The Summer Queen

by Margaret Pemberton

  Her mother clapped her podgy hands, which were covered with rings, in delight. ‘That is exactly the kind of fun dear Mr Thaddy would have joined in with, and I would have done so as well, had there been a tea-tray big enough!’

  They were still laughing at the thought when there came the sound of several bedroom doors being opened and, almost immediately, being slammed shut, and the noise of footsteps hurrying down the corridor towards their room.

  ‘What on earth—?’ her mother exclaimed as, after only the briefest of knocks, the door to their room was flung open. Standing in the doorway, Frank said, ‘Better change into something a bit more sombre than turquoise, May. A telegram has just arrived announcing that the Kaiser has passed away. He was ninety so no great surprise there, but terrible news for Uncle Fritz. How is he going to cope with being the new Kaiser, when he has throat cancer?’

  It wasn’t a question he expected an answer to and, saying, ‘Tonight’s family dinner is still on, but the Grand Ball tomorrow night isn’t,’ he slammed the door behind him and hurried off to break the bad news elsewhere.

  May’s mother sat down heavily on the nearest chair. ‘Poor, dear Fritz. How will he cope?’ Always kind-hearted, she had tears in her eyes. ‘To have waited for the throne for so long, and then to inherit when he is so ill. It doesn’t bear thinking about.’

  May had never met Willy’s grandfather and so, with the best will in the world, she didn’t feel any personal grief at the news of his death. Like her mother, though, she did feel great sympathy for Uncle Fritz, who, already bearing the colossal burden of his ill health, now had another gigantic burden to shoulder; and she also felt a crushing disappointment that the Grand Ball she had been so looking forward to was not now going to take place. The hope that Eddy would dance with her at least once had always been slight, but now it wasn’t even that. Royal kinship would necessitate full court mourning. Dancing of any kind was out of the question, possibly for weeks.

  The next morning, with all organized jollities considerably scaled down, Irène and May braved the March wind and walked together through Marlborough House’s formal gardens.

  ‘I wonder how Willy is reacting to the news?’ Irène said, a frown creasing her forehead. ‘Uncle Fritz is only in his fifties. Under normal circumstances, Willy would have had another twenty years or more of waiting before succeeding him as Kaiser, but with Uncle Fritz’s health the way it is, it’s something that could happen at any moment.’ Her eyes widened in alarm. ‘Goodness, I hope it doesn’t happen before my wedding!’ She shuddered at the thought of Uncle Fritz dying before he became her father-in-law. ‘The truth is, May, I’m finding the thought of marrying into the Hohenzollerns tricky enough, as it is. The only person who is even-tempered and on good terms with everyone is my darling Heinrich, and he’s an angel, but as for the rest of them . . .’

  She spread gloved hands out in a gesture of despair. ‘Aunt Vicky is just as argumentative as Willy. Everything is either black or white. There is never a middle way. She simply doesn’t know the meaning of the word “compromise”. And as if the situation over Uncle Fritz’s illness isn’t bad enough, Willy has been neglecting Dona. She adores him, but he spends all his time, both days and evenings, with his regiment – he is a colonel and commander of the Hussar Guards – and so when they are together, which is only at breakfast, all that can be heard are voices raised in argument, and then Willy slamming out of the palace with his six-foot-tall blond aide-de-camp, and Dona crying. It’s hardly happy families.’

  There were times when May found her own home life difficult. Four years ago, when they had been living in Florence, her father had suffered a stroke and although he had recovered from it remarkably well, he had since grown increasingly short-tempered and she was constantly being called upon to act as a buffer between him and her mother. It was a trying situation, but one that was not nearly as stressful as the one apparently taking place on a daily basis in Potsdam’s Neues Palais.

  They rounded a corner of the gravelled path. Both edges of it were lined by long swathes of sharply yellow daffodils, leading towards a bleakly dry fountain. Seated on its bronze rim, glumly smoking a cigarette, was Georgie.

  May’s heart skipped a beat. At family get-togethers such as the present one, Georgie and Eddy were usually inseparable. This time, however, there was no sign of Eddy and she fought her disappointment, her heart steadying.

  ‘If you’ve come out here to avoid company, we won’t stop and talk,’ Irène said as they approached him.

  ‘As it’s you two, I don’t mind you stopping to talk, and I could do with a bit of bucking up.’ He rose politely to his feet. ‘It’s bad timing, the old Kaiser pegging it when Uncle Fritz is in such a bad way, isn’t it? You’d think, as he’d made it to ninety, he could have hung on a little bit longer. Two more years in which to recover his health would have made all the difference to Uncle Fritz.’

  As May followed Irène’s example and seated herself on the fountain’s broad bronze rim, she wondered how two brothers so close together in age could be so dissimilar in looks and personality. Georgie had grown a beard, but it still didn’t make him look his age, which, in three months’ time, would be twenty-three. It didn’t help that he wasn’t very tall – certainly not as tall as she was, without heeled shoes and boots – and that, with his rosy cheeks and slightly protuberant blue eyes, there was a fresh-faced boyish openness about him.

  There was nothing boyish about Eddy. Tall and lean and always dashingly dressed, Eddy was all handsome sophistication. There was something about him that was far more continental than it was English. In Florence and amongst Italians, Georgie would have stuck out like a sore thumb. Eddy wouldn’t have done so. With his glossy dark hair, gold-flecked eyes and a fashionable moustache waxed and turned upwards at the ends, he would have fitted in perfectly.

  They were just as different in other ways. Georgie was addicted to stamp-collecting. Eddy, often accused of being ‘dreamy’ and ‘not interested in anything’, played hockey and polo – games that needed perfectly controlled aggression in order to be played well; and, giving the lie to what was said about him, Eddy played them very well. Like his father, Georgie teased people and, also like his father, he often teased unkindly. Eddy didn’t tease. Within the huge royal clan that was their family, he kept himself very much to himself.

  ‘Unnervingly secretive’ was how she had heard her father describe Eddy. ‘It’s rumoured he makes friends outside the royal circle.’ ‘Enigmatic’ was the description her mother used.

  May simply thought him an ideal specimen of masculine beauty.

  Her train of thought was interrupted as she became aware of Irène saying to Georgie, ‘Do you need bucking up because your parents’ Silver Wedding Grand Ball has had to be cancelled, or is it because you feel so sorry for Uncle Fritz becoming Kaiser at a time when he’s so ill?’

  ‘No,’ Georgie said bluntly as he remained standing, facing the two of them. ‘Although naturally I’m disappointed about the ball being cancelled, and I do feel sorry for Uncle Fritz.’ His shoulders were slumped, his hands were shoved deep into his coat pockets and his face was a picture of misery.

  ‘Then what is it? You look as if you’ve lost a pound and found a penny.’

  Unable to keep his unhappiness to himself any longer, he said explosively, ‘I’ve lost more than a pound, Irène. Thanks to damnable royal protocol, I’ve just been told I can’t marry Julie.’

  May nearly fell off the fountain. Julie? Who on earth was Julie? It wasn’t a name much used within the family. She couldn’t think of a single first or second cousin called Julie.

  ‘Who,’ Irène asked, as taken aback as May, ‘is Julie? And why can’t you marry her?’

  Georgie ran a hand over his hair. ‘Julie is Julie Stoner. Her grandfather was one of Granny Queen’s Prime Ministers, and her late mother was once a lady-in-waiting to my mother. Her family live very close to Sandringham and I’ve known Julie all my life. She’s so pretty an
d sweet-natured . . .’

  His voice broke and, for a hideous moment, May thought he was going to burst into tears.

  ‘. . . and damn it all, when Julie was orphaned, Motherdear encouraged me to spend time with her and to be kind to her.’ It was the second time Georgie had been so het up that he’d used a swear word in front of them without even noticing, let alone apologizing for it. ‘When I’m away at sea we write to each other all the time, and we’ve known that we love each other for ages and ages. It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t be allowed to marry her. It’s Eddy who is going to be King one day; not me, thank God. He’s the one who has to have a wife of flawless royal pedigree.’

  May felt sick at heart for him. To love someone so much you wanted to marry them, and for them to love you in the same way and then to be unable to marry because of a difference in status, was a situation so hideous it didn’t bear thinking about.

  It was, however, a situation that Georgie should have been aware of, long before his relationship with Julie had reached the point it had. After his father and then Eddy, he was third in line to the throne. It was generally accepted within the family that Georgie wasn’t much of a thinker, but even he must have realized that marrying a commoner wasn’t something someone in his position would ever be allowed to do.

  She was just trying to think of something encouraging to say to him, when he blew his nose and said, ‘Motherdear says she wishes things could be different, because she adores Julie. How could she not, when Julie is so special in every way? But she says the Roman Catholic thing is simply too much of an obstacle.’

  ‘The Roman Catholic thing?’ May wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. ‘Is Julie a Roman Catholic as well as a commoner?’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t see why it matters. Julie wouldn’t expect me to become a Roman Catholic, and I don’t mind her being one, so where is the problem?’

  May drew in a deep, unsteady breath. ‘The problem, Georgie,’ she said slowly, hardly able to believe he didn’t know about the Act of Settlement, ‘is that you are third in the line of succession, and ever since 1702 no one who becomes a Roman Catholic – or who marries a Roman Catholic – can succeed to the British throne.’

  He stared at her in stunned disbelief. ‘So, even if a miracle happened and I was given permission to marry a commoner, I still couldn’t marry my darling Julie?’

  ‘No, Georgie. I’m afraid not.’

  She stepped towards him, sliding her hand through his arm and giving it a comforting hug. ‘Being royal can be beastly, can’t it?’

  ‘It’s more than beastly; it’s a bugger.’ With eyes full of tears, he turned away from her and Irène and stomped off down the path, his hunched shoulders shaking with sobs that he could no longer hold at bay.

  Chapter Thirteen

  JANUARY 1889, NEUES PALAIS, POTSDAM

  In the Neues Palais, Willy was cock-a-hoop. As Kaiser Wilhelm II, he was Germany’s Emperor, the ‘All-Highest’, master of all he surveyed. And how he loved being so! Seven months ago, the very second his cancer-ridden papa had passed away, he had started out as he meant to go on – and that was as a powerful, autocratic ruler, answerable to no one but God. Like the Tsar of Russia, he was his own man. He appointed his own ministers and, if they proved tiresome, he replaced them with the same spur-of-the-moment speed.

  Wearing a white, gold-braided and bemedalled uniform – he never wore anything other than one of his score of military uniforms, unless he was visiting his grandmother at Balmoral, when he wore full Highland rig in Royal Stewart tartan – he was awaiting the arrival of Mr Henry Thaddeus Jones. It was May Teck who had brought Mr Jones to his attention. In one of her letters she had written:

  When living in Florence some years ago, my parents had a family portrait painted by a young Irish artist, Mr Henry Thaddeus Jones. The painting has been shown at the Royal Academy and has been very highly praised. In Florence he was commissioned by several Russian royals, and in Rome he received two papal commissions, one of them being to paint Pope Leo XIII’s portrait. I was invited, together with my mama, to afternoon tea at Windsor earlier this month and, while there, Aunt Queen told us of a portrait that a German artist had painted of you, standing on the terrace at Osborne House wearing the uniform of a British Admiral of the Fleet. It sounds magnificent, but it occurred to me that you might also like to have your portrait painted by Thaddeus Jones (Mr Jones never refers to himself by his first Christian name), only this time with a Marble Palace background and wearing one of your magnificent Prussian uniforms?

  May had then gone on with family news:

  Looloo is in love with Lord Fife, and wishes to marry him. He is nearly twenty years older than her and a friend of Uncle Bertie’s. Toria says she can’t believe Granny Queen will give permission for Looloo to marry a non-royal, but knowing Granny Queen’s love of Scotland, and as Fife is a Scot and so wealthy he owns half the Highlands, I think Looloo may well be in with a chance. (Georgie has wickedly suggested that Granny Queen ask one of her Highland ghillies to act as Fife’s best man!)

  And there was more: mention of how, since their marriage and a visit to Osborne House, Irène and Heinrich had become so popular with the English branch of their family that they had been nicknamed ‘The Amiables’. Of how Eddy had been made a Knight Justice of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, and how Georgie was serving in the Mediterranean fleet. That he was seeing a lot of Aunt Marie, Ducky and Missy for, as Uncle Affie was commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean fleet, his family had taken up temporary residence in Malta, so Georgie had begun staying with them whenever he had shore leave.

  Alicky, she had added as a postscript, had recently left for a long stay with Ella and Sergei in St Petersburg; she had no up-to-date news with regard to Ella, although she was sure Alicky would soon be sending her some.

  Willy had very much liked the idea of having his portrait painted by Mr Jones, and the arrangement that he should do so had swiftly been put into place, which was why, in a few minutes’ time and suitably escorted by a clutch of his favourite aides-de-camp, he was about to make his way to the Audience Room, where he would meet the painter.

  For the moment, though, he wished to remain alone in his study to think about Ella. Her photograph stood on the desk in front of him. Having it there was no insult to Dona, for no one entered his study except at his invitation, and in eight years of marriage he had never extended that invitation to his wife.

  Ella – a stab of pain knifed through him. How could he have so wanted to marry her, and for her not to have wanted to marry him? Even worse, how could she then have married Sergei Romanov? Although not much was known about Sergei outside Russia, other than that he was arrogant and not much liked, the rumours about him within Russia were sinister enough to make Willy’s flesh crawl. ‘I have it on good authority that he is a sadist,’ Willy’s Ambassador to St Petersburg had told him.

  Even thinking about Ella being married to such a man made bile rise in Willy’s throat. How could his darling Ella, the most loving, caring and compassionate of girls, have married such a man? And not only have married him, but continually have insisted that her marriage was a happy one?

  Desperately he tried to think of something else and forced himself to focus on Looloo and her desire to marry the non-royal and middle-aged Lord Fife. His Aunt Alix was a claustrophobically possessive mother and he knew, from time spent in her company, that she had no desire for any of ‘her chicks’, as she persisted in calling her daughters, to marry. ‘Why should they?’ he had once heard her say gaily, ‘when they have lovely Sandringham and Marlborough House to live in, and horses to ride; and when their Motherdear loves them so much and would be so distraught if they were to marry and leave her?’

  Although it had always been easiest to think of Toria as the eldest of the sisters, it was the self-effacing Looloo who was actually the eldest and he knew that she was May’s age, which was twenty-one. Being twenty-one in a family with a history of arranging marriages when
a girl was as young as fourteen, and where it was commonplace for them to marry at sixteen, was to be on the shelf, especially as it meant that even as a debutante, no proposal had been received. It was no wonder then that, if Looloo had received a proposal from Fife, she was eager to accept it.

  Willy’s thoughts reverted to Ella. How could they not, now that he knew Alicky was staying with her in St Petersburg? His jaw tightened and he clenched his good hand into a fist. Ever since Ella had so adamantly refused to marry him, he had vowed never to see her again; not because his love had turned to hate, but because the pain of seeing her would have been more than he could bear.

  Although it had attracted comment, he hadn’t attended her wedding. At any family get-together where Ella and Sergei were expected to put in an appearance, he had not done so. She had captured his heart when she had been little more than a child, and when he had been a student in a city so near to Darmstadt that it had been only natural he should visit relations who were living there. No other girl had ever affected him as Ella had then and, in the years since, neither had any other woman.

  Not that there had been many women. He had always found sex a laborious and unsatisfactory business. There had been a handful of brief love affairs before his marriage to Dona, because it was what was expected of him. For him not to have had love affairs would have aroused comment. There had even been a couple of love affairs since his marriage, and mainly for the same reason. It was what was expected of a man at the peak of his virility – and he’d be damned before he’d be seen as being anything else.

  ‘And nor will you be,’ his closest and much-loved friend, Phili, had said reassuringly. ‘With five sons already in the palace nursery, you have more than done your duty where securing the succession to the throne is concerned. Women are not as important in a man’s life as they like to think. How can they be, when they are incapable of focusing on the loftier things in life, things such as music and literature and, dare I say it, the mysteries of the occult?’