The Great Game (23 page)

             
Cecily patted him on the knee. "I'm sorry, dear," she said. "Call it a whim. But it worked out nicely, didn't it? You got to speak to the nice lady who calls herself English."

             
"You mean she's not?"

             
"No more than you are, my dear. But it's probably of no significance. I've noticed that you allow yourself to be called English on occasion, to save bother and explanation."

             
"I hope you don't think I was, ah, interested in speaking with her," Barnett whispered.

             
"Of course you were," Cecily whispered back. "Look at her. You wouldn't be a man if you weren't. I hope
you
don't think I was jealous."

             
Barnett grinned. "Of course you were. You wouldn't be a woman if you weren't. But you must know that I care only for you, my dearest love. Just looking at you makes me absurdly happy. I could never seriously look at anyone else. Not for an instant!"

             
Cecily squeezed his hand. "Do you mean that?"

             
"Of course I do."

             
"I'm so glad."

             
The steward reappeared with a pair of red cushions
under
one arm and gestured flamboyantly with the other hand, obviously having given up attempting to communicate. They stood up, and the steward tied the cushions to their chairs. Barnett rewarded him with another couple of
centesimi,
and they sat back down. "A fundamental improvement, don't you think?" Barnett asked, bouncing up and down on his cushion a few times.

             
"Some fundaments are more in need of it than others," Cecily commented.

             
While Cecily read her Austrian
Baedeker
and made notes in the margin next to what interested her, Barnett went down to check on the mummer and their luggage collection. The luggage was fine, and the mummer professed a preference for remaining among the
inferiore.
"You learn a lot about the native ways of doing things from sittin' amongst them," he said.

             
"As you will, Mummer," Barnett said, and he returned to his cushioned seat and settled down to watch the passing shoreline, a mosaic of laurel-covered cliffs breaking away suddenly to carefully tended vineyards along gentler slopes. He pointed out an occasional particularly scenic villa or church to Cecily as they passed, and she occasionally queried him as to how strongly he felt about Mozart's birthplace, or how long he thought they should devote to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

             
The priest had dropped into an uneasy doze, punctuated by periods of snoring and an occasional muttered word in no known language. The distinguished-looking gentleman and his beautiful lady friend had produced a traveling chess board and were bent over it in concentration.
The man, Barnett decided, had the look of someone who does not believe that anything is "only a game," while the lady was treating it as an interesting diversion, and would pause to regard some bit of passing scenery. They were interrupted periodically by a servant, up from the rear deck,
who
would stand at respectful attention while receiving information or instructions from his master, then return whence he came.

             
The chess game ended and the spade-bearded man got up and folded the board, looking rather smug, from which Barnett deduced that he had won. He had the look of a man who seldom lost, and would not do it well.

             
He suddenly turned to Barnett, who looked away hastily so he wouldn't seem to be staring. "I beg your pardon," the gentleman said, "
if
I might intrude for a second—" He clicked his heels sharply together and bowed.

             
"Excuse me?" Barnett turned to look at him.

             
"No, it is I who must be excused for this undue familiarity," the man insisted. "But if I may be so bold ... This lady and I are about to indulge in a bottle of quite bearable white wine; a fine restorative on a warm day such as this. If I may be permitted to suggest that you and your lady share it with us, I would be quite honored." He spoke English with a broad German accent.

             
"Well—thank you," Barnett said, after a glance at Cecily, who had pursed her lips thoughtfully, but did not look disapproving.

             
"Good!" the man said. "It is true, is it not, that what would be undue familiarity in most circumstances becomes normal intercourse on a ship or a train journey.
Among people of the same class, of course."

             
"Oh, of course," Barnett agreed, standing up. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Benjamin Barnett, and this is my wife, Mrs. Cecily Barnett."

             
The man went through the heel-clicking routine again. "A privilege," he said. "And I, myself, am Graf Sigfried Karl Maria von Linsz. My companion is Miss Jenny Vernet, the well-known operatic contralto."

             
Miss Vernet laughed. "It is the sopranos who are well known," she said. "We contraltos are merely tolerated." She lifted a gloved hand for Barnett to shake. "It is actually on my account, Mr. and Mrs.
Barnett, that
Count von Linsz has braved the rules of etiquette and thrust himself forward, so to speak. And it is pure selfishness on my part. I merely wished to speak my native language for a while."

             
"Quite understandable," Cecily said. "You are English?"

             
"American, actually.
I grew up in Boston. I came to London with my mother when I was fourteen."

             
The count raised a hand.
"First the wine, and then the conversation!"

             
Von Linsz's minion appeared almost instantly from the rear deck, carrying a small wooden box and a stoneware sleeve holding a bottle of wine. He slid the bottle out of the sleeve and deftly uncorked it. From the box he produced a stem glass, poured a taste of wine into it, and passed it to the count,
who
tasted it and pronounced it good. Then he produced three more glasses and poured the wine.

             
"Thank you, Trapp," Count von Linsz said, handing the glasses around. "That will be all."

             
Trapp closed the box, slid the bottle back into its stoneware sleeve, snapped off a bow, and departed as quickly as he had arrived.

             
The count raised his glass. "To a pleasant journey," he proposed.

             
They all touched glasses and sipped the wine. It was light, fruity, fairly dry, and agreeably cool. "You must have a supply of ice," Barnett commented, "to keep the wine at such a drinkable temperature as mid-day approaches."

             
"Not at all," von Linsz explained. "The secret lies in the porous stoneware sleeve into which the bottle is inserted. The sleeve is kept moist, and evaporation cools it and the bottle."

             
"How clever," Cecily said.

             
Jenny Vernet looked at them over her glass. "Graf von Linsz is a very clever man," she said.

             
Von Linsz glanced sharply at her and then turned his attention back to the Barnetts. "And what do you do, Herr Barnett?" he asked, balancing his glass precariously on the armrest of his chair.

             
"I'm a newspaper man," Barnett replied.

             
"A journalist?
That must be very interesting work."

             
"At times."

             
"Surely a peripatetic profession, Mr. Barnett," Jenny Vernet said. "Tell me, Mrs. Barnett, how do you feel about having a husband who keeps such erratic hours?"

             
"My hours are also fairly erratic," Cecily told her. "But Mr. Barnett and I manage to be together as much, I imagine, as most couples."

             
"We share the same disability," Barnett explained. "My wife is editor of a monthly magazine. For the magazine's schedule to be kept, sometimes the schedules of its employees must be sacrificed."

             
Graf von Linsz shifted his gaze to Cecily. "So you also work," he said.
"How—quaint."

             
"Are you one of those men who
believes
that a woman's place is in the home, Count von Linsz?" Cecily enquired sweetly.

             
"K
ü
che, Kirche, und Kinder"
the count pronounced.
" 'Kitchen
, church, and children.' In Germany no woman of quality would consider working."

             
"Perhaps more women than you know would consider leading lives more fruitful than the bearing of children, if there were not such firm social strictures against it," Cecily said.

             
Jenny Vernet
laughed,
a musical sound that cut through the gathering tension. "There are certain misunderstandings here," she said. "Perhaps I should point out that the count doesn't believe in
anyone
working. But he realizes that anyone
so
unfortunate as to be born without an inheritance of fifty thousand acres in, around, and including the town of Uhmstein, might be forced to consider accepting remuneration for what he does."

             
"It is so," the count agreed. "The army and politics are the only fit occupations for a man."

             
"And, despite his talk of '
K
ü
che, Kirche, und Kinder,'
no woman in his family has seen the inside of a kitchen for five generations," Jenny added. "Of that I am sure."

             
"The expression," von Linsz explained, "is symbolic, only. It indicates the strong Germanic belief in the importance of women."

             
"Indeed," Cecily murmured.

             
"Truly, for what can be more important than the raising up of children? The future of the race is in the hands of the mothers of the race. This I strongly believe."

             
Barnett decided that he'd better change the subject. After her miscarriages, Cecily didn't need to hear a paean to the glories of motherhood. "I assume then, Graf," he said, "that you are well on your way to becoming either a general or a prime minister."

             
"You are right," the count said. "I have trod both paths. I was an officer in His Majesty's Seventeenth Regiment of Uhlans, until invalided out. Then I was in the Reichstag for two terms until I tired of pretending to make laws. Some people make a career of this pretense, but I found it soul deadening. I thought I could influence the course of events, but soon found that talking accomplished nothing but tiring the jaw."

             
"Human affairs are not so easily influenced," Cecily offered.

             
"Ah, but they
are,
madam," von Linsz told her firmly. "But the legislature is not the place to do it. A group of men—powerful men—working together for a common goal, are capable of
influencing the affairs of the entire world. Look at the influence a comparative handful of Europeans—British, French, even Belgians and Portuguese, have had in Asia and Africa."

             
"The influence of breach-loading weapons and rapid-fire cannon over spears and bows and arrows," Barnett commented.