Ibbotson, Eva - Magic Flutes

‘We’re only doing our duty, gnädige Frau. It’s to pay Herr Farne’s debts. He’s rolled up, poor gentleman. Here’s our authorization.’ He thrust a sheaf of papers, alarmingly splashed with red sealing wax, in Nerine’s face. ‘You lot start next door,’ he ordered three of his underlings. ‘And you two start in the hall. The marble statues are fixtures, more’s the pity, but we’ll take the rest. Stefan, Georg, Isidor, you stay here with me.’

‘No! No! No!’ Nerine was as white as a sheet. ‘I don’t believe it, it’s a lie!’

Impervious to her distress, the men got to work. Ropes were brought from the lorries with rolls of hessian padding and crates. Moving with incredible speed and the unmistakable air of men thoroughly accustomed to the job, they stripped the walls of pictures, carried out chairs, coffee tables, ormolu clocks and began to roll up the Aubusson carpet.

‘I told you so, I told you so!’ screamed Mrs Croft as the sofa she had been sitting on vanished from behind her. ‘Not just a piece of sacking but a piece of sacking in Newcastle upon Tyne !’

Only Martha remained unruffled. ‘Ee, hinny, you don’t have to take on so,’ she said in her quiet voice to Nerine. ‘Even if Guy’s in a bit of trouble, he’ll come round again. You stand by him and you’ll see.’

Nerine turned to her. ‘Don’t you see,’ she said furiously, ‘that I cannot? I simply cannot be poor, I have no right.’ Her hands flew to her face. ‘Oh God, what shall I do?’

One man only, out of all the bailiffs, seemed to have some degree of pity for the lovely widow: a small, portly man whose long, blond beard and blond locks issuing from the brim of his bowler hat contrasted strangely with his black and soul-filled eyes. ‘You want to watch your personal possessions, gnädige Frau,’ he whispered as he passed her with an armful of petitpoint cushions. ‘Jewels and suchlike. They’re forfeit, too, by Austrian law if an engagement exists.’

‘Oh, my God!’ Nerine was totally beside herself. Her jewels! The diamonds Guy had given her, the pearls . . . her furs!

‘Excuse me.’ One of the men had brushed past her and was lifting the first of the mirrors off the wall, then the second, the third . . .

‘No! Not the mirrors! Not the mirrors !’ screamed Nerine.

Then she turned and ran for the door.

19

Tessa had the compartment to herself and as the train steamed out of Spittau, she put her hand into the pocket of her loden cloak to draw out the ancient leather casket once more, and gaze at its contents.

Yes, she had been right in what she had said to Guy. It was not like other jewels, the Lily of Pfaffenstein. The beaten silver was dark, almost dull, so deeply was it marked by time, but the delicate marvellously wrought petals, the proud curve of the stem, exuded an unmistakable air of majesty. If ever there was an ornament carved out of the very soul of the unknown craftsman, it was this symbol of fidelity and love.

One last task, then: to take the Lily to Pfaffenstein and give it to Martha Hodge. Thank heavens she would not have to get out of the train, not have to see the castle en fête for the wedding; not have to meet Nerine, hanging with proud ownership on to Guy’s arm. Martha had promised to be waiting on the platform, and all Tessa would have to do was lean out of the train, hand over the heirloom and continue her journey to Vienna.

‘You’ll know me all right,’ Martha had written in reply to Tessa’s letter, ‘for I’m as broad as I’m long! But to make sure, I’ll wear my navy coat and skirt and my fox fur.’

The train had left the plain and the great, grey lake and was climbing past vineyards pruned for winter, past chequered fields, into the hills. Her own country, now: fir woods mantling green slopes, glittering rivers tumbling through ravines and high on the horizon, a constant pearly cloud that revealed itself breathtakingly as the first of the snow peaks.

An hour later, the train puffed into the station that served Pfaffenstein. Tessa had lowered the window and was leaning out eagerly, the casket in her hand. An old man with a basket of eggs climbed into the third-class carriage at the back; a young man and a black-clad woman with two children got out but the platform itself was curiously empty. Certainly no one as broad as they were long – no one at all now that the passengers had dispersed, which was strange because Anton, the station master, nearly always came out to have a quick chat with the driver.

Uncertainly, she opened the door of her compartment and stepped down. Martha had promised. The dates and times in her letter were perfectly clear. Already, doors were slamming again and the wheezing engine was giving its pre-departure squeaks. Then, running along the platform, came Steffi, the postmaster’s ferret-faced son, the only one of the five boys who had turned out badly.

‘Your Highness!’ He touched his cap. ‘There’s a message from the English gentleman’s foster-mother. She’s ill. She can’t come.’

‘Oh, dear!’

A minute in which to act. To anyone else in the village she could have entrusted the Lily, but not to Steffi who had already been in trouble with the police.

Nothing for it, then . . . Quickly, she took out her small portmanteau, shut the door of her compartment and stood ruefully watching the train draw out. A few minutes later, she had pushed open the white wicket gate which led from the station enclosure and set off on the path along the lake.

At once, she was in a world of aching familiarity. Here was the hollow alder in which she had found a nest of curled-up, sleeping water voles; here the rock shaped like a bird; here the bush that in summer was ablaze with sulphur-yellow roses . . .

She crossed the road, wondering again at the absence of people, and began to climb the steep, circuitous Narrenweg. The first shrine, with the wreath of artificial poppies which had lain there since Frau Sussman’s son fell in the war . . . the second, on which the quiet-faced Virgin’s nose was inexplicably missing . . . the third, beneath which old Marinka had put, as she put each year, a great bunch of her orange dahlias before they caught the frost –

‘Oh, God!’ Tessa had stopped, put down her bag and grasped the branch of an ilex beside the path, suddenly overwhelmed by a searing sense of heimat – that word which, though embracing it, means so much more than simply ‘home’.

Then she set her chin, picked up her bag and ten minutes later was walking through the gatehouse arch.

There was no one on duty. The courtyard was deserted. Feeling suddenly extremely anxious, Tessa walked up the short flight of steps into the great hall and looked about her, puzzled. Where were the ornaments, the vases, the tapestry hangings? Then a door opened above her and, breaking the silence, she heard a furious voice.

‘Who the devil has raised the flag on the flagpole? Who is the imbecile who is climbing about up there? I’m going to blast him out of existence if it’s the last thing—’ Guy had appeared at the top of the staircase. ‘You! ’

He came down swiftly, the brows drawn in a dark bar across his face, and stopped in front of the small figure in the grey cloak. ‘And what brings you here?’ he enquired.

‘I brought the Lily. For Nerine. Martha promised to meet me at the station and bring it up, but she wasn’t there. There was a message to say she wasn’t well. Is it anything serious?’

Guy shrugged. ‘She was all right this morning, perfectly all right. In high fettle, in fact.’ He gave up the puzzle. ‘You came from Spittau?’

‘Yes.’

He nodded, scowling. ‘And the prince is well?’

‘Very well. Guy, please would you take this, I want to get back,’ said Tessa, proffering the box. ‘Just take it and give it to Nerine . . . with my best wishes for her happiness.’