My father, who was the Infante Francisco, my mother’s first cousin, had been married to her for reasons of State; they had separated after the revolution; and he lived near us in Paris, or at Epinay, in an establishment of his own, where we children sometimes went to see him. He was a small, grey man, very silent, very formal, fond of books and solitude, and contented to be out of politics and affairs of Courts. There had been no sentiment in his marriage to my mother, and there was none in his relations with us children. My mother, too, was more a queen to us than a mother; and, as a girl, I knew nothing of the parental affections of a home. I think that may have been partly because my parents were quite old when I was born to them, so that the years separated us. But also it is one of the penalties of Royalty that their life cannot be intimate and fond.
My great devotion was for my brother, whom I was like. He was never religious in a superstitious way, and he was very lively and athletic and fond of sports, so that we played congenially. He was a clever student, and helped me with my school work. And he was talkative with me, and told me about his life at school, as I chattered to him about mine. But he went away to college in Vienna when I was very young, and then to a military college in England, and I saw him only in his holidays.
That, then, was the sort of childhood one had in the Palais de Castile. I saw the comings and goings of politicians and personages from Spain without paying any attention to them and without knowing what they were about; for I spoke French and but little Spanish. With my mother, who spoke almost no French, we talked with difficulty in a mixture of both languages. We scarcely saw her except at dinner in the evening among her foreign guests, or on Sunday when we went to chapel in the Palais; and we children made our own lives among ourselves, apart from the affairs of our elders. I had achieved a certain independence of mind, although no independence of action was possible to me. I had escaped the narrowing influences of our life, but no broadening influences reached me. I had to make my own mental growth without the aid of liberal books or the culture that one gets from informing conversation. I often wonder what would have become of me if another revolution had not returned us to Spain.
I was about eleven years of age when it happened. And it came like a bomb. I had not thought of it. I was expecting that, when I finished school, I should have a life like other girls; and I was bewildered when my mother summoned us to her room one morning and told us that my brother Alfonso had been proclaimed King of Spain. I could see from her manner that it was to her a happy event that would make a great difference to us, but I did not realise how it would be. It was as if some one should tell a little girl of a great inheritance that was to make her very wealthy, when she did not understand what money could buy.
The first signs of the change came immediately from the nuns at the convent, who treated us more formally than before. And we learned from the girls that they had been told to be different with us, but, of course, they did not succeed. They came to us much excited and curious to know how we felt; and I could see that they were disappointed because we did not feel as delighted as they supposed. Then a great many people began to come to the Palais—Spanish personages, Republicans who had never visited us before, and men who, I learned, had been concerned in my mother’s exile. And it puzzled me to see that she received them all as if they had always been as friendly as they now appeared.
Like most children, I was not forgiving; I had not learned to tolerate the disloyalties to which life accustoms one; and I was disgusted by the cheerful falseness of the self-interest that brought these people about us. I began to look cynically at the show of devoted deference that makes the peculiar atmosphere of a Court. And then I forgot everything in the announcement that we were to join my brother in Spain—my dear brother, whom I thought of as a playmate, not as a king. I had missed him so much. I believed that I should always be happy now, since we were to be together.
CHAPTER II
IRKSOME DUTIES OF A PRINCESS
It is in life as it is in travelling, that you go sometimes with such unreflecting interest in the mere passing-by of the incidents of Time that you arrive unaware of your destination, and look back with dismay on the change and the distance. It was so I went from the democracy of our French class-room to the estate of Royalty in Spain. The mere journey itself was an excitement; and it was at once, even in France, almost a Royal progress, because of the number of Spanish ladies who had come to Paris to conduct my mother to the Court, to say nothing of the other people who had attached themselves to our suite for various reasons of their own.
At the seaport of San Jean de Luz a Spanish warship awaited us, with the sailors on the yards, the colours flying, and the cannon firing a salute. This seemed to me very jolly, and I watched with curiosity; but I must have been a little withdrawn from it in my mind, for I remember noticing with amusement how much more excited for us my governess was by the crowds and the spectacle. It is usually the looker-on who most enjoys these pomps. The Royalty must preserve the dignity of effigies to endure the stares. And I was disappointed because I was not free to move about and be unconscious; because I could not be spoken to by those who were outside the circle of attendants; because the personages who were allowed to greet me all made the same congratulations with a formality that wearied.
Even on board the ship I could not go about and see the sailors. I had to remain in the Royal cabins, or move with the others among the standing salutes of officers who could not speak or be spoken to. We had lost the freedom of private persons; we had become like commanding officers in a world governed by the army regulations of Court etiquette; we could not go anywhere without sending word ahead so that life might be put on parade for us. Our meals were ceremonies. We attended a very long and formal Mass that was celebrated for us on board. And I remember, as my one real pleasure on the ship, that I had to sleep in a saloon on a billiard-table, where a mattress had been spread for me, because there were not enough Royal cabins to accommodate us all.