‘As I don’t know what rumours you are referring to, it’s hard to say,’ said Bay as evenly as he could.
‘It’s all right, old fellow. No need to get on your high horse. You know how these stories go around. One minute you are leading her in the field, next thing we hear you’ve been to Windsor Castle with her. Royal visits aren’t the usual duties of a pilot, maybe old Rudolph thought you were getting above your station and he didn’t like it.’ Hartopp peered at Bay from behind his thicket of whiskers, clearly hoping for a response.
‘The Empress asked me to accompany her. I was not in a position to refuse.’
Bay stood up.
‘I have to be going now, Chicken. I have a dinner engagement.’
‘Well, don’t let me stop you old man. It wouldn’t do to keep royalty waiting.’ Chicken was guffawing at his own wit as Bay left.
Bay walked across Piccadilly to Brown’s Hotel and took a room. He sent a wire to Easton Neston saying that he would not return that night. In the morning he would write to Sisi and explain that, under the circumstances, he could not act as her pilot any longer.
It would spoil the rest of the hunting season but there were still point-to-points and, of course, the National later that month. Tipsy was definitely ready. As he thought of his horse, he felt a little better. But then he remembered the photograph that Charlotte had taken of him and Tipsy in the stables at Melton and felt much worse.
After dinner, he wandered over to Covent Garden, to the Opera House. He thought that music might soothe his miserable state of mind. An opera by Meyerbeer was playing. Bay took a seat in the stalls, hoping that he would not see anyone he knew.
But at the Crush bar in the interval, he realised his mistake. All the ladies who had been at the exhibition in the morning had spent the afternoon paying calls, making sure that their closest friends were aware of exactly how close they had been to the Queen when Prince Rudolph had called Captain Middleton ‘a groom’. The news could not have travelled faster if it had been published in a newspaper. As Bay walked through the mirror-lined room he saw the fans go up as the women whispered about him. He decided to leave, making a point of sauntering through the crimson velvet corridor as if he didn’t have a care in the world. As he walked down the stairs to the foyer he saw Blanche Hozier, blonde and immaculate, accompanied by her cousin George Spencer. They were coming up the stairs on the other side, so he could not escape them. Bay bowed and waited to see if Blanche would acknowledge him. He was surprised to see that she stopped and smiled at him. Lord George nodded.
‘Captain Middleton!’ said Blanche. ‘I am surprised to see you in town in the middle of the hunting season. Whatever can have torn you away from the Quorn?’
Middleton saw from her expression that Blanche knew precisely why he was in London and had heard every particular of the morning’s incident. George Spencer looked embarrassed.
‘Oh, I have always been very fond of music.’
‘And yet you appear to be leaving. How strange.’ Blanche opened her blue eyes wide and Bay was struck both by how beautiful she was and how little desire he felt for her now.
‘I find that I have had my fill of sensation for the day. Goodnight, Lady Hozier, Lord George.’ And he had to stop himself from running out into the cold night air.
Mother and Son
‘Festy, I am completely chilled. I need a bath, a really hot one.’ Sisi was pulling off her gloves and unpinning her hat, which she dropped on the floor. She stood still for a moment as the Countess unbuttoned the skirt of her riding habit, revealing the suede breeches beneath.
‘It is waiting for you, Ma’am. How was your day?’
‘Very tiresome. I can’t stand it when no one will keep up with me at the front. It is not the same without Captain Middleton. Everyone else is so slow. Even Max and Felix.’
‘Some beef tea, perhaps, with a little schnapps?’ The Countess thought that her mistress looked thin and pale.
‘My bones are aching, Festy. I need the medicine.’
The Countess went over to the dressing table and opened the wooden case where all the Empress’s medicines were kept. The cocaine solution had been made up for the Empress in Vienna, where she used it all the time. Festy had brought a full bottle of the mixture from Austria. In the Hofburg, the Empress would get through one of these vials in a fortnight. They had been in England for weeks now and the bottle was almost unused. The Countess took out the syringe from its velvet-lined compartment, put the needle into the liquid and drew up the plunger.
The Empress took off her bodice and held out one white arm. She looked away as the Countess pushed the needle into one of the thin blue veins.
‘Thank you, Festy.’ And the Empress smiled for the first time that day.
* * *
Countess Festetics waited until the Empress had had her bath and the effects of the cocaine were well advanced before showing her the telegrams. She knew their contents, because Baron Nopsca had already steamed them open. There were two telegrams – one from Bay saying that he was detained in London and that he would not be coming back for dinner. Sisi read it then scrumpled it up and threw it on the floor.
‘Captain Middleton is not coming back tonight. It is too bad of him, I have had such a miserable day. I will tell him that he must come back at once. I can’t hunt without him.’ Festetics did not point out that there was no return address on the telegram.
But the second telegram made the Empress smile.
‘Rudolph is coming for dinner, Festy. You must tell Nopsca to have a room made ready.’ Festetics nodded, knowing that the Baron had made the arrangements hours ago.
‘What a son I have. He doesn’t write to me for weeks and now he is coming just like that.’ Sisi snapped her fingers. ‘Tell the cook to make something with chocolate. Rudolph adores chocolate.’
The Countess nodded again; that too had already been taken care of.
* * *
Sisi decided to wear her hair down in a loose plait. She remembered how Rudolph had liked to hide behind her hair when he had been a little boy; that was before he was taken away from her to be ‘trained’. They had tried very hard to turn him into the perfect prince, but Rudolph was too like her and not enough like his father to make a good pupil. He would never get up at five every morning, ready to be the ‘father of his people’. Rudolph had no sense of duty. He lived simply to be amused. The only thing he had in common with Franz Joseph was their love of uniforms.
Sisi felt her thoughts fizzing through her head. As well as relieving the pain in her joints, the cocaine made her restless. She must send a wire to Bay tonight. If he did not come back tomorrow she did not think she could bear to stay here without him. But why had he not come back? Surely if he had gone to see his doctor he would not be detained for a night. Sisi realised that Bay’s life outside Easton Neston was completely unknown to her. He never spoke about his family or his friends and she had never thought to ask him.
At least Rudolph’s arrival would relieve the tedium of the day.
There had been another pilot earlier, but he had hung back at every fence as if she had been a china figure. Riding with Bay was like continuing a conversation; she would turn her head and he would be there at her flank. He knew before she did which way she was going. She never hesitated when she was following him. They hardly spoke to each other when they were alone in the field, or later in bed. They did not need to. But now that unspoken thread had been broken. How could Bay bear to miss a day’s hunting with her?
‘I will wear the green velvet, I think, with the emeralds.’
* * *
It was fifty paces from one end of the drawing room to the other. Sisi had taken a thousand steps before Rudolph’s carriage finally drew up at Easton Neston.
She noticed at once that he was not wearing a uniform. Just the Golden Fleece decoration. And Karolyi had come with him, which surprised Sisi. She had assumed that Rudoph had come down here to escape from the Ambassador.
‘Dearest Rudolph, I am so pleased to see you.’
Rudi kissed her hand, but Sisi pulled him towards her and kissed him twice on both cheeks, in the Hungarian way. Rudolph held himself stiffly and he smelt faintly of alcohol.
‘You look taller, or am I imagining it? And even more handsome, surely I am not imagining that. But a little pale. How long is it since we saw each other? Two months?’
‘Five months, Mama.’
‘Then we must toast to our reunion here in England. Nopsca, please bring some champagne.’
Sisi turned to Karolyi. ‘Count, I must thank you for looking after my son and for bringing him here to me. I know that you must have been behind it.’
‘Actually, Mama, it was my decision to come. I need to speak to you.’
Sisi saw the red patches on her son’s cheeks and heard the urgency in his voice.
‘Count Karolyi, I expect you would like to see your room before dinner. Countess Festetics will show you the way.’ She turned to Nopsca, Liechtenstein and Esterhazy who were standing in a group round the fire.
‘You may leave us.’
* * *
When they were alone in the vast room, Sisi sat down on one of the sofas and gestured to Rudi to sit next to her.
But he stood in front of her, legs apart, one hand nervously pulling at his decoration.
Sisi waited. Finally Rudolph burst out, ‘I saw your “friend” Captain Middleton today. Did you know that there is a photograph of you and him hanging in an exhibition in London? A picture where he is gazing at you like a lovesick puppy? I was so ashamed. The Empress of Austria and a groom! He even had the impudence to speak to me!’
The Order of the Fleece finally snapped under Rudolph’s constant fidgeting and he looked at it in his palm. He was close to tears.
‘You saw Captain Middleton? In London?’
‘Yes, this morning, at the exhibition. Karolyi made me go because the Queen would be there.’
‘Victoria was there?’
‘It doesn’t matter who was there, Mama! What matters is that you have made yourself ridiculous. Everyone in London is talking about you and this Middleton. You must get rid of him at once.’
Sisi stood up and put her hand on her son’s arm. ‘Oh Rudi, you have broken the Fleece. Do you remember when you were given that, in the cathedral in Buda? How old were you then? Thirteen or fourteen? I was so proud of you. My little knight.’
‘Mama, I am not thirteen now! You cannot pretend that nothing has happened. You must get rid of this man and go home. You are never in Vienna.’
‘You want me to go back to Vienna where I am quite miserable? How can you be so cruel to your mother, Rudi? You know what it is like to stand there in those endless receptions, knowing that everyone is whispering about you. Don’t you want me to have some happiness in my life? I have been the Empress since I was sixteen, younger than you are now. For twenty-two years I have been watched and measured and criticised every minute of the day. I am so tired of it. You know how hard it is, you feel it too.’ She stroked his cheek. ‘You are my son.’ Rudolph stood for a moment under her touch, but then he broke away.
‘But the picture, Mama!’
‘Are you so very shocked that someone should admire me?’ said Sisi.
‘You are my mother.’
‘Wait till you are married, Rudi. You will find that not everything is as simple as it seems to you now.’
‘I just don’t understand how you can be so careless of your position. Aunt Maria says that you and this Captain Middleton are inseparable.’
‘Did she also tell you that she wanted Captain Middleton to work for her and that he refused her? Please don’t base your judgement of me on what Maria tells you. She is bitter because she thinks that I have all the things that she has lost – a crown, a son like you. You must understand that. She is deliberately trying to make trouble between us.’
‘So there is nothing between you and this Captain Middleton?’
‘You have no right to ask me that!’
Sisi walked away from him, angry now. This frightened Rudolph, who followed her.
‘I’m sorry, Mama. I have no right to ask you anything.’
Sisi stopped pacing and turned to embrace her son. She could feel his breath coming fast and shallow.
After a moment she released him and said, ‘Do you like it in England, Rudolph?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t really had time to take it in. Karolyi keeps me so busy touring factories and visiting printing presses. We have hardly stopped. This will be the first evening where I am not attending a dinner with speeches.’
‘I am sure Nopsca can arrange a speech if you like,’ said Sisi, smiling.
‘Oh, it will be a relief just to speak German and not to have to be polite to Englishmen who talk about their machines.’
‘I have asked Festy to arrange for a chocolate cake.’
‘Oh Mama, how did you know I have been dreaming of chocolate cake?’
* * *
After dinner, Rudi came into his mother’s room while the maid was brushing out her hair. The girl had to bend over to take the brush all the way to the bottom. He watched as if hypnotised as the silver-backed brush was drawn through the long chestnut hair, leaving a trail of static crackling in its wake. He addressed his mother’s face in the mirror.
‘I was thinking that I might stay here for a few days. I have had enough of factories and machine looms. And I thought it would be nice to spend some time with you here, away from Vienna.’
‘Of course, my darling. Will you want to hunt? I am sure that Captain Middleton could find you a horse.’
‘I don’t need anything from Captain Middleton.’
‘Oh don’t be silly, Rudolph. I thought we had settled this.’
‘I don’t think the Captain will want to be here with me.’
‘But why not?’
‘I called him a groom at the exhibition this morning and he was not pleased.’
‘Of course he wasn’t. How could you be so boorish? He is a cavalry officer, not a servant. Well, you will just have to apologise to him. I am sure he will forgive you.’
‘That is beside the point, as I have no intention of apologising. Indeed, Mama, if Captain Middleton returns here then I cannot remain.’
‘Oh Rudolph, why do you have to make things awkward? I have come here to hunt. Captain Middleton is my pilot. I cannot hunt without him. So he must come back.’
‘But why does he have to stay here?’
‘He stays here because I have asked him to.’
‘Then you will just have to tell him to go somewhere else,’ said Rudolph, standing up.
Sisi heard the petulance in his voice. There could be no reasoning with him in this state. He had drunk heavily at dinner, and he was not a happy drunk. She could not face a scene and besides, there was enough of the little boy he had once been to make her want to protect him.
Sisi signalled to the maid to leave them and she got up, her hair swirling around her, and put her arms around her son.
‘My poor boy,’ she said.
* * *
When she woke up the next morning, Sisi asked Festetics if there had been any word from Bay. When the Countess said there had been nothing since the telegram of the night before, Sisi asked her to fetch Nopsca and the Ambassador to her sitting room. The Crown Prince was still asleep.
As they came in Sisi could see that both wore the all too familiar courtiers’ expression of wary neutrality. Neither of them wanted to offend so they would pretend to have no opinions until she did.
‘Perhaps you can tell me what happened yesterday, Count Karolyi.’
‘Well, Majesty, it was a most unhappy series of events. I took the Crown Prince to the exhibition in order that he might have an opportunity to meet the Queen. He was not perhaps himself, a late night had left him nervous. I believe that he was very shocked to find a photograph of Your Majesty and perhaps he expressed himself more forcibly than he m
ight otherwise have done. Captain Middleton, prudently in my opinion, decided to leave. But it is fair to say that the Queen, who of course met the Captain on your visit to Windsor, was surprised by the Crown’s Prince’s rudeness towards him.’
‘I see. And can you tell me how my picture came to be included in this exhibition?’
‘I believe it was taken by a young lady, a Miss Baird, who appears to be a friend of Captain Middleton. She had taken some other pictures of him which were also at the exhibition.’
‘I see. I trust that the picture is no longer on display.’
‘No, Majesty, the young lady was very quick to remove it. She appeared to be most distressed by the incident.’
Baron Nopsca remembered the note that he had steamed open the week before and cracked his knuckles with satisfaction, now that the situation was clear to him.
Sisi turned to him.
‘Baron, I want you to find Captain Middleton. Tell him that I want him to return as soon as my son has gone. I do not think it would be wise for them to meet again.’
The men nodded in agreement.
‘Ambassador, I am relying on you to take my son back to London tomorrow at the latest. You must persuade him, I want no part of it. But he must go back. Can I rely on you?’
‘Of course, but the Prince can be headstrong and not always open to persuasion.’
‘My son is easily bored. I don’t think he will find it amusing here for very long. I am sure you can tempt him to return to London.’
Karolyi bowed. He had thought it was his job to keep Rudolph away from those kinds of temptation, but he understood the Empress’s predicament. The longer that the Prince stayed at Easton Neston and Bay was banished, the greater the scandal.
‘I will do my best, Majesty.’
Sisi nodded to the men. ‘You may leave us.’
When the men had gone, she turned to Festetics.
‘Did you know anything about this Miss Baird, Festy?’
Festy smiled. ‘A man like Captain Middleton will always have female friends, Majesty. He is a herzensbrecher.’
The Fortune Hunter Page 32
