Flashman and the Tiger: And Other Extracts from the Flashman Papers. George Fraser MacDonald
her silky blonde hair as she smiles, revealing the brilliancy of her small teeth – you found her portrait forbidding, non? My friend, when you see those queenly features melt into the tenderest of expressions, the animation of her darting glances, the melodious quality of her voice … ah, mais ravissante –’
‘Whoa, steady lad, mind the cutlery. Liked her, did you?’
‘My friend, I was enchanted!’ He sighed like a ruptured poodle. ‘I confess it, I who have encountered the charms of the loveliest women in Europe, that the Princess Kralta wove a spell about me. And it is not only her person that allures, her exquisite elegance, her divinity of shape and movement –’
‘Aye, she’s well titted out, I noticed.’
‘– but the beauty of her nature, her frank friendliness and ease of deportment, the candour of her confidences …’
He babbled through the next two courses, but don’t suppose that I despised his raptures – there are women like that, and as often as not they’re not the ones of perfect feature. Angie Burdett-Coutts was no radiant looker, but she’d have caused a riot in the College of Cardinals simply by walking by, whereas the Empress of Austria, of whom more presently, was perfection of face and figure and quite as exciting as a plate of mashed turnip. I’d seen enough of la Kralta in her picture to believe that she might well have the magic, February face or no.
She’d gone out of her way to captivate Blowitz over a period of months, doing him little kindnesses, making friends with his wife, and trusting him with her most intimate confidences – which is the surest way a woman has of getting a man under her dainty thumb. Once or twice she spoke of the Berlin Congress, and Bismarck’s curiosity as to how Blowitz had got his ‘scoop’ – it had irritated Otto that he couldn’t fathom that, and he’d told her he was determined to find out some day.
‘Indeed, my friend,’ says Blowitz to me as he plunged into his dessert, ‘she confessed to me that she had promised the Prince she would use all her womanly wiles to wring the secret from me. I admired her honesty in admitting as much, but assured her that I never, under any persuasion, betray my sources. She laughed, and told me playfully that she would continue to try to beguile the truth from me.’
‘And did she succeed?’
‘No – but I was content that she should try. One does nothing to discourage the attention of a lady of such fascination. I am not vain of my attractions,’ sighs he, glancing ruefully at the balding little tub with ghastly whiskers reflected in the long glass on Voisin’s wall, ‘and I know when I am being … how would you say? … worked upon. I enjoy it, and my affection and regard for the lady are not diminished. Rather they increase as she continues to confide in me with a candour which suggests that her friendship and interest in me are true, and not merely assumed. Listen, and judge for yourself.’
And he launched into a piece of scandal which I’d have said no woman in her right mind would have confided to a journalist – not if she valued her reputation, as presumably this Kralta female did. Yet she’d confessed it, says Blowitz, to convince him how deeply she trusted him.
This was her story: she’d been staying at some fashionable spa where the German Emperor, an amiable dotard with whom, as Blowitz had said, she was on friendly terms, had sent for her in great agitation. Would she do him a favour – a service to the state and to the peace of the world? At your service, Majesty, says loyal Kralta. The Emperor had then confessed that he was damnably worried about Bismarck: the Chancellor was in a distracted state, nervous, irritable, complaining about everyone, suspicious that the Great Powers were plotting mischief against Germany, moody, obstinate, and off his oats entirely. Even now he was alone on his estate, sunk in the brooding dumps, and unless something was done he’d go to pieces altogether; international complications, possibly even war, would follow.
What Otto needed to set him to rights, said the Emperor, was an amusement, something to divert him from vexatious affairs of state – and Princess Kralta was just the girl to provide it. She must visit Bismarck’s estate in perfect secrecy, taking only her maid and enough clothing for a week’s stay; anonymous agents would drive her to the station, put her in a reserved compartment, meet her, arrange delivery of her luggage, and take care of all expenses. Her husband would have been got out of the way before her departure: the Emperor would send him to Berlin on a mission which would keep him there until after Kralta had returned to the spa. No word of her visit must be spoken; the Emperor’s part must never be mentioned.
Blowitz paused. ‘She agreed, without hesitation.’
‘Hold on there!’ says I. ‘Are you telling me that the German Emperor, the All-Highest Kaiser of the Fatherland, pimped for Otto Bismarck? Get away with you!’
‘I am telling you,’ says Blowitz primly, ‘precisely what the Princess told me. No more, no less, c’est tout.’
‘Well, dammit, what she’s saying is that she was sent – where, Schönhausen? – to grind Otto into a good humour!’
‘I do not know “grind”. And she did not mention Schönhausen. May I continue?’
‘Oh, pray do! I’m all attention!’
‘She goes to Bismarck. He asks “Did the Emperor send you?” She says he did not, and that she has come to see how such a great man will receive “a giddy little person who ventures into the lion’s solitude” – those were her very words to me. The Chancellor laughs, hopes it will not be a short visit, and then,’ says Blowitz, poker-faced, ‘assists her to unpack her “frills and furbelows” – her own words again – expressing gay amusement as he does so.’ He shrugged and sat back, helping himself to brandy.
‘Well, come on, man! What else did she tell you?’
‘Only that at the end of her visit the Chancellor saw her to her landau saying: “I have been delighted to forget the affairs of the world for a time.” The Princess returns to her watering-place, her husband is summoned back from Berlin, and the Emperor thanks her joyfully for saving the peace of Europe.’ Blowitz swilled and sniffed his brandy. ‘And that, my boy, is all the lady’s tale.’
‘Well, I’ll be damned! That’s one you wouldn’t send to The Times! D’you believe her?’
‘Without doubt. What woman would invent such a story? Also, I know when I am being deceived.’
I didn’t disbelieve it myself – although the Emperor’s part took a little swallowing. And yet … if he truly believed that a week’s rogering with a royal flashtail would put Otto in trim and keep the ship of state on a smooth course, why not? Bismarck would be all for it – he’d been the town bull around Schönhausen in his young days, and would be just as randy in his sixties. Well, it was an interesting piece of gossip, and confirmed that the haughty Princess Kralta was partial to mutton – come to think of it, Blowitz had a gift for encountering females who were patriotic riders, hadn’t he just? And of introducing ’em to me, bless him. Well, well. I returned to the point – which had suddenly become clear to me.
‘Well, Blow, I’m grateful to you for rehearsing the lady’s character for me,’ says I. ‘Very instructive, possibly useful. Of course,’ I went on carelessly, ‘the secret which she believes she can learn only from me is the one that Bismarck’s dying to know – how you got the Berlin Treaty in advance. That’s it, ain’t it?’
For once he was taken flat aback. His blue eyes popped, his jaw dropped, and then he burst out laughing.
‘Oh, but you should have been a journalist!’ cries he. ‘And I hoped to amaze you with my dénouement! How did you guess?’
‘Come, now, what other secret do I have that she could want to know? But if you’re willing to let her have it, why not tell her yourself?’ I nearly added that he could have charged her a delightful price for it (as I fully intended to, given the chance), but I knew that wasn’t his style. Odd fish, Blowitz; ready and willing to put me in the way of fleshly delights, as he’d shown in the past, but strict Chapel himself. He regarded