A Flaw in the Blood

by Стефани Баррон

  Albert refused, categorically, to forgive him for the affront—and could never meet him thereafter without distaste. And it is Palmerston who is to commend me for conduct becoming a Widow and a Sovereign!

  Being tired of prime ministers and their prosiness this Monday morning, and having signed a ridiculous number of papers I did not attempt to so much as read, I pleaded a paroxysm of grief, and quitted Lord Palmerston after only an hour.

  Yesterday's rain having quite left off, and the chill being not too great, I determined to set out on a walk through the Home Park—for refreshment, and the easing of disordered spirits. I succeeded in avoiding the Duchess of Atholl, and Lady Augusta Bruce; and should have accomplished my objective of exiting the Castle unobserved—had it not been for Alice.

  I did not apprehend, at first, that she had followed me.

  I thought myself quite alone as I made my way through the Lower Ward of Windsor, and slipped out by Henry VIII's gate; wandered through the dying remains of the garden, so desolate in winter, particularly after rain; and chose the path toward Frogmore.

  Frogmore House will be eternally blessed as the final residence of my dear departed Mama—who died there, but seven months ago, and to which I am given to wander when at leisure, in my grief for and profound communion with that excellent parent, whose loss must forever cut a chasm through my existence. The house, a fine white edifice, is perhaps a hundred years old—and once served as a sort of retreat for my grandmama and aunts, when they tired of Windsor and Grandpapa's mental infirmity. Here they held fêtes, for a select number of their intimate friends, and behaved rather as Marie Antoinette might have done, among her milkmaids—with the principal difference being, that they kept their heads. It seemed the aptest place to lodge Mama, when she had grown too old to manage in Belgrave Square; within the Home Park of Windsor, but not within the Castle itself.

  She is buried now in Frogmore's grounds—and the place seems a likely choice for Albert's mausoleum, which I intend to be very grand, in the Italianate style, with frescoes reminiscent of Raphael—a painter of whom my Beloved entirely approved. It is essential that no expense or effort be spared in the construction of this blessed Valhalla. I will have no one—exalted or low—question my devotion to that Angelic Being. I merely command them to marvel at this evidence of my fortitude.

  At Frogmore, I might visit Mama and Albert both, and weep over the betrayals and misunderstandings that divided us—the meddling of vicious interlopers—the loss of trust when love alone ought to have guided us.

  It was as I contemplated the idea of myself, bowed low before the awful entombment of my heart, admired in the eyes of a sorrowing and grateful nation—that I became aware of a Presence near me.

  Not Alice; I had not yet perceived her black-garbed and ruffled form as I descended the steps of Frogmore House. I ought, perhaps, to have gone first to Mama's grave—but I preferred to sit instead in her dear yellow sitting room, shrouded in silence. It was here in the first days after her death I relived, with what fresh agony, every particular of my childhood; for it was my Duty to go through her things. To read her letters. Her journals. To comprehend, once again, in turning the pages of her account books, how deeply exploited I was by one who ought to have made my protection her sole object in life.

  It was not her shade who troubled me now. The Presence I discerned, on the fringe of sight, was living enough—one of Windsor's under-gardeners. He had been scything the dead grass at the base of Mama's rose bushes, and had built a little pyre of sticks on which to burn the rubbish. Having already lit this bonfire before my solitary and august figure appeared to disturb his honest labour, he now stood in confusion, cap in hand, all but disguised by acrid smoke.

  I approached him unwaveringly.

  “What is your name?”

  “Albert, Ma'am.”

  Divine Token! I was moved—I was startled—I reached out a hand as if to touch his shoulder—and said: “We observe that you are already gone into black. That is very well done of you . . . Albert. We are deeply moved, for His Sake.”

  The lad bent on one knee, his eyes fixed on the ground, his entire frame trembling. While he was venerating his sovereign thus, I reached into the capacious pocket of my black bombazine and withdrew a small clutch of artificial flowers—replete with bright leaves picked out in Scheele's Green—and cast them onto his bonfire.

  Had I known Alice observed me, I might have chosen another time and place.

  “Mama.” She emerged from a little coppice as I processed back up the path through the Home Park, my cloak drawn close about my shoulders against the cold—which, with the advancing afternoon, was now penetrating in an unusual degree. Her countenance was extremely pallid, and the shadows beneath her eyes as profound as though etched in charcoal. She wore no bonnet or cloak, and was shivering.

  “Alice, my dear child! What are you doing there, loitering in the woods?”

  “I saw you leave the Lower Ward from my bedchamber window. I was—anxious. I did not like to see you quite alone, Mama.”

  “And so you determined to spy upon me?”

  “—To ensure, merely, that you came to no harm.”

  “And is the threat of violence so general, on Windsor's grounds?”

  Her hands twisted nervously. “Your ladies-in-waiting are searching everywhere for you, Mama. Conceive their apprehension—that in the depths of despair—in the first agony of Papa's passing—you might quite unconsciously do violence to yourself. When it was discovered that you were gone from the Castle—”

  I drew myself up as much as possible, given my lack of inches. “I have been in the habit of visiting your dear grandmama's grave, surely, on any number of occasions since the Sad Event. I do not recollect that I have ever made of such visits a grand party.”

  “No, Mama.” She studied my visage intently, her expression doubtful. “Can you assure me that you are quite well?”

  “Despite the trifling matter of having lost my All-in-All—I am perfectly well.”

  “You spoke to the under-gardener, I collect.”

  “Consider of this, Alice: His name is Albert.”

  “How very singular!” She stepped backwards a pace. “Was it for that reason you placed some artificial flowers on his fire? I observed you. Were they my flowers? Those Violet reported as missing?”

  “Perhaps.” I shrugged. “I have no way of knowing.”

  “Burnt them, Mama?” she cried, her pent emotions bursting forth in a hideously uncontrolled manner. “Did you think to save me from my worse nature? Can you truly believe me capable of wearing such gaudy stuff, when plunged in the deepest mourning for beloved Papa?”

  “Alice, do you know where I found those flowers?”

  She looked all her bewilderment. “In my dressing room, I must suppose.”

  “I found them in Papa's little study—his cabinet, as he called it. Set into a vase of water. Is that not extraordinary?”

  She turned her head abruptly, as though I had hurled an insult. “It is altogether absurd!”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “Quite so. If you think a little—you will understand why I thought it expedient to burn your flowers.”

  She met my eyes then, but doubtfully, and not without fear.

  I swept on my way back up to the Lower Ward. I must hope that Alice will take from this a useful lesson—that she will no longer presume to dog my footsteps and overlisten to my private conversations. Or to suspect me of such a despicable crime as suicide.

  “Have a care, Alice,” I threw over my shoulder in parting. “The air grows cold, and the place far too lonely. You might just catch your death.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The door knocker of the house in Great Ormond Street was wrapped in black crepe, but von Stühlen thought nothing of this; most of the houses in London were similarly shrouded with dusky bunting hung from windows and gas lanterns. Strange, to think that this morning an entire Kingdom wore black for Albert. Von Stühlen could no longer m
ourn him; his Albert had died long ago.

  It was Tuesday, the seventeenth of December, and until the Prince Consort was buried on the twenty-third, no sign of gaiety or Christmas cheer would break the City's ochre-coloured gloom. That was a pity; because Albert had always loved Christmas. Loved winter. Von Stühlen had known him to build snowmen twice as high as himself—to pull his children shrieking on sledges—to challenge von Stühlen to bouts of ice hockey: the two of them slashing at each other's heads, shouldering each other into drifts as they'd done on the river in Bonn during their student days, their skates carving deep rifts in the soft English ice. Albert furious and laughing as he fell on his backside, until the early northern darkness made concession possible.

  He felt a sharp stab of yearning for that vanished boy, who'd been awkward and tongue-tied as von Stühlen himself had never been; the boy so lost in ideas he'd found it difficult to speak. Albert had never made friends easily—so they meant the world to him. He'd cherished his rare connexions, accorded them an insane loyalty; there were times von Stühlen was convinced Albert would die for him. He understood nothing of that impulse; Albert's ideals were like another language, foreign to his friend's ear from birth.

  Contrary to what the world believed, Albert and Wolfgang had almost nothing in common—except circumstance. They were both second sons of German nobles. Both raised without expectations by impoverished and high-living fathers. Wolfgang's had communicated almost every conceivable vice, along with an air of impeccable fashion and a refusal to be bested; Albert's had left him as innocent as a stray pup. Why they formed their inexplicable bond during their schooldays, von Stühlen could hardly say. He had been the leader, then; it was Wolfgang—popular, wild, confident—who had singled out the silent boy and carried him carelessly along in the train of his perpetual entourage, exposing Albert to the vagaries of the world with ruthless enthusiasm. The Duke's second son was an unwilling pupil. His virtue, von Stühlen remembered someone saying, is indeed appalling; not a single vice redeems it.

  When he'd learned that Albert was to be sacrificed at twenty to an ugly little harpy—torn from his studies and shipped off as the British Royal stud—he'd tried to get his friend drunk and tuck him up with a whore. Albert had partaken sparingly of the wine and paid the woman off with gentle courtesy.

  Why? von Stühlen demanded of himself now. Why did I ever waste a thought on so drab a soul? Albert's brother, Ernest, was far more his kind—a rakehell already nursing a mortal case of pox. Albert was kind-hearted and gentle, qualities von Stühlen despised. He intrigued and confounded von Stühlen; his pursuit of the ideal—his unswerving devotion to its demands—suggested something dangerously like the existence of God.

  In all the stupidity of twenty, von Stühlen had actually pitied Albert as he sailed that October from Antwerp. He had rejoiced in his own freedom to make what he could of his fortunes. It was only later, watching as his friend came into his Kingdom—as all the realms of heaven and earth opened themselves at Albert's feet—that von Stühlen understood how bitterly Fate had cheated him. He was still an impoverished second son; Albert commanded the world.

  He glanced the length of Great Ormond Street as he stepped down from his equipage and handed the reins to his groom. It was empty of life. Why leave the fire, when most of the shops were still closed? Ladies of quality collected in one another's drawing rooms, linen handkerchiefs at the ready, to debate the proper mode of mourning dress and how best to salvage the Season; their men posed uneasily in clubs. Talk was solely of this death: Even the bloody civil war in America had been consigned to the ash bin. Most of the predictions and chatter skirted one essential fear. Von Stühlen tasted it in the silence of every room he entered: All London was dreading the future with Victoria.

  She was rumoured to be mad. Whispered reports from the intimates of Court let it be known that grief—the loss of a loved one—completely unhinged her. That she reveled in melancholy, retreated into sorrow, obsessed over death and her own pitiable loss until nothing and no one—particularly her children—could reach her. How would the Queen rule without the one man who had forced her to do so? That was the chief question in Pall Mall; neither Whig nor Tory had a cheerful answer.

  She will follow him soon to the grave, von Stühlen said, when pressed for his opinion. That is all the consolation left her. His audience always nodded in relief.

  He mounted the broad front steps of Septimus Taylor's house and lifted the muffled rod of brass.

  * * *

  “It's good of you to come, Count, I'm sure,” said the butler as he studied von Stühlen's card doubtfully in the front hall. “Are you a client of my master's, perhaps?”

  “More of a social connexion. We have been in the habit of dining together at the Reform Club.”

  “Ah! The Reform! Naturally, sir. I was forgetting Mr. Taylor's numerous cronies. Thus far this morning it has been only family—Mr. Taylor's nephews, and Mrs. Rutledge. You'll be the first true call of condolence; I'll make certain Mrs. Rutledge sees your card.”

  “And Mrs. Rutledge is . . . ?”

  “His daughter, sir.”

  “Ah.” Von Stühlen's good eye flicked around the narrow hall, which offered a handsome staircase and nothing more; the principal rooms were above. A marble-topped table, claw-footed and carved in walnut, stood beneath the stairs; there was a porcelain bowl ready to receive callers' compliments, a small pile of post. “When did Mr. Taylor—”

  “At twelve minutes past two o'clock in the morning, sir. He went very quietly—never regained consciousness, though Doctor remained hopeful to the last. A great loss, sir—and to depart in such a way!” Overcome, the butler withdrew his handkerchief from his coat and buried his nose in it. “Those ruffians! Hanging's too good for 'em!”

  “Indeed. And the police—?”

  “Are at sixes and sevens.” The butler's indignant face emerged from his linen. “They wished most earnestly to speak to Mr. Fitzgerald—he's Mr. Taylor's partner, and found him at death's door in chambers—but Mr. Fitzgerald has been called away!”

  “Very odd,” von Stühlen observed. “Have you an idea of Mr. Fitzgerald's direction?”

  “I received it only this morning, in the post.” The butler lifted an envelope from the stack of correspondence and peered at it nearsightedly. “Shurland Hall, Eastchurch, Isle of Sheppey. Perhaps Mr. Fitzgerald is spending Christmas among friends . . . ?”

  * * *

  It was clear, by that Tuesday morning, that Georgiana was ill—so ill she was unable to leave her bed, and Mrs. Coultrip was obliged to wait upon her.

  Fitzgerald loitered in hallways, anxious for news of her condition; heard the sound of ragged breathing through her open door; sent queries and good wishes by Mrs. Coultrip; and finally salved his restless spirit by sitting in the library and poring over Channel charts, decanter near at hand. He had just determined to drive into town and find a doctor to examine Georgie, when Theo wandered through the library door.

  “Are you fleeing your creditors, Father,” the boy demanded, with an eye to the charts, “—or are clients so thin on the ground, you've no reason to tarry in London?”

  He's determined to offend, Fitzgerald thought. Don't take the scent.

  “With the Prince dead, little will be heard at the Bar in coming weeks,” he replied mildly. “Tell me of Balliol, Theo—how do you get on? Read anything good this term?”

  “Social theory,” the boy drawled. He hadn't bothered to take a chair. “Ethnology and anthropology. James Hunt. Robert Knox. Mackintosh. Ever heard of them?”

  “Can't say that I have.”

  “But then, your education was always deficient.”

  “That it was,” Fitzgerald returned, keeping his temper in check, “but I put enough by, all the same, to send you to school. What do these Hunts and Knoxes teach you, then?”

  Theo smiled faintly. “That England and Ireland are forever divided by the national character of their peoples—the reasoned, ordered, civili
zed Anglo-Saxon having nothing in common, by blood or habit, with the savage Celt. Mackintosh adds that where the Anglo-Saxon is a model of prudence, self-governance, and industry, the Celt is utterly alien—being prone to wild rages, persistent melancholy, indolence, and an undue veneration for the whip.” He eyed the half-empty decanter. “Not to mention drink. What do you say to that, Father?”

  Fitzgerald sank back in his chair and stared up at his son. “I'd say that any people as subject to the English whip as the Irish have been, for time out of mind, ought to be melancholy and enraged. Do you enjoy this kind of study, Theo?”

  “I suppose it helps to answer youth's eternal question,” he retorted. “Who am I? I can't help but wonder, with such parents as mine.”

  “You're a good deal more than the sum of Maude and me, lad.”

  “True. As I've said—every man is the result of generations of bloodline and history. Mine is both aristocratic and mongrel—so I repeat, Father: Which am I?”

  “Whatever you aspire to be,” Fitzgerald answered bluntly. “Or so I have always found.”

  His son's eyes danced over him mockingly, in search of something Fitzgerald could not see in the outline of his features. “In the prognathous jaw and dusky skin of the black Irish, as they're called, one can trace the descent from a common ancestor of the Negroes. But Mama spared me that indignity. I will always be recognised for a Hastings.”