Twenty-one
3rd December 1900, at Windsor
I SEE now that my darling had it all out of proportion. At any other time, or if his health had not already been impaired, he would not have allowed it to weigh so much on his spirits. As it was, however, he was unable to shake it off. It haunted him with the persistency with which even trifles haunt the mind when the nervous system has been overtaxed; and since I lived so much with him and by him and through him, and had absorbed his thoughts and his preoccupations and his philosophies over such a period of years that I hardly had any of my own, I was haunted by it too. I could not divert his thoughts or give them a more rational perspective. What hurt him, hurt me, and in the state he was in, the story of what Bertie had done caused him, he said, ‘the greatest pain that he had yet felt in this life’.
On the 16th of November, having brooded over it for four days, he wrote Bertie a letter. At this distance I sincerely pity my son, who adored and reverenced his father, for what he must have felt receiving such a letter – though at the time I thought it no more than he deserved. It was very long, and the words might well have seared the paper. Much of it Albert would not let me see, saying that it concerned things which were not proper to be mentioned to a woman (I suppose it was about syphilis and suchlike matters); but I read the last page, and I am glad I never had such a letter sent to me.
‘You have become the talk and ridicule of the idle and profligate,’ was one of the milder phrases. ‘The woman, who frequents the lowest dance halls in London, is already known by the nickname of “The Princess of Wales”. Probably she will have a child, or will get a child, of which you will be the reputed father, no matter what the truth of it. If you were to try to deny it, she can drag you into a Court of Law to force you to own the child, and there, with you, the Prince of Wales, in the witness box, she will be able to give before a greedy multitude disgusting details of your profligacy for the sake of convincing the Jury. You yourself will be cross-examined by a railing, indecent attorney, and hooted and yelled at by a Lawless Mob!! Oh horrible prospect, which this person has in her power, any day, to realise! YOU have put it in her power to break your poor parents’ hearts!’
The language was impassioned, the grammar shaky, the handwriting violent; my darling was almost deranged with grief that after all his endless care, this, the worst thing he had feared, had happened; and with worry as to what it might be the beginning of Night after night he was unable to sleep, but sat at his desk, his little green-shaded lamp burning through the black middle watch as he sat with his head in his hands and grieved. His father – his brother – my half-brother Charles – and now his own son, in spite of every care, seemed to be going the same way, infected by that fatal tendency he so feared and abhorred. He felt he had failed – he told me so again and again. Once I found him weeping – not violently, but hopelessly, which was far worse. ‘I could not even protect my own child,’ he said. ‘Everything else I have done is wasted, for when he is King he will reverse it all.’ In vain I struggled against such terrific ideas. I was worried too, and deeply hurt and disappointed. I could not condone what Bertie had done – it was wrong, both absolutely, and because of who he was. But it was not worth all this grief. Oh my darling, it was not worth dying for!
Bertie’s letter came back – shocked, overwhelmed, a letter steeped in misery and contrition. I think he had seen it as a prank merely, in his young heedlessness not realising it was far graver than such misdemeanours as smoking and drinking spirits, which he would also have hidden from his father and me. Albert and I read the letter together, and Albert read it over and over again, poring over it as though it were some rare manuscript, weighing every word and its possible implications. He almost wore the ink from the page in his effort to understand Bertie’s heart. But it seemed to lift him, just a little. ‘I think he understands his error – do you not think so, my love? I think he shows true repentance. Read here, this sentence. Do you not think he is really ashamed and sorry?’
I agreed heartily, glad to encourage this better frame of mind, no longer – forgive me! – really so much caring about the state of Bertie’s soul as the state of my husband’s mind and heart.
‘I will go and see him,’ he said at last. ‘If he truly repents, we must forgive him – though no forgiveness can restore him to the state of innocence he has lost.’ He paced restlessly up and down as he spoke, unable to keep still under the fever of his thoughts. ‘He has thrown away the best gift of youth – its purity. He must ever hide himself from the sight of God.’
I was not so sure about that. ‘Surely, if he behaves himself from now on, and marries and settles down – if he proves himself a good husband and father—’
‘Early marriage must be his only hope now. If Alix will have him. If her parents will agree to it. They must be told – she must be told everything. She must not be allowed to bind herself to him without knowing what she takes on.’
So on Thursday the 21st he wrote to Bertie in Cambridge, telling him he would be down on the Monday. ‘Those around you will do everything they can to help you, but they will be powerless unless they are met on your part with that openness and honesty which must characterise the dealings of gentlemen with each other.’ On the Friday he seemed to be starting a cold, but in spite of that he went to Sandhurst to inspect the new buildings for the Staff College and Royal Military Academy – one of his pet projects – and walking about all day in the pouring rain got soaked to the skin and came back to Windsor shivering and aching. All weekend he was suffering – we had the usual complement of guests and he did not spare himself in his duties as host – and by Sunday night he was obviously feverish and aching all over, he said, with rheumatic pains. But he would not be deflected from his decision to go down to Cambridge on the Monday, and knowing that his body could not be easy if his mind was not, I did not try too hard to stop him.
It was another damp day, not raining precisely, but mizzling on and off, as though the skies were too heavy with water quite to hold it all in – the worst sort of weather, as it happened, for had it been positively raining, they might have stayed indoors. But as it is always easier to talk when walking, and privacy is better served out of doors, where no-one can eavesdrop, Albert and Bertie went for a walk along the deep, damp country lanes about Madingley, where we had taken a house for Bertie, and they talked – very long and very deep. I have always said that Bertie’s best qualities are his honesty and his affectionate heart, and both came to his rescue now (from what Albert told me about it afterwards). He was deeply grieved by the pain he had given his beloved papa; had not thought it was so very bad at the time, though he had not liked deceiving us, but saw now that it was very bad indeed; would never, never do such a thing again for the world. He told Albert exactly how it had come about in a very frank way: it had not been his idea at all – he had known nothing of it until he found the girl in his bed; then it had seemed only rather a lark; and even so if he had not been a trifle bosky from the banquet he would have sent the girl packing. But somehow or other, he couldn’t say how, he had found himself kissing her, and she was such a nice little thing, and he was lonely and far from home, that matters had got out of hand before he knew it. She was a very nice girl, not the way the rumours painted her, but well spoken and kind-hearted, not at all the sort who would blackmail a fellow or anything of that kind. But yes, he did see that he must have nothing more to do with her, and that such a thing must never happen again.
‘He spoke so properly and feelingly,’ Albert told me, ‘that I was very touched. He said that he loved and respected me so much that it would kill him if I did not forgive him. So I told him, of course, that I forgave him, and that nothing more on the subject would ever be said again. Did I do right?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘quite right. If he knows his error, he must be forgiven. He is a warm-hearted boy, after all, and I dare say that’s what led him astray, rather than a real addiction to vice. If he marries a good girl, his affectio
ns will have a proper outlet, and he will grow steadier. I don’t know how I shall be able to face him when he comes home, though. What does one say in such a case?’
‘Ah, that brings me to another point,’ Albert said. ‘He asked me if you and his sisters need to be told about it. He was very anxious to keep it from you and them if possible. I did not tell him that you already knew. I thought it would make relations easier between you if he goes on thinking I have been able to keep the affair from you.’
As the day wore on, the sky grew darker and it grew bitterly cold; and owing to Bertie’s taking a wrong turning and getting lost, they were out walking far longer than was necessary or good. Albert had intended to come back that evening, but he had been so chilled and tired by the long walk he had had to stay the night at Madingley, and did not get back to Windsor until half past one the next day. By then he was so exhausted he had to lie on the sofa, shivering and aching, but with a mind so much relieved by the talk with Bertie, it gave me to believe he would soon recover his spirits and his health. But the next day he was no better, and his old gastric trouble returned, so we sent for Jenner. Though we did not say the word aloud, we were both terrified of typhoid; but Jenner pronounced it to be only a feverish cold, though a bad enough one for him to remain at the castle for the rest of the week. Poor Albert could not eat, nor sleep, and the rheumatism in his shoulder was so bad that he could not go out to shoot with Louis Hesse when a party was arranged; he felt so weak he had often to lie down and rest, and he complained of pains in the back and legs. His temper, unusually for him, was irritable, and he tried me sorely by refusing to rest properly and then complaining of weariness. But by Friday Jenner pronounced him much better and said that there was no need for him to sleep at the castle any longer.
Unfortunately the week’s end also brought a new crisis to trouble us – and Albert in particular. The Americans had been fighting a civil war for eight months now, north against south, which was nothing to do with us; until the news arrived that one of our mail ships, the Trent, had been held up by an American warship. An armed party had boarded her and removed by force four of the passengers, who were gentlemen of the Southern states bound for London and Paris as envoys, and travelling under the protection of the British flag. This was an outrageous breach of international law, and there was an instant clamour in the country for war with the northern states. ‘Bear this, bear all!’ thundered The Times, the Americans, as witness the behaviour of their ministers abroad, their businessmen, even their debutantes at Court, were growing too big for their boots. It was time to teach them a lesson – and incidentally take vengeance for the insult of 1776. Palmerston was snorting like an old war-horse scenting gunpowder; and Gladstone (how I disliked that man!) declared that the country and the Cabinet were as one, and that eight thousand of our troops were in Canada and ready to march into the United States at any moment.
The draft of a despatch from Russell – then Foreign Secretary – to Washington reached us at Windsor that Friday, and it was terse to the point of downright provocation, demanding the instant release of the arrested passengers with full apology and full reparation for the breach of international law, in such tones as to leave the Americans no alternative but to defy us. Certainly they had behaved extremely badly, but did we really want to go to war with them? On the Saturday came further news, in a letter from Palmerston. Two of the passengers on the Trent were in London and had said that the officer in charge of the boarding party had told them he had done it on his own initiative, and not on official instructions. On the other hand, a senior officer of the Northern army who was in Paris had stated that the whole thing had been planned by Washington with the intention of provoking war with Britain so as to bring in France on their side with the promise of restoring Canada to them.
‘I don’t believe that,’ Albert said, coughing a little. He had been troubled yesterday and today by the dryness of his tongue, which had turned a horrid brown colour. His eyes were unnaturally bright, and he moved restlessly, but he assured me he had no fever, only the dreadful aches and shiverings. ‘I don’t believe the Northern states want war with us. They may fancy they could beat us on land, but they can have no doubts about the superiority of our Navy.’
‘Whether they want war or not, we do not,’ I said firmly. ‘It would bring us no credit to engage such ruffians; and I do not think matters of this sort warrant spilling the blood of God knows how many of our men.’
‘Then Russell must reword the despatch,’ Albert said. ‘The Americans must be given some means of making their apology without losing face. I must think how it can be done.’
The next morning, which was Sunday, he rose without a word to me at seven, and put on his thickly padded dressing-gown.
‘Where are you going?’ I asked him. ‘Surely you are not going to work today?’
He looked towards me, but his eyes did not connect with mine. ‘I am going to rewrite that draft,’ he said. ‘I have thought how to do it. You remember what Palmerston told us the passengers said? We must say to Washington that we cannot believe they would wish deliberately to insult our flag or jeopardise the safety of our mails, and that we therefore assume it was the action of an over-zealous captain acting without orders, or at least misunderstanding his orders. That way they can apologise and make reparation without shaming themselves.’
‘Oh yes,’ I said, ‘that is exactly right! How clever you are, beloved! But must you do it now? Come back to bed – you don’t look well enough to be up.’
‘I can’t rest,’ he said starkly, ‘and it had better be done as soon as possible, or between them they will make an international incident out of it.’
‘But my darling, a few hours can’t make any difference.’
‘Don’t fret me,’ he said irritably. ‘I will do it. Leave me alone.’ And he went away to his desk. An hour later he returned, bearing the paper, which he presented to me with a shaking hand. ‘I am so weak I can hardly hold the pen,’ he groaned. ‘Here, read it while I dress.’
‘You are too ill,’ I said. ‘Come back to bed and let me send for Jenner.’
‘I can’t lie down, I hurt too much,’ he said fretfully. ‘And Jenner can’t help. He doesn’t understand my disposition as poor Baly did. I wish he had not been killed.’ And he went away to dress. The draft was excellent, beautifully worded, an invitation one could hardly refuse to back away from war and negotiate – emollient to the sensitivity of the young country and accommodating to its pride. I could not know as I read it, that it would be the last thing he ever wrote.
He could eat no breakfast, and in desperation to find something that would ease him I suggested a walk on the Terrace, hoping the fresh air would do him good. He came with me to Chapel and knelt with me as usual, but he looked so ill my heart panicked in me, and I found I could not think or pray, only stare ahead of me in a sort of frozen frenzy. He ate no luncheon afterwards, but sat with us and entertained us while we ate, telling us amusing stories and waiting with an odd kind of patience while we laughed, as if our reaction were somehow irrelevant. I laughed with the rest, and watched him painfully, wondering if he really knew what he was saying. In the afternoon Jenner came, with Clark, and I saw their disappointed looks, and their exchange of glances which were almost shrugs. There was no fever, they said, as if to console me; and Albert laughed strangely and said that was a good thing, for he was so ill he would never survive a fever. Don’t say such things, I begged him. Say what things? he said, and laughed again. And yet he was not delirious: he looked at me almost with malice, and I could only take refuge from my fear in anger. You know very well, I snapped. My dear, he said, there is no cause for alarm.
He ate no dinner, and went early to bed, but he slept little, lying shivering through the dark hours. I dozed a little, waking sometimes to find him sleeping fitfully, sometimes not. Once or twice I tried to hold him in my arms, to comfort him, but he said his skin hurt and begged me not to touch him. Towards the morning he got up and we
nt to lie on the sofa at the foot of the bed; and when the clock struck seven he sent for Jenner.
That was Monday the 2nd of December. He did not come downstairs again. Oh, I cannot, even now, even at this distance, recount all the agonising hours of the last two weeks. He would not eat, he could not sleep, but wandered from room to room, and I followed him helplessly, brought him drinks, tried to anticipate where he might settle so as to make it comfortable for him. But he looked at me with that strange, blind look I had seen before, up at Feithort, and which frightened me so much; yet, perhaps because I had seen it before, I did not, could not believe what it portended. Only the young can flirt with the idea of death, speak his name, write poems to him, for the young know they are immortal. When you come to the age of understanding that he might come for you next, you take care not to attract his attention.
So I would not think of death, shut it out of my thoughts, out of possibility. (I am always here, even when you cannot see me. I will seek you out, I will have you; there is nowhere to hide, nowhere safe from me.) Albert had a malady, a feverish cold, but he would get well if he rested and did not worry. If only he would eat! He drank a little Seltzer with raspberry vinegar added to cut through the bad taste in his mouth; he ate a few mouthfuls of broth and brown bread, but brought them up again. He walked, he shivered, he moaned. He asked Alice to read to him, but after a few pages he complained she had chosen the most tedious book in existence and bid her leave off. Jenner came and gave him ether and Hoffman’s drops, and for a blissful hour and a half he slept quietly before waking to confusion and restlessness again.
I, Victoria Page 53
