Katya & The Prince of Siam

Poor Chula became jealous not because Chavalit changed her attitude to him at all, but because without understanding it, he sensed the alteration in her relationship with his father, and began to long for his mother’s return, who would surely set everything to rights again.

Meanwhile in the cool of the evening, Chakrabongse would sometimes embark with Chavalit in a little boat and, as the moon rose, take her down the quiet river to see her mother. This filial duty was often combined with a delicious picnic, and perhaps a halt at Chakrabongse House, Ta Tien, where shuttered rooms away from prying eyes offered the setting for a very different kind of rendezvous.

Many of Katya’s letters from this period survive, together with the hundred or more picture postcards she sent to her husband and son as she and Healey travelled around first Japan and later Canada. In the final stages of her trip in Canada, an increasingly wistful tone may be discerned. ‘Why haven’t you written?’ ‘Lovely place but not so nice as home.’ ‘Down all day as Cham got a card from you but not me.’

This altered key may also have been due to the fact that she had received several anonymous letters referring to her husband’s interest in Chavalit, from the sort of ‘well wishers’ who hastened to draw attention to their ‘friendship’ in such circumstances. On the other hand, a most affectionate letter reached her from Prince Mahidol, one of her husband’s many half-brothers, which concluded: ‘May the feeling that your life is precious to so many of us give you the health and happiness you need to cheer up those who are far away, waiting for your return. A happy voyage and au revoir from your very faithful Mahidol.’ These words may well have been prompted by the Prince’s knowledge of what awaited her in Bangkok and his desire to assure her of his support.

The letters written to Katya by Chakrabongse, with their factual and slightly chilly tone may not have encouraged her to discount the ‘well wishers’ innuendoes. But instead of hastening back earlier than intended, a feminine perversity or perhaps a dread of facing an unhappy situation impelled her to postpone her homecoming to a later date.

Eventually she returned in January 1919, and was met at Singapore by Chakrabongse in the royal yacht, while Chula, bursting with joyful excitement, awaited them at the landing-stage in Bangkok.

A few days afterwards, there was an important function at the Military College, where Chula was a junior cadet, and a play written by the King himself was to be performed by the senior boys, while a number of their juniors, including Chula, were to appear in the interval singing patriotic songs in costume. Before the show there was a banquet which the King attended, and where Chakrabongse and Katya were host and hostess. All went off perfectly, yet when Chula from the platform proudly identified his mother in the audience, he was struck to the heart by the sadness of her expression.

The shock of this revelation – of something being very wrong – haunted him and clouded his pleasure in the many gifts she brought him from abroad. As day followed uneasy day he found that, far from his mother’s return lightning the disturbing atmosphere, it now became sombre in the extreme. From now on, he existed in the baneful climate engendered by married people when hidden discord instead of harmony prevails. What he hated most were the false smiles, the sudden silences or changes of conversation when timidly, unsure now of his reception, he entered a room. His mother’s face was always strained, sometimes marked by tears hastily wiped away, while talk between her and his father was increasingly in Russian which he did not understand.

Although after a time, Chavalit’s visits were discontinued, her presence still seemed to permeate the house, though no-one now played tennis in the deserted ballroom, and the gardens no longer rang with the joyous voices and heedless laughter of her friends. Everyone, including the servants, became specially kind to him, but he felt it was a mournful kindness, quite unlike the spontaneous yet disciplined indulgence to which he was accustomed. His grandmother, too, seemed unlike herself, given to sighing when she looked at him, and proposing little treats more often than before, which he obediently accepted but with a very heavy heart. For one or two nights running, he slept at Paruskavan instead of at his grandmother’s, as Chom told him the Queen had business affairs to discuss with his parents.