The Widow of Windsor Page 9

  The Danish family arrived and Leopold chuckled to himself to notice the good looks of Alexandra. There were very few Princesses who could compare with her. That abundant light brown hair, the way she carried herself so that her simple clothes appeared to be the height of elegance, her manner which was neither deprecating nor bold, made her a charming creature. And Victoria had always been attracted by beauty in either sex. Surely she must admire Alexandra.

  Leopold welcomed them effusively. He conducted them to the apartments where he had decided that the encounter should take place. He despatched one of his gentlemen to the Queen’s apartments to tell her that the guests had arrived and were awaiting her pleasure.

  To his dismay the Queen sent a message that she was so overwrought by the memories of the past which her meeting with her uncle had evoked that she felt unable to meet anyone at the moment.

  Oh dear, thought Leopold. This is a slight to the royal family of Denmark. And what of the luncheon? He had better set it back an hour to give the Queen time to compose herself.

  ‘Her Majesty is bowed down with grief,’ he explained to his guests. ‘Her bereavement is comparatively recent.’

  But there was a further shock. The Queen discovered that she could not face the luncheon at whatever time it was to take place; she would take hers alone in her room.

  This was an anticlimax. Leopold inwardly cursed, considering all the elaborate arrangements which had gone into the preparation of that luncheon. And what were Prince and Princess Christian thinking? If they were not so eager for the marriage they might go off in a huff.

  How different was the meal from how Leopold had imagined it would be. Conversation was stiff and the poor Princess was obviously nervous. If we are not careful we shall have her making a poor impression on Victoria when Her Majesty does deign to see the poor girl, thought Leopold.

  Even Walpurga was uneasy.

  The luncheon seemed interminable but at least Victoria could plead delay no longer and Leopold suggested that Walpurga should go to the Queen and beg her to come and meet the assembled company.

  ‘You will know how to handle the matter, my dear,’ he said.

  Walpurga agreed that if anyone could she could and fearlessly went to the Queen’s apartment.

  The Queen held out her arms to her favourite and embraced her. ‘My dear, dear Wally, I am pleased to see you. You are a young wife. And how is Augustus? Oh, you fortunate fortunate people … I remember so well when He came to Windsor … He was so beautiful. I never saw anyone as beautiful as that angel …’

  The Queen held her handkerchief to her eyes and wept bitterly.

  Walpurga knelt. ‘Dearest Majesty,’ she said, ‘I understand.’

  ‘Do you, my dear? Do you? Does anybody?’

  ‘I try to, Your Majesty, but I suppose nobody can really understand your great sorrow.’

  The Queen enjoyed this kind of talk and Wally well knew it. If anyone suggested that the Queen had a devoted family and should count her blessings they would be immediately out of favour. Her Majesty was best comforted by pointing out the magnitude of her loss, the saintly qualities of the Prince Consort, the harmony which had existed between them and was now alas lost – and no mention of course of the occasional squabbles when Victoria had felt it necessary to remind Albert that though he might be the Saint she was the Queen.

  ‘Such a wonderful man, Wally, and never appreciated by the people nor by my ministers.’

  ‘By no one really but Your Majesty, but then you were the one who was the closest to him. He was your life and you were his.’

  ‘How true, my dear. I think you have a glimmering of understanding. When I think of the dreadful day … His dear face was so white and strained. And the last time I looked on that beloved face he was as beautiful as an angel. It was as though all the cares had been smoothed away.’

  Wally covered her eyes with her hand.

  ‘Dear child,’ said the Queen. And she went on enumerating the virtues of Albert and continuing at even greater length on her own misery.

  ‘I don’t feel I can face the world, Wally. I constantly think if he were here … and then it all comes back afresh. He is not here.’

  ‘And Your Majesty has to go on as he would wish. Oh, I can understand the tragedy of it all.’

  ‘Everything he wished, everything he planned shall be carried out.’

  It was Wally’s chance and she seized it. ‘He thought very highly of this match between the Prince of Wales and the Princess of Denmark. I had the honour to sit next to him when Your Majesty graciously allowed me to join the royal table and he spoke of this match then.’

  The Queen nodded.

  ‘I believe he would have been pleased with the Princess. I think her quiet manner, her good upbringing … all that would have carried weight with him. When Your Majesty has seen for yourself …’

  The Queen sighed.

  ‘Would Your Majesty care to see the Princess and her family now?’

  Victoria nodded. ‘Give me your arm, my child.’

  Wally did so with alacrity.

  The Queen entered the room in which the guests were assembled. Her flowing black robes and her widow’s cap gave a sombre note to the proceedings – but not more so than the Queen herself. Her lips were turned down; there was no smile on her face at all.

  Alix was surprised at herself. She was not afraid of the Queen. She felt sorry for her. Poor Queen of England who was nursing her grief and wanted to go on doing so; who was torturing herself, turning her back on the consolations of life.

  Victoria looked at the tall graceful girl with the lovely hair, the graceful carriage and innocent blue eyes.

  She is charming, thought the Queen, so simply dressed, such exquisite manners and surely that was compassion in her lovely eyes?

  And the Princess’s father. This was the man who had once sought her in marriage. He was handsome and his daughter had inherited his charm. What an extraordinary situation! Bertie’s bride-to-be, the daughter of the man who might have been the Queen’s husband. Yes, she liked Prince Christian and she liked his daughter.

  And Princess Christian? The Queen looked at Louise severely. A domineering woman, she had heard; and no woman should domineer over her husband. It was the wife’s place to be subservient. Albert had felt that very strongly. In the beginning of their life together she had been very foolish and Albert had had to be very patient. She had in time learned the lesson which all women had to learn, but of course it was more difficult for queens.

  I believe she paints her cheeks! thought the Queen. How shocked Albert would have been. He hated any form of artificiality.

  The Queen’s manner was cool as she addressed Alexandra’s parents.

  ‘I can make no promises,’ she said, staring at Louise’s painted cheeks. ‘Everything will depend on whether the Prince of Wales feels sufficiently affectionate towards your daughter to accept her as his wife.’

  Leopold was on tenterhooks. If only Albert had been here he might have made her understand that Prince and Princess Christian were proud and dignified. They wanted this marriage, true; and so did the Queen’s ministers – and so had Albert – but they would not wish Alexandra to marry if she did not wish to, so there was no need to stress this point.

  The Queen looked severely at Alix. ‘You are young,’ she said, ‘and ours is a house of mourning. I do not believe it will ever be anything else. You never knew him and you cannot therefore understand what we have lost.’ She turned away to wipe her eyes and Leopold chose the moment to slip his arm through hers and ask if he might lure her away from the company for a while.

  She showed her eagerness to be lured. The interview was over, leaving a rather bewildered Prince and Princess of Denmark with their daughter strangely enough slightly less so.

  In their apartments Louise declared: ‘She was quite insulting.’ ‘She didn’t mean to be, of course,’ Christian defended her.

  ‘She may be the Queen of England but you will one
day be the King of Denmark. She seems to forget that. Poor Alix!’

  ‘Alix, my dear,’ said Christian, ‘if you wish to abandon this marriage you have only to say so.’

  ‘Oh no, Papa. I shall not be marrying the Queen.’

  ‘She will always be there.’

  ‘Bertie is quite different.’

  ‘Indeed yes,’ said Christian uneasily.

  ‘She kept staring at me as though there was something abnormal about me,’ complained Louise.

  ‘That’s because you’re my wife,’ replied Christian. ‘She might have been once but she married the incomparable Albert instead.’

  ‘Surely no one is as good as he is made out to be?’

  ‘He was in her eyes,’ said Alix.

  ‘She doesn’t seem to have upset you as she has the rest of us,’ said her mother.

  ‘No, she didn’t upset me. I think I could understand her.’

  As Louise said to Christian when they were alone, Alix was so eager to take Bertie that she would accept his mother at the same time.

  Alix put on a black dress for dinner.

  ‘My dear child,’ said Louise, ‘you look as though you’re in mourning.’

  ‘She is,’ replied Alix, ‘so perhaps we should be in sympathy with her.’

  Louise said: ‘Well, it is becoming. It shows up your skin and hair to perfection, and simplicity can sometimes be more effective than fuss and feathers – as Countess Danner might learn.’

  The Queen did not appear at dinner but afterwards she joined them.

  Her eyes lighted up with pleasure when she saw Alix in her black dress. She understood the gesture at once.

  ‘My dear child,’ was all she said, but there were tears in her eyes.

  And there was no doubt in the minds of all observers that Alix had come through the trying ordeal very well indeed.

  The Queen had shown her approval. She complained that Princess Louise was deaf and therefore difficult to talk to and that she painted her cheeks and she did not care for what she had heard of her; but Alexandra was charming and so was her father, though of course Denmark was not the most important of countries. However, Bertie might go on with his courtship.

  The Queen travelled on to Coburg to see Albert’s brother Ernest, whose conduct she was beginning to find most unsatisfactory now that Albert was not there to advise and criticise him. She visited once more the haunts of his childhood, wept over his relics in the Museum he had founded with his brother, and in fact wallowed afresh in her grief.

  Alix with her parents returned to the house they had rented in Ostend, and the very next day Bertie joined them there.

  Alix was happy. How different he was from his mother. It seemed so strange that he should be the son of a mother and such a father. No one could have been more unlike the sainted Albert. Thank heaven! thought Alix with a laugh.

  Bertie was amusing and light-hearted. He talked of his adventures in North Africa and the Far East – but he did not mention marriage. That was of course to be a more ceremonial affair. And almost immediately there was an invitation from Uncle Leopold for them to return to Laeken Palace and Alix realised that this was going to be the scene for the great occasion.

  Uncle Leopold was beaming with pleasure. The Queen’s departure had lifted a great cloud from the Palace. Now there would be a magnificent luncheon with all the guests arriving as arranged and a great deal of animated conversation and laughter. Uncle Leopold, as he usually did, talked a great deal about his ailments, but he did it in a manner which suggested they were like a lot of relations whose tiresomeness he found intriguing.

  After the luncheon he suggested that his guests might like to see the gardens and they all wandered out in little groups. Bertie and Alix were alone. She talked to him about the flowers, of which she was very knowledgeable, and finally they found themselves in a secluded grotto where Bertie suggested they sit down for a moment.

  ‘Alix,’ he said, ‘I think you know what I’m going to say. Will you marry me?’

  Alix was too straightforward to make a pretence of surprise.

  ‘If you are asking me because you want me to with all your heart, the answer is Yes. If it is because the Queen has commanded you to do so, it is No.’

  Bertie laughed and taking her hands kissed her. There was nothing inexpert about Bertie’s methods of kissing, and he could admirably convey his feelings by the act.

  ‘I think the answer is yes,’ said Alix laughing.

  Bertie kissed her again. She was the most beautiful Princess he had ever seen, he told her. When he saw her in the Cathedral he could not believe his good fortune.

  ‘And when I realised what it was all about nor could I.’

  ‘Then we are indeed the happy pair.’

  Bertie told her how he had been aware of her beauty before he had seen her – he was not counting those occasions in their childhood when he had been too obtuse to notice her – because he had seen a picture of her. It must have been one of those photographs of royal people which were sold in shops because a friend of his was telling him about a young woman with whom he had fallen in love and had brought a picture out of his pocket to show him.

  ‘When I saw it,’ explained Bertie, ‘I thought it was the loveliest face I had ever seen. I said: “Why, she’s beautiful!” Then he saw what he had done. He had shown me the wrong picture. “That’s not my girl,” he said. “That’s a picture of the Princess Alexandra.”’

  It was a very happy quarter of an hour they spent in the grotto, and at the end of that time they had no doubt whatever that they were in love.

  They were radiant when they entered the Palace and were immediately sought out by Uncle Leopold who came towards them, limping effectively to call attention to his rheumatism, and embracing them both warmly.

  ‘My dear children,’ he said, ‘there’s no need to tell me. I know.’ And he thought: This could mean England will support Denmark if Prussia should stretch out its greedy hands to interfere with Schleswig-Holstein, which would be very much to the advantage of Belgium.

  The few days passed idyllically and then there must be separation.

  The Queen decided that Bertie and Alix must say good-bye and not meet again until the wedding day. It was most unseemly for them to be too much in each other’s company before they were married. Heaven knew what might happen. And she did not trust the Princess Louise, who had a reputation for being master in the house, and was deaf and painted her cheeks.

  As she progressed on her journey she grew a little startled because news of the betrothal had seeped out and the Germans were not pleased. Her welcome was lukewarm in spite of her flowing widow’s weeds and her sorrow. Ernest was most difficult. He didn’t approve of the Danish match at all, and had in fact brought forth a big rebuke from Albert in the last year of his life for attempting to interfere. Vicky was not very popular in Prussia, particularly now that it was known that she had had a hand in helping to arrange the marriage.

  Oh dear, the Queen had always wanted friendship with Germany because Albert was a German, she was half German herself, Vicky was married to one, her darling grandson Wilhelm was one. To be on bad terms with Germany was like a rift in the family.

  And as she went on her sorrowing way she grew more and more uneasy.

  The journey had done little to comfort the Queen. She had gone to the land of his birth, visited places which they had seen together, wept copious tears, talking of him incessantly; she had not expected to be happy, but she had expected sympathy. She would have to watch Ernest, who was ruling Saxe-Coburg in a most unsatisfactory manner. Albert had wanted his second son Alfred to inherit Saxe-Coburg on the death of Ernest and that meant of course that the dear angel looking down on her from his place of honour above would expect her to make sure that Alfred’s inheritance was not ruined before it came to him. Ernest had no children – which was not to be wondered at considering the life he had led. How different from his angelic brother! His debts were numerous. She must make
sure that when the time came Affie was not burdened with them.

  ‘Oh, Albert, my precious love, why are you not here to manage these matters? What can I do without you? What can England do without you?’

  She told her wardrobe maid, Annie MacDonald, that she longed to join him in the mausoleum at Frogmore. But Annie replied in that rather curt way which some of her favoured servants used towards her, ‘Well, M’am, you’ve got your duty to do. You’ve got the country to look after. And going and lying down there in Frogmore is not what the Prince would have wanted. He’d rather you stayed up here and got on with the work.’

  ‘Oh, Annie, you are right,’ she cried weeping.

  And she wondered what she could do without people like Annie and John Brown (dear Scots both of them) up at Balmoral who spoke to her in that familiar way which endeared them to her because it showed how faithful they were.

  She was certainly worried about Bertie. When had she not been worried about Bertie? Their eldest son had been an anxiety to them both. But for Bertie’s wicked conduct at the Curragh Camp … But she should not think of that because it made her so angry and she must try to think of what was best for the country – as Annie so rightly pointed out.

  Albert had said that if there was a match with Denmark the Princess Alexandra would have to understand that the Prince of Wales was marrying her and not her relations, which meant of course that whatever happened about Schleswig-Holstein would be no concern of England’s – that was no family concern. It might well be a political one.

  Did Alexandra understand this? The girl seemed docile. But she had that dreadful mother. A woman who painted her cheeks. What would Albert have said!