Airs Above the Ground by Mary Stewart Read Free Book Online Page B

story that it never occured to him to wonder at our interest. A few more questions, and we had gathered all that we had wanted to know. Two days ago the circus had still been in Oberhausen, detained there by the police; its next stop was to have been Hohenwald, a village some fifty kilometres deeper into the Gleinalpe. There was a train at nine-forty next morning which would get me into Bruck before midday, and it was even possible that the local bus service might operate as far as Oberhausen, or, if necessary, Hohenwald, by the very same night. It was certainly possible to find somewhere to stay in any of these villages; there was an excellent small Gasthof in Oberhausen itself, called (inevitably, one felt) the Edelweiss, and I must, also inevitably, merely mention the hall porter’s name to Frau Weber, and I would be more than welcome . . .
    ‘Gosh,’ said Timothy, as we let ourselves out of thehotel again into the brilliant noisy square, and turned towards the Kärntnerstrasse, ‘I wish I was coming with you. I’ve always wanted to get inside the works of a circus, if that’s what you call them. You’ll promise to ring me up tomorrow night, won’t you, and tell me how you got on, and what’s happened?’
    ‘I promise – that is, if I know where to get hold of you.’
    ‘There’s that,’ he agreed. ‘Well, if father and Christl won’t have me, I’ll come with you. I really don’t feel you ought to be allowed to go all that way on your own! Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to come with you and buy the tickets and find out about the buses?’
    ‘I’d love you to. I might even hold you to that. And now, if we’re to get to Sacher’s in time, we’d better get a move on. Can you really eat another meal? I thought you were a bit rash with that
Hühnerleberisotto
at the Deutsches Haus.’
    ‘Good lord, that was hours ago!’ Timothy had quite recovered his buoyancy with the meal; he charged cheerfully along the crowded pavement, examining the contents of every shop window with such interest and enthusiasm that I began to wonder if we would ever reach our rendezvous. ‘What is this Sacher’s anyway? It sounds a bit dull, a hotel. Will there be music?’
    ‘I’ve no idea, but it certainly won’t be dull. Everyone who comes to Vienna ought to go there at least once. I believe it’s terribly glamorous, and it’s certainly typical of Old Vienna, you know, baroque and gilt and red plush and the good old days. It was started by MadameSacher, ages ago, some time in the nineteenth century, and I believe it’s still fairly humming with the ghosts of archdukes and generals and all the Viennese high society at the time of the Hapsburgs. I think I even read something in a guide book about an archduke or something who went there for a bet in absolutely nothing whatever except his sword and maybe a few Orders.’
    ‘Bang on,’ said Timothy. ‘it sounds terrific. What would my mother say?’
    Sacher’s Hotel was all that I had imagined, with its brilliantly lit scarlet and gold drawing-rooms, the Turkey carpets, the oils in their heavy frames, the mahogany and flowers and spacious last-century atmosphere of comfortable leisure. The Blue Bar, where we were to meet Graham Lacy and his lady, was a smallish intimate cave lined with blue brocade, and lit with such discretion that one almost needed a flashlight to find one’s drink. The champagne cocktails were about eight and sixpence a glass. Tim’s father produced these for the company with very much the air of one who was producing a bribe and trying not to show it. Christl, on the other hand, did her best to pretend that this was a perfectly ordinary occasion, and that she and Graham had champagne cocktails every evening. As, perhaps, they did.
    Somewhat to my own surprise, I liked Christl. I don’t quite know what I had been expecting, a predatory Nordic blonde, perhaps, on the model of the one I had seen with Lewis. She was indeed ablonde, but not in the