Love and Apollo

CHAPTER ONE 1887-1

CHAPTER ONE

1887The Duke of Inchcombe walked straight into his sister’s boudoir to find her sitting at the writing table by the window.

She looked up and exclaimed,

“Oh, I see you are back, Arthur. What was the funeral like?”

“Gloomy, as you might imagine,” he replied, “and there were not as many people as I had expected.”

Lady Rose got up from the writing table and moved across the room to the sofa.

“What am I going to do, Arthur,” she asked, “about a Lady-in-Waiting?”

“I have been thinking about that while coming back to London. She will have to be someone discreet.”

Lady Rose nodded her head and then she looked at him, a pleading expression on her face.

“Must I really do this? The whole idea horrifies me, and you know how much I want to stay in England.”

“I know, Rose, but if you do stay, you cannot go on as you are. People are sure to find out about it sooner or later.”

“And what if they do?” she demanded defiantly.

“Then you will most certainly lose your reputation and if the older members of the family are told all about it, you can imagine what they will say.”

Lady Rose made a helpless gesture with her hands and walked to the window.

Her brother sat down in a chair and looked at her.

She was very attractive with her hair glinting in the sunshine and her exquisite features silhouetted against the windowpane.

He was sorry, desperately sorry, at what she was being forced to do, but he could not think of any plausible alternative.

Lady Rose was nearly twenty years old and when she had ‘come out’ as a debutante, she had been an instant success.

And at the end of last year she had fallen in love.

Wildly, head-over-heels in love with the Marquis of Dorsham.

As he was only twenty-seven, extremely handsome and exceedingly rich, it would, the Duke knew, have been a perfect marriage in every way.

Unfortunately the Marquis at the age of twenty-two had been pressured into marriage.

At the time it had seemed such an excellent union and likely to prove happy.

The young girl the Marquis had married was one of the greatest beauties of the Season. Her parents were both in-waiting to Queen Victoria and they had been delighted at the marriage.

They had, however, omitted to tell the bridegroom that their daughter was at times given to strange seizures, which in some way had affected her brain.

It was not until after they had been married for two months that the Marquis discovered his wife’s problem.

Later when he eventually realised the seriousness of her condition, the doctors were called in.

But it was too late – there was nothing they could do for the Marchioness.

Her seizures became more and more severe, until she was now permanently in the hands of her doctors and nurses. She did not even recognise her husband when he came to see her.

When he fell in love with Lady Rose, the Marquis realised exactly what he was missing.

They then despairingly faced a future in which it was impossible for them to be together.

It was only by a miracle, the Duke reflected, that their love for each other had not been uncovered already.

There were those in Society who were always ready to find fault with anyone who was popular and if they had found out, the gossips would have all run straight to Queen Victoria.

Then, as the Duke had expressed it to his sister, ‘the balloon would have gone up’.

As it was, the Queen had sent for Lady Rose with a very different proposition.

The political situation in the Balkans had been very unstable for some years.

It had now become even worse since the accession of Czar Alexander III to the throne of Russia.

He burned with indignation that Russia had not yet fulfilled her mission to dominate the Balkans and to seize control of the Dardanelles, which would give the Russians access to the Mediterranean.

Stubbornly and surreptitiously he pursued the same goals as the previous Czar and he was clearly determined to establish Russian-dominated Governments in Serbia and Greece.

The reports flowing into the British Foreign Office were particularly worrying.

It seemed that the Russians were secretly acting as agents provocateurs, stirring up endless trouble in the established regimes of the Balkans. Undercover agents were posing as icon-sellers, as Russian Embassy officials paid crowds of people to stir up riots.

Every report sent back to England was worse than the last.

The climax of continuing horror was reached when Prince Alexander of Battenburg, the Ruler of Bulgaria, was abducted and forced at gunpoint to abdicate his throne.

There was only one country that Russia was afraid of and that was Great Britain and the Czar could not afford a war against Queen Victoria.

As soon as this was realised by the Queen and her advisers, she arranged marriages for the Kings and Princes of many Royal Principalities in the Balkans.

Several of her relatives were already sitting on foreign thrones and once the Union Jack was seen to be flying over a small country, the Russians quietened down or withdrew.

Her Majesty the Queen, however, was by now to all intents and purposes running short of supplies, because her remaining few relatives were either too young or already married.

When King Phidias of Larissa sent an Ambassador with a most urgent appeal to Her Majesty for help, she had thought she would have to refuse his request.

It was the Earl of Rosebery, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who suggested Lady Rose Combe.

The Queen had quite forgotten that the late Duke of Inchcombe was married to one of her distant cousins, who had been dead for over fifteen years.

The present Duke was surprised when the Queen sent for him for a private audience.

He was told firmly by Her Majesty that she wished to send his sister, Lady Rose, to Larissa.

“I will inform her, ma’am, what you suggest,” said the Duke. “At the same time I feel sure she will not wish to leave England.”

“Lady Rose must put her country first,” the Queen instructed. “And as she has Royal blood in her veins, she will be aware of where her duty lies!”

The Duke considered that it would be a mistake to argue further with the Queen.

On his return home he was not surprised when his sister was horrified at the proposal and at first she insisted that she had no intention of obeying the Queen.

“Why,” she demanded hotly, “should I be sent to marry some obscure Balkan King who no one has ever heard of?”

“I made a few enquiries,” replied the Duke. “He is in fact quite an important King, although unfortunately not very young.”

“What do you mean, not very young?” Lady Rose exploded.

“He is over fifty.”

“And they expect me at my age to marry a man of that age?”

“Larissa is an important country, although I did not realise that until just now, Rose. It has vital access to the Mediterranean, which is, of course, what the Russians want and they are striving by every possible means to acquire.”

“Well they will not acquire it through me,” retorted Lady Rose stubbornly.

There was a pained silence, yet the Duke persisted,

“Now listen for a moment, Rose. I know you are in love with Gerald and he with you, but there is not a chance in hell of your ever being able to be married.”

Lady Rose walked to the window and he knew that she was fighting against tears.

“It is so cruel,” she moaned, “wicked and cruel that Gerald should be so tied up to this woman and there is no escape.”

“I know that,” the Duke sympathised.

“From what I have been told,” his sister continued, “she might live for ever. After all she is still quite young and there is nothing wrong with her body. Only her mind is drastically affected.”

“I know, I know, it is terribly hard and everyone who knows Gerald is very sorry for him. But what can we do?”

The Duke recognised without having to say it that a divorce was impossible.

The Marquis could not divorce his wife unless she was unfaithful to him and even then, it would need a special Bill to go through Parliament.

And that would inevitably take a long time and also would cause a great deal of talk and scandal while the case was being heard.

But there was no provision in the divorce laws for a man to be rid of his wife because she was mad or unable in any way to perform the duties of a wife.

Even if he raised the matter in the House of Lords, it was impossible that any good would come of it.

However cruel it might be, the Marquis was in fact married for life to a young woman who did not even know who he was, but who bore his name.

“If you stay here,” the Duke told her quietly, “and go on seeing Gerald as you do now, sooner or later people will notice it. Servants talk and, although Gerald is known to be my friend, women who are jealous of your beauty will soon begin to think it strange he is with us so much.”

“But I must see him, I must,” Lady Rose insisted.

“That is the whole point, Rose, it is torture to you to know he is in London when we are in London, and in the country when we are in the country and not be able to see him.”

Lady Rose did not speak and after a moment the Duke went on,

“I honestly think, although you will not believe me at the moment, that it will be better for you to go away altogether.”

“I would rather die than marry any other man,” she screamed violently.

“As you cannot marry Gerald, does it really matter who you marry? If it had to be an arranged marriage, it might as well be to a King as anyone else!”

Lady Rose walked backwards and forwards across the room before she could reply to him.

She knew in her heart that she was fighting a battle she could never win.

It was really completely impossible, although they did not admit it in words, for either of them to refuse what the Queen was asking.

It was in effect a Royal command.

Finally Lady Rose sank herself down on the sofa and moaned helplessly,

“Very well, I will accept Her Majesty’s suggestion on the one condition that Gerald is appointed to escort me to Larissa.”

The Duke stared at her in astonishment.

“Do you think that wise, Rose?”

“I don’t care if it is wise or not,” she answered. “I want to be alone with Gerald before I finally leave him for ever. As you know, someone of importance from the Palace will be sent to escort me and represent the Queen. It is something Gerald has done several times in the past when other members of the Royal Family were pushed off to save the Balkans.”

The Duke knew that this was true.

“I will try to arrange it and as Her Majesty knows we are great friends, she might accept the idea and say that I have to go too.”

“But of course you must come with me, Arthur. I am not going to be left with any tiresome old courtier who will be very suspicious of Gerald and me from the moment he steps on board.”

“Very well,” he muttered, “I will try to arrange it.”

He put out his hand and touched his sister’s.

“I am so sorry, old girl, that this has happened. I would give everything I possess if I could help you.”

“I suppose we shall somehow survive without each other, but it’s not going to be easy.”

“I think you are being very brave, my dearest Rose, and I am very proud of you.”

Then in a different tone altogether, he added,

“Now that Sarah has died so unexpectedly, we shall have to find someone else to be your Lady-in-Waiting.”

Lady Rose realised that he was right.

The Duke had suggested to the Queen that his sister would like to take her aunt, Lady Sarah Warren, who was a widow, to accompany her to Larissa.

The Queen had agreed, so there was no difficulty about the idea, but sadly Lady Sarah had died unexpectedly from a heart attack.