Ruled by Love (6 page)

Zoleka smiled at her.

“That is all in the past and now you and I are going to have fun. But you will have to support me in everything we want to do.”

“Of course I will. Thank you so much for coming, Princess Zoleka, it is very kind of you.”

Zoleka removed her hat and was wondering what had happened to Marla when she arrived.

“You would not believe it, Your Royal Highness,” she spluttered, as she came into the room. “We was taken up the stairs and you've never seen such an uncomfortable little room they was giving to you. And not a place to hang your gowns!”

“I thought that might happen,” laughed Zoleka.

She turned to Udele.

“This is Marla, my precious maid. She has looked after me for six years and I am sure she will give your maid lots of tips as to how to make you even prettier than you are already.”

“I do
not
have a maid all to myself.”

“But you must have your own maid! I shall explain that you will need one to look after your new clothes.”

“New clothes, Princess Zoleka?”

“I expect you to tell me which are the best and most exclusive shops in this City, because you will have to buy new clothes for all the activities we are going to do. I am absolutely certain that no one has ever thought about you acquiring the clothes that every
debutante
is entitled to.”

Udele gave a skip of joy.

“I would so love some new clothes,” she enthused. “Those I have were made by the Palace seamstress and she always makes everything in just the same patterns she has used for years. I just hate all my dresses, but when I have complained no one listens to me.”

“
I
will listen to you, Udele, but now we must hurry and go down to tea. Marla will see to everything here.”

“You can leave it all to me, Your Royal Highness,” Marla now chipped in. “I knew you wouldn't put up with that nonsense of being pushed away in what had once been the nurseries!”

She spoke with such contempt that Zoleka giggled.

Then slipping her arm through Udele's, she urged,

“Now come along. We have such a lot to do and so much to plan. You must help me jump the hedges which stand in our way as quickly as possible.”

The two girls were laughing as they ran down the stairs.

The large reception room where they were having tea was fairly comfortable, but Zoleka considered that it lacked a woman's touch.

There were no flowers, which she knew would have displeased her mother.

The Lord Chamberlain and the Prime Minister were waiting for them.

“I thought that Your Royal Highness would wish to pour out the tea,” suggested the Lord Chamberlain rather severely.

“But, of course, and I am quite sure that your Chef has prepared some delicious cakes and scones for us to eat after rather a dull luncheon.”

There was a pause and somewhat uncomfortably the Lord Chamberlain responded,

“I am afraid that I did not think of sending any food from the Palace with Anton Bauer, when he went to meet you.”

“It is just what my father would always do,” replied Zoleka. “And of course some champagne too, which most people find refreshing after a long journey.”

“I can only promise that you will have it tonight,” the Lord Chamberlain muttered.

Zoleka smiled at him and then asked,

“May I have an audience with His Royal Highness now or shall I wait until dinner?”

There was a silence after she had spoken.

She realised, as indeed she had expected, that it had never crossed the Lord Chamberlain's mind that she would have dinner with Prince Majmir.

After another awkward moment had passed he said,

“Usually Princess Udele has supper alone.”

“Supper!” exclaimed Zoleka. “But surely now that Princess Udele has grown up and is old enough to take on a Lady-in Waiting, she will have dinner with her father and any guests staying at the Palace?”

She paused before she continued,

“I should be glad to arrange some dinner parties as soon as you help me with the names of the available young people. I shall also need the names of local musicians as I know we would all enjoy dancing afterwards.”

If she had dropped a bomb, the Lord Chamberlain could not have been more astonished.

Before he could speak, Zoleka carried on,

“I can see you are surprised. But you must realise that now Princess Udele has grown up she must take her place in the Palace, and play her part as heiress to the throne in a way as she has not yet done.”

The Lord Chamberlain still could not speak.

“The first step forward is for Her Royal Highness to meet young people of her own age. Then I am sure that the Prime Minister will arrange a number of important public engagements for her.”

She smiled confidently at Udele, who spoke up as if she had been prompted,

“It all sounds so exciting. It has been so dull these last months, staying upstairs with nothing to do when I was not taken out riding.”

“For the future,” asserted Zoleka, “it will not be a question of people taking you out. You will be giving your orders as to where and when you want to go, and as I love riding we will ride as much as we can and on your father's best horses.”

She paused for a moment before she added,

“You will find that Count Franz von Hofmannstall is such an outstanding rider. He will be only too willing to accompany us.”

As if the Lord Chamberlain felt the conversation was going too far, he addressed Udele,

“I feel sure Your Royal Highness will understand we must have approval for all this from your father. I do not think he realised, when the Prime Minister suggested that you should have a Lady-in-Waiting, that so much change would be involved with the appointment.”

“Of course, if you don't want me here,” interposed Zoleka, “I can easily go home. I can assure you I have left a great many duties behind and my father is missing me very much.”

“There is no question of that,” the Prime Minister intervened. “We are absolutely delighted to have you here. I think you are right, it is important that Princess Udele meets the people in the country, who have never seen her before, let alone met her.”

“That is certainly something we can put right, and as I have already said to Princess Udele, the first thing we are going to do is to go shopping.”

“Shopping!” cried out the Lord Chamberlain. “But why?”

“Because every
debutante
is entitled to a trousseau. I have a suspicion, and I am sure I am right, that the poor Princess is still wearing the same clothes she wore in the schoolroom! But now she is eighteen and is ‘coming out'.”

“Of course you are right,” the Prime Minister came in. “And I can see by your own style that you know exactly the sort of clothes our Princess should be wearing.”

“And what I want to wear,” added Princess Udele. “It will be very very wonderful to have new clothes.”

“You shall have the very best that can be provided here,” insisted Zoleka, “and if they are not good enough, we will send off to Vienna. I brought some lovely gowns from Vienna only last year.”

If she had not been concentrating on playing her part, she could not have helped laughing at the expression on the Lord Chamberlain's face.

It had never struck him for a single minute that this sort of situation would arise from the Princess taking on a Lady-in-Waiting.

He had supposed she would be some mousey little woman who would feel very honoured to be in the Palace. Someone who would just carry out her duties obediently without having an idea or thought of her own.

Zoleka poured out another cup of tea for the Prime Minister, aware that he was quietly amused by the Lord Chamberlain's consternation.

Almost as if he had been prompted, the latter rose to his feet.

“I think if Your Royal Highness will excuse me,” he said to Zoleka, “I will go and see His Royal Highness and inform him of your arrival.”

“Tell him I am anxious to make his acquaintance. I quite understand that he was too busy to greet us when we arrived, but I feel that when he has the time we will have a great deal to discuss.”

The Lord Chamberlain left the room.

The Prime Minister looked at Zoleka and sighed,

“Might I congratulate Your Royal Highness? You have started to blow away the cobwebs even quicker than I hoped. In fact I can only thank you from the bottom of my heart for coming to Krnov.”

“Thank you, Prime Minister, but I shall need your help.”

“You have only to ask,” he answered, “and I will support you in every way I can.”

Before Zoleka could say any more the door opened and the Count and Pieter Seitz entered.

“We were told Your Royal Highness was in here,” Pieter said to Zoleka, “and I have come to assure you that the horses are all comfortably bedded down and their riders are now looking forward to finding out what are the gayest places to visit in the City.”

“Then you have done your work splendidly. Let me pour you a cup of tea.”

Both men accepted and the Prime Minister said to the Count,

“Tell me how your father is. I am a great admirer of his and perhaps one day I can persuade him to pay us a visit here in Krnov.”

“If you were to invite him, I think he would enjoy it. In the meantime I would like to meet as many of your citizens as I possibly can. I always enjoy meeting people and visiting a new country where I have not been before.”

“That is a tall order,” responded the Prime Minister, “but I will do my very best to fulfil it. There are a number of people I think would interest you. But please remember I myself have only just recently been appointed, so I have to tread very carefully.”

“To miss the old people's corns,” smiled the Count. “They are always getting in the way of new ideas and new interests. We too have had exactly the same trouble on my father's estate, but I have managed to introduce quite a number of new methods.”

“Then I congratulate you. The most difficult thing in the world is to pour new wine into an old bottle!”

They all laughed at this remark and then the Count asked Zoleta,

“What is the programme, Your Royal Highness, for tonight?”

“That is just what I am waiting to hear. Apparently Princess Udele has not yet been allowed to come down to dinner. Now I have demanded that she should, there is a revolution going on among those who sit at the top table!”

Everyone smiled.

And then the Count seated himself beside Udele.

“And what do you think about it all, Your Royal Highness?” he asked.

“I think it is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened here. You have arrived here as if you were dropped down from Heaven! It has been so dull until you came.”

“We will soon change things and I am sure Princess Zoleka can arrange for us to dance. If there is anyone who can play the piano, we can even dance tonight.”

“Why ever not?” agreed Zoleka. “I suppose there is a Music room?”

“Yes, of course there is,” answered Udele, “and a large ballroom too, but that is shut up.”

“We will find some way to open it,” said the Count. “But what we need is someone to play the piano.”

As he spoke Anton Bauer came into the room.

“Oh, you are just the person we want,” the Count called out before anyone else could speak. “You live here and must know of someone who can play the piano and perhaps even the fiddle. Her Royal Highness and I want to dance.”

“You want to dance?” Anton repeated, as if it was something very extraordinary.

“Of course we do. What else is there to amuse one in the evenings?”

Before Anton could respond, the Lord Chamberlain returned and walked in.

They all looked at him questioningly and everyone was silent.

“I have spoken with His Royal Highness,” the Lord Chamberlain said to Zoleka, “and he will be very delighted if you will dine with him at eight o'clock this evening.”

“And the rest of the party?”

“His Royal Highness of course expects his daughter to come with you, also Count Franz von Hofmannstall and Herr Pieter Seitz.”

Before Zoleka could reply to the Lord Chamberlain, Udele clapped her hands.

“That is a party, a real party! And it is all so very thrilling.”

“Surely there are some
aides-de-camp
in the Palace who should come too,” Zoleka asked.

“They are mostly rather old,” the Lord Chamberlain admitted, “and although they usually dine with His Royal Highness, perhaps tonight it would be wise if they dined in another room.”

He glanced at the Prime Minister as he spoke, who nodded.

Zoleka, now using her Third Eye, suddenly knew the reason. Prince Majmir usually dined with a collection of men of his own age and they just ate and drank because there was nothing more interesting for them to do.

She was as sure of it as if someone had told her.

She thought that Anton Bauer had almost hinted at it when she had questioned him at home.

‘I must make sure it is a most interesting evening so that he will ask us again,' reflected Zoleka. ‘At least we have jumped a good number of fences on our first day. In fact, if I am not mistaken, the winning post is in sight!'

They all went upstairs to dress for dinner.

Zoleka walked with Udele into her room first where they found Marla with all the cases unpacked and her bath waiting on the hearthrug.

Udele clapped her hands together.

“Oh, it looks so pretty! It is wonderful that we can sleep in these rooms. I have hardly ever been inside them before.”

“Now you are grown up the Palace is yours, Udele. We will make ourselves so comfortable here and tomorrow we will ask for large arrangements of flowers.”

“I thought Your Royal Highness would notice there weren't any,” muttered Marla.