Did he really think she had been able to enjoy such amusements in Paris?
Then she told herself that he was just as ignorant of her previous life as she was of his.
‘There is so much we have to tell each other,’ she thought with a little sigh.
The party did not continue for very long.
The older people wished to return home, and although it was obvious the others would have liked to linger, they tact fully assumed that the bride and bridegroom would wish to be alone.
Without ceremony Ilona and the Prince said good-bye to their guests in the hall, and his aunt, an elderly woman who had once been a great beauty, expressed the feelings of the rest as she said to Ilona,
“We are so happy, my dear, to welcome you as one of the family. You are very lovely and I feel that you and Aladár will make each other happy.”
She kissed Ilona as she spoke, and one of the Prince’s cousins, when he kissed her hand, said,
“I only wish I had met you first. Aladár always did have all the luck!”
Laughing and still paying Ilona compliments they drove away.
As the servants shut the big door behind them, Ilona realised that the Prince was waiting for her to go upstairs.
He did not speak and feeling shy now that they were alone she merely did as he expected, moving up the staircase with her hand on the bannister.
Magda was waiting for her in the big bedroom. There were candelabra lit on either side of the cupid-decorated bed, and large thick candles in gold stands to light the room.
There was one of Ilona’s new and entrancing nightgowns which she had bought in Paris, lying over a velvet covered chair.
She undressed almost in silence. As she got into bed, she was rehearsing in her mind what she could say to the Prince when he came to her.
“Good-night, my little M’mselle,” Magda said from the doorway. “God bless you.”
“Good-night Magda.”
The door shut behind the old maid and Ilona was alone.
She lay back against the pillows realising that her heart was beating tumultuously and her mouth was dry.
‘I am frightened,’ she thought.
She was not certain whether it was the Prince of whom she was afraid or the apology she had to make to him.
It was nearly half an hour later that she heard him speaking to someone.
She thought it must be a servant on duty or perhaps one of the night watchmen who, Magda had told her, patrolled the Castle at night.
There were also soldiers on duty. Ilona as she lay in bed, had heard them marching outside in the Court-yard and she realised that having an Army of his own, the Prince was guarded in the same manner as her father.
There must always be the chance, Ilona thought, that the enemy who had infiltrated the country might try to attack the Prince.
She felt herself shiver a little at the idea, then told herself the last thing she must do was ever to let anyone know that she was afraid of the Russians.
The door opened and her heart gave an apprehensive leap as the Prince came into the room.
He looked tall and very dignified in a long brocade robe which reached to the ground.
The door was some distance from the bed and Ilona waited for him to walk towards her. Now the moment was upon her she tried to think desperately how she should frame the apology she knew she must make.
Then to her astonishment the Prince walked only a little way into the room and sat down in one of the velvet covered arm-chairs.
He arranged his robe, leant back against a satin cushion and opening a book he was carrying in his hand began to read.
Ilona stared at him wide-eyed in amazement.
It flashed through her mind that perhaps he held a Bible or a prayer-book in his hands.
Was this a Dabrozkan custom of which she was not aware?
The Prince was apparently reading with interest.
He turned over the page, and watching him Ilona felt that he was in fact completely concentrating on his book.
Her eyes were on his face which was half in profile and she thought that it would be impossible to imagine a man could be better looking!
His square forehead and thick dark hair, his straight aristocratic nose, the deep-set blue eyes, which she knew could twinkle mockingly, made her think of a Greek god.
She felt as though his very features were engraved in her mind as she waited - and went on waiting!
‘I must speak to him,’ Ilona told herself, ‘I must ask him what he is doing.’
Then she realised that she did not know how to address him.
Although he was her husband, she found it almost impossible to call him Aladár before they got to know each other, and how could she say Prince, or Your Highness?
It would seem ridiculous!
‘Perhaps when he reaches the end of this page,’ she thought, ‘he will speak to me.’
But the Prince turned the pages over again and yet again, while Ilona lay in the shadows of the silk curtains, her red hair falling over her shoulders, her eyes very green in the candlelight.
Finally the Prince closed his book. Ilona drew in her breath.
Now at last he would come to her and she would be able to say all she wished to.
But the Prince rose to his feet and without even one glance at Ilona he walked to the door. It closed quietly behind him. As if released from the intolerable tension she had been suffering Ilona sat up in bed.
As she did so she saw it was an hour - exactly an hour - since the Prince had come to her room, and putting her hands up to her face she understood exactly what he had intended.
There were always eyes to see and ears to hear whether it was in a Palace, a castle or a house.
If the Prince had ignored his bride on the first night of their marriage it would undoubtedly have been noticed and reported by someone. Such a tit-bit of gossip would have been whispered from mouth to mouth.
Then the whole of Dabrozka would have been aware that the marriage was, as the King had said, only ‘a farce and a charade’ to deceive the Russians.
Instead as far as the world was concerned, the Prince had done his duty!
He had gone to his wife’s bedroom and it would be believed that he had made love to her and they were man and wife not only in name but in actual fact.
The humiliation of it made Ilona throw herself down again in the bed, but this time her face was hidden in the pillow.
He did not want her!
She had been forced upon him by circumstances and, while once he had kissed her because he thought her lovely, he was completely indifferent to her charms now that she was his wife.
She knew little about men and less about love.
Yet she had always heard that if a woman was attractive, men desired her, even though what they felt was not love, not the real love a woman sought in marriage.
But as far as the Prince was concerned she did not even interest him to the point when he wished to kiss her lips or even talk to her.
Whatever her father had said, Ilona thought, however rude and offensive he had been, surely the Prince was not so angry as to loathe her, as her father’s daughter, as he loathed the King?
‘He must not feel like that - he must not!’ Ilona thought piteously. ‘I must make him see that I am different – I must explain to him!’
But even as she spoke the words into her pillow she thought despairingly that it might be impossible.
*
Ilona walked to the window and looked out at the sun shining on the valley below.
Every day it seemed to her that the view was more breath taking, the snow-peaked mountains more exquisite against the blue sky, the river winding its way into the green distance more alluring, and every day she grew more miserable.
“Which gown do you wish to wear today, M’mselle?” Magda asked behind her.
“It does not matter,” Ilona replied dully.
For four days, she reflected, she had taken trouble over her appeara
nce, tried to look beautiful, attempted to arouse a response of some sort from her husband, only to have failed!
For four days she had been the wife of the Prince, and never once had he spoken to her when they were alone or addressed her in public without a cold note in his voice which told her what he was feeling.
They were always surrounded by people.
Every day they had visited one of the towns in Dabrozka to be welcomed officially by the Bergomaster and the other dignitaries in the area, and to receive presentations and gifts and hear speeches.
Everywhere they were acclaimed in the same enthusiastic manner which had characterised their wedding.
Ilona had learnt a lot about the Prince on these expeditions.
She realised not only his popularity, but also the fact that he had such authority in the country owing to his remarkable personality.
The people looked on him with respect and admiration, and they also trusted him and believed what he told them.
Their visits to the towns, Ilona knew, were not only to receive the goodwill of the inhabitants but also to give them courage and a new hope for the future.
Despite the penal taxation, despite the cruel and unjust laws that her father had passed, Ilona was aware that the Prince aroused in them a sense of patriotism.
Without being in the least disloyal to the reigning Monarch, he contrived to make the people believe that a golden future lay ahead.
‘But how will it ever be accomplished while Papa lives?’ Ilona wondered sometimes.
She found herself carried away as everyone else was by the Prince’s deep voice and by the sincerity with which he spoke.
His love of Dabrozka inspired those who listened to him to the point where Ilona thought sometimes they almost worshipped him.
But while ordinarily she would have loved the drives from Vitózi to the other towns, the beauty of the countryside, the mountains towering above them and the spontaneous welcome they received even in the smallest hamlets, they were never alone.
Facing them in the open carriage were usually two young officers who acted as the Prince’s Aides-de-camp. They found it difficult, Ilona realised, to look anywhere but at her face.
The Prince talked to them, laughing and joking, as if he was their equal rather than their Commanding Officer, just as he treated everyone he met with a comradeship which swept away stiffness and protocol and which made even the most pompous Mayoral Banquet an occasion of gaiety and laughter.
He was also delightfully unpredictable.
He would do unexpected things, like picking up a small boy and letting him ride with them in the carriage.
Or he would toast the most unimportant official’s wife at a banquet, making her the most envied woman in the whole gathering.
He listened to stories of complaints and tragedies, commiserated with bereaved wives, congratulated young soldiers, and admired the herds of sheep and cattle which were the pride of every Dabrozkan farmer.
He was indefatigable!
Often as they drove homewards after a long day he would sing the peasant songs which Ilona remembered as a child, his Aides-de-camp joining in while Ilona was quite certain that the coachmen on the box were singing beneath their breath.
It was only when everyone had left the Castle and the dinner guests who arrived every night had departed that the Prince turned from a warm, gay, laughing young man into an icicle of coldness and repression.
Every night he came to Ilona’s room, bringing his book to seat himself in the same chair, staying exactly one hour, before he rose to leave.
She had been too shy and too humiliated to speak to him until last night.
Then when he had been there a long time, when she could bear it no longer, she said aloud,
“Aladár!”
She was so nervous that after she had spoken she thought it was impossible for him to have heard her because her voice seemed to have died in her throat.
With a superhuman effort she spoke again.
“Aladár!”
This time he heard her.
He shut his book and she thought with a sudden quickening of her senses that at last she would get some response from him.
Instead he had gone from the room as he had done on the previous nights, only this time he was half-an-hour earlier in retiring.
She had given a cry of sheer misery and spent the rest of the night tossing and turning and asking herself how long it could continue.
She knew only too well that the next day would be like yesterday and the day before that.
They would visit the same sort of people, go through the same motions, say the same things. Aladár would inspire them as he had done the others, and they would drive home to entertain another large dinner-party.
If only they had been happy with each other, Ilona thought, every moment would have been an excitement and a delight because they were doing something together which was really worthwhile.
It was what she had wanted in life, what her mother would have wanted for her.
But now, although she was doing her duty it was difficult and miserable, because every moment of the day she was conscious of the Prince’s feeling towards her.
It seemed to Ilona, when she went downstairs the next morning to find the carriage waiting as usual to carry them to some town that was many miles away, that the Prince’s coldness seemed even more marked than it had been at any time since they were married.
The note in his voice when he addressed her because it was unavoidable, was like an icy wind blowing from the snows above them.
He never looked at her directly and when circumstances forced him to touch her she felt almost as if his fingers were frozen and there was no warmth in them.
“He hates me!” she told herself.
This afternoon however the Prince did not start the singing and seemed unusually silent.
The Aides-de-camp made some remarks to him, but he answered them in monosyllables and Ilona thought miserably that even they must be aware sooner or later that there was something wrong.
After only four days of marriage she told herself, there was an invisible barrier between herself and the Prince which was more effective that iron and steel could ever be.
She was thankful when at last the Castle was in sight.
Then unexpectedly, the Prince’s spirits seemed to revive and he talked more animatedly than he had done the whole journey.
As they stepped in the hall Count Duźsa was there to meet them and Ilona was genuinely glad to see him.
She had grown to like and rely on the Count since she had been at the Castle.
He told her so many things she wanted to know. He gave her a short biography of every guest she met at the dinner parties and also told her many legends and stories about the towns they visited.
“You are quite right, Count,” Ilona said as she reached his side, “the place we visited to-day looked exactly like a falcon’s nest!”
“I thought you would see the similarity, Ma’am,” he replied.
“A different sort of music to what you will hear this evening!”
“This evening?” Ilona questioned.
“I thought His Highness would have told you,” he said looking towards Prince Aladár who had followed Ilona into the hall.
“Told me what?” Ilona asked.
“That the gypsies are to be your hosts.”
The Count saw the surprise in Ilona’s face and explained,
“There are a great number of gypsies in Sáros, as I know you are well aware, and they are deeply grateful to the Prince for allowing them to stay on his land and for protecting them.”
“From the King?” Ilona asked.
“His Majesty would have sent the Army against them, had it not been for the Prince’s intervention!”
The Count looked at the Prince and asked,
“Is that not true, Sir?”
“My wife may dislike the gypsies as much as her father does,” the Prince replied coldly,
“in which case she will not be interested in hearing of their gratitude. If she does not wish to be present tonight, I can easily make excuses for her absence.”
He was speaking, Ilona thought, as if she was not there and she found it made her angry.
“I should be delighted to attend the gypsies’ party,” she said to the Count, “and as I am certain it would be expected for us to make them some small gift, perhaps you would be kind enough to choose something appropriate to the occasion.”
She turned towards the stairs as she spoke with almost a flounce of her skirts and walked away with her head held high.
‘I am growing very tired,’ she thought to herself, `of the Prince’s high-handed manner! Sooner or later I will force him to talk to me!’
As she walked up the stairs, she continued to herself,
‘It is impossible to do so when I am in bed. The only way will be for me to ask him to come to my sitting-room, or perhaps I could go to his.’
She tried to sound to herself defiant and determined.
But something weak and helpless inside her made her feel that the Prince was so overpowering and so self-confident that whatever she did would merely make her look foolish in his eyes.
Supposing he asked her what, if she was not satisfied with the way he was treating her, she had expected?
It would be impossible for her to tell him what she really wanted without laying herself open to the obvious retort that he did not find her attractive.
‘That is the whole truth,’ Ilona thought, ‘I do not attract him, and nothing I can say or do will make any difference!’
She expected to endure a miserable evening of cold indifference from the Prince and a. pretence on her part of being interested in everybody else but him.
She was finding it more and more difficult to play that part, but actually that night she did not have to pretend.
The gypsies had congregated just outside the gardens of the Castle and because it was a warm evening with a sky filled with a multitude of stars, the Prince and Ilona walked from the Castle to where the gypsies were waiting for them.
Servants accompanied them with lighted torches, and when they were met by the gypsy Chief or Voivode, Ilona found they were the only guests, the only people present who were not of gypsy blood.
Princes and Princesses: Favourite Royal Romances Page 25
