The Enchanted Waltz Read online

  It was but a short distance to the Baroness’s house, but it took a long time owing to the fact that the roads leading out to the Razumovsky Palace were thick with people.

  By this time the news had spread to all of Vienna that the Palace was on fire and everyone from the highest Nobleman to the lowest citizen was anxious to see the spectacle, more magnificent in its wild beauty than all the military parades, tournaments and masques that had been performed to date.

  For the whole of the journey Richard held Wanda close in his arms and only when they were at length within the City and the dawn was breaking, pale and silver over the chimney pots, did she raise her face to his and speak.

  “Must you – leave me?” she whispered.

  He had thought perhaps she was asleep and had been content to travel in silence. Now he put his hand under her chin and turned her face up to his.

  “My darling,” he said softly, “I would stay with you for ever if it were possible.”

  “And – isn’t it?”

  The question was so low he hardly heard it and yet he knew by the movement of her lips what she asked.

  “I love you!” he said. “You know that, but what you don’t know is my position. I am penniless, Wanda, a man without a country, an Englishman who cannot return home.”

  “You are exiled?”

  He nodded his head.

  It was impossible for him to confirm the truth in words. If it had seemed bitter before to be barred from England for a crime he had not committed, it was doubly hard now. He had a sudden vision of Wanda in the house he loved, her laughter echoing down the empty corridors, her little feet running up the wide staircase.

  For a moment he hesitated and then he said the words he had never before said in his life.

  “I want to ask you to marry me,” he said. “God knows I want it more than I have ever wanted anything else in my life before, but it is not possible.”

  In the faint morning light he saw the sudden radiance of her face and then, because it hurt him too much to see her happiness and know that there was no justification for it, he looked away.

  “I am homeless,” he admitted. “I can ask no woman to share that with me.”

  “But – but we love each other – ”

  The words were somehow almost a cry.

  He turned to her almost roughly.

  “Yes, I love you as I did not believe it possible to love anyone. As I carried you through that fire, I thought to myself that if we died together it would not matter. It is going to be far harder to live apart.”

  “We cannot! There must be a way, there must!”

  It was the cry of youth all over the world, the unquenchable belief that a solution could be found to every problem, however hard, the brightness of hope springing from a heart that had not yet known the bitterness of disillusionment.

  Richard bent his head and his lips found hers.

  For a moment they clung together until, breathless, she drew away from him, her eyes shining.

  “Everything will come right, I am sure of it,” she cried exultantly.

  He stared at her dumbly, not wishing to dispel her joy.

  The sleigh drew up outside the Baroness’s house.

  A sleepy footman opened the door and Richard helped Wanda up the freshly sanded stone steps.

  He would have said goodbye to her, but she clung to his arm.

  “Please come in.”

  He could not resist the pleading in her eyes and so they entered the house together.

  The servants ran to light a fire in the small salon opening off the dining room and the Major Domo promised that breakfast should be ready in a few minutes.

  “I must go and tell the Baroness I am home,” Wanda said. “You will not go until I return?”

  Again the pleading in her voice was irresistible.

  “I will wait,” Richard promised.

  She smiled and then ran lightly up the stairs as if her feet were winged with happiness.

  Richard demanded hot water and, when he looked at himself in the mirror, was not surprised that the Czar had laughed at his appearance. His face was smeared and blackened, his hair untidy, his cravat a crumpled rag.

  The Baroness’s servants were apparently equal to any emergency and when, twenty minutes later, he returned to the salon, he had shaved and washed, his borrowed necktie was spotless and immaculate and his burnt legs had been bandaged.

  Breakfast was ready, but there was no sign of Wanda and then, as he hesitated, wondering whether to help himself to the hot dishes and to drink the steaming chocolate, Wanda came running into the room.

  She had changed her evening dress for one of white muslin and her hair, brushed until it shone like burnished gold, fell loosely over her shoulders.

  Her face was alight with happiness and her eyes seemed almost breathtakingly blue against the clear bloom of her unblemished skin.

  She was so young, so fresh, so lovely that for a moment Richard forgot all the problems that had been troubling him and remembered only that he was a man and in love.

  He held out his arms and she ran into them.

  “I was half-afraid you would have vanished,” she sighed. “I thought I must have dreamed it all.”

  “Was ever a dream as delectable as this?” he asked, against her lips.

  He felt her tremble as he kissed her, not with fear, but with a sudden ecstasy that seemed to sweep them both into a rapture beyond words.

  The very air they breathed was filled with an almost visible happiness as they drew apart and looked into each other’s eyes.

  “Tell me that you love me!” Richard demanded masterfully.

  “I always knew that love would just be like this,” Wanda answered.

  He took her hands in his and lifted them to his lips, kissing each one of her fingers until, laughing, she pulled him towards the breakfast table.

  “You must be hungry,” she said. “What a long night it has been!”

  They sat down side by side and Richard ate with his left hand because he was holding hers with his right.

  “The Baroness was awake,” Wanda said, as the servants came into the room to serve them. “I told her what had happened and when we have finished breakfast she wishes to see you.”

  Richard tried to force himself to remember his ignominious position, his poverty and unenviable reputation, but he could think only of Wanda and the warmth of her little fingers clinging to his, the shining wonder of her eyes and her lips, which seemed still to be quivering from his kisses.

  He had no idea of what he ate and drank, he only knew that it was the most delicious meal he had ever enjoyed in the whole of his life.

  Yet later, as he climbed the stairs with Wanda towards the Baroness’s room, he wondered where he would find words to explain either to the Baroness or to Wanda that their love was doomed from the very start.

  Wanda paused at the top of the stairs.

  “Don’t be afraid of her,” she said softly. “I was, at first, but now I know that she is gentle and lonely inside. She says sharp things with her tongue only because she is afraid of anyone feeling sorry for her. She has been very kind to me.”

  “Could anyone be anything else?” Richard asked.

  She looked away from him and there was a shadow over her face.

  “I have failed the Prince,” she said.

  “Prince Metternich?” Richard enquired. “He had no right to ask you to spy on his account.”

  “It was for Austria,” she corrected him.

  “I don’t care if it was for Heaven,” Richard answered. “It was outrageous of him to ask such a thing of you or for you to accept.”

  “The Prince was desperate,” Wanda answered. “He told me so and because I was new to Vienna – a face that had not been seen before – be thought I might succeed where he had failed. It was only a forlorn hope and, as you see, I have been no help at all.”

  “A good thing too,” Richard said sharply. “I shall tell Prince Metternich
what I think of him and his schemes.”

  “No, no! I would not have you antagonise him,” Wanda cried hastily.

  Richard’s lips tightened.

  “We will go and see him together,” he said. “I will not have you intimidated by this man or any other.”

  “I am not frightened of him – really,” Wanda answered, “but I like to hear you say that we will go to see the Prince or anyone else – together.”

  When she spoke like that there was nothing Richard could do but put out his arms towards her and, as he kissed her, be repeated the word silently but despairingly in his heart,

  ‘Together – together!’

  *

  But their plans were doomed to disappointment.

  Prince Metternich had decided to take advantage of a temporary lull in the negotiations of the Congress to enjoy a brief holiday. He kept his movements secret, knowing that to announce his departure would draw a storm of protest from everyone, including the Emperor Francis himself.

  He had played a most exhausting role for so long that he felt that unless he stole away for a few days he might be in danger of losing the few advantages he had gained by sheer tenacity, unremitting determination and against what at times seemed overwhelming odds.

  It was not only the Congress that had exhausted him.

  He had lived strenuously since the beginning of the campaign against Napoleon. Day after day he had been in the saddle, advancing with the victorious Armies.

  Without any rest or respite he had plunged into the negotiations in Paris, in London and now in Vienna.

  The calls on his time socially, the irritations of the Czar’s obstinacy, the machinations of Talleyrand and the opposition of other Statesmen had taken serious toll of his nervous energy.

  His left eye, in which he had caught a severe cold during the campaigns, had begun to trouble him again and had developed a slight droop.

  He knew that if he did not rest now he might collapse and that as a sick man he would be unable to serve either his country or his own ambitions.

  It was Julia who made the final decision.

  Count Szechenyi, who was Sophie Zichy’s father, had properties near Wiener-Neustadt, which she told Prince Metternich would be ideal for his retreat.

  The Count confirmed that he would be delighted to have the Prince and what was more Julia was prepared to go with him.

  For a moment, when she announced this plan, Prince Metternich was silent, but she knew by the expression on his face and the sudden light in his eyes what he hoped of their journey and she knew that he asked her a question wordlessly.

  “Yes, I will come with you,” she answered, “but it will be as your nurse, as someone to minister to you, to look after you and you must promise to obey me.”

  “Have I ever done anything else?” he asked and, as he spoke, his fingers tightened on hers and she knew that he had suffered because she had kept him at arm’s length, waiting to be sure of his vow of fidelity, waiting too for what she considered the right and perfect moment for the consummation of their love.

  Her eyes were very tender as they rested on his finely drawn face with the dark lines of exhaustion beneath his blue eyes.

  “You have to get well, my dear one,” she said and for the moment he had to be content with that for an answer.

  Two days later they left the snow-covered Capital in a carrosse and hurried Southward.

  The countryside rolled past the windows, isolated hamlets, fertile farms, deep silent forests and wide silver rivers. He had forgotten that Austria could be so beautiful or so peaceful.

  It was peace that he needed, he thought, and he felt as he had felt at their first meeting, that Julia brought him peace.

  Even after a few hours in her presence he could feel energy surging through his veins.

  When they reached Wiener-Neustadt, they were transferred to an open sleigh and a Hungarian coachman swathed them thickly in warm fox furs. The sun was on their faces and the cold frosty air seemed as intoxicating as some rare wine.

  The horses started to climb the white road into the mountains. The intrigues and gossips and irritations of Vienna seemed to have been left behind with civilisation.

  Here there were only the rolling hills and the distant mountains, their glaciers dazzling against the blue of a winter sky. Here there was peace and the sudden feeling of being re-born into a pure and untouched world.

  Finally they reached the property of Count Szechenyi near to Lake Neusiedel, that mysterious water, which vanished sometimes for decades, only to reappear apparently replenished by the earth itself. In the last century the water had disappeared for so long that the peasants had planted their fields on the lakebed and even built their cottages there. Then the water had returned.

  Now the lake was frozen over, but it seemed to have a Fairy-like quality about it, so that, as the horses and their sleigh galloped round it, their silver bells tinkling and the crack of the coachman’s whip vibrating through the air. Prince Metternich wondered if he and Julia would also disappear as the water had done, leaving no trace behind them but the memory of their love.

  At length the hunting lodge came in sight.

  It was a one storied building, very substantial in appearance and built round a centre court.

  They were welcomed by the Count, who led them into the large comfortable sitting room where huge logs were burning in an open fireplace and where porcelain stoves in the directoire style also drove out the cold.

  The curtains were not yet drawn and Prince Metternich went to the window and looked out over the panorama of mountains and valleys, all white and silent and without a sign of habitation.

  It was just beginning to grow dark and the white fields beneath the hunting lodge were dotted with coveys of partridges appearing to be twice their natural size against the background of snow.

  “Peace! Peace! It is all so peaceful here,” he murmured to himself and then with a sudden pang he remembered Vienna.

  What might be happening without his presence, what crisis might arise and he was not there to cope with it?

  But even as the thought was there it was dispelled.

  Julia’s hand touched his arm and he turned to see her smiling at him.

  The Count stayed for dinner and then announced that he had to leave for another part of his estate.

  “You will not, I hope, be lonely without me,” he said with a humorous twist of his lips.

  When he had gone, Prince Metternich and Julia sat for a little time in front of the fire.

  “You must go to bed,” she said at length. “It has been a long day and more tiring than you realise. Tomorrow I have a great deal to show you. I love this place and I am always happy here.”

  “I think I had forgotten how to be happy until I met you,” the Prince said.

  “You work too hard, dearest.”

  “I like work,” he answered. “Don’t let us pretend about that, but to be with you is to be in Heaven itself.”

  He held out his arms for her and she let him hold her close against his breast, but, when he would have kissed her lips, she turned her head aside.

  “Go to bed, my darling,” she begged him. “We shall have so much to talk about tomorrow.”

  He obeyed her because he knew that he was very near to collapse, but alone in his room he found his mind still troubled by the political manoeuvres of the Congress.

  He found himself thinking of Talleyrand’s sneering lips and crafty eyes, of Castlereagh’s aloof impersonalness, which made him feel that he was dealing with a block of ice rather than a man.

  He could hear the Czar shouting at him as they quarrelled for the thousandth time over the question of Poland and he could feel himself irritated by the stupidity of King Frederick of Prussia and by the antics of the Spanish representative who was trying to make his country important by refusing to agree with anything or anybody.

  Then, with a little jerk, Prince Metternich remembered where he was.

  He w
as here with Julia Zichy in a white world miles from anywhere, isolated together in the midst of a distant country and they were in fact alone as they had never been before.

  He rose from his bed and, putting on a dressing gown of heavy silk brocade, walked quickly and impulsively down the corridor to her apartment.

  He tapped on the door, but hardly expected an answer. He thought she must be asleep and then, as he heard a gentle voice tell him to enter, he opened the door and saw that she was sitting up in bed supported by a great mass of lace pillows, reading by the light of three candles which stood on a little table beside her bed.

  “I thought you would be asleep,” he said.

  She smiled at him and shook her head.

  “I was tired and yet at the same time I was too excited by our drive and the thought of having you here alone, so I decided to read.”

  Prince Metternich sat down on the edge of her bed.

  “I cannot sleep either,” he said. “All the worries of the world seem to be crowding into my mind.”

  She reached out and took his hand in hers.

  “Here you are not supposed to think,” she told him. “If you stop worrying about the Congress, your brain will be all the keener when you return. That is your only possible excuse for your absence from Vienna.”

  “That is not the only excuse for my absence,” he said.

  “There are others?”

  “One other, that I wanted to be alone with you, alone with the loveliest woman I have ever known, the most perfect companion.”

  She smiled.

  When her eyes met his, he saw there was only tenderness and gentleness reflected in them. He was too great a lover and too experienced a one not to know that this was not the moment, when they were both tired after a long journey, for them to seek the springing fires of desire.

  He sat there looking at her, at her dark hair lying in heavy waves on her white shoulders and at the sweet serenity of her heart-shaped face, which seemed at times to remind him of the pictures of the Madonna hung in the Cathedral of St. Stephen in Vienna.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked at length.

  “I was thinking of you,” she answered. “I think of very little else these days.”