Weighed in the Balance (8 page)

They were moving away from the house, still under the elms. A gardener passed them pushing a wheelbarrow. He raised his cap respectfully and mumbled something. Stephan acknowledged him with a nod. Monk felt rude, but he did not wish to distinguish himself as different by speaking to the man. It was not expected.

“And the afternoon?” he pressed.

“Oh, we all had luncheon rather early and everyone disappeared to plan the evening, because we were having a party and there were to be amateur theatricals. Gisela was terribly good at it, and she was to take the lead.”

“Was that unusual?”

“Not at all. She often did. One of her great gifts is the ability to enjoy herself completely, and to do it in such a way that everyone around her enjoys themselves also. She can be totally impulsive, think of the most entertaining ideas, and then simply do them. Without making a fuss or getting weighed down in preparations, which kill the fun. She is the most spontaneous person I ever have known. I think after all the rigid formality of court, when everything is planned weeks in advance and everyone follows the rules, that was what so enchanted Friedrich about her. She was like a summer wind through a house that had been closed up for centuries.”

“You like her,” Monk observed.

Stephan smiled. “I don’t think I would say I like her, but I am fascinated by her and by the effect she has on people.”

“Which is?”

Stephan glanced at him, his eyes bright. “Varied,” he replied. “The only thing it never is is indifferent.”

“How about Evelyn and Zorah?” Monk asked. “How did they like playing supporting roles to Gisela’s lead?”

Stephan’s expression was hard to read. “Evelyn can play the ingenue, or even a boy, rather well, which she did on this occasion. She was captivating. She managed to be boyish and utterly feminine at the same time.”

Monk could imagine it with pleasure. Evelyn’s mischievous face, with its youthful lines and wide eyes, and her completely womanly softness would make a beguiling youth full of appeal. Her slender figure would still be unmistakably female, even in masculine costume.

“I can’t see Zorah in that role,” he admitted, looking sideways at Stephan.

Stephan hesitated before he replied. They were several paces farther along the track when he spoke.

“No. She was cast as a loyal friend who carried the messages which furnished some of the plot.”

Monk waited, but Stephan did not add anything.

“Who was the hero?”

“Florent, of course.”

“And the villain?”

“Oh—I was.” He laughed. “Actually, I rather enjoyed it. Other people you don’t know took the minor parts. Brigitte did one of them; somebody’s mother, I think.”

Monk winced. Perhaps it had not been intended as cruel, but he perceived it so.

“Was it a success?”

“Enormously. Gisela was very good. She made up a bit of it as she went along. It was difficult for the others to follow, but it was so witty no one minded. The audience applauded wildly. And Florent was good as well. He seemed to know instinctively what to say or do to make it look natural.”

“And Zorah?”

Stephan’s expression changed; the amusement drained away, leaving unhappiness. “I’m afraid she did not enjoy it so much. She was the butt of a few of Gisela’s funnier remarks, but Friedrich was amused and hardly ever took his eyes from Gisela, and Zorah had the sense not to show her feelings.”

“But she was angry.”

“Yes, she was. However, she had her revenge the following day.” They climbed a dozen shallow stone steps to a grass walk and the shadow of the elms. “They all went riding,” he went on. “Gisela came in the gig. She doesn’t ride well, or care for it. Zorah is marvelous. She dared Florent to follow her over some very rough country, and they left Gisela behind in the gig and she came home alone. They arrived back an hour later, flushed and laughing, he with his arm around her. It was obvious they had had an excellent time.” He laughed, his eyes bright. “Gisela was furious.”

“I thought she was devoted to Friedrich?” Monk looked at him anxiously. “Why should she care if Zorah rode with Florent?”

Now Stephan was thoroughly amused.

“Don’t be naive!” he exclaimed. “Certainly, she was devoted to Friedrich, but she adored other admirers. It was part of her role as the great lover that all men should admire her. She is the woman for whom a throne was lost: always gorgeous, always desirable, always utterly happy. She had to be the center of the party, the most alluring, the one who could make everyone laugh at whatever she chose. She was terribly witty at dinner that evening, but Zorah was just as quick. It was a battle royal over the dinner table.”

“Unpleasant?” Monk asked, trying to visualize it and gauge the underlying emotion. Was her hatred really enough to prompt Zorah to fabricate this charge, or even to blind her to the truth and make her believe a lie because she wanted to? Was it all really stung vanity, a battle for fame and love?

Stephan stopped and stood still on the path, looking at Monk carefully for some time before answering.

“Yes,” he said at last. “I think there is a sense in which it has always been unpleasant. I’m not really sure. Perhaps I don’t understand people as well as I thought I did. I couldn’t speak as she did to anyone whom I liked, but I don’t think I really know what they felt.” The wind blew in his face, lifting his hair a little. The sky was clouding over to the west. “Zorah always believed Gisela to be selfish,” he went on. “A woman who married for position and then was cheated out of the ultimate glory. Most people believed she married for love and didn’t care about anything else. They would have thought Zorah merely jealous, had she expressed her views, but she had enough sense not to. They could never have liked each other; they were too utterly different.”

“But you believe Zorah?”

“I believe her honesty.” He hesitated. “I am not absolutely certain I believe her to be correct.”

“And yet you will stake so much to help me defend her?”

Stephan shrugged and flashed a sudden, brilliant smile. “I
like her … I like her enormously. And I do think poor Friedrich might have been murdered, and if he was, we ought to know. You can’t murder princes and simply walk away. I have that much loyalty to my country.”

Monk received a very different picture when he spent a delicious afternoon in the rose garden with Evelyn. The flowers were in their second blossoming. The garden was sheltered from the light breeze, and in the still air the perfume was heavy and sweet. The climbing roses had been trained up columns and over arches, and the shrub roses were four or five feet high, making dense mounds of blossom on either side of the grass paths. Evelyn’s huge crinoline skirts touched the lavender at the edges of the beds, disturbing their scent. The two strollers were surrounded by color and perfume.

“It’s an unspeakable thing for Zorah to do,” Evelyn said, her eyes wide as if she were still amazed at it, her voice rising in indignation. “She’s always been very odd, but this is incredible, even for her.”

Monk offered his arm as they walked up a flight of stone steps to another level, and Evelyn took it quite naturally. Her hand was small and very beautiful. He was surprised how much pleasure it gave him to feel its feather touch on his sleeve.

“Has she?” he asked casually. “Why on earth do you think she said anything as strange as this? She cannot possibly believe it is true, can she? I mean, is the evidence not entirely against it?”

“Of course it is,” she said with a laugh. “For a start, why would she? If you want to be quite brutal about it … married to Friedrich, Gisela had wealth, rank and extraordinary allure. As a widow she has no rank anymore, Felzburg will make her no allowance, and even the wealth will be used up pretty rapidly if she continues the life to which she has been accustomed—and believe me, enjoyed very much indeed. He spent
a fortune on jewels and gowns for her, carriages, their palace in Venice, parties, travel to anywhere she wanted. Admittedly that was only within Europe, not like Zorah, who went to the oddest places.” She stopped in front of a huge wine-red Bourbon rose and looked up at him. “I mean, why would any woman want to go to South America? Or to Turkey, or up the Nile, or to China, of all things? No wonder she never married. Who’d have her? She’s never here.” She laughed happily. “Any respectable man wants a wife who has some sense of how to behave, not one who rides astride a horse and sleeps in a tent and can and does converse with men from every walk of life.”

Monk knew that what she said was true, and he would not want such a woman as a wife himself. Zorah sounded far too like Hester Latterly, who was also outspoken and opinionated. Nevertheless, she sounded brave, and extraordinarily interesting as a friend, if nothing else.

“And Gisela is quite different?” he prompted.

“Of course.” Evelyn seemed to find that funny also. Her voice was rich with underlying amusement. “She loves the luxuries of civilized life, and she can entertain anyone with her wit. She has a gift of making everything seem sophisticated and immense fun. She is one of those people who, when she listens to you, makes you feel as if you are the most interesting person she has met and are the center of her entire attention. It is quite a talent.”

And very flattering, Monk thought with a ripple of appreciation—and a sudden warning. It was a powerful art, and perhaps a dangerous one.

They came to an arch of late-flowering white roses, and she moved a little closer to him so they could pass through side by side.

“Did Friedrich never mind Gisela’s being the center of so much attention?” Monk asked as they moved beyond the rose
arch onto a path between iris beds, only green sword blades now, the flowers long over.

Evelyn smiled. “Oh, yes, sometimes. He could sulk. But she always won him around. She had only to be sweet to him and he would forget about it. He was terribly in love with her, you know, even after twelve years. He adored her. He always knew exactly where she was in a room, no matter how many other people were there.” She looked across the green iris leaves back towards the rose arch, the expression in her eyes bright and far away. He had no idea what lay in it.

“She used to dress marvelously,” she went on. “I loved just seeing what she would wear next. It must have cost a fortune, but he was so proud of her. Whatever she wore one week would be the vogue the week after. It always looked right on her. That’s a wonderful thing, you know. So feminine.”

He looked at Evelyn’s own golden brown dress with its enormous skirts and delicately cut bodice with a froth of creamy lace at the bosom, fine pointed waist and full sleeves. It was a gift she had no cause to envy. He found himself smiling back at her.

Perhaps she read his appreciation in his eyes, because she blinked and looked down, then smiled a little and began to walk away. There was a grace in her step which showed her satisfaction.

He followed her and asked more about the weeks before Friedrich’s accident, even the years in exile in Venice and a little of the life at court before Gisela first came. The picture she painted was full of color and variety, but also rigid formality, and for royalty itself, intense discipline to duty. There was extravagance beyond anything he had imagined, let alone seen. No one he knew in London had spent money as Evelyn described quite casually, as if it were a feature of the way everyone lived.

Monk’s head swam. Half of him was dazzled and fascinated, half was bitterly conscious of the hunger and humiliation, the
dependency, and the constant fear and physical discomfort of those who worked all their waking hours and were still always on the brink of debt. He was even uncomfortably aware of the servants who existed to fill any whim of the guests in this exquisite house who day and night did nothing but pass from one amusement to another.

And yet without such places as Wellborough Hall, so much beauty would be lost. He wondered who was happier, the gorgeous baroness who strolled through the gardens, flirting with him, telling stories of the parties and masques and balls she remembered in the capitals of Europe, or the gardener fifty yards away snipping the dead heads off the roses and threading the tendrils of the new growth through the bars of the trellis. Which of them saw the blooms more clearly and took more joy in them?

He did not enjoy dinner that evening either, and his discomfort was made worse when Lord Wellborough asked him quietly at the table if Monk would excuse them all that evening. They were all there to discuss the sensitive matter with which Monk was now acquainted, and as Monk was not involved, surely he wouldn’t be offended by being excluded from their talk that evening. There was some decent Armagnac in the library, and some rather fine Dutch cigars …

Monk was furious, but forced a smile as natural and diplomatic as he could. He had hoped that he might be present when they decided to discuss the matter and had invented a pretext of being an objective and fresh mind to aid them in covering all eventualities. However, it seemed natural that they regarded Monk as an interesting guest but an outsider, and Monk didn’t dare press the point. He was thankful that Stephan would be there and could convey back to him anything of use, but he would have welcomed the opportunity to question them himself.

The next day, Monk did, however, find an opportunity to
visit Gallagher, the doctor who had attended Friedrich after his fall and until his death. Everyone else went shooting for the day, but Stephan affected a slight indisposition and requested that Monk accompany him to the doctor. It was an injury to his hand, and he asked Monk to drive him in the gig.

“What was said last night?” Monk asked as soon as they were out of the drive and into the lane which led to the doctor’s house. Despite his walks with Stephan in the gardens of the Hall, he had felt oppressed and was glad to be out in the clear autumn air.

“I’m going to disappoint you,” Stephan said regretfully. “It turned out that I’d observed or remembered more than any of the others, and a few of them know more this morning than they did yesterday, thanks to me.”

Monk frowned. “Well, you could hardly not have pooled your knowledge with them, and at least we know what they’re likely to say, should it come to trial.”