The Enchanted Waltz Read online

  “Well, most people would give their soul to be in Vienna now. The whole world’s here! The haut ton of Europe are fighting to get in, paying a fortune for the chance of a bed however uncomfortable it may be. And here you are, lounging in the Emperor of Austria’s Palace, the Hofburg itself, and all I hear is grumbles.”

  Harry sniffed.

  “Emperors, Kings, Princes and the like may be swell bleaters, Guv, but they’re not much different to you and me when it comes to peck and booze. They all bleed if you prick ’em.”

  “I’ll prick you if you make me bleed,” Richard snapped. “Is that blood on my chin?”

  “Not a sign nor sight of it,” Harry answered cheerfully. “Now keep still, Guv, she won’t care for a phiz with ’airs sprouting round your jaw like the quills of an ’edgehog.”

  “Who won’t?” asked Richard, who was only half attending to what Harry was saying.

  “’Er ’igh and mightiness, of course. You’re breakfastin’ with ’er. ’Ave you forgotten already?”

  “Who said I was?”

  “It’s a command all right,” Harry said. “Won’t stand no refusals she won’t. Don’t forget, Guv, those five ’undred sparklers or what’s left of ’em ain’t goin’ to last forever.”

  “Damn me, Harry! Must you continually rub my poverty in my face?” Richard asked. “You seem to forget that this is the first time for many years I have been solvent. My clothes are paid for, your wages are up to date. Upon my soul, we’ve never been in a better position financially.”

  Harry put the shaving bowl down on the table with a bang.

  “That’s all right, Guv,” he said quietly, “but this time, when we comes to the end of everythin’, we can’t go ’ome.”

  “Blast you for reminding me!” Richard ejaculated.

  There had always been home to run to when all else had failed. The house was dilapidated, the chimney pots falling down for want of repair, the grounds neglected and the rooms dusty, but it was still home, still a place he could call his own, and he loved it. It was one issue he could not pretend about. He loved it.

  “This time we can’t go home!”

  He repeated the words aloud. They sounded like a death sentence.

  There was silence between the two men, all the more poignant because it said so much in leaving so much unsaid.

  It was not Richard’s fault that the estate was as it was.

  His father had gambled everything away and, although his wealth, as the second son, had not been considerable, it would have been enough to keep him and his family in comfort if the craving for cards had not meant more to him than his family, more in fact than life itself. He had died a gambler’s death and Richard’s inheritance had been a pile of debts.

  The vision of a grey stone house with the woods beyond it faded.

  He had to face facts.

  He was in the Hofburg by the charity of the Czar of Russia.

  Slowly he took a white silk shirt from Harry’s hands, put on the long tight trousers that Weston had made for him and which the Prince Regent himself had declared were the best fit he had ever seen.

  Then he slipped on his blue velvet dressing gown. It took several minutes for Harry to arrange his hair in the style that had been the admiration of all the best Clubs in St. James’s.

  When he was finished, one had to peer closely to see the resemblance to the Czar that had been so predominant the night before.

  “You’d better put my riding things out,” Richard said as he turned towards the door. “I shall go riding this morning before luncheon.”

  “That’s if ’er ’igh and mightiness lets you,” Harry replied irrepressibly. “Here’s ’opin’, Guv.”

  *

  Katharina’s room was lit by candles.

  There were a dozen placed on either side of her bed where she sat as it were enthroned amongst her pillows.

  Her bare shoulders were encircled with pale pink gauze, a fold of which was draped over her fair hair.

  “Richard! I thought you were never coming.”

  There was a lilt of gladness in her voice although her red lips pouted a little reproachfully at him.

  As he entered the room, he was conscious of the heavy fragrance of the roses that stood on every table. Katharina’s favourite flower surrounded her always, whatever the time of year or wherever she might be.

  Richard, moving to her side, repressed the thought that what Katharina’s roses cost in a year would keep him in luxury and then, as he bent his head over her hand, her fingers tightened on his.

  “You never came to me last night,” she said softly.

  “The Emperor kept me late,” he lied.

  “Are you sure?”

  “And I thought you would be tired.”

  “Were you really thinking of me?”

  Her tone was sweet enough, but he looked at her sharply.

  “Your breakfast is waiting,” she said and indicated a table set a little way from the bed.

  It was covered with silver dishes and bottles of several sorts of wine, but Richard looked at it distastefully.

  He had felt hungry while Harry was shaving him, but now his appetite seemed to have gone. He had half-hoped as he came along the corridor that there would be other people at breakfast with Katharina this morning.

  He felt that a tête-à-tête was going to be awkward, although why it should be he was not for the moment prepared to admit even to himself.

  All over Vienna people of standing were entertaining their friends to breakfast.

  It was an accepted time for hospitality on the part, not only of those who, like the Ministers of State, had something important to discuss, but also those who were so frightened of missing one moment of the festivities that they must start the day with a reception even if it involved forgoing some precious hours of sleep.

  “It’s hot in here,” Richard said sharply, “and I hate breakfast by candlelight.”

  “We will have the shutters open,” Katharina said, smiling at him fondly as if he was a petulant small boy rather than a disagreeable man.

  She reached out her hand for the bell by her side.

  “I will open them myself,” Richard said hastily and, pulling back the pink satin curtains, he unlatched the panelled shutters.

  The sun came streaming in and, as he turned from the window towards the breakfast table, he thought how artificial and theatrical Katharina looked in her great bed with its fat winged cherub in gold leaf and the heavy spread of white ermine.

  “Darling, you are cross this morning,” her voice caressed him across the distance between them. “Can the role of Emperor have given you a headache?”

  “Perhaps,” Richard answered, “and it is the last time I play a role of any sort in somebody else’s coat.”

  “You didn’t tell the Czar it was too tight for you, I hope?” Katharina said. “He is very vain about his figure and it would annoy him considerably for him to think that your shoulders are broader than his.”

  “He was not interested in my experiences last night,” Richard replied, “only in his own.”

  “He enjoyed himself, I think,” Katharina replied.

  “Enormously.”

  There was no doubt about that. Richard had found the Czar literally bubbling with excitement at the success of his incognito.

  Fortunately he had made the acquaintance of two quite humble ladies of the town, who regarded the Emperor of Russia with awe and quite unbounded admiration.

  He had listened to compliments about himself that had made his heart swell with pride and there was no doubt that for him at any rate the evening had been an unqualified success.

  “No one must know that we changed places, Richard,” he said earnestly when he had recounted all his adventures.

  “No one had even the slightest suspicion. I watched you standing at the end of the ballroom and I thought that you looked exactly like me.”

  “I appreciate the compliment, Sire,” Richard bowed.


  “Only Butinski knows our secret,” the Czar went on, “and he is discretion itself. He would lose his life rather than betray me.”

  Richard debated for a moment whether he should reveal the fact that Butinski was in Katharina’s pay.

  Then he decided to keep silent.

  Let them all spy on each other.

  It was none of his business. If Katharina watched the Czar and the Czar watched Katharina, what the hell did it matter?

  It was all too fantastic to be credited, Richard thought, just as the Czar himself was a bizarre incredible character.

  He listened to the Emperor of all the Russias boasting conceitedly of his success with two cheap little prostitutes, while in the corner of the room, harshly austere among so much magnificence, stood the small bed with its hard leather mattress which the Czar always slept on and which travelled with him wherever he went. Beside the bed lay a Bible, which Alexander read far into the night.

  Who could understand such a man, a dual personality if ever there was one?

  And Katharina?

  Richard raised his eyes to her face. She had a faint smile on her lips as she lay back amongst her pillows.

  “Watching me eat must be very boring for you,” he remarked.

  “Why?” she questioned. “I am hoping it will make you more genial, more ready to be kind to me.”

  He thrust his plate away impatiently.

  “I want to go riding this morning.”

  “Oh no, Richard.”

  “Why not come with me?”

  “I hate riding. Besides, I want you. You never came to me last night.”

  “I have told you that the Czar kept me late.”

  “That is not true! You left his room at ten minutes past two.”

  Richard rose from the breakfast table with such violence that the dishes clattered together and a glass of wine was spilled over the white cloth.

  “Curse your eternal spying!” he exclaimed. “I will not be watched and spied on by you or by anyone else. I shall do what I please and go where I please. This continuous espionage is intolerable!”

  He walked across to the window and stood with his back to her. He could feel his anger hot and violent within him and he was breathing quickly with the violence of his rage.

  Then he found her close beside him, her body pressed against his, her arms reaching up towards his neck. She was wearing only a diaphanous nightgown and he could feel the live warmth of her nakedness against him as she looked up at his scowling face.

  “Darling, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to make you angry. I want you, you know that, and I waited for you a long time last night.”

  “I apologise for losing my temper.”

  The words were clipped and cold and it was an effort for him to utter them.

  “Kiss me, Richard, to show that you forgive me.”

  He bent his head obediently, but his mouth avoided her eager lips and rested instead on the softness of her cheek. She smelt of roses, the heavy exotic fragrance of roses in a summer sun.

  “Richard! – Oh! Richard!”

  He knew what she wanted but somehow, as automatically his arms went round her, he could not hold her as closely and eagerly as she wanted to be held.

  “Love me, Richard, please love me! See, I am pleading with you.”

  The words were hardly above a whisper. There was no escape from them.

  As he looked down at her, Richard saw the glint of passion beneath the heaviness of her lids, saw her red lips part voluptuously and felt the excited quickness of her breath, which moved her small pointed breasts.

  There came a sudden knocking at the door.

  “What is it?” Katharina’s voice was sharp and shrill.

  “A message from His Imperial Majesty, Your Highness.”

  Slowly Katharina disengaged herself from Richard and, moving without haste, walked back towards the bed and climbed in.

  When she had arranged the pillows behind her head and covered herself with the silk lace-edged sheets, she called out,

  “Come in!”

  A servant entered with a note.

  She read it quickly.

  “Tell His Imperial Majesty I will wait upon his wishes,” she said.

  The servant bowed low and went from the room, shutting the door behind him with an ostentatious quietness that Richard found extremely irritating.

  “The Emperor wishes me to drive with him in the Prater before luncheon.”

  Katharina’s voice was icy and they both knew that this was a reprieve from the intensity of the moment.

  “May I accompany you?” Richard asked her.

  “No. You wish to ride.”

  “I would forgo that pleasure if you had need of my presence.”

  “I have no need of you when I am driving with the Czar.”

  “Shall I leave you now, so that you may dress?”

  “I must ask you to do that without delay. I have not long in which to get ready.”

  “Very well.”

  She reached for the bell, rang it and then extended her hand towards him. He took it and, as his lips brushed her skin conventionally, she drew him towards her.

  “Richard, my darling, why do we quarrel?” she asked, her tone tremulous.

  There was an expression of pain and unhappiness on her face that Richard had never seen there before. It moved him as nothing else would have done, but, when he would have spoken, even as his arms went towards her, the door was opened.

  Katharina’s maids came hurrying in and there was nothing he could do but straighten his back and walk from the room without another word.

  Back in his own bedchamber, he flung on his riding clothes with the impetuous haste of a man who feels he might be pursued.

  His ill temper was upon him again and he swore at Harry when he spoke to him. He knew that he was behaving like a boor both to Katharina and to his valet and yet he was not quite certain of the reason for his churlishness.

  After riding for an hour so hard and at such a pace that his horse was lathered with sweat, Richard felt his bad humour ebb away from him.

  It was hard to be angry with a magnificent specimen of horseflesh between his legs, the sun on his face and the sharp invigorating frost of a December morning sparkling in his veins like wine.

  He had ridden out from the City into the countryside and now he turned and came back to the Prater.

  The huge chestnut trees at least a century old were leafless now, but under them drove the carriages of the multitudinous guests in the Capital, while riders of all nationalities mounted on every breed of horse joined the promenade, which itself was a social reception.

  The King of Prussia was galloping along with only a solitary aide-de-camp for company. Lord Stewart, the eccentric English Ambassador, was driving a four-in-hand that would have won the approval of the most critical habitués of Hyde Park. Behind him in a coupe was his reticent brother, the Viscount Castlereagh, with his gorgeous diamond-loving wife.

  Following them, in an elegant chaise, Richard saw the Czar with Katharina sitting beside him.

  She caught sight of him at the same moment that he saw her and, sweeping his hat from his head, he rode up to the carriage. It had stopped beside an unpretentious phaeton in which was seated the Emperor Francis of Austria, accompanied by his third wife, Marie-Louise.

  As Richard drew near, Katharina looked up at him and he knew by the expression on her face that there was no need for him to make his apologies.

  She understood what he wanted to say, yet at the same time his heart sank because she was so understanding.

  She was loving him too much for comfort, too much for it to be a light amusing affaire de coeur that he had intended when he first kissed her and felt her lips respond and answer the hunger of his own.

  “You have enjoyed your ride?”

  “It has blown away many cobwebs.”

  “I am glad.”

  She gave him her hand, but he was not smiling as he watched her drive away
at the Czar’s side.

  Instead there was a frown between his eyes and he was so intent on his own thoughts that a carriage turning out of the Prater into another avenue had almost passed before he realised who was in it.

  He had only a glimpse of her, sitting there straight and alert on the extreme edge of the seat, her eyes wide with excitement, her face framed by a little green velvet bonnet trimmed with swansdown.

  She was as lovely as he remembered her to be.

  Wanda did not see him.

  Her eyes were on the circus erected opposite the lawn set aside for fireworks where, to attract custom for the evening performance, elephants and horses were being paraded by their trainers to the strident music of a brass band.

  “A child at a party!”

  Richard found that he had said the words aloud and knew he desired more than anything else at that moment to take Wanda to the circus, to watch her face as the acrobats swung dizzily above the crowds, to hear her laughter at the antics of the clowns and to feel her tremble at the roar of lions.

  A child at a party and why should he not play host?

  He would call at the Baroness’s house that very afternoon.

  He would not tell Wanda his secret in so many words, but she would guess that the night before he had been masquerading as the Czar and that would be that!

  No one could expect him to give up a desirable acquaintance with a lovely woman because the Emperor of Russia wished to have a double who would take his place when it pleased him to play truant.

  Richard felt suddenly very light-hearted.

  His mind was made up and he would ask Wanda to come to the circus with him tonight.

  He rode home, smiling and bowing affably to surprised acquaintances who had previously received very little attention from him.

  He spoke appreciatively to the groom who took his horse at the door of the Hofburg and went upstairs humming a tune that had lingered in the back of his mind since he had heard Harry whistling it earlier that morning.

  As he changed his clothes, he talked so gaily and so happily that, when he left his room for the Banqueting Hall, Harry stared after him and scratched his head.

  ‘That be women for you, all the world over,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Cast you down and pick you up and then it’s a tanner to a monkey they’ll cast you down again!’