Indeed so bored did Mary get while Rudolf was away entertaining Hoyos and Coburg Esq, that she idly scratched her initials (with the date) on the bottom of one of Rudolf's metal ashtrays. However, once the gentlemen guests have withdrawn, Mary is released, like a famished cat and is given a 'scratch' supper in the dining room. (There are also accounts of Bratfisch playing the bagpipes at this point but that sounds a bit too ludicrous to be believed!)
Anyway, much later (in my scenario) the doomed pair decide to take a last promenade together through the darkened schloss. Loschek is fast asleep and Rudolf's guest(s)* are snoring away in their respective gastzimmers. Daringly, Mary takes a swig of brandy from the decanter in the billiard room (like the naughty teenager she is) and perhaps Rudolf lights up a final cigar.
In the hallway, Mary takes off her wrap and skips about (almost naked in a flimsy undershirt) in the silvery light of the moon that creeps across the floor from a high window. However, the nooks and crannies of the schloss are once more full of gloomy shadows as they wend their way back to the bedroom. Rudolf's steps increase in heaviness and he almost needs support from the young girl, letting her lead the way. It is now or never.
The atmosphere in Rudolf's suite has become oppressive, to say the least, despite it being fairly spacious. It's as if the walls are slowing closing in on them during the last act. Rudolf always the keen hunter, has been responsible for an awful lot of "kills" in the field in his lifetime and now he's about to bag a more unusual trophy. However, she won't have a neat, carefully handwritten label tied to her feet like that dead blackbird (Ringdrossel) from Rudolf's ornithological archive. It is not the intention for this particular gamine specimen to be preserved by the taxidermist's art, either.
In the sketch below, I have shown Rudolf and Mary on their last stroll through Mayerling. Soon after their deaths the hunting lodge which has become synonymous with their doomed affair will be razed to the ground (on the orders of Emperor Franz Joseph) and a chapel built in it's place. On the site of their joint deathbed will stand an altar and nuns will pray daily for the repose of Rudolf's soul (but not Mary's?)
They are in effect a 'dead couple walking'
Note on the drawing: Mary is holding a small lamp which lights her features from below and isn't particularly flattering. Perhaps it has just dawned on her that this isn't just a splendid romantic game any longer and that the journey to paradise might prove to be a bit of a bumpy ride. Rudolf just looks weary.
In the background I've placed a painting of a (blonde) Madonna with Christ child and a carved statuette of an eagle perched with folded wings. These artefacts actually exist and were once part of the furnishings at Mayerling. Both were displayed in the Kronprinz Rudolf Lebenspurren exhibition at the Hofmobiliendepot Museum in Vienna in 2008/9.
The Madonna picture in the background provides a bitter counterpoint. According to some (secret police) accounts, Mary Vetsera is actually in the early stages of pregnancy (and also venereal disease.) I doubt the pregnancy somehow, but the VD infection is most likely. In her last letters, she seems to cleave to the idea that there will be an afterlife-- no wonder!
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Rudolf and Mary at Mayerling
*A brief note on Hoyos and Coburg:
They sound like a firm of international lawyers but their double-act as witnesses in the Mayerling incident is a bit of an intriguing puzzle in itself. They were definitely close pals of Rudolf and hardly likely to be a brand of courtier/spy like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern-- lol!) Rudolf trusted them. They were invited as 'cover' for the impending double suicide and if the Crown Prince was going to blow his brains out then he may as well do it with close friends in the vicinity who could be relied on to deal sensitively with the aftermath. According to the official account, only Graf Josef Hoyos stayed the night at Mayerling. Coburg departed for Vienna and returned (early) the next morning.
Phillip, Prince of Saxe-Coburg Gotha was Rudolf's brother-in-law (he was married to Stephanie's elder sister, Louise) and the marriage may have been an unhappy one (the couple divorced in 1906)-- so perhaps he had a lot in common with Rudolf. Anyway, for whatever reason, or misgivings, Coburg didn't fancy spending the night in that schloss and preferred the idea of trundling back to Vienna instead. A floorplan of Mayerling shows two gastzimmers adjacent to Rudolf's ground floor suite, just off the billiard room and ideal for unaccompanied gentlemen guests, on a brief overnight stay (one would have thought.) It is believed that Hoyos was given a room in another wing of the schloss. There was certainly a separate annexe for Erzsi (Elizabeth, Rudolf's daughter) when she came to stay. Stephanie, his wife, had her own apartment on the first floor. So I'm not quite sure where Hoyos actually lodged, frankly. However, perhaps for reasons of privacy, Rudolf must have requested that those particular gastzimmers near his bedroom remain unoccupied. Anyway, Loschek cannot rouse the Crown Prince (after shot(s?) have been heard) and the door is firmly locked. H and C,(who may have been breakfasting together at that point?) are duly informed. Of course, neither gentlemen were aware that Mary was in-situ, until they are informed by the panicky valet (rather reluctantly.) Both men of the world, they may have feigned surprise at the idea of Rudolf hiding a young Baroness away in his private suite. Part of the panel of Rudolf's bedroom door is then smashed in by Loschek (who has asked permission to do so) and from this improvised spyhole (which seems to afford a conveniently wide-angle panorama of the whole room) the bodies of Rudolf and Mary can clearly be seen lying on the bed. From then on Hoyos seems to take the initiative for getting word to the Hofburg (travelling via carriage and express steam train.) Meanwhile, the higher-ranking Prince Coburg seems to become a bit of a blubbering wreck. Traumatised by the event and unable to assist in any practical way, he bows out of the story. |
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