The Light Heart (26 page)

Phoebe received a confused and overpowering impression of a vast gilded ceiling studded with enormous crystal chandeliers, ranks of formal gilt furniture, palms, naked statuary, and mirrors, before Prince Conrad, wearing a lounge suit of grey English tweed, emerged from a door on the left and made her welcome in royal style, with a kiss on her gloved fingers and solicitous inquiries as to the fatigues of her long journey. He then set a possessive hand under Rosalind’s chin and kissed her on the mouth and asked if she had had a lonely drive on the way in, and was she satisfied now that her dear friend had come at last—and Phoebe saw that Rosalind’s face, upturned to his affectionate, searching gaze by the large, well-kept hand under her chin, was lit by responsive laughter and that her eyes
lingered in his with a look of wifely coquetry and acquiescence in his proprietary air. But she
cares
for him, Phoebe thought, bewildered anew. And he’s still in love with her. And they’re
flirting
with each other before my eyes, as though I wasn’t here.

A musical comedy maid in native costume, short bright blue skirts showing a lot of well-filled white stocking, a white apron, and a sheer white cap worn over dark hair in smooth plaits, showed Phoebe to her room and began to unpack her bags. When Phoebe had washed and changed into a soft tea-gown, the maid, whose name was Braga, opened the door on a footman who was waiting to guide the guest to Rosalind’s sitting-room, where tea was just coming in.

They were, as Prince Conrad pointed out, temporarily very much
en
famille,
but even so there were six around the tea-table, including Lieutenant Cuno von Tiefenfurt and Count Gerzlow, both smiling, attentive young men who were aides to His Highness, and Countess Malvida von Reisicht, the lady-in-waiting to Rosalind, rather a beauty in a buxom way. Aunt Christa was on a visit in Bavaria, which would end next week.

Little Prince Victor came in at the end of the afternoon, accompanied by his English nurse. He was a watchful, self-contained child of five, with his father’s melancholy dark eyes and no resemblance to Rosalind in the rest of his baby features. He shook hands gravely all round, gave his mother a kiss by request, and was led away without a backward glance, having performed his daily duty and apparently taken no pleasure in it.

“But surely, Conny, you must have had more
bounce,
when you were that age,” Rosalind commented when the door had closed upon her offspring. “They say he’s perfectly well, but he’s so quiet, and he always makes me feel very young and frivolous.”

“Well, and aren’t you?” her husband inquired, smiling.

“But isn’t it a little
soon
for Victor to start disapproving of me?” she objected.

“It’s the Polish blood in him, from my mother,” said Prince
Conrad complacently. “Very sobering—with a long history of tragedy and fortitude. He will make a fine soldier.”

“I suppose so,” said Rosalind darkly, and sighed. “If I had had a girl, do you think perhaps she might have been more like me?”

“God forbid!” said His Highness playfully, and pinched her cheek, and the company dispersed to dress for dinner.

Before that very formal meal was finished, Phoebe had become aware of an undercurrent between the Lieutenant and Malvida von Reisicht, noting with not altogether
inexperienced
eyes the signs of an understanding, if not a full-fledged affair. They made a very handsome couple, both young and
hoch-und-wohlgeboren,
and in a flagrant sort of way attracted to each other. Count Gerzlow, on Phoebe’s right, was a sleek, effeminate youth who nevertheless undertook to make eyes at her in an unamusing fashion. Conny himself was all flattering attention to her least remark, and Phoebe felt herself being drawn out, just a bit, by Rosalind’s quite natural eagerness to hear her tell of her own life in New York.

The wanted to know how many books she had written, and expressed incredulous surprise at the impressive total, and wondered where she had found the time, for they seemed unable to comprehend that writing books could be a profession and not just something with which to fill in one’s leisure. They were astonished that she could give no statistics on the number of copies of each book which had been sold, and smiled indulgently when she explained that she did get royalty statements, yes, but she only looked at the final amount at the bottom and once it was banked forgot it, so long as the balance was on the safe side.

Malvida von Reisicht told a long and rather pointless story about a picturesque Bavarian cousin of hers who had always behaved just like a book, to the scandal of the rest of the family, and suggested that Phoebe might like to write a romance about him. Then Count Gerzlow recalled an incident in his own family history which he thought would look well in print,
and Phoebe finally managed to convey to them that she never drew on real life incidents or things in the newspapers for her plots. Whereupon they all stared at her more incredulously than ever and demanded where, then, her books had all come from.

“Out of my head!” she said, with the faint irritation such obtuseness always evoked in her, and Prince Conrad said it was such a pretty head, too, to be so burdened with brains, and they adjourned with laughter to coffee and liqueurs in the drawing-room.

The men came too, for in Germany there was no decent interval, Phoebe discovered, when the ladies were left alone to compose themselves while their dinner partners drew together round the table and told stories over the port and the cigars. In Germany the cigars—and some of the stories—came into the drawing-room and the conversation remained general. She recalled how Rosalind more than once had complained of never being alone—not even in bed, Rosalind had added, during one of her desperate times—and Phoebe began to see how inconvenient so much household etiquette might become. She wondered how Rosalind had contrived to meet the train unattended by Malvida, and deduced from the conversation in the hall on her arrival that there had been some kind of argument about that, in which Rosalind had got her way. She was looking forward to a chance to settle down with Rosalind in private, no chauffeur, no lady-in-waiting, no Prince Conrad, and really chat about old times, and the people they used to know in England—which would of course be impossible with several other people sitting round getting bored because they had no part in such reminiscences, and besides they might draw wrong conclusions on matters which were none of their business anyway.

Before long she asked Rosalind to play. She had often sent over parcels of music from New York, including the scores of Fitz’s musical comedies and all the best Victor Herbert songs, and other American compositions, and knew that Rosalind
had enjoyed them. Rosalind went at once to the piano and played some Cadman and some MacDowell, while the Lieutenant and Malvida whispered on
a sofa by the
mantelpiece
, and Count Gerzlow gazed sentimentally at the American guest, who ignored him rather pointedly. Just as she was making up her mind to say that the new composers were all very well, but what about Chopin, Phoebe noticed that Prince Conrad had a more than agreeable baritone voice, which was emerging from a mellow hum into the words of the last few bars of
The
Land
of
the
Sky
Blue
Water,
of all things.

“Conny always likes that one,” Rosalind commented with a final lingering chord and an affectionate smile in his direction. “Come and sing your speciality, Conny.” And she played the first notes of something lively which Phoebe did not at once identify.

In reply he indicated his half-smoked cigar with the ash still intact, and sat where he was, smiling, very much at his ease. But Rosalind grinned back at him, the best of friends, her fingers murmuring on the keys.

“Oh, please do,” she said coaxingly. “Just to amuse Phoebe, because it’s her first night here and we want her to feel at home, and it’s the best of all the things you sing, you know it is.”

Still smiling, Prince Conrad rose slowly to his magnificent height and strolled to the piano, near which Phoebe was sitting, so that he looked down at both of them as he leaned on the corner of it—and to Phoebe’s amazement obliged with a spirited rendition of the Governor’s song in
The
Red
Mill
—that strutting, genial, autobiographical tune about a man to whom every day was ladies’ day, who was at their disposal all the while, whose pleasure it was double if they came to him in trouble, for he always found a way to make them smile … and who really should have married, but he never
could
see any fun in wasting all his time on one … “so
every
day is ladies’ day with
me
….”

Phoebe applauded instinctively, and the others all joined in,
and he bowed his acknowledgments, chucked Rosalind lightly under the chin, and returned to his chair with the air of one who had condescended to amuse the children and must not be further imposed upon.

But he’s a perfectly delightful man, Phoebe found herself thinking with enthusiasm. He’s completely human; and he even has a sense of humour. That is, he was deliberately clowning the song, but without ever losing his presence, and he knew it suited him, too, with all its implications. I believe he’s
fun,
Phoebe marvelled inwardly. Rosalind must have
tamed
him, and nobody ever thought she could. I never expected to
like
him … but I do….

T
HE
next day was hot and sultry. Directly after lunch, when Countess Malvida was looking thoroughly wilted and admitted to a headache, and Conrad had retired to his study with Gerzlow and the Lieutenant, Rosalind suddenly ordered round a carriage to take Phoebe and herself for a drive in the woods, where the wild flowers were in bloom. Malvida was firmly bidden to go and lie down with eau de cologne on her
handkerchief
, and the other two, both dressed in white with wide hats and parasols, set out together in barely concealed elation.

Rosalind said she still thought a carriage was nicer than a motor car if you just wanted to see things and not to arrive anywhere, and Phoebe, whose life in New York had become almost entirely motorized, agreed with her that an open landau was the last word in comfort and style. “Makes you feel like a queen,” Phoebe said as they rolled away from the
Schloss
along one of the swept, curving avenues which led into the deep pine forest. “As though you ought to bow right and left to the populace.” And then she realized by a fleeting expression on Rosalind’s face that if you were a Serene Highness you did bow right and left to the populace, and there was a pause.

“I thoroughly enjoyed myself last evening,” she said then, to break it. “I think your Conny is altogether charming, and not a bit what I expected. He unbent most gracefully, and his voice is excellent.”

“He likes you,” said Rosalind. “That makes all the
difference
. He was afraid you might be some kind of bluestocking, and was prepared to loathe you.”

“Well, I thought he was a brute, and was fixing to hate him,” Phoebe confessed. “Really, Rosalind, you’ve hardly done him justice all these years, and you never told me he could sing.”

“He has to be in the mood,” said Rosalind rather briefly. “We’re too soon for the wild strawberries, I’m afraid—but you’ll still be here when they’re ripe, and we have them almost every day. This heat will do wonders, if only we don’t get a cold rain to follow.”

“But the Gerzlow boy I could do without,” Phoebe continued, ignoring the weather, and realized by another fleeting expression on Rosalind’s face that one must remember the two liveried men on the box, who might overhear, and the conversation at once became excessively botanical.

By the time they reached the cool depths of the forest where the fragrant boughs nearly met overhead and there was the scent of warm pine needles, Phoebe felt she couldn’t stand it any longer and said in a lowered voice, “Can’t we get out and walk a little way—so we can talk?”

“There’s a place farther on with a bench,” Rosalind
promised
, and when they came to where a tidy path led away to the left, too narrow for the carriage, she spoke to the coachman and they did step down and walk away from the landau, preceded by the footman, who carried cushions which he arranged on a rustic bench which commanded an artificial vista cut through the trees. Rosalind dismissed him and they sat down, Phoebe with a sigh of relief.

“Now, about that Gerzlow lad,” she resumed firmly. “I’ll stand for just so much from that kind, and he’s begun to edge
up on me already. The time is coming when I shall box his ears, with your permission, of course.”

“Oh, Sigwart doesn’t mean any harm,” Rosalind assured her with a rather tired smile. “He isn’t quite sure yet
what
he is, and he’s trying everything on. He’s better than the last one we had—
he
fell in love with Conny, and it got so uncomfortable we had to get rid of him, because Conny doesn’t care for that sort of thing.”

Phoebe blinked.

“Don’t any of them ever fall in love with
you?
” she asked.

“One of them did.” Rosalind sighed. “What a time
that
was!”

“What happened?”

“Oh, finally Conny had one of his rages and accused
me,
and Felix was too frightened to stand up and say it was all his fault.”

“Accused you of what?” Phoebe demanded, frowning.

“Of—encouraging Felix, of course. But in the end Conny was very nice about it. He let Felix go back to Berlin
unscathed
, and then we got Sigwart. It’s hard to say which way he’s going to jump. Cuno von Tiefenfurt, you may have noticed, has got off with Malvida.”

“Are they going to be married?”

“Heavens, no, his people would never allow it. Poor Malvida isn’t very well provided for.”

“They seem to be very fond of each other.”

Rosalind shrugged.

“They haven’t much else to do,” she said. “In Germany people seem to fall in love out of sheer boredom. But it doesn’t really count, I always think, unless it happens
in
spite
of everything—like you and Oliver.”