Another Scandal in Bohemia (40 page)

Chapter Twenty-seven

FIT FOR A QUEEN

We returned
to the Europa to find that Irene’s scheme to desecrate the rabbi’s tomb would have to wait: catastrophe had run rampant among our associates.

First, the majordomo intercepted us in the lobby with an urgent message: we were to repair immediately to Godfrey’s room. Such news did not leave time for our usual sedate route of stairs.

“I cannot say that I am surprised by such a summons,” Irene admitted as we were whisked upward in the new and rather terrifying lift like trapped mice in a cage. “I
am
surprised that you are included in the invitation.”

Before she could explain that cryptic uttering, the car came to an unsettling stop and the attendant drew open the gilded grill. We hastened down the long carpeted passage to the room in question.

Our knock was answered instantly. We were relieved to see Godfrey standing there, as hale, handsome, and hearty as ever. He politely stepped back from the door, but did not invite us to enter. As we gazed into the chamber beyond we could see why.

The room thronged with massive floral offerings on stands and in urns and vases, enough to soothe the self-regard of a Sarah Bernhardt. Huge stands held great showy blooms of coral gladioli, blue hydrangeas, purple iris, copper-and saffron-colored asters... all displayed against blades of background greenery as aggressive as swords.

The heady scent of a hundred jousting blossoms suffused the air. Irene regarded Godfrey with a look that asked all.

He answered it. “I did as you suggested, much against my better judgment. I sent the estimable Tatyana a small bouquet in thanks for her hospitality of yesterday.”

“A small bouquet,” Irene repeated, “but apparently potent.”

He shook his head and spread his hands in bewilderment. “A nosegay of no particular worth or significance.”

“What was it?” I asked, for I am especially fond of flowers.

Godfrey turned his harried expression on me. “Only what I should send any lady whom I wished to thank: tea roses, Sweet William, and Parma violets.”

“Parma violets?” Irene was beginning to sound unsympathetic. “Those are my favorite flowers.”

“That is why I thought of them,” he said. “I am not accustomed to sending flowers.”

“Apparently, she is.” Irene ventured into the room, sniffing arrangements as she went, rather like a suspicious cat.

“That’s not the worst of it,” Godfrey added.

“There’s more?” Irene turned against a background of lavish blooms.

He gestured the to desk, which was barely visible between two enormous fanned arrangements of iris.

Beside a tattered pile of ornamental wrapping paper stood an exquisite box formed from inlaid woods of such exotic color and pattern that they seemed be painted on.

Godfrey went over and lifted the top of this treasure— to reveal a rarer prize within, something that gleamed pale silvery gray and sparkled with stars of inset diamonds.

Irene recognized it instantly. “A Fabergé egg. How profligate of her! I must interrogate Nell as to the specifics of your interview. What a peerless beauty! I mean the egg, of course, not the donor.”

Irene elevated the bijou on its golden stand so that we could all appreciate its gleaming enameled surface.

“Certainly Tatyana is not hiding her Russian connection,” she said. “Speaking of hiding, where is—”

Her fingers tested the egg’s golden encasement until I heard a click, then the liquid notes of a lovely melody. The upper part of the egg snapped open to reveal a pair of animated bejeweled doves, made from baroque pearls, billing and cooing with mechanical industriousness.

Irene looked less than enchanted. “Tatyana’s influence in St. Petersburg is sinisterly significant; this toy has arrived in less than twenty-four hours. Unless... she meant it for another and changed her mind.” She throttled the mechanism to a stop by shutting the curved enamel doors. “Did either of you recognize the melody?”

Godfrey and I exchanged a blank glance. Music was not a strong point with either of us.

“The principal aria from
La Cenerentola.
You do remember, Nell, that I sang the role of Cinderella in my La Scala at my debut.”

“Yes, but I never heard the music.”

“I would let you hear the entire selection now, but I am not quite in the mood.”

Irene delicately replaced the jeweled egg on Godfrey’s desk, as if it were something that might bite.

“I cannot explain—” he began.

“Oh, I can explain it,” she answered swiftly. “I simply do not care to. Did any message accompany this unparalleled generosity?”

“Only a card suggesting that she looked forward to seeing me at the castle reception on the morrow.”

“And so she shall,” Irene decided.

“You recommend that I attend? After this?” Godfrey sounded dubious.

“Of course. We’ve all been invited by the Queen, not the King. Now the King’s mistress underlines the invitation. You have proven successful beyond dreams in your assignment. Why would I suggest that you abandon the playing field now?”

Again Godfrey’s and my glances crossed in silence. Irene was being far too magnanimous for one of her temperament.

Godfrey cleared his throat. “Perhaps because the... extravagant Tatyana seems to have contracted a... an interest in me.”

“Why should she not? You are eminently interesting. Of course you will go to the castle tomorrow, and see her. But I do think—”

We waited—how else can I put it?—with bated breath. I am most displeased by my lack of original expression, but then this scene was very out of character for all of us.

“I do think,” Irene repeated airily, snapping a lush purple iris from its stem and thrusting the blossom into her hair, “that you should escort Lady Sherlock to this affair.”

“But—” Godfrey began, dumbfounded. The entire charade had been constructed on the notion that Godfrey and I were total strangers to Irene and Allegra. “How shall I explain the connection?”

 “
You
will not have to explain anything.” Irene’s voice was growing taut. “I will instruct Madame Tatyana on how things stand. With my usual subtlety, of course; or, rather, with Lady Sherlock’s.”

“Of course,” he said, sounding not at all certain of that. What more would have been said, I cannot speculate, for at that moment a knock on the door ended the discussion.

A maid brought us a note, a communication from the castle. That was the second appalling development of the day, a day whose events soon made me ache to return to the Jewish cemetery and desecrate the rabbi’s grave as a far better occupation.

Irene opened the heavy cream stationery—the Queen’s personal stock—and read the brief message within, aloud and with perfect diction:

Come at once! An event of ghastly import has transpired. Clotilde is prostrate. You must insist on seeing only the Queen. I remain with her to preserve what sanity I can. Try to maintain a serene demeanor when you arrive. No one must suspect anything
!

Allegra

We decided that Godfrey should remain behind to make arrangements for the flowers. Actually, Irene decided, in the autocratic manner that was becoming all too common to her since we had returned to the picturesque and cursed kingdom of Bohemia.

“The egg is worth almost as much as my Tiffany diamonds,” she told Godfrey. “You must find a safe place for it. I suggest a bank, or the hotel safe if the banks are closed. Then, you must find some suitable deployment for the floral excesses. Whatever has happened at the castle, an innocent visit from a pair of ladies will not aggravate the uproar. I fear, Godfrey,” she added a trifle severely, “that whatever effect you have had upon Tatyana has somewhat compromised your role in this intrigue.”

“I did nothing!” he protested, quite rightly, “save follow your suggestions.”

“Sometimes one must stand one’s own ground, and follow one’s own instincts for self-preservation!”

On this note she left, with myself in her train. I will never forget Godfrey staring perplexed at his ring of floral tributes, looking more alarmed than a civilized English gentleman should have to.

The sun was setting by the time Irene and I were ensconced in a carriage bound for the Hradcany. Every spire in Prague was tipped with liquid gold. Taverns and shops beamed a rosy glow of twilight commerce as our conveyance passed and began climbing the winding route to the pinnacle of the city.

Prague Castle, sprawling on the hill it commanded, threw a dark and forbidding silhouette against the lowering crimson curtain of the sunset. Our horses’ hooves clattered to the private entrance far from the overwhelming public gate.

No one contested our request or right to see the Queen. Even the servants betrayed an indifferent contempt for what the Queen wished or did not wish. They deferred to whatever another said of her wishes, rather than ascertaining her will.

Irene, who had been grim during the entire journey, was no less optimistic as we followed a knee-breeches-clad lackey through those elaborate halls until we reached the Queen’s chambers.

One of the double doors was opened by a pale-faced Allegra.

‘Thank heavens!” she cried, sweeping the door wide for Irene and myself.

“Where is she?” Irene demanded on entering.

“In her bedchamber, but she expects you. In fact, she has been wailing for you for hours. I fear she has little confidence in one of my years.”

“Yet you had the wit to write, and apparently quickly.” Irene paused in the bedroom’s antechamber to remove her gloves while she and I assisted each other out of our short capes. No servants came to relieve us of our outer things, so Irene tossed them cavalierly on a lounge chair.

“What is the mishap you write of?” Irene wanted to know next.

“It may seem a trivial matter, but ‘mishap’ does not describe its effects. Look around you. Do you see what is missing?”

Irene’s glance was as swift and sharp as carrion crow’s. “The Worth mannequins are missing. Did Clotilde not like any of the gowns, after all?”

“Quite the contrary! We had a delightful afternoon examining the new arrivals and the old, and then—”

“Then? Allegra, surely you have not called us to the castle on some trifling matter involving the Worth mannequins? We have left Godfrey back at the hotel in a situation of grave danger.”

Allegra was a charming, well-brought-up girl, but she possessed an imperious streak at least a quarter as wide as Irene’s. She drew herself up and answered stiffly, “I cannot say what peril Godfrey faces, although I am sure that he will overcome it, but you must judge the Queen’s case for yourself.”

With this she knocked at the coffered doors leading to the Queen’s bedchamber, a room we had never seen.

A smothered “Come” was not an encouraging invitation.

Allegra pulled down the rococo lever and we entered a room of shining marble floors scattered with Aubusson carpets and a testered bed as soaring and stately as any altar- piece. It seemed odd to find a self-declared Virgin Queen ensconced in such luxury; perhaps the irony of her situation only goaded the Queen more.

She was prostrate, as advertised, but not upon the royal bed. She lay crumpled like an abandoned doll on the upholstered chaise longue near a pair of Louis XVI chairs by the tall windows.

When she looked up to see who had arrived, I was struck dumb. Clotilde even in full bloom was a pallid and spiritless blossom. Clotilde after hours of hysterical weeping was a sorry sight indeed.

Her large blue eyes (her best feature) were tear-swollen. While her eyelids were always pink around the lashes, like those of a white rabbit, now her entire eye-whites were tinted unflattering scarlet.

Her pale skin was mottled with red blotches; even her satin length of silky blond hair seemed dulled by the damp in which she had wallowed for so long.

Irene rustled over to her with the efficient concern of a crack nurse.

“Your Majesty has had an unsettling day!”

“Oh, don’t call me ‘Your Majesty,’ ” Clotilde replied as testily as a sick and sleepy sobbing child. “I am queen of nothing but my own misery! Please, I wish I could go home and be just Clotilde. Call me Clotilde and I shall feel as if I am among my dear s-s-sisters again! I wish I had never heard of Bohemia or its King.”