The Widow of Windsor (28 page)

Her ministers seemed impressed by Bertie’s popularity abroad and called him a good ‘ambassador’. She feared that meant behaving very frivolously but in her heart she had to accept the fact that Bertie did balance to a certain extent the disfavour into which the family had fallen by her love of seclusion and devotion to John Brown – so off Bertie went to Paris to open the British section of the Exhibition.

Alix, often feeling very ill, unable to walk without the aid of sticks, was a little depressed wondering what Bertie was doing in his favourite city. Paris, he had said, suited him better than any other foreign capital; he felt at home there; he believed he understood the mood of the people; and the Emperor and his wife always made him feel so welcome.

Bertie had always been devoted to Napoleon III. When he had visited Paris as a boy with his parents and had made the acquaintance of the Emperor he had said, rather to the embarrassment of the Emperor and those who heard him, ‘I wish you were my father.’ The Emperor remembered this and there was always a special friendship between him and the Prince of Wales.

So Bertie settled down to enjoy his visit which he did to such effect that Vicky, and Alice too, were soon expressing alarm at his behaviour and saying how sorry they felt for poor Alix.

While in Paris he met the Sultan of Turkey and the Khedive of Egypt who intimated that they would like an invitation to come to England. The Queen was disturbed. Bertie knew that she disliked the ceremonies which must take place during the sojourn of visiting potentates, but he considered the visits necessary. Once again the government was on Bertie’s side and it was decided that it would be a direct snub to Turkey to refuse to invite the Sultan and the Khedive.

‘Very well, then,’ said the Queen. ‘But they are Bertie’s responsibilities. He must take charge of them.’

The Queen’s ministers thought that in view of the Prince’s amiable nature this was a good idea; as for Bertie, he greatly looked forward to doing the honours. Alix would not be able to join in as they could have wished because her limbs were still painful, but her condition was improving and the Queen had agreed that if she maintained progress a visit to Wiesbaden would not be frowned on.

The Sultan was affable in the extreme; he was greatly taken with Alix and eyed her speculatively as though contemplating what a delightful addition she would be to his harem; he compromised by offering her one of his palaces in Constantinople where she could recuperate very happily, he was sure.

Bertie organised entertainments for the Sultan who was delighted with everything he saw. The Queen received him graciously at Osborne and declared that she would bestow the Garter on him.

When he heard what a great honour this was the Sultan was delighted and as the Spithead Review was about to take place Bertie thought it would be a good idea for the presentation to be made on board the Royal Yacht.

Bertie enjoyed making the arrangements; and Alice, who was visiting England with her husband, Prince Louis of Hesse, had to admit that Bertie had a way of enhancing such occasions. Bertie was at his best entertaining and if he was over-gallant to the prettiest women and pressed their hands too frequently and whispered to them what might well have been the arrangement of an assignation, this must not be stressed, because the Queen’s minister affirmed that when Bertie was a host or a guest, relations with foreign countries were always improved.

So it was with the Sultan. But even Bertie could not command the ocean.

Although it was the month of July the sea suddenly became grey; the wind had risen and the poor Sultan, unused to such conditions, began to feel queasy. It would be unthinkable to mention such bodily discomfort on such an occasion and he managed to stagger on deck.

Bertie whispered to Louis of Hesse that they had better get the ceremony over as quickly as possible and Louis agreed. But the Queen was unused to being hurried and was quite unaware of her guest’s discomfiture.

She came on to the deck with John Brown standing a pace behind her and the ceremony was about to begin.

The Queen said to her equerry: ‘You have the ribbon?’

The equerry replied that it was the second equerry who had the ribbon.

The Queen held out her hand but the second equerry stammered that he was of the opinion that it was the duty of the first equerry to hand the ribbon to the Queen.

Fortunately the Sultan felt too ill to notice this hitch in the proceedings and that the Queen was glaring at the equerries, and Bertie was clearly nonplussed.

John Brown’s raw Scottish accent broke the silence.

‘What’s all this mithering. Ye’ve nae brought the ribbon?’ He looked about him and seeing Prince Louis wearing the order which the Queen had bestowed on him, he quickly took it off the Prince and handed it to the Queen.

‘This one’ll do. He’ll nae know no difference,’ he said.

There was a second’s silence and then taking Louis’s ribbon from John Brown the Queen proceeded to bestow it on the Sultan.

The Queen was amused. She discussed the affair with Bertie and Alice.

‘It was so funny. The idea of those stupid men … They had forgotten to bring the ribbon … and there we all were. Really it was a most unprecedented situation. And then Brown, so resourceful
always
, took Louis’s. I shall never forget the astonishment on Louis’s face when Brown whipped it off. Tell your husband, Alice my dear, that he shall have his ribbon back. But how very clever of Brown. What we should have done if he had not been there to act so promptly I can’t imagine. But then it is not the first time that I have realised how very
much
I rely on him.’

‘Louis was astounded,’ began Alice. ‘Without a by your leave …’

‘My dear child, there was no time for by your leaves. That is the
virtue
of Brown, he never stops to consider what people will think. He sees the right thing to do and does it. I wish others were more like him.’

Bertie said he had told Alix about it and they had nearly died of laughing.

That any member of the family should nearly die of laughing now that the Prince Consort was dead would have been unthinkable if the person responsible for the mirth had not been John Brown.

As it was the Queen permitted herself to smile; and the outcome of that affair was that what might have caused a great storm and possible dismissals had been turned into a joke by what the Queen called the resourceful good sense of honest John Brown.

Shortly after the Sultan’s visit Bertie and Alix left for Wiesbaden, Alix having to be carried on board the Royal Yacht in a sedan chair which had been made for this purpose.

Fortunately the waters soon appeared to be having an effect and although it was still necessary to use her two sticks she could walk more easily. Her knee remained very stiff and she limped painfully but there was an improvement.

She was, of course, unable to lead a very social life and it was absolutely necessary for her to retire early. This quiet life was very irksome for Bertie during the first week or so and after that unbearable. He was so kind, so thoughtful, no one could have been more gentle and sympathetic but as soon as she was safely in bed he went off on his adventures.

His neglect of the Princess of Wales could not go unnoticed particularly as he was seen late at night in the company of ladies indulging in the highest of spirits which was hardly seemly when the poor Princess of Wales was an invalid.

Alice, now back in Darmstadt, was shocked by the stories which were filtering through. As was to be expected, Vicky was greatly alarmed. There were such scandalous reports of Bertie’s conduct, she wrote to her mother. Bertie was so flirtatious – and perhaps that was a mild way of expressing it; moreover he was gambling too heavily. He must be persuaded to stay away from the races.

The Queen wrote back firmly. She knew Bertie’s weakness. Dear Papa had known it and had done his best to curb it right until the end. It was always the same when Bertie was on the continent – not that his behaviour was any better at home, but it was easier to keep a rein on him there. She wrote to Bertie. He must stay away from those places where he could not be seen without losing his character.

Bertie wrote back jauntily – he could be flippant when he was away; it was when he was faced by that stern Majesty that he was nonplussed. ‘It is Vicky who has written to you. One would imagine she thought me ten years old instead of twenty-six.’

Bertie ignored the warnings.

Alix, aware of the scandal, was not very happy. She missed the babies – they were her great consolation, she was realising. It was unpleasant to have to suffer the pains of her limbs and that of humiliation besides, for there was no doubt she was humiliated. She loved Bertie. She had determined to from the beginning and it had not been difficult, for Bertie was always so charming to her. She had now to face the fact that Bertie could never love one person wholeheartedly. Bertie’s restricted childhood had resulted in a feverish desire to catch up with the good things of which he had been deprived for so long; and Bertie’s idea of the best in life did not agree with Alix’s. She liked the occasional ball, the banquet; she liked wearing her beautiful clothes and she enjoyed the admiration which had come her way since she had been Princess of Wales; but in her heart she knew that the really important things in life were not to be found at glittering balls and magnificent banquets and among friends who gushed admiration, respect and homage. Life in the Yellow Palace had taught her that and sometimes she thought sadly of all the simple pleasures of that comparatively humble household and sighed for them. She could find them in some measure in her nursery. The children’s growing dependence on her; the delight with which she was received in the nursery – these were the real joys of life. If only Bertie had agreed with her then they could have begun to build up a real happiness.

She was disappointed in her marriage, but she must not be foolish. She must take what she had and be grateful. No one, she supposed, could attain the complete ideal.

So she tried not to care too much as the scandals about Bertie’s gay life reached her; she never mentioned them to him and for this he was grateful; he loved her – as much as he was capable of loving a wife. She must be content with that.

Often she thought of her family and all the sadness which had come to them in the last few years. How was Dagmar faring in Russia? Was she happy? She knew that Willy had his trials in Greece. And dear Papa and Mama, how they had suffered!

To be young again; to be so poor that they made their own dresses; to change the new merino when one came in for fear of getting it spotted – how desirable that state of affairs sometimes seemed; to be a girl again, very poor, living in the heart of a family of which every member was more important to the others than all the riches and pomp of the world!

One must be content with less than an ideal. She had to keep repeating that to herself. She would try not to think of Bertie’s infidelities but one thing she would not do was show friendship to the Prussians who had treated her poor country so badly. When the Queen of Prussia called at Wiesbaden to visit the Prince and Princess of Wales, Alix refused point-blank to see her.

Bertie tried to remonstrate. ‘It’s important, Alix. It’s just a matter of being polite to them for a few minutes.’

‘Polite!’ she cried, her usually mild eyes stormy. ‘But I don’t feel polite to the people who have done their best to ruin my parents and my country.’

‘It’s not the monarchs. It’s their governments.’

‘They represent their country and I could never face my parents if I received them as friends.’

‘Come, Alix, be reasonable.’

‘No, no,
no
!’ declared Alix.

Bertie did not insist. He was always diffident about showing his authority. If there was a violent disagreement between them she might refer to those amatory adventures of which she must have heard hints. They must never be mentioned; while they were not it was as though, when they were together, they had not existed. So Bertie was patient and kind; and he explained to the King and Queen of Prussia that Alix had suddenly become so unwell that she was confined to her bed and unable to see them.