The Wings of Ecstacy Read online

  “You have no reason to imagine he will do that, Leopold,” the Arch-Duchess had said defensively.

  “I know the English,” the Arch-Duke had replied, and Zena thought he had merely said aloud what she was thinking.

  “What can we do to prevent these horrors from happening to us?” she now asked her brother.

  Kendric did not reply and she carried on,

  “It is appalling that we are to be separated in addition to having to go to Ettengen and mug up that ghastly German.”

  “ I hate that language too,” Kendric said, “and from all the Baron tells me the Professor is even more boring than he is.”

  “You can be quite certain of that,” Zena agreed. “After all, he must be a hundred and eighty, otherwise we would not have to go to him!”

  The Arch-Duke’s last announcement had been that they were to leave in three days’ time for a small village where they were to stay with their Tutor, Professor Schwarz, because he was too old to come to them.

  “You will be accompanied,” their father had continued, “by Baron Kauflen and Countess Baron Kasler, who will see that you two behave yourselves and apply yourselves to your studies. Otherwise, when you return, I will be extremely angry!”

  “Fancy having to stay for three weeks with those old bores!” Kendric said now.

  “I feel like running away,” Zena said gloomily. “The only difficulty is – where could we – run to?”

  There was silence, then Kendric suddenly said,

  “I have an idea!”

  Zena looked at him apprehensively.

  “If it is going to get us into more trouble with Mama, I don’t think I could stand it!” she said. “You know what happened the last time you had one of your brainwaves.”

  She was, however, not speaking severely, but smiling.

  The twins had always got into mischief ever since they were born and it was Kendric who with his vivid imagination thought out the outrageous pranks which inevitably brought retribution down on their heads.

  But Zena would slavishly do whatever he wanted her to do simply because she loved him.

  Kendric jumped up to walk across the room.

  Their private sitting room was very untidy simply because the servants had given up trying to create order out of chaos.

  Kendric’s guns, rackets, riding-whips, footballs and polo sticks were all muddled up with Zena’s paintbrushes and palettes, her embroidery which she thought a boring pastime, but on which her mother insisted and the books which she loved and which increased in number almost daily.

  Books filled the shelves around the room, there were books on the table, on the chairs and on the floor.

  There were also flowers that Zena had picked herself from the Palace garden and arranged with an artistry that was seldom shown in other parts of the Palace.

  There were dolls she had loved as a child but which she now kept as ornaments and dressed them in beautiful gowns embroidered with jewels to brighten the severity of the panelled walls.

  It suddenly struck Zena, looking round the room, that anyone seeing it for the first time would have a very clear insight into not only hers and Kendric’s interests, but also their personalities and characters.

  Quite suddenly Kendric gave a cry, jumped up and ran to the door. He opened it, looked outside, and shut it again.

  “I am just making sure,” he explained, “that there is nobody listening outside. I feel certain that on two or three occasions one of the maids or a footman has overheard our conversations, related them to Mama’s lady’s maid, who in her turn wasted no time in passing on the information to Mama.”

  “So that is how Mama knew about your pretty little dancer!” Zena said.

  “There is no other possible way she could have known!” Kendric replied.

  There had been an appalling row because the Archduchess had learnt that Kendric had been out at night alone.

  He had somehow evaded the sentries at the gate and gone to the theatre where he had not only enjoyed night after night the performance of a very attractive Russian ballet dancer but had also taken her out to supper afterwards.

  After the roof had nearly been taken off the Palace over his ‘outrageous behaviour’, Kendric had decided that the only possible way his mother could have discovered his escapades was that he had extolled the dancer’s charms and the fun they had together to Zena in the privacy of their sitting room.

  That was why now to make quite certain there was nobody listening he took the precaution of lowering his voice, and he sat down beside Zena before he began,

  “Now listen,” he said, “I have an idea and you must help me work out every detail.”

  “What is it?” Zena asked.

  “You know where the Professor lives?”

  “I know the direction on the map,” Zena said.

  “Well, to get there we have to change at the junction of Hoyes.”

  Zena was now looking at her brother in a puzzled fashion.

  He had a sudden light in his eyes which had replaced the expression of dull despair, as if his plan was already exciting him, but at the same time she was afraid of what it might be.

  “You know what happens at Hoyes,” he went on.

  “You tell me,” Zena answered.

  “Express trains from many parts of Europe stop there on their way to Paris.”

  The way Kendric spoke made Zena sit up sharply and look at him with startled eyes.

  “What do you mean? What are you suggesting?” she asked.

  “I am planning,” Kendric said slowly, “how we can escape from our watch-dogs at Hoyes and spend a week of our tutorial in the gayest city in the world.”

  “You must be mad!” Zena exclaimed. “If we ran away from them, they would come straight back and report to Papa and he would have us arrested.”

  “I do not think so, for he would do nothing to cause a scandal,” Kendric said. “At the same time, we have to be clever enough, Zena, to prevent those gloomy old vultures telling him anything for fear they will get into trouble.”

  There was a sparkle in Zena’s blue eyes.

  “Are you really saying, Kendric, that you think we can go to Paris instead of to that boring old Professor?”

  “It is not what I think we can do,” Kendric replied, “it is what I intend we shall do!”

  “I think Papa and Mama will kill us!”

  “Only if they find out.”

  “How are we going to prevent them? And supposing people recognise us?”

  “Once we reach Paris nobody will recognise us, or know who we are,” Kendric replied.

  “You mean we will be disguised?”

  “Of course we will! You don’t suppose I am going to arrive as ‘Crown Prince Kendric of Wiedenstein,’ and have our Embassy preventing us from doing anything except visit museums.”

  “But, Kendric, it’s too dangerous, too outrageous!”

  “God knows, I am entitled to do something outrageous if I am to spend a year clicking my heels and obeying orders at the double!” Kendric said bitterly.

  “It is cruel of Papa to send you to such a place and I am sure he is only being persuaded into it by our ghastly brother-in-law!”

  “It is the sort of place that Georg would think enjoyable,” Kendric said.

  “But – can we really get to Paris?” Zena asked.

  She knew that if once Kendric began a tirade against Georg whom they both disliked, it would depress them more than they were already.

  Sometimes Zena would he awake in tears when she thought of what her sister was suffering with such a man.

  The thought of Georg made her remember that she was to marry an Englishman and, because the idea was so horrifying, she said quickly,

  “Go on with your plan of how we can get there, how we can manage it and who we shall say we are.”

  “We will escape from the old crows at Hoyes,” Kendric said. “Once we are in the Express nobody will be able to stop us from reaching Paris. Of co
urse they could telegraph a description of us down the line, but I think I can prevent them from doing that.”

  “How?” Zena asked.

  “I will tell you that later,” Kendric replied. “It is not yet quite clear in my mind.”

  “Then go on about when we reach Paris.”

  “From that moment Prince Kendric and Princess Marie Therese will no longer exist.”

  “Then who shall we be?”

  Kendric looked at her somewhat quizzically.

  “It is going to be very restricting for me if I arrive in Paris with a sister who has to be looked after and chaperoned.”

  “It might be worse if I pretend to be your wife,” Zena retorted.

  “Exactly,” he answered, “and that leaves only one alternative.”

  “What is that?”

  “You must become my ‘Chère Amie’. It will be rather like taking an apple to a Harvest Festival, but I could not be so unkind as to go to Paris without you.”

  Zena gave a cry.

  “How could you even think of anything so selfish, so utterly disloyal and cruel? Of course you must take me with you!”

  Kendric put his hand on hers.

  “We have always done everything together and, as this will be the most outrageous and our last escapade, even if we are discovered, it will have been worth it.”

  “Of course it will!” Zena agreed loyally.

  “Very well,” Kendric said, “and actually it will be a very good disguise.”

  “What will?”

  “The part you will play as my lady-love.”

  Zena threw back her head and laughed.

  “Oh, Kendric, do you think I dare? Think what Mama would say if she knew!”

  “Let us pray that she never finds out!” Kendric said firmly. “But you do see that if you are thought to be a demi-mondaine, as a newly coined word expresses it, you will be able to come with me to all the places where ladies are not allowed to go?”

  Zena clasped her hands together.

  “That will be thrilling, only you will have to tell me how to behave.”

  She paused before she said provocatively,

  “I am quite certain that is something you know all about!”

  “Of course I do,” Kendric boasted.

  “And you also know where we should go in Paris?”

  “I have a pretty good idea,” he replied. “As you are aware, I have not been to Paris since I was grown-up and the last time was two years ago, but my friends at school, several of whom were older than me, talked of little else.”

  He smiled as if at the remembrance of what he had heard and went on,

  “And Philippe whose father was in the Diplomatic Service, has told me all about the women who are under the protection of the Emperor, the Prince Napoleon, and every important Statesman and aristocrat, and who charge astronomical sums for their services.”

  Zena looked puzzled.

  “What services?” she asked.

  Kendric realised that he had been carried away by his enthusiasm and replied hastily,

  “Because the gentlemen with whom they are – friends show them off to each other, they expect to be bedecked in jewels.”

  “You mean it is a sort of competition, like who has the best horses?” Zena asked.

  “Exactly!” her brother replied. “And you will have to dress yourself up and of course use cosmetics, otherwise I shall lose a great deal of face when I produce you.”

  “That will not be difficult,” Zena said, “for as you know Mama has always said that my looks are ‘regrettably theatrical’!”

  Kendric laughed.

  “I have heard her say that often enough. It is the effect of your hair and your eyes, but there is nothing you can do about it.”

  “Nothing,” Zena agreed, “but now perhaps the combination will come in useful.”

  Kendric looked at her as if he had never seen her before.

  “You know, Zena,” he said, “I think, if you were not my sister, I would be bowled over by you.”

  “Would you really, Kendric?” Zena asked with interest. “Well, I will certainly try not to shame you in Paris and I have some new gowns that I think should be smart enough.”

  “You had better doll them up a bit.” Kendric said. “From all I have heard the women who set the pace are ‘dressed to kill’. Somebody was saying to Papa after dinner the other night that the Empress spends 1,500 francs on a gown.”

  “Good gracious!” Zena exclaimed. “I can hardly be expected to compete with that!”

  “No, of course not,” her brother replied, “but if we take enough money with us perhaps you will be able to buy one gown that will not look out of place and at least you have some good jewellery.”

  “You mean what my grandmother left me?” Zena asked. “It is kept in the safe, but I expect I could get hold of it.”

  “I shall not appear to have been very generous unless you do,” Kendric said.

  He looked at his sister again. Then he said,

  “You will be all right if you mascara your eyelashes and put on a bit of paint and powder. After all, not every man in Paris can have a million francs to throw away on a woman.”

  “Is that what they usually spend?” Zena asked in a low voice. “I have heard of one woman called ‘La Païva’,” Kendric replied lowering his voice again, “who has millions of francs spent on her by every man she meets!”

  “Why? Is she so beautiful?” Zena enquired.

  It passed through Kendric’s mind that as his sister was so innocent it was going to be difficult to answer her questions without embarrassing explanations that he felt it was not his business to make.

  At the same time he knew, as Zena had said, he could not be so cruel as to leave her behind.

  With his usual happy-go-lucky attitude he thought it would somehow work out all right in the long run.

  If Zena guessed the reason for the notorious courtesans’ appearance and behaviour it would not eventually matter very much, while if he said as little as possible she would doubtless remain in happy ignorance of the reality of their behaviour.

  Actually he was feeling rather ignorant himself.

  He had had two very minor love affairs, one of which was with the dancer before he had been strictly forbidden to see her again, and one which had lasted much longer when he was at school.

  His parents would have been horrified if he had realised that the older boys considered themselves men, and there were certainly young women from the town in which the school was situated to tell them they were.

  But such affairs, Kendric knew, were very different from the methods by which the courtesans who were the Queens of their profession ruled Paris.

  The stories of their wild extravagance and the way they were feted and acclaimed lost nothing in the telling. Kendric had had an irresistible desire to visit Paris for the last year and he had suggested it again and again to his father. But the Arch-Duke had said,

  “I would dearly like to take you there, my boy, but you know the fuss your mother would make if I suggested that we went for pleasure, and at the moment, since politically we are somewhat at loggerheads with the French Government, I cannot think of a really good excuse.”

  He had seen the disappointment on his son’s face and smiled understandingly.

  “I will tell you what we will do, Kendric,” he said. “Give it another year, and then when your mother will have no more jurisdiction over you we will get there somehow. I don’t disguise the fact that I should enjoy it myself.”

  He gave a little sigh as he added,

  “I often sit here wondering if ‘La Castiglione’ is still as beautiful as she is reported to be. I know that she is now the mistress of the Emperor.”

  “Was she a ‘love’ of yours, Papa?” Kendric asked.

  He thought for a moment his father was not going to reply. Then he said,

  “Very briefly and although, when she was young she was the loveliest thing I have ever seen, she was
actually somewhat boring.”

  He laughed before he added,

  “But then ‘les experts des Sciences galantes are there to be looked at and loved and why should we ask for more?”

  “Why indeed, Papa?” Kendric had agreed.

  ‘If we are caught,’ he thought now, ‘Papa will understand.’

  But he knew that neither his father nor his mother would ever understand or forgive him for taking Zena with him into what the Arch-Duchess considered a ‘cesspool of wickedness’.

  Kendric knew without Zena having to tell him how much she dreaded having to marry anybody, let alone an Englishman.

  They were both of them deeply distressed about Melanie’s unhappiness and the fact that the husband chosen for her was a man without a vestige of sensitivity or kindness.

  From a Social point of view it was a brilliant marriage, and as Fürstenberg was a far larger and more important country than Wiedenstein, Melanie would eventually be a Queen.

  But as Zena had once said to her twin,

  “Who in their senses would want to be a Queen except on a pack of cards? And if one was a man, one would rather be the Knave!”

  Kendric had laughed and agreed with his sister, but he thought now that just as no young man in his senses would want to go to the Barracks at Dusseldorf, so nobody as spirited and warm-hearted as Zena would wish to marry an Englishman.

  ‘We both of us deserve a visit to Paris first,’ he told himself firmly.

  And if his conscience pricked him he was determined not to listen to anything it said.

  Chapter Two

  In the train that was carrying them to Hoyes, Zena was aware that her heart was beating nervously and she found it impossible to read the book the Countess Bernkasler had bought for her edification on the journey.

  It was only a two-hour ride from the Capital to Ettengen and the Arch-Duke had not bothered to provide his children with a Royal coach.

  Instead a carriage was reserved on the train and they were seen into it by a Lord-in-waiting, the Station Master and a number of other railway officials.

  They were in fact, travelling incognito. This was an excuse for the Arch-Duke not to send a military escort with them on the train or to have sentries posted outside the Professor’s house in Ettengen.