She had said nothing. She had merely asked permission to visit her parents in Budapest.
As her father was growing old and reported to be ill it was impossible for the King to refuse such a request.
Once in Hungary the Queen had written saying that she had no intention of returning to the purgatory which her life had become.
She had been forced to leave her son behind her, but that was inevitable because at seventeen Prince Julius had started his Army career and it would have been impossible for him to desert his Regiment.
But the Queen had carried Ilona to safety.
Because she feared that her husband’s reaction might be to injure her parents, she left Budapest.
The Queen’s father and mother were of Royal blood but they were impoverished. Their lands had been taken from them by the Austrians.
They had nothing left but their pride and their self-respect and she could not allow them to suffer on her account. The Queen took Ilona, as far as her husband was concerned, to an unknown destination.
They had in fact moved across Europe until they reached Paris where the Queen had a few friends. They were all older then she was, but they were quiet, intelligent people who welcomed her amongst them.
She had thought to find in Paris the kind of education which she believed was essential for her daughter.
Ilona had attended one of the famous Convents, where she was accepted as an ordinary pupil and no-one had the slightest idea of her rank.
As Madame Radák, the Queen, with the little money she owned herself and which had been settled on her by her parents, rented a small house in a quiet street off the Champs Élysée and settled down to lead a normal life.
It had been a relief to know that she was free of the mental and physical torture that had been an inescapable terror during the years of her marriage.
She taught Ilona that self-control was a sign of good breeding and character.
The manner in which the King had treated his wife left an indelible mark on her.
But the Queen was determined that Ilona should be made to forget all she had seen and heard in the Palace at Dabrozka.
She wanted her to acquire a serenity which came from a life where she met decent, civilised people who behaved as might be expected of their noble blood.
The ancient Comtes and Comtesses, the Marquises and Abbes who made up the small number of acquaintances that the Queen had in Paris were all aristocrats of the old school.
Their manners were impeccable, if they were unhappy they hid it behind a smiling mask. If they suffered either physically or mentally, it was buried beneath their pride.
Because she had suffered so greatly from her husband’s outbursts of temper, because she had found it impossible to assuage his violence, the Queen had instilled into Ilona her own creed.
It was that never under any circumstances must one’s emotions, whatever they might be, show themselves in front of others.
It hurt her occasionally when she would see beneath the veneer she was trying to impart to her daughter the passionate emotions of a Dabrozkan bursting through.
When the Dabrozkans loved they loved, when they hated they hated. There were no half-measures, no ‘grey’ in-between state of indifference when they did not care!
A Dabrozkan was positive, a Dabrozkan was ardent, jealous, vengeful and wildly ecstatic in love.
It was this part of her daughter’s blood that the Queen was determined to eradicate or at least hold completely under control.
Ilona was therefore taught not to express herself too enthusiastically, not to kiss too effusively, nor to show too much affection for her toys or her playmates.
“Remember you are Royal! Remember how the French aristocrats went to the guillotine with a smile on their lips, joking with each other, even as they laid their heads under the sharp knife.”
“But I am not likely to be guillotined, Mama!” Ilona had remonstrated.
“There are other things in life that are worse,” the Queen said enigmatically, “and whatever they may be, Ilona, you will face them with courage, without complaining, and without letting anyone know what you may be suffering inside you.”
That was the way her mother had died, Ilona thought.
At times the Queen must have been in an agony of pain, and yet while she looked paler every day she had never revealed her suffering not even to the doctor!
When Ilona had found her dead she was lying on her back with her hands clasped over her breasts, a faint smile on her lips as if by her very attitude she defied death itself.
On her mother’s death, it had seemed to Ilona that the bottom had fallen out of her world, and she faced a desolation and a loneliness so frightening that she wanted to scream at the horror of it.
But because she knew what her mother expected of her, she told all the old friends who called to offer their condolences that she was ‘all right’.
‘Somehow,’ she thought, ‘I will make arrangements for the future and there is no reason to burden others with my troubles.’
Only to old Magda, her mother’s maid who had been with them ever since they had left Dabrozka, did she ask despairingly ,
“What shall we do, Magda? What shall we do? We cannot stay here for ever.”
She almost felt as if the little house in Paris had become a tomb from which her mother had escaped, leaving her inside.
Her only contact with the world was with the old aristocrats whom her mother had loved but who in fact were a generation older.
Two of them had died already in the Siege of Paris, which had been responsible for her mother’s death also, and those who were left were old and very frail, and not likely to live long.
“What shall I do? Where shall I go?” Ilona had asked herself frequently night after night.
Then fate had answered the question for her.
She was alone in the house because Magda had gone out shopping, when a knock had come at the front door.
She wondered who it could be at such an early hour of the morning, then told herself it could be none of their friends and must therefore be a tradesman.
But it was unlike Magda to have anything sent to the house.
She always insisted on going herself to market to choose the best food they could afford and to bargain fiercely over every centime.
Ilona had gone to the door to find outside two elderly gentlemen, one of whom said,
“We wish to speak with Her Royal Highness, the Princess Ilona of Dabrozka!”
For a moment it was difficult for Ilona to realise they spoke of herself.
She had not been a Royal Princess for the eight years that she had been abroad with her mother.
Mademoiselle Ilona Radák was of no importance in Paris and the high-sounding title not only surprised her, but also made her feel a little quiver of apprehension.
“Why do you wish to see the Princess?” she asked evasively.
“She is at home?” the gentleman asked.
She knew by the expression on his face and the note in his voice that he had been worried in case they had come to the wrong address.
With difficulty Ilona remembered her manners.
“Will you please come in, Messieurs?”
She led them into the small Salon where her mother’s few treasures which she had inherited from her parents, were arranged against the grey panelled walls and the Louis XVI furniture was covered in a faded blue brocade.
Despite the fact that she had opened the door herself there was something in her bearing which told the gentlemen who she was.
“You are Her Royal Highness?” one of them asked.
“I am!” Ilona had replied and knew as she spoke that a new chapter in her life was beginning.
*
Now as she rode up the last incline towards the front door of the Palace she remembered clearly the look of satisfaction in the gentlemen’s eyes.
They were, she learnt, both Ministers of State in her father’s Government in D
abrozka.
They had been sent to find her, having had no idea her mother was not still alive.
“Your brother, His Royal Highness, Prince Julius is dead!” the one who she later learnt was Foreign Secretary, informed Ilona.
“I am – sorry,” she said automatically. “How did he – die?”
She thought the Foreign Secretary hesitated before he replied,
“It was - an accident. The Prince was involved in a fight that took place in an Inn.”
He paused before he went on,
“No-one quite knows how it started, but it was late at night and some of the gentlemen had dined rather well.”
It seemed to Ilona a useless way for Julius who was so gay and dashing, to die.
She remembered him as always laughing, always riding more dangerously, more wildly than any other young men of his age.
It was impossible to think of him as still and lifeless.
But there was nothing she could say.
She merely waited to hear why two Statesmen from Dabrozka should call on her.
“We have come,” the Foreign Secretary continued, “because there is now no male heir to the throne, His Majesty wishes you to take your brother’s place.”
Ilona had stared incredulously. “My – brother’s –place?”
“On your father’s death you will become the Ruler of Dabrozka.”
“N – no – no, I could not – do that!” she cried.
Even as Ilona spoke she thought her protestations showed a lack of self-control and knew how much her mother would have disapproved.
With an effort she said quietly:
“Perhaps you will explain it to me a little more fully.”
It was just a question of words, she thought later. She really had no choice in the matter, and she was quite certain that had she refused to accompany the Statesmen they would have found other means of persuading her to do as her father wished.
Underlying the courteous request that she should accompany them back to Dabrozka, was a Royal Command, which had to be obeyed.
She had the feeling that they had expected her mother would refuse to return.
But even so, she herself would have been obliged to do what they asked of her for the simple reason that her father was her natural guardian by the laws of Dabrozka, as indeed by the laws of any country.
He could therefore insist, should he wish to do so, on having his daughter with him.
Moreover Ilona was not certain that she wished to refuse.
There was something fascinating in the thought of returning home after all these years.
She was well aware how much her mother had feared her father. She could remember being terrified of him as a child and hiding from him in terror after he had beaten her.
But now, she told herself, she was grown up.
‘I will return to Dabrozka,’ she thought, ‘and if I cannot bear it, then I will run away, just as Mama did.’
She had the idea however that escape might not be so easy a second time.
Her grandparents had been dead for some years, so she would not be able to use them as an excuse to go to Budapest.
But with the optimism of youth she was certain that if she made up her mind to do so she would find a way to return to Paris.
The question was, would she want to leave?
After the recent months of misery and loneliness since her mother’s death, she was glad to have a chance to forget the horror and privations of the Siege.
‘Papa did not worry about us then,’ she thought.
But because she wished to be fair, she told herself it had not been his fault that they had left the peace and plenty of Dabrozka for France which after the disastrous defeat at Sedan had been invaded by the Prussians.
Even to think of those terrifying months when food became shorter and shorter, fuel was almost unobtainable, and Paris was bombarded, was enough to make Ilona shiver.
Then she told herself that her mother had not complained, and she would be very cowardly if she trembled now over what was past history.
Could anything, she had asked herself, be worse than the Siege?
Dabrozka seemed in retrospect a land of light and loveliness, and she had known as she journeyed towards it with the two statesmen that she was not apprehensive of the future, merely excited at what it might bring her.
Now Ilona could see the servants waiting for her at the door of the Palace.
She turned to the Colonel and said quietly,
“Thank you for taking me on a most interesting and enjoyable ride. I think it would be a mistake to mention that my horse bolted with me. If my father is apprehensive about my safety he might curtail my riding.”
“It will not be mentioned, Your Royal Highness,” the Colonel replied.
His eyes met hers and she gave a little smile, knowing they understood each other perfectly.
At the same time, as the footmen helped her down she wondered what the Colonel or anyone else would say if they knew what had really happened during what should have been a sedate morning’s ride.
She had been kissed!
Kissed by a strange man who was obviously part of a band of discontented and dissident peasants, a man who had treated her both insolently and familiarly.
A man whose lips, hard and possessive; she could still feel on hers!
CHAPTER TWO
Once in the Palace Ilona went up to her bed-room where she found Magda waiting for her.
She had already been told by the servants that her father required her presence, but she wished first to bathe and change after riding, and Magda had everything ready for her.
When they were alone in the huge bedroom which had been used by her mother when she was Queen, Ilona said,
“Did you know, Magda, that the gypsies have been told to leave Dabrozka?”
“I learnt of it as soon as I arrived, M’mselle,” Magda answered.
She was an elderly woman with grey hair and a kind, understanding face.
It was to Magda that the Queen had entrusted her daughter, when she fled from Dabrozka, and Magda had been their mainstay, their confidante, and their friend all the years they had been in exile.
Ilona often thought that if it had not been for Magda they would have starved to death in the Siege of Paris.
But somehow by some magic means of her own Magda managed to produce food of some sort, even though it was often nothing more than a loaf of bread.
Now, as Magda helped Ilona out of her riding-habit the old maid went on,
“There’s hard feelings in the Palace and I’m told over the whole land about His Majesty’s decree.”
“How can Papa do anything so cruel and unreasonable?” Ilona cried.
Even as she asked the question she knew the answer, her father was never anything else!
They had talked so often of the miseries the gypsies had suffered in Rumania and how a great number of them had escaped from the bondage in which they belonged, body and soul to the great Hospodars or war-chiefs.
Braving the snows they had somehow managed to climb the mountains into Dabrozka. Many had died on the way but those who survived had terrible tales to tell of their servitude.
They had received no wage and the only food they were allowed was small portions of mamaliga or Indian corn, helped out with some sunflower seeds.
When punished they were flogged naked and iron bars were fixed round their necks to prevent them from sleeping.
The King of Dabrozka at that time had welcomed them as he had welcomed those from Hungary who were almost as cruelly treated by Queen Marie Thérèsa.
She had prohibited them from sleeping in tents, electing their own Chiefs, using their own language, and being married if they had not the means to support a family.
The gypsy men were pressed into Military service, the children often taken away by soldiers to places where their parents never saw them again.
Ilona’s mother had read her a horrifying report writ
ten by a woman who had travelled through Central Europe at the time,
“Pickets of soldiers appeared in all parts of Hungary where there were gypsies and took away their children, including those who were just weaned, and young married couples still wearing their wedding finery.
The despair of these unfortunate people cannot be described. The parents clung to the vehicles which were carrying off their children only to be beaten off with blows from batons and rifle-butts, some immediately committed suicide.”
But in Dabrozka the gypsies had settled down and become a part of the community. Their music, their dancing and their singing were all interwoven with the ordinary life of the Dabrozkans.
“Why,” Ilona asked now, “has Papa turned against the gypsies? Where will they go if they have to leave here?”
“From all I have heard,” Magda answered lowering her voice, “they have merely moved into Sáros land where the Prince has offered them his protection.”
“No wonder Papa is incensed with him!” Ilona remarked.
She could imagine nothing which would infuriate her father more than that the gypsies should defy him by remaining in Dabrozka under the protection of the man he considered to be his enemy.
“The people are not happy, M’mselle,” Magda said. “We have returned to a sad place, a land of weeping.”
Ilona did not reply. It was what she had thought herself.
When she dried herself after her bath and started to dress, she wondered if it would be possible for her to talk to her father of such matters.
Surely he could not wish to rule over land from which the laughter had gone?
She had the feeling however that she would not be brave enough to say anything which would anger him.
He had been unusually pleasant in the short time since she had returned to the Palace, even though he had grumbled at the Statesmen who had escorted her from Paris, saying they had taken too long on the journey.
The delay was due to the fact that Ilona could not leave Paris until she had bought herself some new clothes.
When she had realised that she had no alternative but to return to her own country she had said to the Foreign Secretary,
“When would you wish us to leave, Monsieur?”
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