“I understand, ma petite,” the Duchesse replied, “and there is certainly no need for you to apologise.”
She saw that there were tears in Mariska’s eyes and she went on with a smile,
“Let’s talk of something more pleasant. Did you enjoy your ride this morning?”
“It was more wonderful than I can tell you,” Mariska answered. “I am only living for tomorrow when I can get away again and forget.”
She thought as she spoke that she had been indiscreet, but the Duchesse put her arms round her and held her close.
“Forget everything else,” she urged, “but be careful! I don’t wish you to be gossiped about and people here have very cruel tongues.”
“You mean – they are talking because I – ride with Lord Arkley?”
“Fortunately only a few people know,” the Duchesse replied, “but Ian Arkley, as you are aware, is a very attractive man and women don’t like a suspected rival.”
Mariska gave a little sigh and rose to her feet.
She sat down in a chair and the expression in her eyes was troubled.
“I would not wish to – hurt him in any way.”
“He will not be hurt,” the Duchesse said reassuringly. “It is you I am thinking about, my dearest. You know as well as I do that Germans misconstrue everything and always put the worst interpretation on a friendship between a man and a woman.”
“I cannot – refuse to ride – with him,” Mariska said in a low voice.
“No, of course not,” the Duchesse agreed consolingly. “But I had to warn you, my dear, for your own good.”
Mariska thought suddenly that no one however spiteful and however jealous should rob her of Lord Arkley’s company in the few days she had left.
Deliberately she enticed the Duchesse into describing the luncheon party that she had attended, the people she had met and, because the older woman loved to talk and always had something witty and amusing to say, soon they were both laughing.
Only after they had talked together for perhaps ten minutes did Mariska say reluctantly,
“I must go back. Friederich will be very angry if he knew where I was but I had to come and apologise.”
“There was no reason to do so,” the Duchesse replied, “and enjoy yourself tomorrow morning, ma petite.”
She saw the expression on Mariska’s face and when she had left she sat for a little time looking anxious and worried.
She was well aware that this inexperienced child, for in the Duchesse’s eyes she was nothing more, had fallen in love completely and without any reserve with a very attractive and sophisticated man.
Was it, the Duchesse asked herself, better to experience all the heartbreak of a love that she must inevitably relinquish or never to have loved at all?
She did not know the answer.
She could only hope that Lord Arkley would understand how unique Mariska was and different in every way from any other woman who had ever loved him before.
*
Mariska returned upstairs to find that Friederich had not missed her for the simple reason that he had a visitor.
There was a curled brimmed Homburg hat and a cane on the chair in the vestibule and Mariska wondered who could be calling on her husband. Then she guessed that it was Admiral von Senden.
If he was staying on in Marienbad for the cure, he would not be wearing uniform as he and General von Echardstein had done the first day they had come to see Friederich.
She hoped it was just a social call.
Then she told herself with a sudden anger that undoubtedly the Admiral had called to learn what information she had been able to extract from Lord Arkley.
The whole idea made her so furious that for a moment she contemplated going into the sitting room and telling the Admiral and Friederich what she thought of their plan to force her into being a spy.
Then she knew that it would not only infuriate Friederich but would result in her being unable to see Lord Arkley again.
The whole thing made her feel unclean and she went into her bedroom determined, if nothing else, that she would not meet the Admiral.
She thought as she closed her bedroom door behind her that he and the General typified everything that she most disliked about the country that she had been married into.
The ordinary people, especially those who lived in the countryside were kind and friendly, but the stiffness of the protocol in the Palaces had bred a kind of superior Society which was, Mariska thought, everything that was hateful and unpleasant.
The aristocrats and the Prussian Officers were all of them bullies.
They strode about arrogantly as if the world was made to be trampled on and the people who inhabited it were of no consequence beside themselves.
They were intolerably snobby, they had no compassion or sympathy with the underdog, and a man who failed might as well in their estimation be dead!
‘They are loathsome,’ Mariska thought. ‘Perhaps if I live for long amongst such people I might become like them.’
She felt herself shrink from everything they represented, from the ugly Palaces that they lived in and the men who called themselves Courtiers but who she knew despised Friederich because he was no longer the ‘Superman’ he had once been. She had, when she was first married, tried to make friends, but she had soon found that it was impossible.
Many of his relatives despised her because in their eyes she was a commoner and the aristocrats of Wilzenstein found her unconventional and not at all their idea of what their Grand Duchess should be like.
Mariska’s little overtures of friendliness withered away and after a few months of marriage she had known that she was alone and isolated in a way that was not only physical but also mental and spiritual.
Only now when she knew that she loved Lord Arkley and he loved her could she feel her whole being expand.
She was like a flower turning its face to the sun and what she thought had withered and died within her was revived and she felt almost as if she had been reborn.
Her maid prepared her bath before dinner and, as she lay in the warm scented water, Mariska was thinking of the lake and the floating mist at the end of it.
She was still daydreaming as she put on the gown her maid had chosen for her to wear and, without even looking at it, she took only a perfunctory glance at herself in the mirror and went into the sitting room.
She was aware that Friederich had not yet come from his bedroom and she walked towards the window to stand gazing out.
The heat of the day had lessened, but it was still very close and she felt that perhaps later on there would be a thunderstorm.
She could hear the band playing in the distance and knew that other people in Marienbad would be sitting outside the Colonnade drinking not only the Spa water but fresh grape juice and the light delicious wines that came from the Bohemian vineyards.
She had a sudden longing to be with them, to be unattached, a young girl seeking the adventure of finding a husband and looking forward to marriage as the beginning of a new life. She would be able to dance and then to walk with some charming partner under the trees amongst the fairy lights.
Her dream fantasy came to an abrupt end as the door of the sitting room opened and Prince Friederich was wheeled in by Josef.
One glance at him was enough to tell Mariska that he was in one of his tempers and she felt the usual frightened constriction of her heart and the tenseness of it invaded her whole being.
“It’s very hot this evening,” she remarked.
She thought as she spoke that it was a stupid remark to make, but there was nothing else she could think of to say.
Friederich neither answered nor looked at her.
Josef had pushed him to his usual place at the table and now drew out a chair for her.
Mariska sat down and the waiters came into the room with dinner.
She had chosen the menu and, because she felt it strange that neither of them should speak, she said after a moment,<
br />
“I hope you will like the first course. It was especially recommended by the Maître d’Hôtel.”
Again Friederich did not reply and Mariska sensed that there was in fact something very wrong.
She was used to his raging and shouting at her, abusing the waiters, finding fault with every dish that was put before him. But silence was new and somehow more menacing.
‘The Admiral must have brought him news that upset him,’ Mariska told herself.
But it was impossible to ask Friederich what had happened while the servants were in the room.
They ate in silence, dinner seeming to be very long-drawn-out as course succeeded course, while Friederich never looked at her and never spoke.
Usually he washed down every mouthful of food with a gulp of wine, but tonight he ate slowly, almost as if he was doing it deliberately and thinking as he did so.
While he drank a considerable amount of alcohol, it seemed to Mariska that he did not consume as much as usual.
She was, however, not sure of anything because her husband’s silence was making her afraid.
She did not know why, but she was more fearful of him than usual and after a little while she found it impossible to eat.
She refused the last two courses, but Friederich took second helpings of both, eating slowly, masticating every mouthful even though it appeared to Mariska that the food gave him no pleasure.
Finally, after dinner had seemed interminable, the waiters brought in the coffee, put a decanter of port and one of brandy on the table and withdrew.
Mariska sipped her coffee and then when Josef had also left the room she said in a low voice,
“What is wrong, Friederich? It is unlike you not to speak to me.”
He did not answer. Instead he sipped his port looking at his glass reflectively as if it told him something he wanted to know.
Mariska waited.
She could not remember when he had been like this before and it was making her extremely nervous.
Friederich reached for the brandy and he drank a glassful at one gulp.
“Will you – not tell me – what is the – matter, Friederich?” Mariska enquired.
As he did not speak, she rose from the table.
“Goodnight Friederich.”
She waited a moment and then when he did not reply she walked towards the door.
She was quite certain as she reached it that he would call her back as he had so often done before, but he made no sound as she left and went to her own room.
They had dined late and dinner had taken longer than usual, but it was not yet ten o’clock.
Mariska went to the window.
Should she go into the garden, she wondered and then told herself, as she had done earlier, that it would be a mistake.
She had a sudden longing that was almost uncontrollable to see Lord Arkley, to tell him that she was afraid and to tell him too how much she needed him.
If he was under the willow tree at this moment, she knew that if she found him there she would fling herself into his arms.
Because she was afraid of what she might do and because she wanted him so desperately she began to undress.
She thought that her maid might be still having her supper and Mariska did not ring for her until she had changed into her nightgown and was ready to climb into bed.
Helga must have been upstairs for she answered the bell almost immediately.
“Your Royal Highness is in bed,” she exclaimed.
“Yes, Helga. I did not ring before because I felt that you might be in the Steward’s room.”
“I could not eat much tonight, Your Royal Highness, it’s too hot. Is there anything I can fetch you?”
“No, thank you, Helga.”
The maid started to draw the blinds.
“I’ll leave the window open, Your Royal Highness,” she said, “but I’m sure there’ll be a thunderstorm and you’ll have to close it in the night.”
“It’s too hot to close it now,” Mariska replied.
“Shall I call Your Royal Highness early as usual?”
“Yes, please, Helga. At quarter past six I shall be riding.”
“I’ll not be late, Your Royal Highness.”
Helga put the gown that Mariska had worn over her arm and curtseyed.
“Goodnight, Your Royal Highness!”
“Goodnight, Helga, and thank you.”
The maid went from the room and Mariska lay back against the pillows of her bed.
A little while later she heard Friederich’s chair being wheeled along the passage to his room next door.
He was still silent and Mariska thought it very strange.
‘What can the Admiral have said to him?’ she asked herself and was afraid to guess what the answer might be.
Not only was there a communicating door joining her bedroom with the Prince’s but the long French windows of both their rooms were open and Mariska could hear almost everything that was said next door.
When Friederich was shouting, it was impossible not to hear what he said, but tonight it was Josef who was doing all the talking with occasional sounds that were almost like growls from his Master.
Then Mariska heard her husband say sharply,
“I want coffee – black coffee.”
“I’ll have to go downstairs for it, Your Royal Highness.”
“Well, what is stopping you? And bring me some peaches, ripe peaches. There were none for dessert tonight.”
“Shall I undress Your Royal Highness first?” Josef enquired.
“No. There is no hurry. I want the coffee and the peaches. Fetch them now.”
Mariska fancied that Josef hesitated before he obeyed the order and then he said,
“Very good, Your Royal Highness. I’ll not be longer than I can help.”
She heard him go from the room across the vestibule and close the outer door of the suite behind him.
She found herself listening tensely.
There was silence from next door and then suddenly she heard Friederich’s voice.
“Help! Help! Mariska! Help me!”
For a moment she thought that she must be mistaken and then as she sat up in bed she heard him cry out again almost weakly,
“Help – !”
Because she felt that something desperate was happening, she jumped out of bed and without waiting to turn on the light groped her way to the communicating door.
She opened it and found Friederich sitting in the centre of his bedroom facing her.
He was in his chair, dressed as he had been at dinner and, as she looked at him questioningly, wondering why he had called for her, she saw that in his hand he held a revolver!
It was one that was always kept loaded in his bedroom since their Wedding Day.
Never again did Friederich mean to be unprepared for any assailant, anarchist or anybody else who might attempt to assassinate him.
Now Mariska thought too late that it was a weapon that should never have been within reach of his hand.
“Come in, Mariska,” Prince Friederich ordered. “I want you!”
For a moment she was very still.
Then she said,
“I will – get my – dressing gown.”
“You will come here or I will shoot you where you stand!”
It flashed through her mind that he had gone mad. Then, because she knew of old that if she disobeyed him he was quite capable of putting his threats into action. she moved a little way inside the room.
“Why – do you want that pistol – Friederich?” she asked.
“Because I intend to kill you!” he answered.
“B-but – why?”
“Because you cannot do the simple things I ask of you and because you have disappointed not only me but also the Kaiser.”
Mariska drew in her breath.
Now she knew why Admiral von Senden had called to see Friederich. It was to tell him that they had no further use for his services.
&nbs
p; “I am – sorry if I have – done that,” she said aloud, “but you have not given me – much time.”
“Wilhelm is an impatient man and so am I,” the Prince said. “If I am a failure, then you are also a failure, Mariska, and you shall suffer for it as you have made me suffer.”
“I am sorry if I have – failed you,” Mariska said, “but you set me an almost impossible task. I am not the right sort of person to be a spy, Friederich – whatever your German Masters may think.”
She could not help speaking angrily.
Prince Friederich raised his pistol ominously.
“God – how I hate you!” he shouted. “I loathe everything about you. It will give me the first enjoyable moment I have had for three years to see you lying dead at my feet!”
Her anger had swept away some of Mariska’s fear.
“And what explanation will you make – for killing me?” she asked, “for whatever you may say, it is unlikely you will not – be punished for it. I presume they will not hang a man who is ill as you are, but they will doubtless keep you in prison.”
“I shall not mind hanging if you are dead!”
“That is not true,” Mariska retorted. “I may be dispensable – but you want to live. You have always wanted to live – Friederich.”
“I mean to kill you!”
“Very well,” she said. “Kill me – if that is how you feel about it. I only hope you will be able to explain your actions satisfactorily – to your beloved Kaiser. I can assure you of one thing – he will not like the scandal it will cause!”
She saw her husband’s eyes flicker and knew that she had made her point and a scandal was something that he had not thought about.
Because she realised he was now indecisive she walked towards him and held out her hand.
“Give me the pistol, Friederich. If you don’t want me, I will go away and leave you – but it would be unthinkable for the Grand Duke of Wilzenstein – to commit murder.”
She knew that she had convinced him and he did not prevent her from taking the pistol from his hand.
She put it down on the desk.
“I am sorry, Friederich, if I have upset you – but quite honestly Lord Arkley is not the sort of person who would betray State secrets to a woman – any woman – least of all – me.”
Princes and Princesses Page 58
