An Adventure of Love

chapter one ~ 1887-1

chapter one ~ 1887Zorina was humming to herself as she walked through the Great Hall of Hampton Court Palace.

She was dreaming, as she always did, of the days when Cardinal Thomas Wolsey had first built The Palace and had been thrilled, as she was, by his wonderful Fairytale building.

It was his favourite home.

However he had his own Palace in London, which was later to become part of The Palace of Whitehall, but his health was far from robust.

He suffered from dropsy and colic and he found it impossible to settle comfortably in a house where he was troubled by the fogs and the chill damp air drifting up from the River Thames.

His architect for Hampton Court Palace was the Master mason Henry Redman.

When it was finished and furnished with pictures, sculptures, cloth of gold and tapestries, it would have been impossible for any King to live in greater grandeur.

To Zorina every room and corner in The Palace was an enchantment and she was so grateful that Queen Victoria had opened it to the public in 1838.

Otherwise she knew that she would not have been able to wander around the huge Palace as she was doing now.

Undoubtedly the rooms that were not in use would have been locked and barred to anybody except the Royal Family or Members of the Court.

As it was, she only had to walk from the Grace and Favour apartment where she lived with her mother to the South-West wing of the North-West front.

Every day she managed to find the time to wander into the State rooms and she was entranced by the Great Hall, which spoke to her of the triumphs and tragedies of English history.

She often thought about the unhappy King Charles II, her favourite King.

He had loved Hampton Court, had paid long and protracted visits to The Palace and collected superb paintings from all over Europe that were to embellish and enlarge the Royal Collection.

He had loved too playing the childish games of Blind Man’s Bluff and Hunt the Slipper and building houses out of playing cards with the irresistibly beautiful Frances Stewart.

It was said that he loved her wildly and jealously, but he was broken-hearted when she refused his advances and later married the Duke of Richmond.

Zorina remembered the last line of the poem that King Charles he had written about her in which he said,

“I think there is no Hell like loving too well.”

She walked on dreamily with no particular purpose and was still thinking of the King as she entered the Cartoon Gallery.

Deep in her thoughts she bumped into someone and saw that it was a man who was standing just inside the door.

He was not gazing at the magnificent tapestries on the walls, but was looking out of one of the long windows.

It was so surprising to find anyone here so early before The Palace was open to the public that Zorina gave a little cry.

“Pardon me,” he said, “I was not aware that anybody else was about.”

“They – should not be – so early,” Zorina replied a little incoherently.

Then, as she looked at him, she realised that he was not only extremely good-looking but also very well dressed.

She realised that he must be a visitor and was probably staying with one of the many people who lived in the Grace and Favour Apartments of Hampton Court Palace.

“I am so – sorry,” she said quickly. “It is entirely my – fault. I was – dreaming and not – looking where I was going.”

“Actually,” he replied and she realised that he had a slight accent and was therefore not English, “I thought when I saw you that you must be a ghost!”

Zorina laughed.

“People are always looking for the ghost and in fact yesterday – ”

She stopped.

She suddenly realised that it was most reprehensible of her to be talking to a gentleman who she had not been introduced to and she was sure that her mother would be extremely annoyed if she knew about it.

“I must – go,” she stammered, feeling that it was difficult to take her eyes from his face.

“How can you be so unkind as to leave me when I have not heard the end of the story?” he enquired. “I shall be curious until we meet again.”

Zorina smiled.

“I think that is unlikely, but what I was going to say was that – many people claim that they have seen the – apparition of Catherine Howard, who was King Henry VIII’s fifth wife.”

The gentleman raised his eyebrows, but he did not interrupt as Zorina went on,

“The story is that Queen Catherine escaped from the Palace room where she was being held prisoner before she was removed to the Tower to be – beheaded.”

She drew in her breath before she continued,

“She ran along the Gallery to plead with the King, who was celebrating Mass in the Chapel.”

“And did she reach him?” the gentleman asked.

Zorina shook her head.

“No, she was chased and seized by the guards and carried back forcibly to her room.”

Her voice softened.

“As the poor Queen was – dragged away – she gave a – piercing scream that was heard in many of the other rooms and certainly in the Chapel, but the King paid no attention and just continued with his prayers.”

There was a little silence and then the gentleman asked,

“And you say that people have seen Queen Catherine?”

“I was just going to tell you that Jessie, who is the woman who comes to clean our apartment, has told me that a friend of hers who works here in the public rooms says that she saw Queen Catherine two nights ago when it was growing dark and heard her scream.”

Zorina shuddered as she added,

“I hope I – never hear her.”

“I am sure you never will,” the gentleman said. “You must see and hear only what is as beautiful as yourself.”

Zorina stared at him in astonishment.

Nobody had ever spoken to her like this before.

But instead of feeling insulted by such presumption, as she thought later perhaps she should have been, she had merely felt shy and so looked away.

She was pretending to view the tapestries that covered the wall opposite them when he asked her unexpectedly,

“What is your name?”

“Zorina.”

She replied to him without thinking and then before she could realise how reprehensibly she was behaving, he said,

“And I am Rudolf. Now we are introduced and I would like you to tell me all about this enchanted Palace.”

Zorina smiled again and he saw that she had a little dimple on either side of her mouth.

“Is that how it seems to you? It has always been to me too beautiful to be real and, if it vanished mysteriously overnight, I would not be in the least surprised!”

He laughed and then he remarked,

“What is important is that you should not vanish with it and perhaps become like the poor ghosts who cannot leave the place where they were unhappy.”

The way he spoke was so beguiling that Zorina threw all caution to the wind.

She took Rudolf to the Queen’s Gallery on the East side of The Palace, which she told him was one of the loveliest rooms that she had ever seen and which she was sure he would appreciate.

Then she hesitated and he asked, almost as if he could read her thoughts,

“Why are you worrying as to where you should take me next?”

“I want you to see – the King’s Bedchamber, but I think perhaps it is a – room which you should – go into alone.”

She stumbled over the words and the gentleman replied swiftly,

“I would be very disappointed if you did not show it to me and, as the King is not there, surely it need not embarrass us?”

Zorina laughed.

“Even though you are a foreigner,” she said, “you must be aware that we have no King at the moment.”

His eyes were twinkling and she realised that he was teasing her when he said,

“If there were, would you be very impressed by him?”

“I think, sir, I would have to judge him in comparison with my two favourites, King Charles II and King George IV.”

“Both rakes!” the gentleman expostulated. “Surely a strange choice for anyone so young and innocent?”

She felt that he was mocking her and she responded coldly,

“Charles II brought a new beauty to The Palace, sweeping away all the austerity of Oliver Cromwell.”

She gave the gentleman a defiant glance as she went on,

“George IV may have been, as you say, a rake, but it is due to him that we possess so many fine pictures. He also reconstructed Buckingham Palace, which is, I believe, very very impressive.”

“You have not been there?” the gentleman enquired.

“Not – yet,” Zorina replied, “but then I am very happy with what I think of as – my own Palace.”

They had reached the King’s Bedchamber while they were talking and now her eyes seemed to light up as she suggested,

“Do look up at the ceiling.”

The gentleman raised his eyes from the crimson velvet hangings on the four-poster bed.

He understood immediately why the lovely girl standing beside him had thrown back her head to look at the exquisite allegorical painting by Antonio Verrio.

He thought that she must have an affinity with the Goddesses seated on a crescent moon or flying across the sky with their attendant cupids.

He knew, almost as if she had told him so, that they peopled Zorina’s dreams.

They were part of the many Fairy stories that she told herself as she wandered round The Palace.

“Is it not lovely?” she asked him.

“Lovely,” he agreed.

But his eyes were on her tip-tilted head, the line of her thrown-back neck and the movements of her long thin fingers that she was trying to express her feelings with.

Zorina now gave a little sigh.

“Now I must – go, I am very – late.”

“Late? For what?”

“My German lesson.”

“You are learning German?”

“I prefer to believe that it is Austrian and, while I speak it fluently, Mama insists that I should be perfect in almost every European language.”

“That is surely being extremely ambitious.”

“It’s not too difficult for me,” Zorina said, “because my father was Greek.”

“I knew there was something different about you,” the gentleman exclaimed. “The English girls I have seen since I arrived in this country do not look like you.”

He spoke as if he had solved the problem for himself and Zorina wanted to ask him what his nationality was. But he had not volunteered the information and she was worried that he would think it an impertinent question.

“I must – go,” she said again.

“Before you do, will you promise me that you will meet me again tomorrow in the Great Hall?”

She looked at him in surprise, her eyes very wide, and he said hastily,

“There are so many things I want to know about The Palace that I feel no one can tell me as eloquently as you. Please, Zorina, don’t be so unkind as to say ‘no’.”

“But that is – what I – should do.”

“And do you always do what is expected of you?”

She gave him a little smile and again he enjoyed her dimples.

“I-I am afraid – not.”

“Then do what I ask of you tomorrow morning. I shall be there very early waiting for you.”

Still she hesitated and he urged her,

“If you don’t come, I shall be absolutely convinced that you are a ghost and that I may have to search for a thousand years to find you again!”

“Now you are being – ridiculous,” she laughed. “Very well, if it is possible – I will come, but, if I have to do – something else, you must – understand.”

“I shall never understand! I shall only be unhappy and frustrated and perhaps become a ghost myself wandering through the rooms aimlessly crying, ‘Zorina’.”

She laughed again and then she told him,

“Now I am going to run very fast to where I should have been at least twenty minutes ago.”

She would have moved away, but he put out his hand to take hers and then said,

“Au revoir, Zorina. If you are the ‘Spirit of Hampton Court’, you are more beautiful than any Queen or Princess who ever graced it!”

As he finished speaking, he bent his head and his lips touched the softness of her skin.

For a moment she was still in sheer astonishment.

And then she was running from the King’s Room and he could hear the sound of her footsteps fading away into the distance.

*

As she ran, Zorina asked herself how this encounter could have happened, but at the same time she had to admit that it had been very exciting.