The Tin Princess, Page 5

  "But as with everything else I want to do, I shall rely on the judgement and sensibility of my wife. Her experience of the world has given her a wisdom beyond her years, and a strength and perception of character on which I hope to rely greatly."

  Becky noticed the Countess turn and look at Adelaide with cold eyes. Adelaide herself was sitting quietly with her hands in her lap, watching the Prince, and didn't notice.

  "But my wife will need help," the Prince went on. "She will need guidance and companionship. She will need instruction. And she has told me that Fraulein Winter can fulfil those needs in a way which no one else can.

  "Frau Winter, I have spoken at length, for which I apologize. If you cannot allow Fraulein Winter to accompany the Princess to Razkavia as her companion, I shall understand and respect your decision, and bid you good day. In any case, madam, I truly beg your pardon for having disturbed you."

  Mama looked at Becky, and took a deep breath, and then put her hands together as if she were praying, and then clapped them very lightly as if she'd made up her mind.

  "Your Highness," she said, "I want to say first how honoured we are. And how much I wish we could receive you more comfortably. I well remember my husband's visit to the Palace. He told me how attentively you had listened to him and questioned him. If he had lived, you would have found no wiser or more loyal counsellor.

  "And I am honoured that you have confided in us. But your request is a great one... I am a widow in a strange country; I have to struggle to make a living. All I have here are my aged mother and my daughter, both of whom I love dearly. If anything should happen to Rebecca, it would be the end of my life.

  "But she is a young woman of great strength and honesty, and many gifts. I have tried to raise her to be good, to be modest, to work hard and to be charitable. I am proud of her. I think your Princess will need a good friend. Well, she will find no friend truer or more valuable than my Rebecca. Sir, we are honoured by your request. But you must allow me to say that Princess Adelaide will be even more honoured by the friendship of my daughter.

  "So my answer is yes, she may go, with my blessing. But I warn you, if one hair of her head is harmed, there is nowhere on earth the one who does it can hide, but I will find him and tear out his heart as he will have torn out mine. Rebecca, liebchen..."

  And she blindly turned to Becky, her voice breaking, her arms held out. Mother and daughter clung so close that Becky heard bones crack, and didn't know whether it was her ribs or Mama's corset; but it didn't matter, for she was howling too.

  When they were a little more composed, Prince Rudolf said, "We shall be leaving in thirty-six hours. You will need some clothes, Fraulein - mourning, and so on. Countess Thalgau will advise you. Frau Winter, I shall leave you some money to cover any expenses. Please let the Countess know if you need any more..."

  And there was gold on the table, more than the household had seen for years. Adelaide caught Becky's eye, and a little anxious smile flickered for a moment, and was answered with another. Becky wondered which of them would need the other most.

  The Irish Guards had pursued the spy down into Marylebone, along the length of Baker Street, gathering reinforcements all the way, until there were a hundred or more yelling urchins chasing behind him. At the corner of Oxford Street, though, he leapt into a cab. Liam and Charlie were close enough to hear the address he gasped to the driver, and as the cab swung down into Mayfair they yelled, "This way! Follow us!" and raced along the length of Oxford Street before plunging down into Soho.

  Breathless, they pelted through the back-doubles and arrived in Leicester Square just as a cab drew up by the stage door of the Alhambra Theatre.

  "Is that him?" said Liam, and, "There he is!" shrieked Charlie, and, "After him, lads!" cried Dermot.

  The stage-door-keeper had no chance: they poured in like maddened wasps. The evening's music-hall bill was just coming to an end, and the area backstage, the corridors and the dressing-rooms were thronged with artistes, carpenters, lighting men and scene-shifters already; but within a minute there wasn't a corner of the theatre, from the foyer to the flies, that wasn't infested with urchins.

  "There he is!"

  "I seen him - up there on the ladder!"

  "He's gone down that trapdoor! After him!"

  "He's along the corridor - there he goes!"

  Five different men, acrobats, stage-managers, waiters, were pursued into corners, interrogated, and abandoned, before Liam, Charlie and Dermot spotted their quarry in a corridor near the Green Room.

  Determined, they raced along after him, just too late to prevent him from slipping into a dressing-room. They heard a key turn, and hammered mercilessly on the panelled door.

  "Come out, ye thieving toe-rag! Ye cowardly spy! Come out and fight, ye dirty devil!"

  Silence from within; but the shouting and the clamour from behind them was getting louder.

  "We'll have to break the door down, lads," said Liam, and they stood back across the narrow corridor, preparing to shoulder-charge. "One - two -"

  And the door opened.

  Off balance, they stumbled and gathered themselves to look up at the face of a woman: a beautiful, dark-eyed, bare-shouldered, raven-tressed Spanish-looking actress in a scarlet gown. She was frightened; she could hardly speak for the rapid beating of her heart.

  "Where's the man?" demanded Liam. "Where's he gone?"

  She gestured helplessly at the open window.

  "This way!" Liam yelled, just as the remaining swarm of urchins reached the door of the dressing-room. Led by him, they poured through the room and out of the window, dropping darkly down the wall and scrambling through the clutter of new building works in Castle Street - bricks, planks, piles of rubble: gadflies after a maddened bull.

  An imaginary bull.

  The actress shut the window and with a long shuddering sigh let out the breath she'd been holding. She was exhausted; barely able to stand. Her breast heaving, she locked the door again, drew the curtains, and then put up her hand to take off the wig. She lifted up her dress, unhitched a fastening at the waist, stepped out of the trousers concealed beneath the skirt, and threw them over to join the hastily-discarded jacket and waistcoat and shirt behind the door. Then she sat down heavily at the dressing-table. Gradually her breathing became calmer. She loosed her tightly-drawn black hair, and took out the bloodied knife from the sheath tied to her calf before wiping it on a silk handkerchief. She smiled faintly, and studied her reflection from this side and that.

  Jim's unbelieving suspicion was right.

  "A woman? What's her name?"

  "Carmen Isabella Ruiz y Soler, sir. An actress."

  "Reliable?"

  "I believe I know how to control her, sir."

  "Do you, by God. Well, you haven't failed me yet, I must admit, though this is one of the craziest schemes I ever heard of. Carry on, Bleichroder. And keep me informed."

  We are six hundred miles away, in Berlin. The speaker is a ferocious-looking elderly man: round-headed, bald, with protuberant eyes and a sweeping moustache. He glares around, nods briefly and leaves the room to go to his carriage. Officials in the antechamber bow, attendants open doors, functionaries hurry after him bearing documents, all moving with an air of edgy fear, for this is the great Chancellor, Prince Otto von Bismarck.

  The man in the office puts his hands on the arms of his chair and sits down carefully. He is a banker, the same age as Bismarck, but entirely without the commanding energy of the Chancellor. Bleichroder has an air of studious abstraction: a noble, balding head, heavy whiskers, half-shut eyes, a thin, curving nose. He waits until his secretary has closed the door.

  "Well, Julius?" he says. "How do you interpret the meaning of that?"

  This is a game they play. the young secretary draws on the knowledge he has, guesses the connections he doesn't know, and tries to divine the workings of his employer's fathomless and subtle mind.

  "Razkavia... Isn't that the place where the Crown Prince was
assassinated today, sir? I saw something in the midday telegrams... Little kingdom on the Bohemian border. Picturesque ceremony - something to do with a flag..."

  "Yes. Right so far."

  "Ah. It's coming back. Don't they mine something there? Tin or something?"

  "Nickel. Very good, Julius."

  "But I don't see why a Spanish actress is involved. Too deep for me, sir."

  "Then I shall tell you. Go to the blue cabinet, if you please, and take out the file marked Thalgau."

  While the secretary unlocks the cabinet, the banker's hands move gently over the surface of his desk, rearranging a pen here, straightening the blotter, brushing off imagined specks of dust, lingering caressingly on a heavy little glass globe.

  The secretary returns with the file, and Bleichroder leans back once more, hands behind his head, eyes half shut.

  "Begin, then," he says, composing his mind.

  Chapter Five

  ETIQUETTE

  The next day passed for Becky in a whirl of shopping. There wasn't time to have dresses made: they had to be bought ready-made and altered there and then. The Countess watched through half-closed eyes, occasionally giving a curt order to Frau Winter, who relayed it in English to the milliners, the drapers, the dressmakers. Then there were valises to be bought, and a trunk; and Becky, remembering why she was going in the first place, insisted on buying copy-books and dictionaries for Adelaide. What could she teach her to read with? There wasn't time to look far: the two Alice books, Black Beauty... And a new game called Go As You Please, and a chessboard and a set of draughtsmen and chess pieces, and a handful of penny dreadfuls from Mama's worktable. That would have to do.

  Her grandmother, bedridden and forgetful, knew something was happening, and fretted until Becky sat and talked to her in the evening light. The old lady couldn't understand much, but her papery hand lay contentedly in her granddaughter's until she fell asleep. And then there was more packing, more last-minute lists of things not to forget; and a little sleep; and a swift breakfast, a far too hasty embrace, and tears; and she was on her way.

  The Channel was boisterous, but sea-sickness is not a fit subject for discussion; any book on etiquette will tell you that. And etiquette was at the front of Becky's mind as soon as they reached dry land, for once they were on the train, the Countess began to teach her and Adelaide a thousand things they'd never dreamed of: how to address the Chancellor, the precise difference in rank between the younger son of a count and the elder son of a baron, how to peel an orange at table, the right sort of conversational opening to make to a bishop - every conceivable kind of etiquettical topic, until their heads rang.

  And when the Countess wasn't teaching Adelaide courtliness and etiquette, Becky was teaching her reading and writing and a little German. Adelaide might have wilted, but she was tough; the only sign of tiredness was a little frown that had begun to take up permanent residence between her eyebrows, and even that vanished when the Prince or Becky played Halma, or Go As You Please, or The Siege of Paris, or Spyrol with her. To Becky's surprise, she had never learnt draughts, but she took to it at once, and beat Becky in only their third game. Then she insisted on being taught chess, too, because the pieces looked more interesting; and so the time passed.

  On the evening of their first day of travel they passed through Essen, where the great Krupp factories lay, red and smoky in the bloody sunset. They could hear the mighty hammers from the train, forging guns and steel and armour-plating, and Jim Taylor, who'd come to sit down quietly next to Becky, said, "That's the reason for all this, you know. Alfred Krupp wants their nickel. How's the Princess?"

  "Working like a Krupp. She'll wear herself out."

  "Well, it's your job to stop her. Give her another game of Parcheesi, go on."

  "Would you like to play?"

  "Me? Come off the grass! I've got important things to do, like hang about with the Count and smoke cigars."

  He wasn't Mr Taylor any more: he was Jim. Becky was discovering more about him all the time, and liking him more as she did. She was mentally composing a word-picture of him for a letter to Mama, and finding him hard to describe, because he was like no young man Becky had ever heard about (those she knew personally were too few to count). There was that first impression of the jaunty and the disreputable, which got stronger if anything the more she saw him. But that didn't fit with the sensitivity and tact with which he bore himself in the company of these aristocrats; and yet there was no hint of deference, no fawning or toadying. He seemed to consider himself their equal - a breathtaking assumption, on the face of it, but he carried it off. She supposed that part of that was due to his physical presence, the stylish way he wore his fashionable clothes, the tense, athletic grace of his movements, the hint of a swagger in his walk; but some of it came from the vivid life in his green catlike eyes, from the lazy, amused glitter that always played over them, from the air he had of being quite simply far more intelligent than anyone else nearby. And finally - though this, Becky thought, she wouldn't mention to Mama - there was the aura of danger that always seemed to surround him, the impression that if need be he would fight, and fight to kill, and enjoy it too.

  So whatever he was, he wasn't a gentleman. He was something much more interesting. The only thing that prevented Becky from losing her head completely was the obvious fact that he was in love with Adelaide; still one more thing to worry about. But she didn't mention that in her letter, either.

  As the light was fading on their second day of travel, the landscape began to change. The train was steaming (even more slowly now) through mountains, and the further south they went, the higher the mountains became, until they had to look up from the carriage windows to see the tops of them, jagged edges of limestone, pink in the evening light, swathed with scraps of cloud that were apricot and orange and pastel yellow. Further down the slopes, dark green pines covered everything; and once, in a clearing, they saw a hunter, with his musket, his horn and a frisking dog. He raised his feathered hat as they waved to him. Becky felt her spirits lifting: this was her country, her landscape, this was where she belonged. She was coming home.

  Drifts of steam in the night-time station, a red carpet, bowing officials doffing top hats, servants hastening to unload trunks and valises into a pair of carriages. Mourning: everyone in black, flags at half-mast for the dead Crown Prince; but from the public squares and gardens, from the Rose Labyrinth in the Spanish Gardens at the bend in the river, came the sound of jolly music as the bands (paid for by a music tax on tourists) oompahed their way through Weber and Strauss and Suppe; and the great Cathedral bell tolling, tolling endlessly, and more bells striking the hour from the ancient churches in the little streets and squares. Cigar smoke in the air, and the scent of spring flowers, and the aroma of spicy stews and sauerkraut and grilling meat. The vastly overhanging eaves of the old buildings they passed under; balconies overflowing with scarlet geraniums; the lighted windows of beer-cellars and cafes, replete with antlers and stuffed badgers and every kind of hunting trophy. The river, dark and swift, with the Rock of Eschtenburg on the far side, and the Red Eagle, the Adlerfahne, flying over the city as it had done for six hundred years.

  Then the Palace: icing-sugar columns in the moonlight, fountains tinkling in the formal gardens.

  Servants bowing; marble stairs; statues, pictures, tapestries, carpets, porcelain. Adelaide beside Becky, grim, nervous, but bearing herself with tense dignity.

  And a long wait in an ante-room where two dozen candles burned on gilt sconces in front of dark old looking-glasses, while the Prince explained things to his father the King. Adelaide, Becky and the Countess sat there for an hour - Becky timed it by the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece.

  Finally, at a quarter to midnight, the door opened and a major-domo or chamberlain of some kind bowed stiffly and said: "His Majesty will receive you now. When you enter the room you must curtsy once, inside the doorway, advance to the King and curtsy again. If you leave the room before he
does, you should walk backwards, following the line of the carpet until you come level with where I shall be standing. Then you curtsy again and turn and leave. Please follow me."

  Becky translated for Adelaide, who went first, with Becky and the Countess following. They came to a large, brightly lit drawing room, where the Prince was standing nervously by a blazing fire. The Count was there too, looking solemn, and on a sofa sat an old, stern man dressed in deep mourning, with long grey side-whiskers, a bald head and an expression of fathomless melancholy. His right hand lay along the arm of the sofa, and Becky noticed that his fingers never ceased to tremble. One foot was propped on a stool.

  They curtsied, advanced to the sofa, curtsied again. The major-domo left silently.

  "Countess," said the King in a hoarse, wheezing voice, "I trust this journey has not tired you?"

  "Not at all, I thank Your Majesty."

  "These are difficult times. How is your cousin, Lady Godstow?"

  Like many monarchs, the old King had a prodigious memory for kinship; and he knew that the Countess had a cousin three or four times removed, an English lady who was married to one of the lords-in-waiting at Queen Victoria's court. The Countess actually flushed with pleasure, and they spoke about her cousin, and the rest of her family, for quite ten minutes before the King turned to Becky.

  But not to Adelaide yet. They were all still standing, and Adelaide was desperately tired; but the King ignored her completely and turned to Becky.

  "Fraulein Winter," he said. "You are very young to have developed all the talents I have been hearing about. The education of young women must be highly advanced in England. Here in Razkavia we are more old-fashioned. There is nothing we prize more in a girl than modesty; perhaps you will find us slow to appreciate you."