A Matter of Breeding Read Online Free Page B

daughter, a wonderful husband. Most women would give anything to trade lives with you, she told herself.
    Look at Tina Blau, she thought. There were no complaints from her, even though her work did not receive the attention it deserved, for the almighty critics felt it was the mere daubing of a woman and a Jew in a market dominated by the likes of Gustav Klimt and Carl Moll.
    Berthe knew the rough outlines of the woman’s life from Mayreder, who was a partner with Blau in the Vienna Art School for Women and Girls. Though Blau had been exhibiting since the 1870s, the only work of hers to gain renown was her
Springtime in the Prater,
from 1882. Blau had happily left Vienna to escape the dominance of the landscape painter Emil Jakob Schindler, her lover, but who was most often mistakenly described as her teacher, though he was three years her junior. Schindler, of course, subsequently became quite well known, and died young of a ruptured appendix. His daughter, Alma, was now being courted by the composer Gustav Mahler, while Schindler’s widow was remarried to the painter Moll.
    Vienna is an incestuous town, Berthe decided.
    Blau, on the other hand, converted to Christianity in 1883 in order to marry the German painter Heinrich Lang, who specialized in paintings of horses and military campaigns, and the couple had happily lived in Munich. The happiness was short-lived, though, for Lang died in 1891. After a number of years of traveling and painting in Holland and Italy, Blau finally returned to Vienna in 1897 and opened the landscape section of the art school in her own studio, which was part of the huge Prater Rotunde, originally built for the Vienna World Fair of 1873. Thus, instead of being able to make her living as a professional painter, Blau taught painting to others.
    But Berthe had never heard the older woman complain.
    ‘Stay with it, Frau Meisner. You are finding your line.’
    Berthe took a fiaker home from the lesson, and began to feel better about herself and her resolution to let the past go. She was eager to reach the flat in the Josefstädterstrasse and give her daughter a big hug. She wondered what Frau Blatschky, their housekeeper and cook, had decided on for lunch, but whatever it was, Berthe suddenly had an appetite.
    Letting herself into the flat, Berthe was greeted by Frieda who raced into her arms with a delighted squeal.
    ‘Opa and Oma, Opa and Oma.’ She sang this as she hopped from foot to foot.
    ‘What about your grandparents?’ Berthe said.
    Frau Blatschky stepped out of the kitchen and shook her head with disgust. ‘There will be four for lunch,’ she said, obviously put out.
    In the sitting room Berthe discovered Karl’s parents, Emile and Gertrud von Werthen. There was no greeting from the father, who merely looked at Berthe accusingly and said, ‘Is it true? Karl is in Graz?’
    ‘He has a client …’ Berthe began, but Emile von Werthen sank back in his chair looking so dejected and desperate, that she said, ‘What is it? Can I help?’
    He puffed out his cheeks and shook his head agitatedly at such a notion, but when his wife shot him a poisonous look, he relented.
    ‘I seem to have made an unwise investment.’
    ‘It is rather more than that, Emile,’ said Gertrud von Werthen. ‘Explain the matter to her. Berthe has proven herself more than competent in such matters.’
    Emile looked down at his hands, clasped rigidly in his lap, and then nodded.
    ‘A young journalist came snooping around Hohelände the other day. He is investigating a story that the bloodline of the Lipizzaner horses may have been compromised by a fraudulent stud line.’
    This statement seemed to take all the energy out of him. Berthe waited, but nothing more was forthcoming.
    ‘I do not understand what this has to do with you, Herr von Werthen.’ Berthe, even after her several years of marriage to the man’s son, was still not comfortable using his Christian name.
    ‘Emile.’ His wife’s voice cut