The Passion and the Flower Read online

  “They moved away and we waited for an hour, Your Highness.”

  Still the Prince did not reply and the servant continued,

  “I then thought that something must be wrong and went into the Station to investigate. Several trains had come and gone while we were waiting outside and now there were only a few passengers still in the Station. The two ladies were not among them.”

  “You were certain of that?”

  “Quite certain, Your Highness, and I made enquiries of a porter.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said he was almost certain that he had seen the four people I described boarding a train which had left shortly after midnight.”

  “Did he say where it was going?”

  “He was not absolutely certain, Your Highness, but thought that it was the express to Calais.”

  The Prince stood immobile.

  Then the servant who had opened the carriage door drew something from the inside.

  Lord Marston saw that he held in his arms two Russian costumes, one of them embroidered with real jewels.

  Chapter Five

  Lokita stood looking out onto the small square.

  There was a garden in the centre of it, but the trees seemed grey and somehow lifeless compared with those in Paris.

  The sky was overcast and she felt that London was in fact all grey, dull and dismal like the despair in her heart.

  She was thinner than she had been a week ago and there were dark lines under her eyes because every night she had wept until she was exhausted.

  She had wept for the Prince, for her lost dreams, for missing the Russian party he had arranged for her and the future held nothing but loneliness.

  She could hardly believe that she was hearing aright when Andy had told her that they were leaving for London that very night.

  She had come off the stage to the tumultuous applause of the audience with her eyes alight and a rising excitement within her at the thought of the evening that lay ahead.

  All day she had been unable to talk of anything else.

  “Prince Ivan has said that his garden will look like Russia, Andy,” she had said. “Do you think he will have snow on the ground and if so what will it be made of?”

  “It is not always snowing in Russia,” Miss Anderson had replied in a voice as if the words were dragged from her. “In the South it can be very hot and there is sunshine and flowers.”

  “You told me about that before,” Lokita replied, “but I always think of sleighs moving over the snow and the domes and spires of St. Petersburg gleaming gold against the sky. Papa used to describe it to me.”

  Miss Anderson did not answer and Lokita had thought that she was reluctant that they should go to the party because she would meet people there and she had never been allowed to make friends.

  “I am interested in no one except the Prince,” Lokita whispered to herself.

  She had run ahead of Miss Anderson up the iron staircase to her dressing room, knowing that the Russian costumes the Prince had promised to deliver at the theatre would be waiting for them.

  They were lying on the armchair and she gave a cry of sheer delight when she saw them.

  “Look, Andy, how beautiful they are!” she exclaimed.

  But to her astonishment Miss Anderson said harshly,

  “Change into the clothes you came in.”

  “But, why, Andy? It was arranged that we should dress here and go straight to the party.”

  “Do as I say!” Miss Anderson ordered.

  “I want to wear my Russian gown,” Lokita protested. “How can I go to the party without it? It is so beautiful!”

  “Put on your ordinary clothes.”

  There was something in the way she spoke that made Lokita look at Miss Anderson apprehensively.

  There was a silence and then she said in a voice hardly above a whisper,

  “What are you – saying?”

  “We are leaving for London tonight!”

  “For London? But – why?”

  “Because we can no longer stay here in Paris.”

  “Why? Why?” Lokita demanded.

  Because she had obeyed Miss Anderson all her life, she was soon dressed in her ordinary clothes, which were covered by her velvet cape.

  Then they went down the iron stairs to the stage door.

  Miss Anderson also wore a cloak and it was only when they had stepped into the Prince’s carriage and the servants had been told to take them to the Railway Station that Lokita realised that Miss Anderson had brought the Russian costumes with her. She drew them from their place of concealment and she carried a hat box as well.

  “What is in that?” Lokita asked.

  “Our bonnets,” Miss Anderson replied uncompromisingly. “I don’t wish the Prince’s servants to know what we are doing until we have actually left Paris.”

  There was nothing Lokita could do and nothing she could say.

  When finally the train for Calais had steamed out of the Station, she had closed her eyes to prevent the tears from running down her cheeks.

  She had no wish to cry in front of other people, but at night when she was alone she had wept until her pillow was wet.

  *

  Miss Anderson had expected to stay with her sister who was married to a Doctor Edwards, who practised in Islington, but when they arrived they found that the house was too small for extra visitors.

  Mrs. Edwards had found them accommodation in a boarding house that was practically next door.

  It was small and not very comfortable, but Lokita was too distressed to feel anything but an inescapable sense of loss.

  ‘What will the Prince think?’ she kept asking herself.

  How could he ever understand that she had no wish to be rude or to hurt him by leaving as she had been forced to do?

  On their third day in London Miss Anderson became ill.

  Her brother-in-law examined her and said gravely that it was imperative that Miss Anderson should see a specialist.

  “We cannot afford it,” she answered firmly, but he insisted.

  Now Lokita was waiting for the verdict of Sir George Lester who Dr. Edwards had spoken of with awe and admiration.

  Lokita could not really believe that there was anything seriously wrong with Andy. She had always been so strong and indestructible.

  It was only in the last month or two in Paris that she had been too tired to walk in the Bois de Boulogne as she had always liked to in the past and sometimes when they left the theatre she had seemed too exhausted even to speak as they drove home,

  The door opened behind Lokita and she turned round as Sir George Lester came into the room.

  He looked grave and her eyes were apprehensive as she waited for him to speak.

  “I have examined Miss Anderson,” he said quietly, “who I understand is your Guardian.”

  Lokita nodded.

  “I think you would want me to be frank and tell you the truth,” he went on.

  “Is Andy very ill?”

  Lokita could not help the question bursting from her lips.

  “Yes, my dear, very ill,” Sir George Lester replied. “Her heart is affected and there are also other complications that I need not distress you with.”

  “What can we do? How can she be cured?” Lokita asked him.

  Sir George shook his head.

  “I have told Miss Anderson that she must rest. She must not be agitated or upset by anything or anybody. I have given her certain drops, which she must always have by her to take if she is in pain or appears on the verge of collapse.”

  Lokita drew in her breath.

  She was very pale and now her eyes were frightened.

  “Is there nothing more we can do?” she asked almost in a whisper.

  “She is worried about you, my child,” Sir George said, “and therefore you must do everything in your power to reassure her and to keep her from being distressed.”

  “I will do that,” Lokita promised.
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  “I am sure that is half the battle,” Sir George added kindly.

  He patted Lokita on the arm and turned to leave the room, picking up his top hat from where he had left it just inside the door.

  Dr. Edwards was waiting outside for him and Lokita heard the men going downstairs talking to each other in low voices.

  She ran into Miss Anderson’s room, it was a very small bedroom inadequately furnished, and Andy was lying propped against a number of pillows on a narrow brass bedstead.

  Lokita forced herself to walk slowly to her side.

  “Andy!” she said with a little throb in her voice. “Oh, Andy!”

  “It’s all right, dear,” Miss Anderson replied. “Doctors always make a great fuss over nothing. I shall just take it easy and then I will be all right. You can be sure of that.”

  Lokita could not speak for fear she should burst into tears.

  Then in a different tone of voice, as if she did not wish to be overheard, Miss Anderson said,

  “Send for Serge. I want to speak to him.”

  “Yes, of course,” Lokita agreed. “I will find him.”

  She left the room and found, as she expected, that Serge was hovering on the stairs with Marie beside him.

  They were both desperately anxious to know the doctor’s verdict.

  “Miss Anderson wants to speak to you, Serge,” Lokita said and without a word the Russian went towards Miss Anderson’s bedroom.

  “What did the doctor say about Madame?” Marie asked in French.

  Lokita drew her into the sitting room that was used by all the guests staying at the lodging house and told her what Sir George had said.

  “We must look after Madame,” Marie agreed. “It was too much for her, rushing away from Paris in that crazy manner This place is uncomfortable and the food – !”

  She made a face that was more expressive than any words.

  “I know,” Lokita answered. “Perhaps we could persuade her that we should all go home.”

  As she spoke, she knew that Andy would never agree to return to Paris as long as the Prince was there.

  They were hiding from him and the one place he was most unlikely to look, Lokita knew, was in Islington.

  She heard Serge come out of Miss Anderson’s bedroom and go down the stairs.

  She looked at Marie.

  “I wonder where Andy has sent him.”

  She went back into the bedroom.

  Miss Anderson’s eyes were closed as she entered the room, but she opened them as Lokita approached the bed and smiled.

  “Where have you sent Serge?” Lokita enquired.

  ‘To find out if Lord Marston is in London,” Andy replied.

  *

  Lord Marston was sitting in the library of his house in Curzon Street opening a huge pile of letters that he had found waiting for him on his return from Paris.

  Although he had been back for several days, the pile seemed undiminished and he knew it was because he had had little time to give to his correspondence while the Prince was staying with him.

  When he discovered that Lokita had been spirited away, the Prince had behaved like a madman and it was with the greatest difficulty that Lord Marston could restrain him from doing something wild or desperate.

  “I have lost her! God, Hugo, I have lost her!” the Prince had exclaimed over and over again.

  He had refused to return to the party, but had there and then driven to Lokita’s house near the Bois de Boulogne.

  There the Prince had hammered on the door until, frightened and apprehensive, a middle-aged caretaker had come downstairs with a coat over his nightshirt to find out what was happening.

  The Prince had cross-questioned him, but it was obvious that the man knew very little.

  He and his wife, he explained, had been asked by Marie, who was their niece, to look after the house as the ladies were going away.

  “Where have they gone?” the Prince asked fiercely.

  The man shrugged his shoulders.

  “Is it to England?”

  He considered the question and then he replied that he thought it was. He had heard his niece say that they would want thick clothes because she was sure that it was always cold in London.

  The Prince looked at Lord Marston.

  “London!” he exclaimed.

  But that was the only information he could obtain.

  Marie had not confided in her relatives and Lord Marston thought doubtful whether Miss Anderson had told anybody where she intended to stay.

  It was obvious that she had planned their precipitate departure carefully and, Lord Marston was inclined to think, had kept it from Lokita until the very last moment.

  One thing they learnt under the Prince’s continued cross-examination of the caretaker was that Miss Anderson had sold a valuable ikon.

  The caretaker’s wife had heard Marie say to Miss Anderson,

  “M’mselle loves that ikon. It means something very special to her. She will be upset to lose it.”

  “There is no reason why she should know that it has been sold,” Miss Anderson had replied sharply.

  The Prince had guessed who was the most likely buyer in Paris of valuable ikons. He and Lord Marston had gone there the following morning to buy it back, doubtless at double what the man had paid for it.

  Nevertheless it had been something of Lokita’s for the Prince to treasure.

  He had then decided that they must leave for London, giving Lord Marston hardly time to inform the British Ambassador of his intention before they were in the train and rushing towards the coast.

  When they reached London, even the Prince realised that it was not going to be easy to find two ladies without any idea where they might have hidden themselves.

  At this very moment Lord Marston knew, as he slit open another letter, that the Prince was engaging private detectives to search every possible area of the City.

  It was a quest that was bound to be considerably handicapped by the fact that there were no pictures either of Miss Anderson or Lokita to help their identification.

  It seemed hopeless, but at least, Lord Marston thought, the Prince had something to occupy himself with

  He was suffering from what the Russians describe as tosca, an inner misery, an agony of the soul that was for every Slav a part of their innate fatalism.

  In the Prince’s case it was so intense and so pregnant with distress that at times Lord Marston was afraid he might end his life rather than continue to suffer.

  There was no doubt of one thing and that was that he was desperately and overwhelmingly in love.

  Lord Marston had in the past seen him infatuated, beguiled and almost bewitched by women while he was pursuing them, but never had he known the Prince to be swept off his feet by an emotion that had shaken from him everything except the elemental depth of his love.

  It was as if, Lord Marston thought reflectively, that he was no longer a Prince, an aristocrat, the possessor of great wealth and a position of authority but just a man.

  A man yearning for the unattainable, distraught by the loss of everything that mattered to him and immersed in the darkness of an overwhelming despair.

  ‘Thank God I have never been in love like that!’ Lord Marston said to himself for the hundredth time.

  A servant opened the door and he looked up impatiently.

  He had no wish to be interrupted as he wished to clear as much as he could of his correspondence before the Prince returned.

  “There’s a man asking to see you, my Lord.”

  “I can see no one.”

  “He’s very insistent, my Lord. He says he has a message from a Miss Anderson.”

  Lord Marston stared at his servant incredulously.

  “Did you say – Miss Anderson?”

  “Yes, my Lord.”

  “Show the man in immediately!”

  “Very good, my Lord.”

  Lord Marston rose from the desk and was standing by the fireplace when Serge was an
nounced.

  The big Russian stood inside the door twisting his hat in his hands.

  “Good morning, Serge,” Lord Marston greeted him calmly.

  “Good day, my Lord.”

  “You have a message for me?”

  “Yes, my Lord.”

  “What is it?”

  “Miss Anderson sent me to your house, my Lord, to find out when you were expected to return from Paris and say that when you did arrive she would wish to see you. It is urgent!”

  “In which case,” Lord Marston replied, “it would be best if you took me to her immediately.”

  “Very good, my Lord.”

  It took only a few minutes for his Lordship’s carriage to be brought round from the Mews. Lord Marston stepped Inside as Serge climbed onto the box beside the coachman.

  As they drove off, Lord Marston found himself wondering why he had been sent for.

  Could anything have happened to Lokita? Had there been an accident? If she was dead or injured, he wondered how it would be possible to break the news to the Prince.

  He spent the whole journey turning over in his mind the extraordinary circumstances that must have compelled Miss Anderson to send for him.

  When the carriage drew up outside the shabby lodging house in Islington Square, he thought as he stepped out onto the pavement that it was far from the right setting for Lokita.

  He formed a similar impression as he saw her waiting for him just inside the small dark hall.

  She held out both her hands and he saw the gladness in her eyes.

  “You have come with Serge!” she exclaimed. “Andy was not certain if you would have returned to London.”

  “The Prince and I came back the day after you left us,” Lord Marston explained.

  He saw the expression in Lokita’s eyes when he mentioned the Prince and he knew without being told that she was suffering in the same way that he was.

  “Andy is – ill,” Lokita told him as they went up the stairs. “She has seen a specialist doctor, Sir George Lester, who said she is not to be upset and we all have to do everything she – wants.”

  They went a few more steps before Lokita added,

  “Sir George said it was her heart and I am afraid terribly afraid that something might happen to her.”

  Lord Marston understood what she meant.