After a bath, Martha put on a different dress for dinner and sat at the dressing table that overlooked the lake. She thought of her mother when she put on make-up. Every day she thought of her at this time for the simple reason it was Kitty who had shown her what to do. ‘You’ve got my skin, so you don’t need much.’ ‘Your astigmatism, too.’ ‘Yes, I’m sorry about that. Anyone’s better for a little powder. You don’t need lipstick, not that dark one anyway. You’ve got nice lashes, so you can … up like that. Just a touch, that’s all.’

Kitty, all at sea when she arrived, had found her own destiny in the Schloss Seeblick. Thomas’s medical intervention had probably saved her life and his lasting love for her had made it a life worth saving. They had rescued something from the world’s chaos and passed it on to their children in the shape of education and stability.

But the legacy was two-edged. Martha herself would probably never marry, she admitted, not for the first time, as she walked across the landing to the head of the staircase; and she would never have children. How many more dinners would she go down to as the young and still perhaps desirable daughter of the house; what was the number after which her independence would harden into unapproachability? There would be a day, a single day, when she would cease to be a girl of passion and would be seen only as the legatee of a previous generation’s achievement.

She tried to smile as she felt the banister beneath her palm. Her dress rustled. It was her destiny to share the dividends of her fortunate upbringing and the range of her understanding. And God knows, she thought as she went down into the noise of the pre-dinner drinks, that ought to be enough for anyone.

Part Four

1

Rudolf was relieved to be back in Vienna, where his salary had enabled him to rent an apartment on the second floor of a building five minutes’ walk from the Imperial Hotel. It was not the best flat in the building; any passer-by could tell from the external decoration that the first floor belonged to someone wealthier. But it was within walking distance of his office, the Opera and anywhere he was likely to go in the evening; it had a view of the Belvedere Gardens, glass-panelled doors off a parqueted corridor and a spare bedroom for when Lena changed her mind.

As an only child, he had been used to having his own way. The nurse who looked after him was easy to manipulate; his mother told him he was the teacher’s favourite, and he believed her. His father was busy with his law practice and had little to do with his son from day to day. As he grew up, Rudolf believed he could live his life both ways: as a lawyer, nominally, to please his father, but a radical at heart; as a monogamous romantic with pretty mistresses at night. It enraged him when the world would not accommodate his needs. It was as if his father’s unimaginative view of life had trumped his mother’s ambitions for him. And his own response to women seemed so unpredictable. He wished he had been more like the junior clerk at his office, who simply went out chasing different girls every night.