“Hush, cheri. You must not worry Miss Grant.” She added something in a language that was unfamiliar to Kathy, and the little boy subsided, and even closed his eyes so that he appeared to be asleep.
Throughout the journey to the airport Natalia chattered more or less incessantly, and during their brief wait in the V.I.P. lounge she continued to talk. In Paris, she stated, they would have a wonderful time. Leonid was prepared to allow them two days there—she didn’t appear to mind having her entire life organized by her brother-in-law—and they would simply wander from one couture establishment to another. And then in Rome, apparently, they would do very much the same thing, and the result would be that by the time they reached Tirhania they would both be superbly equipped. She seemed to think that her own wardrobe was quite as desperately in need of refurbishing as Kathy’s could be, and looking at her full-length sable coat, and the elegant wool dress underneath it which had obviously been the work of a top couturier, the English girl was rather touched by her naiveté. She herself was still wearing the russet suit, together with a lightweight tweed coat which had already served her for three winters, and she couldn’t have denied that the prospect of buying new clothes was exciting. But the Princess’s almost feverish absorption with the subject seemed scarcely natural, and Kathy sensed that it was simply part of an effort to help herself forget the other things that preyed on her mind.
They did not see very much of Leonid, who had driven to the airport in a separate car, and it was not until they were about to mount the steps of the airliner that he rejoined them. Natalia smiled at him as if she were glad to have him beside her, and for the first time Kathy found herself wondering exactly what sort of bond existed between them. It seemed to her that the Prince did considerably more than was strictly necessary when it came to looking after his sister-in-law, and although Natalia had not appeared exactly pleased to see him when he first came into her sitting-room at Ransome’s the night before, in general she certainly seemed happier when he was close to her.
It was a bitterly cold December day, and the sky over London Airport was grey and lowering. As Kathy climbed the gangway an icy wind struck her face, and for the first time it occurred to her that it really was very pleasant to be flying off to Paris, Rome ... and Tirhania. Down on the tarmac a television cameraman was desperately trying to film them, but now they were almost out of reach—at least for an hour or so.
In the warmth and quiet of the great aircraft Kathy sank gratefully into her seat beside the Princess, and felt excitement surging through her. She had never flown before, and she felt a little nervous, but a stewardess helped her to fasten her safety belt, and as the engines roared into life she forced herself to sit back and relax. Soon the airport buildings were racing past the windows, and everything seemed to be shuddering gently. They were leaving England—for Kathy it was the first time she had ever been out of her own country since that schoolgirl trip to Switzerland years ago and she couldn’t resist craning her neck to see the last of the tarmac, and the houses, and the grey December landscape.
And then they were airborne, soaring into the leaden clouds over London, and she knew that what she had done was now irrevocable ... there was no turning back.
CHAPTER FOUR
IT was early afternoon when they arrived in Paris, and the sombre rain-clouds which had hung over London brooded also over Orly. Kathy felt stiff, and Nina woke up crying and caught one of her fingers in her safety belt. When the doors were opened the atmosphere, if anything, was colder than it had been in London, and passengers buttoned their coats and pulled up their collars as they hurried down the gangway and across the tarmac to passport and Customs control.
As far as the royal party was concerned, all formalities were made miraculously smooth, and within less than ten minutes Kathy found herself once again sitting beside the Princess in a car—this time heading towards the centre of Paris, and the exclusive, internationally famous hotel at which suites had been reserved for them. Kathy felt a little tired, and as the weather in the French capital was hardly enticing she would gladly have spent the rest of the day indoors, savouring the delights of the luxurious rooms—a bedroom, a bathroom and a sitting-room—which had been assigned to her. But they hadn’t so much time to spare in Paris that Natalia was prepared to waste an hour of it, and so after only a very brief rest the two young women set out to visit Her Highness’s favourite couturier.
Despite her enormously increased salary the products of the foremost fashion houses of Paris were still naturally rather beyond Kathy’s reach, and so she only sat and watched while the Princess chose dress after dress from the current collection of Mariere, and the obsequious vendeuses bustled round them in droves, but as soon as Natalia had satisfied her own immediate requirements she turned to the English girl with a brilliant smile and suggested that they should now go on a tour of the shops.
“You wish the whole new wardrobe, yes?” she said, her magnolia-smooth cheeks glowing with pleasure. “Dresses and coats and suits ... yes, and sports clothes, and hats and handbags, too, I think.”
“I—I must only spend so much,” Kathy began, remembering everything she had ever heard about Paris prices, and thinking that it would hardly do to be too extravagant with her first month’s salary.
“Miss Grant, if you are to be my secretary you must be beautifully dressed, or you will be miserable. So many smart women ...” She waved one slim hand in an expressive continental gesture. “And besides, you are so pretty—really quite lovely—and you have to make a splendid marriage!”
Kathy flushed, but Natalia didn’t notice. “All women should have husbands,” she said. Their car had started to move off down the Champs Elysees, and she seemed to be staring rather blindly through the window at the passing shops and cafes. “The world is very lonely and frightening if you have no one to protect you.”
Realizing that she was now thinking mainly of her own position, the other girl felt an uprush of sympathy. “Surely,” she said gently, “you have someone to protect you? Prince Leonid ...”
“Yes. Yes, Leonid is very kind.” Her whole face seemed to lighten, and she smiled at Kathy. “And you, you are very kind. I shall find you a charming Tirhanian husband, and you will live close to the Schloss Zaarensbrucke, which is where I live, and you will be my best friend! And now here we are at the boutique of Madame Remier, and you can choose some suits.”
Madame Remier, an elderly and impressive French-woman, was clearly delighted that anyone as influential as the Princess Natalia of Tirhania had seen fit to recommend her to a friend, and she was also extremely helpful. Having taken one look at Kathy she declared that mademoiselle’s colour was obviously blue, and seating her clients in a magnificent powder-pink fitting-room produced model after model for the approval of the English girl. They were all so staggeringly perfect, and she was so completely bewildered, that she was hard put to it to say which she liked best, and she was grateful for Natalia’s invaluable advice and guidance. With unerring skill and taste, the Princess helped her to select all the items which suited her best and would be most useful to her, and by the time they returned to the car she had become the slightly dazed possessor of three enchanting suits—one in misty blue wool, one in a heavy champagne-coloured silk, and one in a tweed so darkly blue that it matched almost exactly the deep wood-violet hue of her own rather striking eyes.
From Madame Remier’s they went on to an establishment which specialized in evening dresses, and Kathy stared in fascination as some of the loveliest gowns she had ever seen in her life were paraded for her inspection. The Princess, it seemed, would have liked her to purchase half the shop, but she insisted that she could not at the moment afford more than one evening dress, and eventually decided on a subtly spectacular creation in midnight-blue tulle, with a draped bodice and a spreading ankle-length skirt which seemed to float about her like an undulating haze. When she put it on and studied her own reflection in a looking-glass she was barely able to recognize herse
lf, for it did such strangely breathtaking things to her skin and eyes that the young woman who had helped her into it permitted herself a small gasp of approval, and Natalia, standing behind her, clasped her hands together and gave vent to an exclamation in her native tongue.
“But you are entirely enchanting!” she said, tilting her head on one side. “Tonight we shall go to the theatre, and all the French gentlemen will stare at you.” The big brown eyes twinkled. “And now we will go and do the rest of our shopping.”
The rest of the afternoon, as far as Kathy was concerned, resembled a rather confused dream, and when, shortly before six o’clock, they finally arrived back at the hotel, all she could really be sure of was that in addition to the three suits and the evening dress she was now in possession of several attractive day dresses, a bewildering variety of shoes and other accessories, and a mountain of extremely glamorous lingerie. She was still vaguely certain that the total cost of her new wardrobe was considerably more than she could really afford, even now, and it worried her a little that in almost every case the garments had been placed temporarily, to Natalia’s account. But when she ventured to protest the Princess rebuked her by saying that her secretary must dress well, and that she could repay the money gradually. When she still gave indications of being unhappy about the situation Natalia evinced slight but unmistakable signs of being surprised and just a little cross, and Kathy realized that to persevere with the question at the moment would simply look like arrogance.
In the foyer of the hotel the Baroness Liczak was awaiting them. She was not, as Kathy had already discovered, a particularly expansive person, and as the English girl came through the swing doors in the wake of their mutual employer she knew that the Baroness was watching her with cold disapproval in her light grey eyes.
She spoke to the Princess in their own tongue, and her voice was prim and remote. As she listened to her the smile faded on Natalia’s lips, and with a consciousness of foreboding Kathy saw her push back her silver-blonde hair in the nervous gesture which meant that something had upset her.
She seemed to be asking questions, rapidly and disjointedly, and the Baroness answered in the same coldly respectful manner. Then Natalia turned to Kathy, and her face was small and forlorn.
“The Baroness says that Leonid—that the Prince has left. He has gone on to Tirhania ahead of us. There is something ... something that he has to attend to.” She stared absently at the two porters who were bringing Kathy’s purchases in and stacking them in the lift. “I wish he had not gone,” she said, and all the gaiety of the afternoon was banished from her face.
The Baroness stood by impassively, like an automaton awaiting instructions, and Kathy felt more than ever irritated by her. Several people were staring at them, for although they had not been pursued in Paris as they had been in London, certainly there could be no one in the hotel who did not know the identity of the fair-haired young woman with the magnificent fur coat and the air of being rather lost.
“I think,” said Kathy quietly, “that perhaps we ought to go upstairs.”
“Yes ... yes, of course.”
They started to move towards the lift, and the Baroness Liczak moved with them. She was speaking again, and something she said seemed to upset the Princess, who stopped in her tracks and uttered an exclamation, followed by a protesting torrent of words. But the Baroness, as imperturbable as ever, seemed to pacify her fairly quickly, and she fell silent, though her mouth was set in resentful lines, and on the way upstairs she hardly spoke at all. At the outer door of the royal suite the Baroness left them, but Kathy was urged to accompany her employer inside, and when the door was closed behind them Natalia flung her coat over a little gilt-legged chair, and wandered over to the window. Outside a fine rain was falling, and the sound of hissing tyres came up very clearly from the brightly-lit street below. Kathy took the sable coat into the bedroom and put it away. Then she came back, and picked up the telephone.
“I think you ought to have something,” she said. “Shall I order you a drink?”
“Yes, please.” The voice was quiet, and suspiciously husky. “A gin and orange. And order something for yourself.”
Kathy transmitted the order, asking for a sherry for herself, and then she put the receiver back on its rest and looked at the Princess’s uninformative and resolutely turned back. Feeling a little uncomfortable, and also very slightly exasperated, she wondered what to do.
Quite inconsequentially, she said: “It’s not a very nice night for the Prince’s journey.”
“No.” Natalia turned, and walked towards her. “Kathy, I am frightened.”
“Frightened?” Kathy stared at her. “Why, madame?”
“The Prince has appointed someone—a man from the Embassy—to escort us to Tirhania. Such a one could be dangerous ... how can I trust him?”
“Well, surely, if the Prince himself—”
“The Prince trusts people, Kathy. I cannot do so.” She started to move restlessly about the room, picking things up and putting them down again. Her drink arrived on a tiny silver salver, and was placed on a table. She took it and sipped at it, and then sank down limply on to a settee.
“The Prince told you why I am frightened, I think.”
“Yes, madame.”
“He thinks that I am wrong, that I have nothing to fear, but ...”
“Perhaps there is nothing to fear,” Kathy ventured gently.
“You do not know my brother-in-law.” The small, pretty hands toyed nervously with the stem of the glass. “My brother-in-law Anton, I mean. He hates me, and he hates Joachim. Joachim is the heir, you understand.”
“But surely,” said Kathy practically, “His Majesty could marry, and provide himself with a son?”
“Anton is married. But they say—oh, I don’t know if it is true—that the Queen will never have a child of her own.”
“I see.” Kathy tried another idea. “But, madame, you trust Prince Leonid, don’t you? Surely, if he says there is nothing to fear, there is nothing?”
“Leonid is—what you say—very sweet. He does not see the danger which is beneath his own nose, I think.”
Feeling definitely startled, and thinking that ‘sweet’ was the very last term which it would have occurred to her to use in connection with Leonid, Kathy abandoned the struggle to make Natalia see sense. And having abandoned it, she suddenly began to wonder whether there might after all be some truth in what the other woman believed.
“When shall we meet the gentleman from the Embassy?” she asked thoughtfully.
“We shall not meet him! I have made up my mind.” Natalia finished her drink and stood up. “He is coming to wait upon me tonight, the Baroness said. But I will not be here, and you will not be here ... and the children will not be here.” Her eyes were shining, and she looked as pleased as a little girl who had just thought of a way round the difficulties in her homework. “We shall fly to Rome by ourselves, you and I and Joachim and Nina, and I shall send a cable to Leonid, telling him that he is to collect us there!”
“But ...” Kathy’s mind revolved in circles, and she stared at the Princess in blank amazement. “Madame, we would not even get seats ... if you mean we are to fly to Rome tonight?”
“But of course it must be tonight,” with mild impatience. “Of what use would it be to wait until tomorrow? And now, cherie, you will pick up the telephone, and you will make calls to all the airline offices. You will tell them that Princess Natalia Karanska wishes seats immediately on a night flight to Rome—seats for herself and her children, and for one other person. And you will tell them, of course, that it must be kept quite secret.” Rather wistfully, she added: “It would be nice if I could travel incognita, but everyone knows me, you see.”
Kathy, appalled by the plan, did her best to talk her employer out of it. The whole idea seemed to her more than a little crazy, and completely irresponsible, and she was quite certain that if Leonid knew of it he would be furious. And Leonid had asked her t
o look after Natalia.
But Natalia could, when she chose, be extremely obstinate, and on this occasion she was definitely not to be moved. She had made up her mind, and beneath the warmth and utterly genuine friendliness of her attitude towards the other girl, there was always an underlying hauteur. She was accustomed to being obeyed—she expected to be obeyed.
Kathy didn’t have to spend very much time telephoning before she found an airline only too willing to accommodate the Princess. Four seats were available on a plane which was due to leave Le Bourget airport at seven-fifteen. It would arrive in Rome a little over three hours later. Would that suit Her Highness? It would. A few small formalities were gone into, and finally the thing was settled, and Kathy replaced the receiver.
Feverishly and secretly, they started to pack. Natalia gave the astonished nanny the night off, and let the remainder of her entourage know that she was resting, and did not wish to be disturbed until dinner time. The man from the Embassy, Colonel Zanin, was not expected to call until after dinner, and by seven o’clock they would be off the premises. They naturally decided to encumber themselves with the minimum of luggage—even the Princess with true heroism confining herself to one small white suitcase—and Kathy was obliged to leave most of her brand new wardrobe to be sent on by Natalia’s staff. She then had the cases taken downstairs, telling the porter who took charge of them and placed them in a taxi that they constituted the baggage of a member of the royal suite who was leaving that night, ahead of the rest, and although she was certainly not accustomed to telling lies, or even to stretching the truth, she thought she did rather well. When the taxi had departed, she went upstairs again, and found Natalia and both her children ready to leave.
They looked a pathetic little family, with Nina yawning fretfully in her mother’s arms, and Joachim being good and solemn and grown-up. And Kathy longed more than ever to stop them from doing this rash thing. But Natalia was impervious to argument or at least there was nothing Kathy could say that had the power to move her—and so they picked a moment when the hotel seemed very quiet, and then slipped quietly down in the lift and out through the swing doors into the cold and noisy street. Had they encountered a member of Natalia’s staff, they would have said that they were going for a drive around Paris—however strange it might have seemed to be taking two small children out at that time of night but they met no one, and both women heaved sighs of relief as their feet touched the pavement, and they knew that they had crossed the biggest hurdle.
The Breadth of Heaven Page 4