Airs Above The Ground Part 15

"Ah, your man will bring him. I see." Now his eye fell on the saddle lodged in the back seat of the car. If he noticed the vulgarity of its jewelled and tinselled trappings he made no sign. "I see you have brought your saddle up yourself. Josef will carry it in for you, but meantime I am sure you will want to see for yourself where we shall house your horse."

"I think-" I began, but he had already turned away to cross the courtyard towards the west side, the side nearest the mountain, where the entrance archway divided into two what must be the storerooms and outbuildings of the castle. From the gate to the northwest corner I could see a line of smaller arches; one or two of these were shut by heavy studded doors, but the three nearest the corner were open. I saw something which could have been the bonnet of a car, gleaming in the darkness behind the center one of these, and in the bay to the left of it the glint of some brightly spoked vehicle which I couldn't see properly, but which from its height I guessed might even be the coach and six.

The Count pushed open one of the doors in an arch which might have belonged to a young cathedral and took down a lantern from its hook. This he proceeded to light-not, to my disappointment, with a tinderbox, but with a perfectly ordinary match. Then, with a brief apology for leading the way, he went ahead of me, holding the lantern high.

Not even the brushed and combed tidiness of Tim's grandfather's racing stables had prepared me for such splendour as I now saw. This was a decayed and cobwebbed splendour, it was true, but in the wavering light cast by the lantern held high above the old man's head the empty magnificence of the stables was impressive in a haunted Gothic way that the comforts of modern living had dispelled from the castle itself. This was the real thing, a sharply evocative glimpse of a whole vanished way of life. Almost the only thing that had survived from this corner of that way of life, I reflected, was the unbreakable rule which still held good: that you attended to your horse's comfort before you saw to your own.

Nothing, it seemed, had been too good for the Zechstein horses. The place was vaulted like a church, the interlaced arches of the ceiling springing from pillars of some dark mottled stone which could have been serpentine. The walls were panelled up to the proper height with what could only be black oak, and the part.i.tions between the boxes-there were no stalls-were of the same wood faced and inlaid. On the wall over each box was carved a large shield surmounted by a crest, and on the shields, dim in the shadows, I could see Gothic lettering. I couldn't read it, but I guessed that these were the names of the vanished horses, each above his box. It was no surprise to see that the mangers appeared to be made of marble.

The place was, of course, by no means empty. Since the inmates had disappeared the clutter of years had gradually built up in the boxes and the fairway. Through an open door at the far end of the stable I could see-as the Count led me that way-what I had guessed to be the coach and six, standing in the arcaded coach house beyond. It was indeed a carriage of some kind; the edge of the lantern's glimmer caught the gold picked out on the wheels and doors. Parked beyond it, and looking less incongruous than one would have imagined, was the sleek gleam of the modern car.

The box at the end of the stable was empty, and looked swept and clean. The manger had been scoured out, and beside it was a bale of straw. As the old man held the lantern up I saw the name on the carved shield above the box: Grane. The Count said nothing, and I didn't ask, but I had a strong feeling that the loose box had not just been swept out and the manger scoured for old Piebald: I thought it was kept that way. The name looked freshly painted, and the metal corn bin against the wall by the coach-house door was comparatively new.

"You will see," said the Count, "that there is a peg for your bridle here at the side of the box. Josef will show your man the saddle room, and the feed."

I had already decided that the horse would be better out grazing for the night, and I had noticed a pleasant little alp, just nicely sheltered by trees and less than a hundred yards from the bridge, but I certainly hadn't the heart to say so. I thanked the Count, admired the stable, and listened for a while to his gentle reminiscences of past days as he led me back towards the door. Here he stood back for me to pa.s.s him, and then reached up to put the lantern, still lit, back where it had hung before.

"Your man will doubtless put it out when he has finished here." Then, as the light swung high, something about me seemed to catch his attention. I saw that, like Sandor a short time ago, he was looking at the "jewel" on my lapel.

He was a good deal more civil than Sandor had been.

"Forgive me, I was admiring your jewel. It is a very pretty thing."

I laughed. "It's not really a jewel at all, I'm afraid, it's just a trinket. It was given me by someone down at the circus in the village as a souvenir. Perhaps I should have told you before-the horse I'm looking after has been with the circus for a while, and he was hurt, so they're leaving him in my care for a day or two."

I touched the brooch. "I suppose this is a little token of grat.i.tude for what I did; it's only gla.s.s; I admired it and they took it off the horse's saddle for me. It is pretty, isn't it?"

"Very pretty." He peered more closely, with a little apology. "Perhaps, yes, perhaps one can see that it is, after all, not real. I suppose that if it were you would not be wearing it, but it would be safely locked away. A jewel that one can wear without fear is after all the best kind of jewel. No, what drew my attention was that it looked familiar. Come with me, and I will show you."

He led me at a brisk pace back across the courtyard, up the steps, and across the hall through the door marked "Private."

The private wing of the castle was in its own way rather like the stables-no dust or cobwebs or clutter, but with the same general air of having stepped back about half a century. The same dim lighting was also still in evidence, for, though the castle's electricity did extend as far as this, it seemed to have been put in by someone with a dislike of modern innovations. The bulbs were small, faint, few and far between. The old Count, walking briskly ahead, led me up a gracefully curved staircase to a wide landing lit by a forty-watt bulb, and stopped in front of a canvas on the wall, so big that- though we could have done with the stable lantern-I could see it fairly well. It seemed to be painted mostly in shades of brown varnish, but, properly cleaned and with better lighting, would turn out to be a portrait, a good deal larger than life, of a lady in the frilled and ruffled satins of the era of the Empress Maria Theresia.

"You see," said the old man, pointing.

And indeed I did. Perhaps originally the brooch had been painted more brightly than the rest, or perhaps some freak of time had left the varnish a little more transparent on this piece of the canvas, but in the dim painting it stood out remarkably clearly: a big brooch pinning the lace at the lady's bosom. And as far as one could make out, almost exactly like the one I was wearing. There was the gold filigree work, the central blue stone, the ma.s.s of small brilliants, and the same five dangling "tremblers." The only real difference was that about the painted lady's jewellery there could be no possible doubt; no one with that pale hard eye and Hapsburg jaw would have worn anything off a circus saddle.

"Goodness, it is like, isn't it?" I exclaimed. "Who is she?"

"She was my great-grandmother. This same jewel appears in two of the other portraits, but alas, they are not here, or I could show them to you. They are both in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich."

"And the jewel itself?"

Any wild thoughts I may have had of stolen treasure turning up as circus jewellery and ending up on my shoulder came to a speedy end at his reply. "Also, alas, in Munich. Most of my family's jewels are there.

You may see them some day, perhaps." He smiled. "But meantime I hope it will give you pleasure to wear the most famous of them! It was a gift from the Czar, and there are romantic stories about it which are almost certainly not true. . . . But romance persists, and the jewel has been much copied."

"I'll make a special trip some day to Munich to look at it," I promised as we turned away. "Well, that's really rather exciting! Thank you very much for showing me the portrait: I'll treasure my present all the more now because it'll remind me of Zechstein."

"That's very charming of you, my dear. I won't keep you now; you will perhaps want to see your man.

But perhaps sometime you will give me the pleasure of showing you the rest of the castle? We still have quite a few treasures here and you may find it interesting."

"I shall be delighted. Thank you."

With the same air of slightly abstracted gentleness he saw me down the stairs and back into the hall.

There was a woman there now, behind the big refectory table which did duty as a hotel desk. She had been writing, and was leafing through a stack of papers which were clipped together with a big metal clip.

She was middle-aged, with a squat, dumpy figure and greying hair drawn tightly back. She had pendulous cheeks, and a little beak-mouth pursed between them like an octopus between two stones. I took her to be the receptionist, or perhaps the housekeeper, and wondered why, when she looked up and saw me preceding the Count from the south wing, her face, far from expressing the conventional welcome due to a hotel guest, showed what looked like cold surprise.

The Count's gentle voice spoke from behind me.

"Ah, there you are, my dear."

"I've been to the kitchens. Were you looking for me?"

This, then, must be the Countess. Perhaps the white blouse and flowered dirndl which she wore, suitable perhaps for someone of Annalisa's age, were her concession to her new status as owner of a hotel. She spoke, as her husband had spoken, in English. Her voice in contrast to his was rapid and a little sharp, seeming to hold a perpetual undertone of exasperation.

She turned the exasperation, perhaps tempered a little, on to me. "Nowadays, it seems, one has to see to everything oneself. How do you do? I hope you'll be comfortable here. I am afraid, just at present, the service is not what it should be. But in these country places things become more and more difficult every day, even with the modern improvements. It's very difficult indeed now to get local help, and we find that the servants we get from the town don't wish to stay in any spot quite so isolated as this. . . ."

I listened politely as she went on to tell me of her domestic troubles, murmuring something sympathetic from time to time. I had heard this kind of thing before many times from hotelkeepers in my own country, but never delivered with quite this air of grievance. I began to wonder at what point I should be made to feel that I must offer to make my own bed. When she paused at last, I said soothingly: "But it's charming, it really is. My room is lovely. And the whole place is so beautiful and really seems admirably kept. I find it so exciting to be able to visit a real castle like this. It must have been wonderful in the old days."

The tight lines of her face seemed to slacken a little. "Ah, yes, the old days. I am afraid that now they seem a very long time ago."

The Count said: "I was showing Mrs. March the portrait of Grafin Maria."

"Ah, yes. I am afraid the best of the portraits are no longer here. We have to live as best we can, in ways which we would once have considered impossible." She lifted her shoulders solid under the frilly blouse.

"The best of everything is gone, Mrs. March."

I murmured something, uncomfortable and even irritated as one always is in face of a determined grievance. This, it seemed, was one of those angry natures that feeds on grievance; nothing would madden her more than to know that what she complained of had been put right. There are such people, unfortunates who have to be angry before they can feel alive. I had sometimes wondered if it were some old relic of pagan superst.i.tion, the fear of risking the jealousy and anger of the G.o.ds, that made such people afraid of even small happinesses. Or perhaps it was only that tragedy is more self-important than laughter. It is more impressive to be a Lear than a Rosalind.

I said: "Have you had any word yet from my husband, Countess? He hoped he might get here tonight."

"From Mr. March? Yes . . ." She began again to riffle through the papers in front of her. "One moment. .

. . He sent a telegram to us. Ah, here it is." She handed a telegraph form across to me. It was, of course, in German.

"I wonder if you'd please translate it for me?"

"It only says: 'Regret must cancel tonight's reservation,' " said the Countess, "but there is another for you, if I can find it ... ah, yes, here."

I took it. This one was in English, and it ran: "Very sorry unable join you yet will get in touch love Lewis."

I let it drop to the table. I saw the Countess's hard little grey eyes watching me curiously, and realized that my face must be showing a disappointment quite startlingly intense. I pulled myself together.

"What a pity. He just says he can't join me yet but that he'll get in touch. I suppose he may telephone me tomorrow, or perhaps even tonight. Thank you very much. ... I think I'll go outside now and see if my young friend is on his way up with the horse." I smiled at the Count. "Thank you again."

I turned quickly to go. I was in no mood to stay and explain all over again to the Countess about the horse. But if she had been going to query my last statement she got no chance, because her husband was already speaking to her. "Did you say you were expecting another guest tonight after all, my dear? Who is this?"

"Another Englishman. A Mr. Elliott."

By the mercy of heaven I had my back to them and was already hurrying across the hall, for nothing could have hidden from them the surprise that must have shown unguarded on my face. In counting the hours to seeing Lewis, I had quite forgotten his alias, and that he had implied he might still have to use it.

The name had brought me up short for a moment, but I managed to pretend I had stumbled over the edge of a rug, and then simply kept going to the door without looking round. But I didn't hurry now. As I reached it, I heard her add: "He has just telephoned. He can have Room [some number I didn't catch]; it is ready. We must tell Josef when he comes back." She had dropped into German now, but I thought I understood the next bit as well. "He will not be here for dinner. He couldn't say what time he would get here. He thought it might be late."

It didn't take as long as I had expected to cut the jewels off the saddle. I carried the lantern into the stable, where I sat down on the bale of straw to do the job, with a small pair of very sharp scissors that I usually carry in my handbag. I'd have taken it upstairs to my room, where the light was better, but it was heavy, and Josef was at the circus, and I hadn't seen anyone else to ask; and besides, it smelled rather too strongly of horse.

So I sat in the lantern light picking at the jewels, while the tiny noises of the stable rustled round me.

The stones were loosely sewn and came off easily enough. The tinselled braiding at the edge had been half st.i.tched, half glued, and left a mark when at last I managed to pull it away; but nothing, I thought, to matter. The saddle, of soft pale leather with a rolled pommel, had obviously been a good one originally, but it was now very shabby, and both lining and leather showed signs of much mending.

All the same, when I had finished, and dropped the glittering handful of gla.s.s into my pocket, I looked round for a peg to hang the old saddle on, safely out of reach of marauders. The rustling in the recesses of that elaborately baroque stable hadn't been imagination; nor had it just been mice. Shabby or no, I wasn't going to leave the Spanische Reitschule's saddle to the mercy of the Zechstein rats.

The only peg that was big enough was broken. It was no use perching the thing astride a part.i.tion, and I didn't believe in the old Count's saddle room-at least, not in working order. In any case I didn't want to wait for Josef or go looking for it myself in the dark. But the metal corn bin was ratproof and roomy, and Piebald would not need corn tonight. I lifted the lid and put the saddle carefully down on the corn, then hung the lantern where I had found it and went out to meet Timothy.

I went out through the archway onto the bridge and stopped there, leaning over the parapet.

Above me, shadowy, soared the walls and spires and turrets of the castle, p.r.i.c.ked here and there with windows full of yellow light. Beyond the bridge, shadow after shadow, soared the pinewoods, sharp with their evening scent, and away down below in the dim valley cl.u.s.ters of lights marked the outlying farms.

Apart from these the only sources of light in the veiled landscape were the river, which still showed as a faintly luminous ribbon sliding along the valley floor, and just below me the pale juts of rock on which the bridge was built. From somewhere beneath came the trickling, splashing sound of the falling stream, but the big river at the foot of the cliff was silent.

The night was so still that if Piebald were already on his way I thought I should have heard the clip clop of his hoofs, but there was silence, not broken this time by distant music from the circus. Even the faintest echo of this was cut off, I supposed, by the bluff that hid the village from view.

The distant sound of a motor engine broke the silence first, and I saw the lights coming along the valley road from the direction of the village. Then it had pa.s.sed the road junction at the river bridge, and the lights curled along up the valley and were lost to sight. Not Mr. Lee Elliott. Not yet.

In any case-I had been trying to think it out-he would come from the north. Approaching from Vienna, he would not have to pa.s.s through the village but would turn off at the bridge for the castle. If he arrived while the performance was still going on he was unlikely to meet any of the circus people, and if he came after eleven the wagons would be moving south. It was extremely unlikely that anyone who had known Mr. Lee Elliott would see the man in the closed car driving rapidly up to the Schloss Zechstein; and indeed, in hoping to arrive as "Lewis March," he must have reckoned on this.

His use of the disguise, then, could only mean that he planned to make another contact with the circus.

And in twelve hours from now the circus would be out of the country.

At that moment, faint and far away, I heard the sound of hoofs, the slow clip clop, clip clop, of a walking horse. They must have started up the steep road. The hoofbeats were steady and quite regular; it seemed that old Piebald was no longer "going short." I straightened up and strolled off the bridge and on down the road between the pines to wait for them.

Someone had put a stout wooden seat at the edge of the road, in a gap between the trees, facing outwards over the valley. I felt it cautiously; the wood was still dry, the damp of night had not yet reached it. I sat down to wait. The clip-clopping hoofs grew momentarily fainter as Timothy and the horse rounded some curve of the road and trees crowded between to deaden the sound. Then, a few minutes later, they emerged nearer and louder.

It was all the scene needed, I thought, looking up where, on my left, the turrets rose dark and faintly lit against the stars . . . the silence, the stars p.r.i.c.king out, the charmed hush of the trees, and now the slow sound of the approaching horse. One almost expected De la Mare's Traveller or some wandering knight in armour to emerge from the pinewoods into the starlight.

The last stretch of the road must have had its verges heavily felted with pine needles, for when Timothy and the horse at last appeared rounding the bend in the road below me they seemed to be moving as silently as any storybook apparition. It occurred to me then that this-this mundane appearance of mortal boy and horse, treading cautiously up the soft verge to save the lame leg-was every bit as dramatic as any romantic legend . . . the old stallion, deposed, menial, debased by his ugly coat, a sort of Frog Prince who might soon be back in his own royal place. He came now, plodding beside the boy through the moon-thrown shadows, the steely light that slithered across his pied coat making of him just another barred silver shadow. But the black would soon be gone; I had noticed tonight that it was growing out already. As I called out and moved I saw his head jerk up and his ears p.r.i.c.k forward sharply, so that for a moment he looked a young horse again. He actually quickened his pace, and then I heard him give that lovely soft whickering through his nostrils. I remembered what Herr Wagner had said: "His name will still be on his stall, and fresh straw waiting." I hoped he was right, and, more even than that, I hoped that Timothy and I were right. There would be certain difficulties if the Frog Prince turned out just to be a frog after all.

Then his muzzle had dropped softly into my hand and I was caressing his ears and telling Timothy across him what the arrangements were-including those for Mr. Lee Elliott- for the coming night.

I didn't add what was very much in the forefront of my own mind regarding Mr. Lee Elliott-which was that, if Timothy and Lewis and I were the only occupants of the central part of the castle, at least tonight Mr. Elliott would be able to prowl into my bedroom without any fear of discovery.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

I girdid up my Lions & fled the Seen.

artemus ward: A Visit to Brigham Young

I must have been asleep when at last he came.

After the usual pattern of Continental hotels, my room had double doors where the bedroom, originally very large, had been reduced in size so that a bathroom could be added between it and the main corridor. I never heard the opening and closing of the outer door, but when the inner door of the room opened I was, it seemed, instantly awake.

The room was dark; the heavy curtains drawn close across the window and the turret embrasure completely shut out the moonlight. I heard the door close softly behind him, then he hesitated, presumably getting his bearings. He didn't feel for a light switch, and he must have been able to see something, for I heard the ancient floorboards creak as he approached the bed.

I said sleepily: "Darling, over here," and turned, groping for the bedside light.

The sound stopped abruptly.

"Lewis?" I said. My hand had just found the switch.

A thin pencil of light from a small pocket torch shot out to dazzle me. It caught me full in the eyes. A swift whisper came: "Keep still. Take your hand off that switch." But eve as he spoke, instinctively, I had pressed the switch and the light came on.

It wasn't Lewis. Standing about eight feet away from the foot of my bed was Sandor Balog, with the torch gripped in his hand.

"What are you doing here? Who are you looking for?"

Shock and fright made me speak loudly and shrilly. He had stopped exactly where he was, no doubt sensing that if he had moved a single step, fright would have got the better of me and I would have screamed. Now he thrust the torch back into his pocket. "Keep quiet, will you? Keep your voice down, and if-"

I said furiously: "Get out of here! Get out at once! Do you hear me? Get out of my room immediately!"

And I rolled quickly over to reach for the bedside telephone.

And now he did move. In two swift strides he was beside the bed and his left hand shot out to grip my wrist just before I could touch the receiver. It was the second time that evening that I'd felt the strength of those hands, and this time the grip was both violent and cruel.

"Stop that, I tell you!" He wrenched my arm brutally aside and flung me back bodily against the pillows.

I screamed then, with all my strength. I think I screamed Lewis's name, as I tried to throw myself out the farther side of the bed away from Sandor, but he pounced again, grabbing my flying arm once more with that brutal hand, and wrenched me back onto the pillows, and as I opened my mouth to scream again he hit me with his other hand across the mouth.

The blow slammed me hard back against the head of the bed. As my head and body were driven back, he hit me again. I don't think I fought any more; I hardly remember. In any case it would have been futile.