THE HOURS BEFORE: A Story of Mystery and Suspense from the Belle Époque (32 page)

‘The soul? But what of
my
soul, Kristina? I shall be guilty of a terrible crime. Thou shalt not kill.’

‘If you feel it is so terrible, m'lady, then why do it?’

‘Because I hate him!’
Deborah cries, and buries her head in her hands for a moment. ‘Because I hate him. Or is my wretched hatred an illusion, too?’

Kristina extends a pacifying hand upon the arm of her mistress once again as she looks into her eyes. ‘You have answered your own question, m’lady,’ she declares with an irrefutable, almost cruel logic, though in a voice still as serene and as reassuring as ever. ‘We are all of us beset by illusions, clinging to those that satisfy us the most and which inconvenience us the least. And all of it is frivolous and of little merit. Life is a dance, that is all. We take to the floor for only a short while, and the music we hear is the sound of God laughing.’

To which Deborah, with a sigh of inevitability and surrender, slides the weapon back into its sheath and rises to set her portmanteau back onto the table. But as she returns, and as her gaze rests upon the face of her young companion once again it appears there is yet more she wishes to say, even now.

‘Yes, you are correct, m'lady,’ she says, anticipating her. ‘There is just something. You see, if you were to strike this blow and succeed, it would - unlikely as it might seem - help to maintain the peace.’

‘I don’t understand. Do you mean the war? That awful war that is coming and which nobody seems able to avert?’

‘Yes, that is what I mean. Without him it would be delayed.’

‘Really? By how much?’

‘A few weeks … a few weeks of further golden peace, to celebrate the light before the darkness.’

‘Is that all? A few weeks. I wonder, is it worth it?’

‘Oh yes, it is worth it,’ the young woman replies with confidence and a look of immense sadness upon her brow. ‘It is worth it because the suffering that is to come in just a few short years from now is of such enormity that it is worth the blood of a thousand tyrants to delay it for but a single day.’

‘Heavens, my dear,’ Deborah gasps, disturbed by the young woman’s intensity, ‘you make it sound like the end of the world, the end of civilisation!’

‘The end? No, not quite, ma'am,’ Kristina replies. ‘That will take many years to complete. But for many it will be the beginning of the end. And so m'lady understands where her duty lies. Be assured, whenever and wherever you choose to do this deed I shall be at your side. Even if you cannot see me, you will feel my presence. I will steer your course; I will guide your hand, and provide you with all the strength and courage you require.’

‘Really? Can I believe this, Kristina? Can I really believe in such a thing?’

‘Yes, m'lady. And I trust that you shall.’

And so it is agreed.

‘The night will soon be drawing to a close, m'lady,’ Kristina remarks with all her usual composure, her voice softly spoken, sympathetic yet firm. ‘In just over an hour, it will be dawn,’ she adds.

She is waiting to resume her seat upon the chaise - a little ominously and a little too soon for Deborah, for she suspects what she is yet to be shown will be far from easy. In truth, she dreads it.

‘Dawn? So soon?’ she responds, occupying herself rather needlessly by examining the hat she will wear for her assignation and then setting this down with great care upon the unruffled counterpane of the bed. ‘Just these few short hours have contained a lifetime for me,’ she states as she approaches the young woman and who, having relinquished the starched formality of her working clothes, has already wrapped the nightgown Deborah has lent her about her own slender shoulders - it being only right and proper, Deborah has told her, that she be attired as comfortably and as warmly as her mistress. ‘Do you know, Kristina, dreadful as it may sound, this does rather remind me of being in love. Really, it does.’

‘In love?’ Kristina echoes with puzzlement as her mistress re-takes her seat at last and the young woman follows.

‘Yes. It is the intensity of it - that’s what I mean. Experiencing so much, feeling so much in so short a time. You see, one can live a life for years of dull routine, with hardly any change or fresh experience until there comes along out of the blue a few breathtaking days or even just hours in which one is in love, and during which everything alters and time expands to embrace every joy. And every torment, too. Have you ever experienced that, Kristina?’

But the young lady merely shakes her head, ‘No, ma'am,’ she answers, looking askance at her mistress with an expression almost of pity. ‘That does not befall one such as myself. I should say, also, with respect, m'lady, I cannot easily picture you living a life of routine.’

‘Oh, but you would be mistaken, my dear,’ Deborah remarks with a sigh. ‘I’ll have you know my vocation as a
femme fatale
is one I embarked upon only very late in life. I was young when I met and married Hugh, and my daughter was born soon (perhaps a little too soon) thereafter, so there was no opportunity to be reckless. At that age there is, in any case, hardly any concept of life’s experiences, the spectrum of life’s colours. One lives, instead, in the greatest propriety amid every extravagance of black and white without even suspecting that colour might exist. Then, much later, and the greatest of ironies, when circumstances drove the marriage to an end, and when the battle for custody of my daughter commenced, I was hauled through the courts and accused of every vice. Can you believe it? That’s what it’s like if you are a woman who has chosen to pursue a career on the stage or even to deport oneself with any kind of
joie de vivre.
I remember, during my divorce, it was even suggested I was living in sin prior to my marriage. Anything to blacken my name. Ha! I told them most of my sins had taken place after my marriage, not before - and certainly precious little while I was in it!’

Sensing a smile upon her companion’s face, she pauses to share in her amusement.

‘And so now m'lady has - how do you say? - made up for lost time, yes?’ Kristina volunteers.

‘Precisely. And so, after having but one man in my life for twenty long years of marriage, I have had, some might suggest, far too many since - though most of these I must say have not disappointed, for they have been gentlemen who have devoted themselves to a lifetime in pursuit of the senses and of romance. I have learned much from their society, and regret very little. Oh, I’m sure it has made me a pariah in some circles. And there’s many a woman of polite Parisian society, or even here in Vienna, who would shudder in indignation at the mention of my name. I don’t care. I have known more than they will ever know, and I rejoice in every one of my sordid experiences, all the glorious forbidden vices of those who share in love’s rapture. And so, from a pathetic shrinking violet who would once baulk at the display of an extra inch of ankle beneath the hem, I have evolved into an audacious scarlet amaryllis - a
Grande Horizontale:
who in Paris, has debauched and bathed in champagne as a prelude to her revels, and taken the reins of her own phaeton along the
Champs-Elysées
, where anyone who knows the way of the world also knows my business - and those who do not can guess it soon enough by looking - while here in Vienna I have dined and made love at palaces and waltzed among the greatest dancers and orchestras of the world, which is, I must say, surely as close to taking wing to the heavens as one can experience in this life.’

‘But did you
ever
love him - your husband?’ Kristina asks, venturing a little audacity of her own this time, a look of benign tolerance mingled with sympathy upon her face.

‘No, I do not believe so,’ she answers wistfully, almost with surprise, and unconcerned over such a leading question, for she has long-since ceased to regard the enchanting and enigmatic Kristina as one who must
keep her place
. All liberties are permissible now. ‘I don’t think so, because I have experienced great love since, you see, and it has been so very different. I have discovered that true love is a feast best accompanied by the wine of passion - that glorious madness of desire. Such a combination comes only rarely, but once tasted, the appetite to experience it again and again renders one insatiable. It becomes a never-ending quest, searching always for that special encounter whose joy is so complete that its memory endures a lifetime. Oh, Kristina, how can I explain … It is like being treated to the most beautiful music - music where each phrase like a gentle sigh might fade for a moment - wanting only to be followed by more. Great physical love is like this - beginning with a touch or kiss of such delicacy and tenderness that it leaves behind in its absence the wish for another to follow, then another, so that desire swells and grows like the moon itself in the sky, more and more each time until it is able to move an ocean. Am I making sense, Kristina, my handsome
odalisque
? I wonder if I am, my dear?’

At which, her gaze comes to rest once more upon the younger woman’s face, her brows all knitted together, as if trying to understand. She is not at all impressed, it would seem, and it makes Deborah aware that she has probably been talking too much, trying to delay the inevitable, the remainder of her story. And as she reaches out, almost unawares, to gently touch and to run her fingers through the fringe of dark hair as if to soothe Kristina’s cares, her thoughts are filled with both amusement and wonder, for still the mysterious creature is unmoved by such an exhortation. There is not a glimmer of that tantalizing mixture of anxiety and curiosity that so often she would observe in someone in Kristina’s position. Instead, there is a strength and courage in her eyes, an immense self-contained knowledge that is indomitable and above all desire. And the cares that Deborah had perceived a moment ago upon her face were, she realises now, really only for her mistress alone.

‘Ma'am, we have much yet to see,’ she reminds her at last, though this typically without any note of reprimand - while Deborah, for her part, knows what she must do and which she can postpone no longer. Reclining more comfortably upon the chaise and gently against the side of her companion once again, she turns her face towards the triple mirrors of the dressing table.

‘Should I fear what is to come?’ she asks. ‘For it must come, mustn’t it? And I suspect it will not be entirely pleasant.’

‘You need not be alarmed, m'lady,’ Kristina replies, the curiously silent and un-rustling pages of the newspaper already in her hand. ‘Allow yourself instead to rest and to follow as if from afar, for all that is shown to you shall be conducive to your peace and understanding.’

‘And will you show me Herman again?’

‘I shall.’

‘Then we must journey to that horrid place once more, the castle?’

‘The bleak and sinister stronghold of Rascham and his disciples, yes. For it was here we last saw him, ma'am, was it not?’ Kristina murmurs.

‘And I …?’

‘You will find yourself once more in the cold, unforgiving streets of Vienna, and that good man no longer there to aid you as he would have wished.’

‘He is with Poppy,’ Deborah states, rejoicing in the knowledge as the mirror begins to brighten.

‘Yes, and you were always aware of this. You knew he had found her, didn’t you, even then?’

‘Oh yes … even in my suffering, I knew so many things,’ Deborah replies as she feels herself drifting towards a different state - the broadsheet taken up and commanded once more by her companion, requiring merely the lightest of touches, a finger tip to turn its pages, and upon which an ever-changing cameo springs to life upon the surface of the mirror, a path away from the dark and peaceful chamber into the oval of light emanating from the glass, until once again she is immersed in all its vivid and seductive detail. And whether it is some uncommon effect of the late hour, whether it is the faintest opalescence of moonlight that filters through the curtains, or even the result of too much champagne, it is of no great concern. She knows only that she feels safe here in the mystery of the night - a place where, in the company of her enchanting companion, every picture, every fragrance, every whisper, sound and touch of a life once lived becomes again an adventure for her, a pathway along which she is taken and against which, even should she wish to, she is powerless to intervene.