The Summer Queen

by Margaret Pemberton

  Royal duty was the reason a homesick Georgie was now firmly embarked on a career in the Royal Navy and was on the other side of the world. Royal duty was the reason Eddy had suffered years as a naval cadet, when May was certain that, given the choice, he would never have left dry land for even an hour. Royal duty was why, if Ella had been willing, Eddy would have been obliged to marry her, no matter what his private feelings might have been. Royal duty was why he would eventually marry someone else who had been selected for him – someone whose father was heir to the throne of a country that Britain wanted to forge closer, unbreakable ties with. To be royal (even to be semi-royal, as she was) was to not have a life of one’s own. If she had been able to have a life of her own, May would not now be about to leave the country of her birth, a country she identified with utterly and loved passionately.

  ‘Hurry along, Pussy-cat,’ her father said impatiently. ‘The last thing we want is to miss the train.’

  As the carriages carrying their trunks and bags rattled off down the drive, followed by the carriage carrying five members of their household staff who were to travel with them, May stepped reluctantly into the carriage. As the horses moved off, she looked over her shoulder only once and then, with tears burning the backs of her eyes, she dug her nails deep into her palms, refusing to let any fall. Whatever lay ahead, she would make the best of it – for making the best of things was what she always did – but that she would be doing so in a land far from her beloved England was a knife-wound to her heart so deep that she could hardly bear it.

  Chapter Five

  APRIL 1884, NEW PALACE, DARMSTADT

  The little medieval town of Darmstadt in the Grand Duchy of Hesse and by Rhine was in a fever of excitement over the imminent wedding of the Grand Duke’s eldest daughter, Princess Victoria, to her father’s first cousin, the handsome Prince Louis of Battenberg.

  Royal wedding guests were arriving in an endless stream at the town’s toy-like railway station and the town’s brass band welcomed them ceaselessly with whatever English, Danish, Prussian or Russian anthem was appropriate. Crowds of spectators thronged the streets, waving flags and cheering lustily as horse-drawn landaus carried the guests away from the station and through streets of steeply roofed houses, in the direction of the ancient market square that fronted the palace. Sometimes landaus converged with each other and there would be squeals of recognition from the occupants. Horses would be hastily reined to a halt while, in the middle of a cobbled street, a Danish party of royals fell into the arms of Russian relations, or a Prussian party of royals fell into the arms of the latest batch of arriving English cousins. What Queen Victoria referred to as the ‘Royal Mob’ was out in full force, and the citizens of Darmstadt were loving every minute of it.

  The only person not doing so was Alicky, who still felt the same dislike of crowded family get-togethers that she had felt five years ago at Osborne; and this particular get-together didn’t have the compensating factor of having either May or Willy as part of it.

  ‘The Tecks are still acclimatizing themselves to being exiles and are probably not yet ready to face the family en masse,’ Sergei, one of Nicky’s uncles, said when Alicky told him how disappointed she was that May wouldn’t be at the wedding. ‘And that Willy’s parents are here is reason enough for Willy and Dona not to be.’

  Sergei was tall and, although narrow-shouldered, imposing, dark-eyed, dark-haired and with a well-trimmed pointed beard. Few people were comfortable with him, for his manner, other than when he was with children, was too cold and austere for casual friendship. Only on his visits to his mother’s relatives in Hesse-Darmstadt did he relax, turning into a man that few of his fellow countrymen would have recognized.

  ‘I know that Cousin Willy’s relationship with his mother isn’t all it should be,’ Alicky said, stroking the pet rabbit that was asleep on her lap, ‘but that’s to do with his poor arm and all he was put through because of it, when he was a child. I didn’t know he didn’t get on with his father, either.’

  ‘He doesn’t get on with his father because they have very different opinions as to how a country should be ruled. When his father becomes Germany’s emperor, he intends to rule as a constitutional monarch.’

  That Ella’s husband-to-be treated her as if she was an adult – as she felt May did, in her regular letters to her, and as Willy did in his sporadic letters to her – was one of the reasons Alicky liked her brother-in-law-to-be, but there were times when his conversation went above her head.

  She stopped stroking the rabbit. ‘What,’ she asked, ‘does “constitutional” mean?’

  They were sitting on one of the broad stone steps that led from the palace to the tree-studded park in which it was set. Making himself more comfortable, Sergei pulled a knee up to his chest, hooked an arm around it and stretched his other leg straight out.

  ‘A constitutional monarch is King or Queen of a country that has an elected parliament, and the parliament makes and passes laws, not the King or Queen. Your granny, Queen Victoria, is a constitutional monarch – and although that may be all right for Britain and its empire, Willy doesn’t think the newly united Germany should be governed in the same way; and as that is the way his father intends ruling, it is the reason the two of them do not see eye-to-eye.’

  Alicky thought this over for a few moments and then said, ‘I like Cousin Willy. I’m a Kindred Spirit with him and Cousin May, but I don’t think he can be right on this. My governess says that Granny Queen is the most powerful monarch in the whole wide world – and so her way of being a queen and an empress must be the right one.’

  Eleven-year-old Alicky was soon to be Sergei’s sister-in-law, for immediately after Vicky and Louis’s wedding, his own and Ella’s engagement was to be announced. It was important to him that Alicky, as well as Ella, understood the gigantic differences between the way Queen Victoria ruled, the way the newly united Germany was presently ruled and the way Russia had always been ruled.

  He said, ‘Different countries have different histories, Alicky, and both Germany and Russia have very different histories from Great Britain, and so they need ruling differently. They need an autocratic ruler; a ruler who rules without the interference of a parliament; a ruler who is answerable only to God.’

  ‘And is that how Uncle Sasha rules Russia?’

  ‘It is, and he does so for a very good reason. When our father was Tsar, he was known as “the Liberator” because he made so many reforms. He freed the serfs. He reformed the justice system. He encouraged local self-government. He did all the kind of things your Granny Queen approved of – and if those reforms had been carried out elsewhere, he would have been thanked for them. But they weren’t carried out elsewhere. They were carried out in Russia, and what your Granny Queen and Willy’s father don’t understand is that Russia is so vast and medieval that it can’t be governed in the same way a country with a long history of parliamentary rule is governed. It can only be governed by force and with a whip.’

  He came to a sudden halt, a pulse throbbing at the corner of his jaw. Sensing that he was thinking twice about saying anything any further, Alicky asked, ‘And what happened? What is it you aren’t telling me?’

  Sergei breathed in hard. ‘My father’s reforms merely inflamed the revolutionaries even more. They made three attempts to assassinate him. On the fourth attempt they succeeded. A bomb was thrown at his carriage as he was approaching the Winter Palace. I was there when he was carried into the palace, his face streaming with blood, his stomach ripped open, his right leg torn off, his left leg shattered. I was there when he died in agony. And so that is why my brother doesn’t rule as a liberator, but as an autocrat, because a strong autocrat – answerable to no one but himself – is the only kind of ruler Russia respects.’

  ‘Stop hobnobbing, you two!’ Ernie, Alicky’s brother, called out to them from the terrace. ‘We’ve just heard that the Queen’s train has drawn in at the station. Her carriage will be here any minute.’

>   Alicky gently shooed the rabbit from her lap and sprang to her feet. She knew that she was Granny Queen’s favourite granddaughter, and she wanted to be first of all her grandchildren to run up to her for a hug.

  Sergei remained where he was. Despite his sister Marie being the Queen’s daughter-in-law, he knew Queen Victoria had no time for Russia and that she certainly wouldn’t be happy when she learned that Ella would shortly be leaving Darmstadt for a life as a grand duchess in St Petersburg. That she wouldn’t be happy didn’t bother him at all. Ella’s widowed father had consented to their marriage, and so what a stout old lady dressed in black silk thought was, where he was concerned, of no account whatsoever.

  Musingly he turned his thoughts back to Alicky. She was a funny little thing; very fine-featured and pretty, and yet very withdrawn. He wondered what on earth she meant by saying that she was kindred spirits with her cousin Willy and with May Teck. Not in a million years could he imagine what she could possibly have in common with either of them. Willy was a self-opinionated know-all who, in reality, knew next to nothing; and although he had never met the Teck girl, Sergei knew she wasn’t even full-blown royalty and that her parents lived a hair’s breadth away from being inmates of a debtors’ prison.

  He took a cigarette from a diamond-studded cigarette case and lit it. Queen Victoria was a notorious matchmaker and would no doubt be putting her skills to good use during her stay in Darmstadt. Her motherless Hesse granddaughters held a special place in her heart and he was fairly sure that, having failed to make a match between Ella and Eddy, Victoria already had another prospective bridegroom in mind for Ella. If she had, the surprise she was about to get when his and Ella’s engagement was announced was going to be doubly unpleasant.

  But what about Alicky? In four years’ time she would be of marriageable age and Queen Victoria no doubt had a bridegroom in mind for her. Would it once again – where a Hesse granddaughter was concerned – be Eddy? He rather thought it would. When Alicky was sixteen, Eddy would be twenty-four and, if she accepted his proposal, she would, as his wife, one day be Queen and Empress of over a quarter of the world’s population.

  Except that Sergei was determined she wouldn’t be.

  He ground his cigarette out beneath his booted heel and lit another one. He had long ago decided that his future sister-in-law would be Russia’s next empress. Russian royalty had a long history of marrying princesses from the little duchies and kingdoms of Germany, and his beloved late mother had been a princess of Hesse. Once, when he had visited Darmstadt with her and Alicky was no more than three or four years old, his mother had turned to her lady-in-waiting and said, ‘Kiss this child’s hand. She is your Empress-to-be.’

  It was something he had never forgotten, and something he was determined to bring to fruition.

  His nephew Nicky, the Tsesarevich, was almost sixteen. Once he and Ella were married and living in St Petersburg, Sergei was going to ensure Alicky visited them frequently and that she and Nicky spent as much time together as possible. His plan was that in four years’ time, and with the right encouragement, Nicky would propose to Alicky, be accepted and that when Nicky inherited the throne, his mother’s prophecy would be fulfilled and Alicky would be Her Imperial Majesty The Empress of all the Russias. Best of all, when she was, she would be bound to him by the closest of family ties, and his influence over both her and Nicky would be total.

  Despite the press of family thronging around her in the main drawing room, the Queen gave Alicky her undivided attention for far longer than she gave it to anyone else. Yet there was a tension in the air and, when it was suggested that the children should leave the room, Alicky had no choice but to go with them.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked Ella, as Ella shepherded her from the room. ‘Why is everyone so on edge?’

  ‘People are always edgy before a wedding, Alicky. Wedding nerves are nothing to get worried about.’

  Alicky wasn’t convinced. A familiar knot of anxiety began growing in her tummy. Her father was nowhere to be seen – which was most odd, under the circumstances. Adult cousins, aunts and uncles were also now leaving the drawing room in an undignified hurry. As far as Alicky could tell, only Vicky, Irène and Ernie now remained with the Queen.

  As Ella headed straight back to the drawing room, closing the door firmly behind her, Alicky frowned. If her three sisters and her brother were now closeted in privacy with Granny Queen, why wasn’t she? Had Granny Queen decided she didn’t want Vicky to marry nice Louis of Battenberg? Or had nice Louis of Battenberg decided he didn’t want to marry Vicky? What was going on?

  Judging by the buzz of conversation and the expressions on people’s faces, her relations were all as much in the dark as she was. She thought possibly Sergei might know, but he was nowhere to be seen. The only other person she could think of who might know was Madame de Kolémine. Pretty, kind-hearted Alexandrine de Kolémine was her father’s special friend and for the past few years had become part of their household. No one had minded, for everyone liked her, and their father was far better-tempered when Alexandrine was around than when she wasn’t.

  She went in search of Madgie, her governess. Away from the palace, Madgie was Miss Margaret Jackson, but within it she was the much friendlier-sounding ‘Madgie’. Madgie sent monthly reports on Alicky’s schoolwork to the Queen, who responded by taking a deep interest in Alicky’s impressive scholastic progress.

  ‘Madgie,’ Alicky said when she found her, ‘do you know where Alexandrine is? Something odd is going on, now that Granny Queen has arrived. The only people with her in the drawing room are Vicky, Irène, Ella and Ernie. Everyone else has been ushered out, and a footman is now standing outside the door so that no one can enter. If it’s because Vicky is telling Granny Queen that there’s not going to be a wedding after all, Alexandrine will know, but I can’t find her.’

  Margaret Jackson pushed her wire-rimmed spectacles up into her hair. She knew very well why the Grand Duke’s adult children were closeted with the Queen. It was because their father intended to marry Alexandrine and was too cowardly to break the news to his mother-in-law himself.

  She quite understood his cowardice. His late wife had been one of Queen Victoria’s much-loved daughters and although it was five years since Princess Alice had died, five years was nothing to a woman who was still in black-garbed mourning for a husband who had died twenty-two and a half years ago.

  That the Queen would not have expected the Grand Duke to even consider marrying again was not the only reason he would be nervous of breaking his news to her. There were several other reasons – the main four being that Alexandrine was a commoner, a divorcée, Polish and Russian Orthodox.

  ‘I don’t think you will find her in the palace, Alicky,’ she said equably. ‘Madame de Kolémine is not family, and she thinks it best that at such a family-orientated event she keeps a low profile. There is no need for you to worry about Vicky and Louis’s wedding being called off. Whatever Vicky, Irène, Ella and Ernie are discussing with the Queen, I know for a certainty it has nothing to do with tomorrow’s wedding.’

  Alicky breathed a sigh of relief. She thought it a shame, though, that Alexandrine was not going to be at the wedding. She was certain it was something Alexandrine would have enjoyed.

  Queen Victoria was white-lipped with rage. She had travelled to Darmstadt in the happy expectation of a gala reunion with her children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews and her many German cousins. Vicky and Louis’s wedding was one that had her full blessing. He and his two brothers were handsome and charming young men, and Louis had, in her eyes, the added lustre of being a serving officer in the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy. At an event so happy, what could possibly go wrong? The answer, within minutes of her arrival, was plenty.

  ‘Your papa wishes to do what?’ The shock she’d been dealt was so great that if she hadn’t already been seated, Queen Victoria would have had to be lifted from the floor. Without waiting for an answer from Vicky, she cont
inued without pausing for breath, ‘Your papa cannot possibly marry such a person! For what possible reason can he wish to do so?’ Beneath acres of black silk, her massive bosom heaved. ‘Never – never – could I defend such a choice! If your papa was to carry out his intention, he would lose the respect of everyone, both in Germany and in England. To choose a lady who is divorced, who is of another religion, is beyond all reason. You must go and tell him so, and tell him that it is never to be mentioned again. Not ever, is that understood? Not ever!’

  Sergei’s mouth twitched when Ella told him of the scene that had taken place.

  ‘Poor dear Granny Queen was beside herself at the prospect of Papa marrying Alexandrine,’ she said as they snatched a few minutes’ privacy together in the palace’s palm-filled conservatory. ‘It is a great shame she is so firmly set against them marrying, as we all like Alexandrine enormously and all of us would be very happy to have her as our stepmama. Vicky says Papa was quite ashen when she told him what Granny Queen had said.’ She bit her lip. ‘You don’t think she might have a similar reaction when our engagement is announced, do you? I couldn’t bear it if she was just as opposed to our getting married.’

  Sergei tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. ‘She isn’t going to be pleased about it, but it is something she will accept – even if only grudgingly – especially as, unlike Madame de Kolémine, you are not divorced, a commoner, Polish or, as yet, Russian Orthodox.’

  ‘No, indeed.’ Ella’s response was grave, because although it had been agreed between them that for the moment she would keep to her own Lutheran Protestantism, it was understood that once she was in Russia she would take instruction in the Orthodox Church and would convert, as German princesses in the past who had married Romanovs had done.