The Widow of Windsor (21 page)

She was so happy to be there with Bertie. She wished they could stay for ever. Bertie was charming, they all agreed, and the simple life suited Eddy. The countryside was so beautiful and she kept asking Bertie if he didn’t admire this and that. Bertie always said he did but she could see the glazed look in his eyes which meant that his thoughts were elsewhere; and she knew that he found the homely Danish Court very different from Marlborough House. The simple country life was not for him. Where were the practical jokes, the lavish banquets, the racing, the gambling, the flirtatious pretty women? They were lacking, and although he was ready to endure a little of this for Alix’s sake he was longing to go home.

One day one of the men of his suite said to him, ‘Surely there is no place in the world as boring as Fredensborg?’

‘Oh,’ replied the Prince of Wales, ‘haven’t you been to Bernstorff?’

Bertie’s habit of yawning without opening his mouth was of good service to him. ‘Never mind,’ he would say to members of his suite, ‘we’ll soon be home.’

At home the Queen eagerly read accounts of how the Prince and Princess of Wales were being received in Denmark; and because she thought they had been there long enough and she was getting reports of Bertie’s outspokenness with regard to the Prussians towards whom he displayed a venom which almost matched that of his wife, she ordered them to leave at once for Stockholm. There they were to travel
incognito
and to stay at hotels and afterwards they must on no account omit a visit to their German relations.

Christian and Louise begged to look after little Eddy while they went to Sweden where it was already known that they were to arrive. Therefore the King of Sweden immediately invited them to his palace and treated them as honoured guests. He insisted on taking Bertie on an elk hunt and this was such a grand occasion – after Bertie’s own heart – that it was talked of not only in Sweden but beyond.

At home the Queen was fuming with rage. No sooner did she let Bertie out of her sight than he was in trouble. Had she not clearly said
incognito
; and there he was staying with the King of Sweden and attending public functions. As for Eddy, she was horrified that he should have been left behind with King Christian and Queen Louise. It was incredible. That child belonged not only to them but also to the nation and if he was not with his parents his place was at Windsor with the Queen. He should be sent back immediately. Lady Spencer could bring him home to Windsor.

Bertie was beginning to realise that he was entitled to have some say in the way he conducted his affairs. He wrote that it was undignified for the heir to the throne to stay at squalid hotels and they were all squalid in Sweden; as for the child, Alix could not bear to be parted from him and after all she was his mother. Surely the Queen would not wish to make Alix wretched and to slight the King of Sweden.

Bertie was getting impossible, said the Queen. In future she would have his orders made very clear before he was allowed to leave England.

On their return to Copenhagen they found that Dagmar had become officially engaged to Nicholas. There were congratulations and great rejoicing. The occasional banquet seemed to the Prince of Wales very meagre, but then of course the Danish royal family had just fought a losing war but he doubted whether they had ever been accustomed to much else. He was amazed that in spite of the humble manner in which she had been brought up, Alix could look as elegant as any woman he had ever seen in any company.

Nicholas invited them to Russia for the wedding.

‘It would be lovely if we could go, Bertie,’ said Alix.

Bertie said they would. He had always wanted to go to Russia.

The two girls spent a great deal of time together discussing weddings and trousseaux. It was so like the old times and if Dagmar had not been as delighted with her grand marriage as Alix had been with hers it would have been heartbreaking.

One day when Alix and Bertie came in from a ride the King said to them: ‘I have a visitor here to see you, Alix. I couldn’t let you leave Copenhagen without seeing him. He would be so upset.’

And there was Hans Christian Andersen bowing and smiling and looking overcome by the honour.

Alix was delighted and began telling Bertie how Hans had come to the Yellow Palace and told them stories and how he used to bring his books to show them when they appeared in foreign editions.

Bertie was gracious as he well knew how to be.

‘The Princess will be telling your stories to our son as soon as he is old enough to understand,’ he said.

With reluctance Alix said good-bye to her family.

The royal yacht sailed away and they came into Kiel harbour into those waters which until this year had been Danish and were now German, and according to nautical custom the Prussian flag was hoisted.

When Alix saw it she turned pale with anger.

‘That flag is to be removed at once,’ she said.

Bertie looked up at it, shrugging his shoulders. It was only courteous to fly the flag of a country when a ship was in its territorial waters, he pointed out.

‘These are Danish waters,’ she retaliated.

‘They were,’ said Bertie sadly.

‘They
are
,’ she insisted.

‘There’s nothing we can do about it,’ he said.

He was unprepared for her vehemence.

‘There is,’ she said. ‘I shall not leave this yacht until that flag is removed.’

Bertie sent for the Captain and asked him to explain the custom to the Princess of Wales. He left them together. Trust Bertie, she thought sadly, to escape from an unpleasant situation.

The Captain explained that while they were in Prussian waters the flag must fly.

‘It shall not fly,’ she said. ‘They are waiting for me on shore but I shall stay on the yacht until that flag is taken down and you know that.’

The guns were firing their salutes of welcome and the Captain recognised the determination in Alix’s eyes.

He gave orders that the flag should be lowered.

Alix was very uneasy. She thought the Queen should have spared them this. They did not go to Berlin of course. That would have been most unwise, for some of Bertie’s criticisms of the Prussians had been repeated there. Vicky and her husband, however, did have a brief meeting with them at Cologne. It took place on the railway station through which they had arranged to pass at the same time. At least they would satisfy the Queen that they had met.

Vicky was cool and restrained, remembering the unwise things Bertie had said about the Prussians. As for Alix she felt so sick at heart when she thought of her father’s sufferings that she could scarcely bear to look at them, especially as Fritz had come in uniform, wearing medals he had won in the war. It was fortunate that the meeting was so brief.

November had arrived by the time the
Osborne
brought them back to England. Alix was pregnant again.

While Bertie and Alix were still abroad the Queen had a pleasant surprise.

Her doctor, William Jenner, called on her and asked for her indulgence because after consulting with Sir Charles Phipps, the Keeper of the Privy Purse, he had taken an action which she might well feel he should not have taken.

‘Pray be more explicit,’ said the Queen.

‘We have been concerned for Your Majesty’s health,’ said Jenner, ‘and it is my firm belief that you need more fresh air. When you are at Balmoral you are so much better than you are here and we believe it is because you take more exercise. Now up in Scotland we know that you have a very trusty servant and they are hard to come by. We have taken the liberty of sending for one of your servants whom we trust to take the utmost care of Your Majesty.’

The Queen looked from one to the other in astonishment. That her doctor and the Keeper of her Privy Purse should decide on what servants she should have was incredible. Had they gone mad?

Dr Jenner said: ‘Of course if Your Majesty does not approve, Brown can be sent back without delay.’

‘Brown!’ said the Queen, her voice changing without her realising it.

‘John Brown, M’am, to whom we both feel we can entrust Your Majesty’s safety in the Highlands – so why not in the South as well.’

The Queen smiled. ‘Brown,’ she said, ‘is a very good and faithful servant.’

‘Your Majesty should get out more. He could drive you, or ride with you, as Your Majesty wished.’

‘It is quite a good idea,’ she admitted.

And when they had gone she felt elated. He really was the perfect servant.

Very soon he arrived and she asked that he be brought to her at once.

‘So here you are, Brown,’ she said. ‘I hope you’re going to like the South. I am sure you will find it very interesting.’

‘It’s nae the Highlands,’ said Brown.

‘Of course it is not the Highlands. But I’m very glad to see you here. I hope you are pleased to come.’

‘I’ll nae be knowing that till I’ve tried it,’ said Brown.

How she laughed when she was alone. He was so blunt. Of course he was so faithful, so loyal, no respecter of persons, not even that of the Queen, whom he would guard with his life. Albert had always said that he was the best gillie he had ever had – he and Grant that was, and Grant had been the head gillie.

Albert would be very pleased that she had this good and faithful servant with her at Osborne. After all, Jenner and Phipps were right. Why keep him in Scotland? Why should he not be with her wherever she was.

Everyone was noticing the change in her. She smiled more frequently; those about her were astonished by the calm manner in which she allowed Brown to discard ceremony. She would smile at him, admiring his firm chin. She had always admired firm chins and remembered how she used to study her own in the looking-glass until the Baroness Lehzen reproved her vanity. ‘It’s not vanity,’ she would say. ‘It’s the opposite. I dislike my chin. It’s so weak.’ It was the family chin, of course. Some of her uncles had had it; some of her children had it; so she could not be surprised that
she
had it. No wonder she admired Brown’s chin.

‘Brown,’ she said one day, ‘one can see you’re an obstinate man, by the way in which your chin juts out. It betrays a firmness of purpose.’