trust your great-niece will have been in touch, and then I will send in the workmen. Mr Tremayne here,’ he continued, grinning at David, ‘will see to everything. There is one other condition. I want complete secrecy. My name is not to appear in the transaction; the deeds will be made out in the name of one of my companies. I would prefer that even the local people do not know that I am the new owner until everything is completed. I suggest June the eighteenth for the reception and the opening ball?’

‘Very well, Herr Farne.’

‘Oh, and I want to hire an opera company. Is there one that you can recommend?’

Even the ladies of Burg Pfaffenstein were impressed by the high-handedness of this.

‘The International Opera Company in the Klostern Theatre is said to be very good. Putzerl often speaks of it.’

‘And she’s extremely musical. In fact she’s studying music’

Guy thanked them, removed a spider which had fallen into his wineglass and took his leave.

It was not until they were halfway back to Vienna, eating supper in the candle-lit dining room of the White Horse Inn, that Guy, crumbling a roll in his long fingers, chose to give his secretary some kind of explanation.

‘You’ve been very patient, David. You must think I’ve gone quite mad. All that for a woman . . . Only, you see, she’s had a rotten life – forced into an unhappy marriage, then watching the poor devil take four years to die.’ He was silent for a moment, his eyes on the candle flame, the customary mocking look momentarily absent from his face. He looked years younger and to David, who worshipped him, suddenly and frighteningly vulnerable.

‘I want her to have everything she wanted at seventeen, however absurd,’ he went on. ‘Everything. She doesn’t even realize I’m rich – we only met a fortnight before I came away and I didn’t tell her. When I knew her before, I was twenty years old and penniless. I want her to come upon Pfaffenstein lit up for a ball and peopled with princes. I want her to walk into a fairy tale – and know that all of it is hers.’

‘She must be very beautiful,’ said David quietly.

‘The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. She’s lovely now but at seventeen – oh, God!’

And for the first time in his life, Guy began to speak of his love for the girl who had been Nerine Croft.

2

Whether it was the sheer beauty of the city, then at the height of its imperial splendour: a city from whose every window came music, a lazily grey and gold-domed city framed in the cherished hills and vineyards of the Wienerwald . . . whether it was Vienna itself or the cosmopolitan society Guy experienced there, or the fizz of new thought as Schönberg revolutionized music, Klimt’s golden, exotic ladies scandalized the world of art and Sigmund Freud produced the outrageous theories which were to change men’s views of themselves for ever . . . or whether it was simply that he was young and at the height of his powers, Guy now paused in the conquest of knowledge, the world, himself – and began simply to enjoy life.

What happened next was of course inevitable, but to Guy it was the miracle that a first love, truly and violently experienced, is to every man who is worthy of the name.

Vienna, in those halcyon years, was not only a gay and fashionable capital but also the centre of a thriving international industry: Europe’s most popular marriage mart. To the finishing schools of Vienna came the daughters of American millionaires, British industrialists and the French nouveau riche, nominally to learn German, study music and appreciate art – actually to take the preliminary steps which would secure, in due course, a husband both nobly born and rich.