Crowned with Love Read online

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Macedonian is a South Slavic language, one of the State languages of what became Yugoslavia, used principally in the People’s Republic of Macedonia. In the mid-1960s it was spoken by about one million native speakers, including a sizable population in South-Western Bulgaria and Northern Greece.

  Macedonian serves about three hundred thousand Albanians and Turks who live in Yugoslavia. The language has nothing to do with the Macedonian of Classical antiquity, which had long since been replaced by Greek, probably a closely related language originating from when the Slavs overran the area and settled there permanently in the seventh century.

  The records start with the earliest Old Church Slavonic manuscripts (tenth-eleventh centuries), whose language betrays local Macedonian features not generally thought to have been characteristic of the ninth century Thessalonian dialect on which Saints Cyril and Methodius presumably based their writings.

  From the late twelfth century, Macedonians wrote in the standardised types of artificial Slavonic used, with minor variations, by all Orthodox South Slavs.

  While a slightly more popular style appears in a few seventeenth century translations, no text approximating to the spoken language is known before about I790.

  Chapter One ~ 1876

  Giona came into the sitting room, where her sister was sewing diligently.

  “Mama is late!” she said. “I do hope that the Queen is not being disagreeable to her.”

  “Disagreeable?” Chloris enquired. “Why should she be?”

  “One never knows with the Queen,” Giona answered, “and Mama is frightened of her, she always has been.”

  “I always thought that Her Majesty was very fond of Mama,” Chloris said demurely, “who is, after all, her god-daughter.”

  Giona did not bother to argue, but she had one of her strange feelings, which the family often laughed about, that her mother’s visit to Windsor Castle was not the pleasant social occasion that it was expected to be.

  Her Royal Highness Princess Louise of Greece had been brought up to be in awe of the redoubtable and, to most people, extremely formidable Queen Victoria.

  It was said that her own son, the Prince of Wales, trembled before he entered her presence and this was certainly true of most of her less important relatives.

  Although it was true that she had been kind in her own way to Princess Louise when she and her husband had been obliged to flee from their own country to come to England and had presented them with a ‘Grace and Favour’ house, they were none the less in awe of their benefactor.

  As Giona sat down in the window seat so that she could feel the warmth of the sunshine coming through the open casement, she tried to tell herself that her fears concerning her mother were unnecessary.

  Yet as she often did, she knew that she was being perceptive or what was called ‘clairvoyant,’ and that something was wrong.

  Very lovely, Giona took after her father and her features had the perfection of a Greek Goddess, while her eyes seemed to have all the mystery that was associated with that unhappy and often divided country.

  The beauty of her elder sister, Chloris, was, however, very different.

  She looked English, very English, and resembled her mother with fair hair, blue eyes, and a perfect pink-and-white complexion.

  Giona often said it was ridiculous for her to have a Greek name and that she should in fact have been christened ‘Rose’ or ‘Elizabeth’ or ‘Edith.’

  “Papa chose our names,” Chloris would explain, “and, of course, being Greek, he wished to be patriotic.”

  “Papa’s mother was English,” Giona would reply, “so actually we are only a quarter Greek, however much we may boast about it.”

  Chloris would not answer because she disliked arguing and anyway she always came off the worst in a duel of words with her younger sister.

  Giona was the clever one of the family, and Princess Louise often sighed because they could not afford the Tutors necessary to teach her younger daughter more of the subjects in which she was interested and yet knew so little.

  “Why could I not have been a boy, Mama?” Giona asked. “Then I could have gone to a Public School like Eton and perhaps to Oxford University.”

  Princess Louise should have laughed, but instead she said seriously,

  “I wish I could have given your father a son. At the same time, darling, he was very proud of his two beautiful daughters and always claimed that you resembled his great-grandmother, who was acclaimed during her lifetime as being the most beautiful woman in Greece and indeed the personification of Aphrodite.”

  “It must have been lovely for her to have so many people to admire her,” Giona answered.

  Princess Louise thought with a wry smile that her younger child invariably put her finger on the painful spot in any argument to which there was no reply. Living so quietly, as they were obliged to do and having so little money that every penny had to count, they could not entertain and were seldom asked to parties for the simple reason that few people knew of their existence.

  There had, however, been by the greatest good fortune, when Chloris was attending at Windsor Castle the one social function to which she and her mother were invited once a year, a young man who had fallen madly in love with her.

  He was a younger son of the Duke of Hull and from the first moment he looked at Chloris he found it impossible to look away.

  They had danced together and the following morning he had called at the small Grace and Favour house.

  Chloris had been sitting waiting for him starry-eyed and with fingers that trembled a little because she was so excited.

  To the two young people in love, the world was so glorious and so thrilling that they had no doubts that they would live happily ever after.

  It was only Princess Louise who was apprehensive and worried as to whether the marriage would be allowed.

  She had been so nervous of approaching the Queen on Chloris’s behalf that she made herself ill and Giona asked her,

  “Why cannot the Duke see the Queen instead of you, Mama? I can think of no reason for you to be so upset.”

  “It is correct for me as a member of the Royal Family to approach the Queen, rather than somebody from outside,” the Princess had explained.

  Then, clasping her hands together and with a note of agony in her voice, she added,

  “Giona, what shall we do if Her Majesty refuses to allow Chloris to marry John? You know it will break her heart!”

  “If the Queen does anything so cruel and beastly,” Giona said, “they will simply have to run away together.”

  Princess Louise looked shocked.

  “Of course Chloris could not do anything like that!” she said firmly. “It would cause a terrible scandal and Her Majesty would be furious!”

  Fortunately her fears were groundless.

  Queen Victoria had given her permission for Chloris to marry Lord John Cressington, and she was over the moon with happiness.

  They would have been married almost immediately if Lord John had not been in mourning for his mother and there could be no question of their announcing their engagement until the customary twelve months had elapsed.

  “That means,” Princess Louise had said, “you will have to wait until the beginning of April for the announcement and I should think that the actual ceremony could take place sometime in the summer.”

  “I will be married in May!” Chloris said firmly. “How can we go on waiting and waiting, Mama? And John is longing for me to meet all his relatives, which I am unable to do now that the Queen has put this ridiculous ban of silence on us so that we cannot tell everybody as we want to.”

  Princess Louise did not reply because she understood just ho
w frustrating it was.

  Equally she kept thinking how lucky they had been that the Queen had acquiesced without making the fuss she had feared that she would about Royalty marrying a commoner.

  The truth was that the reason Her Majesty had not been ruled by her often-expressed opinions on the subject was that she did not consider her god-daughter Princess Louise of any real consequence.

  Prince Alpheus was only distantly connected by birth with the Royal Family of Greece and now that the King of his country was a Dane, his family was no longer important politically or even socially.

  In fact, when soon after reaching England Prince Alpheus died, his funeral was so sparsely attended by European Royalty that his wife had taken it as an insult.

  However, she had been so unhappy at losing the husband she loved that she had kept her feelings to herself on the disrespect he had been accorded.

  She did not discuss it with her two daughters, but Giona had sensed what her mother was feeling and in consequence had been more demonstrative than usual in an effort to alleviate her suffering.

  It was impossible for her not to realise how little she and her sister counted when their father had died unmourned and almost unnoticed.

  But now Chloris was happy with the thought of her Wedding drawing nearer day by day and, because there was so little money, the whole household was sewing diligently to provide her with at least an adequate if not overgenerous trousseau.

  “I am sure when the time comes for your engagement to be announced and the Queen realises the imminence of your marriage,” Princess Louise said, “she will offer to pay for your Wedding gown. I know that it is what she has done for a number of brides in the family. If she does not do so, it will make it very difficult for us to find the money for a really beautiful and expensive gown.”

  “I know that, Mama,” Chloris answered, “but the brides the Queen has been so generous to were all marrying Royalty.”

  There was a moment’s silence as Princess Louise and Giona sensed that this was the truth.

  Practically every Throne in Europe was occupied by Queen Victoria’s descendants and she regularly expressed her approval by giving a very handsome gift to the bridegroom and a trousseau to the bride.

  “Anyway, what does it matter?” Chloris had asked after a little pause. “If the Queen will not give me my gown, it will not prevent me from marrying John and he thinks that I look lovely in anything!”

  Perhaps, Giona told herself optimistically, the reason for the Queen sending for her mother now was to tell her that she would help with Chloris’s trousseau.

  There were only thirty days to wait before the announcement of the engagement could appear in The London Gazette and, if somebody near to Her Majesty pointed this out, there was no reason why she should not feel kindly towards the daughter of her godchild.

  ‘That must be the explanation, of course it is!’ Giona decided.

  Then a little voice inside her and, what she often thought of as her Third Eye, told her that it was something much more significant than a gown for Chloris.

  There was, however, no point in saying so aloud and upsetting her sister.

  Instead she just sat in the sunshine, looking out onto the small unimpressive garden in front of the house and wondering why her mother should be away for so long.

  Then at last there was the sound of horses’ hoofs and wheels and a moment later Giona saw the Royal Carriage drawn by two white horses, which had been sent from Windsor Castle to collect her mother, approach the front door.

  She jumped to her feet, saying excitedly as she did so,

  “Here is Mama at last! Now we shall know the worst.”

  She ran from the room without waiting for her sister to reply and opened the front door before the footman in his cockaded hat had descended from the box to rap sharply, as he intended to do, on the knocker.

  His hand was, in fact, raised when Giona appeared at the door.

  He smiled as if at her impetuosity and turned back to open the carriage door for Princess Louise.

  She stepped out and stopped in her charming considerate manner to thank both the footman and the coachman who had brought her from Windsor Castle, who both raised their hats in acknowledgement.

  Then she walked the short distance to the front door to where her daughter was waiting.

  “You are back, Mama!” Giona cried unnecessarily. “What a long time you have been!”

  “I was afraid you might be worried, darling,” Princess Louise said, kissing her cheek.

  She did not say any more, but Giona looked at her mother apprehensively and followed her into the sitting room where Chloris was just putting down her sewing before running to kiss her mother.

  “Giona has been fussing about you, Mama,” she said, “but I feel sure that there is a good reason why you have been longer than we expected.”

  Princess Louise took off the cape that covered her slim figure and handed it to Giona to put on a chair.

  Then she sat down and, awed a little by her silence, even Chloris looked at her with a worried expression.

  “What has happened, Mama? You must tell us,” Giona urged her impatiently. “I felt sure while I was waiting for you that something had gone wrong.”

  “It is all right – at least I hope it is!” Princess Louise replied.

  Giona’s eyes were on her mother’s face and now, as the Princess seemed to be feeling for words, she moved forward to kneel down at her side.

  “What has happened, Mama?” she asked in a low voice.

  “I have had a rather – difficult time,” the Princess faltered, “but I know you girls will understand when I say that Her Majesty – is very overwhelming!”

  “About what?” Giona asked abruptly.

  Princess Louise gave a deep sigh before she replied,

  “King Ferdinand of Slavonia has applied to the Queen, of course through his Ambassador, for an English wife – to share his Throne with him.”

  The way the Princess spoke made both Chloris and Giona stare at their mother open-mouthed.

  There was a silence that seemed to leave them both paralysed before Chloris said quickly,

  “Her Majesty is aware that – I am engaged?”

  “The engagement has not yet been officially announced and at first the Queen thought that it would be in the best interests of everybody if it was conveniently forgotten.”

  Chloris gave a cry that seemed to echo round the room.

  “Are you saying – Mama – that she is suggesting I should not – marry John?”

  “Her Majesty made it very clear to me,” Princess Louise replied, “that it was British policy to keep the small countries in the Balkans independent, and that the Slavonian Ambassador has told her that King Ferdinand will find it very difficult to do so unless he has the support of Great Britain and an English wife to prove it.”

  Chloris screamed again.

  “But I am to – marry John – she agreed I could marry John! I would rather – die than marry – anybody else!”

  Her voice rose as she spoke, and Princess Louise said quickly,

  “It’s all right, Chloris! I persuaded Her Majesty in the end that it would be impossible for you to break your word or for her to withhold the permission for your marriage that she has already given, but it was not easy.”

  She sighed as if the memory of how difficult it had been was very painful and Giona slipped her hand into her mother’s and held it tightly.

  “She was not unkind to you, Mama?”

  “Only rather overbearing and I thought for one moment that I had failed to save Chloris.”

  “But you have – saved me? I can marry – John?” Chloris insisted.

  Her mother nodded.

  “Oh, thank you, thank you, Mama! But how could the Queen have thought of anything so cruel – so horrible as to try to separate us?”

  “You must be aware,” Princess Louise replied quietly, “that Her Majesty is concerned only with the political situat
ion in Europe.”

  “Politics or no politics,” Giona said defiantly, “we are human beings and the Queen has no right to treat us as if we were just puppets to be manipulated at her command!”

  Princess Louise, who had been looking at her elder daughter, now looked down at the younger sitting at her feet.

  “I know how you feel, darling,” she said, “but you must understand that the privilege of being Royal carries with it the penalty of putting duty before everything else.”

  Giona had heard this before and she merely said,

  “But you saved Chloris, Mama, and it was very very clever of you!”

  “Very clever!” Chloris echoed, wiping away the tears that had run down her cheeks because she was so frightened of what might have happened.

  “Yes, you are safe and you can marry John,” Princess Louise said, “and the Queen has promised, dearest, to pay for your Wedding gown and part of your trousseau.”

  Chloris now gave a cry of sheer delight and, running to her mother’s side, put her arms around her neck and bent down to kiss her.

  “You are brilliant, Mama!” she said. “How could you be so wonderful? I can never thank you enough and I know that John will want to thank you too.”

  The Princess did not respond as eagerly as her daughters expected, and it was Giona who asked,

  “What is wrong, Mama? I can see something is still troubling you.”

  Princess Louise looked down at Giona’s hand holding hers and said gently,

  “As you said, I have saved Chloris, but Her Majesty is still intent on saving the independence of Slavonia.”

  Again there was a little poignant silence before the Princess went on,

  “Her Majesty pointed out to me that she has at the moment no young relative of the right age to be the wife of King Ferdinand except for Chloris, and, of course, you, Giona!”

  Chloris made an audible gasp as her mother spoke, but Giona was suddenly very still, her fingers stiff against her mother’s palm.

  “Did you say – me, Mama?”

  “Yes, dearest. I think you are too young, as I pointed out to Her Majesty, but, as she had conceded, as you might say, that Chloris should not marry King Ferdinand, there was nothing I could do but agree that you should do so.”