The Proud Princess Read online

  As she did so she saw it was an hour - exactly an hour - since the Prince had come to her room, and putting her hands up to her face she understood exactly what he had intended.

  There were always eyes to see and ears to hear whether it was in a Palace, a castle or a house.

  If the Prince had ignored his bride on the first night of their marriage it would undoubtedly have been noticed and reported by someone. Such a tit-bit of gossip would have been whispered from mouth to mouth.

  Then the whole of Dabrozka would have been aware that the marriage was, as the King had said, only ‘a farce and a charade’ to deceive the Russians.

  Instead as far as the world was concerned, the Prince had done his duty!

  He had gone to his wife’s bedroom and it would be believed that he had made love to her and they were man and wife not only in name but in actual fact.

  The humiliation of it made Ilona throw herself down again in the bed, but this time her face was hidden in the pillow.

  He did not want her!

  She had been forced upon him by circumstances and, while once he had kissed her because he thought her lovely, he was completely indifferent to her charms now that she was his wife.

  She knew little about men and less about love.

  Yet she had always heard that if a woman was attractive, men desired her, even though what they felt was not love, not the real love a woman sought in marriage.

  But as far as the Prince was concerned she did not even interest him to the point when he wished to kiss her lips or even talk to her.

  Whatever her father had said, Ilona thought, however rude and offensive he had been, surely the Prince was not so angry as to loathe her, as her father’s daughter, as he loathed the King?

  ‘He must not feel like that - he must not!’ Ilona thought piteously. ‘I must make him see that I am different – I must explain to him!’

  But even as she spoke the words into her pillow she thought despairingly that it might be impossible.

  *

  Ilona walked to the window and looked out at the sun shining on the valley below.

  Every day it seemed to her that the view was more breath taking, the snow-peaked mountains more exquisite against the blue sky, the river winding its way into the green distance more alluring, and every day she grew more miserable.

  “Which gown do you wish to wear today, M’mselle?” Magda asked behind her.

  “It does not matter,” Ilona replied dully.

  For four days, she reflected, she had taken trouble over her appearance, tried to look beautiful, attempted to arouse a response of some sort from her husband, only to have failed!

  For four days she had been the wife of the Prince, and never once had he spoken to her when they were alone or addressed her in public without a cold note in his voice which told her what he was feeling.

  They were always surrounded by people.

  Every day they had visited one of the towns in Dabrozka to be welcomed officially by the Bergomaster and the other dignitaries in the area, and to receive presentations and gifts and hear speeches.

  Everywhere they were acclaimed in the same enthusiastic manner which had characterised their wedding.

  Ilona had learnt a lot about the Prince on these expeditions.

  She realised not only his popularity, but also the fact that he had such authority in the country owing to his remarkable personality.

  The people looked on him with respect and admiration, and they also trusted him and believed what he told them.

  Their visits to the towns, Ilona knew, were not only to receive the goodwill of the inhabitants but also to give them courage and a new hope for the future.

  Despite the penal taxation, despite the cruel and unjust laws that her father had passed, Ilona was aware that the Prince aroused in them a sense of patriotism.

  Without being in the least disloyal to the reigning Monarch, he contrived to make the people believe that a golden future lay ahead.

  ‘But how will it ever be accomplished while Papa lives?’ Ilona wondered sometimes.

  She found herself carried away as everyone else was by the Prince’s deep voice and by the sincerity with which he spoke.

  His love of Dabrozka inspired those who listened to him to the point where Ilona thought sometimes they almost worshipped him.

  But while ordinarily she would have loved the drives from Vitózi to the other towns, the beauty of the countryside, the mountains towering above them and the spontaneous welcome they received even in the smallest hamlets, they were never alone.

  Facing them in the open carriage were usually two young officers who acted as the Prince’s Aides-de-camp. They found it difficult, Ilona realised, to look anywhere but at her face.

  The Prince talked to them, laughing and joking, as if he was their equal rather than their Commanding Officer, just as he treated everyone he met with a comradeship which swept away stiffness and protocol and which made even the most pompous Mayoral Banquet an occasion of gaiety and laughter.

  He was also delightfully unpredictable.

  He would do unexpected things, like picking up a small boy and letting him ride with them in the carriage.

  Or he would toast the most unimportant official’s wife at a banquet, making her the most envied woman in the whole gathering.

  He listened to stories of complaints and tragedies, commiserated with bereaved wives, congratulated young soldiers, and admired the herds of sheep and cattle which were the pride of every Dabrozkan farmer.

  He was indefatigable!

  Often as they drove homewards after a long day he would sing the peasant songs which Ilona remembered as a child, his Aides-de-camp joining in while Ilona was quite certain that the coachmen on the box were singing beneath their breath.

  It was only when everyone had left the Castle and the dinner guests who arrived every night had departed that the Prince turned from a warm, gay, laughing young man into an icicle of coldness and repression.

  Every night he came to Ilona’s room, bringing his book to seat himself in the same chair, staying exactly one hour, before he rose to leave.

  She had been too shy and too humiliated to speak to him until last night.

  Then when he had been there a long time, when she could bear it no longer, she said aloud,

  “Aladár!”

  She was so nervous that after she had spoken she thought it was impossible for him to have heard her because her voice seemed to have died in her throat.

  With a superhuman effort she spoke again.

  “Aladár!”

  This time he heard her.

  He shut his book and she thought with a sudden quickening of her senses that at last she would get some response from him.

  Instead he had gone from the room as he had done on the previous nights, only this time he was half-an-hour earlier in retiring.

  She had given a cry of sheer misery and spent the rest of the night tossing and turning and asking herself how long it could continue.

  She knew only too well that the next day would be like yesterday and the day before that.

  They would visit the same sort of people, go through the same motions, say the same things. Aladár would inspire them as he had done the others, and they would drive home to entertain another large dinner-party.

  If only they had been happy with each other, Ilona thought, every moment would have been an excitement and a delight because they were doing something together which was really worthwhile.

  It was what she had wanted in life, what her mother would have wanted for her.

  But now, although she was doing her duty it was difficult and miserable, because every moment of the day she was conscious of the Prince’s feeling towards her.

  It seemed to Ilona, when she went downstairs the next morning to find the carriage waiting as usual to carry them to some town that was many miles away, that the Prince’s coldness seemed even more marked than it had been at any time since they were married. />
  The note in his voice when he addressed her because it was unavoidable, was like an icy wind blowing from the snows above them.

  He never looked at her directly and when circumstances forced him to touch her she felt almost as if his fingers were frozen and there was no warmth in them.

  “He hates me!” she told herself.

  This afternoon however the Prince did not start the singing and seemed unusually silent.

  The Aides-de-camp made some remarks to him, but he answered them in monosyllables and Ilona thought miserably that even they must be aware sooner or later that there was something wrong.

  After only four days of marriage she told herself, there was an invisible barrier between herself and the Prince which was more effective that iron and steel could ever be.

  She was thankful when at last the Castle was in sight.

  Then unexpectedly, the Prince’s spirits seemed to revive and he talked more animatedly than he had done the whole journey.

  As they stepped in the hall Count Duźsa was there to meet them and Ilona was genuinely glad to see him.

  She had grown to like and rely on the Count since she had been at the Castle.

  He told her so many things she wanted to know. He gave her a short biography of every guest she met at the dinner parties and also told her many legends and stories about the towns they visited.

  “You are quite right, Count,” Ilona said as she reached his side, “the place we visited to-day looked exactly like a falcon’s nest!”

  “I thought you would see the similarity, Ma’am,” he replied.

  “A different sort of music to what you will hear this evening!”

  “This evening?” Ilona questioned.

  “I thought His Highness would have told you,” he said looking towards Prince Aladár who had followed Ilona into the hall.

  “Told me what?” Ilona asked.

  “That the gypsies are to be your hosts.”

  The Count saw the surprise in Ilona’s face and explained,

  “There are a great number of gypsies in Sáros, as I know you are well aware, and they are deeply grateful to the Prince for allowing them to stay on his land and for protecting them.”

  “From the King?” Ilona asked.

  “His Majesty would have sent the Army against them, had it not been for the Prince’s intervention!”

  The Count looked at the Prince and asked,

  “Is that not true, Sir?”

  “My wife may dislike the gypsies as much as her father does,” the Prince replied coldly, “in which case she will not be interested in hearing of their gratitude. If she does not wish to be present tonight, I can easily make excuses for her absence.”

  He was speaking, Ilona thought, as if she was not there and she found it made her angry.

  “I should be delighted to attend the gypsies’ party,” she said to the Count, “and as I am certain it would be expected for us to make them some small gift, perhaps you would be kind enough to choose something appropriate to the occasion.”

  She turned towards the stairs as she spoke with almost a flounce of her skirts and walked away with her head held high.

  ‘I am growing very tired,’ she thought to herself, `of the Prince’s high-handed manner! Sooner or later I will force him to talk to me!’

  As she walked up the stairs, she continued to herself,

  ‘It is impossible to do so when I am in bed. The only way will be for me to ask him to come to my sitting-room, or perhaps I could go to his.’

  She tried to sound to herself defiant and determined.

  But something weak and helpless inside her made her feel that the Prince was so overpowering and so self-confident that whatever she did would merely make her look foolish in his eyes.

  Supposing he asked her what, if she was not satisfied with the way he was treating her, she had expected?

  It would be impossible for her to tell him what she really wanted without laying herself open to the obvious retort that he did not find her attractive.

  ‘That is the whole truth,’ Ilona thought, ‘I do not attract him, and nothing I can say or do will make any difference!’

  She expected to endure a miserable evening of cold indifference from the Prince and a. pretence on her part of being interested in everybody else but him.

  She was finding it more and more difficult to play that part, but actually that night she did not have to pretend.

  The gypsies had congregated just outside the gardens of the Castle and because it was a warm evening with a sky filled with a multitude of stars, the Prince and Ilona walked from the Castle to where the gypsies were waiting for them.

  Servants accompanied them with lighted torches, and when they were met by the gypsy Chief or Voivode, Ilona found they were the only guests, the only people present who were not of gypsy blood.

  Her memories of the gypsies were always of small ragged bands, moving about the countryside attending the fairs where they sold their wares, told fortunes or collected crowds around their performing animals.

  But she had never met the gypsies as a tribe and led by their Voivode.

  She had heard that many of them wielded great power amongst their people, but even so she had not expected to see one so elaborately dressed or wearing so many jewels.

  The Voivode wore a long crimson coat ornamented with gold buttons and yellow top boots with gold spurs. On his head was a close fitting lambskin hat.

  In one hand he held a heavy axe, symbolic of his authority, in the other a whip with three leather thongs.

  Jewelled daggers stuck in the red sashes that all the gypsies wore around their waists, glistened in the firelight.

  Red was the predominant colour of the many skirts, sometimes as many as seven, worn by the gypsy women whose arms were encircled by dozens of jewelled bracelets as were their ankles.

  There was a large fire in the centre of a clearing and the gypsies were ranged around it in a circle, their tents hidden in the shadows under the trees.

  Ilona and the Prince were led to a huge pile of coloured cushions on which they sat where they were served with a gypsy meal that was unlike anything Ilona had ever eaten before.

  There were stews which had a succulent taste which she had never encountered even in French cooking.

  There was special bread which the gypsies baked in their fires, and there was wine to drink in goblets made by the Kalderash, one of the gypsy tribes, set with amethysts, sapphires, cornelians and quartz.

  The Voivode made a speech to the Prince thanking him for the protection that he had given the gypsies and immediately he had finished there was music.

  It was music, as the Count had said, which was different from anything Ilona had heard before.

  There was the trill of the naiou or pipes of Pan, the twang of cithara, the beat of the tambourines.

  But it was the violins which seemed to draw Ilona’s heart from her body.

  She knew that it was the union of two races, the Magyar and the Hungarian Gypsies which had produced this soul stirring music.

  Then the haunting melody swept away not only her unhappiness, but also all the restrictions that she had felt all her life, in Paris and now in Dabrozka.

  She felt as if the notes vibrated through her and set her whole being free. Then, as the dinner was finished and only the goblets of wine remained beside their places, the dancing began.

  Now the music grew wilder, more passionate, more magnetic, more demanding, so that Ilona felt herself instinctively respond and her shoulders began to move with the rhythm of it.

  Her eyes were shining in the light from the fire and they were very green. The flames picked out the red-gold of her hair and her lips were parted.

  The dancers began slowly, the women first, while those who were not dancing sang a kuruc chant to the music, giving it rhythmic depth and a resonance which accentuated the beauty of the instruments.

  The music grew wilder, and now as the dancers quickened their pace th
e men joined them.

  Then from the crowd flashing round the fire, their jewels dazzling at the speed with which they moved, there came one dancer.

  Ilona found it difficult to imagine that anyone could look so beautiful and at the same time so seductive with the feline grace of a panther.

  She heard her name cried by the crowd - “Mautya” - “Mautya”.

  The gypsy had long dark hair hanging below her waist and her high cheek bones and huge black eyes told Ilona she was of Russian origin.

  She began to dance the Zarabandas.

  This was the famous snake dance. Ilona had heard it spoken of with bated breath.

  Her body swayed like the wind in the leaves, her skirts swirled round her bare legs, her arms were an enticement, so that it was impossible not to watch the sensitive flexibility of her hands.

  And her dark eyes, slanting a little at the corners, flashed and seemed to be full of fire as her body moved first swiftly, leaping in the air, then slowly, sinuously and seductively, so that there was the sensuousness of a serpent in every movement she made.

  Then as the violins rose to a crescendo, as the dancer moved alone while the others leapt and twirled behind her, she held out both her hands invitingly towards the Prince.

  There was no need for words.

  Her flashing dark eyes and her red lips spoke for her.

  It seemed to Ilona as if for a moment the music was silent, until as the Prince rose to his feet to take the out-held hands in his, there was a wild crescendo of sound which seemed to rise up into the starlit sky.

  Then as Ilona watched him dancing as wildly as the gypsy herself, she knew despairingly that she loved him!

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Love came to Ilona not as a warm, exotic sense of joy, but as an all-consuming fire.

  She felt it burn through her until, watching the Prince dancing with Mautya she wanted to tear the woman from him, to strike her, to do her violent injury, even to murder her.

  She had never in her whole sheltered life felt anything like the wildly conflicting emotions which transformed her whole body into a kind of battlefield!

  She knew that her hands were trembling and her heart was beating tumultuously in her breast, but she felt too as if her eyes were flashing sparks of fire and her fingers were curved ready to be at the gypsy’s throat.