The Great Game (13 page)

             
"Which is why I study you," she said. "You are a folly all to yourself."

             
Paul laughed. "And you are my folly," he told her. "I am mad about you."

             
Giselle nodded. "Yes," she said. "And I am sane about you." She put her hand on top of his and squeezed gently. "We will discuss this. And now I had better go. I am posing for Klapmann today. I am a water nymph, and it takes me half an hour to properly arrange the construction of
papier-mâché
and gauze that he thinks is appropriate costume for a water-nymph." She stood up. "And what are you planning to do today?"

             
Paul considered for a moment. "I plan to wander about the city disconsolately searching for truth and beauty, knowing I will find neither until I see you this evening."

             
Giselle smiled down at him. "Keep that thought," she said, kissing him on the forehead. "I'll be home around four, but I want to work on my dolls for a few hours. You may take me out to dinner."

             
"Thank you, you are so kind," Paul said. "I kiss your hand." And he did so, following the old Viennese custom with perhaps a shade more ardor than was absolutely correct.

             
"You certainly do!" Giselle agreed. And she walked off down Verdegasse toward Klapmann's studio a few blocks away. There was, perhaps, a shade more sway in her walk than there would have been if she hadn't known that Paul was watching.

             
Charles Summerdane looked out through Paul's eyes and wondered how Giselle would react when he proposed marriage to her; when he confided to her that he was actually an English gentleman. The fact that he was immensely rich, he knew, would not bother her in the least. He would have to give up the great game, but perhaps it was time he stopped playing games, even for the good of the Empire. There were other ways he could be useful. Besides, he was already pushing his luck. There were signs that some of Paul's associates were getting suspicious of the perhaps-too-carefree composer. Paul was half convinced that the young man in the fur-trimmed greatcoat who had entered the
café
shortly after they had was the same young man he had seen loitering across the street from their apartment building when they had come out this morning.

             
Not for the first time he found he was glad that he was the younger son of a duke. If he were heir to the title and estates, it would be impossible to consider marrying a Viennese artist's model. The crowd, as the aristocracy called
themselves
for some reason, would never allow it. Even as it was it would be difficult.

             
He could, of course, marry someone else and keep his artist's model discreetly in a flat in London. But he didn't want to marry someone else. And Giselle would not easily consent to being kept in a flat in London. Well, he would marry her—if she'd have him—and the crowd could just make what they would of it. If they became too oppressive, he and Giselle could just buy a house in Paris. Perhaps they should do that anyway. Giselle would love living in Paris.

             
Paul sighed and sipped at his coffee. A few minutes later he rose and entered the cafe, and headed straight back toward the lavatory. When he left he paused at an empty table to tie his shoe. "I think I'm being followed," he said in an undertone to a placid-looking, balding gentleman one table over, who seemed totally absorbed in the morning edition of the
Neue Freie Presse
and his half-eaten napoleon. "You don't know me."

             
The man frowned slightly and kept reading. Paul dropped a thick white envelope containing his latest tone poem onto the chair next to him, shielding the action with his overcoat, and then returned to his table, threw a few coins on it, and headed off down the street.

Kingdoms are but cares.

State is devoid of stay;

Riches are ready snares,

And hasten to decay.

—Henry VI

             
Age, Barnett reflected, was creeping up on him. Or perhaps it was merely his sedentary habits. Four days of playing tennis with the Bulefortes was taking an unfamiliar toll on muscles he had forgotten he had. Two sets of tennis each day was proving to be much harder work than he remembered it being. And, despite the fact that he kept telling himself he would benefit from the exercise, it was not getting easier as the days passed. His calf muscles were complaining bitterly now that today's session was over. Other muscles, he was sure, would soon join in. He should either play more often or give it up entirely. He soaked himself in the bathtub for half an hour, until the water grew quite tepid, and then set about dressing for dinner.

             
Barnett found himself taking more care than usual over assembling the right evening costume.
The new dinner jacket that he had been saving for Paris.
And the gold links and studs with the opal insets that Cecily had given him for his last birthday. He rejected three collars before finding one that seemed to have the necessary pristine whiteness.

             
Cecily was closeted in her room with Bettina, a young round-faced domestic that the hotel had sent up to act as her lady's maid, and Barnett felt odd about entering until her toilette was completed lest he should see her partially clad with a third person in the room.

             
Being alone with one's wife was one thing; and how one chose to dress or not to dress was then one's own business. But, with even a maid present, seeing one's wife
deshabille
was just not done. Wasn't it amazing, Barnett reflected not for the first time, how the French had words for
everything.

             
Barnett had no doubt that Cecily would emerge looking elegant. She always looked elegant. What he wanted was her reassurance that he looked, if not elegant, at least passable. Somehow the impending dinner with the Bulefortes made him want to look as close to elegant as he could manage. This was, for him, a most unfamiliar feeling. He peered into the glass and struggled with the ends of his bow tie.

             
The mummer trotted in and perched his tiny frame on the edge of the chaise longue. Dressed in a suit of wide, light brown cheeks and carrying a dark brown bowler, he looked like a cross between a racetrack tout and a bill collector. "Evening', Gov," he said. "My, don't you look
swell
."

             
"Thank's, Mummer," Barnett said, adjusting the points on his collar. "It's my swell disguise. I'm going into swell company this evening."

             
"I
knows
it. Who says I don't?" the mummer said, nodding sagely.
"A big dinner with them Bulefortes what you been associatin' with."

             
"That's right," Barnett agreed. "Signor Buleforte has invited us to a private dinner before our evening of bridge. It's to be very spoff."

             
"Cook it himself, will he?" the mummer inquired.
"Of course not, Mummer.
Don't be silly.
"

             
"
There's somethin' off about them Bulefortes," the mummer said.

             
"What? What do you mean 'off'?"

             
"I don't know
,
Gov. They ain't what they seem, if you can see what I mean.
They's
got more servants than what they should, for one thing. I been hob-nobbin' with the population below the stairs 'cause of that other job you gave me. Only in this here establishment, they mostly
resides
up in the attic. And
them
Bulefortes got too many servants.
And a couple of strange ones, too."

             
Barnett decided that his bow tie looked as good as it ever would, and turned to face Tolliver. "You've got my interest, Mummer. How do you mean 'strange'?"

             
"It's hard to say. They ain't really
servants,
I guess is what it is. At least not the sort what I has come to recognize as of the servant type."

             
"That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the Bulefortes," Barnett pointed out. "You're not really a servant, when it comes to that."

             
" 'At's
the truth," the mummer admitted. "But then our provenance is not really of the most respectable, you and me, if you get my drift. We
has
a few old bones in our closet what might keep us off the honors list."

             
Barnett took this attack on his respectability calmly. From anyone else he would have been insulted, but from the mummer these hints of shared memories of unspeakable crimes were a sign of friendship and respect. "What function do you think these nonservants of the Bulefortes fulfill?" he asked.

             
"I don't rightly know. They
looks
like toughs to me."

             
"Toughs?"

             
"Yes. That's what I
thinks
. I heard them down in the pantry yammerin' away in some foreign tongue, of which I didn't understand a thrip. But the sense I
gets
out of it, if you know what I mean, was that they was toughs of some sort. Pro—you might say—fessional maulers and scrappers. They
goes
out in the scullery yard once a day and practices doing exercises simul—as it were—taneous, like. One of the serving girls told me that. She thinks they
is
bodyguards. She
says they is annoyed with Signor Buleforte for not letting them stay right up next to 'im and 'is missus the whole time."

             
Some Cockneys omitted their H's, some added them at every opportunity, some reversed their usage; Tolliver wove them in and out of his sentences with a random artistry.

             
"Interesting," Barnett said. "What about that other business? You get anything on Lindner?"

             
" 'Course
I did. Who says I didn't?"

             
"What'd you find out?"

             
"Well, he may be an artist, like he says, but he ain't been doing it very long. His easel and all his paints and brushes and stuff are pretty much brand new. And he's got a couple of pamphlets hidden away in his dresser drawer in his room on how to mix paints and set up a canvas, and like that. The kind of stuff you'd study if you were trying to convince everybody you
was
a artist. And besides, he's only got a small tube of zinc white. First thing you learn if you're really trying to paint anything is to get a big tube of zinc white.
A great big tube.
And he picked the wrong shades of blue and yellow. If he mixes them he'll get mud."

             
"Where did you learn so much about oil painting?" Barnett asked the little man.

             
"I used to do portraits at Brighton Beach.
One shilling for an amazing likeness, done at breakneck speed in charcoal.
Two and six for a formal portrait done somewhat slower in oil.
I was quite popular. The customers got quite a kick out of seeing a small person standing on a wooden box and painting away at their likeness. I don't know
nothing
about art, you see, but I does know a bit about oil painting."

             
"You're priceless, Mummer," Barnett said.

             
The mummer looked pleased. "I got me price," he said. "And there's something else what you might find interesting about that Lindner cove—he's got himself
an
helio-stat."