The Queen at War

by K. A. S. Quinn

  Whatever Alice and James were doing, it was taking hours. Katie had ample time to think, to wonder and remember. She had been here before, in Buckingham Palace, at the height of Queen Victoria’s reign. She’d made a great friend of the Queen’s young daughter, Princess Alice. And then there was James O’Reilly, the son of the Royal Household physician. She blushed slightly, thinking about James – stubborn, intelligent and none too keen on girls. Had she spent the entire time fighting with James? No – she could remember their spats, but also their friendship.

  It was still a jumble in Katie’s mind, but the events kept leaping out at her. New people, new places, and above all, danger. ‘The Black Tide,’ she muttered to herself. They said: ‘The Queen must die, and with her will die the inequality of mankind.’ But the Queen was still alive. And the Black Tide – were they still plotting against the Crown? Katie had no idea which year it was. How much time had passed? DuQuelle was of no help. He didn’t age. For all she knew, Alice could be a grown-up now and James married with children. She looked at her yellow flannel pyjamas and became horribly embarrassed. She’d been longing to see her friends, but now . . . Taking DuQuelle’s advice, she brushed her hands through her thick frizzy hair.

  A rustle of skirts caught her attention, the quick clip of heels and a heavier tread behind. They were coming. Oh, why hadn’t she put on one of those nice nightgowns, now lying in the bottom drawer of her bureau in New York? The door swung open and Alice was there. The moment Katie saw her friend she didn’t care about her pyjamas or her hair anymore. Alice was just the same, a little older, but the same sweet, grave, thoughtful Alice.

  ‘Katie!’ she cried, taking her by the shoulders and then giving her a hug. ‘My Katie! I knew you would come!’

  James was standing behind the Princess, staring at Katie. When she looked at him, he pretended to study the floor, carefully. ‘DuQuelle had warned me,’ he said. ‘But I hadn’t realized you’d look like this. It’s worse than the last time. What are you wearing?’

  ‘They’re my pyjamas. I wear them at night, in bed. I don’t know why you’re complaining, James. At least you can’t see my knees this time.’

  James flushed at the thought of Katie’s knees and began to protest, but Alice, always the peacemaker, interrupted. ‘Pyjamas, I believe they wear them in the Asian colonies, in India, I think. And they are very practical and modest. And Katie, yellow really is a lovely colour with your complexion.’

  ‘And the frogs,’ James added. ‘So lovely, the frogs.’

  Katie kicked James in the shin, just hard enough so he’d know she meant business, and they smiled at each other.

  ‘I feel a lot better now that you’re here,’ Katie said. ‘DuQuelle, he gives me the creeps.’

  ‘He cannot be trusted,’ James added.

  Alice smoothed Katie’s wild hair back from her face. ‘It’s not a question of “creeps” or “trust”; it’s a question of need. We needed you, Katie, and Bernardo DuQuelle obliged. We would not have been able to call you back without him.’

  ‘What was it like,’ James asked, ‘travelling through time? Were you aware of what was happening?’

  Katie laughed at James. ‘You didn’t believe me at all last time, you kept saying I was a big phoney, some lunatic babbling on about the future – and now you want all the details. I don’t think you deserve to know.’

  It looked like the beginning of a typical Katie versus James squabble, but Alice stepped in. ‘I do hope we will have much time to discuss all this, but there is a reason you are here, Katie, and we must use our time effectively.’

  ‘I thought so,’ Katie said, seeing James’s face fall as Alice spoke. ‘If there’s anything I can do to help, you know I will. Now what’s up?’

  Alice glanced at James, who looked fixedly at the back of the Japanese screen. It was too hard for him to say.

  ‘Do you know that James has a sister?’ she asked Katie.

  ‘My memory is still coming back,’ Katie said. ‘I remember a name – Grace – but I don’t remember meeting her.’

  ‘That’s because you didn’t,’ James said brusquely. ‘Grace was in Italy during your last flying visit.’

  Katie ignored James’s sarcasm. She could tell that something was wrong. When James was worried, or unhappy, he resorted to rudeness.

  ‘Grace has returned,’ Alice continued, ‘and Katie, she is very ill indeed. She has a terrible, persistent cough and she’s become so pale and thin. Any exercise seems to exhaust her, and now she’s taken to her bed. Dr O’Reilly is treating her, but it would be so helpful if someone else . . .’ Alice’s voice trailed off.

  ‘You know I’m not a doctor,’ Katie said. ‘I’m not a nurse; I’m not even studying medicine. I can only just cope with basic science and biology.’

  ‘But you have interest in those topics,’ Alice persisted in her gentle way. ‘While you might dismiss your knowledge of medicine, you have a hundred years of progress that isn’t at our command. James has spoken so warmly, and with such admiration of what you do know.’ James reverted to staring at the Japanese screen, but he did nod his head.

  ‘Couldn’t DuQuelle help?’ Katie asked.

  ‘DuQuelle,’ James snorted.

  ‘We did ask,’ Alice replied. ‘He was sympathetic, but he explained that he will only intervene in our world to keep history on course. In his opinion Grace is not a historical matter.’

  Katie looked at James, who with great concentration was peeling a bit of lacquer off the screen. Grace. Katie remembered now. Grace was his only sister. James’s mother had died when he was very young and Grace had tried hard to take her place, supplying much-needed love to James, his older brother Jack and their baby brother Riordan. Grace was not history to James. She was something much more important: the core of his reality.

  ‘What year is it?’ Katie asked James.

  ‘Eighteen fifty-four,’ James replied. ‘What kind of a dim question is that?’

  ‘Then I’ve been exposed to over a hundred and fifty years of stuff you don’t know.’ Katie answered. ‘I can’t guarantee anything. I probably won’t be much help. But James, I really will try.’

  James finally turned from the Japanese screen, his face relaxing just a bit as he looked at Katie. ‘Thank you,’ was all he said. Before Katie could ruin things, and give him a hug, Alice spoke up.

  ‘There is nothing like the present. If Katie is not too fatigued, I think we should go to Grace now. Everyone else in the Palace is downstairs, occupied with the Emperor Napoleon III, so we can move with ease through the corridors.’

  ‘Napoleon III?’ Katie asked. ‘I didn’t even know there was a Napoleon III. Is he different from the Waterloo and Josephine guy? Or the same one but you call him something else?’

  Alice looked rather shocked. ‘He is Mama’s guest, and no, he is not the warring traitor you speak of. That person is long dead.’

  James shook his head. ‘If your medical knowledge is anything like your history, Katie, we don’t have a hope.’

  Alice led Katie down the corridor, past the empty guards’ room, and down a flight of stairs. Opening one of the many doors that lined the hall, they entered a pretty sitting room, bright and fresh, with a fire in the grate. ‘Please wait here,’ Alice said. ‘It’s best I explain, just a tiny bit, to Grace.’ She went through a connecting door, into an adjoining room.

  Katie briefly spied a large mahogany bed before Alice closed the door. It was very quiet. James was now staring at the fire with the same concentration he had applied to the Japanese screen.

  ‘Nice room,’ she said, then could have kicked herself.

  ‘The Palace has been very kind to us. They have taken Grace in until she convalesces, and moved my accommodation here’, he said, pointing to another door leading from the sitting room.

  ‘Oh,’ Katie said, ‘so that’s your bedroom?’ And could have kicked herself twice as hard. James turned a dull beet red and kept staring at the fire.

  After
what seemed like hours of silence, Alice returned. ‘I didn’t know what to say,’ she said. ‘How can one explain Katie? So I’ve simply told her you are a friend with much medical knowledge, and we wish her to meet you. She’s quite excited. Do come along.’

  As Katie followed she wasn’t excited, just troubled. Could she help Grace?

  Grace

  In the high mahogany bed, piled with pillows, lay Grace O’Reilly. She was a girl – really a young woman – of extraordinary beauty. Katie recognized her at once. The long red hair, the ruffled nightdress, now overlaid with a paisley shawl. But most of all it was the eyes – enormous and glistening with a sad and frightening knowledge. When she saw Katie, she pulled her shawl close and withdrew into the pillows.

  James shot Katie one of his special killer looks. ‘You should have changed before you came,’ he said.

  ‘Oh yeah, I should have packed a suitcase for this trip,’ Katie retorted.

  Alice came quickly to Grace’s bedside. ‘I am so very glad you are able to make this acquaintance,’ she said. ‘I know it is very late, but we wanted you to meet the moment our guest arrived. Perhaps James has spoken to you of our mutual friend, Katie?’

  ‘No,’ James muttered. ‘I’ve managed to keep Katie to myself.’ Alice ignored him.

  ‘Katie comes to us from – well, let us just say from very far away.’

  Katie nodded stiffly. Here was the girl she’d found in her bed, in New York City, in the middle of the night. But that had been a vision, a sort of time communication. This was the real thing. ‘Nice to meet you,’ Katie said.

  Grace had travelled widely and frequented some of the finest drawing rooms of Europe. She tried to rise to the occasion. ‘And it is a pleasure to meet you,’ she said, a slight Irish lilt giving her voice a special sweetness. She was making a magnificent effort to ignore the yellow pyjamas with the green and orange frogs. ‘Hearing your voice, I believe you are, perhaps, from America? I’ve met many of your compatriots in Italy. They added much . . . much . . . vigour . . . and . . . originality to society.’ She attempted to rise from her bed, but swayed and sank back onto the pillows, gasping for breath. James sprang forward and began to mix a potion from the bottles on her bedside table. ‘Please forgive me,’ Grace whispered. ‘I am not as well as I would like to be.’

  ‘Grace, don’t talk,’ James pleaded in a soft voice Katie hadn’t heard before. ‘You don’t have to play hostess. Katie hasn’t come for a tea party. She has come to help you.’ He looked Katie straight in the eye. ‘She’s come to help us.’ He finished preparing the draught, and held it to Grace’s lips. ‘This will soothe you,’ he said. ‘Please drink this and, with your permission, Katie will ask you a few questions. We’ll explain everything in the morning. Is it acceptable to you, Grace, if Katie tries to help?’

  Grace stroked James’s face and ruffled his hair. ‘I didn’t know you had an American friend, James,’ she murmured in her sweet voice. ‘You are growing up so quickly.’

  James turned red again, and Katie interrupted. ‘I’m really Princess Alice’s friend. James, well, he puts up with me.’ She smiled at him, all the while searching her mind for the right questions. How did the doctors in New York act? Mimi had millions of doctors and healers and analysts. She should be an expert on this. ‘Can you describe your symptoms?’ she finally asked, immediately thinking ‘Dummy! Dumb question!’

  Grace pulled her shawl tight. ‘Really, I am feeling much better,’ she protested weakly.

  James took her hand and looking at her, tried to act stern. ‘As I said, this isn’t a tea party, Grace. If you want help, you need to tell the truth.’

  Grace looked at her counterpane for a moment, pondering, deciding. She looked at Alice, who was smiling and nodding encouragement, and then she looked at Katie for a very long time, until she seemed to reach a decision. ‘I’d like to speak to your friend alone,’ she said.

  James immediately shook his head. ‘I really don’t think . . .’

  Alice interrupted. ‘Well, I do. I think that is a splendid idea. They can begin to become acquainted.’ She pressed Katie’s shoulder and then managed to escort James from the room, without even touching him.

  Silence fell. As Grace watched the retreating figures, Katie had a chance to get a really good look at her. Despite Grace’s beauty, and her illness, there was still a lot of gentle fun in her face. She didn’t look anything like her puffed-up, vain father, handsome as he was. ‘Do you look like your mother?’ Katie asked, and then almost tripped over her own tongue. ‘I mean, I know that’s a stupid thing to ask. Really wrong. I mean, I know your mother’s dead and you might not want to talk about her, and then you are so ill, and . . .’ Katie stopped talking and looked towards the door. She was afraid Grace would ask her to leave.

  Grace stretched out a pale thin hand. ‘Really, my dear, it’s cruel to make me laugh, it only makes me cough. But you are such an original. Fancy James finding a bold, bright girl like you? No, I’m not going to ask you any questions. James is scrupulous in his relations, and the Princess is above reproach. If you are their friend, then you will be mine. But I need to talk quickly now. James has given me that potion to make me sleep. I’ll have to talk while I still make sense, and am brave enough to say what I must.’

  Without thinking, Katie sat down on the edge of the bed. She wasn’t self-conscious any more. ‘Tell me,’ she said.

  Grace took a sip of water to steady herself. ‘Our lovely mother; do you know what our mother died of?’ Grace asked.

  Katie searched her memory. ‘She died, I think, when your little brother Riordan was born. Is that right?’

  Grace nodded. ‘Yes, that was hard enough, the birth. But she was so weakened. You see, she was already frail. I know now, it wasn’t just the childbirth, or the worry about father, or her homesickness for Ireland and family. She was suffering from the disease we never talk about. It was consumption. That is what really killed her.’

  Katie looked at Grace’s emaciated figure, the pale skin and the hectic flush in her cheeks. She knew now, she’d really known the first time she’d seen her. ‘It’s tuberculosis,’ she said. ‘Where I come from, we call it tuberculosis.’

  Grace sank further into her pillows. ‘Whatever you care to call it, it’s a terrible, agonizing, wasting disease. And I know I have it, like our mother. And I believe, that like my mother, I am bound to die.’

  Katie felt the tears well up in her eyes. Grace raised a languid arm and brushed the drops from her cheeks. ‘Don’t cry,’ she said. ‘I am trying to reconcile myself to death. The hardest part will be leaving James and Jack and little Riordan. Just look at James. How kind and sweet James is, that he would bring you to me.’ Grace smiled sadly, shaking her head. ‘And it shows how desperate he is to keep me. I hope you will not be offended, but Miss Katie, you are barely out of the nursery. Not much more than a child.’

  Crying was not useful, and with effort Katie stopped. ‘I’m not a child,’ she protested. ‘I’ve had lots of life experience.’

  Grace smiled again. ‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘but you are younger than me. How can you possibly help?’

  Katie walked to the window and, pulling back the pale blue curtains, looked out. It was a dark, clear night. She could hear Grace behind her, coughing slightly, her breath shallow and irregular. Grace was right. How could she help? She wasn’t a doctor. And even if she was, she knew that in this time they wouldn’t have the medicines she needed to treat Grace. What could she possibly do?

  Grace spoke to her in a low, drawling voice. The drops James had given her were taking effect. ‘Don’t fret, my dear. It was sweet of you to come at all. And I’m so happy to meet a friend of my wee James. Our father pushes him so in his profession. James is young, and yet he has to play the learned doctor, and look after little Riordan . . . such a tearaway, Riordan. James has little time for friends, aside from our brother Jack. And there’s Princess Alice. So lovely . . . so kind . . . Princess Alice . . .’ Grace’s
head lulled back, her eyes began to flutter.

  ‘What’s that stuff that James gave you, Grace?’ Katie asked.

  ‘Laudanum,’ Grace murmured. ‘Tincture of laudanum. It is soothing, the laudanum . . .’ Her eyes closed and her breathing became deep and even. She was asleep. Katie came to stand beside the bed. She smoothed Grace’s long red hair back from her face and tidied the blankets and linens around her. Katie knew James and Alice were outside the door, hoping, depending on her.

  ‘I’m such rubbish!’ she cried, ‘I don’t know anything.’ She looked at Grace’s thin hands and thought about the way she’d laughed at James and ruffled his hair. She tried to give her three brothers the love they’d lost when their mother died. They needed her. There must be some way Katie could help. Though Katie still didn’t know what to do, it dawned on her that she knew what not to do. While she might not be able to cure Grace, she could keep Dr O’Reilly from actively killing her. With a final look at the sleeping Grace, she squared her shoulders and went out to meet her friends.

  ‘James, you should stop giving Grace the laudanum,’ she said. ‘It’s addictive, and, like, really dangerous.’

  ‘But laudanum is the primary medicine in the treatment of a fatigue like Grace’s,’ James said defensively. ‘My father might not be the finest doctor in England, but I can’t refute his administration of laudanum.’

  ‘It’s just covering up the disease, not curing it. All you’re doing is doping Grace,’ Katie argued. ‘And it’s silly to call it fatigue. Look at Grace, lying in there, gasping for breath. James, you need to call a spade a spade.’