An Insubstantial Pageant, page 3
‘Take the carriage home,’ she told Humbert. ‘I need some fresh air and exercise.’
The coachman received this uncalled-for explanation with a stolid ‘Ja, Baroness,’ which managed to incorporate within its brevity that he was well-used to her odd ways, and that it was no business of his if she wished to expose herself to the gruelling heat of the afternoon. He contented himself with a final gruff ‘You should wear your hat,’ before, with a click of tongue and teeth, he gathered the reins and set his horses in motion again.
The implied reproof dispelled much of Lottie’s irritation and brought a faint smile. Otto’s servants were devoted to her to a man, she knew, but they were not above treating her occasionally as though she were still that rather harum-scarum girl who had come years ago to shatter their ordered existence.
It was very quiet when the rumble of the carriage wheels had died away. Not a soul to be seen ‒ and small wonder for the deep valley, which could act as a funnel when the wind blew, soon became a cauldron in the summer’s heat, in spite of the water that rushed unceasingly past in the ravine below. The sun’s relentless rays beat back at her from the road and as her neck felt the instant impact, she hastily donned the chip straw hat whose brim she had so impetuously ruined. Tying the jonquil ribbons absent-mindedly under her chin, she sought the shade of the gigantic beech trees which seemed to grow straight out of the rocks. Across the river, black pines marched along the ridge and as she looked back the palace turrets shimmered in the heat haze with here and there on the distant mountain peaks the glitter of perpetual snow.
A faint rumble reminded her that somewhere beneath her, men were busy mining the silver that was so necessary to the continuity of Gellenstadt’s fine traditions.
But how long could it last, she wondered, this preservation of exclusivity to which Prince Adolphus was so dedicated? If anything were to happen to him (and please God it would not!), for how long could the valley escape the threat of exploitation by stronger, more ambitious neighbours like Bavaria?
Prince Paul had never made any secret of the fact that he would like to see Gellenstadt as part of a much wider alliance, with more say in European affairs, and there were now many younger men in the valley, men who had formed a small company raised by Paul to fight with the Allied Armies against Napoleon, who echoed his ambitions. They had seen a world beyond their tiny homeland, and were no longer content to resume their former narrow existence.
For her own part Lottie was torn. Her heart was with Adolphus. She loved Gellenstadt the way it was and all her emotional instincts favoured keeping the status quo, but the practical side of her nature reluctantly acknowledged that some measure of participation in a wider spectrum of affairs could only benefit the lives of families in the valley. Even Otto, who was very much Adolphus’s man and whose opinions she had so valued, had doubted the wisdom of holding aloof from the world and not long before his death had voiced hopes of persuading his Prince to look outward once the conflict was ended.
Lottie’s smile was rueful as she turned at last to retrace her steps. The more she thought about it, the clearer it became that her visit to Vienna, so innocently conceived, was destined to be quite different from the uncomplicated holiday she had planned.
Chapter One
‘Dear Baroness Lottie ‒ do come and see! The Czar has left the Hofburg and will be passing beneath our window at any moment with all his retinue!’
The tremulous young voice wafting back through the open window from the balcony beyond was tinged with a kind of awe that made Lottie smile. Could this really be the subdued girl who had left Gellenstadt less than a week ago weighed down with exhortations from all sides as to what was expected of the heir to the principality? Fortunately the royal reserve had not been proof against the magic of Vienna, for the Princess had instantly succumbed like any country girl on her first visit to a glittering city ‒ which in fact was exactly what she was.
‘Not another procession,’ said Lottie, with a sigh of mock resignation. ‘I vow they do little else!’
This brought a little skirl of excited protestation, as Princess Sophia urged: ‘Oh, do hurry or you will miss the best of it!’
With an amused shrug Lottie laid aside her embroidery and rose to weave her way among the grand and glorious superabundance of gilded furniture scattered indiscriminately about the spacious salon. To be sure, it was no hardship to do the Princess’s bidding, for like Sophia she was already finding the preliminary social skirmishing of this Congress highly enjoyable. Tasha, basking in a pool of sunlight, lifted her head, opening one eye to watch her pass, then having satisfied herself that her mistress was not about to leave the room, allowed her silky ears to sink once more into the luxurious warmth of the Aubusson carpet.
Lottie chuckled to herself remembering Prince Adolphus’s displeasure upon learning that an apartment was the best accommodation that his agent had been able to secure for them. Only the assurance that its appointments were more than adequate and that it occupied a prime position almost within sight of the Hofburg, where Emperor Francis was designated to play host to no less than an emperor and his empress, four kings, one queen, two hereditary princes, three grand duchesses and three princes of the blood, had persuaded him to acquiesce.
The agent had not exaggerated. In size and grandeur it might almost rival the Schloss Bayersdorf, comprising as it did a considerable portion of a huge sprawling mansion whose imposing facade would not have disgraced a full-scale palace, complete with many tall windows which allowed the light to flood in upon a cornucopia of lavishly decorated rooms where laughing rococo cherubs scattered plaster roses with indiscriminate generosity across compartmented ceilings, and friezes were a riot of swags and acanthus leaves!
What the agent had omitted to tell the Prince was that a shabby central stairway of noble proportions linked them quite publicly not only with a similar apartment, as yet vacant, which took up the other half of the first and second floors of the building, but also with less imposing accommodation on the floor above, to say nothing of a fraternity of musicians who inhabited the many minute attics set high up in the steep gables, or the even odder community of cheerful Viennese to be found in the labyrinth of basements.
Fräulein Lanner, already jealous of Lottie’s authority, had been quick to express her outrage at the prospect of the Princess being exposed to all the Hausparteien in this odious way; there were even mutterings of murder and abductions.
‘Nonsense!’ Lottie had retorted, not troubling to hide her amusement. ‘It can do Her Royal Highness nothing but good to see how others go on. For far too long she has been over-protected!’
Sophia was indeed entranced by all she saw, but Lottie did occasionally wonder if it had been quite wise further to alienate the governess. Her ‒ ‘As you will, Baroness ‒ the decision is not for me to make,’ had been subdued enough at the time, but there had been a barely detectable undertone of vehemence in the bitten-off words that seemed to have been reflected in the woman’s subsequent behaviour.
Still, thought Lottie, no good ever came of worrying.
The sound of clattering hooves greeted her as she stepped out onto the balcony, to be immediately dazzled by the sight of Alexander, Czar of Russia, with a smile on his little curving mouth, exuding an air of magnanimous nobility as he rode at the head of the jingling cavalcade which trotted past in a vivid kaleidoscope of colour. The mellow autumn sun glanced with blinding brilliance off polished cuirasses, and feathered plumes nodded in strict time to the hoofbeats. But Alexander outshone them all. His tall figure was encased in a dark green uniform whose short-skirted tunic with its high gold collar was so padded and heavily laced that his arms appeared to hang stiffly like a doll’s beneath the gilded epaulets.
‘He looks like a big, benign angel!’ she murmured irreverently, but the words evoked no response. Sophia was in another world, and who could blame her? There was a total absence of reality about these increasing attempts by important personages to outdo one another in magnificence which should render them absurd, but as yet they merely constituted an irresistible attraction so that it came as no surprise to Lottie to find the blood beginning to tingle in her own veins in a way she hadn’t experienced in years, filling her with the kind of giddy emotions that ought more properly to belong to a girl of Sophia’s age!
‘Oh, see!’ Sophia’s fingers closed impetuously on her arm. ‘Is that not Prince Metlin in the place of honour beside the Czar? Yes, I am sure it is ‒ one would know those splendid red-gold whiskers anywhere!’ Her sigh held a wealth of meaning. ‘How handsome he is!’
Heavens! thought Lottie. And this after only one meeting!
‘Who … the Czar or Prince Metlin?’ she quizzed her eager young companion, knowing the answer full well. Sophia’s trill of laughter merely confirmed it.
Lottie was unsure whether to laugh with her, or scold. Sophia had been repressed for so long that a part of her rejoiced to witness such joyous spontaneity. In her opinion a girl of seventeen, even a princess, should have all the world before her, a myriad experiences to introduce her to life and love, even a little ‒ just a very little ‒ heartbreak, and how was that possible with Fräulein Lanner constantly preaching propriety and fostering the child’s natural reserve, deeming it a mark of her true station in life?
It was at this point in her reflections that Lottie intercepted an impudent grin directed upwards with practised precision by the Colonel Prince in acknowledgement of the petite royal personage leaning with such perilous enthusiasm from the balcony above, and in turning to observe its effect on Sophia, she experienced her first twinge of misgiving. For there was a stillness, a kind of absorbed dreaminess in the profile thus presented to her, one glossy brown curl lying carelessly across a flawless cheek ‒ a profile whose sketchy delicacy already showed promise of great beauty. As the Czar’s retinue disappeared from view, Sophia flung a brief shining glance that made Lottie’s heart turn over, bringing home to her with disturbing clarity the true enormity of the task she had so lightly undertaken.
Sophia was such an innocent. Please God she did not mean to lose her heart to the first amiable rogue who showed a disposition to flirt with her.
They had met Prince Metlin for the first time on the previous evening at one of the many glittering informal assemblies already proliferating throughout Vienna although the Congress was not yet officially under way. The young man’s charm was undeniable, the frankness of his admiration engaging, yet Lottie knew that neither his nobility of rank nor his exceeding amiability was likely to make him one whit more acceptable to Prince Adolphus as a serious suitor for his daughter’s hand. Nor for one moment did she suppose that his ambitions lay in that direction, since for all his gallantry towards Sophia, he had quite blatantly indicated his willingness to extend the same favour to her.
She put the thought from her and addressed herself to the dreaming girl.
‘Sophia, I really do think we should go in now.’ She tried to sound severe. ‘Ladies do not under any circumstances disport themselves on balconies for all the world to see.’
‘I know, but I am discovering that it is fun to occasionally do what one should not!’ There was a delightful hint of mischief in the way Sophia’s straight, aristocratic nose wrinkled up though she turned obediently enough to leave. On the point of so doing, however, her attention was drawn to a sudden stir created by a pair of carriages drawing up below, the first an elegant well-sprung travelling coach, the other slightly less grand.
‘A moment more, dear Baroness,’ she cried, craning forward once again to get a better view. ‘We are to have company, I think. In fact … yes, I am almost certain that our neighbours are about to arrive! Oh, no! My handkerchief!’ This last was accompanied by a muffled shriek.
Lottie felt that matters were getting out of hand. In amused exasperation, she took Sophia firmly by the arm and propelled her away from the rail.
‘Enough,’ she said.
‘But my handkerchief …?’
‘A mere trifle, my dear child. Josef shall send one of the servants down for it later.’
It was really nothing more than idle curiosity that persuaded Lottie to glance over the rail. The handkerchief was drifting down on the merest breath of a breeze and even as she watched, it landed at the feet of the exceedingly fashionable gentleman who at that moment stepped down from the travelling coach.
He stood with a certain indolent grace shouldering a slim walking cane, head bent in contemplation of the scrap of cambric.
Lottie ought to have withdrawn at once, but an overriding curiosity to catch a glimpse of the face of the gentleman so maddeningly hidden beneath the curling brim of the beaver hat held her motionless. At last he moved with the speed and agility of a born fencer. The cane flashed down to scoop up the handkerchief. Only when it was safe in his hand did his eyes lift to the balcony. There was a fleeting impression of well-formed classical features as he touched the handkerchief to his lips in mocking salute and made her an infinitesimal bow before turning away to assist a beautiful young woman to alight from the coach.
The whole incident had taken no more than a moment, but the effect on Lottie was out of all proportion to the passage of time. Even before she stepped back, her hands had moved instinctively to conceal the bright flags of colour flying in her cheeks. The inference conveyed in the salutation had been unmistakable. He had taken her for … had supposed that she had deliberately … No, it didn’t bear thinking of! Oh, if only she had not been tempted to look down!
Princess Sophia was watching her in some curiosity and not a little puzzlement. It was so unlike Baroness Lottie to be in such a flurry. How often had she not envied the ease with which the older woman carried off situations that would have quite sunk anyone else. Sophia peered swiftly over the rail again in the hope of discovering what could have caused such a degree of discomfiture, but there was nothing to be seen except a plump lady being helped down from the carriage by a servant.
‘Baroness?’ She touched Lottie’s arm diffidently. ‘Are you all right?’
Lottie, mortified to be caught making such a cake of herself, recovered her addled wits sufficiently to exclaim, ‘Yes, of course! I must have leaned a little too far, and just for a moment I felt quite strange!’ She was gabbling and saw that Sophia remained unconvinced. She took a deep breath to conclude with a self-denigrating laugh, ‘You see, my dear, that’s what comes of behaving in an unseemly fashion!’
A tiny frown still marred Sophia’s brow and her rich brown eyes were frankly considering. But before any more could be said, Fräulein Lanner’s voice broke upon them, lifted in cold reprimand, exhorting Her Royal Highness to come in at once before she should be recognized. The governess had entered the room in time to witness the unnerving spectacle of her charge hanging from the balcony like a common bawd. The shock robbed her of speech. But not for long.
‘I wonder that Your Highness should show so little regard for your reputation. Gott im Himmel! I dare not hazard what the Prince your father would say were he to learn of such conduct!’
Her thin-lipped disapproval was clearly meant to embrace the Baroness also, and as a result it affected Sophia in a quite unexpected way. A week, even a day or two earlier, such a rebuke would have crushed the young girl. Now, as she walked slowly back into the room, the royal bearing so rigorously fostered by the Fräulein was very evident. She matched the pallid flaxen-haired governess for coldness.
‘Well, there is no way he can learn of it, is there, Fräulein? Unless you mean to inform him.’
She delivered the challenge with an hauteur so reminiscent of her father that Lottie could have cheered.
Fräulein Lanner blanched visibly. Beneath a shapeless black bodice her inadequate bosom heaved with the force of her indignation. She opened her mouth to reply ‒ gulped like a fish ‒ and then closed it again as though thinking better of entering into vulgar argument.
The ornate clock on the mantelshelf chimed clear and bell-like into the lengthening silence, and Lottie, who was essentially a fair-minded young woman, felt a sudden rush of sympathy for the governess. After all, it was to some extent her own indulgence of Sophia, even, it must be confessed, a certain laxness on her part, that had contributed to the present uncomfortable atmosphere. A little generosity, therefore, would not come amiss.
‘I’m sorry, Fräulein,’ she said pleasantly. ‘I fear I must bear much of the blame for the disruption of our routine. But there have been so many distractions ‒ dressmakers to be accommodated, social calls that must be returned. And it is, after all, Prince Adolphus’s wish that Sophia should be introduced to society.’ She smiled, inviting the governess to appreciate the difficulty. ‘Surely, in the circumstances, a little flexibility is allowable?’
But Fräulein Lanner showed not the slightest disposition to be generous in return. With something remarkably like a flounce, she strutted to the door, turning as she reached it to say icily, ‘You know my views, Baroness. But it is clear that they carry very little weight. Perhaps you will be so good as to inform me when it will be convenient for the Princess to resume her studies.’
‘Oh dear!’ sighed Lottie as the door closed behind her.
‘Why did you attempt to apologize to Fräulein Lanner?’ Sophia demanded. ‘She should not be permitted to speak to you as she did. She is little more than a servant, after all!’
Having had her peaceful overtures thrown back in her face Lottie was tempted to agree with the Princess. But as her glance rested pensively on the stiff little figure, the touch of arrogance in the youthfully rounded chin, a certain reservation made her pause. It was natural that the Bayersdorf pride should be bred in Sophia, of course, and kept under strict control, a little of it would be no bad thing ‒ she had been timid for too long ‒ but as for encouraging it as Fräulein Lanner did, at the expense of those gentler qualities in Sophia’s nature, perhaps inherited from her mother whom Lottie had never known? A vivid picture of the child’s grandmother flashed into her mind. One would not wish her to grow in that fashion!
