A Royal Visit

I was reminiscing recently about the day in 1974 when my family received a visit from the deposed Empress of Austria. Zita had been the wife of Karl, the last Emperor to reign over the vast Hapsburg empire of Austria-Hungary, and had been living in exile since the end of the First World War.

We were staying at my Uncle Jasper’s villa in Switzerland at the time. The morning had been spent pursuing the usual pleasures – smoking faux cannabis through the ornamental hookah just to annoy Aunt Charlotte; skinny-dipping in the lake with the German girls staying next door; teasing Xavier, the muscled young gardener who (as usual) was working stripped to the waist.

After lunch we were all lounging around on the terrace as was our habit, when one of us noticed a rather quaint little steamer crossing the lake. It was clearly making its way towards our landing stage at the foot of the lawn and intrigued, we all stood up to see who might be on board. The boat slowed, pulled alongside the stage and a gangplank was lowered. First ashore was a tall man wearing the uniform of an admiral of the Prussian navy, followed by a rather stout lady in a pin-striped suit and brogues. They stood to attention without seeming to acknowledge the rather bemused party of onlookers that stood on the terrace above.

Finally, two elderly ladies emerged from the cabin and began to make their way onto the lawn. One was dressed in a kind of ball gown made from lilac chiffon; the other was all in black – rather in the style of a nun – with a black lace veil and a pair of expensive-looking sunglasses. Both ladies wore pearl necklaces. They were followed by a bald-headed man in a dark suit. They all paused at the foot of the gangplank and looked up at us expectantly. Uncle Jasper put down the air rifle that he’d been shooting empty bourbon bottles with, and strode off across the lawn to greet them.

He returned with the party and we all made room for them at the table. None of their party, I noticed, sat down until the lady in black was seated herself. In faultless French, the Prussian Admiral introduced the lady in black as Her Imperial Majesty the Empress Zita of Austro-Hungaria. I was all for retorting “Yes, and I’m the Emperor Napolean and this is my sister the Duchess of Windsor", but for some reason Uncle Jasper seemed to be taking these weird people seriously and if anything, was behaving somewhat deferentially towards the old trout. He called Lola (his maid) and asked her to prepare some tea for us all. Because there were so many of us, she had to get the (now shirted) young gardener to help her, but the tea duly arrived complete with a tray of assorted dainty cakes. I remember the conversation was polite and banal – we talked of the weather and of the beauty of the lake. They were all quite chatty, except for the woman in the brogues who said nothing.

After a while the Empress spotted the air rifle propped up against a wall. She asked my uncle if she could have a go and rather nervously, he agreed. Without moving from her chair she took the rifle, loaded it herself, and fired at the bottles on the far wall. As the first bourbon bottle exploded in a very satisfactory shower of tinkling crystal, she laughed. ‘How very strange,’ she said in perfect English. ‘I was a member of the House of Bourbon before I was married. What a coincidence, eh?’ And she winked at me. She went on to destroy the remaining four bottles without wasting a shot.

Eventually this bizarre little party prepared to leave. The Admiral thanked us for our hospitality, the Empress was helped to her feet (she managed to stand on the tail of Aunt Charlotte’s red setter in the process; the sleeping dog yelping so loudly that the sound echoed across the lake), and they all floated silently across the lawn and down to the landing-stage.

Very soon, with a hoot of its siren, the tiny boat had gone and there was only a whisper of black smoke staining the white-blue sky to remind us that we hadn’t actually imagined the whole episode. A bewildering little incident indeed.