Bride to the King (3 page)

“Does His Majesty resent having a Regent to run the country for him?” Zosina asked.

“That is a question I cannot answer, Your Royal Highness. Knowing Prince Sándor as I do, I cannot imagine anybody resenting his authority, but one never knows with young people. I expect, however, His Majesty will be very glad to be free of all restrictions except those of Parliament when he comes of age.”

“He might find a – wife restricting too.”

The Count smiled.

“That is something, Princess, I feel you would never be to any man.”

Zosina put the miniature down on the diplomatic box.

“I thank Your Excellency very much for being so kind,” she said. “You will be coming with me and the Queen Mother to Dórsia?”

There was almost an appeal in her voice and the look she gave him told the Ambassador that she thought it would be a help and a comfort to have him there.

“I shall be with Your Royal Highness,” he replied, “and you know I am always ready to be of assistance at any time and in any way that you require.”

“Thank you,” Zosina answered simply.

She held out her hand, then without saying any more she left the anteroom and walked swiftly across the marble hall and started to climb the stairs.

Only when she was halfway up them did she begin to hurry and to run along the corridors and burst into the schoolroom.

As three faces turned to look anxiously at her, she realised that her breath was coming quickly from between her lips and her heart was pounding in her breast.

“What is it? What has happened?” Helsa asked. “Was Papa very disagreeable?” Theone questioned.

For a moment it was impossible for Zosina to answer.

Then Katalin jumped up and ran to put her arms round her waist.

“You look upset, Zosina,” she said sympathetically. “Never mind, dearest, we love you and however beastly Papa may be, we will all try to make you feel better.”

Zosina put her arm round Katalin’s shoulders.

“I am – all right,” she said in a voice which shook, “but I have had rather a – shock.”

“A shock?” Helsa exclaimed. “What is it?”

“I don’t – know how to – tell you.”

“You must tell us,” Katalin said. “We always share everything, even shocks.”

“I cannot – share this.”

“Why not?”

“Because I am to be – married.”

“
Married
?”

Three voices shrieked the words in unison.

“It cannot be true!”

“As Papa has said so – I suppose it – will be!” “Who are you to marry?” Theone enquired.

“King Gyórgy of Dórsia!”

For a moment there was a stupefied silence. Then Katalin cried,

“You will be a
Queen
! Oh, Zosina, how marvellous! We can all come and stay with you and get away from here!”

“A Queen! Heavens, you are lucky!” Helsa exclaimed.

Zosina moved away to sit down on the window seat where she had been reading before she went downstairs.

“I cannot – believe it,” she said in a very small voice, “though it is true, because Papa said so. But it seems – strange and rather frightening to marry a man you have never – seen and know very little – about.”

“I know a lot about him,” Theone piped up.

Three faces looked at her.

“What do you mean? How can you know about him if we do not?”

“I heard Mama’s Lady-in-Waiting talking to Countess Csàky when they did not know or had forgotten that I was in the room.”

“What did they say? Tell us what they said!” Helsa cried.

“The Countess said the King was wild and was always in trouble of some sort. Then she laughed and said, ‘I often think the Archduke is luckier than he knows in not having a son of that sort to cope with’.”

“How would she know that – ” Helsa began, then interrupted herself to say, “Of course, the Countess is married to our Ambassador in Dórsia!”

“I have just been talking to him,” Zosina said. “He showed me a miniature of the King.”

“What does he look like? Tell us what he looks like!” her sisters cried.

“He is very handsome and did not look wild, but rather serious.”

“You would not be able to tell from a picture anyway,” Theone said.

“If he is – wild,” Zosina said slowly, “I expect that is why they want him to get – married – in case he causes a – scandal or – something.”

She was really puzzling it out for herself when Katalin, who had followed her to the window seat sat down beside her and said,

“If he is like that, you will be a good influence on him. I expect that is why they want you to marry him.”

“A – good influence?” Zosina faltered.

“Yes, of course! It’s like all the stories, the hero is a rake, he has a reputation with women and he does all sorts of things of which people disapprove! Then along comes the lovely good heroine and he finds his soul.”

Helsa and Theone burst into laughter.

“Katalin, that is just like you to talk such nonsense!”

“It’s not nonsense, it’s true!” Katalin protested. “You mark my words, Zosina will reform the rake and make him into a good King and she will end up by being canonised and having a statue erected to her in every Church in Dórsia!”

They all laughed again, Zosina with rather an effort. “That’s all a Fairy story,” she said. “At the same time, I think I am – frightened of going to – Dórsia.”

“Of course you are not!” Katalin said before anyone else could speak. “While you are there, you will have a good time. I have often wondered what rakes do. Is there a word for a lady rake?”

“No,” Helsa said. “Besides, while a man can be a rake, you know that a woman, if she did even half the things a man can do, would be condemned for being wicked, and no one would speak to her.”

“I suppose so,” Katalin agreed, “and she would be thrown into utter darkness or dogs would eat her bones as happened to Jezebel.”

Even Zosina laughed at this.

“In which case I think I would prefer to be canonised,” she said. “But at the same time, I wish I could stay here. I did suggest to Papa that the King might prefer to marry Helsa.”

Her sister gave a little cry.

“I would marry him tomorrow if I had the chance! For goodness sake, Zosina, don’t pretend you are reluctant to be a Queen! And if you grab the only King there is and I have to put up with some poor minor Royalty, I shall die of sheer envy!”

“Perhaps when the King meets you when you go to Dórsia,” Katalin said, “he will fall in love with you and will threaten to abdicate unless you will be his wife. Then everybody would be happy.”

“It’s quite a good story as it is,” Helsa said. “Here we are sitting in the schoolroom, going nowhere and meeting no men, unless you count those pompous old officials who come to see Papa and suddenly Zosina is whisked off to be crowned Queen of Dórsia. It really is the most exciting thing that has happened for years!”

“Papa said I was – ungrateful and I suppose I – am,” Zosina said slowly. “It’s just that I would like to have – fallen in love with the man I-I – marry.”

There was silence for a moment. Then Theone said,

“I suppose we would all like that, but we have not much chance of it happening, have we?”

“Very little,” Helsa agreed. “That is the penalty for being born Royal, to have to marry who you are told to marry with no argument about it.”

Katalin put her head on one side.

“Perhaps that is why Papa is so disagreeable because he did not want to marry Mama and always found her a bore.”

“Katalin! How could you say such things?” Helsa asked.

“I don’t know why you should be so shocked,” Katalin answered. “You know how good-looking Papa was when he was young. I am sure he could have married anyone – Queen Victoria herself if he had wished to!”

“He would have been too young for her,” Helsa said, who was always the practical one.

“Well – anyone else with whom he fell in love.”

“Perhaps he did,” Katalin said. “Perhaps he was in love with a beautiful girl who was not Royal and although they loved each other passionately, Papa was forced by his tiresome old Councillors to marry Mama.”

“I am sure we should not be talking like this,” Zosina said, “and it does not make it any easier for me.”

“I am being selfish and unkind,” Katalin added hastily, “and we do understand what you are feeling – do we not, girls?”

“Yes, of course we do,” Helsa and Theone agreed.

“It has been a shock, but at least he is young and handsome,” Theone went on. “You must remind yourself if ever he is difficult that he might well have been old and hideous!”

Zosina gave a little sigh and looked out of the window.

She was trying to tell herself she should be grateful and, as Theone had just said, things might have been much worse.

She knew that what was really troubling her was that she had always dreamed that one day she would fall in love and that it would be very wonderful.

All the books she had read had, in one way or another, shown her how important love was in the life of a man and a woman.

She had started with the love the Greeks knew and how it permeated their thinking and their living and was to them the most important emotion both for God and man.

It was love, Zosina thought, that motivated great deeds, caused wars, inspired the finest masterpieces of art and music and made men at times as great as the Gods they worshipped.

She thought now that beneath her endeavours to improve herself, to stimulate her mind, to acquire all the knowledge that was possible, there had been a desire to make herself better than she was.

Secretly she believed that one day the man who would love her would want her to be different from every other woman he had ever known.

In retrospect it seemed almost a foolish ambition.

Yet it had been there and it was difficult in the quiet conventional life they had lived in the schoolroom to remember that they were Royal and their futures must therefore be different from those of other girls of their age.

Although it had struck Zosina occasionally that her marriage might eventually be arranged, it had never for one moment crossed her mind that it would be to somebody she had never even seen.

That it would be a
fait accompli
before she had time to think about it, discuss it or have the chance of refusing the prospective husband if she really disliked him.

‘I have been very stupid,’ she told herself, but she knew that even if she had been anything else, the result would have been just the same.

It was only that deep in her heart something cried out at being pressurised and constrained into a situation in which she could only accept the inevitable and have no choice one way or another.

‘I suppose if it is too terrible – too frightening,’ she thought, ‘I could always – die!’

Then she knew that she wanted to live, she wanted to live her life fully and discover the world, and most of all, although she hardly dared to admit it to herself, she wanted to find love.

There was not a great distance between the capitals of Lützelstein and Dórsia, but the boundary was very mountainous and therefore the train in which they were travelling made, Zosina thought, a great to-do over it.

The whole journey, however, was so exciting that even the long drawn-out preparations seemed in retrospect worthwhile.

She had not realised that she would require so many new clothes, until she found that they were to be part of her trousseau.

This made them less attractive than they had seemed when they were first ordered.

At the same time, because her sisters were so thrilled by the gowns, bonnets, sunshades, gloves and of course, the exquisite sophisticated lingerie, Zosina found herself carried away on a tide.

Everything had to be done so quickly that she became very tired of fittings and it was a relief to find that Helsa, although she was fifteen months younger, was a similar build to herself and could often ‘stand in’ for her.

The only trouble was that every time she did so Helsa was so envious that Zosina felt herself apologising humbly for being the chosen bride.

“It’s not fair that the oldest should have everything,” Helsa would say. “First Papa likes you the best – ”

“Which is not saying very much!” the irrepressible Katalin interposed.

“ – You get married first and to a King!” Helsa finished.

“You might add that she is much the prettiest of us all,” Theone remarked, “because that’s the truth.”

“If you only knew how much I wish this was not happening to me,” Zosina said at length when Helsa had been complaining for the hundredth time.

“The whole mistake has been,” Katalin added, “that you are marrying a European. Now if Papa had had the sense to choose a Moslem, such as an Arab or Egyptian, he could have married off the four of us simultaneously!”

This made them laugh so much that the tension was broken, but Helsa’s feelings only added to Zosina’s own conviction that her marriage was not only going to be rather frightening, but would also separate her from her own family.

There was, however, nothing she could do and she tried to tell herself that the gowns and the approval she was receiving from her father and mother were some compensation.

The Archduchess, in fact, was so unusually affable that Theone commented,

“If Mama was always in such a good mood as she is now, we would be able to suggest to her that we might occasionally have a dance or even just invite some friends to tea.”

“I doubt if she would agree,” Helsa said. “The sun is only shining at the moment because Zosina is to be a Queen.”

It had certainly pleased her mother, Zosina thought, and she was rather surprised because the Archduchess had never appeared to be ambitious for her daughters.

Then it suddenly struck her that perhaps the real reason was that with her marriage she would be leaving home and there would be one less woman about the Palace.

Children seldom think of their parents as human beings.

So it was only during the last year that Zosina had seen her mother not as an authoritative, mechanical figure, but as a woman with all the feelings and emotions of her sex.

It was then that she realised with a perception she had never had before, that her mother loved her father possessively and jealously.