The Wings of Ecstacy Read online

  Author’s Note

  Although Wiedenstein is a fictitious country the details about Paris during the Second Empire are correct.

  The word demi-mondaine was coined by Dumas to describe the world of the déclassés – a world which began where the legal wife ends and finishes where the mistress begins.

  In a play by Barrière one of the characters says, “ it is neither the aristocracy nor the bourgeoisie, but it floats on the ocean of Paris”.

  There were a dozen courtesans, the Queens of their profession who were known as le garde. Each woman considered her beauty her capital and made it pay fantastic dividends. La Païva, born in a Moscow ghetto, wore two million francs worth of diamonds, pearls and precious stones and was called the “ great debauchée of the century”

  In March 1871, one year later than this novel, when the Prussians entered Paris, La Païva’s lover Prince Henchel von Donnersmarch in full uniform watched his compatriots march past.

  Chapter One 1869

  The Arch-Duke of Wiedenstein was engrossed in the newspaper and the rest of his family who were breakfasting with him were silent.

  It was always a somewhat uncomfortable meal as they were never certain in what sort of mood their father would be.

  Prince Kendric took the last piece of toast and having piled it with butter and marmalade, English fashion, ate it quickly and pushed back his chair.

  As he did so his mother, the Arch-Duchess, looked up from the letter she had been reading and gave a significant cough.

  She also looked fixedly at the newspaper which concealed her husband, but there was no response.

  “Leopold,” she said in a voice that was bound to attract his attention.

  The Arch-Duke looked over his newspaper in a manner which showed he was irritated at being interrupted, caught his wife’s eye and said,

  “Yes, yes, of course!”

  Prince Kendric and his twin sister Princess Marie-Therese, who in the family circle was always called “Zena”, stared at their father apprehensively.

  They had the feeling that they were about to be given a lecture, which was nothing unusual.

  The Arch-Duke put the newspaper down slowly on the table and took off his spectacles.

  He never wore them in public if he could help it because he thought they spoilt his image.

  He had been, and still was, a very handsome man. In fact, the coins of Wiedenstein hardly did him justice.

  All his life there had been women to tell him that his looks were irresistible, which was something he had attempted unsuccessfully to keep secret from his wife.

  “Your father wishes to speak to you,” the Arch-Duchess said unnecessarily in a low tone.

  Prince Kendric wished he had left the room earlier, but even if he had tried he was certain his mother would have prevented him from escaping.

  The Arch-Duke cleared his throat.

  “I have received,” he said slowly and ponderously, “a report from your Tutors on your educational progress over these last three months.”

  He paused because he was looking at his daughter and thinking that she was looking particularly attractive this morning and it diverted his mind from what he was about to say.

  Then his eyes crossed the table to look at his son and the expression in them hardened.

  “Your report, Kendric,” he said, is not what I hoped or expected. With one accord your Tutors say you could do better if you tried and it is beyond my comprehension why you do not do so.”

  “I do, Papa,” Prince Kendric said defiantly, “but if you ask my opinion the way we are taught is old-fashioned and, frankly, extremely dull.”

  This was such plain speaking that the Arch-Duchess drew in her breath and Zena looked at her brother nervously.

  “It is a bad workman who complains of his tools,” the Arch-Duke said sharply.

  “If you had allowed me to go to University – ” Kendric began.

  This was an old argument and the Arch-Duke interrupted,

  “You are to go into the Army. It is essential that when you take my place you should be able to command our troops and God knows the discipline will be good for you!”

  There was a pause and it was obvious that Prince Kendric was biting back the words he wanted to utter.

  As father and son glared at each other the Arch-Duchess interposed,

  “Do continue and tell the children your plans, Leopold. That is what they have to hear.”

  Almost as if she called him to attention, the Arch-Duke continued,

  “Your mother and I have discussed the reports in detail and yours, Zena, are no better than Kendric’s, especially where German is concerned.”

  “I find the grammar very difficult, Papa,” the Princess replied, “and Herr Waldshutz is, as Kendric says, so longwinded and so slow that it is difficult not to go to sleep.”

  “Very well, I take your point,” the Arch-Duke said, “and that is why we have decided to send both you and Kendric to Ettengen.”

  “To Ettengen, Papa!” Zena exclaimed in astonishment.

  “It is absolutely essential that Kendric’s German should improve,” the Arch-Duke said, “before he goes to Dusseldorf.”

  There was an audible gasp from Kendric before he asked with his voice rising,

  “Why should I be going to Dusseldorf and what for?”

  “That is what I am about to tell you,” the Arch-Duke said. “Your brother-in-law has suggested, and I think it is an excellent idea, that you should spend a year in the Barracks there and thus have the chance of joining in the intensive training which is given to the Officer Cadets of the Prussian Army.”

  “A year with those bloodthirsty warmongers!” Prince Kendric exclaimed. “I cannot imagine anything more like the terrors of hell!”

  “It will be good for you, and you will do as you are told,” the Arch-Duke replied.

  “I refuse! I absolutely refuse!” Prince Kendric muttered, but besides the defiance, there was a note almost of despair in his voice.

  “As for you, Zena,” the Arch-Duke went on, turning again to his daughter, “as you two make such a fuss at being parted from each other, you will go with Kendric to Ettengen and try to improve your German, after which, when Kendric goes to Dusseldorf, your mother and I have planned your marriage.”

  If Kendric had been astonished it was now Zena’s turn.

  “Married, Papa?” the Princess questioned, and there was no mistaking the expression of horror in her eyes.

  “You are eighteen, and we have been thinking for some time about finding you a suitable husband,” the Arch-Duke said. “I personally hoped there would be a reigning Prince in one of our adjacent States, but unfortunately they are either married or too young.”

  Zena gave a little sigh of relief and her father continued,

  “It was then your mother thought that it might be a good idea for you to marry one of her own countrymen. After all, I was very fortunate in having a relative of the Queen of England as my wife.”

  The Arch-Duchess inclined her head at the compliment. Then as if she could not forbear to join in she said,

  “You must understand, Zena, that it would be impossible, as you are only a second daughter, for us to find a Royal Prince as your husband or, as I would have liked, a reigning Sovereign.”

  “But I have no wish to be married to – anybody, Mama!”

  The Arch-Duchess frowned.

  “Don’t be so ridiculous!” she said sharply. “Of course you have to be married, and with Kendric away at Dusseldorf the sooner the better, as far as I am concerned. I know how tiresome you will be without him.”

  As this was true, Zena looked across the table at her twin only to find he was scowling at a silver mustard-pot
in front of him and obviously engrossed in his own troubles.

  “I have written to my sister Margaret,” the Archduchess went on, “who is, as you are aware, a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Victoria and enjoys Her Majesty’s confidence. We are in fact very fortunate and grateful to have her advice.”

  “And what is that, Mama?” Zena asked, feeling as if her lips were too dry for the words to pass through them.

  “My sister Margaret replied that since there were no Royal Princes available at the moment of the right age, she had suggested to the Queen, who gave her approval, that you should marry an English Duke.”

  The Arch-Duchess paused, but, as Zena did not speak, she continued,

  “There are in fact two at the moment whose families on the maternal side have some connection with the Royal Family, and both my sister and the Queen thought that being the case that an alliance between one of them and us would be advantageous to both countries.”

  “But – I do not wish to marry an – Englishman, Mama.”

  “What possible objection can you have to the English?” the Arch-Duchess asked angrily.

  It struck Zena that whatever she replied would inevitably entail being rude to her mother. She therefore merely looked down at her plate.

  “I will ignore that exceedingly childish remark,” the Arch-Duchess said scathingly.

  “Get to the point, my dear,” the Arch-Duke interposed. “We cannot stay here all day.”

  “That is just what I am trying to do, Leopold,” his wife replied coldly, “ but the children keep interrupting.”

  “They are quiet enough now,” the Arch-Duke remarked.

  “To get back to what I was saying,” the Arch-Duchess continued without hurry, “my sister Margaret said there were two Dukes we might consider as your future husband, although she thought in fact that the Duke of Gatesford was too old, although he has recently become a widower.”

  The Arch-Duchess waited as if she expected Zena to ask his age and as she did not do so, she went on,

  “His Grace has turned sixty, and while he is of great importance and has a most commendable character, your father and I have decided that my sister is right and that he should not be approached.”

  “I could hardly marry a man who is older than Papa!” Zena said.

  “You will marry who we tell you to,” the Arch-Duchess replied repressively, “and we have therefore chosen, though somewhat reluctantly, the Duke of Faverstone who is only thirty-three. His mother was a second cousin of the Queen and was also distantly related to Her Majesty’s uncle, the Duke of Cambridge.”

  “There is nothing wrong with the fellow’s antecedents,” the Arch-Duke remarked.

  “Of course what you say is true, Leopold,” the Archduchess agreed. “At the same time I would have wished Zena to marry an older man, who would not only have controlled the regrettably frivolous side of her nature, but also given her a greater sense of responsibility towards the position into which she has been born.”

  “She will learn all that sooner or later,” the Arch-Duke growled.

  He was exceedingly fond of his second daughter and thought she resembled him more than any other of his children. He was therefore always inclined to defend her against the criticism and fault-finding of her mother.

  The Arch-Duchess favoured her oldest son, but her real affection was for her younger son who was not yet fourteen.

  There was something about Prince Louis that made him appear more English than the rest of her children, and he was therefore automatically very close to the Arch-Duchess’s heart.

  She was a cold woman, brought up austerely in England in a household where it was considered vulgar and ill-bred to show one’s emotions.

  When she had been married off, because of her Royal connections, to the Ruler of Wiedenstein, she had fallen in love with her handsome husband on sight, but found it impossible ever to express her feelings.

  The Arch-Duke in those days had been a romantic Romeo who loved pretty women and who had indulged in a great many fiery love affairs before he was married.

  He did not understand his wife, but he treated her with respect and even grew to have some affection for her sterling qualities.

  He would, however, have been astonished if he had known how wildly jealous she was of the women he favoured or how much she suffered from knowing that he did not admire her cold statuesque looks.

  Nevertheless they had produced between them a family of outstandingly beautiful children.

  It was, however, the Arch-Duchess thought, extremely unfortunate that her three daughters should take after their father in looks and in temperament, while her eldest son, Prince Kendric also leaned more towards Wiedenstein than the English side of his birthright.

  She therefore hoped that her two younger children would be different and so far Prince Louis seemed more likely to fulfil her fondest hopes.

  Zena was thinking over what her mother had said and while she thought the Duke of Faverstone sounded more hopeful than the other candidate, she had no wish to marry an Englishman.

  She had never, even when she was small, found a soft spot in her mother’s character to make her feel warm and cosseted.

  In fact, the Arch-Duchess’s continual scoldings, the severe punishments she had received as a child, and the way in which her opinions were always swept to one side, made her feel that the whole English race was arrogant, dictatorial and heartless.

  When she had thought about being married, she had hoped, dreamed and prayed that she might marry a Frenchman.

  The small Kingdom of Wiedenstein was situated West of Bavaria, with which one of its boundaries marched.

  On the North there was the Province of Heidelberg belonging to Prussia, and on the West there was just a short frontier with the Alsace Region of France.

  The majority of the population of Wiedenstein was of French origin who had intermarried with Bavarians.

  Zena and her brother were therefore bilingual in French and German but their Tutor, who was a Prussian, continually found fault with the soft-spoken colloquial German of the Bavarians.

  English was always spoken by the family in the Palace out of respect for the Arch-Duchess.

  It was inevitable, as Zena had said when she was out of hearing of her father, that the Wiedensteins should be a nation of mongrels and moreover in their own family their father’s mother had been half-Hungarian.

  “Everybody knows,” Kendric had once said to his sister, “that accounts for the wild streak in both of us.”

  “We have not had much chance of showing it,” Zena replied resentfully.

  “We shall have to wait until we are grown up,” Kendric answered.

  Now that he had left school and she was free of the schoolroom except for visiting Tutors, they were to be separated and Zena’s heart cried out at the idea, for she was sure that when she lost Kendric she would lose half of herself.

  The family were at last allowed to leave the breakfast room and Zena had to listen to Kendric’s account of the horrors to which he would be subjected in a German Barracks.

  “I have heard of the cadets being ordered about like animals,” he said. “When they have any free time, they are forced to duel with each other, and the more scars they get on their faces, the prouder they are.”

  Zena gave a little cry of horror.

  “Oh, Kendric, that must not happen to you!”

  “It will,” Kendric replied grimly.

  He was an exceedingly handsome young man who enjoyed his good looks and to Zena the idea of his being deliberately disfigured was terrifying.

  They had rushed to their own private sitting room as soon as they could get away from their parents – and now they looked at each other despairingly.

  It was as if their whole world which had seemed safe and secure had collapsed and tumbled them into a slough of despond from which there was no escape.

  “What shall we do?” Zena asked. “What can we do, Kendric? I cannot lose you for a whole
year!”

  “It is not only for a year,” Kendric corrected, “but for life!”

  Zena gave a cry.

  “I shall have to marry that horrible Duke and it will be even worse than what poor Melanie has to endure with Georg.”

  The twins were silent, both thinking of the unhappiness of their older sister. She was married to the Crown Prince of Fürstenburg which was an allegedly independent State in the North of Germany, but was actually under the heel of Prussia.

  Melanie had hated the Prince from the very moment she first saw him, but the marriage had gone ahead as arranged and when she occasionally came home she told the twins how unhappy she was.

  “I loathe Georg,” she had said over and over again. “He is pompous, obstinate and extremely stupid!”

  “Oh, Melanie, I am sorry!” Zena cried.

  “He listens to nothing anybody says except himself,” Melanie went on, “with the result that everybody at Court is so deadly dull that I feel as if I am buried alive.”

  Her sister’s words came back to Zena now and she thought that this is what would happen to her.

  If all the English were like her mother, she would be suffocated by them.

  She had actually met very few English people except for her mother’s relations who came to stay from time to time.

  The Arch-Duchess had been the youngest of a large family and her sisters and brothers had all married Royalty. They gave themselves, Zena thought, more airs and graces than any Wiedenstein ruler would think of doing.

  The only time they were in the least human was when they were talking about horses, and what her father had said before they left the breakfast room made Zena sure that the Duke of Faverstone would be exactly like them.

  “Your mother suggested, Zena,” he had said to his daughter, “ that we invite the Duke of Faverstone here next month for the Prix d’Or.”

  This was the most important race meeting of the year, and owners brought their horses from all over Europe to compete for the main prize.

  Zena did not answer and her father had continued,

  “Faverstone will thereby see us at our best and will meet the elite of the country. We will entertain for him in a manner which will make it quite clear he would have no grounds for thinking, because he is related to the Queen of England, that he can treat us condescendingly.”