69 Love Leaves at Midnight Read online

  She remembered how many tears had been shed at her mother’s funeral and how even the poorest villagers had brought flowers to lay on her grave.

  ‘The King is unhappy,’ she told herself. ‘I must try to make him happy as Mama would have done.’

  She did not ask for the moment how it would be at all possible in so short a time. She only knew it was as if she had been set a task and somehow, however impossible it seemed, she must make a supreme effort to get it done.

  When she went from her bedroom back into the sitting room, the King was waiting for her.

  He was standing looking at a newspaper as she entered and at the sound of the door he turned round. Almost instinctively Xenia stood still and waited as if for his approval.

  There was a little pause and then he said,

  “Very attractive! You look even more beautiful than you did half-an-hour ago. Is that what you expect me to say?”

  He was not jeering or mocking her, in fact there was a faint smile on his lips as if he realised why she had changed.

  “I don’t wish to be put to – shame by your – Palace,” Xenia explained.

  “You could never do anything but adorn it,” the King answered.

  Xenia smiled.

  “That is the nicest compliment anyone could possibly pay me.”

  She spoke excitedly, then she wondered if he would expect her to be blasé in regard to compliments, for after all Johanna must have had so many.

  Then she suddenly felt impatient with trying to remember Johanna and choose everything she said and did with care in case later the King should notice that there was a difference between them.

  ‘If he does,’ Xenia told herself, ‘there will be nothing he can do about it. And I shall not be here, so it will not worry me.’

  Almost as if someone told her what to do, she decided that if she was to help the King she must be herself.

  “Do show me what other alterations you have made to the Palace,” she said aloud, “for to tell you the truth the accident I had on the train seems to have affected my memory so that I cannot remember exactly what it was like when I came here last.”

  “What else do you find it hard to remember?” the King questioned.

  “An awful lot,” Xenia answered. “Count Gáspar was telling me that when he had concussion he lost his memory for a fortnight. I feel that the same thing has happened to me, so perhaps in two weeks I shall be back to normal.”

  “That would be a pity,” the King said, “because accident or not, I like you as you are.”

  “Then you must help me,” Xenia said, “because I am finding it impossible to remember whom I have met before and whom I have not and I would hate anyone to think that I had forgotten them.”

  “Would their feelings really matter to you?” the King enquired.

  “But of course they would!” Xenia said. “I should hate to be unkind or that people should think that I was cold or indifferent.”

  She told herself as she spoke that that was how he had looked when they first met and somehow she had to prevent him in future showing himself in such a bad light to the crowds who had come to cheer him.

  Surprisingly he guessed what she was thinking and enquired,

  “Are you preaching to me in a somewhat obscure manner? If so, it is something I never expected.”

  “I would not – presume to – preach,” Xenia said quickly.

  “Nevertheless I have a feeling that there is a pill hidden somewhere in the jam!”

  Xenia laughed.

  “That is exactly how I was always given my medicine – in a spoonful of jam or honey.”

  “I was too,” the King admitted, “and that is why I suspect that what you are offering me is going to taste very nasty.”

  He was far more perceptive, she thought, than she had expected him to be and she thought it would be a mistake to be too obvious in what she was trying to do.

  “Is the Prime Minister waiting for us?” she asked.

  “I expect so,” the King replied. “But there is no hurry. Let him wait!”

  “Is that not rather – rude?”

  “Any rudeness that Kalolyi gets from me is deserved,” the King said savagely. “He undermines my authority, he usurps my power and will, unless I can prevent it, sit on my throne.”

  He spoke so violently that Xenia looked at him in surprise.

  “If you feel like that about him,” she said, “why do you not get rid of him?”

  “And cause a Constitutional crisis?” the King asked and added, “It’s not a question of who would win the battle, Kalolyi is already the victor. I am not the King of this country – he is!”

  Xenia began to understand why the King looked as he did.

  “I heard that there was – trouble in the Capital,” she said.

  “Trouble? Of course there is trouble!” the King replied.

  “Is there nothing you can do?”

  “Ask Kalolyi,” the King answered. “He holds the reins. When things go right, he takes the credit and when they go wrong I get the blame.”

  His voice was angry, but then he added,

  “Why should you listen to this? Come and hear what Kalolyi has to say and learn what part you have to play in the chaos he has created.”

  Xenia looked at the King in surprise, but he moved towards the door and opened it and she walked past him into the passage.

  A Court Official was waiting to bow respectfully before he walked ahead of them down the Grand Staircase.

  “Have all the guests left?” Xenia asked, seeking for something to say.

  She was aware that the official ahead of them could overhear everything they said.

  “I imagine a number will still linger on,” the King replied, “but we need not concern ourselves with them. Our meeting with the Prime Minister is in a different part of the Palace.”

  They walked down a number of wide passages.

  There were pictures hung on the walls, which Xenia longed to examine and she hoped that she would have the time while she was in the Palace to see everything.

  ‘If only I could have a little model of the place,’ she thought, ‘almost like a doll’s house. Then it would be easy to remember every little detail and the memory would always be mine.’

  Already she had the feeling that the minutes were ticking by too quickly and almost before she could begin to appreciate her surroundings, she would be whisked away from them.

  Flunkeys in the Royal livery opened huge double doors and the King and Xenia walked in through them side by side.

  They were in a room which was more masculine and perhaps more business-like than those Xenia had seen in the rest of the Palace and there were three men waiting for them.

  One, Xenia saw, was the Foreign Minister whom she had already met, another was the Prime Minister and the other she vaguely remembered being presented to her at the Reception as the Lord Chancellor.

  They bowed their heads and the King indicated a chair upholstered in green velvet on which Xenia could sit, then, as he sat down next to her, he said,

  “Please be seated, gentlemen.”

  The Prime Minister was facing Xenia and, as she waited a little apprehensively for what he had to say, he glanced at the King and then began,

  “I expect Your Royal Highness has already been told – ”

  “I have said nothing!” the King interrupted. “I left that to you, Prime Minister. It’s your plan and I thought you could explain it better than I.”

  There was a sarcastic note in his voice that Xenia disliked and which made her feel embarrassed, so she smiled at the Prime Minister and asked,

  “You have something to tell me?”

  “You may have wondered, ma’am, why we asked you to come here from London with such haste?”

  “It was certainly unexpected,” Xenia replied.

  “You have doubtless heard that we have trouble in Luthenia?”

  “I was told that.”

  “I think therefore
it is imperative that we divert the mind of the populace as quickly as possible.”

  “Divert them from what?” Xenia asked.

  “Rebellion! Revolution!” the Prime Minister said sharply.

  “If that happens it will be your Government’s doing,” the King interrupted. “As I have said for a long time, the taxes are too high and the people will not put up with so many petty restrictions for ever.”

  “As I have informed Your Majesty on previous occasions,” the Prime Minister answered, “my Government had no alternative but to enforce the laws that you object to.”

  “My objections certainly pass unheeded,” the King said in a disagreeable tone.

  The Prime Minister seemed about to answer him equally angrily. Then with an effort he changed his mind and said to Xenia,

  “We asked Your Royal Highness to come here because, as I have said, it is important to take the people’s minds off their imaginary grievances.”

  Xenia thought that the King was once again ready to interrupt at the word ‘imaginary’, but he merely threw himself back in his chair with the sulky attitude he had adopted in the carriage when they drove from the station.

  “What are you suggesting I could do?” Xenia asked.

  “I am arranging, Your Royal Highness,” the Prime Minister answered, “that your marriage to His Majesty should take place immediately.”

  For a moment Xenia could only stare at him as if she could not comprehend what he had said.

  Then in a voice that seemed to catch in her throat so that it was hardly audible she asked,

  “I-Immediately?”

  “Within seven days, Your Royal Highness. It is to be announced tonight and the decorations will start going up in the streets tomorrow.”

  “I – it is – impossible!”

  The words seemed almost to burst from Xenia’s lips.

  “Nothing is impossible,’ the Prime Minister replied, “and this, ma’am, is imperative.”

  “But in a week!” Xenia exclaimed. “No! I cannot agree. We must wait a little – longer than that.”

  She was trying as she spoke to calculate wildly how soon Johanna could be with her.

  She had taken three days to reach Molnár and Johanna had arranged to spend ten days with Lord Gratton.

  Supposing that if after that it took her three days to reach Luthenia that would be thirteen days in all.

  She saw that the Prime Minister was going to speak and she said quickly,

  “Two weeks – I could manage in two weeks – I think – and I cannot think a week will make much difference.”

  “It can take less than twenty-four hours, Your Royal Highness, for a country to be plunged into revolution and for a throne to be lost.”

  The Prime Minister spoke grimly, but Xenia had the idea that he was deliberately trying to frighten her.

  She looked at the King and saw that he was sitting back obviously intending to take no further part in the argument.

  “Are you really saying that unless our – marriage takes – place in the next – seven days His Majesty might lose his – throne?”

  It was difficult to speak calmly, but somehow she managed it.

  “I am saying, Your Royal Highness,” the Prime Minister replied, “that I consider it imperative that you should be married next Tuesday as I have arranged. What could be the point of waiting another week?”

  “But my – father and mother could not be – present.”

  “That is indeed unfortunate,” the Prime Minister allowed, “at the same time, I feel sure that His Royal Highness, when he learns what has occurred, will appreciate the urgency of the situation.”

  ‘Even if the wedding is – announced, the ceremony need not take – place until – fourteen days from now,” Xenia said anxiously.

  The Prime Minister made an expressive gesture with his hands.

  “Seven days – fourteen – what is the point of waiting? You are here in Molnár. I have everything organised and His Majesty agreed before we sent to England asking Your Royal Highness to come here at once.”

  “I agreed because you held a pistol at my head,” the King remarked.

  “And having agreed what is the point of arguing over a few days?” the Prime Minister enquired.

  Xenia tried to think of another excuse and failed.

  “Very well then. It is settled,” the Prime Minister said. “The announcement will go out immediately and will be in the newspapers tomorrow morning.”

  He paused, but no one spoke and he went on,

  “I have arranged that Your Royal Highness and His Majesty will meet the press tomorrow. They will be at a reception that is being given in Parliament, then they can come to the Palace later, ma’am, where they will wish to have more intimate details of you and doubtless of your trousseau.”

  There was a kind of sting in the Prime Minister’s voice that Xenia did not like.

  Indeed she thought that there was nothing she liked about the man, and she suspected that he bulldozed everyone as he had bulldozed her into agreeing to what he wanted.

  The King rose to his feet.

  “Doubtless, Kalolyi,” he said, “you will be sending us a list of instructions which, of course, we shall be expected to fulfil to the letter.”

  His voice was both sarcastic and bitter.

  “Your Majesty is most gracious!”

  The animosity between the two men seemed to vibrate on the air and to relieve the tension Xenia held out her hand to the Foreign Minister.

  “It was so kind of you to come to the border to meet me, Mr. Dudich.”

  “It was a very great pleasure, ma’am,” he replied, “and may I express my regret that the Archduke and the Archduchess will be prevented from attending your wedding. I understand they are in Russia.”

  “I am sure when they learn of it they will be greatly disappointed,” Xenia said.

  She shook hands with the Prime Minister feeling as she touched him that he was even more unpleasant than he appeared to be.

  The King had been right, the man was ambitious, overbearing and undoubtedly had the makings of a dictator.

  With a sense of relief Xenia saw an ingratiating, almost apologetic smile on the face of the Lord Chancellor. Then she and the King were walking across the room and out into the corridor.

  They walked together in silence until he stopped at two beautifully painted doors, which were hastily opened for them and she found herself in a salon with long windows opening into the garden.

  As the doors closed behind them, the King exploded,

  “Now you understand! Now you see what I am up against! It’s entirely the Prime Minister’s fault there is talk of a revolution.”

  “The people cannot like him,” Xenia replied.

  “They fear him, which is more important, and his Cabinet are nothing but rabbits. He mesmerises them!”

  “Then you must get rid of him,” Xenia said quietly.

  The King laughed, but there was no humour in the sound.

  “I might as well try to push over one of the mountains single-handed. He has got himself into the position where his word is law and that doddery old Lord Chancellor agrees with everything he says.”

  “There must be a – way,” Xenia murmured.

  The King looked at her, then said in a different tone,

  “I am sorry to worry you with all this. After all you have no wish to marry me any more than I wish to marry you, but Kalolyi has arranged our marriage as he has arranged everything else.”

  “Is there – someone else you would – wish to marry?” Xenia asked in a low voice.

  “Good Lord, no!” the King said. “With Elga it’s not a question of marriage, as you well know. But I do not wish to be pressurised by Kalolyi into doing anything. He had everything fixed up with your father without even consulting me!”

  “I can see how appalling the whole – thing must seem to you,” Xenia said.

  “You were certainly not very sympathetic when we talked a
bout it before.”

  Xenia did not answer.

  Instead she said,

  “There is no time to discuss what happened in the past. We have to think of the future and to find some way for you to break the Prime Minister’s hold over you and over the country.”

  As she spoke, she thought to herself how hopeless it seemed and how helpless she felt.

  What did she know about Prime Ministers, revolutions or Kings for that matter?

  And yet, she thought to herself, tyrants, even when they were petty ones like Mrs. Berkeley, were all the same. They forced and crushed people into subservience leaving them without the power to escape.

  “What are you thinking?” the King asked.

  “I was thinking about you,” Xenia replied, “and wondering if you had perhaps given in too – easily.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I wondered what was wrong when we drove from the station and I thought – ”

  She hesitated.

  “Well – what did you think?” the King asked.

  “You may think it – rude.”

  He smiled faintly.

  “I imagine that you are going to be frank and would it reassure you if I say that however rude it may be I will not take offence?”

  “Well – I thought that you looked – bored and aloof – as if you considered all the people who were cheering as we went along the route were too far – beneath you to be considered.”

  “Good God! It was not that!” the King ejaculated. “If the truth were told, I was resenting the way you had been sent for without my being consulted. I was resenting having to marry you whether I wanted to or not and resenting too that the people were cheering merely because they had been told to do so.”

  “What do you mean – they had been told to do so?” Xenia asked.

  “There have been Town Criers going through the streets for the last three days heralding your arrival, extolling your charms, telling the people not in words but by inference that everything will be changed once they have a Queen and you know damned well that is not true!”

  Xenia looked startled at the swear word and the King said irritably,

  “I apologise. I should not speak to you like that, but I am fed up with being in a treadmill from which I cannot escape however fast I go it gets me nowhere.”