The Eternal Collection

‘I am here! I am here!’ Theola thought, and only with difficulty prevented herself from crying it out aloud. It had seemed somehow impossible, even after they had left England, that she would eventually arrive in Kavõnia. The ship that had carried them from Marseilles had now docked safely and she could see on the quayside many impressive dignitaries waiting to receive Catherine. To Theola it had seemed like a miracle that she had been permitted to travel with her Uncle, the Duke of Wellesbourne, and her cousin, Lady Catherine Bourne on a journey that was to end in Catherine becoming the Queen of Kavõnia. Theola was well aware it was not because her relations had any affection for her, that she had been included in the party. It was in fact simply because they could not find anyone more suitable to consent to act as lady-in-waiting to Catherine. The parents of her cousin’s contemporaries, who might have thought it an honour to be offered such a position, had declined firmly. They told the Duke they had no intention of sending their daughters to such a remote country when there was so much unrest in Europe. “Frightened fools!” the Duke had growled as he opened letter after letter at the breakfast table. Each reply to his invitation made the same excuse that they did not consider Kavõnia a sufficiently safe or attractive place for their daughters to spend two or three years of their young lives. “I sincerely hope the country is quiet,” the Duchess said from the other end of the table. is“Of course it is!” the Duke asserted. “As you well know, Adelaide, Kavõnia, like Montenegro, has been an independent state for many years. Now things have settled down in Greece under King George, there is no reason to be apprehensive for Ferdinand’s sovereignty. After all, he has already reigned for twelve years without any trouble.” The Duchess was silent and Catherine exclaimed almost petulantly, “I have no wish to go into any danger, Papa! I could not bear the noise of gunfire.” “The Kavõnians are noted for their fighting ability which is why the Ottoman Empire discreetly left them alone,” the Duke replied. “The country is very mountainous and it would require an enormous army to conquer Kavõnia, involving a huge loss of men.” “The Turks conquered Albania,” Theola remarked. “I am well aware of that, Theola,” her Uncle said coldly, “and when I require information from you, I will ask for it.” “I am sorry, Uncle Septimus.” “What we must really concern ourselves with is to find someone who will accompany Catherine,” the Duchess remarked. “She must have a lady-in-waiting and we have already asked everyone who seems at all suitable.” The Duke’s thin lips tightened. If there was anything he disliked it was being thwarted or refused something that he desired. A forceful, positive man, he had a streak of cruelty in his nature that made him exceptionally harsh in his treatment of those weaker than himself. Glancing at him, Theola thought apprehensively that because he was annoyed, she was bound to soon be punished severely for some minor fault, merely so her uncle could relieve his feelings of frustration. “Suppose we ask Lord Pierrepoint’s daughter?” the Duchess ventured. “She is not a girl for whom I have any liking since I consider her fast and somewhat bold in her manner, but doubtless the Pierrepoints would appreciate our condescension in inviting her to accompany Catherine.” “I will have no more refusals!” the Duke said angrily. “I have decided that Theola shall accompany Catherine.” “Theola?” The Duchess echoed the name, her voice rising in astonishment. “Theola?” Catherine said. “But surely, Papa . . .” “I want no arguments – I have made up my mind,” the Duke said rising to his feet. “Theola will accompany Catherine and me to Kavõnia, and she will stay there until someone more suitable is found to take her place.” Theola held her breath. She could hardly believe what she had heard. She was also desperately afraid that if she made any remark that might annoy her uncle, he would change his mind. Only after a day of excitement and bewilderment did she go down on her knees when she reached her bedroom at night and thank God for her uncle’s decision. ‘I am going to Kavõnia, Papa,’ she thought into the darkness. ‘Do you know, and are you glad? It is not Greece but it is very near, and the people are mostly of Greek origin. Oh, Papa, how I wish you could be with me!’ She felt as she knelt beside her bed that her father had heard her and was somehow near her, just as in moments of misery and despair she would believe that her mother was holding her close and comforting her. There had been many moments like that since her parents had died and she had come to live with her uncle and aunt at the cold, cheerless Castle in Wiltshire where the Duke had a vast estate. One of the richest men in England, he was also one of the meanest, and the Duchess, who before her marriage had been Her Serene Highness Adelaide of Holtz-Melderstein, was also frugal and cheeseparing in her ways. Theola in her new home found fewer material comforts than she had enjoyed in the small cottage where she had lived with her mother and father before they died. Sometimes, when she shivered with cold in the big unheated rooms, she wished she had died with them, feeling that the bleakness and unhappiness was like black ice encompassing her until there was no warmth left in her body. But it was not only bodily that she suffered in Wellesbourne Castle. There was also the mental cruelty that she was forced to endure day in and day out until, like a frightened animal, she wanted to hide herself away from further suffering. She had known, because her mother had told her, how deeply her uncle had resented the fact that his only sister had run away with his tutor. He had been at Oxford and his father, the 2nd Duke, had engaged for him a tutor for the vacations because he was insistent that he should obtain his degree. Richard Waring was a brilliant, intelligent young man of twenty-nine, who taught the Classics and had successfully coached several of the aristocracy through their finals. Good looking, cultured, and coming from respectable stock, he had however in the Duke’s eyes been a person of little or no consequence. His attitude was echoed by that of his son Septimus, who was as outraged as his father when it was discovered that Richard Waring had fallen madly in love with his only sister, Lady Elizabeth Bourne. Richard Waring had approached the Duke in the correct manner only to be violently abused and shown the front door of the Castle. That Lady Elizabeth had followed him and that they had run away together, had been as startling to her parents as if a bomb had exploded inside the building. For years Elizabeth was never mentioned. When Theola was born four years after their elopement and marriage, she wrote to her father and mother telling them they had a grand-daughter. The letter was returned unopened. Only after notification of Elizabeth Waring’s and her husband’s death in a train accident, did Septimus, who had now inherited the dukedom, visit the small cottage outside Oxford where they had lived. There he informed a white-faced, unhappy Theola that henceforth she would make her home with him. Septimus himself had married when he was twenty-one and had a daughter, Catherine, who was one year older than Theola. “Do not think I take you under my roof with any pleasure,” he said harshly. “Your father’s behaviour was beneath contempt and I shall never forgive him, or your mother for the disgrace they brought to our family name.” “Disgrace?” Theola had questioned in surprise. “But what wrong did they do except run away to be married?” “Do you think it is no disgrace that our blood should be mixed with that of a common parvenu, a man who earned his living by teaching, a man whose forebears doubtless came from the gutter?” parvenu“That is not true!’ Theola had retorted. “Papa’s parents were kind, gentle people, much respected in Bedfordshire where they lived, and Papa himself was brilliant, as so many . . .” She stopped abruptly as her uncle slapped her hard across the face. “How dare you argue with me?” he stormed. “Let us make this quite clear from the very beginning of our acquaintance, Theola. Because you are my niece, I cannot allow you to starve. So you will live in my house. But you will obey me and you will not speak of your father and mother to me or to anyone else. Is that understood?” Theola’s cheek was burning, but she did not put her hand up to it. She only looked at her uncle, more shocked than frightened by the first violence she had ever encountered in her life. But she was to learn in the months that followed that her uncle was ready to strike her whenever she annoyed him – and that was frequently. He also beat her when she defied him, which was not only an agony that left her weak and fainting, but also a humiliation that left a searing wound upon her mind. Never had she realised there were people like her uncle and indeed her aunt in the world. If her uncle’s blows were painful, her aunt’s slaps and pinches and excessive nagging were almost harder to bear. Theola had never imagined what it would be like to live with such hatred. Always she had been encircled with love, the love that her mother and father bore for each other and which seemed to glow around them like an aura when they were together. And the love they had for her always made her feel she was something very precious. After a few months of what amounted to persecution, she began to creep about the Castle like a little grey ghost, hoping she would remain unnoticed. She would pray that some magic wand would make her immune from the hard voices that ordered her about and the rough hands that seemed always ready to strike at her when she least expected it. She tried to be friends with her cousin Catherine but found it impossible. Catherine had a cold nature that she had inherited from both her father and her mother and was indifferent to anything and anyone unless it concerned her personally. Theola soon found that she was to pay for her board and lodging in her uncle’s house by being a slave to Catherine and becoming more and more her personal servant. She fetched and carried from the moment she rose in the morning until she went to bed at night. She mended and pressed Catherine’s clothes. She washed most of her fragile garments and had to listen to Catherine’s eulogies of herself, knowing she was expected to agree with everything her cousin said and that to argue would be to bring a fierce retribution upon her head. “I often think I have Greek features,” Catherine said once, “and resemble the statues and pictures that are so admired of the Greek goddesses.” With difficulty Theola prevented herself from saying this was quite untrue. Catherine was not in the least Greek. She had the golden hair and blue eyes that were considered typically English, but her features had nothing particularly to recommend them.