Airs Above the Ground

by Mary Stewart

  I said, pleasantly enough: ‘There’s Annalisa’s music now. It’ll be you next. I shan’t be seeing you again, so I’ll say good night, and good luck.’

  But he didn’t move. ‘Where did you get that?’ He was looking at the jewel on my frock.

  ‘Now, look,’ I said, ‘I told you I hadn’t been stealing. That was a present, a parting gift if you like to call it that, a souvenir. But don’t worry, it isn’t real, it’s off the Lipizzan’s saddle. I’ve had quite a bit of loot tonight, one way and another. Good night.’

  I turned away abruptly and headed for the gate. I thought for a moment that he was going to say something more, but the applause from the big top warned him and held him back. He turned with a swirl of his black cloak and went rapidly the other way.

  The parrot started, in an unpleasant, wavering falsetto, to sing ‘O for the wings of a dove’.

  13

  He found a stable for his steed,

  And welcome for himself, and dinner.

  W. M. Praed: The Vicar

  It was the Count himself who greeted me on my return to the castle.

  It was dusk now, and here and there in the castle lights pricked out yellow in the gloom. A lamp over the arched gateway cast a small pool of light on to the bridge: there was another over the main door, and others, here and there in the narrow windows, threw a pattern of light and shadow over the cobbled court. High up in a turret a solitary lighted window made one think of fairy tales again; Curdie’s grandmother might sit spinning there, or Rapunzel of the long hair, or Elsa watching for the seven swans.

  As I parked the car prosaically at one side of the court, and mounted the steps, the Count came out of the great door.

  ‘Ah, Mrs March,’ he greeted me, then stopped, looking past me at the car almost as if he had never seen such a thing before. I remembered our theory that his guests normally came in a coach and six. ‘Did I not understand that you proposed to stable a horse for the night?’

  ‘Oh, yes, please, I do, but he’ll be brought up later. Timothy – that’s the young man I was with – he’ll be bringing him.’

  ‘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 store-rooms 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 centre 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 partitions 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 still 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 saddleroom, 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 pass 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 little 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 gratitude for what I did; it’s only glass; 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 ligh
ting 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 Theresa.

  ‘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 mass 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. Now, I won’t keep you; you will perhaps want to see your man. But perhaps some time 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 hotel-keepers 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 Gräfin 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 superstition, the fear of risking the jealousy and anger of the gods, 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 realised 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 showed 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 stitched, 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 glass 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 partition, and I didn’t believe in the old Count’s saddleroom – 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 rat-proof 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.