Princess Ena also showed a decided talent for music and she is not only a ready, skilful pianist, but she also composes music.
Her young life was happy. She was the favourite, not only of Queen Victoria and Empress Eugenie, but of all the Royal family in England. There was no touch of the hard and sordid in those years. She dwelt in the midst of wholesome, happy people and always in beautiful places. The Isle of Wight, her home, is a sweet, tranquil haven, remote from the frequented paths of the world, far from the hurry and noise and dirt of modern England. In Spring and Summer it is like a great garden with abiding places set therein.
Balmoral in Scotland, where she was born and where she frequently lived, especially when her grandmother, Queen Victoria, was in residence in Scotland, is one of the most glorious spots in Britain. The magnificent Royal Park is widely encircled by the rugged mountains of that Northland. The river Dee, famed in song and story, runs close to hand. This Northland is more mountainous and stern than Ayr or Dumfries, the land of Bobbie Burns, and as instinct with tradition of the fighting Jacobite times as the Border country—the land of Scott—or Loch Leven with its memories of Queen Mary. Princess Ena revelled in the stirring past as she breathed the strong air of the Cairngorms, growing physically strong and sturdy, innocent of the Destiny which was to shape her life and make her a Mother of Kings.
One winter Princess Henry of Battenberg went to Egypt, taking with her her four children. This proved a memorable year to Princess Ena, for she became familiar with new surroundings and acquainted with ancient civilisations, in which she evinced a remarkable interest. Here, too, the Princess had her first experience away from royal precincts, as the winter was mostly spent in the Cataract Hotel at Aswan. It was the wish of Princess Henry that she and her children be treated precisely as the other guests of the hotel were treated, and the Princess Ena came to know many people who were of a world far removed from her own.
Many stories are told in Egypt to-day of the laughing golden-haired English Princess who was never so weary as to cease from fun and mischief, and many a prank instigated by her and her brothers is recalled. Her brightness and abounding good nature were widely appreciated and the memory she has left there is sweet and good.
Christmas Day in a foreign land is always dull and dreary, and English people, perhaps, miss home on this day above all others in the year.
The manager of the Cataract Hotel—Herr Steiger—being anxious to lift in some measure the pall of gloom which hung over his guests that Christmas planned a little surprise which he sprang at the dinner hour. Toward the close of the meal the lights in the dining salon were suddenly extinguished and a band of picturesque Orientals entered the room bearing lighted tapers and trays of gifts. Their fantastic garb of white bournous, red fez and white turbans looked weirdly strange against the darkness and as the file approached the table where sat the royal party a burst of loud applause came spontaneously from the guests at the other tables. No sooner had the first defile circled round the royal table than other similar groups entered the room and ranged around the other tables. In a moment of silence the Princess Ena was heard to exclaim: “Oh! how nice of Herr Steiger to have given this pleasure to everyone and not only to us!”
This charming consideration for others is a characteristic of her nature which has deepened with years and has proved one of the qualities which so quickly endeared her to the people of her adopted land.
At the age of eighteen Princess Ena had her formal “coming out” into Society. The event took place at the Infirmary Ball at Ryde, and immediately after she was presented at Windsor and entered upon a gay season in London. It was toward the end of this very first season that she met for the first time the impetuous and dashing young man who at first sight of her surrendered his heart and in record time led her up the steps of a throne to share with him the ermine of sovereignty.
In their meeting and courtship lies a tale of pure romance. No story of any “castle in Spain” runs more delightfully, and no tale of the storied Alhambra quickens the pulse beats faster.