“Prince Miklós, as you know,” Mariska went on, “is very hospitable. There were dinner parties and dances every night and – Friederich was, I think, impressed.”
She paused a moment before she continued,
“My cousins were all vying for his attention. He danced with me several times and we went riding when there was no shooting party and like everybody else I thought him very – handsome.”
Looking back Lord Arkley knew that Prince Friederich had not only been extremely good-looking but when he forgot to be arrogant he could be very charming.
“Friederich left and returned to Germany,” Mariska continued. “It was only – after I had married him that I – learnt why he – came back.”
“Why did he?” Lord Arkley asked.
“Almost as soon as he arrived in Wilzenstein, a close friend told him that the Kaiser intended that he should marry the Grand Duchess of Milderstalt.”
Lord Arkley looked puzzled and Mariska explained,
“She had been widowed and she was twice Friederich’s age.”
“I cannot believe you mean the present Grand Duchess!” Lord Arkley exclaimed. “She is over forty and one of the ugliest women in Europe!”
“That is what Friederich thought,” Mariska replied, “but Milderstalt is, as you know, on the borders of Poland – and the Kaiser was apparently worried that if the Grand Duchess married a Pole or a Russian the country would not remain loyal to Germany.”
“I understand now,” Lord Arkley murmured.
“Friederich told me later that he knew few girls,” Mariska continued, “and I was the first one who came to his mind. He did not even bother to unpack, but came straight back to Hungary.”
“And you thought it was because he was in love with you?”
“Of course I did. I was very – stupid and – very romantic.”
There was a bitter note in her voice before she said,
“Anyway, I doubt if I would have been allowed to refuse Friederich even if I had wished to do so. The Eszterházys, who had liked him, were flattered that I should become – a reigning Grand Duchess.”
“But you say Friederich never kissed you?” Lord Arkley questioned.
“He asked Papa to approve the marriage, he gave me an engagement ring that was part of the Crown Jewels, kissed – my hand and went back to Wilzenstein.”
“How could it be possible?” Lord Arkley asked almost under his breath.
“He only told me later – very much later – after he was crippled – that he had never – admired me. I was not what he – called ‘his type’.”
“I can imagine what that would be,” Lord Arkley said sarcastically.
“Last year when he was well enough to attend a theatre he pointed out – one of his – past mistresses,” Mariska said in a low voice. “She was big – very Junoesque and I suppose the right word would be – ‘flamboyant’.”
Lord Arkley could see the hurt in her eyes.
He knew that one of the reasons why Mariska was so unselfconscious about her beauty was that she had lived for three years with a man who not only hated her but found that her spiritual and delicate loveliness held nothing that he admired.
As if she felt that Lord Arkley must hear the end of the story, Mariska went on,
“One thing which Friederich insisted on was that we should be married in Wilzenstein. He knew it would please his people and he knew too that if he had already announced that the marriage was to take place in the Capital – it would be impossible for the Kaiser to try to persuade him that it was his duty to marry the Grand Duchess.”
Lord Arkley could see it all happening and he had to admit that it had been a resourceful move on Prince Friederich’s part to prevent himself from being saddled with an old and ugly wife.
“Papa, Mama and I arrived in Wilzenstein the day before the Wedding,” Mariska continued. “Friederich called on us at the house where we were staying, but I was never alone with him. He gave me a Wedding present, but I was in fact – disappointed that he made no effort to – kiss me.”
Her eyelashes were very dark against her pale cheeks as she spoke.
Then she said,
“The next day as I drove to the Cathedral with Papa I felt as if Friederich in his white tunic covered in medals was the Prince Charming of the Fairytales. He looked magnificent, and the whole Ceremony was very inspiring. When we – left the Cathedral – you know what – happened.”
The anarchist’s bomb, Lord Arkley thought, had not only shattered the bridegroom but also the bride’s future life.
Aloud he said,
“If I could save you, my darling, from all you suffered and from what you are suffering now, I would do so.”
“I – know that,” she answered, “and I try never to speak of it to anyone. I am so sorry – so desperately sorry for Friederich – but as you know he hates me because I escaped unhurt.”
“In a way I can understand that, except that to me it would seem impossible that anyone should hate or hurt anything so exquisite or so perfect.”
She gave him a shy little smile as she replied,
“I wish I was – but sometimes I am rebellious – sometimes I just pray to die – and I know that is – wicked.”
“You must never do so again,” he asserted. “Remember that you are mine. We belong to each other and perhaps God will be good to us and one day we may be able to be together.”
The light was back in Mariska’s eyes as she looked at him.
“Do you believe – do you really believe in your – heart that – that is possible?”
“Everything is possible!” he insisted positively, “and my darling, I shall pray that one day I may not only be able to kiss you but you shall belong to me completely.”
“That is – what I want too,” Mariska said very softly. “There is such a strange link between us that I know we have been together sometime in the past – in lives we cannot remember.”
“And we will be – together in the – future?”
It was a question and Lord Arkley replied,
“I have always believed that God is merciful and that love is stronger than hate.”
“Then my – love will go out to you – wherever you may be,” Mariska said, “and please – never – never forget to – love me.”
“It would be impossible for me to do so,” he answered.
They looked at each other across the table and Mariska felt that she was close against him and her heart was beating against his.
Then, with an almost superhuman effort, Lord Arkley said,
“We must go back, my darling love.”
“Y-yes – yes, of course,” Mariska answered.
Then with a note of panic in her voice she asked,
“What shall I say to Friederich when he – makes me tell him what we have – talked about?”
“I will think of something plausible as we ride home.”
He paid the bill and they remounted their horses.
As he lifted her into the saddle, she knew that, because he was touching her, there was a sudden gleam in his eyes that had not been there before.
She was suddenly aware of him as a man, a man who wanted her as a woman, and she felt her heart beating frantically and her breath coming quickly from between her lips.
Then they were riding away into the shadows of the pine trees and only when the lake was far behind them did Lord Arkley say,
“Tell Prince Friederich that the English are worried about the large number of Warships that the Kaiser is planning to build.”
Mariska did not answer and he added quickly,
“I know, my darling, you feel it degrading that you should have to report anything to him, but I do not wish your husband to be angry with you, which might make him stop our rides together.”
“No – no – of course not,” Mariska nodded, “and it is stupid of me to think of – anything but of how much I want to be with you. It is just – ”
Her voice c
eased and Lord Arkley finished,
“ – that you are too fine, too honest a person ever to be caught up in intrigues and all the lies and deceptions that go with them.”
He gave a deep sigh.
“If only I could take you away from all this. If only we could be in England.”
“It would not matter where we were if – I was – with you.”
“I know that,” he answered, “but I want you to be in my own house. I want to see you against the background which is right for you, and which would mean home.”
He knew how much that word meant to her.
Then, as if they both thought that they were asking the impossible, they rode on in silence.
*
As Mariska expected, Friederich was at breakfast when she joined him and, as soon as Josef had set a cup of coffee in front of her and withdrawn from the room, he asked,
“What have you to tell me?”
“Lord Arkley did not talk about France,” Mariska replied truthfully, “but he did say that the English were worried at – the number of German Warships the Kaiser had ordered to be built.”
“They started it first!” Prince Friederich exclaimed furiously. “Their Navy is greater than ours and, as England is a smaller country, why should they presume to try to rule the seas?”
Mariska did not answer and he went on,
“The next time you see him ask Arkley why Germany should be bottled up in Europe without a Navy.”
After a moment’s pause and working himself up, he continued,
“The Germans are entitled to have breathing space for their peoples and, if we cannot have it peacefully then, just as England has done, we shall have to take what we want.”
He shouted the words at Mariska and she replied quickly,
“I am afraid I don’t – understand political – matters, Friederich, and if you will excuse me I had better go and change my clothes, as you will want to go to the Kreuzbrunnen.”
She moved towards the door as she was speaking and he yelled after her,
“Is that all you have to tell me? God knows, you were away long enough to learn more than that.”
She did not reply, but when she reached her bedroom she realised that she was trembling.
‘How can I bear it?’ she wondered to herself.
Sensibly she told herself that this was not the moment to do anything but change hurriedly or she would keep Friederich waiting.
All the time she was dressing her maid was grumbling over some inconvenience she had found in the hotel, but Mariska did not listen.
She tried to force herself to recapture the happiness that she had known while she sat with Lord Arkley by the enchanted lake.
‘I will think only of him,’ she told herself and felt the tension that Friederich always evoked in her begin to subside.
“I love him! I love him!” she whispered.
She tried to forget everything but Lord Arkley’s face, the note in his voice that thrilled her and the moment when they had been so close as he lifted her onto the saddle.
‘Perhaps it is wicked to love him so much,’ she thought as she walked behind Friederich’s chair towards the Kreuzbrunnen.
But, as Lord Arkley said, love was something neither of them could help.
Mariska knew as soon as she saw the crowds moving about outside the Colonnade that she was looking for one person and one person only. The faces of all the other people seemed featureless.
The day dragged on, Friederich went to his doctor and he had treatment while Mariska waited as usual outside, then with the detectives behind them they proceeded back to the Weimar Hotel for luncheon.
When they had first come to Marienbad, Mariska had suggested that they might lunch occasionally in the local restaurants, perhaps at the one in the forest where the two Kings had eaten such an enormous meal.
But Friederich was very mean over trifles and, as the food in the hotel was included in what they paid for the suite, he always returned to the Weimar.
It would have been better, Mariska thought, if they could have eaten in the hotel restaurant, where at least Friederich would not have been able to argue and shout at her.
But he considered himself too important and preferred, she thought, to bully the waiters who brought the food to their sitting room.
As usual he undid any good the Spa water of his treatment might have done by drinking a whole bottle of vintage claret with his meal.
This fortunately made him sleepy and when he went to rest Mariska was free for at least an hour.
She knew that the Duchesse had gone out today, so she went out onto the balcony to stand looking at the view of the valley and think again of how happy she had been as she had ridden through the pine trees with Lord Arkley.
The day wore on and Mariska was thinking all the time of the next morning.
She decided that it would not be wise to meet Lord Arkley in the garden every night, even though she longed to do so.
For one thing someone might see them and also, although she was very ignorant about such matters, she felt that it would be almost impossible if they were close beneath the boughs of the willow tree to remember that their love must be pure and spiritual.
It was difficult for her not to yearn for Lord Arkley to hold her in his arms and to kiss her as he had said he wanted to do.
And because she was attuned to everything he felt and said, she was aware that he held himself tightly under control.
‘To let him touch me would not only be – disloyal to Friederich but a – sin,’ she told herself severely.
Yet every nerve in her body asked for him and she knew that he yearned for her with a fire that she could sometimes see in his eyes and hear in his voice.
‘I must not – tempt him,’ she whispered to herself and at the same time she thought how wonderful it would be to do so.
The sunshine on the balcony was very hot and the heat of the day was so intense that instead of staying outside as Mariska had intended she went into her own room to sit in an armchair by the open window.
The ride, the heat and the intensity of her feelings had, despite her happiness, made her tired and she fell asleep.
She awoke with a start to hear Friederich shouting from the next room.
His voice seemed to rasp across her nerves as it always did and she jumped to her feet before she realised that he was only calling in his usual aggressive manner for Josef.
She went to the communicating door between their rooms and opened it slightly to find out if Josef was obeying the summons or perhaps he had gone downstairs.
As she did so, she heard the manservant come through the other door into the bedroom.
“Your Royal Highness wants me?”
“Of course I want you, you dolt!” Prince Friederich snarled.
Mariska closed the door.
She could not bear to hear her husband abusing the kind little man whose loyalty and service could never be repaid in terms of money.
Prince Friederich had another treatment in the afternoon and soon they were walking again along the path that led to the clinic where he had special exercises that would supposedly strengthen his back and his paralysed legs.
They had only just left the hotel when coming along the path Mariska saw the Duchesse.
She was looking very elegant with a small lace-trimmed sunshade held over her head and was accompanied by a gentleman of about her own age.
“There is the Duchesse of Vallière just ahead of us,” Mariska said in a low voice to Prince Friederich.
“I have eyes in my head!” he retorted rudely. “I dislike the woman and I have no wish for you to have friends who are French.”
“I have known her all my life,” Mariska said in a pleading tone. “Please, Friederich – be pleasant to her.”
Even as she spoke, she knew by the expression on her husband’s face that he was determined to be aggressive.
“Mariska! How delightful to see you,” the Duchesse exclaime
d and then smiling at Prince Friederich she added
“I hope, sir, you are feeling better and that Marienbad is doing you good.”
“If it is to do me any good,” Prince Friederich replied, “I have no time to waste on frivolous conversation.”
He made a gesture with his hand to Josef not to stop and he passed the Duchesse without even troubling to remove his hat.
Mariska looked at her with pleading eyes.
“I am – sorry,” she murmured.
“It’s all right, ma petite,” the Duchesse said. “I understand.”
She dropped her voice and added,
“Come and see me as soon as you can.”
Mariska smiled at her and then realised that Friederich was already some way down the path and hurried after him.
“That creature is intolerable!” the Duchesse’s escort barked out fiercely. “If he was not a cripple, I would teach him a sharp lesson.”
“Can you imagine what it is like for my poor Mariska to live with – such an animal?” the Duchesse remarked and there was a little break in her voice.
As if the whole episode upset her, she put her hand into her escort’s arm and he patted it soothingly.
“We can only hope that the Prince does not live long,” he commented.
“It may be wicked of me,” the Duchesse replied, “but it is something I pray for every day of my life.”
Mariska, having caught up with Prince Friederich, did not speak. She only felt despairingly that he was determined to isolate her from everybody she knew and from anybody she was fond of.
The Duchesse would forgive such rudeness, she knew, because she understood, but how many other people would tolerate such behaviour?
She was determined that however much it might annoy Friederich she would apologise to the Duchesse before the day had passed and her opportunity came after tea when he was engrossed in the newspapers, several of them being posted to him every day from Germany.
Without making any explanation Mariska left the suite and went down to the Duchesse’s apartments on the ground floor. She was alone and, as Mariska was announced, she held out her hands and Mariska ran across the room to kneel beside her chair.
Princes and Princesses: Favourite Royal Romances Page 57