Another Scandal in Bohemia (7 page)

“How may I aid you?” Irene prompted gently.

I was surprised by that gentleness, but then Irene was the complete confidante. She could take whatever tack another required, despite her own feelings. Or, rather, she could mask her own feelings to serve another purpose. I felt a stab of pity for Queen Clotilde, royalty in name only, and so obviously ill-equipped to deal with a crisis or even a minor social matter. She would be mincemeat in the courts of any land, especially Bohemia, with her obstreperous in-laws, the family von Ormstein.

Irene could have handled them, and had. Oh, how unfair life was! What a queen Irene would have made, to quote the King of Bohemia in one of his rare, perceptive moments. She would have played the role to perfection, and have never lost herself, or her humanity, to it. Instead, King Willie had made this mail-order princess his bride. Now the unhappy creature was coming to Irene for aid. Aid for what? What did a pampered queen have to fret about?’

She was about to tell us, but first she must wet her fish-belly-pale lips. They had cracked from such frequent gestures, adding to her lackluster air despite the rich garb and the soft, ever-present flutter of gray ostrich feathers that framed her person like dust-ridden gilt.

What a complete and total loss she was. A shaking little white rabbit with nervous pink eyes. This the King must recognize each day of his life when he thought of the vital woman he had betrayed, whose blood was unblued by royal birth but whose every other attribute was of a royal nature.

“I am not sure that anyone can aid me,” the Queen confessed, her brows knitting, I assume, since I could see only furrowed skin and a dusting of down. “I find it most embarrassing to name my ill. Perhaps I should begin with my personal history.”

Irene expertly managed to conceal a yawn without lifting a rude but veiling hand to her face. I felt inclined to groan myself. The Queen of Bohemia looked to be a thorough sort of young person, seriously dull beyond her years.

“I am my father’s second-born daughter,” she began.

Irene’s and my glance intersected. We had read all we wished to know of her in the newspaper.

“It was always intended that I wed the future King of Bohemia.”

“Oh, really?” Irene beat the sarcasm from her voice but a particle remained. King Willie had never admitted as much.

The Queen smiled nostalgically. “I first met him as Crown Prince when I was fourteen. Wilhelm is a man of uncommon height, much like Czar Alexander of Russia, both almost six and a half feet tall. They are distantly related, as many members of various royal houses are. The King is such a massive man, with great blond sideburns and a mustache. Very handsome, I thought, a Viking prince. I was not averse to the marriage, though I would have to leave Sweden and learn German—very large matters to a young girl.”

“And Bohemian,” Irene put in.

“What?”

“You would have to learn Bohemian.”

“Why on earth would I?”

“It is the language of Bohemia.”

“But the von Ormsteins speak German, and Bohemia is part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Court at Vienna speaks German. As a child, I learned English, French, Italian, and German so I should be able to marry into any acceptable royal house, but from the first I was promised to Bohemia.”

“Hence why bother to speak Bohemian?” Irene muttered to herself.

The Queen didn’t notice; her mind had moved again to her unpleasant present lot, and her face reflected its poverty. “We married last spring, a splendid ceremony in Prague,” she said, rallying a bit. “The city is pretty, but Prague castle is vast and gloomy. Little has been done to bring in modern comforts. Yet I was wed to one of the most handsome and eligible Kings of Europe. I... intended to do my duty.”

“Which was?” Irene prompted.

Queen Clotilde looked first amazed, then mortified. She eyed her entwined and gloved hands. “My first duty is to extend the royal line.”

Impatience flashed across Irene’s face. “And you have made no progress in this required enterprise yet? Consult a physician, then. I can recommend Doctors Sturm and Drang,” she added wryly.

Only I understood the danger the Queen ran in consulting Irene about her domestic disappointments. Sturm and Drang were the mock names Irene had given the Bohemian royal physicians during our disastrous stay in Prague two springs before. I bit my lip in a mirroring gesture as I watched the Queen’s hypersensitive face threaten to collapse.

“I would, Madame Norton. Save that there is no physical fault. I cannot... breed if I am not... approached.”

I could not decipher such delicate phrasing, and, for a moment, neither could Irene. She sank back against the down-filled cushions, her flame silk gown setting like a sullen sun against the utter twilight of the black upholstery.

“You mean that—?” For once, even Irene was lost for words.

“I mean that my husband, the King of Bohemia, has not consummated the marriage.”

Or perhaps Irene had wanted to hear that admission from her rival’s lips, without having to put soothing words into her mouth. Yet Irene was not usually cruel.

“Consummated the marriage,” I repeated in the lengthening silence. I believed that I knew what that meant, in a general sense.

“Miss Huxleigh is right,” Irene said, clearing her throat. “We must be absolutely clear on your meaning. You say that the King has not... visited your bedchamber.”

“Oh, he has visited. As far as anyone would suspect the marriage is sealed. But... nothing has happened.”

“Are you sure?” Irene asked sharply.

That pale face flushed as the dawn does when the light is thin and all color is only a hint. “I think so. I believe I would know. I have been told little, only that I must obey my husband and do my duty. Surely my duty does not require me to sleep alone, always. Nothing has passed between us but public courtesies. I cannot say that I was eager to solve these mysteries that are kept from maidens, but I expected to have them solved for me, certainly by now. I remain as ignorant as ever, and most puzzled.”

“Perhaps,” I said stiffly, “you have been granted the better part.”

“Not if I fail to produce an heir!” Emotion animated those frail, pallid features for the first time. “That is my calling. My obligation. And then, the King is not... unpleasant in countenance or demeanor. Perhaps he finds me so. Perhaps he resents my being forced upon him by my royal blood. I feel despised in what should be my own palace. As if the servants—the very walls!—knew and were laughing at me.”

Irene sat in abstraction. She idly stroked the small channel above her lip, that was not too short, nor too long, but just right... for a queen.

“You say, Your Majesty, that Wilhelm von Ormstein has not consummated the marriage.”

At this bald repetition, Queen Clotilde nodded and swallowed simultaneously.

“Wilhelm von Ormstein?” Irene repeated in disbelief that was far more personal than the Queen would credit. Then she shook her head as if to clear it. “Could he be ill?”

“He appears to be in the finest of health,”

“Could he be sparing you? Waiting for you to settle into the duties of queenship?”

“It is possible, but before we wed he led me to believe that he anticipated our union in more than ceremony. I cannot say he was overattentive, and he did often seem brusque and involved in his own affairs. Yet every so often he would turn to me as if remembering that I was there and offer some gallant phrase or gesture. He said that his father’s death had reminded him of his own mortality, that he had delayed too long in waiting until he was past thirty to marry, that he desired children.”

Irene sighed so slowly that her escaping breath seemed to be thought incarnate. “He sounds a man ready to meet his obligations and go forth and multiply according to divine providence and the bloodlines of Europe.”

“So I thought! I admit that I was nervous, and oddly excited, about my first encounters with these duties, but now I find myself far more nervous about their lack. What have I done wrong?”

‘The King of Bohemia weds, but goes no further,” Irene mused. “That does not sound like the King I know.” I saw a pleased gleam grow in her eyes, and could guess in which direction her speculations wandered.

“You know the King?” the Queen was asking incredulously.

“What? Oh, only by reputation. The newspapers are filled with the exploits of royalty, which breeds a sense of false familiarity among the reading public. I would agree with you: by all repute, the King is a handsome, healthy, virile man. One would expect him to do his duty, and even find pleasure in it.”

Queen Clotilde blushed in awkward blotches. “Then it is I. I am so... ugly, so stupid, so ignorant that he cannot bear to be with me!”

Sweet words to one who had been asked to make way for this very woman by becoming the King’s secret mistress. Irene let them wash over her for a long moment, then she sat taller, as a flash of anger lit her dark eyes like bright, summer lightning.

“You are nothing of the sort,” she said in the tone often used to goad me to some enterprise beyond my habits or inclination. “Obviously, there is nothing wrong with you, so there must be something wrong with the King.”

“But what, Madame? Can you find it out? Can you fix it?”

The Queen’s heartsick pleas, laden with imminent sobs, gave even Irene Adler Norton pause.

“I don’t know. I should have to think about it. How long do you remain in Paris? May I reach you somewhere?”

The Queen seemed grateful for the opportunity to lower her face while she probed the gray Persian wool muff at her side.

“My card, Madame. I leave in two weeks. The King insisted I come to Paris for a new wardrobe. Most women would be ecstatic. I felt myself... banished. Gotten rid of.” She bit her mangled lip again. “You are a woman of courage, Madame, and an American. No doubt you have never contemplated such silly problems as I face. You know nothing of the obligations of royal houses; perhaps they seem cold-blooded to you. I envy your certainty and your freedom, but I know only the life I was bred to live. If I am wife in name only to the King of Bohemia, I am an utter failure. I dare not tell anyone of any significance of my dilemma. It would cause a scandal of the highest order, that would shake the thrones of several nations—not because I am important, but because international familial and territorial pride is at stake.

“Bohemia is no great nation, but a modest bauble stitched to the hem of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Only maintaining its royal line will keep Bohemia sovereign, and from becoming a prize contested for by larger, encroaching countries whose names I dare not breathe. If I bear no children—no son and heir—I will be sent home disgraced. My name would go down in history as Clotilde the Unloved, Clotilde the Unlovely, and who knows what the fate of Bohemia and all Europe will be? If you can help in any way, and I throw myself upon your mercy, I beg you, do so!”

She rose and fumbled for the veiling on her bonnet, until its dark folds fell past her face like the shadow of a guillotine blade. The result made her seem headless, faceless, a well-dressed animated dressmaker’s dummy bereft of a soul.

Irene rose with her. “I cannot promise anything.”

“Promise nothing,” the muffled voice begged, “but try something, anything, if you can. I will pay whatever you wish.”

We watched her go, both of us wrapped in invisible veils of silence neither was eager to lift.

Irene gathered her reticule and glanced my way at last.

“Notes were not necessary,” she observed, “yet I rather imagine that your diary will have some rigorous use tonight”

Our coachman grumbled copiously to himself when he assisted us into the carriage at the door of Maison Worth. Apparently he judged that we had taken overmuch time within.

Irene, usually ever-ready to cajole the grumpy into good humor, ignored Andre’s ill temper.

Even before he cracked his whip over the horse’s cognac-colored backs, she was huddled in the carriage corner, excavating the depths of her reticule for the familiar mother-of-pearl case. A tiny lucifer was struck and then sparked in the dim interior, and Irene had soon wreathed herself in a defensive moat of smoke.

I sat back and said nothing, not even about the annoying smoke, aware of the great shocks she had sustained this day.

“Well. Wednesday,” she said at last. “What wonders will Monsieur Worth show us then?” she ruminated. “A showman born. And the Queen. What is your diagnosis, Nell?”

“That her problem is no difficulty at all. I cannot see that the
absence
of a man from her bed would trouble most women, especially those in an arranged marriage.”

I deduced Irene’s smile rather than saw it through the smoke.

“No, of course you would not see that, Nell, but Clotilde Lothman von Saxe-Meningen von Ormstein is not most women. She may be a symbol, but she is human still, and she has been treated most shamefully.”

"You almost sound her defender.”

“Do I?”

“Has it occurred to you, Irene, that the King may not be undertaking his husbandly role—whatever that is, exactly; I am sure it is uncomfortable, rather unpleasant, and possibly undignified—because he has not yet recovered from the loss of yourself?”

"
Hmm,”
Irene purred in the self-indulgent way of black Lucifer when partaking of a bowl of fresh cream. She wriggled deeper into the tufted leather upholstery, as if settling into a velvet cradle.

“I confess that is the very first thing that occurred to me. It does salve the savage soul: Willie bereft beyond duty. Willie unable to even approach his blue-blooded young wife, haunted by my memory, by my loss, by tardy repentance. Of course I would like to think it was true, but often the most satisfying explanation for such things is also the most self-deluding.”

“Much as I abhor stressing it, Irene, for your self-regard is already too strong, the King was a broken man when he left the Serpentine Mews after finding the photograph gone and that you had eloped with Godfrey.”

Irene shook herself out of her foggy reverie, and leaned forward to crush her dying cigarette’s ember under her boot-heel on the carriage’s wooden floor.