The Widow of Windsor (41 page)

‘I am here, my son, Mama is here to nurse you, so you will get well.’

He held up his face to hers. How could she refuse to kiss her own son at such a moment?

Alice had caught the infection. When the Queen heard this news she was alarmed.

She sent for Bertie and Alix. ‘She looked so frail when she was here in the summer. I warned her. I should have commanded her to come here. That house of sickness was no place for her.’

‘She wouldn’t have come, Mama,’ pointed out Alix.

‘I trust my daughter would have obeyed me.’

Alix shook her head. ‘She would never have left her family.’

The Queen was silent; then she said suddenly: ‘Do you know what the date is?’ And she began to shiver.

‘Why, Mama,’ said Bertie, ‘it is the twelfth of December.’

‘In two days’ time,’ she said, ‘it will be the fourteenth – the anniversary of your father’s death. It was on the fourteenth of December that we feared so for you, Bertie. Your crisis came then when we had all but given you up. And in two days’ time it will be the fourteenth again and Alice lies close to death.’

‘Mama, it can’t be. How could it be?’ said Bertie.

But the Queen was sure. There was something malignant for her about the 14th of December. That day had been the most wretched of her life; on it she had lost the Beloved Being; life had ended for her on that day, she had often said. And wasn’t it true that on the 14th she had nearly lost her eldest son? A miracle had happened then. And now … Alice!

‘Mama,’ said Bertie, very tender as he knew how to be on such occasions, ‘a miracle will happen again.’

The Queen sat in her room, praying, waiting for the miracle. She read her journals of that dreadful day seventeen years ago – the first fateful 14th of December. She had sat by his bedside, refusing to believe it; turning away from the blank misery which opened at her feet like a deep yawning pit.

‘Please, God,’ she prayed, ‘please,
Albert
, you saved Bertie. Leave me Alice.’

On the 13th there was no news from Hesse Darmstadt. The Queen went to the Blue Room in which Albert had died and she lived it all again and instead of that dearly beloved face on the pillows she saw that of Alice.

She had looked so ill even in the summer after the good air of Eastbourne. How would she have the strength to get through the illness? Only a miracle could save her. There
must
be a miracle.

She could not sleep that night. She kept saying: ‘Tomorrow will be the fourteenth.’ She could not stay in bed. She knelt by the bed in the Blue Room and prayed.

She must make a pretence of eating breakfast. Brown would scold her if she did not.

Brown came to her holding a telegram.

She snatched it.

‘I see by your face it’s nae good news,’ he grumbled and even at such a time she noticed the deep concern on his good honest face.

‘Ye’ll be ill yerself, woman,’ he said, ‘if you don’t give over grieving. Let me get you a cup of tea.’

And he got her what he called his special tea and in spite of everything she remembered how she had once complimented him on the best tea she had ever tasted. It was during one of their trips when they had boiled the water by the wayside. ‘It should be good,’ he had said with a grin, ‘it’s laced wi’ good Scotch whisky.’

And that was the sort of tea that Brown always made for her.

He made it now and she drank and felt a little comforted. But not for long.

There was another telegram.

At half past seven on the 14th of December, the seventeenth anniversary of her father’s passing, Alice had died.

The Queen called the family together and told them the terrible news. Leopold sobbed unashamedly, so did Alix, who could never bear tragedy in the family. Poor Bertie was heartbroken; Alice had always been a special favourite of his.

The story of how she had caught the infection was told and the Queen said how typical it was of her. Alice had always sacrificed herself.

How comforting was Lord Beaconsfield who lost no time in hurrying to the Queen to offer his condolences. They wept together and she told him of the virtues of Alice, so very much her father’s daughter. They had shared that quality of saint-liness, so rare in human beings. And they had both died young.

‘Alas, it is often so,’ said Lord Beaconsfield.

‘But fortunately not always,’ she assured him, gazing up into his wrinkled old face.

The speech he made in the House of Lords was so touching that she had a copy of it sent to her that she might read it again and again.

‘My lords, there is something wonderfully piteous in the immediate cause of her death. The physicians who permitted her to watch over her suffering family enjoined her under no circumstances to be tempted into an embrace. Her admirable self-constraint guarded her through the crisis of this terrible complaint into safety … She remembered and observed the injunctions of her physicians. But it became her lot to break to her son, quite a youth, the death of his youngest sister, to whom he was devotedly attached. The boy was so overcome with misery that the agitated mother clasped him in her arms, and thus she received the kiss of death.’

‘How beautiful,’ said the Queen. ‘Only Lord Beaconsfield could write so movingly.’

She thanked him and they talked at great length about the strangeness of the date. Lord Beaconsfield felt that there was some hand of fate in it. The Prince Consort, he was sure, was watching over her.

‘I like to believe that,’ she told him.

‘You may be assured of it, Madam.’

‘As Mary Anne is watching over you.’

He nodded solemnly. ‘He left you the Prince of Wales,’ he went on. ‘He escaped the fateful day; but for some reason the Princess Alice was taken from you.’

‘She is so young to die,’ protested the Queen.

‘As that beloved saint her father was.’

‘And on the same day,’ said the Queen in an awed whisper.

‘The fourteenth of December,’ murmured Lord Beaconsfield.

The Queen held out her hand to him; he took it and kissed it.

‘You are a great comfort to me, Lord Beaconsfield,’ she told him.

‘Life will only be important to me,’ he said earnestly, ‘while I can be so.’

Dear Lord Beaconsfield! When the time came she would send a very special message with the primroses which always went to him from Osborne – the first of the season, picked by her own hands.

She would never forget that beautiful speech of his about the kiss of death.

Chapter XX

‘HIS FAVOURITE FLOWER’

The Queen tried not to brood on the death of Alice. She died as she would have wished, she said, serving her family. It was what one would have expected of Alice.

Lord Beaconsfield suggested that Lord Lorne would be a good Governor-General of Canada which would mean that he and Louise would leave the country. She was a little dubious. She had just lost one daughter to death and she did not like to think of another being so far away; but that was the fate of royal children. Daughters were always taken from their parents.

There was a great deal in the country’s affairs to cause her anxiety. A war had broken out with the Zulu rising; and the Prince Imperial, son of the widowed Empress Eugénie, was slain in a very distressing way – he was hacked to pieces by the knives of savages. She hated war but Lord Beaconsfield pointed out that it was impossible to maintain a position as the leading world power possessed of an Indian Empire and colonies without being continually engaged in minor wars of this nature.

She saw the point of that and Lord Beaconsfield had made her fully aware of the growing Empire. Victoria Regina et Imperatrix was not mistress of a small state, she must remember; she was the mighty Queen and Empress who ruled a large proportion of the world. Lord Beaconsfield would like to see those boundaries grow wider and of course he was right.

‘I plan to see you at the head of the European community,’ he told her. ‘It is absolutely necessary to the peace and well-being of the world that you should be.’

Unfortunately Mr Gladstone was of the opposite view. He went about the country preaching peace. ‘Peace at any price,’ said the Queen. ‘Really, men like Mr Gladstone are
dangerous
.’

What she did not realise was that Mr Gladstone’s policies were winning approval and that since Mr Disraeli had become Lord Beaconsfield, his ministry had been considerably weakened.

No one was more aware of this than Lord Beaconsfield. He was old and tired and far from well, and decided that he could only carry on with an increased majority. He decided therefore to go to the polls.

The Queen felt that she must visit Alice’s stricken family and left for Hesse Darmstadt. Two of her granddaughters, Victoria and Ella, miraculously recovered from diphtheria, were to be confirmed and she wished to attend the ceremony.

How very sad it was to be greeted by the children in their deep mourning and the sadness in their faces. Poor motherless children! They only had Louis now, and he had never been a strong man.

She wanted to hear in detail an account of Alice’s passing and the children took her to the room in which their mother had died.

‘It is exactly the same as when she occupied it, Grandmama,’ said Ella. ‘We are going to keep it thus.’

‘I am glad,’ said the Queen. ‘Your dear grandpapa’s room is just as it was when he died in it although that is a very long time ago – it will soon be twenty years since he left me desolate and you children without the guidance of the best man in the world. Why, your mama and papa were married after his death … very shortly after. It was the saddest wedding I ever attended.’

The children looked suitably solemn and many tears were shed talking of their mother.

She continued to indulge in memories of the past and talked constantly of the saintly grandfather the children had never known. They could understand now that they had personal experience of the loss of a dear one.

When the results of the election were telegraphed to her she received a great shock. It could not be. This was a mighty defeat. The government had been trounced at the polls and the Liberal and Home Rule party had a majority of 166 over the Tories.

‘It is absolutely incredible,’ cried the Queen. ‘Has the country gone mad!’

She realised what this would mean – the loss of her Prime Minister. Her dear friend and comforter would be taken from her, because the new Prime Minister would never allow her to be constantly in the company of the Leader of the Opposition.

‘
My
government defeated,’ she mourned, ‘and what will replace it?’ She set her lips obstinately together. ‘One thing I shall not accept. I would abdicate rather than accept Mr Gladstone as my Prime Minister.’

Her secretary, Sir Henry Ponsonby, tried to put the case as tactfully as he could. It seemed almost inevitable that Gladstone would be the next Prime Minister. It was unfortunate that the Queen should so dislike him; but she had learned before that the will of the people would have to be obeyed.

Abdication, said the Queen, seemed the only answer. How could she possibly work with that man?

There were other possibilities, Sir Henry suggested. There was Hartington; there was Lord Granville.

‘I don’t like either of them,’ she said. ‘Granville has worked against my wishes. As for Hartington, he has been far too friendly with the Prince of Wales – one of the Prince’s friends whom I would rather he did not see so frequently. The whole world knows of his liaison with the Duchess of Manchester and do you think that is a pleasant way for a Prime Minister to behave? There have been other rumours about him too. Wasn’t he at one time enamoured of a creature called Skittles?’

Sir Henry remarked that quite a number of gentlemen had been enamoured of that lady.

She knew that he was referring to Bertie, who had been one of the woman’s admirers. A very good-looking creature by all accounts, and Hartington had left the Duchess of Manchester for her but had returned to the Duchess when he had tired of the Skittles person. It really was rather disreputable.

There was nothing to be done but to return home immediately where at least she could see Lord Beaconsfield. He looked so pale and melancholy that she felt the need to comfort him. ‘
Dear
Lord Beaconsfield, this is my tragedy as well as yours,’ she told him.

He kissed her hand; there was sad longing in his eyes. He knew this was farewell to The Faery.

She talked of Mr Gladstone. ‘I would rather abdicate than accept him,’ she declared.

‘
Dear
Madam,’ said Lord Beaconsfield, tenderly reproachful. Then he advised her to send for Hartington. After all Gladstone had resigned the party leadership some time ago so she need not send for him. If she could reconcile herself to Harty Tarty she might give him a trial.

‘Such a ridiculous name! How could any man be serious with a name like that? He is a most immoral man too with his Skittles and his irregular union with the Manchester woman!’

To cheer her Lord Beaconsfield told her how Skittles had acquired her name; she had quarrelled with some soldiers and had threatened to knock them down like a row of skittles. ‘Only, of course, her language was such that I would not care to repeat to Your Majesty.’

‘And this is a woman with whom our would-be Prime Minister’s name has been linked!’

‘His Highness the Prince of Wales once carried out a practical joke on Hartington. I am sure Your Majesty would be amused to hear of it. The Prince and Princess were visiting Coventry (Hartington was in his suite) and the Prince had asked that when they toured the town they should be taken to a bowling alley. When they reached the alley the Mayor invited Hartington to show his skill. Hartington said he had no idea what had to be done at which the Mayor exclaimed: ‘But His Royal Highness was insistent that you should be brought here as a tribute to your Lordship’s love of skittles.’ The joke has been repeated up and down the country.’

The Queen could not repress a smile. She and Albert had been very fond of practical jokes, and Bertie had inherited their love of them. It was rather funny – though not the sort of joke that should be played out on a future Prime Minister.

Then she was melancholy thinking how pleasant it was chatting with dear Lord Beaconsfield and how he reminded her of long ago when Lord Melbourne had been her Prime Minister – and what was more important, her friend.

How could she ever feel friendship towards the ridiculous Harty Tarty, Granville (who had been given the equally ridiculous name of Puss) or worst of all Mr Gladstone, to whom no one could give a frivolous name but Gladdy – which was meant of course to be ironical.

She sent for Hartington; she sent for Granville. They could not take office, they explained. There was one man the people wanted. They called him The People’s William. They referred to Mr Gladstone.

She dismissed them; she brooded. Oh, if only Albert were here to guide her! She remembered the Bedchamber Affair before her marriage when she was a very young and inexperienced Queen.

She knew what was coming. A Queen must bow to the will of the people and the people wanted Gladstone.

She must do her duty. She could, of course, abdicate, she had threatened it often, but in her heart she knew she never would, so she sent for Mr Gladstone.

He took her hand and kissed it; she turned away that she might not look at him while this act, so necessary to etiquette, so repulsive to her personal feelings, was performed.

She noticed that he looked haggard. She was certainly not going to ask him to sit down. She addressed him coldly; there was a distant look in her eyes, when he talked, as though she were not listening; and all the time she was thinking: He defeated
my
government. They have taken Lord Beaconsfield from me and given me this man.