Stone's Fall

by Iain Pears

  “Barkoczy von Futak uns Szala,” she completed for me.

  “Quite a mouthful. You don’t think something more straightforward might have been better?”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “The longer the name, the better it is. Besides, such a person existed, I met her mother once. She told me she had once had a daughter who would have been about my age had she lived. So I decided to bring her back to life.”

  “I see.”

  “I will do no more for you,” she said suddenly.

  “I haven’t asked you to. Nor was I going to, tempting though the prospect is. I have no doubt that my masters, if I had any, of course, would disapprove thoroughly of my weakness. But I have never had a taste for forcing people to do things. I believe my treatment of you in the past was perfectly straightforward and honourable.”

  She nodded.

  “Let it remain so. But I would like to know how you managed your rise to fortune since we last met. Your circumstances were somewhat different then.”

  She laughed, and even though there was absolutely not one jot of difference on her face, I could sense that she was relaxing. She believed me and, up to a very limited point, trusted me. Which was justifiable; as I spoke the words I meant them. But, in the back of my mind I knew that, one day, I might have to betray that trust. I did not like blackmail, but I knew enough of the world to know how well it worked. I say in my defence only that I hoped it would never be necessary.

  “Would you care for some tea, Mr. Cort?”

  “Thank you, Countess. That’s my real name, by the way. I see no point in playing games with false ones. There, I think, we differ.”

  She rang a little bell on the side table, and gave the order to a servant who appeared with great speed. I very much hoped he was not the sort of servant who listened at doors.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, reading my face well. “It is very thick wood, and neither of us have voices that carry. Besides, although Simon has waggling ears, he is both well paid and has secrets of his own that are better not exposed to public view.

  “As for my little subterfuge, my own name would open no doors. A title of nobility, however spurious, does so in this republican country. One does what is necessary.”

  The tea arrived, with delicate china cups and a silver teapot. Very pretty, although not for the serious tea drinker. One has to make allowances. “Do you wish to sit outside?” she asked. “It is a fine day, and I have an excellent view of the sea. Then I will tell you something of my story, if you wish.”

  She nodded to the servant, who took the tray outside, and when all was prepared, we followed. It was delightful; the villa was halfway up a small hill which rose up from the beach, with a large and well-stocked garden, a mixture of grass and plants more used to warmer climates. There was a tall tree to provide shade, and under this we sat at a graceful metal table, looking out over the sea, which entertained with the roughness of the waves, even though it was warm and still where we were.

  “Here, you see, we can be quite certain that we will not be overheard,” she said as she nodded that I might pour her tea for her. “Curiously, there is not so much to tell, once you leave out details that you would find sordid and unbecoming. I will put it in your own language, just as I took your approach. I reinvested my profits, and accumulated capital, and then decided to diversify into a new area of operation. How does that sound?”

  “It sounds highly commendable, even though it tells me nothing at all.”

  “You know the early part; I worked my way up the ladder of seniority amongst the officers in Nancy, where I made a great discovery. Which was that it was more profitable to be a man’s mistress than a whore. Forgive my language. Men reward their mistresses, and married men will go to considerable lengths to keep them quiet. As they have only a limited amount of time to consort with people like me, there is much time left over. Consequently, I realised that I could be the exclusive mistress of one man on Monday, of another on Tuesday, a third on Wednesday, and so on. As long as none knew of the others, all would be well. All of my shareholders, as I call them, agreed to keep me entirely, and so I gained five times as much, the majority of my earnings being pure profit. As two were exceptionally generous, I very soon accumulated enough to consider an independent existence.”

  “Enough for this?”

  “No. I have very little money at the moment. All my earnings I have invested once more—the jewels, the clothes, this villa, the house in Paris. I survive on a diet of debt and donations. But I no longer fear the gutter.”

  “I am glad for you.”

  She nodded.

  “So you are still…”

  “Yes?”

  “How to put this? Juggling clients? How many?”

  “Four. It is all that can be managed safely. And I do find I like time to myself; I reserve two or three days a week for relaxation and proper sociability. And, at present, I am on holiday. Of a sort.”

  “Of a sort?”

  “My other great discovery is that men are much more generous to women who do not need their generosity. To put it another way, generosity is relative to a woman’s social situation. You, for example, lent me five thousand francs—more than I asked for, certainly, and enough to transform my life. But would you have thought you could have bought the Countess Elizabeth Hadik-Barkoczy von Futak uns Szala for such a sum? She who is known to be worth at least a million.”

  “Are you really?”

  “I said ’known to be.’ Not that I am. Reputation is more important than reality, Mr. Cort.”

  “I see. And the answer to your question is no. But then, I very much doubt the idea of buying a countess would ever cross my mind.”

  “Then you are unlike many men, for whom the more unattainable the prize, the more they must have it.”

  “M. Rouvier?”

  She held up a finger reprovingly. “I am happy to discuss things in general, Mr. Cort. But the particular must remain my secret.”

  “My apologies. If my acquaintance of last night is correct, then you are fast becoming the most unattainable woman in Paris.”

  “And hence the most expensive,” she said with a smile. “And that takes money. Staying in this house for a month, entertaining lavishly, costs a fortune. But it also makes men more generous.”

  “I find it difficult to believe that each interested party is unaware of the others.”

  “Of course they know of each other. But each thinks he is in unique possession, while the others are merely jealous.”

  “I do not see how such an arrangement can endure without some mishap.”

  “Probably it cannot. But I believe that in another year it will not matter. I will have accumulated enough money to keep myself in comfort, and so will have no more need of such arrangements. I do not think that such a life can continue forever, and there are few things worse than a middle-aged trollop.”

  The words made her thoughtful, and I sensed that they had also made her uncomfortable.

  “I hope you will not find me rude if I say you must leave now, Mr. Cort. I have work to do this afternoon.”

  I rose to my feet and stammered slightly that, naturally, I quite understood.

  She smiled. “No. You misunderstand. I told you I am on holiday. I must attend the Princess Natalie. A boring and remarkably stupid woman, but I need her approval. So,” she said brightly, “I must go and charm her or, at least, disguise my disdain.

  “Please come and visit again,” she said as I prepared to leave. “I am giving a soirée tomorrow evening here, at nine o’clock. You would be a welcome guest.”

  “I am flattered. But I would have thought—”

  “—I would want to keep you as far away as possible? Certainly not; it is agreeable to find someone whose way of life is even more immoral than my own. Besides, I think it would be best to keep an eye on you here. And I like you.”

  It is strange how such a simple statement can cause an effect; from her lips, the sentence made a huge i
mpact on me. She did not like many people, I suspected; life had taught her few were likeable and fewer still were trustworthy. Yet she offered me both. She managed to make the offer seem both generous and a privilege. Was that calculation? If so, part of the art lay in making it not seem so, but to be rather something that came from the heart.

  You think me foolish, reading these words, that I could be so bemused by the wiles of a former streetwalker? Well, you are wrong, and would accept that if you had met her when she was at the peak of her powers. Not that she was gentle or vulnerable herself, however much she could appear to be so. She had learned to survive, to fight and never to give ground against a hostile world. However soft and feminine she appeared, she had a core that was as tough as steel. No one knew her, and certainly no one took advantage of her. Not twice, anyway.

  She came closer to trusting me than anyone in her acquaintance. I hope I do not flatter myself by saying that I deserved it, that it was not simply because she knew my secret as well as I knew hers, although that was no doubt part of the reason. I had had the opportunity of mistreating her and had declined it. I had dealt with her fairly, and had not abused my power over her. I had treated her as her character deserved, not as her condition allowed. She was a woman of few loyalties, but when they were conferred they were boundless.

  CHAPTER 9

  The soirée was a great event; I could with only a touch of hyperbole say that it transformed my own position in France and (at the same time) added an important footnote to the history of the French courtesan. For much of the day I took my ease; reading the newspapers over my morning coffee, going for a walk along the beach, passing a few moments in conversation with recent acquaintances briefly encountered. And then, at lunch, I had my meeting with Wilkinson; we ate together at a restaurant in the town, and had a perfectly pleasant, though entirely useless, conversation. He went on at great length about some rare bird he had spotted in the mountains, and was so excited—apparently it had not been seen since some legendary Spanish ornithologist had recorded it in the 1850s, and Wilkinson believed that he had won undying fame in the world of bird lovers as a result—that he could talk of little else. I told him about the coal, which pleased him, but he quickly went back to his birds once he had absorbed the information. All he said was “Good, good. Very pleasing.” He had no requests about anything else the Government needed to know. Apparently I was beginning to be trusted to work that out for myself.

  But it was pleasant enough and it saved me a good deal of weary memorandum writing later on, so I was satisfied. I also mentioned my remarkable meeting of the previous day, for I was aching to tell someone and knew that Wilkinson was about the only person in the world it was fair to confide in. He, after all, had been partly responsible for Virginie paying off her debts and launching herself on such a meteoric career. Besides, I was proud of her, and vain about my sagacity in spotting something that Lefevre had entirely overlooked.

  “In that case, I must meet her,” he said gaily, and my heart sank. “A soirée, you say? Excellent, I will come with you.”

  “I really don’t…”

  “I have long desired to meet her; I feel as though I know her so very well.”

  “I very much doubt she would want to meet you.”

  “She does not know of our association, I hope?”

  “Of course not.”

  “In that case, what possible objection could she have? I would like to thank her, and I think I know the best way to do it. Don’t worry, Cort. I’m not going to ruin your mascot. Quite the contrary. She might at some stage prove very useful.”

  He would not be dissuaded, and I heartily repented of my sudden garrulousness. I should have kept absolutely silent; but the levels of discretion I was forced to maintain were quite unnatural. I am not by nature a gossip, but all men need someone to talk to. I had no one in France, and the sudden appearance of Wilkinson made me treat him with more trust than he should have received. No harm came of it, but I had, nonetheless, made a mistake which stemmed from youth and naïveté. I never repeated it.

  At nine in the evening I picked him up from his boardinghouse—one which cost less per week than mine cost per night, as he pointed out—and was at least consoled to find him properly dressed. I had feared he would arrive in tweed jacket and hiking boots, but from somewhere or other he had acquired the necessary garb and, although he was not a man who could ever look elegant, he was at least perfectly presentable.

  Much to my surprise, he was a brilliant performer, for these sorts of occasions are little more than theatre. Whereas my style was to remain silent and listen, Wilkinson revealed an unsuspectedly ostentatious side to his character. He spoke French loudly and badly, with many gesticulations to make up for his grammatical eccentricities; he told anecdotes of doubtful taste to old dowagers which had them gurgling with pleasure, he leaped from topic to topic with gusto, recounted tales of horses to horsemen, birds to hunters and politics to politicians. He was, in fact, a great success; even more so when he left the party for half an hour, and returned with the Prince of Wales.

  I realised later that this was the whole point; this was his thanks. I should have realised that he would have known the Prince, who had arrived only the previous day, and Wilkinson was, I am glad to say, very much more dishonest than I had been. His Highness had not been told anything about who this Countess really was. He would never have been seen in public with such a person had the faintest whiff of scandal been attached to her name, although whom he tolerated in private was, as all the world knows, a very different matter. But he came, and his arrival signalled to the whole of French society that Elizabeth was utterly, totally and completely respectable. Far more than that; she could invite the most famous man in the world to her parties and he would come. Wilkinson’s coup de théâtre propelled her into the stratosphere of European society. Whereas before she had managed much by her own efforts, there were some who doubted her credentials. If anyone doubted her after that, it no longer mattered. It was a generous gift, as long as that was what it was.

  Even in those days, and even on holiday, the arrival of a figure such as the Prince was a matter of some pomp and ceremony; ordinarily, the fact that he was coming would be talked about for days; the hostess would make sure everyone knew about it, however discreetly the news was put abroad. Guests would wait to see whether the great man would be delivered; coaches and courtiers would drift in first to build up the excitement before he made his entrance. Would the Prince come? Would he be in a good mood? What would he wear? Such was the stuff of conversation as the clocks ticked away. And there was also the equally exciting possibility that he wouldn’t show up at all. In which case the standing of the hostess would collapse; the kindly would commiserate, the less kindly would scent blood and all would depend on how she dealt with such a bitter, public disappointment. Would it show? Or would she put on a brave face? All these details were noticed, and their sum total shifted the balance of power in the small but intense world of society.

  So the Prince’s entry to Elizabeth’s soirée was absolutely sensational. There was no warning, no prior gossip or announcements, he just strolled in, greeted her like an old friend, kissed her hand, and then talked to her in a friendly, respectful manner for a full fifteen minutes before circulating around the room, as everyone else there slowly but with deliberation jockeyed for position to be next in line for a royal word. Elizabeth later told me she reckoned it had increased her value by some three-quarters of a million francs, and she probably underestimated.

  It also worked wonders for my social standing as well, for after her, I received the most attention. Not much, but I became instantly a person to know, and a person who was known.

  “Cort, eh? Times?”

  “Yes, Your Highness.”

  “Keep it up.”

  “I will, sir.”

  “Splendid.” And he gave me a huge wink, to indicate that he knew exactly who I was, but which was interpreted by all who saw it as communica
ting some personal intimacy.

  “Charming woman,” he went on, indicating Elizabeth, who was discreetly now leaving him to his business. “Very charming. Hungarian, isn’t she?”

  “Yes, I believe so.”

  “Hmm.” He looked momentarily confused, as though he was mentally riffling through the Almanach de Gotha but was unable to find the page he sought. “Lots of people in Hungary.”

  “I believe so, sir.”

  “Well, well. It’s been a pleasure.”

  And he strode off to take his leave, kissing Elizabeth’s hand with all the fervent attention of the true connoisseur.

  She was, I must say, quite brilliant, and handled the situation with perfect balance. There was no shock on her face at all, though it must have been considerable; she did not react with an unwarranted air of familiarity, nor of surprise and delight. She received him with charm, leaving it to others to make of it what they would—did she know him, or not? What was the cause of his arrival? Was she so intimate in his circle that she could regard his arrival as that of just another guest? The shock waves spread out across Biarritz the next day (Princess Natalie, who had declined the invitation in order to keep Elizabeth in her place, was hard put to keep her grief to herself), then across France and Europe over the coming weeks as the season drew to an end and the temporary inhabitants of the town dispersed to their usual countries, taking with them news of the new star.

  “That was an unusual thing to do,” I said to Wilkinson as we travelled back to Paris the next day. He smiled.

  “The Prince does love the demimonde, and he does love beauty,” he said.

  “He knows…?”

  “Oh, good heavens no. And if he ever discovered, I would have a great deal of explaining to do. If he ever realised I had knowingly…”

  “Then who does he think she is?”

  “Lesser aristocrat, too low for inclusion in the Almanach. Lack of birth made up for by her radiant beauty. You told me she wasn’t beautiful.”