The Widow of Windsor (15 page)

Alix could not stop thinking of the Queen, and how sad it was for her at such a time. When her son was about to marry naturally she would be thinking of her own marriage and her desolation would be great. It seemed wrong to feel gay with the others. She asked Lenchen where the Queen would be and Lenchen replied that she was in the Royal Closet where she spent so much of her time brooding on the past.

Acting on impulse Alix slipped away from the company and went to the Royal Closet. When she knocked on the door, an imperious voice demanded: ‘Who is there?’ Alix opened the door and stood on the threshold of the room for a second; then she went to the humped figure in the flowing black robes and kneeling looked up into that melancholy face.

‘I wanted to tell Your Majesty that I kept thinking of you and your sorrow … at such a time …’

The tears began to fall down the Queen’s cheeks. She bent forward and kissed Alix. ‘Dear sweet child,’ she murmured. ‘So graceful, so beautiful and so
feeling
.’

It was very soon clear that the Queen had taken Alix to her heart.

It was Sunday, a day when the dead should be remembered even more frequently than during the week. The Queen decided that Alix and her future bridegroom should pay a visit to the mausoleum that afternoon.

The Queen took Alix’s arm and showed her round, while she extolled the virtues of the Prince Consort. Bertie yawned in the special way he had, keeping his mouth closed. He had explained to Alix that it was a habit necessary for royalty to master. There were so many occasions when it was impossible to suppress yawns completely, and the oft-repeated enumeration of his father’s virtues was high on the list.

Back at the castle the Queen talked of the wedding, which would be a very sad occasion. She recalled Vicky’s wedding. How different! With her father beside her (looking magnificent in uniform) loth to give her away but at the same time steeling himself to do so. Nothing would ever be the same again.

The wedding was to take place in St George’s Chapel, Windsor. The Queen, in whose company Alix often found herself, admitted that there was a great deal of complaint about the place chosen.

So many people wished it to take place in London because they didn’t want the trouble of coming down to Windsor. ‘But Windsor it is to be,’ said the Queen. ‘How could I
bear
such a ceremony in the Chapel Royal St James’s where I was united to my angel? And as for all the fuss and bother of St Paul’s, I just could not face that. The people must understand that I must have seclusion in my grief.’

Alix was afraid that the Queen was going on to the familiar theme of the Consort’s virtues but on this occasion it was avoided by an adroit turn of the conversation which brought it back to the dresses of the bride and the bridesmaids.

Members of the family were arriving at Windsor. Vicky and her husband had come with their four-year-old son Wilhelm, who was a great favourite with the Queen, though Alix could not understand why for she secretly thought him a rather unpleasant little boy. There was her own brother Valdemar, the same age as Wilhelm, whom the latter regarded with animosity; but both the boys were kept in order by young Beatrice, known as Baby to her mother and brothers and sisters, but who with the advent of these slightly younger children had suddenly found herself almost grown up. Ten-year-old Leopold and thirteen-year-old Arthur were aloof from the nursery but they now and then delivered lordly reprimands when the conduct of Wilhelm became violent.

Valdemar declared that he didn’t want to go to the wedding unless he could bring his donkey, while Wilhelm cast acquisitive eyes on the animal and decided that since it was such a favourite with Valdemar it ought to be his.

The presents were arriving. The Queen gave the bride an opal and diamond bracelet, and the City Corporation presented her with a diamond necklace worth £10,000; the Royal Nurseries who provided the bouquet, which was made up of orange blossom, orchids, lilies of the valley, rosebuds and myrtle, presented it in a holder of crystal set with diamonds, emeralds and coral. This holder was a gift from the Maharajah Dhuleep Sing. Bertie came to her sitting-room, one hand behind him, and turning her round so that she had her back to him swiftly placed something on her head. She caught a glimpse in the mirror of a tiara of diamonds. She gasped with delight.

‘But, Bertie, I am not
used
to such grandeur.’

Bertie laughed at her and then gave her a necklace, ear-rings and a brooch of pearls and diamonds.

While she was gasping out her bewilderment he produced the keeper ring, which was large and set with six stones, and put it on her finger.

‘Do you know what they stand for?’ he asked. ‘That’s beryl, that’s emerald, ruby, turquoise, jacynth and emerald. What does that spell if you take the first letters of each stone … except jacynth. There isn’t an “i” in stones.’

B.E.R.T.I.E. She spelt and then she began to laugh and threw her arms about his neck and hugged him.

‘In a most unroyal fashion,’ she said.

‘And all the better for that,’ commented Bertie.

‘Oh,’ she said seriously, ‘I am going to be so happy.’

The wedding day dawned bright and clear, though very cold. A special train had brought the guests down from London, complaining bitterly that it was a little inconsiderate to have the marriage of the heir to the throne out of London. ‘Have we got to go on for ever weeping for Albert?’

It seemed that he was not to be forgotten. The Queen had ordered that there was to be no gay music and that guests should not wear bright colours. Mauve might be worn as it was a mourning shade, with grey of course.

In the Chapel hung with purple velvet the Swedish singer Jenny Lind charmed all those present in the Chorale. In the royal box was a lonely figure draped in black, the only colour in her costume being the Order of the Garter ribbon across her breast. All were conscious of her but she sat mutely there, unsmiling, aloof.

She was remembering that other occasion when Albert had stood beside her at the altar tall and slim in his brilliant uniform, the most handsome being she had ever seen. Poor Bertie! He looked so undistinguished in comparison, though she admitted that she herself had not been as beautiful as dear sweet Alix. How enchanting the child looked in
Honiton
lace, tall, bearing herself so proudly, coming down the aisle with her father. Dear, beautiful creature.

The Princesses looked beautiful in their white gowns, so graceful, like white swans, and there was Baby Beatrice, looking anything but solemn – naughty little creature! Albert would have smiled to see her. So for the first time during the ceremony, the Queen herself smiled.

And there was Princess Mary of Cambridge leading the Princesses and looking quite magnificent with a lilac moiré train and her lace which the Queen was pleased was Honiton. A handsome creature but without a husband and getting fat, which was a family tendency, thought the Queen with a sigh. Even Albert had put on weight a little.

And there were the children, little Wilhelm between his two young uncles, Arthur and Leopold. How cleverly they disguised the little darling’s withered arm. What a tragedy that it had been damaged when he was being born. And what little men Arthur and Leopold looked! If only that angel had been down there she would have been there too, brilliantly dressed in diamonds and Honiton lace instead of up here in her dismal clothes.

And now it was almost too much to be borne because they were singing Albert’s own hymn, the one he had composed himself and which she had commanded should be a part of the service.

She withdrew farther into the closet and put her hands over her eyes. This was too much to be borne, she said to herself.

The ceremony proceeded and Bertie and Alix were married.

Vicky, Crown Princess of Prussia, wept openly; Alice, Lenchen and Louise, caught up in the emotion, did the same and Baby Beatrice, watching her sisters and feeling this was a part of the ceremony, began to sob with them. Lenchen laid a hand on her shoulder to quieten her, which surprised Baby, who audibly demanded to know why if the others cried she must not!

Valdemar was thinking of his donkey and believed that he had been for ever and ever in this funny place where they kept singing then talking and then crying. How much more sensible his donkey was. Wilhelm couldn’t understand what it was all about, but he did know that
he
was not being given sufficient attention.

He sat down on the floor and started to pull at Leopold’s kilt.

‘Stop it,’ whispered Leopold, at which Wilhelm promptly bit his leg.

Leopold gasped and Arthur looked down to see what was happening.

‘Get up!’ hissed Arthur; but by this time Wilhelm had discovered it was rather amusing to bite his uncle’s legs, so he set his teeth into Arthur’s flesh.

Together the youthful uncles endeavoured to pull him up; he opened his mouth to bawl, so they let him go; they made sure though that he should not get his teeth into their legs again. They exchanged glances: Little horror, said their eyes.

How delighted the children were when the ceremony was over and they could leave the Chapel for St George’s Hall where the wedding breakfast was to take place. Their fascinated eyes became fixed on the huge wedding cake, six feet high; Valdemar forgot his donkey and Wilhelm was silent with awe. The cake was more wonderful in their eyes than the beautiful floral decorations of orange blossom, myrtle, azaleas, snowdrops and jasmine which had been artistically placed about the room.

Alix left the company to take off her wedding dress and prepare for the journey to Osborne.

On this occasion her new sister Vicky and Cousin Mary of Cambridge helped her.

Alix was delighted that Mary was there – so magnificent, stately, handsome and kind. She was less sure of Vicky, who was half Prussian since her marriage and of course the Prussians were not friends to the Danes. Bertie had told her that he had always been compared to his detriment with his clever sister and for that reason she felt she could never really be close to Vicky.

Mary said it had been a wonderful ceremony and Alix had been admired from all sides. Everyone had commented on her poise, dignity and beauty.