Princes and Princesses: Favourite Royal Romances Read online

  CHAPTER ONE ~ 1902

  “The Queen, looking very beautiful, was wearing a grey gown, the bodice decorated with diamond star brooches graduated in size. These are among her favourite jewels – ”

  Angelina’s voice died away as she realised that her grandmother, to whom she was reading, was almost asleep.

  However, it would have been a mistake to leave the room until she was ordered to do so.

  Accordingly she put out her foot and pushed Twi-Twi, the white Pekingese that was lying at her feet, in a manner that made him snort indignantly.

  Her grandmother awoke immediately.

  “What is the matter with Twi-Twi?” she asked. “Does he want to go out?”

  “I think so, Grandmama.”

  “Then take him! Take him at once!” Lady Medwin demanded. “You know he ought to have a run every four hours.”

  It was not quite two hours since Twi-Twi had been taken into the garden of Belgrave Square, but Angelina did not say so.

  Instead she said,

  “Very well, Grandmama, I will take Twi-Twi into the garden and I hope you will be able to sleep.”

  “I doubt if I shall do so,” Lady Medwin said with dignity.

  Nevertheless before Angelina had reached the bedroom door Lady Medwin’s eyes were closed and Angelina knew that her afternoon nap was likely to last for at least an hour.

  Free for a moment from the obligations that took up a great deal of her time, she ran up to her own bedroom on the second floor and put on a straw hat trimmed with flowers that matched her muslin gown.

  It was very hot even for August and ordinarily everybody would have left London for their country houses or for a holiday at the seaside.

  But the Coronation of King Edward VII, which was to take place on the 9th of August, had brought the Imperial and foreign dignitaries back to England and anyone who was of any importance in the Social world was to be present at the Ceremony in Westminster Abbey.

  The Coronation had originally been arranged for the 26th June, but early in the month the King had developed an appendicitis.

  At first everybody knew that he refused to contemplate postponing his Coronation, but on the 23rd of June his doctors told him that he had peritonitis, which would kill him unless he agreed to an operation right away.

  The newspapers had described in glowing terms how the new King, determined not to disappoint his subjects, had argued furiously with his doctors.

  Finally, to save his life, they had persuaded him to have the operation the next day.

  The whole nation, and in fact the world, were both shocked by the news and overjoyed by its successful outcome.

  But Angelina, although she would take no part in such an auspicious occasion, was well aware of the commotion it had caused.

  Next door to her grandmother’s house in Belgrave Square was the Ministry of Cephalonia and she had been entranced by the excitement among the gold-braided and bemedalled Officials who had all arrived at the Ministry in June, then departed and now had returned again.

  She made every excuse to take Twi-Twi for walks in the garden so that she could watch the excitements taking place outside the Ministry.

  It was her own private little view of what the Coronation meant.

  Although she had tried to persuade her grandmother to let her go with one of the servants to watch the procession from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey or even to stand outside the Palace itself, Lady Medwin had refused to entertain such a suggestion.

  “I will not have you gaping in the crowds like some milkmaid from the country,” she said firmly, “and anyway the servants are too old to stand for hours, which it would entail if they had to accompany you.”

  This was certainly true for all the servants in the huge, rather gloomy house in Belgrave Square had been in her grandmother’s service for many years and were, as her father had said once on one of his leaves from India, ‘on their last legs’.

  It was because they were so old that Angelina was allowed to go in the garden of Belgrave Square alone with Twi-Twi without having a maid in attendance.

  Hannah, who had looked after Lady Medwin for over fifty years, had rheumatic knees and disliked having to go downstairs at any time except for her meals.

  The housemaids, and there were three of them, came into the same category and Ruston, the old butler, could only with difficulty reach the front door after the doorbell had been rung half-a-dozen times.

  To Angelina it was a relief that she could go alone.

  It was a tremendous effort to coax anyone to accompany her to the shops and she thought sometimes that in the whole of London she only knew one small oasis in the shape of Belgrave Square.

  But for the moment she was quite content to spend as much time as possible in the garden.

  Peeping through the bushes she could watch the events taking place next door without anyone realising that she was there.

  Twi-Twi too was content to nose about amongst the shrubs and it was in fact rather embarrassing to take him anywhere else.

  This was because Pekingese dogs were still a strange breed, unknown to the majority of the British people.

  Angelina had been extremely interested in the history of the dogs, which had never been allowed to leave China for centuries.

  She had read everything about them that she could find in books. Sometimes when they appeared in dog shows there were articles about them in the newspapers and magazines.

  These she cut out and pasted into a scrapbook. Having learnt as much about them as was possible, she had told the story to so many people who were interested that now she knew it by heart.

  It was as early as A.D. 565 that the Emperor Kao-Wei of the Northern Chow Dynasty gave the name of Ch’in Hu or Red Tiger to a certain Persian dog.

  He also gave it the rank and privileges of Chun Chun, closely allied to those of a Duke.

  The dog was fed with the choicest meat and rice and, when the Emperor rode on horseback, the dog rode on a mat placed in front of his saddle.

  From this dog and some from the island of Melita carried to China in the silk caravans was bred a little ‘lion-dog’, which became almost sacred.

  They were given an Imperial rank, but the rest of the world knew nothing about them.

  When the rebellion took place three English Officers searching and burning the Summer Palace near Peking found five little lion dogs guarding a dead Lady of the Court who had committed suicide.

  One was brought back to England by a young Captain called John Hart Dunne, which he offered to Queen Victoria.

  Angelina’s voice would always change when she came to this point in the story, because she felt it was so moving that the young Officer should have wanted to give the Queen the dog he had brought all the way from China.

  Lootie, for that was what the Pekingese was called, therefore became one of Queen Victoria’s dogs.

  This was the first of the Pekingese dogs that were found in the Summer Palace to appear in England.

  Lord John Hay, in command of the frigate, Odin, brought home two, although not until two years later.

  He gave them to his sister, the Duchess of Wellington, who began to breed from them at Stratfield Saye.

  Sir George Fitzroy also came back to England with two Pekingese and gave them to his cousin the Duchess of Richmond.

  Angelina’s father, Major General Sir George Medwin, had heard about the Chinese lion-dogs when he was in the East and two years ago, when he came on leave, he had brought as a present for his mother a small, pure white Pekingese, which he named Twi-Twi.

  Lady Medwin had, at first, been astonished at se
eing such a strange-looking creature, then became completely and absolutely captivated.

  Her attitude was echoed by the rest of the household, who became quite maudlinly subservient to Twi-Twi.

  They fell over themselves to serve him his minutely cut-up meat or chicken on the best china plates and went out of their way to caress him on every possible occasion.

  Twi-Twi, as a matter of fact, did not care for their touching him and treated them with a disdain that Angelina was quite certain was due to the fact that he was acutely conscious of his own importance.

  A one-man or one-woman dog, he attached himself to Angelina and paid very little attention to anyone else, although he sometimes condescended to be handled by Lady Medwin.

  Otherwise he stalked about the house with the dignity of a Mandarin and the imperiousness of an Emperor.

  Angelina was delighted that he liked her and in fact, occasionally if he wished her to stroke him, he gave her a small affectionate gesture by nuzzling against her hand.

  But more often than not, he sat apart regarding everyone with a cool impersonal eye as if they were subjects with whom he should not become too familiar.

  To Angelina he was an excuse for escaping from the house, which made life far more interesting and amusing than it would have been otherwise.

  “Come along, Twi-Twi!” she said now, as the small dog followed her from her grandmother’s room. “We are going walkies!”

  He understood that very well and did not bother to follow her to the second floor, but waited at the top of the stairs knowing exactly where they were going.

  With her hat on her fair hair and a light in her blue eyes, Angelina came running down the stairs.

  She looked very much like a small pink-and-white angel or perhaps in a different way, rather like a Pekingese.

  Like Twi-Twi, she was very beautiful, but it was a childlike beauty that was, however, in complete contradiction to her mind.

  Angelina was not only intelligent but she was well read.

  This was because, being so much alone and having so few companions, she had read every book that came to hand and had developed her imagination far more than other girls of her age.

  When her mother was alive they had lived in the country and there had not been enough money for trips to London.

  But Angelina had been completely content with her mother, the horse she rode and the big garden, which was always untidy and overgrown because they could not afford enough gardeners.

  Her father had been abroad with his Regiment so much of the time that often when he returned she had found, while she was still small, that it was hard to recognise him.

  Shortly after his wife’s death, Sir George had been sent to India in command of the forces on the North-West Frontier.

  Although Angelina had begged and pleaded with him to take her with him, he had said,

  “Women are a confounded nuisance when there is fighting to be done and anyway I have no time to look after you.”

  This meant that she must live with her grandmother and the last year since she had been grown up she had not had the interest of attending school and having lessons.

  With the greatest difficulty she had prevailed upon Lady Medwin to let her continue with her music tuition from a very aged man who had once played in a famous orchestra.

  But otherwise there were only books and more books in which she could read of other worlds that existed outside the narrow confines of her own.

  Then, following the consternation over the death of Queen Victoria, had come the excitement of the new King’s Coronation.

  The Cephalonian Ministry had only opened its doors in Belgrave Square the previous year and it had given Angelina a new interest that she had not had before.

  Of course, she knew where Cephalonia was, having, although she had been told never to mention it, a little Greek blood in her veins.

  Because it was a forbidden subject, Greece was naturally the one place that interested her.

  A large part of her small dress allowance went on a subscription to the London Library.

  She searched their catalogues for the books she required and they sent them to her by post.

  She had first read the mythology of the Gods and Goddesses who had lived on Mount Olympus. Then she had followed the miseries the Greeks had suffered under the foot of the all-conquering Ottoman Empire.

  Cephalonia was a large island lying off the West Coast of Greece and although Angelina could find little that was written about it, when she had first been told the name of the Ministry that was established next door to her grandmother’s house, she felt that it was Fate that it should come there.

  Now, as she came down the stairs with Twi-Twi following her in a dignified manner, she thought that perhaps she would be fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of Prince Xenos.

  She had seen him only once after his arrival in England for the Coronation as first planned.

  Tall, dark and handsome, she told herself that he was exactly how a Greek should look.

  Then, before she had had little more than a quick glimpse of him, the whole party from Cephalonia had departed and there was only the Minister, who was elderly, left for Angelina to observe.

  Now the Prince was back again and he had, in fact, arrived the day before yesterday.

  Angelina had been expecting him and, when she was not actually in the garden peeping through the bushes, she had been able to look out through the drawn curtains of the large double drawing room that occupied almost the whole of the first floor of her grandmother’s house.

  Ever since Lady Medwin had been confined to her bed in a room that overlooked the back of the house, the Holland covers had been placed over the furniture in the drawing room, the blinds drawn and the heavy damask curtains pulled.

  There was a sitting room, which was known as the study, for Angelina to use on the ground floor and was actually far more cosy than the drawing room.

  But she thought what a waste it was to have a large well-furnished room shrouded as if it was in mourning and unlikely to be opened again, unless her grandmother’s health by some miracle improved.

  Lady Medwin was very ill and the doctors, who visited her frequently, did not offer much hope that she would ever come downstairs again.

  Angelina would tell herself dream stories in which her grandmother was suddenly well again and gave a party in the big drawing room, inviting Prince Xenos of Cephalonia as one of her guests.

  Angelina would picture the chandeliers glinting with light, her grandmother arrayed in her tiara and diamonds that badly wanted cleaning and which she kept in a small locked safe.

  She herself would have a white gown that she could have worn at Buckingham Palace with three ostrich feathers in her hair, if there had been anyone to present her.

  Her mother had often described to her the beautiful pageantry that took place at Queen Victoria’s drawing rooms that she had attended on innumerable occasions.

  Because she was sure that her own debut would take place in the traditional manner, Angelina had looked forward to making her curtsey.

  Now Angelina’s mother was dead, her grandmother was ill and her father away in India. There were no balls, no parties, no presentation and no sight of the Coronation.

  Prince Xenos would be in Westminster Abbey and would drive in the procession to the Palace. He would see all the other Kings and Queens from Europe, besides the King’s innumerable relatives and, of course, His Majesty’s special favourites.

  Angelina read the newspapers avidly for her own interest and they were the only way in which her grandmother could keep in touch with her old acquaintances.

  Lady Medwin had to know how often the King’s special friends were mentioned as being at Buckingham Palace in the more gossipy newspapers, which would describe their appearance and make comments that were sometimes definitely innuendos.

  Every newspaper had noted that Sarah Bernhardt, Lady Kimberley, Mrs. Arthur Paget, and the King’s current favourite, M
rs. George Keppel, would all have special seats in Westminster Abbey.

  Lady Medwin, when she was well enough, usually had some caustic but informative anecdote to tell about everyone that Angelina mentioned.

  ‘What will the Prince think of the women he will meet at Buckingham Palace?’ Angelina wondered.

  She remembered that Greek girls were very beautiful and it was therefore likely that his standards of beauty would be very demanding.

  As she reached the narrow rather dark hall, old Ruston who seemed to be permanently on duty there, saw her and came from the shadows holding the key to the garden in his hand.

  “Going out, Miss Angelina?” he asked.

  It was something he always said, although it was quite obvious what she was doing and, as Angelina took the key from him, she smiled and answered,

  “Yes. It’s a lovely day, Ruston. Far too nice to be indoors.”

  “That’s right, Miss Angelina. You enjoy yourself among the flowers,” he said, having some difficulty with his rheumaticky hands in opening the front door.

  She looked rather like a flower herself he thought poetically as, having picked up Twi-Twi in her arms, she ran across the empty road to where, a little way to the left, there was the gate.

  A high iron fence prevented anyone who was not entitled to enter the garden from doing so.

  Every householder had a key, but Angelina found that very few of them bothered to use it.

  Usually, and it was the same this afternoon, she and Twi-Twi had the whole place to themselves.

  It was quite a big garden for the square was a large one and in the spring it was a riot of daffodils, crocuses, lilac and syringa, and had a wildness that made Angelina yearn for the real country.

  At this time of year the centre of the garden was neatly laid out with crimson geraniums, their beds edged with blue and white lobelia.

  There were, however, some wild roses growing amongst the shrubs and the trees with their thick foliage offered plenty of shade from the hot sun.

  Two gardeners were paid for by the householders to keep the garden well-watered so that the lawns were bright green and, when the geraniums were over, there would be a good display of dahlias, which were just coming into bud.