The Summer Queen

by Margaret Pemberton

  That safe harbour and refuge belonged, though, to the pretend Willy, not the real Willy. The real Willy was buried so deep that even he only recognized the person he really was when – as now, in the aftermath of a nightmare – all pretence was stripped away.

  The sun was rising. The swans were completing a second lap of the lake. The palace was stirring. Knowing he would not be disturbed until he chose to be, he remained at the window, pondering whether, as an adult, he had ever interacted as the real Willy with anyone.

  From out of nowhere, memory smote him with vivid, physical force. There had been such a time. It had been at Osborne when, five years ago and on an otherwise deserted beach, he had come across Ella’s little sister sobbing her heart out because she thought it was her own, and her siblings’, fault that their mother had died of diphtheria.

  If Alicky hadn’t been Ella’s little sister, would he have stopped to comfort her? Willy didn’t know. The thing was, he had stopped and he had tried to comfort her, and whilst he’d been doing so, May of Teck had run up to them and from then on, whenever he’d been with her and Alicky, he’d forgotten all about being the pretend Willy. ‘Kindred spirits,’ Alicky had called the three of them, and beneath the childish tosh there had been an element of truth. Never before had he revealed so much of his inner self to anyone as he had to May and Alicky when their mutual confidences had begun. Being himself, instead of his pretend self, had been a unique, extraordinary experience – as had the scoring of their wrists with his 1st Foot Guards medal brooch-pin and the mixing of their blood. Even now he still mentally prefaced May’s name with the words ‘Kindred Spirit’, just as he did Alicky’s name.

  He breathed in deeply, aware that his pulse was no longer pounding, his heart was no longer racing and he was no longer sweating. It was over, thank God. Day had fully dawned, the miasma of nightmare had fled and his pretend personality was rushing headlong through his veins and along his nerve endings. He could feel himself becoming once again the Willy the world knew; the Willy who was braver and cleverer than anyone else; the Willy who was invincible.

  He swung away from the window, slammed his fist on the bell that would summon his valet and was in such good humour that it occurred to him that he could, just for once, return to the palace after his morning at headquarters and take Dona for an after-luncheon carriage ride. She would like that and would be deeply grateful – and when it suited him, he liked people to be grateful to him. It increased his sense of superiority.

  As his valet stumbled hurriedly into the room, Willy roared at him for not having entered the room sooner and then, full of satisfaction at his magnanimity where Dona was concerned, His Royal Highness Prince Wilhelm of Prussia embarked on his day.

  Chapter Nine

  JUNE 1884, NEW PALACE, DARMSTADT

  The New Palace was in uproar with wedding and travel preparations. Ladies-in-waiting and chambermaids were scurrying here, there and everywhere with armfuls of day gowns, afternoon gowns and lavish evening gowns, which all, folded in layer upon layer of tissue paper, were then packed into enormous travelling trunks. Even though it was high summer, furs aplenty were also being carefully packed, for to travel without furs – especially to St Petersburg – was unthinkable.

  ‘I don’t see why Ella has to take furs with her,’ Alicky said to Vicky, who was supervising the packing of their jewellery into locked travelling cases. ‘Not when Sergei will be drowning her in Russian sable when she arrives in St Petersburg – and with jewels,’ she added. ‘Madgie says the Romanovs’ jewellery collection is the largest in the world.’

  ‘And I dare say your governess is right, although I’m surprised she was vulgar enough to say so to you. And although having enough jewellery will never be a problem now for Ella – who doesn’t, incidentally, give two hoots about jewellery and furs – it would be very shameful to arrive as if we didn’t have a diamond to our name.’

  ‘I’m not sure I do have a diamond to my name.’ Being only twelve, Alicky’s jewellery was still restricted to pearls. ‘It seems to me that everyone is much more excited about this wedding than they were about yours. Don’t you mind?’

  ‘Silly goose, of course I don’t mind. All Romanov weddings are hugely magnificent events, and Sergei isn’t just any Romanov. He’s the Tsar’s brother. And although the wedding will be impossibly splendid, I will always think my own wedding was even more wonderful, for how could it not be when I was marrying Louis, and when I love Louis so very, very much?’

  ‘And Ella loves Sergei very, very much, doesn’t she?’

  She’d meant it as a statement, not a question, but Vicky pursed her lips, handed the jewellery case to her maid, saying, ‘Would you put this box with the rest of the jewellery cases, Jenny?’ and then, as the maid left the room, said, ‘I’m sure she does, Alicky. But not, I think, in the same way.’

  Alicky frowned, sensing a secret she wasn’t supposed to know. ‘Then in what way?’

  ‘She feels that Sergei needs her. Papa says he is a different kind of person when he is at home in Russia, and that he isn’t much liked. Ella believes she can change that.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound a very exciting reason to marry someone.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t.’ Vicky thought of the other reason why Ella was marrying Sergei, but it wasn’t one she could share with Alicky.

  ‘Sergei being twenty-seven and not yet married is causing open speculation,’ Ella had said to Vicky in confidence on the day before her engagement to Sergei was announced, ‘and he wants to put an end to it.’

  Vicky’s eyebrows had risen. ‘You mean the same kind of speculation that our little brother Ernie is beginning to arouse?’

  Ella had nodded. At sixteen, Ernie’s lack of interest in girls and his interest in the family’s male members of staff were obvious. Their father was forever sacking footmen who had encouraged Ernie’s attention, or finding replacements for those who had left because of it.

  Vicky hadn’t asked Ella if marriage to a man who was rumoured to prefer his own sex was the kind of marriage she wanted, because it was quite obvious to her that Ella was embarking on her marriage with her eyes wide open, and for reasons that suited her own, not very run-of-the-mill emotional needs.

  She said now, ‘People marry each other for all kinds of reasons, Alicky, and when people are royal, the reasons can be complex. Thankfully, my reason for wanting to marry Louis wasn’t complex at all. I married him because I couldn’t even begin to envisage marrying anyone else. I married him because I’m heedlessly, hopelessly in love with him.’ Her cheeks warmed as she remembered their lovemaking of the previous night. ‘We share a grand, all-engulfing passion, Alicky. It’s as simple as that.’

  Alicky sighed rapturously. She knew all about grand, all-engulfing passions because she was often taken to the opera, and what Vicky was describing was the kind of operatic grand passion that thrilled her to the depths of her being. It was a passion that, when she was older, she fervently hoped to experience for herself. All that had to happen was for her to meet her one true love. An ecstatic shiver ran down her spine. When she did, she knew she would recognize him before he even spoke to her. Without a shadow of a doubt, she knew she would recognize him the instant their eyes met.

  The journey to Russia was the longest Alicky had ever taken. Even though they were travelling by train, it took three days. For most of the way the track hugged the Baltic coastline and the land was flat and bleak, interspersed only occasionally by mist-shrouded, medieval-looking villages. Whenever the track turned a little way inland there was nothing but endless reedbeds and chains of eerily desolate lakes; and then, as they progressed deeper into Russia, the lonely lakes gave way to mile after mile of dark, mysterious forests of spruce and fir.

  Vicky, Irène and Ernie found the journey tedious and spent it playing cards and solitaire. Alicky didn’t find it tedious at all. She thought the colossal scale of the landscape and the strange northern summer light it was bathed in were mesmerizing. Russia
! How could anyone think forests that were home to bears and wolves, and goodness knew how many other wild creatures, tedious? Russia wasn’t just another country; it was another world, so strange and exotic that it seemed barely possible her sister was soon to be a part of it.

  ‘Even my Christian name of Elizabeth will change to Russian spelling and pronunciation,’ Ella said to her as their private train steamed ever further north-east. Outside the train window they watched as a flock of geese flew over the surface of a perfectly still silver-grey lake. ‘After my marriage, I will be known as Yelizaveta – Grand Duchess Yelizaveta Feodorovna Romanova.’

  It sounded wonderfully grand and the only thing spoiling it was that May would not be at the wedding, and Alicky’s disappointment that she wouldn’t be having a reunion with her was vast. As May would be missing out on what was going to be a very special family occasion, Alicky decided that she would write her long descriptive letters so that, even at a distance, her Kindred Spirit might not feel too left out of everything.

  As the flock of geese disappeared from view she said, ‘Where will we be staying when we reach St Petersburg, Ella? Will we be staying at the Winter Palace, or at another of the Romanov palaces?’

  ‘I don’t know, pet lamb. I do know that the wedding is to take place at the Winter Palace, but that a favourite family residence is at Peterhof, which is fifteen miles from St Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland. Papa thinks it quite possible that for some of the time we will be staying there.’

  Alicky was just about to ask if that meant the Winter Palace was the equivalent of Buckingham Palace, and Peterhof the equivalent of Windsor Castle, when Ernie strolled into their otherwise-deserted carriage and plopped himself down into one of its many comfy armchairs. Throwing a leg over one of the chair’s plush arms, he said to Ella, ‘Lord, is this journey ever going to end? Why couldn’t we have come by sea, like the Waleses are doing? At least it would have been more interesting.’

  ‘We don’t possess a yacht, that’s why,’ Ella said drily. ‘The Waleses have the use of Granny Queen’s Victoria and Albert.’

  ‘Lucky dogs.’ Ernie, thinking of muscular sailors in bell-bottomed trousers, withdrew a cigarette case and a lighter from his jacket pocket. ‘At least if Irène’s pash on Prussian Henry comes to fruition, the wedding will be on home ground and, if not on home ground, it will only be a hop and a skip to Berlin.’

  At the thought of a third wedding in the family, Alicky’s eyes widened.

  ‘Don’t spread rumours,’ Ella chided. ‘Irène may well have a crush on Henry, but I don’t think it’s being reciprocated. At least not yet.’

  ‘Ah, but there will be further opportunities for Irène to wow him with her charms at St Petersburg. The Hohenzollerns are going to be there in full force, aren’t they?’

  Ella, who wasn’t at all sure that Willy would be there, said, ‘I imagine so. Everyone in the entire family has been invited. The Waleses, the Edinburghs, the Connaughts, the Albanys, the Battenbergs, the Hohenzollerns, the Schleswig-Holsteins, the Saxe-Meiningens and then there will be all the Romanovs – and goodness only knows how many of them there will be. The Winter Palace and Peterhof will be knee-deep in Russian royalty even before we arrive.’

  She said it without any sign of concern. Alicky envied her. How could Ella be so relaxed when, during the wedding service, she would be the focus of hundreds of pairs of eyes? When, on her carriage ride through St Petersburg’s streets, she would be the focus of thousands of pairs of eyes? The mere thought of being the object of such public exposure made Alicky feel faint, and she was grateful to the bottom of her heart that at this family wedding she wasn’t expected to be a bridesmaid.

  ‘Only girls who are Russian Orthodox can be bridesmaids at a Russian Orthodox wedding,’ Vicky had explained to her when arrangements for the wedding were being made, ‘and so all the bridesmaids will be members of Sergei’s family. I hope it isn’t too much of a disappointment?’

  Hugely relieved, Alicky had shaken her head to show that it wasn’t. Later, though, she had said, puzzled, ‘How is it that the bridesmaids have to be Russian Orthodox when the bride is a Lutheran Protestant?’

  Vicky had looked uncomfortable and Alicky had known it was a question her sister had rather she hadn’t asked. ‘Ella is taking instruction,’ she had said, her eyes not meeting hers. ‘Sergei expects her to convert to Russian Orthodoxy in the not-too-distant future.’

  If it hadn’t been for Ernie joining them, Alicky would have asked Ella how she felt about taking instruction in a way of worship that was vastly different from the one they had all been brought up in, but she doubted Ella would want to talk about such a subject in front of Ernie. Ernie was carelessly flippant about everything, and one thing Alicky was certain of was that changing from Lutheran Protestantism to Russian Orthodoxy was not a subject to be flippant about. She would talk about it later with Ella when they were next on their own.

  Ernie was now gossiping about the Waleses and of how, although Maudie was fun, Toria and Looloo were tedious beyond belief.

  ‘They’re so pathetically infantile. Do you know that for Cousin Toria’s sixteenth birthday next month, Aunt Alix is going to give a children’s party for her? A children’s party! Can you believe it?’ His snort of disgust was the last thing Alicky heard before the rhythmic rocking of the train sent her to sleep.

  She had expected their arrival at the train station in St Petersburg to be similar to their royal welcomes whenever they stayed with Granny Queen at Windsor Castle, or Osborne House, or Balmoral. A red carpet and immaculate formality, but nothing so excessive that it would plunge her into agonies of shyness.

  The noise and the crush when they stepped from their train onto the station platform, to be met by Sergei and his uniformed and bemedalled entourage, were totally unlike anything she had ever experienced, or even imagined. Flags – the red and white of Hesse-Darmstadt, the gold and black of the House of Romanov and even, here and there, the red, white and blue of Granny Queen’s Union Jack – waved in what appeared to be an endless sea. Brass bands played deafeningly. Church bells rang out. The coaches waiting for them were as ornately gilded as Britain’s coronation coach.

  ‘The Romanovs don’t believe in doing things by halves, do they?’ Ernie said admiringly as the coach he was sharing with Alicky and Irène moved off, drawn by eight white horses postilion-ridden and accompanied by footmen in powdered wigs and scarlet livery.

  All the way to the Winter Palace, Alicky kept her eyes not on the cheering people lining the streets, but on her lap and her lace-gloved hands. It was nice that the people of St Petersburg were welcoming Ella so eagerly, and she was very glad they were doing so, but crowds of any kind unnerved her, no matter how hard she tried not to let them do so.

  ‘Oh, look, Alicky!’ Irène grabbed hold of her arm. ‘The Neva! I’d no idea it would be far, far wider than the Thames. Do look, Alicky. Please.’

  Reluctantly she raised her head. They were crossing a bridge and although it was lined by flag-waving Russians, over their heads was a mesmerizing view of the broadest, most awe-inspiring river she had ever seen. And it wasn’t only the river that took her breath away. Pale-stone mansions as big as palaces lined both banks and beyond the mansions, and as far as the eye could see, delicate spires rose ethereally; pumpkin-shaped domes glittered; towers and steeples pierced the sky; turrets and pinnacles gleamed with gold. It was a scene of such awe-inspiring beauty that the breath caught in Alicky’s throat. Why had no one told her that St Petersburg was a city straight from a fairy-tale? Why had no one warned her that once she had seen it, she would want to remain in it forever?

  Nothing over the next couple of days made Alicky change her opinion. Sergei had told her that the Winter Palace was magnificent beyond description, but as he was a Romanov speaking of the most famous of all Romanov palaces, she had thought his description nothing but natural pride and exaggeration. It wasn’t. Buckingham Palace was splendid, its grandeur impressive, but el
egantly restrained. There was nothing restrained about the interior of the Winter Palace.

  They had stepped from their coach into the palace’s central courtyard and, with Cossacks lining every foot of the way, and walking just behind Ella and Sergei, they had been escorted through a grandiose entrance into a room colonnaded with gilded columns. At the far end of the room, bathed in light from a cathedral-high bank of windows and walls of glittering mirrors, rose a staircase of breathtaking splendour. A vision of white marble and gold, it rose in two separate curving wings to meet on a balconied landing. There, framed by gold-topped jasper pillars, the Tsar and Tsarina of all the Russias were waiting to greet them.

  Alicky sucked in her breath and slid her hand into Irène’s. Irène gave it a reassuring squeeze. ‘I know you haven’t met Uncle Sasha since you were too young to remember, and that you haven’t met Aunt Minny for ages,’ she whispered, ‘but they are your godparents. There is absolutely no reason at all to be shy.’

  Her Uncle Sasha was a bear of a man, six-and-a-half feet tall, his shoulders massive, his face heavily bearded. With flushed cheeks, Alicky sank into a curtsey. Jovially he put out a hand and raised her to her feet. ‘The last time I saw you, little squirrel, you were small enough for me to throw into the air and catch!’ His voice was deep and booming, not at all like Sergei’s, but he was looking at her with the same kind of family interest that Sergei always looked at her with, and remembering that he was Sergei’s brother enabled her to fight down her shyness.

  There was no need for shyness in the presence of her thirty-six-year-old aunt, for she was Aunt Alix Wales’s sister and she was so like Aunt Alix, and her manner so reassuringly similar, that Alicky’s nervous tension soon evaporated.