Anything he can pick up – a commission on selling an old piece of furniture or a bibelot, acting as a guide to rich tourists who are beginning to come into the country, seeking out customers for a wine merchant – anything that doesn’t involve too much work! After all, he has two very valuable assets: his title and his charm.’
Eight
‘Poldo, I’ve had a letter from Valery, a very long letter, about her eldest, Marie-Theres.’
And the Countess Lensveldt picked up several sheets of slightly crumpled, thin airmail paper and tried to hand them across the table to her husband, who had just finished peeling an apple at the end of his luncheon. The scene was the dining room in the Lensveldts’ castle of Wald in Upper Austria.
‘Marie-Theres seems to be a difficult girl,’ the Countess continued, ‘a problem girl is what Valery calls her on one page, on the next she says that she is absolutely normal and very sweet-natured. That is meant to reassure us. I can’t make head or tail of what she means. Will you read the letter?’
‘Certainly not,’ the Count replied, ‘you know I don’t like reading complicated letters, and I can’t read Valery’s handwriting.’ The Countess put the sheets down next to her plate with a sigh. ‘Not that she has treated us to much of it,’ the Count continued, ‘as she might have done since postal communications have been re-established.’
‘Valery has always been out of touch with us,’ the Countess said thoughtfully.
‘Well, what does she say now? What does she want? I suppose she wants something, or she wouldn’t have written. And why do you say we need reassurance?’
‘Yes, the gist of it is that she wants to send Marie-Theres over here and she asks whether we would have her here at Wald – for a few months.’
‘For a few months! A difficult child! For you to cope with!’ the Count exploded.
‘Well, Valery says the difficulty does not lie so much in the girl herself, but that American life does not seem to suit her. She thinks a change of surroundings and our way of living here in the country would do her a great deal of good.’
‘Oh, she does, does she! But she doesn’t suggest coming over herself, after all these years, to see us, to see you and Fini. That would have been normal. But she always was eccentric, marrying a total stranger, going off to America with him, and now she’s got a problem daughter. I suppose the girl has got herself into a scrape with some young man. It can’t just be “surroundings”.’
‘Well, there does seem to be a boy in the background, but he’s not involved in the way you would think. I shall have to write and try to find out what all this is about. What she says is very confusing, for instance that Marie-Theres doesn’t like boys, and that her schoolteacher thinks that’s unnatural and has made Peter very angry by saying so. Anyway, here are some pictures of her.’
Count Lensveldt looked at the photos one after the other and then looked more closely. ‘She seems to be very pretty. How old is she?’
‘Let me see, she was, I think, two years old when Valery and Peter went to America. She must be about eighteen.’
The Count was studying the snapshots. They were in colour, a development which was not yet in use in Austria. ‘She’s certainly extremely pretty, more than pretty – beautiful. I can imagine all kinds of complications with those looks.’
The Countess smiled. ‘So you would agree to have her? By the way, Valery says that Peter will pay for her keep.’
‘Will he indeed! She’s your niece. We’re not paupers yet. When we have to take paying guests, we’ll have paying guests , not family. They must just let her have pocket money. Tell your sister that. ’ The Count picked up the photographs and put them in his pocket.
* * *
As the Countess Lensveldt sat down to write to Valery, she thought about her sister’s strange marriage and the circumstances leading up to it. For
Eight
‘Poldo, I’ve had a letter from Valery, a very long letter, about her eldest, Marie-Theres.’
And the Countess Lensveldt picked up several sheets of slightly crumpled, thin airmail paper and tried to hand them across the table to her husband, who had just finished peeling an apple at the end of his luncheon. The scene was the dining room in the Lensveldts’ castle of Wald in Upper Austria.
‘Marie-Theres seems to be a difficult girl,’ the Countess continued, ‘a problem girl is what Valery calls her on one page, on the next she says that she is absolutely normal and very sweet-natured. That is meant to reassure us. I can’t make head or tail of what she means. Will you read the letter?’
‘Certainly not,’ the Count replied, ‘you know I don’t like reading complicated letters, and I can’t read Valery’s handwriting.’ The Countess put the sheets down next to her plate with a sigh. ‘Not that she has treated us to much of it,’ the Count continued, ‘as she might have done since postal communications have been re-established.’
‘Valery has always been out of touch with us,’ the Countess said thoughtfully.
‘Well, what does she say now? What does she want? I suppose she wants something, or she wouldn’t have written. And why do you say we need reassurance?’
‘Yes, the gist of it is that she wants to send Marie-Theres over here and she asks whether we would have her here at Wald – for a few months.’
‘For a few months! A difficult child! For you to cope with!’ the Count exploded.
‘Well, Valery says the difficulty does not lie so much in the girl herself, but that American life does not seem to suit her. She thinks a change of surroundings and our way of living here in the country would do her a great deal of good.’
‘Oh, she does, does she! But she doesn’t suggest coming over herself, after all these years, to see us, to see you and Fini. That would have been normal. But she always was eccentric, marrying a total stranger, going off to America with him, and now she’s got a problem daughter. I suppose the girl has got herself into a scrape with some young man. It can’t just be “surroundings”.’
‘Well, there does seem to be a boy in the background, but he’s not involved in the way you would think. I shall have to write and try to find out what all this is about. What she says is very confusing, for instance that Marie-Theres doesn’t like boys, and that her schoolteacher thinks that’s unnatural and has made Peter very angry by saying so. Anyway, here are some pictures of her.’
Count Lensveldt looked at the photos one after the other and then looked more closely. ‘She seems to be very pretty. How old is she?’
‘Let me see, she was, I think, two years old when Valery and Peter went to America. She must be about eighteen.’
The Count was studying the snapshots. They were in colour, a development which was not yet in use in Austria. ‘She’s certainly extremely pretty, more than pretty – beautiful. I can imagine all kinds of complications with those looks.’
The Countess smiled. ‘So you would agree to have her? By the way, Valery says that Peter will pay for her keep.’
‘Will he indeed! She’s your niece. We’re not paupers yet. When we have to take paying guests, we’ll have paying guests , not family. They must just let her have pocket money. Tell your sister that. ’ The Count picked up the photographs and put them in his pocket.
* * *
As the Countess Lensveldt sat down to write to Valery, she thought about her sister’s strange marriage and the circumstances leading up to it. For
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