The Balmoral Incident

by Alanna Knight

  So I told her that Olivia had decided the girls should stay and that when they went to bed, there had been a little party for some of Vince’s friends to meet Olivia. She presumed that I had stayed the night and I saw no reason for complicated explanations as she didn’t seem particularly interested.

  As I made my breakfast she went up to her room and didn’t appear again until lunchtime. Nor did Lily put in an appearance, so I felt rather guilty that having been disturbed by Thane’s barking during the night both had decided to return to their beds, and that Lily, who normally made Mabel’s breakfast, had been instructed that she was not to be disturbed.

  I would have liked to follow their example, almost too tired to eat or even stay awake, but I rallied enough to take Thane out for his morning walk in the woods. He showed none of his usual eagerness to run ahead and I regarded him anxiously. He didn’t seem himself, shivering and staying close to my side.

  ‘Missing Meg, are you?’ He regarded me gravely, that almost human questioning glance, and then the rain began, a sudden sharp shower and we headed back.

  I went upstairs. Mabel was in her bedroom. I thought I heard her voice raised, haranguing Lily, no doubt, who never spoke above a whisper.

  I slipped quietly into my bedroom, fell on the bed and slept. Deeply but not particularly peacefully, troubled by weird threatening dreams, none of which I was to clearly remember except that my rescuer had a leading role, but whether as hero or villain never became certain.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I was wakened by the sound of voices. Mabel’s and that of Aiken; gruff, deep and very carrying.

  I went downstairs feeling drugged with an ominous feeling of dread, the lingering shreds of bad dreams. Aiken leapt to his feet, touched his bonnet in greeting. I could see from his expression that there was something amiss. The purpose of this visit was not to bring any good news.

  He was looking hard at Thane, then clearing his throat he said sternly: ‘We have had complaints, madam, from the castle, indeed from the highest,’ he added, bowing his head reverentially, ‘if you get my meaning. The kennels were very noisy last night. Their Majesties were disturbed, and children were awakened.’ He shook his head. ‘This behaviour of the kennels is quite unknown. The dogs are very well-behaved animals, carefully chosen and trained, but they were at it all night, barking and howling. Something started them off. His Majesty was most upset,’ he added gravely.

  And so was I. I guessed that Thane had set them off, his panic about me had spread to the other canines and so they wanted to be out too, on the trail, searching. Oh dear, this was awful.

  Aiken was saying: ‘This is very serious, madam. As you know, I have done my very best to keep His Majesty unaware of your dog’s existence. Dr Vince was most adamant that the presence of such a handsome, unusual beast would be kept as unobtrusive as possible.’ He stopped, sighed wearily and I realised what a can of worms I had opened. My innocent visit to the castle, staying on for that party, drinking too much and getting lost, had not only endangered myself, but put Thane’s future in peril.

  As Aiken prepared to take his departure, leaving me to brood on how I had let everyone down, emotions in turmoil, my thoughts flew to Jack. If only he were here, when I needed him most, his expert knowledge dealing with this very nasty situation. Clever, wise Jack would know exactly what to do next.

  Mabel set about preparing a meal, which rather surprised me as she rarely ventured as far as the kitchen sink let alone the stove.

  ‘Where is Lily?’ I asked. ‘Is she ill?’

  Mabel scowled. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea. I haven’t seen her all day. Perhaps she has eloped with one of those stable boys.’ She gave a dismissive shrug. ‘I have had more than enough of that girl, I can tell you. Totally unreliable and not a word of gratitude for being here, sharing the cottage with her betters. She seems to think she is on holiday too and can neglect all her duties. I can tell you, Rose, I have had enough. Enough! When she does appear, I shall send her packing, and without a reference either.’

  I was delivered from Mabel’s further tirade about the delinquent Lily by the arrival of Olivia and the two girls. A great fuss was made over Thane by both of them. Olivia was delighted at the amazing transformation in Faith during this holiday.

  She took me aside and said: ‘Faith is so fond of Thane, she has quite got over her terror of all dogs, large and small, and we have had to promise her a puppy when we get home.’ She stopped and sighed. ‘And that will not be long now, Rose. Just a few days.’

  I had forgotten theirs was to be a brief visit. ‘We will miss you. Must you go so soon?’

  She smiled sadly. ‘I’m afraid so, Rose. I have a lot of commitments linked with living in St James’s. Ladies committees, that sort of thing. I even have a fashion show to organise, a charity event.’ She looked over at Faith playing happily with Meg. ‘And Faith too. She must get back as she goes to boarding school this term.’

  ‘She is so young. Are you sure you want her to leave home?’

  Olivia shook her head. ‘Not I. I would be more than willing to keep her with us, send her to a local private school. She is rather shy but she would soon make friends of her own age, I’m sure of that.’

  I had no doubt of that either, watching the friendship blossom so rapidly with Meg.

  ‘The trouble is that she’s an only child, really – her brothers are so much older and Vince believes that the experience of boarding school will be the making of her.’

  Reading between the lines I suspected that Vince was also considering it was time to cut those apron strings, as well as her mother’s perpetual fears for her health. As he said to me later, ‘All will be taken good care of in an excellent school for girls like Faith. The one we have chosen has a most reliable reputation.’

  Listening to Olivia and watching the two girls, I said: ‘Meg will miss her, they’ve grown close in the few days together.’

  Olivia smiled and sighed. ‘Cousins, too. So nice. Will you be sending Meg off in due course?’

  I shook my head. There was no possibility. Even if we could afford it I could not see Jack ever agreeing to that and in truth we both wanted Meg coming home to us at the end of each day. When she outgrew the convent there were splendid schools for girls in Edinburgh.

  I had made a pot of tea and called upstairs to Mabel. There was no reply and I decided that having had a broken night with Thane and the noisy dogs next door, she had probably taken the opportunity to recover her lost sleep.

  As we sat at the table with the regular supply of newly baked scones from the castle kitchen, Olivia said: ‘Did you get home all right, by the way? Vince was anxious about you.’

  There was no point in lying to save my face, so I told her how I had got lost but a kind ghillie had set me on the right road. I omitted the horrid details that I had been in that beastly dark forest all night and as I was skimming the surface, so to speak, I wondered why I was not telling the whole truth, but then she did not know the details about those earlier encounters with my strange rescuer who reminded me so of Danny.

  At that moment, I had no wish to start explaining it all to Olivia who would have been rather embarrassed, I felt, by such a confession. So, let him go as an unknown ghillie. And I still didn’t know his name.

  Olivia was saying. ‘I came to look for you later at the party and Vince told me you had left.’ Pausing, she regarded me thoughtfully and said, ‘Before we leave, there is someone who wants to meet you. Someone who believes you may be able to help her,’ she added gravely and I thought, Oh no, not a prospective client, surely. Not at Balmoral.

  ‘Alice von Mueller. You may remember her, she was with the Queen when we met them in the gardens.’

  All my attention had been on curtseying and I had only the vaguest memory of a lady accompanying her.

  ‘Alice looked in to our party, but you had rushed away. She is English. Her husband is a very high official in the Kaiser’s government, a remote cousin of the Kaiser
. We have friends in common and occasionally meet them at St James’s.’ Smiling at me expectantly, she added: ‘I said I was sure you would have a word with her.’

  I could hardly refuse but I guessed already that her problem, whatever it was, sounded well out of my territory. Straying husbands, thieving maids, fraudsters. Royalty indeed!

  Olivia was aware of my cautious expression and said: ‘It is only advice she needs – desperately, I gather.’

  ‘How did she hear about me?’

  Olivia shrugged. ‘Overheard some friend of Vince’s talking about Edinburgh crimes and your famous father Inspector Faro having been Queen Victoria’s personal detective and that you had followed in his footsteps. I gather there was some mention of you being here on holiday.’

  Dear Vince, I thought, how did he manage in the realm of patient confidentiality? He certainly couldn’t keep any family secrets.

  ‘Anyway,’ Olivia said. ‘Please say you will see her. I do like her, she’s a nice person, but alas, we do not care for her husband. Arrogant army man – very Prussian.’

  Even as I agreed, I admit reluctantly, to meet her I was already filling in some of the details. An unhappy marriage, I had a lot of those in my logbook, with an inevitable love affair and the complications that could bring. Like blackmail. That was the most popular.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  A meeting was speedily arranged; Olivia worked that way. Alice was to come to tea. At first glance, she was pretty and elegant, but not much past forty, already somehow withered. Sadness shone out of her like a beacon.

  After a quick introduction, in the carriage that had set Alice down at the cottage, Olivia gathered up the two girls for a visit to Ballater.

  ‘Shopping,’ she said apologetically. ‘Things to take home, you know.’

  I was alone with my guest and decided to call on Lily to make tea since Mabel wasn’t in evidence. We saw little of her, upstairs in her room or away each day in the pony trap following the progress of the shooting. Although only ladies specially invited were welcome to join the King’s party, Mabel’s father, she told us, was a keen sportsman and as he had no son, decided to bring up his only daughter with an heir’s accomplishments. One being that she was a crack shot with a rifle and this holiday provided the somewhat wistful enjoyment and excitement of watching the shooting from a safe distance.

  This new preoccupation had completely obliterated her obsession about the Pankhursts. Perhaps their failed visit to Aberdeen was at fault and she felt let down and dear Emmeline and Christabel were hardly mentioned any more.

  Excusing myself, I went up to the attic, but Lily’s room was empty, her basket of sewing abandoned. She probably took full advantage of her mistress’s absence to visit the stables and I for one did not blame her.

  Alice was sitting by the window exactly as I had left her. Thane had introduced himself and she was stroking his head. We exchanged some remarks about the weather as I prepared tea. We could hear the guns far off, the sight of an occasional bird that had escaped.

  Alice said grimly, ‘I find it a rather horrid sport, I’m afraid. My maternal grandfather was a clergyman’ (I later learnt he was an archbishop) ‘and I was brought up to respect the lives of all living creatures.’

  ‘Thane would agree with you.’

  She gave him a tender glance. ‘He’s a lovely dog. You are lucky. All we have are huge gun dogs at home. They have to be useful, not meant for a lady’s lap.’

  ‘Shooting is a man’s thing, the sport of kings.’

  ‘And decidedly so with Edward. His father set the pattern.’

  Edward? Oh, she was talking about HM.

  She ignored the scones and Dundee cake, and merely took a few sips of tea, pushing the cup aside. Leaning forward, she said: ‘It is so good of you to see me at short notice like this, Mrs—? I beg your pardon, I don’t know your name.’

  ‘Just call me Rose,’ I said hastily. I had no idea how to address German aristocracy. I was hoping she would enlighten me.

  Alice nodded. ‘There is no one else I can talk to except Olivia. She is so very understanding and has my confidence. She thought you might be able to help.’ A deep sigh. ‘I am utterly distraught. You see, my husband is taking my children away from me and I don’t know how to stop him.’

  Neither did I. Husbands still had absolute rule over their children’s custody in a separation, a law that would continue until it was changed and women had the vote and some say in parental rights.

  Feeling gloomily that this promised to be a difficult session of only negative advice, I poured another cup of tea. She gestured refusal.

  ‘Would you care to start at the beginning?’ I said gently.

  She sighed, removed her bonnet, a shower of blonde curls in much better order than my own unruly locks. That was all we had in common. She had an inch on me in height and maybe a few in years.

  ‘As Olivia may have told you—’

  I held up my hand. ‘Olivia has told me nothing of you or your circumstances, believe me. She is expert at keeping confidences.’

  Alice sighed. ‘I was forced into marriage by my father, who was an ambassador to Germany. Hermann had seen me at a reception where I was accompanying my father. I was aware of his interest, watching me, he was attracted although I decidedly was not. At that time I had other plans, and besides he was nearer my father’s age than mine.

  ‘I dreaded what was to happen next. He asked for my hand in marriage and I did not dare disobey. I was afraid of my father, a man of formidable will with a temper to match it. He threatened to lock me in my room until I agreed.’

  It wasn’t a story completely unknown, where rich and powerful men ruled their daughter’s destinies, girls put up for sale in the marriage market to the highest bidder.

  ‘I knew it was useless to refuse so I decided to make the best of it, assured of the good life and benefits awaiting at the German court, for Hermann was not only a relative of the Kaiser but also a close friend.’

  She sighed. ‘I told myself that I was fortunate. I had always hoped to marry while I was young and I wanted children. Apart from the lack of the grand passion, Munich was full of exciting events and the ancient schloss was beautiful. I would adore adding a woman’s touch and I must confess I was more in love with my surroundings than my husband, although I had little to complain about then. He was always generous.’

  She paused. ‘However, I had not long been married when I discovered that he intended cutting me off from my home in England as soon as possible and from all things English. I had learnt German and he would not allow me to speak English, nor our children – they would be punished if he overheard them speaking that hated language. As the years passed I realised it was a kind of madness. The Kaiser had been very fond of his grandmother Queen Victoria and even rushed to her bedside when she was dying. When Edward came to the throne in 1901 it got worse. Hermann maintained that his way of life as Prince of Wales made him unfit to ever be a good king and he, as well as many other Germans, believed that the Kaiser had an equal claim to the English throne and that Victoria should have named him as her heir instead of Edward.’

  This was certainly a new version of the history of Victoria’s numerous descendants who occupied the thrones of Europe, as Alice watched my expression and continued, ‘It sounded mad, I was quite aware that this was an insane idea, but there was no reasoning with him and he began to include me in his hatred of all things English, and I suffered from that. Worse, he turned the children against me and made them hate England too.’

  Tearful, she paused and shook her head. ‘He succeeded with my beloved Dietrich, our only son, ten years old when he sent him away from home – from his mother’s malign influence, he said – to be educated at a military college. They will turn him into a soldier to prepare him to fight the English when the time comes.’

  I knew I was listening to a sad story but also that there was nothing I could do except put on the kettle again, deciding that she must be thi
rsty.

  Thane sat up sharply. I thought I heard a noise. Mabel or Lily must have returned – at the worst possible moment.

  I opened the door but the hallway was empty. Alice was ready for the next instalment and there was worse to come.

  ‘A small boy taken from his mother’s love and caring, but that was not enough for Hermann. He has also removed our two young daughters, sent them to be educated by a governess with the children of his mistress.’

  She must have seen my look of surprise, and smiled bitterly. ‘Oh, I wasn’t shocked. I learnt early in our marriage that it was the done thing for a married man of high standing to have a mistress – at least one.’ She paused, took out a handkerchief and applied it to her eyes.

  It was my turn to speak, to offer words of reassurance. Did I know of anything, or of someone in Scotland who could help her, especially as she was still a British citizen, to prevail upon her husband and let her have her children restored to her?

  I expressed my sympathy, she certainly needed all of that, but I told her there was nothing I could do and doubted whether any Scottish law could help her or any other. Laws had been made by men since civilisation began and they had seen to it that they were biased in their favour.

  I tried to add tactfully that this sad situation was out of my field of activity as an investigator. However unjust it seemed, a husband’s rights over his wife’s property included all rights over their children and there was no law to forbid a father from poisoning his children’s minds against their mother, sending their young son to military college and their daughters to be educated with his mistress’s governess.

  Alice was tearful; she clenched her hands in a gesture of hopelessness. ‘Thank you for listening and for wasting your time. I just had to talk to someone and you were my last, my only hope. The Queen has been very understanding, she knows all about difficult husbands.’ She leant forward confidentially, ‘Edward has a mistress, you know.’