69 Love Leaves at Midnight Read online

  “I suppose in his eyes one twin was as good as another,” Johanna admitted. “But I am not surprised that your mother’s name is taboo. I can only talk about her when I am alone with Mama.”

  “My mother never knew of your existence,” Xenia said. “She longed to know if Aunt Dorottyn had any children, but there was no way for her to find out and there seemed to be very little news about Slovia in the English newspapers.”

  “There is very little about England in ours,” Johanna replied, as if wishing to sound patriotic, “except that we all have to kow-tow to your Queen Victoria and, goodness knows, she is a frightening person!”

  “You have seen her?” Xenia asked.

  “I have been staying for two nights at Windsor Castle, which is one of the reasons why I was allowed to come to England. Robert was there and it was very wonderful when we could snatch a few moments together.”

  Her face seemed suddenly illuminated for a moment.

  Then she said,

  “But it’s no use. I have been sent for urgently and told that it is imperative that I should go to Luthenia at once. There is nothing I can do but obey.”

  There was a note of despondency in her voice and then suddenly she stared at Xenia and cried,

  “Listen – I have an idea!”

  “An idea?” Xenia questioned cautiously.

  “Quickly follow what I have to say, for we have very little time.”

  “What do you – mean? What are you – talking about?”

  Johanna glanced over her shoulder as if she thought that someone might be listening.

  Then she said,

  “I had planned – never mind how, because it was very difficult – I had planned to spend ten days with Robert before I returned home. He had everything arranged and we were going to be together – for the last time in our lives.”

  There was a sob in Johanna’s voice as she went on,

  “Then I had this summons to go immediately to Luthenia and the British Foreign Office with our Embassy has made all the arrangements.”

  She paused before she added,

  “But now I have found you I can be with Robert after all and no one will ever know that I am not in Luthenia!”

  “Wh-what – are you saying?” Xenia asked.

  “You said you are only the companion to some woman. If you just disappear, would she worry unduly about you?”

  “I expect she would make – enquiries – ”

  “She would think you were killed, crushed or something by the train,” Johanna said. “But what you would really be doing is travelling to Luthenia instead of me!”

  “You are crazy! How could I do such a thing?” Xenia asked.

  “Who is to know, looking as you do?” Johanna enquired.

  She jumped to her feet.

  “Listen, Xenia, someone may come in at any moment and by that time we have to change our clothes.”

  “I-I cannot do it – they would find – me out.”

  “No they will not,” Johanna contradicted. “If you don’t know everything you are expected to know, just say you are dazed and have lost your memory. It would be quite understandable in the circumstances.”

  Xenia stared at her wide-eyed.

  “Are you really suggesting – I should – impersonate you?”

  “Listen to me,” Johanna said. “All you have to do is to travel to Luthenia and find out why they are in such a flutter. My engagement was announced three months ago, but we are not to be married until the autumn. I suppose there is some ceremony or other at which I am expected to appear, but it will not be of any consequence.”

  “But – the K-King – your – f-fiancé will know I am not – you.”

  “He is not likely to pay you very much attention, judging from his behaviour in the past,” Johanna said scathingly.

  “Why not? I don’t understand.”

  “I will tell you while we change. Come on – come quickly into the cloakroom and you must put on my dress and I will put on yours.”

  “We cannot – I mean – it’s impossible!” Xenia tried to say.

  But Johanna had taken her by the hand and was pulling her across the small room, picking up her bonnet with her other hand as she went.

  Inside the cloakroom she locked the door and said,

  “Now start taking off your clothes.”

  “You are mad!” Xenia protested. “The minute I open my mouth people will realise that something strange has happened.”

  “Nobody in Luthenia has ever heard of you,” Johanna said. “You speak Slovian.”

  It was a statement more than a question.

  “Yes, of course!” Xenia answered. “Mama taught me all the languages she spoke. As it happens Luthenian is almost the same as Slovian.”

  “Then what are you fussing about?” Johanna asked. “What you have to do is to smile at everything they say and make yourself pleasant. Then I will join you and you can go back to England.”

  She paused, and then she said,

  “I will pay you, of course, I will pay you for doing this. Now let me think – in English currency I will give you one hundred – no two hundred pounds.”

  “Two hundred pounds?” Xenia gasped.

  It was more than she could earn from Mrs. Berkeley in years.

  “I can get hold of two hundred without any questions asked,” Johanna said, “and besides that, if you are in real trouble, Robert – Lord Gratton is his name – will help you. He will be so grateful that we can spend our time together as we planned.”

  “How did you meet him?” Xenia asked because she was curious.

  Johanna smiled. It was an uncanny sight because it was almost like seeing her own lips smile.

  “Robert was sent out to the British Embassy in Slovia. We met and fell head-over-heels in love with each other and that was that!”

  “But you will not run away with him?”

  “He wanted me to and he is quite prepared to give up his diplomatic career. But how can I refuse to be a Queen? Besides I think Papa would almost kill me!”

  “Mama never regretted running away with the man she loved.”

  “I will settle for the moment for having ten days with Robert as we promised ourselves,” Johanna said and added,

  “Come on, Xenia. Do hurry and get changed. They are certain to find my tiresome ladies-in-waiting at any moment.”

  “You cannot – do this to me – you cannot – Johanna,” Xenia protested. “What ladies-in-waiting and what will they think?”

  “They will think nothing,” Johanna said rather too quickly for it to sound totally convincing. “The only danger is the Baroness von Absicht who came with me from Slovia. She is a rather nosey old thing. At the same time how could she imagine for one single moment that you and I would meet for the first time owing to a train crash?”

  “It does sound very far-fetched,” Xenia agreed.

  “It is like a plot in one of the lurid novelettes Mama will not let me read,” Johanna said. “But I must tell you about the rest of my party.”

  “I-I cannot do it!”

  “You have to help me, Xenia,” Johanna pleaded. “Besides you need two hundred pounds – you know you do!”

  That was irrefutably true and, taking off her gown, Xenia listened as Johanna went on,

  “The other Lady-in-Waiting, Madame Gyula, comes from Luthenia and only joined me today in London, so she is no menace, but there is my lady’s maid.”

  “She will certainly be suspicious.”

  “She will only think that I am rather dazed and suffering perhaps from brain damage after the train crash,” Johanna said positively. “We had better change our underclothes as well. Yours look somewhat inferior to mine. I am not meaning to be rude.”

  “I have never seen anything so beautiful as yours,” Xenia replied.

  “Well, you can have the use of them and all the clothes I have with me. They are quite attractive because they are to be part of my trousseau. I picked a number of them up in P
aris on my way to England.”

  “You are quite sure you don’t mind my wearing them?”

  “You will have nothing else to wear,” Johanna said. “The one thing you cannot do is claim your own luggage.”

  Xenia clasped her hands together.

  “Oh, Johanna, don’t make me do this! I shall be so frightened – so terrified of making a mistake. After all, I have never lived in a Palace.”

  “You need not worry about that,” Johanna said. “There is always some interfering old woman to tell you what to do, ‘don’t forget your gloves, Your Royal Highness,’ or ‘you must curtsey, Your Royal Highness,’ or ‘shake hands with the Mayor, Your Royal Highness.’ Sometimes I could scream!”

  “I will be grateful for any help I can find,” Xenia said modestly.

  Johanna smiled.

  “I know you will not let me down and just think how happy I shall be with Robert. We are going to a small house he owns in Cornwall. We shall be completely alone there.”

  Xenia looked at her wide-eyed.

  “Completely alone – do you mean – ? Are you telling me – ?”

  “That Robert is my lover? Of course he is! And has been for over a year!”

  “Oh, Johanna – I never imagined – I never knew that – anyone – ”

  “Could behave in such an outrageous way?” Johanna finished. “I cannot think where you have been brought up, Xenia, but it does happen continually in every country in the world.”

  She was laughing at her, Xenia knew.

  At the same time she was shocked.

  She had never imagined that a girl of her own age who belonged to a decent family could actually have a lover when she was engaged to another man.

  “B-but the King?” she stammered after a moment.

  “The King has Elga – a mistress he is infatuated with and we have already agreed that once we are married we will lead our private lives in our own way.”

  Xenia did not answer and Johanna asked,

  “That shocks you too?”

  “It does rather,” Xenia admitted. “It seems such a coldblooded, unpleasant way of being married.”

  “It is unpleasant to have to marry a man you do not love,” Johanna snapped. “Even living the life of a commoner as you have, you must be aware that Royalty have certain obligations that they cannot ignore.”

  “Mama ignored them.”

  “And shocked the whole of Europe! Oh, I know it was supposed to be kept quiet,” Johanna said, “but, of course, it was whispered from Court to Court. They not only thought your mother was crazy to make such a choice, they thought it was a blow at the Monarchy.”

  “Mama never thought she was so important,” Xenia said.

  “Well, she was and I don’t want to be held up as a terrible example,” Johanna said.

  Then, as she looked at her cousin’s troubled eyes, she bent forward and kissed her.

  “Stop worrying about me, Xenia. I am doing what is right – for me at any rate. I can never thank you enough for helping to make Robert and me happy for ten days.”

  She paused to say solemnly,

  “It will be all I have to remember in the years to come.”

  “Change your mind and marry him,” Xenia pleaded.

  “No!” Johanna replied. “I am engaged to King István and I intend to be a Queen. All you have to do is keep the place warm for me so that there will be no scandal.”

  “But how will we join each other?”

  “Leave all that to me,” Johanna said. “I will turn up at the Palace somehow, then all you will have to do is take your money and come home.”

  It all sounded very easy, but Xenia thought that she must still be suffering from shock and was too dazed to go on protesting.

  “What about you?” she asked rather feebly. “How will you find – what is his name – Lord Gratton again?”

  “Fate moves in a mysterious way,” Johanna answered, “because Robert intends, although I warned him it was dangerous, to meet me in Dover. He went by an earlier train and he is somehow going to arrange for us to say goodbye before I board the Cross-Channel Steamer.”

  She was buttoning Xenia’s blue gown as she went on,

  “It is arranged that we go to The Lord Warden Hotel on arrival. Robert will be there and, when I tell him that I am free to come away with him, I know how grateful he will be to you, as I am.”

  “He will be upset if he learns that you have been in a railway accident,” Xenia remarked.

  “I imagine that they will get the passengers who are not hurt to Dover as quickly as possible,” Johanna replied. “Anyway, don’t worry about me. I have plenty of money and I can look after myself.”

  “I think you are very brave.”

  “I think you are an angel and that is what really matters.”

  “On the contrary I must be a little soft in the head, otherwise I would never agree to this wild scheme!”

  “It is foolproof. What are you fussing about?” Johanna asked. “Look at us. Who could think in a thousand years that there could be two cousins who look exactly like each other? It is so long ago that everybody has forgotten that your mother and mine were identical twins.”

  “Your mother!” Xenia exclaimed. “Supposing she sees me?”

  “She will not,” Johanna replied confidently. “And even if she and Papa wished to turn up in Luthenia because I was there, it would be impossible for them to do so within the next ten days.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because they are the guests of the Czar in St. Petersburg and they cannot get back from Russia in a hurry.”

  “No, that is true,” Xenia said with a sigh of relief.

  “Now don’t worry!” Johanna admonished. “All you have to be is limp and let everybody take care of you. They are very good at that. It drives me insane! But then, as my mother often says, I have Papa’s bossiness and his inclination to give rather than take orders.”

  “Your father would be – horrified if he knew what we were – doing,” Xenia said.

  “He will never know,” Johanna replied confidently. “By the way, Papa, Mama and King István call me Xenia, but no one else does.”

  “How strange! Why?”

  “Mama wanted it to be my only name because she had promised your mother to call her daughter Xenia. But Papa insisted on my being called after his grandmother, while the King says that Johanna was an aunt he hated!”

  Xenia laughed before she said,

  “Well, at least I shall answer when he speaks to me.”

  Johanna looked at herself in the mirror.

  Xenia’s gown of deep blue with its tight bodice showed her small waist above the full skirt draped over her hips.

  “This gown is not too bad,” she said. “I might look worse.”

  “But you have nothing else to wear.”

  “That is of no consequence,” Johanna answered. “Robert can buy me everything I need in Dover and actually I shall want very little – except his arms about me!”

  She spoke in a way that made Xenia blush.

  Then before she could say anything there was a knock on the door.

  “Are you all right, Your Royal Highness?” a man’s voice asked.

  “Quite all right, thank you, Mr. Donington,” Johanna replied. “I am just tidying myself. I shall be out in a moment.”

  “There is no hurry, Your Royal Highness.”

  “Thank you.”

  They heard footsteps move away from the door.

  “Who was that?” Xenia asked in a whisper.

  “Mr. Somerset Donington,” Johanna explained against her ear. “He is from the British Foreign Office.”

  “Will he be suspicious?”

  “No. He has never seen me before today.”

  Xenia gave a little sigh of relief.

  “Now go into the room,” Johanna ordered. “Just be vague and suffering from shock.”

  “And you?”

  “I shall wait here until you are out of the
way.”

  “I-I cannot do it!”

  Johanna only kissed her swiftly again on the cheek and without saying anything opened the door.

  She stood behind it and there was nothing Xenia could do but walk forward into the waiting room.

  There was a middle-aged man with a worried expression on his face waiting for her.

  “I am sorry I have been so long, Your Royal Highness,” he said, “but I have some rather bad news for you.”

  It was impossible for Xenia to trust her voice. She could only look at him questioningly.

  “I am afraid both the Baroness von Absicht and your lady’s maid are too badly injured to continue the journey. They have been taken by ambulance to a hospital in Dover where the doctors think they will have to remain for at least two or three weeks.”

  “I am very sorry to hear that.”

  Xenia was surprised that she could speak clearly and did not stammer and she thought that Johanna would be proud of her.

  “I have, however, found Madame Gyula,” Mr. Donington continued. “She is only a little shaken and is waiting for Your Royal Highness now in a carriage outside.”

  “We are to travel by carriage?” Xenia asked.

  “It is only about three quarters of an hour’s drive to Dover,” Mr. Donington answered, “and I thought, ma’am, that you would find it less irksome to get away at once rather than wait for another train.”

  “Of course,” Xenia agreed.

  “Then shall we go?”

  “Y-yes – ”

  She walked across the room, wondering as she did so if Johanna thought that she was doing her part well.

  ‘This is mad! Crazy! It will end up in a lot of trouble!’ she told herself.

  Then she thought that whatever happened it was infinitely preferable to being nagged at and found fault with by Mrs. Berkeley.

  What was more, it was an adventure – a wild exciting adventure when she had least expected it!

  Chapter 2

  Nearing Vienna Xenia suddenly felt panic-stricken at what lay ahead.

  Up till now everything had gone smoothly, but a hundred times a day she thought that the people with her must realise she was not who she pretended to be.

  They accepted the fact that she was upset, dazed and a little absent-minded after the train accident.

  From the moment she crossed the Channel in a private cabin with two plain-clothes Policemen to guard her she knew that the die was cast and there was no going back.