The Peril and The Prince

Chapter One 1886-2

She was actually almost too old to be a debutante, being nineteen on her next birthday, which was in two weeks time.

But last year, which would have been the appropriate time for her to be presented, her father had been British Ambassador in Vienna, which the Foreign Office considered a post of considerable importance and would not hear of his returning.

Vida had therefore stayed with him and it was only now, when he had asked for a long leave of absence before he took over the Embassy in Paris, that he had been asked to undertake a very special mission.

“Why can they not leave you alone, Papa?” Vida had asked angrily. “You have done so much for them and, as far as I can ascertain, received little thanks for it.”

“I don’t want thanks,” her father had said quietly. “Whatever I do is to help my country where and when she most needs it and I cannot pretend with mock modesty that I do not have the qualifications for such a mission.”

He did not add that there was nobody who even nearly equalled him in his remarkable proficiency in mastering foreign languages.

Also high ranking as he was, he enjoyed assuming disguises when need arose in a way no other Ambassador of his standing would think of doing.

However, because he was a very exceptional person, Sir Harvey thought such behaviour a great joke.

He would make his daughter laugh helplessly at stories of how he had haggled as a carpet seller or a Bedouin guide with distinguished personages with whom he had been at school or university without their having the slightest idea of who he was.

Before leaving for Hungary he had said light-heartedly that for the first time in years he would be travelling as himself and therefore expecting to enjoy the red carpet and all the comforts and privileges of his diplomatic rank.

Vida had, however, known that he was trying to pull the wool over her eyes.

She was quite certain that after reaching Hungary he would cross the border either purporting to be a Russian or in some other subtle disguise that even the most astute of the Czar’s Secret Police would be unable to penetrate.

Then two months ago she had suddenly become aware that things were very different from what her father had told her to expect.

It was impossible to convince the Marquis of Salisbury that she had an almost clairvoyant awareness of anything that concerned her father.

She was coming away from the drawing room at Buckingham Palace when she had what she knew for certain was a warning that her father was in danger.

She had just come down the red-carpeted stairs from the Throne Room and she and the Duchess of Dorset were stepping into a carriage that was waiting outside.

Bending her head low because she was wearing the traditional three Prince of Wales’s white ostrich feathers on top of her head, she felt as if an icy hand gripped her heart.

For a moment she thought it might be the effect of the glass of champagne she had sipped after making her curtsey to the Queen and the Prince and Princess of Wales.

Then she knew it was something very different and she became frightened.

She felt almost as if her father were actually speaking to her.

As she thought of him and concentrated in the manner that he had taught her to do, she was so still and silent that, as the carriage proceeded along The Mall and turned up St. James’s Street, the Duchess asked,

“Are you all right, Vida? I hope you are not going to faint. It was very hot and airless in the Throne Room.”

“No, I am all right, thank you,” Vida answered, but she knew at the same time that she lied.

She was suddenly desperately afraid for her father and what was happening to him.

Now looking across the desk at the Marquis of Salisbury, she stated firmly,

“All I am asking, my Lord, is that you will arrange a passport for me in a new name I shall assume once I am out of the country.”

She thought he was hesitating and she added,

“I do not wish to threaten you, my Lord, but as you must be well aware, false passports are not impossible to obtain. However, I would rather come to you than put myself in the hands of people whom it would be impossible to trust seeing that they are already behaving illegally.”

“No – no, of course not!” the Marquis said. “That would be an extremely foolish thing to do.”

“That is why I am asking for your co-operation.”

As if he realised that nothing he could say to her would divert her from doing what she intended, the Marquis after a considerable pause said grudgingly,

“Very well. You make it difficult for me to refuse you, although it is something I am sure that I ought not do.”

He pulled a piece of paper towards him and asked,

“What name do you wish to use?”

As Vida had thought this out carefully before she had come to the Foreign Office, she said,

“Countess Vida Kărólski.”

The Marquis’s eyebrows went up.

“Russian?”

“It might be useful and at the same time it’s a name that might easily be Hungarian if you put the accents in the right places.”

The Marquis laughed because he could not help it.

“Before you ask me,” Vida went on, “I am keeping my own Christian name because not only does it sound foreign, which it is, but Papa’s advice has always been ‘never tell a lie if you can possibly help it’.”

The Marquis had to laugh again.

“I can only say that you are incorrigible, Miss Anstruther, and, although you are persuading me to do something of which I very much disapprove, I cannot really think how I can stop you.”

“That is not surprising,” Vida said, “since I have every intention of going to find Papa. It would also be useful if in an emergency I could know if there are any of your own men in reach of where I shall be who could help me.”

Again the Marquis hesitated before he wrote down a name on a piece of paper in front of him and handed it across the desk.

“As your father’s daughter,” he said, “you are well aware that the life of this man is in your hands. Commit his name to memory and then destroy this paper and promise me that only in an emergency that affects the life of you or your father will you call upon him.”

“I promise you that I will be as careful as my father would be in the same circumstances.”

“That is all I ask,” the Marquis replied. “And now we will do what we can about your passport.”

He rang a bell attached to his desk as he spoke and, when the door opened, he said,

“Ask Mr. Tritton to come to me.”

Mr. Tritton was, as Vida was not surprised to see, a middle-aged man with a worried look on his face, which came, she was sure, from being burdened with secrets that must never be disclosed outside the Foreign Office.

The Marquis handed him the piece of paper on which he had written the name that Vida had chosen for her passport and then, as the door closed behind him, he said,

“I expect you would wish to take it with you, as it would be wise not to make too many visits here. We never know who is watching our doors.”

“That is what I thought, my Lord,” Vida replied, “and I can only say that I am very grateful for your help.”

“Given very reluctantly!”

She smiled at him and he thought that she was not only lovely but also very unlike any English girl of her age.

“I know your mother was Hungarian,” he said. “Did you ever visit her family when your father was in Vienna?”

Vida shook her head.

“There never seemed to be time,” she answered, “but some of my relatives, only the younger ones, came to see us in Vienna. Those who were older had no wish to travel.”

“And you say that you are as proficient at languages as your father?”

“He has taught me everything he knows,” Vida replied. “At the same time it has been useful having a Russian grandmother.”

The Marquis sat upright.

“I had no idea of that.”

“She was dead before I was born so I never met her, but as Russian is the most difficult language in the world to learn, with the exception perhaps of Chinese, it has been of inestimable benefit to be able to speak it almost naturally and in fact not find it at all difficult.”

“That indeed is an almost incredible asset,” the Marquis said. “But let me beg you, Miss Anstruther, not to do anything foolhardy, such as going to Russia unless it is to make the same sort of friendly visit you would make in any other country.”

He paused while choosing his words and then added,

“As you are, of course, aware, there is a great deal of animosity between us and the Czar at the present moment. I am not disclosing any secrets when I say that we have nearly come to war over Afghanistan and I am quite certain that the Czar harbours little or no goodwill towards the English.”

“Papa was sure that he is in fact furious, because his forces have not been successful in infiltrating into India, not even into the North-West Provinces.”

The Marquis did not reply and Vida was certain that he felt it would be indiscreet to discuss it with her.

Tactfully she said,

“Is there anyone that would be useful for me to get in touch with either in Hungary or just over the frontier?”

As she spoke, she knew that she was reading the Marquis’s mind and that he was thinking of someone although he had not intended to reveal it to her.

But now he looked penetratingly at her across the desk and she was aware that he was wondering whether or not he could trust her.

“Please,” she said, “I swear to you on all I hold holy, I know that Papa is in danger.”

The sincerity with which she spoke helped the Marquis to make up his mind.

“Very well,” he said. “I will tell you about one man who is I believe of vital importance, although the information I have about him is very varied.”

“Who is he?”

“His name is Prince Ivan Pavolivski.”

Vida was listening intently as the Marquis went on.

“He is a strange enigmatic man who may be all that he pretends.”

“What is that?”

“Like many of the Russian Nobility, he comes to Western Europe for amusement and spends some time every year in Monte Carlo where he has a villa, as have the Grand Duke Boris and the Grand Duke Michael. He is also well known in Paris and made a visit last year to London.”

Vida knew that this was nothing unusual and the Russian aristocrats with their enormous wealth and generous hospitality were welcome everywhere.

“What is different about Prince Ivan,” the Marquis went on, “is that no one is quite certain where his allegiance lies.”

Vida looked puzzled and he explained.

“He has many friends in Hungary who find him a great sportsman and enthusiastically welcome his social visits. But from reports I have received, although I admit they are scanty, he is also persona grata with the Czar which, from our point of view, makes him an object of suspicion.”

“So you think that he is not entirely a playboy?” Vida asked.

“I am quite certain that he is far too intelligent not to understand everything that takes place around him and he may be deeply involved in politics.”

The Marquis made a sudden gesture of concession with his hands.

“I admit that when I met him I found him an enigma. He may be just what on the surface he appears to be or he may be at the very centre of the plots we are trying to anticipate and the puzzles we are trying to unravel. I just do not know.”

Vida drew in her breath.

“Thank you,” she said. “Perhaps the Prince will be able to tell me about Papa.”

The Marquis held up his hands.

“For God’s sake, don’t trust him unless you feel absolutely certain you can do so.”

Then he added in a worried tone,

“Perhaps I should not have told you about the Prince. He has the reputation since he is so handsome of being irresistible to women. If you are carried away by his charm, as undoubtedly many women have been, you might inadvertently be writing your father’s death warrant.”