Victoria in the Wings: (Georgian Series) Read online

  Education and work, said the Duke, were the most gratifying things in the world. One must not forget work. That was why he had commanded that young people when they were not learning should work in the gardens or be taught trades. They earned money, and the Duchy had prospered in the last years because of work and education. He wished it to remain like that.

  Adelaide listened gravely while Ida played with the buttons on his jacket.

  Afterwards he said to the Duchess: ‘Adelaide is such a dutiful child. She will make someone an excellent wife when the time comes. I want good matches for them both.’

  ‘I am sure they will marry well. There are not many Protestant Princesses in Europe.’

  ‘Oh, you are thinking of England.’

  ‘The King has so many sons and they always come to Germany for their brides.’

  ‘I should like to see them marry into England.’

  ‘We shall hope,’ answered the Duchess, ‘and in the meantime look to their upbringing.’

  ‘I doubt the system of education in England compares with ours,’ said the Duke proudly.

  ‘I doubt it, too, now that you have introduced your schools, and the Duchy is becoming so prosperous.’

  ‘How I wish we could have a son.’

  ‘We shall not always be disappointed,’ replied the Duchess.

  Adelaide remembered vividly the seventh year of her life. That was when the weather was so cold and the snow lay in drifts about the castle. She and Ida knelt on the window-seat looking out at the white-encrusted firs and listening to the wind whistling round the castle walls. Ida thought of ski-ing down the mountain slopes; Adelaide thought of the poor people who might not have enough fuel to warm their houses and keep out the cold. She asked the Duke how the poor managed to keep warm and he told her that he had given an order that they might help themselves to wood in the forest providing they did not take green wood. ‘For you see,’ he said, ‘our forests provide a large part of the Duchy’s wealth and to cut down striplings would be folly.’

  Everything her father did was wise and just, Adelaide knew. He was a very stern and righteous man; and although his edicts sometimes meant a certain hardship, his people realized that everything he did was for their own benefit and they accepted this.

  ‘It is for your own good,’ it was a phrase Adelaide had learned to use to Ida.

  There was a sadness in the castle too because it was three years since the Duchess had had her still-born daughter and it seemed as though the two-yearly happy event was not to be repeated.

  It meant that the little girls were even more important than they had been before, because if the Duchess Eleanor was to have no more children Adelaide as the eldest daughter might take over the reigns of government.

  It was an anxiety. But Adelaide was a serious child, pointed out the Duchess. It was true, but she must become even more serious and be made to realize the enormity of her responsibilities.

  A new tutor was introduced to the schoolroom, Herr Hofrats Schmidt Buckeburg, and there were even stricter rules to be obeyed. There was to be no singing or dancing on Sundays.

  ‘It is a rule I have made throughout the Duchy,’ said the Duke, ‘and what we ask our people to do we must perforce do ourselves.’

  Life was very serious. When the snows of that winter were cleared away the Princesses must drive through the country with their parents and see for themselves how the people lived; they must bring relief to the hard-working poor by taking them blankets and clothing – which they had helped to make themselves. Oh, those coarse shirts over which Ida wept tears of frustration and anger while she pricked her delicate fingers and spattered them with blood! Adelaide did not like to sew them either but she remembered her responsibilities.

  The next winter was less severe and to the Duchess’s great joy she was once again pregnant.

  There was great rejoicing throughout the castle and the Duchy; and on a cold December day it seemed to Adelaide that the whole world must be wild with joy for Bernhard Erich Freund, Crown Prince of Saxe-Meiningen, was born.

  Adelaide could not help but be relieved. Attention was no longer focused on herself. Now she might be allowed to be a normal little girl of almost nine because she was merely a princess daughter of the Duke; she had been shorn of her responsibilities.

  ‘How they spoil Bernhard!’ grimaced Ida.

  But Adelaide pointed out that they should. He was a boy and as the Crown Prince he was naturally the most important person in the nurseries. He would one day have to rule Saxe-Meiningen whereas they …

  ‘What shall we do?’ Ida wanted to know.

  Adelaide was suddenly sad. ‘I think we may have husbands and go away.’

  Go away from this castle stronghold in the beautiful forests with the Rhine Mountains in the distance, and the cold snowy winters and the warm summers, and dearest Mamma who loved them in her cool restrained way and Papa who was so good and wanted them to be the same. Adelaide shivered slightly; but Ida had started to dance, seeing herself as glittering with jewels as Mamma was on State occasions.

  She was, after all, barely seven years old, and she had never had to be serious like her sister.

  Adelaide would have liked to be gay like Ida. To dance round – though not on Sundays, as Ida sometimes disobediently did – to laugh and refuse to do her lessons, but the habit of obedience was strong in her. She was set in her ways.

  Even shorn of her immense responsibilities Adelaide continued to be the good child of the nursery.

  The happy days came to an abrupt end when Bernhard was three years old.

  It had been a bad winter. The snow had started early and the Duke, who never neglected his duty, had gone among his subjects as was his usual practice, advising them, helping them, and being the good ruler he prided himself on being.

  One day his sledge was overturned and he was almost buried in a snowdrift but soaked to the skin he had continued his journey. When much later he returned to the castle he was shivering with the cold and although the Duchess herself got him to bed and brought him one of the possets she had prepared herself, during the next few days he had developed a very bad cold; this would not be cured and in a week had turned to bronchitis and from that to a congestion of the lungs. On the most dismal day of Adelaide’s life her father died.

  There was grief and consternation not only in the castle but also throughout the land.

  The new Duke was but three years old; the Princesses Adelaide and Ida eleven and nine; the Duchess Eleanor must become the Regent until her son was able to govern.

  But to the children this was more than the loss of a ruler; they had loved their father who, in spite of his sternness and the strict rules which he had insisted should be obeyed, had been the benign arbiter of their lives.

  ‘What shall we do without him?’ cried the Duchess Eleanor.

  She called a meeting of her husband’s ministers and told them that she was to some extent at their mercy. She needed their help. It was fortunate that her husband had consulted her, kept her informed of his plans, and indeed sometimes had asked her advice. She believed that now, with their assistance, she could be their Regent until such time as the little Duke could take on his duties.

  She was warmly applauded. Everyone was eager to do what the late Duke would have wished. They had seen how the Duchy had prospered from his wise rule and they knew that his wife, who had been beside him throughout their married life, was the one who could best take on his mantle until her son was old enough to wear it himself.

  When the ministers had gone Duchess Eleanor sent for her eldest daughter.

  She was grateful for this calm, serious girl.

  ‘My dear Adelaide,’ she said, ‘you know that nothing will ever be the same again. We have lost dearest Papa who was so wise and good. We have to think now of what he would have wished, and until little Bernhard is ready I have to rule in his place.’

  They wept together and it was Adelaide who comforted her mother.

&nb
sp; ‘You have always been a good child, my dearest Adelaide, but now you must be even more serious. We must remember all the time what Papa would have wished. I shall rely on you to help me. You will do that by being good, by guiding your sister, by loving your brother. I want Papa when he looks down from Heaven to see his good little Adelaide behaving just as he would wish. It is a great responsibility.’

  So after being briefly relieved of her duties Adelaide found herself once more burdened with them.

  It was doubly necessary now to work hard, never to disobey, to be an example to her sister and brother.

  One could grow accustomed to anything, Adelaide supposed. As the months began to pass, life in the castle settled down. The Duchess Eleanor tried to be as calm and wise as her husband had been; and she succeeded by following the laws he had made; nor did she neglect her children.

  The days were full and as their grief receded they began to be happy again.

  Ida was gay and attractive, growing prettier every day. Adelaide believed she herself grew more plain. Her skin was not clear and fresh like Ida’s; her nose was too long. ‘I shall never be a beauty,’ she said ruefully.

  ‘Never mind, darling Adelaide,’ cried Ida. ‘You will always be the good one.’

  They had grown closer together after their father’s death; and Ida, though still loving to sing and dance and amuse herself, recognized the qualities of her sister and loved her for them, just as Adelaide adored Ida; and while she knew that it was necessary to consider one’s responsibilities she frequently wished that she were like the gay and volatile Ida.

  She often wondered when they would have to leave the castle; for it was the inevitable fate of all princesses to leave their homes. She could not bear the thought of it and was sometimes glad when she looked in her mirror.

  ‘I am too plain for anyone to want to marry me,’ she told Ida.

  At which Ida declared that marriages were arranged for people such as they were and neither bride nor bridegroom knew what they were getting until they were presented with their partner. So looks were not all that important.

  ‘They always will be important,’ said Adelaide sadly. ‘And even if marriages are arranged pictures are sent and a bridegroom would have to approve of the picture before he accepted his bride.’

  Ida kissed her sister. ‘How you exaggerate! You are really quite good looking. I mean good looking – and that is very unusual. Your eyes are nice and your hair isn’t bad.’ Ida studied their faces side by side in the mirror and she could not hide the look of satisfaction as she studied her own pretty one.

  Perhaps, thought Adelaide, it is only in comparison with Ida that I seem so plain.

  Nothing remained the same for long. Soon there was a shadow looming across the castle. The whole of Europe was trembling in fear of the man who had determined to dominate it. Napoleon was on the march.

  Nearer and nearer came the terror as one small State after another fell into his hands.

  ‘If only your father were alive,’ cried the Duchess Eleanor.

  But she knew and so did everyone else that even the Duke would not have had the power to stop Napoleon’s armies.

  The French soldiers were in the streets of Meiningen, which fortunately was too small a Duchy to interest Napoleon, who was on the way to bigger objectives. But the Duchy was no longer free; the people must receive the soldiers in their houses; they must cook for them and work for them during their stay.

  Their commander had sent a message to the castle. Providing the people fed and housed the soldiers no property would be destroyed and no one harmed.

  There was nothing to do but comply. It was occupation of a sort.

  The French passed on and the Prussians came; and although they were not enemies, their demands were the same.

  War had come to Saxe-Meiningen and it brought with it all its terrible consequences.

  The good old days when the Duke had ridden out into the forests to learn the needs of his people were gone.

  Such days, it was said, would never come back.

  Meanwhile the Duchess Eleanor lived in the castle, the Crown Prince growing into lusty boyhood, while his sisters left their childhood behind them.

  There were long afternoons when Adelaide and Ida sat together making bandages for the wounded soldiers, sewing garments for them and sometimes attending the wounded who were brought to the castle.

  Even Ida lost some of her gaiety; the sights they saw were so depressing; and since there was this war which devastated the land and from which no one was safe, how could there be those balls and festivities at the castle which in ordinary times would have been considered necessary for two young women who were about to be launched on the world? How could there be visits to other Duchies where they might have found suitors?

  War put an end to such activities. Instead they must sit making their bandages, waiting for messengers to arrive with news of the fighting, asking themselves when there was going to be a halt to the wicked Napoleon’s conquests and life was going to return to normal.

  They were growing up. Adelaide was twenty-three; Ida was twenty-one; even Bernhard was fifteen. They were no longer children and still the dreary war went on.

  And suddenly there was change. The bells were ringing all over Europe. The soldiers of Saxe-Meiningen who had gone to fight in the Prussian Army returned home and there were victory parades through the streets. What had seemed the impossible had become the possible; it had in fact actually happened.

  Napoleon had been beaten at Waterloo by Blücher and Wellington. England and Germany had rid the world of that megalomaniac and the world was free again.

  No more bandages. No more occupation. The war was over.

  ‘This,’ said Ida, ‘is an end to the dull existence. Now they will find husbands for us, you see.’

  She was right. So much time had been lost, mused the Duchess Eleanor. The girls were no longer very young. She consulted with her ministers. They must make up for lost time. They must find husbands for them without delay.

  The Duke of Weimar was young, handsome and not ineligible. He was Governor of Ghent and from this post derived the greater part of his income. They would invite him to the castle and there he could meet Adelaide and perhaps if he were agreeable the marriage could be arranged.

  If it were not the most brilliant of matches it would be a comforting one, at least, mused the Duchess, for Weimar was not so far distant from Saxe-Meiningen that there could not be frequent visits and Adelaide was a girl who loved her home and family dearly. Eleanor would not wish her to be too far away.

  There was excitement throughout the castle. The seamstresses were busy. There were beautiful gowns for the Princesses and particularly for Adelaide.

  She felt nervous and shy.

  He will be very disappointed when he sees me, she thought; but she did not mention it even to Ida.

  Those rooms in the castle where soldiers had been billeted were repainted and refurnished. The Duke of Weimar’s suite must be adequately housed.

  ‘What an important visit this is!’ cried Ida with a chuckle. She was excited because she knew that her turn would come.

  The Duchess seemed happier than she had since the death of her husband; she was sure they had left the dark days behind. Bernhard was now sixteen – in two years’ time he would be of age; then there would be no need for a Regency and Saxe-Meiningen would have its reigning Duke. And the girls would be married – Adelaide first and then Ida – both into neighbouring dukedoms, so that they need not be distantly separated.

  The girls were watching from the turret windows; soon the cavalcade must come into sight and at the head of it would ride the Duke of Weimar. ‘Do you remember how we used to look from this window and see the soldiers coming?’ said Ida.

  Adelaide nodded.

  ‘This is rather different, eh, sister?’ Ida was chuckling with excitement. ‘Suitors are more fun than soldiers. Ugh! That awful war. Those bandages! I shall never forget them. I wonder
what he will be like.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Duke of Weimar, of course. His name is Bernhard the same as our brother’s. I long to see him. Do you think he will be handsome?’

  ‘I hope not … too handsome.’

  ‘Why ever not? People should be as handsome as it is possible to be. The more handsome the better.’

  Not when they have a plain bride waiting for them, thought Adelaide.

  She could scarcely bear to look, yet she was as eager to see as Ida was. Let him be kind, she prayed. Let him not ask too much.

  ‘Do you know,’ said Ida, ‘I fancy I can see something in the distance. Is it? Yes … I’m sure. Look, sister.’

  They strained their eyes to see. It was indeed the outriders of the cavalcade in the livery of the House of Weimar – brilliantly colourful among the trees.

  Ida gripped her sister’s hand in excitement.

  ‘Adelaide,’ she cried. ‘They’re here. They’re here.’

  Her eyes were brilliant; there was a faint colour in her cheeks; she was beautiful.

  One of their women was coming up to the turret.

  ‘You know what this is,’ said Ida. ‘Mamma has sent for us to go down. We must be ready to greet the Duke when he arrives. Am I presentable?’

  ‘Very. Am I?’

  ‘You always are. Always neat. Always tidy. Dear Adelaide, you are such a pattern of virtue. What shall I do when you are gone? I shall deteriorate … rapidly, I fear. There will be no good example for me to follow.’

  The woman had entered.

  ‘I know! I know!’ cried Ida. ‘We are to come down and be ready to greet the Duke when he arrives.’

  He had leaped from his horse, a commanding figure, six feet four inches tall. He came forward to greet the Duchess Eleanor who gave him her hand to kiss.

  ‘You must allow me to present my son to you.’

  The Dukes of Weimar and Saxe-Meiningen bowed.

  ‘And my daughters,’ went on the Duchess.

  They stood on either side of her – Adelaide the plain and Ida the beautiful.