Girl's Guide to Kissing Frogs (24 page)

‘
That
’s all right then.’

‘Don’t take any notice, Conrad. I adore it all. Let’s have a tour at
once
.’

‘I am waiting for Golly. Then we shall all look together.’ Isobel began to protest, but Conrad shook his head. ‘It will be all the better for a little anticipation.’

Usually any kind of opposition made her defiant, but now
she put her arm affectionately through his and leaned her head against his shoulder in an uncharacteristically kittenish way. I had always greatly admired Isobel’s rebelliousness. Dancers have to submit to being told what to do and how to do it every second of our professional lives, and the habit of obedience becomes ingrained. Conrad made no response to this gesture of affection, but remained with his hands in his pockets, as immovable as one of his own statues; nor did he look down at her until she wrinkled her nose and drew away from him.

‘You smell like a cross between a bonfire and a tar lorry.’

‘This chimney was choked with twigs and leaves but, as the flume is wide, it was a simple matter to tie several bamboos together and push them out.’

‘Flue, you mean. A flume is a stream for moving logs about.’

Conrad frowned. ‘I meant flume. When it snowed the chimney was a conduit for water.’

I saw that Conrad did not like to be corrected. His English was so nearly perfect and his accent was lovely. He pronounced ‘th’ like a soft ‘d’ – ‘dis’ ‘dat’ and ‘dem’ – and said ‘seemple metter’ instead of ‘simple matter’. His voice was not harsh like Nazi generals in films. On the contrary it was … mellifluous might be the word. Though he had recently been up a chimney, he wore a beautiful dark green coat and a heather-coloured jersey with grey corduroy trousers. On one finger was a ring with a black stone. By comparison with Rafe, who wore jeans and an old brown jacket, there was something of the dandy about Conrad. That, combined with his exotic dark looks, made me think of Kurt Weill’s
Seven Deadly Sins
, in which I had danced the role of Pride. I had been much taken at the time with the glamorous decadence of the Weimar Republic.

‘Vat fettle, honoured ladies and gentlemen.’ Fritz came in with an ice bucket containing a bottle and several glasses. ‘Excuse you me please for make you all to wait.’

‘What have you been doing?’ Isobel asked. ‘You look as though you’ve spent the day down a pit.’

Fritz’s delicate pink and whiteness was marred by black smudges. ‘Excuse you me, please. Vat is pit? Oh, yes. The mines. I haf try to make the oven burn. He has bird nests in his pipe. There is a dog outside who very much barks,’ said Fritz as he poured the champagne. ‘Is it permitted him to bring in?’

‘I’m afraid that’s Buster.’ Rafe looked vexed. ‘He’s still a young dog and his manners aren’t all they should be.’

‘Then let us set him a good example and invite him into the warm,’ said Conrad.

Buster raced round the room, jumped into one of the deckchairs, leaped onto the table and yapped ear-splittingly at the fire before hurling himself at my knees.

‘Honestly, it’s perfectly all right,’ I said as Rafe helped me tenderly to my feet. ‘I bet if I jumped off that balcony my leg would be preserved whole, even if the rest of me was dashed to pieces.’

Rafe spoke sternly to Buster and directed him to ‘lie down, sir!’ Buster licked his pointing finger lovingly and raced round the room again in an excess of enthusiasm. While Rafe was concentrating on helping me out of my coat and settling me in one of the deckchairs with my foot raised on the stone hearth, I saw Conrad bend down and drop something discreetly beside Buster. It worked like a charm. Buster crouched down and began to push it round the floor with his nose until he and it had disappeared under the table, where he remained quietly for the next half-hour.

‘Do tell us about the man who built this house,’ I said to Conrad. ‘Is it true that he killed himself?’

‘Quite true. Orson Ratcliffe’s diary, or a copy of it, is in the Gaythwaite library. Apparently, each year he had many printed and issued them to friends. Also his poems. He left a letter giving his reasons. It seems he was a man driven to communicate his feelings.’ Conrad’s expression was perfectly grave but there was in his eye, somewhere deep in its dark centre, a hint of what might have been amusement.

‘So why
did
he do it?’

‘He saw that inferior poets were exalted above him and he no longer wished to live in an insensible world.’

‘Poor man. Were you playing
Parsifal
because this house reminds you of that castle in Bavaria?’

Conrad looked at me with something like surprise. I expect he thought me too much of a bird brain to recognize the music of the Master. ‘Bavaria has many castles. But no doubt you mean Neuschwanstein. You are perfectly right. I happened to look up and there it was, this house with its towers springing up out of the forest and the lake below, and at once I was reminded of Bavaria. How does it happen that you know of it?’

‘Oh, we did a tour of Germany and we danced three nights in Munich. They took us to see the castle, but it was so jammed with tourists you couldn’t see anything below six feet. We were squeezed through the rooms like toothpaste through a tube. Luckily the ceilings and walls were wonderful. Did you buy this place because you were homesick?’

‘Homesick? No. I have never experienced that. I like to move about. I bought this house because it amuses me. It is a failing of mine that I am quickly bored.’

Evidently being married to Conrad was not going to be restful. Fortunately Isobel, too, was easily bored, so they were well matched.

‘Tell us about the statues on the bridge.’ Isobel looked up from the keyboard. ‘I think they’re vile. I hope you’re going to get rid of them.’

‘On the right as you approach the house are the Virtues.’ Conrad counted them off on his fingers. ‘Faith, Prudence, Justice, Strength … who else?… yes, Harmony and Hope. On the left are the Vices. They are Falsehood, Sloth, Pride, Lechery, Gluttony and Envy.’

‘I think they’re all unpleasant and intimidating.’ Isobel played a loud chord to express the strength of her feelings. ‘A lot of stone bullies. Fancy being preached at by a bridge. Perhaps a
garden centre would buy them. Or a museum. I expect they’re worth something. Not that that would matter to you, of course.’

‘Even if I wished to sell them, which I do not, they are listed along with the house.’

‘Oh well, as far as that goes, our house is listed Grade One and we aren’t supposed to put up even a compost bin without permission, but they never come to check. If you got rid of them at once—’

‘I have no intention to get rid of them.’

Isobel looked at him, her mouth sulky, her eyes fierce, an expression I knew well and always gave in to. Conrad merely held her gaze, his face and body perfectly relaxed. It was going to be a tempestuous relationship. But Isobel would not have liked a man she could order about. After a while she lowered her eyes and smiled. ‘All right, Conrad. Whatever you want.’ She left the piano and came to stand next to him, holding out her glass to be filled. ‘I expect I’ll get used to them.’

Perhaps she thought it wise to give in gracefully to the man she loved. Or she had remembered that she was already deeply in his debt. Whatever it was, she had her reward at once.

Conrad waved his hand over her glass and a second later something sparkled in the bottom of it. Isobel gave a cry of excitement.

‘Diamonds! Earrings! Oh! They’re exquisite!’ She fished them out and held the delicate teardrop-shaped clusters up to her ears. ‘Where’s a mirror? I must see!’

‘There is no such thing here. You will have to wait.’ He smiled at her impatience.

She kissed him. ‘I adore them! How did they appear in my glass. I saw! You didn’t even touch it! Are you a magician?’

‘It was a simple conjuring trick.’

‘When did you learn it?’

‘I spent long periods in a mental institution when I was young. To while away the time I taught myself
Taschenspielerei
or, what do you say?, legerdemain. Sleight of hand?’

If it was a shock for me it must have been doubly so for her. Isobel laughed as though she didn’t believe him. I caught Rafe’s eye. He smiled rather grimly.

‘Yoo-hoo! Conrad!’ It was Dame Gloria Beauwhistle.

‘In here, Golly.’

‘My dear boy! You never fail to astonish me. Whatcha folks …’ She acknowledged our presence with a wave. ‘When you said house, I thought you meant a nice safe farmstead or a dignified presbytery. My poor old motor nearly gave up on those bends.’ Golly sported a leather blouson over the boiler suit she had worn to Evelyn’s lunch. On her head was a leather helmet, shaped like a baby’s bonnet, which made her face more moon-like than ever. ‘And that bridge! I’ve shed little bits of exhaust pipe in every pothole.’ She looked about her, then sucked in her breath in a whoop and rushed to the windows. ‘Now I understand!’ She threw out her arms. ‘Worth every pound of the garage bill. Dear old thing, this is Valhalla!’

‘I thank God there are not five hundred and forty doors,’ said Conrad. ‘It is quite draughty enough.’

I should have liked to ask him about the five hundred and forty doors, but Golly saw the piano and rushed over to it.

‘A Steinway! Of course, nothing but the best for you, you lucky dog! There’s still nothing to touch them.’ She ran her fingers up and down the keys. ‘This is a fine instrument. Did you know they were auctioning Johannes Spiegel’s last week? I went all the way down to London to bid for it, but some damned hustler bought it out of hand before the sale …’ She struck her forehead with the heel of her hand. ‘No, don’t tell me! This is
it
, isn’t it?’

Conrad shrugged. ‘If you tell me not to tell you, what can I say?’

Fritz had gone away and returned with an extra glass and a plate of apple cakes covered with icing sugar. I had eaten such things on our trip to Bavaria. They are a trap for the greedy and unwary. If you draw breath while eating them, the sugar
flies into your throat and you cannot speak or even breathe for several minutes.

‘Hello, Fritz, old bean,’ said Golly with a wave.

‘Vat fettle, Golly.’

‘Ah’s champion,’ she replied promptly.

Fritz put down the plate on the hearthstone and took out his notebook. ‘Old bean,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Ah’s champion.’

‘N
ow
can we have a tour of the house?’ said Isobel like an impatient child.

From the beginning it had struck me as odd that Conrad had bought Hindleep House without confiding in his wife-to-be. When we were children, Isobel had always been sensitive to any suggestion that she was not the most important person to be considered. Perhaps she was so wildly in love with Conrad that she was prepared to suffer his high-handed ways with sweet-tempered passivity. Or possibly this house was merely an interim amusement and not intended to be the place where they would live as man and wife. All these ideas wandered through my brain as I watched him covertly for manifestations of lunacy. He must have been in the asylum a long time to have become so good at conjuring.

‘This reminds me of the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud’s,’ said Isobel when we were standing in the basement kitchen, reached by a stone spiral staircase leading from the hall. It was fairly dark with a vaulted ceiling supported by sturdy pillars. Over the fireplace was a roasting spit with chains and spikes and an iron cage, presumably for the joints of meat.

‘Perhaps it
was
a torture chamber,’ suggested Golly, her mouth rimmed with an icing-sugar moustache to rival Lady Pruefoy’s. ‘How else could they have got through a wet Sunday afternoon with no entertainment but books of sermons and whist for penny points? I expect they liked nothing better than to lure a few shepherds and nymphs off the hillside and subject them to a little racking of limbs and screwing of thumbs.’

Leading from the kitchen were smaller rooms, with hooks for hanging game and marble slabs for storing food and a large barrel on a stand which Rafe said was for making butter.

‘What are you going to do with this basement?’ Golly brushed away a web that hung like a lace cap over her forehead. ‘I can’t see Mrs Lerner rustling up the Sunday joint somewhere so gloomy and inconvenient.’

‘I can’t cook anyway,’ said Isobel in a decided tone. ‘I suppose one of the village women will come in.’

Conrad gave the butter-barrel handle an experimental turn and was rewarded with a shower of dust and plaster on his shoes. ‘That is not my intention.’

Isobel smiled. ‘You’re going to get a cook from London? That’ll be much better. Or Paris. That’d be better still.’

Conrad peered into the funnel of a circular object that Rafe said was for sharpening knives. A giant spider ran out, making him jump back. ‘No. Fritz is a good cook and he enjoys to do it.’

‘But you’ll get people in to clean and wait at table?’ Isobel persisted.

‘Who will come so far? And it would complicate what is to be a simple bucolic existence.’ He spun round to look at me. ‘Ludwig the Second had a table which sank on a mechanism through the floor to the kitchen, where it was recharged with dishes so he need not be waited on. He hated passionately to be stared at, particularly when eating. At state dinners he insisted that a barrier of flowers be arranged in front of him. He made the musicians play so loudly that there could be no conversation, and glared at the guests from between the leaves.’

‘Scopophobic, poor old fruitcake,’ said Golly. ‘Or perhaps just cunning. I can’t stand pomp and circumstance myself.’

‘No one knows the real condition of his mind,’ said Conrad. ‘His wish was to be an enigma – to himself as well as to others. From a boy he lost himself in dreams and fantasies of being Lohengrin, the swan-knight. His servants had orders to let him
sleep all day and to wake him at midnight so that he could ride in his gilded sleigh by moonlight over his beloved mountains.’

‘At least he wasn’t dull,’ said Isobel.

‘Certainly he was not that. One of his desires was to travel in a flying car drawn by mechanical peacocks and powered by hot-air balloons across the Alpsee, but in those days there was not the technology to do it.’