“I hope not,” Tilda sighed.
She saw Frau Sturdel off down the path, filled the jug with water from the pump and returned into the house, bolting the door behind her.
She found Rudolph shaved and looking incredibly handsome.
The room was full of sunshine and once again Tilda had the strange feeling that she was in another world and was no longer herself.
“Come and talk to me,” Rudolph suggested in his deep voice, “otherwise I shall become bored.”
“What do you want to talk about?” Tilda asked nervously.
“About you for one thing,” he answered, “I want you to tell me all about your life. This man you are betrothed to, what do you know about him?”
“Very little,” Tilda answered truthfully. “My parents think he is a suitable – husband and I really have no – choice in the matter.”
“What will happen if you dislike him when you meet?”
Tilda drew in her breath.
She had no idea how expressive her face was, so that Rudolph could see quite clearly that she was not only apprehensive but a little frightened.
“There will be – nothing that I can – do,” Tilda said after a moment.
“I think that all mariages de convenance are barbaric,” he said savagely. “A man and a woman should be allowed to choose their own mate and be permitted to find someone they love before they tie themselves up for life.”
He spoke so violently that Tilda asked,
“You are not married?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“There are a number of reasons,” he answered, “but principally because a man has much more fun when he is a bachelor.”
“Fun?” Tilda asked and then she added, “You mean they can enjoy themselves with lots of women rather than being faithful to one?”
“I should say that pretty well sums it up,” Rudolph agreed.
“Do you want – would you like to – marry Mitzi?” Tilda asked.
“Good Lord, no!”
He spoke spontaneously and Tilda felt a sudden gladness within her that had not been there before.
“Why not?” she asked.
He hesitated a moment before he answered,
“One does not marry the Mitzis of this world, alluring and attractive though they may be.”
“But you like being with her?”
Rudolph looked at her searchingly before he replied,
“Are you not insinuating rather a lot just because you saw Mitzi and me going into the Beer Hall? We were simply having supper together.”
Tilda did not answer and then he demanded,
“What are you thinking about? What are you assuming?”
“I don’t think I am – assuming anything,” Tilda answered. “I am just trying to understand. I have never seen anyone before – who looked like Mitzi.”
“I suppose not,” Rudolph said in a voice as if he was thinking about something else.
Then he said,
“I can imagine your life in England has been fairly restricted. Surely it was out of character for you to go to a Beer Hall?”
“I – persuaded my – uncle to take me there – ” Tilda said.
“I suppose you coaxed him into it and he did not like to refuse,” Rudolph remarked. “At the same time the English are usually too stuffy to enjoy such places.”
“It seemed very gay and I was enjoying myself until the students broke in.”
“Who could have imagined that things would get so rough?” Rudolph ruminated, “or that we would find ourselves in the predicament we are in at the moment.”
“You don’t think the Police are still searching for us?”
“We can only hope not,” he answered. “They will have recovered their wagon by now and we can only pray that they will forget the whole episode.”
There was a doubtful note in his voice that did not escape Tilda.
“And supposing they do go on looking for us?”
“We have already extricated ourselves from several uncomfortable situations. It will merely mean that we will have to extricate ourselves from one more!”
Tilda smiled.
“You were very clever the way you managed to avoid us being taken to the Police Station for – ”
“For an interrogation!” Rudolph finished.
Tilda was silent for a moment and then she asked,
“It may seem – impertinent, in which case you can – refuse to answer me, but what have you – done?”
Her blue eyes were very curious and Rudolph looked at her for a long moment before he said,
“What have you been imagining? That I am a bank robber, a jewel thief or perhaps an anarchist?”
“No, of course not,” Tilda said, “none of those things, but I could not help wondering why you are hiding from the Police.
“Perhaps my worst offence is being absent without leave,” Rudolph said slowly.
“You are a soldier?”
He nodded his head.
“But not a deserter?”
“No, of course not,” he replied. “I am merely playing truant. Something that is frowned upon by the powers that be!”
‘That is just what I was doing,’ Tilda thought to herself.
At the same time she could not help feeling relieved that Rudolph’s crimes were not worse.
She had been worried in the night in case she had allied herself to someone thoroughly despicable – someone who, if he were discovered, would involve her in even more scandal than she was in already.
It had seemed impossible that Rudolph could be a criminal and yet, Tilda told herself, one could never be certain.
It was obvious that a clever experienced crook would not look like one, unlike ‘toughs’ who wanted to look more ferocious than they really were.
But being absent without leave, although it might involve a stiff sentence in the Army, was not something that would concern the civilian Police, although doubtless there was a liaison between the two.
She realised suddenly that Rudolph was watching her.
“Well?” he asked, “are you glad it is nothing more violent? You might have entrusted yourself to a murderer or a strangler!”
“Of course I did not think you were anything like that,” Tilda replied almost hotly.
“As it happens, I don’t think that either of us had time to think of anything but saving our skins,” Rudolph said.
He laughed.
“I wish I could have seen the faces of those Policemen in the square when they saw their wagon disappearing before their very eyes. It will teach them to be more careful in the future.”
“They have had their revenge by shooting you in the leg”
“It was entirely my own fault,” he sighed. “If I had not forgotten that there would be barricades across the roads, we could have stopped sooner and perhaps turned down some country lane where no one would have found us.”
“We have been lucky as it is,” Tilda said. “Very very lucky!”
“I agree,” he said, “very lucky!”
His eyes were on her face.
Tilda cooked their luncheon and Rudolph commended her skill.
“Your future husband will certainly not have to complain about how you feed him,” he pointed out.
Thinking of the dull rather stodgy food that she had eaten with her relatives coming through Europe, Tilda wondered if she would have any chance of improving the cuisine in the Palace in Obernia.
She was well aware that it would not be protocol for her to interfere and then she told herself that, as Prince Maximilian was young compared with her Royal relatives, he would surely not be so hidebound or stuffy in his ways as they were.
“What are you thinking about?” Rudolph asked unexpectedly, “You look worried.”
“I was thinking about my future,” Tilda replied.
“That worries you?”
“Yes, of course it does. How would you like to be told you had to marry someb
ody without having seen her or knowing what she was like?”
Rudolph did not answer for a moment and then he asked,
“I presume that what you are bringing to the marriage is money and he is contributing rank?”
Tilda could see that this sort of conversation was dangerous.
She started to clear away the plates and dishes that Rudolph had eaten his luncheon from.
She took them into the kitchen, washed them up and then thought that he might take this opportunity to have a little nap.
But, when she entered the bedroom, she knew that he had been waiting for her as his eyes were watching the door.
“Come here, Tilda!” he said. “I want to talk to you.”
“About what?” she asked.
“Come and sit on the bed beside me.”
She obeyed him sitting down on the edge of the mattress so that she was facing him.
He took her hand in his.
“You are so small and lovely,” he said, “that I cannot bear to think of you being unhappy.”
Tilda looked at him in astonishment.
No one had ever spoken to her before in quite that gentle and caressing manner which seemed to send a little thrill through her.
She was also vividly conscious of the strength of his fingers as they held hers.
“It is not only that,” Rudolph said. “I am worried in case being here with me should get you into trouble. When your people learn about it, they will doubtless think it wrong and very reprehensible.”
“Perhaps they will never – know,” Tilda stammered.
“We must hope we can keep it a secret,” he answered. “But after I leave you in Munich, you will have to offer some explanation as to what you have been doing from the time they lost you to the time you return.”
“I expect I shall think of something,” Tilda said.
It was difficult at the moment to think of anything but the fact that she was close to him and he was touching her.
“We will talk it over when the time comes,” Rudolph said. “In the meantime we will continue to play husband and wife. I congratulate myself on the fact that, although it all happened in the dark, I chose a very alluring bride!”
“And you are the most handsome man I have ever seen.”
“Thank you,” he answered, “but I have the feeling that you should not be so generous with your compliments.”
“You mean – it was wrong for me to say that I think you are – handsome?”
“Not wrong,” he said, “but it is something you would never have said to an Englishman.”
Tilda gave a little giggle.
“No indeed, but then I have never seen one who is as good-looking as you.”
Rudolph’s fingers tightened on hers.
“You are adorable!” he said. “I expect many men have told you that?”
“No one has ever said anything I really wanted to hear,” Tilda admitted. “Do you really think – that?”
“That you are adorable?” he asked. “But of course! I never imagined that an English girl could be so small, so exquisite! In fact, little Tilda, you look like something out of a Fairytale.”
“That is lovely!” Tilda said. “You do say charming things! Do you say them to all the women you meet, like Mitzi?”
“You also ask the most embarrassing questions!” Rudolph exclaimed. “Somehow I cannot imagine the type of English household you have been brought up in.”
“Perhaps because of the way I have been brought up I now feel that I can say what I think.”
She gave a little sigh.
“It is so dull, so terribly dull to have to keep thinking before you speak.”
“I have found that too,” Rudolph agreed. “But you ought not to find life dull at your age. Now let me guess – ”
He paused for a moment to go on,
“ – if you were in England at this moment you would be driving in Hyde Park. You might visit the Crystal Palace and you would be partnered at a ball tonight by smart young gentlemen wearing stiff white shirt-fronts and white gloves.”
Tilda laughed.
“How do you know all that about England?”
“I have been in England during what is called the ‘London Season’,” Rudolph answered, “and I have watched the debutantes, who looked like you but were not nearly so pretty, step out of their carriages closely chaperoned by fierce-looking Dowagers as they trotted into some impressive house to take part in the ‘marriage market’.”
“The ‘marriage market’!” Tilda exclaimed.
“What else is it?” Rudolph asked. “When girls born into a certain stratum of Society must hope to entice into matrimony the highest bidder. In other words the man with the most money or the grandest-sounding title.”
There was a note of scorn in Rudolph’s voice, which made Tilda feel uncomfortable.
Although it had not happened to her, she was quite certain that what he said was true.
The debutantes who went to the balls night after night were in a kind of ‘marriage market’ and their only ambition was to win an important husband either as regards rank or wealth.
“Well, this is all experience for you,” Rudolph said. “Doubtless you will marry your important Bavarian and strive to forget the impropriety of sharing a wooden hut on the mountainside alone with me.”
“It is an adventure,” Tilda said in a low voice, “and I shall never – forget it.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Quite – quite sure.”
But for some reason Tilda did not understand she found it hard to look into his eyes.
They talked all through the afternoon.
They both liked music and Rudolph described the enormous success Wagner had achieved in Bavaria.
They had both read many of the same authors and were intrigued by Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.
While they found that they had so much in common, Tilda had the feeling that they were in a way duelling with each other.
She was concealing secrets from Rudolph and she thought that he too had secrets he was keeping from her.
She wondered if they concerned Mitzi, but she was sure that he was far too clever to tell her anything he did not wish her to know.
She on the other hand was terrified of making a slip, of being too revealing, because she was quite certain that it would not escape his notice!
Yet never, she told herself, had she enjoyed an afternoon more.
It was incredible to think that this was the first time she had ever been alone with a man and a young man at that.
Always before there had been her mother to chaperone her or someone old and authoritative to take her mother’s place.
But even so, chaperoned or not, she had never had the opportunity of talking to a man like Rudolph.
She could not have believed a man could be so handsome and yet so extremely masculine.
There was nothing soft or effete about him and she had a feeling, which she could not explain that he was very experienced with women.
It was quite a surprise when Frau Sturdel returned to find that it was six o’clock.
“I don’t suppose you missed me!” she remarked with a smile, “but I have been wondering how my patient is getting on.”
“I am completely recovered!” Rudolph answered.
“That’s for me to say,” Frau Sturdel insisted.
She got everything ready to change the bandages on his leg and then gave Tilda a number of tasks that took her out into the garden or kept her in the kitchen.
Tilda had the idea that Rudolph had asked Frau Sturdel to keep her away while she attended to him.
‘If he thinks his wound will upset me, he is mistaken!’ Tilda told herself proudly.
Equally she was rather glad she did not have to look at it again.
She had not forgotten how frightening it had seemed that first night when she had tried to staunch the flow of blood and being afraid that she would not know how to do so.
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Frau Sturdel brought them some roe deer steaks for dinner and Rudolph pronounced them excellent!
She also had a bottle of beer for him in her basket and, when he thanked her for her thoughtfulness, she answered,
“I am not so old that I have forgotten what a man enjoys!”
“Why have you not married again?” Rudolph asked her.
“I’ve found no one who took my fancy and that’s the truth!” Frau Sturdel said.
“I bet every man in the village is ready to lay his heart at your feet,” Rudolph remarked.
“Get along with you!” Frau Sturdel laughed, but she was obviously delighted at the compliment and looked quite coy.
“I must go back,” she said when they had finished their supper.
“Has the baby not been born yet?” Tilda asked.
“It is still keeping us waiting,” Frau Sturdel answered, “and that’s why I am quite certain it’s a girl!”
She set off again for the village.
Tilda locked the door and came back rather slowly into the bedroom.
Rudolph looked at her for a long moment and then he said,
“What is worrying you now?”
“I am – wondering where I can – sleep tonight,” she answered.
“Where you slept last night!”
She blushed.
“I think it would be – wrong now that you are conscious although I don’t quite know why it – should be.”
There was a pause before Rudolph said,
“I could give you a number of reasons, but actually I have a solution,”
“You have?”
“When I was in Sweden,” he said, “they told me of a strange custom that is enjoyed by engaged couples.”
“What is that?” Tilda asked.
“As you know, it is very cold there in the winter and there is usually a stove only in the main sitting room,” Rudolph began. “So if the engaged couple want to talk to each other alone, and it is far too cold for them to be in a separate room without a fire, they get into bed together.”
“Into bed!” Tilda exclaimed.
“Yes,” he answered, “but a large bolster is put down the middle of the bed between them so that they cannot touch each other. The custom is called ‘bundling’.”
“It sounds rather strange,” Tilda remarked.
“Strange or not, it is the answer to our present problem. You can take away the bolster I have been lying on. And then if you put it in the centre of the bed it will, I promise you, prove a most effective chaperone!”
Love Conquers War Page 10