Princes and Princesses

by Cartland, Barbara

  She had therefore taken a large suite on the ground floor of the Weimar and furnished it with her own possessions.

  As the door was opened for Mariska by a French servant wearing the de Vallière livery, her eyes rested on the beautiful Louis XIV furniture and the exquisite pictures by Boucher and Fragonard and she felt almost as if she had come home.

  Everything in the Eszterházy Palaces in Hungary was in perfect taste and they boasted a storehouse of treasures collected over the centuries.

  Mariska hated the stiff and ugly pomposity of German furniture, which was characteristic of its people, especially those who dwelt in Royal Palaces.

  The Duchesse was sitting in the sunshine in a window of her large salon and, when Mariska was announced, she looked round with an expression of delight on her face.

  Nearing eighty, she was still beautiful and her white hair was immaculately coiffured.

  Her gown screamed Paris in every line and she wore jewellery that was reputed to have been heaped at her small feet by two of the crowned heads of Europe.

  “My dear child, it is delightful to see you,” she began holding out her blue-veined hands to Mariska and speaking in French.

  “Friederich has a visitor,” Mariska answered, “and I took the opportunity of coming to see you.”

  “You know nothing could delight me more,” the Duchesse smiled. “How are you, ma petite?”

  Her old eyes, which were extremely shrewd and missed nothing that was happening around her, were worried as they observed Mariska’s delicate features and the blue shadows under her huge eyes.

  She knew, although Mariska had never confided in her, that they came not from tiredness but from the pain and suffering that her husband inflicted on her physically.

  There was little or nothing that went on in Marienbad and in other parts of the world that Duchesse was not fully informed about.

  An ardent letter writer, she received a huge mail from friends all over Europe. Someone once had said laughingly,

  ‘There is no one so well informed as the Duchesse de Vallière. It is suspected that even the lapdogs pass her information as to what goes on in the boudoirs and bedrooms of their Mistresses!”

  “How is Friederich?” the Duchesse enquired now.

  Although Mariska was not aware of it, the Duchesse had a special reason for asking the question.

  “He was much brighter last night,” Mariska replied. “You will hardly believe it, but we had a dinner party!”

  “A dinner party?” the Duchesse exclaimed in surprise as this was a piece of news that she had not yet heard about.

  Mariska nodded.

  “General Baron von Echardstein and Admiral von Senden came to see Friederich yesterday and after they left he was better than I have known him for some time.”

  “How was that?” the Duchesse asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mariska replied, “but I understand there is something that the Kaiser wishes Friederich to do for him.

  She clasped her hands together as she went on,

  “He would not tell me what it was, but I do hope it is something he really can do. For the first time for months he actually wished to entertain.”

  “Who were your guests?” the Duchesse enquired and there was no doubt that she was interested.

  “Friederich himself wrote a letter to Baron Karlov and instructed me to invite Lord Arkley.”

  Mariska’s voice warmed for a moment as she continued,

  “He was very – kind. King Edward introduced him to me when we were leaving the Kreuzbrunnen yesterday morning and apparently he stayed at Wilzenstein in the old days.”

  “So you liked Lord Arkley.”

  “He is very – pleasant.”

  The Duchesse noted that a faint colour rose in Mariska’s cheeks.

  “A great many women have found him so,” she remarked.

  “That is not surprising,” Mariska replied, “for he is extremely handsome and also intelligent.”

  “They say he knows more about the intrigues of nations than the Ambassadors themselves,” the Duchesse commented dryly.

  “He has just been staying with several different Rulers in Germany.”

  “So I have heard,” the Duchesse answered, “and, of course, that interested Friederich or was it the Baron?”

  “Why should the Baron be interested?” Mariska asked in surprise.

  The Duchesse was about to reply and then seemed to change her mind,

  “The Baron is a snob and a social climber,” she did however say. “I am sure that he was delighted to dine with you.”

  “I was rather surprised that he could come at the last moment.”

  “I am more surprised myself that Lord Arkley could accept your invitation,” the Duchesse said. “He is very much in demand and I am sure that all the hostesses who wine and dine the King are only too willing to include him at their tables.”

  Mariska did not speak and the Duchesse went on,

  “He has had a great many love affairs in his life. I am told that the one he has enjoyed for the last six months with the Marchioness of Hastings is now at an end.”

  Mariska smiled.

  “How can you know all these things, living here in Marienbad?”

  “I have ways and means,” the Duchesse replied. “As a matter of fact King Edward told me that when he called on me yesterday.”

  “The King came to see you?” Mariska queried. “I am so glad. He was very kind to me yesterday. I feel he leaves happiness wherever he goes.”

  “And sometimes a broken heart!” the Duchesse smiled. “But you are right, he is a kind man. It is not surprising that everyone loves him.”

  “He spoke very – warmly of – Lord Arkley.”

  “Lord Arkley is his protégé and a very useful one.”

  Again it seemed as if the Duchesse would say more, but instead she asked,

  “What do you intend to do today?”

  “I expect what we always do. How I wish that Friederich was well enough to go driving, but he says he dislikes being jolted in a carriage. I long to see the woods.”

  She rose as she spoke to stand looking out of the window at the flower-filled gardens and the fir trees beyond them.

  There was sadness in the Duchesse’s eyes as she thought how lovely she looked.

  Few women of her acquaintance, which was a very large one, could carry off such an intolerable existence as Mariska’s with such dignity.

  She turned from the window.

  “I must go back,” she said. “Friederich will need me. But may I come again if there is a chance of my doing so?”

  “You know, my dearest child, you are always welcome. I love all your family. Prince Miklós, your father, your sweet mother and a dozen of your relatives. Anything I can do for you helps to repay all their kindnesses to me in the past.”

  The Duchesse smiled again and then she added,

  “And, of course, as you well know, I love you for yourself and feel almost as if you are my daughter or should I say granddaughter?”

  “I would love to be your daughter and have French blood in my veins,” Mariska said passionately. “Your taste is so perfect and, when I come into this room, I know that it is a background I would love for myself.”

  “Perhaps one day you will have it,” the Duchesse said quietly. “When you see Lord Arkley again ask him to tell you about the French furniture he has in his house in Hampshire.”

  “I will – if I see him,” Mariska murmured. “H-how – do you know about his house?”

  “I have stayed there,” the Duchesse replied. “His mother was a friend of mine very long ago.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  “She was a very sweet woman, one of those people whom you think of as being intrinsically good. I don’t think that Leila Arkley has ever said anything unkind or bitter in the whole of her life.”

  The Duchesse paused before she added,

  “At the same time she could keep a whole table laughi
ng and stimulate intellectual conversation.”

  The Duchesse’s voice had a sharp note in it as she continued,

  “Which is more than many of those so-called beauties who fawn on King Edward are capable of doing!”

  Mariska smiled.

  She knew that the Duchesse was a little jealous of the young women whose beauty gained them notoriety, but who she considered were brainless nincompoops and had nothing to offer a man except a pretty face.

  “I am sure that no one, not even Lady Arkley, is as amusing or intelligent as you,” Mariska said.

  As she spoke, she bent down to kiss the Duchesse’s soft cheek.

  “I shall be down to see you again at the earliest opportunity.”

  “I shall be waiting,” the Duchesse replied, “and tell Lord Arkley I would like to see him. I expect he has forgotten, if he ever knew, that I was a friend of his mother’s.”

  “I will tell him,” Mariska promised.

  As she hurried up the stairs to the first floor, she hoped that she would have an opportunity to deliver the Duchesse’s message.

  Lord Arkley had been so kind, so very kind to her last night, and she knew if she was honest that she longed to see him again.

  She wanted to go on talking to him about the things that she was sure no other man would know about or understand.

  Then she thought with a feeling of despair that he would be caught up in the gaiety of Marienbad and would find her a bore.

  She was quite certain that he had come to dinner last night merely because he was sorry for Friederich.

  She felt sure that the dinner party had bored him and doubtless he had been disgusted at the way that Friederich had as usual drunk too much.

  She did not have to be told that Lord Arkley with his spare athletic figure was abstemious whatever the habits of the people he would be associated with.

  ‘Perhaps I shall never have – a chance of talking to him – again,’ she thought and felt her spirits droop.

  She opened the door of the suite and knew as she did so that she was back in time and that there would be no need for Friederich to know where she had been.

  The General’s heavy gold-braided cap was lying on a chair and she could hear voices in the sitting room.

  However the sitting room door could not have been securely fastened for the draught she made in coming in through the outer door made it open a trifle and she heard the General say,

  “If you find it is impossible I can ask Baroness von Kettler to come here. As you know, she is a very alluring woman and has done excellent work for us in the past.”

  “No, no, of course not,” Prince Friederich said almost angrily. “Leave everything in my hands. I assure you I shall not disappoint the Kaiser.”

  “I hope you will not do so, but if it proves too much for you please inform Admiral Senden. He will be staying here for the next ten days as he wishes to take the cure.”

  Mariska went into her own bedroom and closed the door. She knew from Friederich’s voice that he was on the defensive and at the same time angry that the General should doubt his ability to do what was required.

  But what was required? Why did Friederich not confide in her? And who was Baroness von Kettler? She did not seem to have heard the name before.

  A few minutes later she heard the voice of the General speaking to Josef in the vestibule and then the sound of the outer door closing.

  Quickly she went into the sitting room.

  Friederich was sitting by the fireplace in his wheelchair. He did not turn his head as she entered and she thought that he was frowning, which was a bad sign and immediately made her feel apprehensive.

  “Why did the General come to see you?” she asked him.

  She knew it would infuriate her husband if she revealed that she knew that the General had come to say ‘goodbye’.

  “He had private matters to discuss with me,” the Prince answered in surly tones.

  Then he glanced at the clock and gave an exclamation.

  “It is time I was taking the waters! Where the hell is Josef?”

  “He is here waiting and as you see I have on my hat and we can take you to the Colonnade immediately.”

  “Then why the devil are we waiting?” the Prince demanded angrily. “If I am ever to get well I must stick to my routine, you know that.”

  Mariska did not answer back.

  She knew that it was typical of Friederich to blame her and Josef for the fact that General von Echardstein had kept him talking for so long that he was twenty minutes late in leaving the hotel.

  It was with difficulty that she prevented herself from reflecting that it was not actually of the least importance one way or another.

  Although they had never admitted it to Prince Friederich, the doctors had told her quite bluntly that he would never be any better than he was at the moment

  No Spa, no treatment, no Hospital could do more for him than had been done already.

  But it was Mariska who had insisted that hope could sometimes work miracles and the final cruelty to a man who was suffering through no fault of his own would be to take away all hope from him.

  Equally it was hard for anyone to live with Prince Friederich and the one major fear of her life was that Josef would leave.

  Although they had never discussed it, she had the feeling that one of the reasons why he stayed was that he was fond of her and felt sorry for her.

  Certainly no one else would have put up with Prince Friederich’s constant fault-finding, the way he shouted at him and treated him as if he was a slave.

  The servants at their Palace in Wilzenstein were constantly changing and, as for her Ladies-in-Waiting, Mariska had given up counting how many she had had in the last two years.

  None of them would endure Prince Friederich’s rudeness and the insulting way that he spoke to them whether he was drunk or sober.

  Mariska was well aware that it was incorrect for her to travel without a Lady-in-Waiting.

  But the one who had promised to accompany her to Marienbad had on the very day before they left Wilzenstein taken herself and her luggage away from the Palace.

  “I am sorry, Your Royal Highness,” she had said to Mariska before she left. “I like being with you, but I would not have thought it possible to be insulted as His Royal Highness has just insulted me!”

  “You know that he is not responsible – for what he says,” Mariska had murmured.

  “That is not entirely true, Your Royal Highness,” her Lady-in-Waiting had answered, “and there is some language that no lady should have to listen to. Forgive me, ma’am, but I am returning home and I and all my family will never again appear at any function that takes place in the Palace.”

  There had been nothing Mariska could say to pacify her.

  Yet in a way it had been a relief to come to Marienbad with no Lady-in-Waiting to placate or apologise to and no one before whom she need feel embarrassed when Friederich was at his worst.

  She was, however, personally restricted in that when Friederich was having his treatments there was no one who she could walk about the town with or sit in the gardens.

  She sometimes persuaded her maid to go shopping with her, but Helga was an elderly woman who disliked walking. She claimed that she had so much to do that it was difficult for her to find time to keep her Mistress’s clothes in order without having to make unnecessary excursions from the hotel.

  Mariska therefore resigned herself to reading in a bleak waiting room when Friederich was with the doctor or having special massage.

  Sometimes she wondered if her life would ever hold anything but furious scenes with Friederich when they were together and the boredom of waiting for him when they were not.

  But even to be in Marienbad and to be able to look out of the windows was better than feeling confined in the Palace at Wilzenstein where she was not allowed to change anything.

  The previous Grand Duchess had in Mariska’s estimation the most appalling taste, but,
although she pleaded with him, Friederich would not permit her to choose even new curtains for her private sitting room.

  Every room in the Palace was decorated in sombre shades of brown occasionally interspersed with mustard.

  There was a lack of colour everywhere and even flowers when they came into the Palace seemed to lose their vividness and look drab.

  To Mariska, who loved beauty and came from one of the most beautiful countries in the world, it was a physical pain to look at the ugliness around her.

  She could not even enjoy the garden for it had been laid down that certain flowers should be potted out with a regimental precision at certain times of the year and it was forbidden for her to change the traditional programme.

  Sometimes she would long with an intensity that brought tears to her eyes for the wide-open Steppes that she would gallop over with her father.

  She yearned too for the silver rivers, the wild flowers, the snow-capped peaks of the mountains against a blue sky and perhaps more than anything else for the spirited horses of Hungary.

  Every day, every moment, she missed her family unbearably.

  Why in Wilzenstein did no one laugh? Why was anything intelligent or interesting that she spoke about answered in repressed monosyllables and the subject immediately changed to German Politics or civic problems?

  Even the music that she had always been told was close to every German’s heart seemed somehow constrained when she listened to it sitting on a hard chair in the Music Room of the Palace.

  At least Marienbad was beautiful and as a few minutes later Mariska followed her husband’s wheelchair down the corridor she thought with relief that they would soon be out in the sunshine.

  Friederich was grumbling and complaining that they were late. When he had a grievance, he worried at it as a terrier worries at a bone.

  Mariska had learned to close her ears to much that he said.

  As they moved outside the hotel the sunshine was in her eyes and anything that Friederich was saying faded like the murmur of distant thunder on a summer’s day.

  Because it was later than usual the Kreuzbrunnen was packed and the ladies in their flower-trimmed hats holding their small sunshades looked like beautiful flowers.

  It was absolutely essential that they should not get sunburnt! At the same time it was unthinkable not to be seen on the sunlit terrace outside the Colonnade.