5

Villa von Düchtel

1906

After Colin and I dressed, we joined the others in the music room. A footman—not the one who’d answered our questions about the skis—greeted us with a tray of steaming mulled wine. Max was playing the piano, a melody I recognized from Lohengrin. Sigrid stood behind him, at the ready to turn the pages of his music. Every few bars she would take a breath and sing, so softly she could barely be heard, only a word or two, and then stop. Kaspar had installed himself on a long settee, stretching out his injured leg. Cécile was sitting near the fire with Felix, who was wearing a bright yellow waistcoat, hovering nearby. They were the only two in the room drinking champagne. Birgit was nowhere to be found. No doubt her toilette was highly complicated and time-consuming. Ursula and Liesel sat across from each other in two of four chairs lined up on either side of a low, narrow table with a mosaic top, perpendicular to the piano.

“You two look engaged in something serious,” I said, taking the empty seat next to Liesel.

“The Fräulein has brought two paintings for me to consider purchasing,” Ursula said. “I mentioned this to you before, did I not, Lady Emily? She’s going to reveal them to us tonight.”

“What is your gallery’s specialty?” I asked.

“Contemporary painting and sculpture,” Liesel said. “There are so many talented artists working today, most of them vastly underappreciated. Are you familiar with Hilma af Klint?”

The question caught Cécile’s attention. She came and sat beside Ursula. Felix, trailing her like a puppy, stood near Colin, next to the table. “The Swedish painter,” she said, “in possession of a talent formidable. I particularly like her plein air works.”

“She’s become even more interesting of late,” Liesel said. “She started experimenting with automatic drawing a decade or so ago.”

“Automatic drawing?” Colin asked.

“It’s a method of opening up to one’s subconscious. Letting the pencil do what it will, rather than deliberately controlling it,” Liesel said. “She’s recently begun a series of abstract paintings. Their power is extraordinary.”

“I’d like to see them,” Colin said.

“You don’t object to the abstract?” Ursula asked. “I thought you English gentlemen were a hopelessly traditional lot.”

“Not all of us, I assure you. I’m fascinated by the notion that art can be separated from obvious representations of the world around us. I read something Maurice Denis said, some years back, about a painting being a flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order. I may not have the quote precisely right, but the idea stuck with me. Why not, then, free oneself from merely copying objects as we see them?”

“Did I not tell you, Ursula, that he is the most extraordinary gentleman?” Cécile asked. “Handsome and enlightened.”

“Enlightened has always tempted me more than handsome,” Ursula said. “Handsome rarely leads to anything but trouble.”

“Quelquefois, but only when it is not accompanied by enlightenment.”

“This modern art is a lot of rot,” Kaspar said, still sprawled on the couch, a cigar dangling from his mouth. “I don’t know why you insist on stuffing your house with it. But it’s yours, so I suppose you can do as you like.” His rudeness shocked me. I’ve no fondness for rigid rules of behavior, but to treat his mother-in-law in such a manner was unconscionable.

“Mama has as much ancient art as she does contemporary,” Sigrid said. “Don’t be unkind.”

“I’m a beast, but always willing to admit it,” Kaspar said, as if that excused his loutish manners. “I’ve a tendency to do what I want and to voice my opinions loudly, without considering how doing so makes other people feel. Forgive me. No doubt my thoughtless, dreadful behavior is what inspired someone to cut my binding this morning. Which of you wanted to see me fall?”

His voice was less forceful than I’d heard it before, as if his confidence was shaken. Not much, but enough that it was noticeable.

“You believe one of your friends would do such a thing?” Felix asked.

“I’ve flaws enough that have plagued you,” Kaspar said.

“Remember your Goethe: Certain flaws are necessary for the whole. It would seem strange if old friends lacked certain quirks.”

“He doesn’t deserve you, Felix,” Sigrid said.

“If you talk like that, you’ll have me believing you cut my binding, mein Schatz.” Kaspar gestured for his wife to come to him, but she stayed put.

“You’re exactly the man you were when I chose to marry you. How could that be a disappointment? What will be crushing, however, is if I never get my sleigh ride. How many times have I told you I want you all to myself, just for a few hours?”

“Is there anything more boring than married couples fawning over each other?” Birgit refused the mulled wine offered as she entered the room, demanded whisky, and flopped onto a chair.

“You might hold a different opinion once you become a wife,” Colin said.

“Heavens no! I’d rather die than dote on my husband. It would be boring beyond belief.”

“That depends upon the husband,” I said.

Birgit met my gaze and fluttered her eyelashes. “And now we’re all meant to exclaim over Herr Hargreaves’s Adonis-like features.”

“I’d prefer if you all exclaimed over my rugged good looks,” Felix said.

“Marred by that ridiculous scar,” Birgit said.

“It won’t heal because you refuse to kiss it better.”

She rolled her eyes. “You had it a lifetime before you met me. Probably before I was born.”

“Not quite that long,” Felix said, flashing a crooked grin. I started to see why Cécile considered him potentially interesting. There was a certain attractiveness about him. His manner was easy and affable, and he possessed a modesty entirely absent in his friend Kaspar.

“Your scar distresses me, Monsieur Brinkmann. It’s difficult to believe you were ever stupid enough to take part in a duel,” Cécile said.

“I did nothing of the sort,” Felix said. “It was all the rage when I was at university. Everyone who mattered fought and had a scar. I wanted the badge, but had no interest in risking serious injury, so I took care of it myself with a scrupulously clean razor.”

“Non!” Cécile’s eyebrows shot to her hairline. “A very clever strategy, monsieur. Foolish and immature, but clever nonetheless. What did you study?”

“Literature, Goethe to be precise, but, as it turned out, I wasn’t suited for university life. I left without completing my degree.”

“I shouldn’t like you at all if you’d finished,” Birgit said. “I despise intellectuals. They’re boring beyond belief.”

“Is the yellow waistcoat a nod to Goethe?” I asked.

“It is, Lady Emily. I thought yellow trousers would be taking things rather too far, but have made the waistcoat my signature.”

“Surely you’re too old to still be playing Werther,” Sigrid said. Goethe’s wildly successful novel The Sorrows of Young Werther tells the story of a man destroyed by unrequited love. His chosen uniform was a blue jacket over yellow trousers and a waistcoat identical to Felix’s.

“A man is never too old to be guided by passionate emotion,” Felix said. “Goethe may have regretted his creation, but I still celebrate it.”

“Enough of this book talk,” Kaspar said. “I hear you’ve been questioning the staff about my skiing accident, Hargreaves. Surely it wasn’t necessary.”

An undercurrent of discomfort shot through the room. “A mere precaution,” Colin said.

“Have you any reason to suspect an enemy is trying to harm you?” I asked.

Kaspar laughed, but his wife laughed harder. “Good heavens, no,” he said. “I’ve been subject to a certain amount of jealousy as a result of my athletic accomplishments, but never anything serious. Like it or not, my competitors accept that when I win, it’s because I’m better prepared and better trained.”

“And more talented,” Sigrid said. I couldn’t make out whether she was sincere or sarcastic.

“That goes without saying. At any rate, I’ve no enemies.”

Max lifted his hands from the piano, cocked his head, looked rather perplexed, and then started to play another piece, one that rang with anger.

Sigrid laughed again. “Oh, Max, surely not ‘Bin ich nun frei?’ That’s too much.” She explained for the rest of us. “It’s from Wagner’s Das Rheingold, the aria the dwarf Alberich sings after his golden ring is stolen. He puts a curse on it, to ensure that everyone who possesses it will be destroyed.”

“It’s not the precisely right reference,” Max said. “Nothing’s been stolen, after all, but it will do. Someone is angry enough to lash out at Kaspar. I’d like to know what inspired his notice.”

“Not some piddling piece of jewelry, I can assure you of that,” Kaspar said.

“None of us would have acted in malice,” Birgit said. “We all like each other, well enough. I’m sure it was nothing but a badly planned prank, but whoever’s behind it will never admit it now.”

“I absolve them,” Kaspar said. “There was no serious harm done. As a gesture of my goodwill, I suggest we ask Liesel to unveil the paintings she brought. I vow not to make any ill-mannered comments on them.”

“Aren’t they in the ballroom?” Birgit asked. “Can you make it up the stairs with your knee?”

“So long as I take my time, I’ll manage,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt much. The truth is, I’m playing it up to get everyone’s sympathy.”

Ursula led us down the corridor and up two flights of steps to the ballroom.

“It’s absurd to have wanted such a thing in the middle of the countryside, but I do adore dancing,” she said. The chamber was enormous, far too big given the house’s remote location, but the baroness’s fortune enabled her to indulge her every whim. The sprung wooden floor gleamed, sunlight filtering through ten-foot-tall windows on two walls. A balcony extended from one of them, offering staggering views of the mountains, and a minstrels’ gallery looked down from the opposite end of the room.

The room was empty save for two easels draped in canvas. “Not even a chair for a rest when one becomes winded from waltzing?” I asked.

“The furniture is kept in a storage room through that door,” Ursula said, pointing. “I didn’t want it cluttering things up when it wasn’t needed. Liesel, show us what you’ve brought for me.”

Fräulein Fronberg tugged at the first canvas, revealing a painting approximately three feet square, depicting a young girl in a white dress and bonnet standing next to a sphere that reflected the garden surrounding her.

“It’s the work of Paula Modersohn-Becker, an expressionist,” Liesel said. “There’s always been a hint of scandal connected to her family. Her uncle tried to assassinate King Wilhelm of Prussia.”

“That’s the sort of scandal that makes moving in society a challenge,” Sigrid said.

“She studied in London and Paris. This painting was completed in 1901. Look at the emotion on the child’s face. It’s so wistful. Her innocence has not yet been destroyed.”

“Do we assume it will be?” I asked.

“It happens to us all, does it not?”

The view visible in the garden globe brought to mind an idealized childhood with a cozy house, its windows glowing gold, but the darkness in the trees immediately behind the girl suggested something else was lurking.

“Mama, you must buy it,” Sigrid said. “It looks like me as a tiny girl!”

“I can hardly say no if that’s how you see it,” Ursula said. “What’s next, Liesel?”

Intriguing though the first painting was, I preferred the second, by André Derain, a vibrant and fanciful view of the Pyrénées from the French village of Collioure. “If you don’t want it, I’ll take it,” I said, drawn to the bright colors and the movement of the trees in the foreground.

“I’m afraid I’ve already got a second buyer lined up should that happen,” Liesel said. “Derain painted this only last year when he and Matisse summered in France. If you’re interested in his work, I can try to track down something else for you.”

“I’d like that very much, thank you,” I said, “but will always regret having missed out on this one. There’s something about it…”

“That’s how it is with art,” Liesel said. “It’s not always possible to explain in words why a particular piece tugs at you. All that matters is that it does. I selected this especially for you, Baroness. It told me it was destined for you.”

“How can I resist, then?” Ursula took a few steps back, folded her arms across her chest, and studied each painting, one after the other in turn. “I’ll live with them for a few days and make my final decision. Now, leave me, all of you. I want to spend some time alone with them. We shall reconvene for supper, when I’ll tell you all about our plans for tomorrow. We’re going to visit Ludwig’s so-called masterpiece, Schloss Neuschwanstein.”

“So-called?” Colin asked.

“It’s one of my least favorite places on earth. I’ve never shared the king’s taste for fantasy.”