Katya & The Prince of Siam

To her suggestion that she might go and see Chavalit, Tapong said diplomatically that he thought it inadvisable, since seeing her might be such a shock to Chavalit that it might kill her. Later that same evening, Amorn, who ‘looked very nervous as he is terrified he may catch Chavalit’s disease’, asked Katya, as a trained nurse, what he should do to protect himself as his wife ‘wants to kiss him every time she sees him’. To which Katya commented: ‘Is it not absurd that I am the one to give him such advice?’

On her return home she could not sleep:

 

‘My brain was working all the time. All the cruel action of Chavalit, all what I had to suffer through this girl, came back to me. Two feelings were fighting in me: one pity that she suffers so much, and another feeling of satisfaction that God punished her for all her selfishness. I felt rotten. Is it possible that I prayed God all these years to punish her and now when the punishment comes, I am sorry for her? All night I slept very badly. My conscience worked all the time. Oh how complicated life is!’

 

On 19th June, on telephoning the Legation for news, Katya learned that Chavalit had died the day before, and that her cremation would take place privately at Pere Lachaise on 20th June. Chula volunteered to attend with Tapong and when he got back to Rue Parmentier afterwards he told his mother, who wrote: ‘It was awful as when the cremation was over, the men who looked after the fire came and invited them to look at the ashes! Chula said that he saw the whole body. Then to put ashes to a marble box, the men had to break the bones. He says he will never forget this cremation.”

And as a sad coda to the end of Chavalit, whom Chula had last seen as a young laughing girl in her prime, Katya adds: ‘Chula says Amorn was not sad at all’ – possibly because he was relieved at no longer having to fear her pathetic frightened embraces.

The revolution in Siam, coupled with the death of Chavalit, had considerable consequences for Chula for, in the summer of 1932, he was advised by King Prajadhipok that, as he was now no longer an absolute but a constitutional monarch, he had no further control over the capital and income left by his father, Chakrabongse. It will be remembered that Chakrabongse’s will in which he bequeathed his entire fortune to Chavalit, had been suspended by King Vajiravudh, who decreed that only a portion of the income from the estate should be divided between Chavalit, Katya and Chula, while the capital was to remain untouched. Now, however, due to Chavalit’s death, Chula became his father’s sole heir and found himself in possession of £20,000 a year instead of £1,000.

With characteristic generosity, he immediately increased his mother’s allowance, and in addition bought her a charming little thatched house near Rambouillet, called Le Mesle. This was only an hour’s drive from Paris and there, family and friends were entertained at weekends, and Katya was once more able to indulge her love of gardening, which she had sadly missed since her days at Paruskavan and Hua Hin. He also donated £25,000 to endow hospitals and schools in Bangkok, and was instantly accused by some in that city of ‘buying popularity’.

At this time Chula was sharing a furnished flat in London with Abhas and, in midsummer, they had planned to go together with Bira on a motor-tour in Europe, in Chula’s new car, a larger Voisin. But as Abhas had failed his final examinations at Cambridge, he reluctantly remained behind to prepare to re-take them in October. Chula and Bira therefore set out on their own, covering over three thousand miles in France, Switzerland and Italy, and it was during this trip that Chula became most impressed with Bira’s capacity as a driver.

After Bira returned to Eton for the autumn term, Chula was in correspondence with Phraya Mana, the first Premier under the new constitution, from whom he ascertained that he was not now expected, as princes were in former times, to serve in one of the government services. As he had already decided that an army career was not for him, he decided to remain in private life and continue his work as a writer. He had already begun to establish a reputation in this field, as his book reviews and articles on political subjects had already been published and well received in Siam. In addition, his biography of Frederick the Great in Siamese, he explains modestly, ‘had an unexpected success’.