The King Without a Heart Read online

  “Now what I’ll do,” said Nanny sensibly, “is make you a nice cup of tea. You’ll feel better after that.”

  “No thank you. I have just had breakfast. It’s not tea I want, Nanny, but to – go back to our – little house – where we were all – so happy.”

  “You can’t put back the clock, dearie, that is something you can’t ever do in life. But going to that place where her Ladyship’s getting married will be something new and might even be exciting.”

  “I doubt it,” sniffled Titania. “Papa used to laugh at those small Balkan countries and say they were all much of a muchness and he would much rather climb the – Himalayas or walk across the – African desert.”

  “That sounds very like your father and from what I hear of the African desert it’s too hot and too dry and you have to go for miles and miles to find a drink of water.”

  Titania laughed as Nanny meant her to. “Oh, Nanny, you always see the bright side of everything! If I don’t have you to talk to and – of course Mercury who never answers back, I will be so miserable and will – cry myself to sleep – every night.”

  “That’ll be very silly,” Nanny scolded her, “making yourself look plain and spoiling your eyes. You listen to me. When you get to this place you’ll find something to amuse you and, who knows, perhaps it’s your father – God bless his soul – taking you away from this mountain of misery.”

  Titania laughed again and it was a very pretty sound.

  “Oh, Nanny, darling Nanny, you always cheer me up and of course you are quite right. It will be a change to get away from here and not have to listen to everyone telling me over and over again what a mistake it was for Papa to have married Mama.”

  “She was indeed a gift from God Himself,” Nanny told her, “and that’s what your father always believed her to be. I’ve never in all my life known a man so happy and just you remember that when they say anything to you.”

  “It’s not exactly what they say,” answered Titania. “It’s the way they look and the note in their voices and they speak to me as if I was something out of the gutter that had crawled in by mistake.”

  Nanny gave her a little shake. “Now you’re not to talk like that. I taught you when you were small to see the bright side of life and the best side of people. If they’re unpleasant and disagreeable, it’s hurting them more than it’s hurting you. Always remember that.”

  “Oh, Nanny, I love you so much. If I do have to go away, you must write to me every day and tell me how Mercury is and make me laugh by the things you say otherwise I shall just sit – crying until I come home.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort. That would make your father very angry.” Titania thought for a moment and then she said,

  “You are quite right, Nanny, he would be ashamed of me running away from an adventure! That is what this has to be. If I have to stay there any longer than six months, I will go on my knees to the King and ask him to let you come out and join me.”

  “That’ll be the day,” muttered Nanny.

  She took out her clean handkerchief and wiped Titania’s eyes and then glanced at the clock.

  “If you ask me,” she said, “her Ladyship’ll be wanting you to do something for her and making a fuss if you don’t turn up.”

  “Yes, Nanny,” agreed Titania with a little sigh. “I had better go down and see what is wanted. I understand now why we had to shop and shop when we were in London. I could not think why she wanted all those clothes.”

  “They’ll be her trousseau. I don’t have to guess far that I’ll be sewing a whole lot of them one way or the other before you go.”

  Titania kissed Nanny on both cheeks.

  “I love you Nanny. You always make me laugh when I want to cry.”

  “As I’ve told you often enough before, dearie, no woman looks her best with swollen eyes. And crying never got you anywhere, that’s for sure.”

  Titania kissed her again.

  “I am going down smiling,” she resolved, “and telling myself, although it is a lie, that I want to go to Velidos.”

  She ran from the room as she was speaking.

  Nanny gave a deep sigh and sat down again.

  She knew better than Titania knew herself how much the girl was suffering. It was bad enough to lose her father and mother and the home where she had been so happy.

  It was worse still to be in a place where she was not wanted.

  There was no love here. Only a pompous appreciation of blue blood and an exaggerated idea of their own importance.

  ‘After all,’ Nanny said to herself, ‘with all this hoity-toity from His Grace, whatever the colour of their blood they all of them bleeds when someone pricks them!’

  Then she picked up her sewing and carried on with her work.

  CHAPTER TWO

  During the next few days there was pandemonium at Starbrooke Hall.

  Sophie flew into a temper because she was not as pleased with her trousseau as she thought she would be and insisted on going to London for another fitting for her wedding dress.

  This was a relief to Titania because she could ride as much as she wished and there was no one to find some task for her every minute of the day.

  However her apprehension at having to leave for Velidos grew and grew. It was one thing to go abroad with her father and mother which she had loved and quite another to be travelling with Sophie who treated her merely as a servant.

  She learned from the Duchess that Sophie was to be allocated two Ladies-in-Waiting from Velidos and she was to be the third and obviously inferior to the other two.

  “What can I do?” she asked Nanny pitifully. “How can I go where there will be no one I can talk to and no one who will be interested in me as a person?”

  “I expect you’ll find that quite a lot of people will be,” Nanny soothed her. “You know how your parents always made friends in those strange countries where no Englishman had been seen before.”

  She paused for a moment and then she added,

  “I know what you must do, dearie, and this is the truth, you must be able to talk the language before you get there.” Titania’s eyes lit up.

  “Oh, Nanny,” she exclaimed, “you are so clever! I was thinking I would pick up the language quite easily when I reached Velidos. But if I can speak it before I arrive, that of course would be a great help to me.”

  “It shouldn’t be difficult for you, seeing as how many foreigners you’ve spoken to one way or another. Your father always said that you were as good as he was when it came to making yourself understood in a strange place.”

  “Now you are flattering me, but, of course, I am so unhappy at leaving you and Mercury.”

  “Perhaps something will happen which’ll bring you back. You’ve just got to trust God to look after you or, if it comes to that, your father and mother. Wherever they be, they’ll be thinking of you and praying for you.”

  “Of course they will,” agreed Titania. “And when I’m in trouble, I will talk to Papa and ask him to guide me as he did when he was alive.”

  “You do just that and you’ll find everything will come right one way or another.”

  Nanny sounded most optimistic to Titania, but when she was alone she became worried. She knew how unpleasant the Duke and Duchess had been to the girl and in her opinion Lady Sophie treated her as if she came from the gutter.

  There was, however, nothing Nanny could do and she promised Titania over and over again she would write to her and tell her about Mercury.

  Whilst Sophie was in London Titania rode every hour of the day she could, but when her cousin arrived back no one talked about anything except clothes and as Nanny had predicted, a dozen garments needed to be altered at the last minute.

  The Duke had spoken to Queen Victoria and Her Majesty had graciously ordered that Sophie and the wedding party, which included the Duchess, should travel to Velidos in a Battleship.

  Titania had so often discussed the complex political situation in the
Balkans with her father and she therefore guessed secretly that the Queen was seizing on a good excuse to display the strength of Great Britain.

  After Nanny’s prompting Titania found her way to the library and read as much as she could about Velidos.

  The country was situated on the Aegean Sea a little north of Greece and this meant their language would contain many Greek words.

  It made it easier for her that she also knew a smattering of several Balkan languages, as she had visited so many different countries with her father and mother.

  There was of course nothing as helpful as a dictionary of the language of Velidos in the library and Titania wondered if it would be possible to find anyone in England who spoke the language.

  She therefore suggested to Sophie that it would help her to engage a tutor.

  “He could teach us,” she proposed, “just the fundamental words of the language.”

  “Why should I bother about their stupid language?” demanded Sophie scornfully. “Frederick speaks very good English and he told me that most of the people in the Palace can do the same.”

  “But you will want to talk to the people in the towns,” argued Titania, “and the countryside.”

  “If they cannot talk English,” replied Sophie, “then they need not talk to me. That is what it amounts to.”

  Titania said no more.

  She merely carried on trying to find more references to Velidos in the library, which was very difficult and since there was no one to ask what was available, she found it impossible to make much progress in such a short time.

  The Duke had arranged his daughter’s marriage with the approval of Queen Victoria and King Alexius of Velidos.

  The King appreciated that the Duke was in a hurry for his daughter to be married and settled down in the country to which she would then belong.

  The Crown Prince seemed to be equally as impatient and he wrote saying everything had been arranged.

  The two Ladies-in-Waiting who were to accompany Lady Sophie would arrive in England on the 10 of May and be prepared to leave the next day in the British Battleship.

  The Duchess protested it was impossible for them all to be ready in such a hurry, but the Duke paid no attention to her and this merely meant that Titania and Nanny had more to do.

  Everyone in Starbrooke Hall seemed to be extremely sharp-tempered and Sophie kept complaining that she did not have enough clothes, her hats were not decorated enough and she could not possibly be ready to sail on the 11 of May.

  No one paid any heed to what she was saying and the only person who had to listen was Titania.

  There was no one to worry whether Titania had the right clothes except Nanny and it was she who finally insisted that they should send to London for several gowns.

  Titania bought them from the shop her mother had patronised when she was alive.

  When she had come to live with her uncle at Starbrooke Hall, he had taken over her finances.

  Her father had left her all he owned in his will and there was also the money that the Duke had received for her home when he sold it.

  It was all in the bank but Titania was not allowed to spend it and she could not write a cheque without her uncle’s permission.

  She went to his study with the bills for the gowns, which Nanny had insisted on her taking with her and her uncle had looked at them critically and said he considered it was a tremendous waste of money.

  “I should have thought your nurse could have made a dress for you,” he remarked sharply.

  “Nanny has always made the ordinary dresses I wear every day,” answered Titania, “and of course my petticoats and blouses. But she thought I ought to take some gowns for an important occasion which I might have to attend with Sophie.”

  “I imagine that is most unlikely,” said the Duke coldly, “although of course one never knows how foreigners will behave.”

  He spoke to her scornfully and it was with difficulty that Titania stopped herself from saying that her father had many friends who were foreigners.

  She fervently hoped that she would make some friends in Velidos and she recognised that her uncle was determined to make her keep to the lowly position he had consigned her to because of her inferior breeding.

  Grudgingly the Duke initialled the bills that Titania had presented him with and this meant they would be paid by his secretary. Then Titania said,

  “I shall, Uncle Edward, need some ready money if I am going to Velidos.”

  “Whatever for?” asked the Duke.

  “I may have to buy some necessities there, I may have to tip some of the servants and I might wish to give a present to people who are kind to me.”

  “I should have thought that was quite unnecessary,” exclaimed the Duke sternly. “How much do you require?”

  Titania thought for a moment.

  “I would like to have a thousand pounds paid into a bank account in Velidos. Or if you think that is too much then at least five hundred pounds.”

  The Duke thumped his clenched fist down on the desk.

  “I have never known such nonsense!” he fumed. “No woman of your age should want so much money to spend on trinkets. You will be fed and housed and it is quite unnecessary for you to spend money that should be kept as a nest egg for your old age.”

  Titania drew in her breath before responding very quietly,

  “It is my money, Uncle Edward, and I absolutely refuse to go to Velidos without a penny to my name and have to beg from strangers if I require anything that I have not brought with me.”

  Her uncle glared at her.

  “You may think it is your money because your father left it to you, but who gave it to your father in the first place? I did, because I am Head of the family, and you know, or you should know, that in aristocratic families like ours the Head holds the purse-strings and allows what he thinks right to those members of his family he looks after.”

  Titania realised this to be true.

  She had often thought her uncle was very unfair when he came into the title to make a smaller allowance to her father than he had formerly received from his own father.

  Lord Rupert however had just shrugged his shoulders and said,

  “My brother, Edward, has always been cheese-paring ever since he was a small boy. I am only astonished that he allows me anything and I am certainly not going to go down on my knees to ask for more.”

  He had not been short of money even with the Duke’s meanness, as Titania’s mother had fortunately been left quite a considerable sum by her godmother.

  Her father had not been a rich man, although by Scottish standards he was well off.

  Titania wondered now whether she should get in touch with her Scottish relations – perhaps they would have her to stay with them and save her from going to Velidos, but then she recognised that there would be a furious row if she ever suggested such an idea.

  Instead she pleaded quietly,

  “Please, Uncle Edward, let me have five hundred pounds to put into a bank in Velidos. I promise that I will spend as little as possible. I just want to feel safe in a foreign country.”

  Grumbling beneath his breath, the Duke finally agreed and when Titania left him, she knew she had been fortunate in winning the battle.

  It was Nanny who packed her trunks and put in a lot of items she thought she might need that she would never have thought of herself.

  Nanny had also made her two very pretty day dresses and promised to send her several others when she had finished them.

  “I want you to look smart among all those strange people. Your mother always used to say that foreigners thought the English were dowdy and that’s something you must not be.”

  “I remember Mama saying that,” replied Titania, “and of course she was right. They do look dowdy abroad compared with the French who are so smart, while the Italians are always very glamorous in the evening.”

  “Well, you’re going to be glamorous with what we’ve bought you,” smile
d Nanny, “and you hold your head high, dearie, and don’t let anyone put on you. You’re as good as they are, if not a lot better, and that goes for Lady Sophie for all her airs and graces.”

  Titania laughed because she could not help it. She knew that Nanny disliked Sophie in the same way as she disliked the Duchess.

  “I do wish you were coming with me, Nanny. At least we could have a good laugh at some of the things that will occur. As it is, I will have to keep a straight face. But I will write and tell you everything that happens to me.”

  “You do that, dearie, and as I’ll be writing to you, we’ll feel close to each other and that’s the truth.”

  It was, however, very hard for Titania not to cry when she had to finally say goodbye to Mercury and then to Nanny.

  “Promise me, Nanny,” she implored her, “you will go and see Mercury every day. I know he will miss me and you must explain to him that I will come back as soon as I can, just to be with him.”

  “I’ll try and make him understand and don’t you worry about him, just worry about yourself and have a good time, while her Ladyship will be giving herself airs as a Princess.”

  “What I have to find, Nanny, is someone who will laugh with me and not take anything that happens too seriously.”

  At the same time it was still agony to kiss Nanny goodbye and have her last quick hug with Mercury.

  Then she climbed into the carriage which was to take them to London and there they would board the Battleship which was waiting to convey the bridal party to Velidos.

  The Duchess made it very clear to Titania that despite the fact that she was her niece she was of no importance and she was therefore to keep in the background.

  When the Duchess and Sophie swept aboard, the Captain of H.M.S. Victorious was waiting for them, while Titania was left to follow with her aunt’s lady’s-maid and a footman carrying the hand-luggage.

  They were received on board first by the Captain and then by a Minister of State for Velidos, who had been sent to escort them together with the two Ladies-in-Waiting and an Equerry.

  Titania saw at a glance that the Ladies-in-Waiting were elderly, plain and definitely pompous. She guessed they had been chosen because they could instruct Sophie on the importance of her position as wife of the Crown Prince and they would also explain her part in the marriage ceremony.