The Summer Queen

by Margaret Pemberton

  It had also been the scene of one of their most bitter marital rows. And as was the case with most of their rows, it had been about the amount of time he spent with Phili.

  ‘But he is my best and closest friend,’ Willy had protested, wanting to tear his hair out with frustration. ‘Of course I spend time with him! God in heaven, who else would I spend time with?’

  ‘With me. With me!’ she had screamed, pummelling him in the chest, tears streaming down her face. ‘I am your wife! I should be your best friend.’

  He was an autocrat; an emperor who ruled the largest country in Europe with an iron fist; a man who had sacked, without a second thought, the Chancellor who had forged a score of tiny weak principalities and duchies into a strong empire. And yet faced with his out-of-control wife, Willy was at a loss as to how to deal with her. He could hardly spell out to her that friendship – any friendship – had to have a common basis; that she bored him nearly to the point of insanity and that, in contrast, his dear, artistic and multi-talented Phili never bored him.

  Phili was a poet, a playwright, a composer and a singer. The hours he spent turning the pages for Phili as, accompanying himself on the piano, he sang Nordic ballads of his own composition were hours that Willy could only describe as sublime. How could he ever feel such mental and spiritual unity with Dona, who didn’t have an artistic or intellectual bone in her body? The answer was that he couldn’t.

  It mystified him that Dona couldn’t see how her scenes and tantrums only resulted in his wanting to spend even less time with her, not more. He couldn’t imagine Ella behaving in such a way, no matter what the provocation; or the calm, cool and collected May Teck. All in all, he felt himself very badly done by. So much so that the mask of all-powerful arrogant and boastful confidence behind which he permanently hid was, during rows about Phili, in danger of slipping – and he couldn’t let that happen. Not when he was with Dona. Not when he was with anyone.

  At the moment Phili was at Liebenberg, his family estate in Rhine-Westphalia. Reliving his last hideous scene with Dona had done Willy no good at all and, in desperate need of Phili’s reassuring presence, he decided that Liebenberg was where he needed to be without a second’s delay.

  ‘Westphalia!’ he roared to his clutch of long-suffering and always present aides-de-camp. ‘We leave instantly.’ He slammed his fist down on his desk and ink-pots clattered and pens rolled. ‘Don’t just stand there, dolts! Action! Action!’

  Not for one second did he expect to find Phili alone at Liebenberg. Phili was far too popular for that to be likely. Phili would be surrounded by friends – always male – who, like him, all regarded themselves as being artistically inclined. Their nickname was ‘the Liebenberg Circle’, and all Willy’s moments of happiness and relaxation occurred when he was counted amongst their number. He relished the applause the Circle gave to the practical jokes he loved playing; jokes that were always, of course, played by him, and never on him. He loved the masculine horseplay that was indulged in, and the hilarious, near-to-the-knuckle skits they all took part in. But first, of course, he and Phili would have time together privately; time to talk about matters the rest of the Circle were not privy to; time for Willy to bare his heart to Phili about the misery of his married life.

  ‘She is killing me with her tantrums and her demands!’ he said, a break in his voice and on the verge of tears. ‘Truly, Phili, I do not think the woman is in her right mind.’

  ‘Then if she isn’t, my dear Kaiser, perhaps a sanatorium?’

  ‘But the children? She is so kind and good to the children. If she was to go into a sanatorium, the children would never forgive me.’

  Phili nodded, knowing the real reason his suggestion hadn’t been taken up was that Wilhelm would have been unable to cope with the shame of having his wife publicly branded as mentally ill – especially as they both knew she wasn’t. In public he spoke of her as being the most wonderful of wives, someone who made it possible for him to carry the tremendous burden of empire. When visiting a young men’s army corps in Bonn, an army corps he had belonged to as a university student, he had told them that the smile their Empress had bestowed on them had ennobled their lives.

  That she had never ennobled his was something to which only Phili was privy.

  ‘Her jealous rages over our friendship utterly consume her,’ Willy said, sinking deeper and deeper into self-pity. ‘She flies into hysterical rages over the most trivial matters. She makes terrible scenes when I travel around Germany without her, but how can I take her with me? I wouldn’t have a moment’s peace! She is quite capable of weeping through an entire night.’

  ‘Then my advice,’ Phili said firmly, ‘is that you lock the doors of all your private rooms against her, so that in the Marble Palace at Potsdam, or the Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin, or in any of the other royal palaces, she cannot gain access to you. That way, perhaps, you will be spared her senseless rages and undignified tantrums. And now, before we join the companions who share our individuality, shall I play some soothingly lovely music of my own composition?’

  Later, while Willy and other members of the Circle rocked with laughter at one of their number cavorting to music from Swan Lake in tights and a pink tutu, one of those watching took Phili to one side and said, ‘How long is it to be before the Kaiser realizes that everyone here, whose company he so enjoys and is so much at home with, is deviant? For how much longer do we have to be careful not to bluntly speak the word “homosexual”?’

  ‘And bring home to him his repressed sexuality? Not ever, I hope, and so the pretence of jolly good but not always clean fun and romps, which he so enjoys, must be kept up, without him ever being aware of the undertones. There is a prudish side to our dear Kaiser that would never allow him to face up to what he would regard as the shameful truth about himself. If faced with it, he would sever all ties and the political power that we now enjoy would be gone in the twinkling of an eye. I would no longer be his minister at Munich. Moltke would no longer be Chief of the General Staff. Bülow would no longer be Head of the Foreign Office. And you, dear Bernard, would not be a Secretary of State.’

  As he finished speaking there were fresh roars of laughter, this time obligatory ones. Willy had just cut through his Reich Chancellor’s braces with a penknife, and Caprivi’s trousers lay humiliatingly around his ankles.

  Phili sighed. Showing hilarity at the Kaiser’s schoolboy jokes was compulsory, even for the victim. Overall it was, though, a small price to pay for high political office, and he had the comfort of knowing that not only had he never been the butt of one of the Kaiser’s practical jokes, but he was certain he never would be. The Kaiser loved him far too much ever to want to offend him. That he loved Phili more than he loved anyone was a declaration he’d had the satisfaction of receiving from the Kaiser’s own ruby-red lips.

  Chapter Twenty

  NOVEMBER 1891, BALMORAL

  May had never known her mother to be as flustered as she was the morning she and Dolly left for Balmoral.

  ‘You must remember,’ she said for the umpteenth time, as she and the Duke accompanied them to Euston station where they would catch the night train to Scotland, ‘Aunt Queen lives very quietly and to a very strict routine. And she doesn’t like noise. You must move around the castle like little mice. And she keeps early hours. You, Dolly, must be sure to remember that. Oh, my goodness! What on earth can be Victoria’s reason for wishing to see you, May? I do wish I knew. I shall be in a frenzy until you are able to let me know.’

  ‘The reason Aunt Queen wishes to spend time with May,’ Dolly said, ‘is the one she set out so clearly in her letter. She wishes to get to know May a little better.’

  Privately their mother thought this might well be true. However, she didn’t want it to be true. Her precious daughter had never been given one of the heart-to-heart talks that her cousin had always gone out of her way to have with granddaughters and grandnieces when they were approaching marriageable age. At twenty-four,
May was, of course, way past the age when such talks usually took place. All the same, try as she might she couldn’t help fervently hoping that the reason for May’s summons to Balmoral was because Victoria had a husband in mind for her.

  The question most tormenting her was, if that was indeed the reason, who was the intended bridegroom? In not accepting Prince Ernst, May had shown she was unwilling to marry for marrying’s sake and was only prepared to marry someone with whom she felt herself to be compatible, and for whom she felt the kind of affection in which, once married, love and respect could grow.

  They reached the station in the evening darkness. Beneath the dull yellow glow of gas lamps, its cavernous interior was a hive of deafening activity. Porters dashed hither and thither with trolleys loaded high with luggage; departing passengers thronged the concourse; cloth-capped men hustled wives and children in the direction of third-class carriages; top-hatted men accompanied by elegantly dressed wives heading unerringly for first-class carriages. News-boys were hollering that they had papers for sale. A shawl-wrapped, toothless woman was selling flowers. A man was shouting that he had roasted chestnuts for sale.

  To May’s vast relief they didn’t have to attempt to thread their way through the throng, for the station manager, wearing the gold-braided uniform he always wore when greeting arriving or departing royalty, was waiting to meet them. Within seconds a clutch of railway personnel had cleared a pathway towards the carriage reserved permanently for royal use.

  ‘Be sure you remember to wrap up warm all the time you are there, May,’ their mother said anxiously, as the door to May and Dolly’s carriage was closed. ‘Dolly, make quite sure she does so. It’s so easy to catch pneumonia at Balmoral. I’ve only been a guest there once and I thought I was going to die of the cold. Even in the depths of winter, Aunt Queen insists on windows being left open. She believes it to be healthy, and maybe it is, for her. It certainly isn’t for anyone else.’

  A whistle blew. As the train began moving slowly out of the station and final goodbyes were waved and kisses blown, she called out in last-minute agitation, ‘And don’t forget both to be on your very best behaviour! The next few days could be so important. So very, very important.’

  ‘Poor Ma,’ Dolly said, when they were finally so far out of the station that they were able to close the window and make themselves comfortable. ‘If her hopes – and we both know what her hopes are – don’t come to fruition in a satisfactory way, are you still set on scandalizing everyone by making a life for yourself in Florence?’

  ‘Yes.’ May’s ankle-length mauve coat had a fur collar that had been dyed to match, as had the fur hat she was wearing and the muff she was carrying. She laid the muff down on the seat beside her. ‘What is the worst thing that can happen to me, if I do?’

  ‘Well, for starters, Aunt Queen will never see or speak to you again.’

  ‘Which is something I will be sad about, but not so sad I’m going to change my mind.’

  ‘Ma will miss you.’

  ‘And I will miss her – but she adores Florence, and I’m sure she’ll begin visiting it for months on end once I am living there.’

  ‘Maybe, but how can you afford it?’ he persisted. ‘Frank’s latest gambling debts have got Pa and Ma strapped for cash again.’

  ‘I’ll be able to live in a modest way on the money Mama’s mother left me, and at least I will be living life on my own terms.’

  ‘With staff and a chaperone?’

  ‘With a small staff and a chaperone companion.’

  Coming from a sister he had always regarded as being wonderfully level-headed, it was a project so pie-in-the sky as to be madness. Dolly was certain it would never come to pass, for although an elderly woman might get away with living in such a way, for a single young woman of any respectable class to do so was unheard of. And May wasn’t just any single respectable young woman. She was royalty, even if, like him, only second-class royalty.

  Deciding it was best to let the matter drop, he changed the subject.

  ‘Ma’s secret hopes as to why your company is wanted at Balmoral might well be valid, May. Perhaps Aunt Queen is up to her matchmaking tricks again.’

  ‘Why would she be, when she still has granddaughters who aren’t yet matched up? Ducky is approaching marriageable age. Toria is still spectacularly single and, since Frank treated her so abominably, so is dear Maudie.’

  ‘Toria is still single because Aunt Alix is totally opposed to her marrying anyone. She’s chronically possessive about all her children – and that includes Eddy and Georgie. Georgie once showed me one of her letters to him, when he was serving aboard a ship in the Mediterranean, and it started off, “To my dear darling little Georgie boy.” Where Toria is concerned, Aunt Alix doesn’t want her ever to leave home. She wants her as her permanent companion, just as Aunt Queen keeps Beatrice as her permanent companion.’

  ‘But at least Aunt Bea is her permanent married companion.’

  ‘Only because Henry agreed to Aunt Queen’s demand that he and Beatrice make their married home with her. And to do that, the poor devil had to give up his career in the Prussian Hussars. Aunt Queen,’ he added darkly, ‘can be viciously selfish when she wants to be.’

  Later, when they were having a meal in a private dining carriage lit by oil lamps – the Queen allowed no gas lighting in any of her carriages – and furnished with a deep-piled wine-red carpet and matching silk-covered dining chairs, Dolly said, ‘Doesn’t something strike you as odd about this invite to Balmoral?’

  ‘Everything about it strikes me as odd. Which aspect of oddness are you thinking of?’

  ‘The apparent urgency. It’s now the first week of November. The Queen’s routine is to be at Osborne from the beginning of July until the end of August, Balmoral from the beginning of September to the beginning of November, and then Windsor until well after Christmas.’

  ‘And?’ May was unable to see what he was getting at.

  ‘And as it is already the first week of November, she would, in normal circumstances, be back at Windsor within a week – two weeks at the most. If she wants to spend time with you, why is she not doing so somewhere that is only a hop and jump away from White Lodge? Why the urgency about seeing you immediately, when she is over six hundred miles away?’

  May had no answer. It was something she hadn’t thought of, and Dolly was right, it was odd.

  In the end she said, ‘I expect it was a whim and, when it occurred to her, she sent the message to Mama without thinking it through.’

  Something else occurred to Dolly, but he didn’t mention it until, an hour or so later, May told him she was going to bed. ‘When Aunt Queen was hoping to make a match between Alicky and Eddy, and when she summoned Alicky to Balmoral, didn’t she also invite Eddy at the same time?’

  ‘Yes. I think she was hoping an engagement announcement could be made while they were still with her.’

  ‘Well, this is just a thought, Sis. Max of Baden is on a visit to England. If we find him in residence when we arrive at Balmoral, it can only be that Ma’s hopes are about to be fulfilled and you have been invited so that he can look you over.’

  ‘And the moon is made of green cheese. Goodnight, Dolly. And stop speculating. It’s no help whatsoever.’

  Despite the gentle rocking motion of the train and the rhythm of its wheels on the track, May didn’t sleep well. Prince Maximilian of Baden was a very different kettle of fish from Prince Ernst of Schleswig-Holstein. She knew of him only by repute, but everything she had heard about him was encouraging. He was somewhere in his mid-twenties and had studied law and politics at Leipzig University. She had once overheard her Uncle Bertie say that if Willy had a brain in his head, he would make Max his Reich Chancellor, which meant there were no doubts as to Max’s intelligence and ability; and she had heard Toria say that Max was handsome enough to die for.

  Could Dolly’s assumption possibly be correct? Was her summons to Balmoral in order that Max of Baden could meet
her to see if they were compatible? And if so, why her? Why not Toria or Maudie? If he married Toria or Maudie, his father-in-law would one day be King of the United Kingdom and Emperor of India. Why, then, would he be allowing Aunt Queen to steer him in the direction of May Teck, who could bring nothing to a union but second-class royal status and a history of shameful family bankruptcy?

  The last question she posed herself, as the train steamed further and further north, was whether she would accept Max’s proposal if Dolly’s reading of the situation was correct? Her head told her that out of respect for her parents’ happiness, she should accept, but her heart didn’t sing at the thought and when she finally fell into a troubled sleep, her dreams were not of Max of Baden, but of Eddy: heartbroken over Hélène, and miles away across the Irish Sea, drilling his soldiers on a Dublin parade ground.

  The next morning they were met at Ballater station by a kilt-clad Henry of Battenberg and his equerry. ‘So very good to see the two of you again,’ Henry said with friendly cheerfulness as he escorted them out of the station to where carriages were waiting. ‘Shame about the weather. There’s a sniff in the air that indicates snow could be coming. We’ve never been snowed in yet at Balmoral. We’re usually well tucked up at Windsor before the first mid-November blizzards. However, there’s always a first time for everything and, if there is, views of the castle and the countryside around it will be satisfyingly pretty.’

  It was too late in the year for wild flowers to be seen, but the rolling hills covered in a haze of heather and thick copses of fir and pine, and mountains in the not-too-far distance, gave a wild, romantic feel to the landscape and May could well understand the Queen’s great love for her Highland home.

  ‘Are there any other guests at the castle this week, Henry?’ Dolly asked, not wasting any time in resolving the question uppermost in both his mind and May’s.