“And Jenner calls it typhoid. But typhoid is contagious and nobody else in Windsor has contracted it. I nursed Papa myself for much of the past fortnight—and I am perfectly well.”
“Perhaps you're stronger than we guessed. Or he was weaker than I knew.”
Alice raised her head from her needlework and regarded her brother. “You didn't kill him, Bertie.”
He started, as though she'd read his mind. “Of course not. How absurd! I've a few years to go yet, Alice, before I regard myself as God.”
“They blame you for Papa's death—Dr. Clark, that unspeakable Jenner, Eliza. I'm well aware how they've made you suffer. It's nonsense. Papa did not die because you lost your way for hours in the rain, that day in Cambridge. And he did not die because you took an actress to bed and broke his heart.”
The boot was pulled abruptly from the brass fender. “I didn't know you were aware of . . . Miss Clifden.”
“I had the story from Vicky. In strictest confidence, of course. Apparently rumours reached the Berlin newspapers. She says you'll never get a German princess to marry you, now.”
“Thank God for that.” Bertie smiled faintly. “Papa assured me it was only a matter of time before I was notorious throughout Europe. The visions he painted! My bastard children. My appearance in court, to answer the charge of paternity. The sensation in the press. The shame and infamy I would visit upon Mama. He could not speak enough about it, though I begged him to desist—though I assured him I had broken entirely with the lady . . .”
“Is Miss Clifden a lady, Bertie?”
“Not in the least,” he retorted, “but she was very good fun all the same, and a delightful change from tedious old Bruce and my tutors.”
General Bruce served rather ineffectually as Bertie's governor at Cambridge; but the Prince of Wales, deplored by both his parents for laziness, stupidity, frivolity, and a host of other crimes, had long since learned to outmaneuver his watchdogs.
“Say what you like, Alice—my indiscretion cut up the old man's peace quite dreadfully. I've never seen him in such a taking as he was that day in Cambridge.” Bertie inserted a finger in his cravat, loosening the choking folds. “Papa actually said that no good could be expected of me, given the bad blood that ran through my veins. Conceive of it! The insult to himself—not to mention Mama!”
“Bad blood?” Alice half-rose from her chair, the needle pricking her thigh. “He said that? Bad blood?”
“My death—no, my public hanging—would have been preferable to such a disgrace! You'd think nobody'd ever taken a tumble with a girl before! Why—”
“Bertie,” Alice interrupted, “what exactly did Papa say to you? Your blood is mine, after all!”
Bertie blinked at her. “It was while we were lost in the rain, and I put it down to exhaustion. He didn't make a great deal of sense, actually. He muttered to himself, like a sick man raving. Your bad blood to usurp the sacred throne of England. I suspect he regarded poor Nelly as a kind of contamination.”
“Raving,” Alice repeated. “Yes, that's how he seemed—wandering in his reason. Shall I tell you what he said to me, Bertie, at the end?”
Her brother sank onto the arm of her chair and regarded her steadily.
“He murmured quite low in my ear. You cannot marry Louis, Liebchen. You cannot deceive him so. The flaw in your blood—”
“You?” Bertie repeated. “But that's absurd. You've never enjoyed the mildest flirtation, Alice, much less a tumble.”
“I know.” She stared down at her hands. “His words have haunted me, Bertie. To know that he went to his death believing me unworthy . . .”
“Never.” Her brother uttered the word with the force of a curse. “You misunderstood him, that's all.”
“I didn't! I know what he said.”
“You misunderstood him.” The Prince of Wales rose abruptly, and strode to the door. “There's enough guilt in this poisonous place to drive us all mad, Alice. Don't invent more for yourself. Let Papa go. Marry Louis. For God's sake—be happy. I'd like to think that one of us is.”
Chapter Eighteen
“She is an abortionist,” von Stühlen said as he stood at his ease before the Red Room fire this evening.
I consented to receive him despite a general prohibition on visitors at Windsor. Dismissed my ladies and servants, so that we might be entirely frank. Such an intimate acquaintance of Albert's, a schoolfellow from Bonn and the dear days that are gone, could hardly be denied, regardless of how much I craved privacy in my grief. To see von Stühlen again is to recall a thousand painful moments to mind—his tall form beside my darling's as they carried in the evergreens, at Christmastime; his clear voice joined with Albert's in the singing of the German Lieder, of an evening at Balmoral or Osborne; his patient handling of Lenchen—my daughter Helena—as she schooled her first mount over a series of jumps. He is a beautiful figure of a man, of course—but beyond his personal charm, displays a steadiness of purpose, a degree of self-command, that must always win approbation. Albert regarded von Stühlen as almost another brother—so closely were they allied in temperament; and if I was a little excluded by the depth of their friendship, I do not regard it. I have an idea of the abyss of grief the unfortunate man must now suffer.
But he had introduced a subject I understood not at all.
“Who is an abortionist?” I asked him. “And what lapse of decency urged you to mention so unspeakable a horror? We have borne nine children, Count!”
I pressed a square of linen to my lips; von Stühlen bowed.
“I must beg Your Majesty's forgiveness. Necessity urged the disclosure; I speak of Miss Georgiana Armistead—the young woman who styles herself a doctor.”
His words must lash my heart, though I cannot pretend to surprise—the basest of evils must be commonplace to Miss Armistead, who has so divorced herself from woman's nature. But I would not betray the degree of my interest to von Stühlen.
“And of what possible concern is Miss Armistead to us, Count?”
He affected an air of easy amusement. “I had thought that quite obvious, Your Majesty. Miss Armistead was with Fitzgerald last night on the Heath.”
I lifted my shoulders a little in disdain, and made as if to turn the subject. “We hope that you signed Albert's Visitors Book when you entered the Castle.”
He looked all his confusion. “I am afraid—that is, I did not presume . . .”
“But you must!” I cried. “We have said that everything is to be kept as usual—all his dear personal effects, his clothes and brushes, his hot water for shaving. The linens are to be changed every day, and his chamber pot scrubbed. The Blue Room—where that Angelic Being breathed his last—is not to be a Sterbezimmer, a death chamber; but a sacred place, with pictures, and his bust, and perhaps a display of china . . . We might work there, from time to time, and feel his dear presence.”
“No doubt that is as he would wish.” The Count looked a little troubled, as though by invoking my Beloved I had recalled his mind to sorrow. He inclined his head. “But I was speaking of Georgiana Armistead.”
“Were you, indeed?” I adjusted a Dresden figure on the mantel; a dying stag, beautifully fashioned. Have I mentioned that Albert was an accomplished sportsman? He formed the habit, in his Coburg youth, of attending grandes battues, in which an extraordinary quantity of game are driven by beaters into an enclosure and there slaughtered at will by the gentlemen. It is a nauseating sight, and one I endured on few occasions, but I learned its essential lesson: Animals destined from birth to serve as prey for their masters are easily led, and led most often to their doom.