Chakrabongse’s interview with his mother was more harrowing still, for she stormed and raved for hours, while he, deeming it his duty, listened in respectful silence, for she was not only his mother, but also the Queen. Late that night when she at last allowed him to depart, he felt so wretched that he dismissed his car and walked home in a downpour of drenching rain.
Subsequently when the King again reproached him for marrying so irresponsibly, he reminded Chakrabongse that his new system of succession (based on the sons of his chief wife, Queen Saowabha taking precedence over those by lesser queens regardless of age) meant that Chakrabongse was not merely an important prince but heir-presumptive – second in line to the throne after his elder brother Crown Prince Vajiravudh.
Worn and exhausted by the furore he had raised, Chakrabongse lost no time in arranging for Katya to leave Singapore. And without mentioning the storm of disapproval he had caused by his marriage, wrote cheerfully and reassuringly to her brother in a letter dated only 1906:
‘In some days Katya will arrive here. I am awaiting her with impatience. My house is ready and it is very nice and cosy and also cool. My father himself gave all the orders about the furnishing and arrangements and told me this is the best house in Bangkok. I am very happy that Katya will have a home with all modern comfort and convenience. She is so pretty that I still can’t get used to it.
‘I cannot tell you how lucky I am to have such a wife. She is also so happy and I hope it will remain this way forever.
‘We talk about you often and I want to thank you once more for all your help especially to me, who has stolen your sister and taken her so far away. With many thanks and love.’
When Katya crossed the threshold of her elegant cream-coloured home, built in the style of an Italian villa, the assembled servants falling gracefully at her feet, she stepped into a seclusion as absolute as that of the ‘Inside’ in the days of her husband’s grandfather King Mongkut. But whereas by now, the queens and wives of Chulalongkorn enjoyed some freedom outside the palace walls, it would be a whole year before Katya went beyond the gates of Paruskavan except for evening motor-drives along the tree-lined avenues of Bangkok. During this period, she met neither her father-in-law or mother-in-law, who had presumably decided that if they ignored their son’s marriage it might somehow turn out to be untrue.
Fortunately Paruskavan and its immense gardens contained much to delight and interest her, while Chakrabongse, remorseful and concerned that she should not be isolated, took great trouble to indulge and please her in every way. Apart from the main building were separate servants’ quarters, stables and a European as well as a Siamese kitchen.
Paruskavan Palace.
Katya in Paruskavan Palace.
Prince Chakrabongse with his three dogs in Paruskavan Palace.
On the ground floor of the main house were a hall and formal reception rooms, and on the floor above were Chakrabongse and Katya’s private suite, and a smaller dining-room, where they breakfasted and lunched when alone. High up beneath the roof was a traditional Shrine-Room, where among the many Buddha images, were also housed relics and the ashes of deceased ancestors in miniature bejewelled gold cremation urns. These relics were honoured and remembered with ceremony on the anniversary of death, and respects paid on leaving on or returning from a journey. To this day, most houses feature such shrine rooms in which devout Buddhists pray and prostrate themselves and offer fresh flowers daily.
Almost two hundred people lived in the compound, composed of roughly one hundred grown-ups and children and one hundred servants. Among the adults were many who had mysteriously become part of the household so long ago that no one could remember exactly how they came to be there. This state of affairs may have reminded Katya of her homeland, for as Princess Stephanie Dolgorouky wrote in her memoirs: ‘The English week-end invitation for a short stay is unknown in Russia, where guests in country-houses especially, not infrequently remain for years. They sometimes bring with them members of the family and occasionally it happens they remain for the rest of their lives …’
Children living under this hospitable roof were either orphans or offspring from one of the many large families of royal relatives, happy to have a son or daughter brought-up or even actually adopted by a prince of the first rank such as Chakrabongse – a common custom in Siamese princely families. Thus Katya reported to her brother about her various adopted children:
‘John – a nice boy – my devoted slave – and Domol is our adopted son’
and added that she teased her husband on this score:
‘No sooner do I enter my new home than he introduces me to his sons – but he has an alibi; they must have all been born while he was still in Russia!’
Outside there was garaging for eight cars and stabling for six horses that included Chakrabongse’s Russian charger Ramushka, whom he had always ridden in the Hussars. This gallant old friend, to whom he was devoted was to be his mount at most official parades and lived to the advanced age of thirty-three.
Chakrabongse on Ramushka during military manoeuvres.
Chakrabongse on Ramushka leading a parade.
Chakrabongse at one of the innumerable ceremonies he had to attend almost daily.
From one of Katya’s lengthy letters to her brother, written almost immediately after her arrival and dated 18-31 April 1906, it is clear she lost no time in settling down, and taking the measure of her life. Dealing briskly with Ivan’s reproaches for not writing from Singapore ‘because I could have written only sad letters from there’, she continued:
‘Thank God, we are now at peace. All the storms are over though sometimes the Queen quarrels about money – it’s her way of punishing Lek – but let us leave it to God. Meanwhile, we must cut down our expenses, but I don’t think it will last long, she will soon be bored with it. Here we live in concord and I am surprised to find how quickly we have become close to one another – there is nothing more important to us than this.
‘You ask me what Lek is like here at home in his own country. I think he is kinder, nicer and gentler than in St Petersburg. For one thing he never shows irritation even with the servants, with whom he is always calm and I like this so much.
‘Our life is very quiet indeed and I sometimes miss society as it’s a little dull for my lively character. But God gives and we’ll have children and then I won’t feel alone when Lek is out which, to our mutual regret, is very often. In fact he’s at his office each day from twelve to five-thirty, and he has to see the King every other evening from eight to nine. This is when the King comes out onto the square before his palace where his subjects can see and speak to him, so that although they regard him almost as a God, they know that he cares for them. Though they are not bound to attend, most of the princes do so, including Lek, who, now that the King is not so furious and talks to him again, I am particularly anxious not to offend.