69 Love Leaves at Midnight Read online

  “Your Royal Highness – ” he began, but she held up her hand and he was silent.

  “It’s the children, Princess, we’re worried about,” a woman answered hesitatingly.

  “Why?” Xenia enquired.

  The two women holding the banner had at first looked frightened because she had stopped to speak to them. Now another woman, older and obviously not so shy, interposed,

  “What they’re saying, Your Royal Highness, is that there’s no proper hospital. There’s a small place outside the town, but we’ve been told there’s no money to keep it going and only a few children get there. When they do the treatment’s inadequate.”

  Xenia looked from the woman who had spoken to the women carrying the banner.

  “Is this true?” she asked.

  A dozen voices from the crowd, which had now clustered around her answered,

  “My little boy’s waited for two years for glasses,” one said, “and now he can see nothing!”

  Xenia gathered that another child needed her tonsils removing, but there was no place where the operation could be performed. One woman had lost two children, another three.

  Now that they realised she was listening to them, more and more women came up to call out their complaints.

  “Your Royal Highness, the Prime Minister will be waiting,” the Count said urgently.

  “I am glad you have told me this,” Xenia told the waiting women. “I promise you that both the King and I will try to help you.”

  She could see the women looked incredulous, as if they thought it was very unlikely that she would be able to do anything for them. At the same time they cheered.

  Then, with the Count beside her, she walked back to the King who was waiting at the foot of the steps.

  Xenia looked at him apprehensively in case he was angry, but instead she thought that his eyes were twinkling.

  “I am sorry if what I did was wrong,” she murmured as she reached his side.

  “Not wrong, but certainly unprecedented,” he said. “I am just waiting to hear what Kalolyi has to say about it.”

  There was no time to say more as they ascended the steps to where waiting for them in the doorway stood the Prime Minister.

  Xenia was quite certain that he had seen what had happened and she thought that he looked at her in a hostile fashion.

  There was nothing, however, that he could do at the moment because there were innumerable presentations to be made.

  Then she and the King were led into a huge hall, which the Count had told her during the dinner was all that was left of the old Parliament that had been built in the sixteenth century.

  It was very fine with a great arched roof, but attached was an enormous modern building that had been erected in the last few years and had, Xenia was sure, cost an inordinate amount of money.

  The Members of Parliament were all facing the platform onto which she and the King were escorted and behind them were their wives and children, secretaries and officials and everyone connected with Parliament.

  There were also the press seated at a table near the platform. Xenia wondered if already they had been instructed what to say and given the report, which would appear in their newspapers the following day.

  Although the Lord Chancellor in his robes and the other dignitaries of State in theirs made an impressive sight, Xenia could see that the Prime Minister overpowered them all.

  As he rose and began his speech of welcome, he made it clear that it was he who had arranged the marriage that was to take place and it was he who had decided that a presentation should be made.

  It was not only what he said, Xenia thought, it was that he was so positive and so sure of his power that he seemed to dominate the people sitting below them.

  Then the moment came when he referred to the presentation.

  “We decided, Your Majesty and Your Royal Highness,” he said, “that, as there has been so little time to choose a suitable gift, we would present you with the monies that Parliament is prepared to spend on such an auspicious occasion.”

  He paused and beckoned forward the Speaker of the House who carried an ornate casket in his hand, which Xenia saw was very ancient.

  He stood in front of her and the King and the Prime Minister continued saying,

  “The money inside this casket we present as a token of our respect and homage. We feel that Your Majesty and Your Royal Highness would wish to spend it on replenishing the gold plate that is used on formal occasions and which unfortunately is sadly inadequate to represent the prestige and magnificance of our illustrious country.”

  The Speaker went down on one knee and held out the casket between the King and Xenia.

  “You put your hand on it,” the Count prompted very softly in Xenia’s ear, “in acknowledgement and acceptance of the gift.”

  Xenia put out her gloved hand obediently and laid it beside the King’s.

  “I accept this gift in the spirit in which it is given,” the King said.

  The Speaker rose and moved away.

  Then, as the Prime Minister drew to one side, Xenia realised that the King was about to speak.

  “May I say something first?” she asked.

  As if she had thrown a bomb at his feet, she could not have caused more of a sensation.

  The Prime Minister actually made a gesture as if he would physically stop her from speaking, but after a second’s hesitation the King said,

  “This is certainly a day of surprises, but, of course, if that is what you wish.”

  As he spoke, he sat down on the seat he had just vacated and Xenia was left standing alone.

  She had never made a speech before and for a moment she felt as if her voice had died in her throat and her legs were so weak that they would collapse under her.

  Then she told herself that whatever she did it was of no account. In a week she could be gone and if she was to help Luthenia she must do so now or never.

  “Y-Your – Majesty – ” she began.

  Her voice was so soft that it trembled and she knew that no one could hear her. Then, looking at the back of the hall so that her voice would carry, she began again,

  “Your Majesty, Mr. Prime Minister, Members of Parliament. I know it is unusual for a woman to speak in public, but that is perhaps why we are so often forgotten.”

  There was a little ripple of laughter at this and it gave Xenia confidence.

  “I know,” she went on, “that His Majesty is going to thank you for the generous wedding present you have just given us, so I only wish to thank you for the welcome you have given me since I arrived in your beautiful country and I hope you will listen to what I wish to be done with your present. If justice is done I feel I at least have a half-say in that – ”

  Again there was laughter and she continued,

  “ – I would like it to be spent on building a hospital for women and children, which I understand is vitally needed here in Molnár.”

  There was an audible gasp and then spontaneously the wives of the Members of Parliament and all the other women who were in the building burst into applause.

  Xenia smiled at them and then she added quietly,

  “Thank you for listening to me,” and, with an apologetic little smile to the King, she sat down.

  For a moment there was silence and Xenia glanced at the Prime Minister.

  She saw the undisguised fury on his face and felt with a leap of her heart that she had now thrown down the gauntlet and there was no doubt that the battle between them had begun.

  She thought that he might have spoken, but the King rose.

  He did not address the Prime Minister but those in the hall.

  “My mother,” he began, “whom I think you all loved, always said to me that when I was married I should have to listen to my wife. I only wish that she could have been here today, because I feel she would tell me not only to listen to my future wife but to obey what is obviously a wise suggestion which I feel will meet with your approval and t
he approval of all the women and children in Luthenia.”

  He smiled and it swept the cynical look from his face.

  “Who am I,” he asked, “a mere man, to do anything but agree whole-heartedly that this generous sum of money should be used to found a hospital which must, I am convinced, be called after your future Queen.”

  There was a burst of applause and Xenia saw with satisfaction that the reporters were scribbling away frantically in their notebooks.

  Then, as the applause continued, they began edging their way towards the entrance as if they were getting ready to rush to press and put the news out onto the streets.

  Only the Prime Minister did not join in the handclapping, but stood with narrowed eyes and grimly set lips until the King and Xenia moved to leave the building.

  Then, as he walked just behind them, Xenia heard him say to the King,

  “I do not think, Sire, for a moment that the money will be enough for the grandiose scheme that Her Royal Highness has suggested.”

  As he finished speaking, they reached the doorway and the King turned.

  “In which case, Prime Minister,” he said, almost drawling the words, “some of the plans for other new buildings in the City may have to be altered or perhaps scrapped altogether.”

  Without waiting for the Prime Minister’s reply, the King walked down the steps with Xenia beside him.

  As they drew level with the women with the banner, she gave them a special wave of her hand and she hoped someone would tell them soon what had been said inside Parliament.

  The carriage was waiting and, as Xenia and the King reached it, there was a sudden scuffle in the crowd.

  A number of men at the back pushed forward shouting and booing and as they did so a woman with a small boy who was standing in front were thrown to the ground.

  The woman was not hurt, but the child, who was about four years of age, was knocked against the wheel and his leg was cut.

  At the first sound of the booing, the Count began trying to hurry Xenia into the carriage.

  She broke away from him and knelt down beside the small boy who was screaming while the blood was flowing down his bare leg.

  She picked him up in her arms as one of the officials helped his mother to her feet.

  “I’m sorry, someone pushed me,” the woman was saying. “I don’t want to give any trouble.”

  “Let me take the child, Your Royal Highness,” the Count said.

  “Where will you take him?” Xenia asked. “You know there is no hospital.”

  The Count looked vaguely towards the mother.

  “He’ll be all right with me,” she said.

  She was frightened at speaking to someone so grand and shaken by being thrown to the ground.

  Xenia looked at her.

  She was obviously very poor although she was clean, as was the little boy she held in her arms, but her skirt was patched and her blouse had been mended in half a dozen places.

  “Give me the child, ma’am,” the Count said to Xenia again.

  The little boy was still crying but now he turned his head against her breast as if he found her arms comforting.

  “I think the best thing we can do,” Xenia said, “is to take the injured child and his mother back to the Palace. He can be properly bandaged there and then we can send them home.”

  She glanced at the King as she spoke, half afraid that he would refuse, but now there was no doubt about the twinkle in his eyes.

  “But of course!” he exclaimed. “I am sure we can squeeze in a few extra passengers!”

  The Count looked as if he thought the King had taken leave of his senses.

  “Yes, Sire,” he managed to utter after a moment.

  Xenia and the King climbed into the carriage, Xenia still holding the small boy in her arms.

  The blood was dripping from his leg onto her gown and the King produced a handkerchief. Pulling off his gloves he tied it neatly round the wound.

  The mother, dazed and speechless from what was happening to her, sat opposite Xenia while Madame Gyula was squeezed against the Count and would have liked to have protested at the indignity if she had not been too afraid to do so in front of the King.

  They set off.

  The boos and shouts had died away as soon as the accident happened and now there were only cheers as the carriage drove back the way it had come.

  The people in the Square stared incredulously at Xenia holding a child in her arms and with even more astonishment at the ragged woman sitting opposite her.

  She could see them asking each other what had happened and who the strangers in the Royal carriage were.

  But by the time they reached the Palace it seemed as if the news, if not of the child’s accident, then certainly of what had been said in Parliament, had preceded them.

  Now there was no doubting the sincerity of the cheers that greeted them outside the gold-tipped railings.

  It was impossible for Xenia to wave, but she smiled and bowed her head and the King waved in the manner she thought he should have done when she first arrived in Molnár.

  Only when they reached the steps leading into the Palace did Xenia hand the little boy to his mother and say to the Count,

  “I think they should be taken to the housekeeper’s room to have the leg attended to, then both of them should be given a good meal.”

  “I will see to it, ma’am,” the Count replied and he remained in the carriage when it drove away to a side door.

  As Xenia walked up the steps with the King she looked with some concern at the stains of blood on her yellow gown.

  The King must have been thinking the same thing for he said,

  “I will buy you another and we ought to put that gown in a glass case and label it – The first shot of defiance against Kalolyi!”

  “The Prime Minister was very angry,” Xenia remarked.

  “There will be nothing he can do,” the King said positively. “The news will be all over Molnár today and the rest of Luthenia tomorrow.”

  They reached the hall and when Xenia would have gone upstairs to change her gown, the King put his hand under her arm and drew her into a small salon.

  He closed the door behind them and, as she looked at him, waiting to hear what he had to say, he said,

  “I suppose you know that you have started a revolution of your own? I am not quite certain what the outcome will be.”

  He spoke gravely, but there was a smile in his eyes she had not seen before.

  She did not reply and he stood looking at her before he said,

  “What has happened? Why are you changed? Why are you so different from how you were three months ago?”

  “Perhaps I have – grown older and – wiser,” Xenia said lightly.

  “I don’t understand – ” the King said as if he was puzzling it out for himself.

  “Don’t let us worry about me,” Xenia said. “It is you we are concerned with.”

  She gave a little sigh.

  “I was so afraid you would be angry.”

  “You – afraid?” the King questioned.

  “I know it was a big step to defy the Prime Minister publicly, but I have a feeling that the only way we can beat him is by arousing public opinion against him.”

  “You realise he will never forgive you,” the King said.

  “I don’t matter. It is you who are important.”

  The King walked away from her towards one of the windows overlooking the garden.

  “Suppose that after all this I fail you?” he asked. “It was a very courageous thing for you to have done. What I am wondering is if I can carry on where you have begun.”

  “Of course you can!” Xenia answered. “You just have to think of ways by which the population will become aware that what they are suffering is the Prime Minister’s doing – not yours.”

  “He has made it very clear in the past,” the King said, “that I am responsible for the decrees that go out in my name, and the taxes.”
/>   “Then you must stop it.”

  “How? How?” he asked despairingly. “It is not going to be easy.”

  “We have had luck so far,” Xenia said. “If I had not spoken to those women with the banner, if they had not been there, I would not have found out about the hospital.”

  “It never struck me until now that there was not one.”

  “The Prime Minister will say there is one. But it is outside the town and very inadequate for what is needed. Besides I can understand how the women would hate a child being taken a long way from them. If they have other children, how can they go to see the one who is ill if it is far from Molnár?”

  “You are right – of course, you are right!” the King said. “But I don’t mind betting that somehow Kalolyi will divert the money for the hospital to the plans he has set his heart on.”

  “Then you must find it by other means,” Xenia said. “Ask the great landowners to contribute and, if you cannot get it that way, then threaten to sell the Crown jewels!”

  She spoke positively and the King threw back his head and laughed.

  “You are magnificent!” he exclaimed. “When I listen to you I find that Kalolyi is sinking into his proper perspective.”

  “He is only an ambitious upstart,” Xenia replied, “who has grown to power because you have let him.”

  “I thought it would be my fault sooner or later,” the King sighed.

  “Of course it is!” Xenia agreed. “You have your health and strength. You have brains if you want to use them. What are you waiting for?”

  Again she spoke without thinking and now the King laughed so much that he sat down in an armchair to go on laughing.

  “You are incorrigible!” he cried. “Why did I not realise before that you were like this? With you beside me I shall be ruling not only Luthenia but half of Europe as well!”

  “Why not?” Xenia asked. “Do you realise how important you are at this particular moment in history?”

  “Important?” the King queried.

  “Mr. Donington told me that Great Britain will support you in anything you do.”

  “Who is Mr. Donington?”

  “An official of the British Foreign Office who escorted me to Vienna.”

  “Why did he say that? Did you question him?”