If only Albert were here, how different it would be. She and Bertie would never be d’accord, as he put it.
She felt sad and lonely. The children were all growing up and away from her. Louise would be the next to marry. And now Mr Disraeli was going to be replaced by unsympathetic Mr Gladstone whom she could never like.
John Brown came in and found her sitting in the gloom.
He lighted the lamps and said: ‘It does ye no good mawthering in the dark, woman.’
He saw the traces of tears on her cheeks and brought out that which in his opinion was the never-failing remedy – a wee dram of good Scotch whisky.
She found herself smiling. ‘Now, Brown, you’ll be making me bashful.’
‘Not you,’ said Brown, ‘ye’ve never been near bashful in your life.’
He was affectionately contemptuous. Dear honest Brown! He did her so much good.
Prince Alfred whose somewhat gay life had given the Queen many a qualm, returned home from abroad that July and a concert was held at the Crystal Palace in order to celebrate his arrival. Bertie and he went to the concert and rather to the surprise of the audience Alix joined the royal party. This greatly pleased the people for she was heavily pregnant and not expected at such a time. There was a great ovation for her. The leading singers were Patti and Mario and the Princess applauded with great enthusiasm. After the concert there was to be a firework display and as the celebrations were in honour of Alfred, the great moment was to be when a model of the ship Galatea, on which he had sailed, was illuminated. Alix stood on the balcony with the rest of the party and although she was feeling rather tired she would not leave until the display was over.
Two days later her child was born a little prematurely, but all seemed to be well. The child was a girl and Alix was delighted. She now had her pleasant little family of four – two boys and two girls – four-year-old Eddy, three-year-old Georgie, one-year-old Louise and now the baby.
As she sat dreaming there, thinking of her own childhood and how excited they had all been at the arrival of a new baby, she felt a wave of nostalgia for the simple life.
Bertie came in, the proud father, and he was delighted with the child. He wanted to bring Eddy and George in to see their new sister. ‘I promised them,’ he said.
And so they came and stood wonderingly by the bed, and Bertie lifted them up on to his knee and she was touched by his tenderness towards them. Bertie had suffered in his own childhood and he was going to make certain that he was as different a father from his own as it was possible for a man to be. The boys loved him with a devotion which fear could never have put there and he charmed them in his good-natured way exactly as he did the people whom he met.
But it was their mother who had first place in their hearts and Eddy was apprehensive that the newcomer might take up too much of her time and affection and Georgie was feeling the same.
How she wished that she could have devoted her time entirely to them. However, for a time, she could forget that she was the Princess of Wales and enjoy being a mother.
So she talked of the new baby and showed her to her little sons and even Louise was carried in from the nursery to join them.
When the children had gone Bertie sat with her for a while and he said that what she needed was a good long holiday away from everything.
Her eyes sparkled. ‘How I should love to go to Copenhagen and take the children with me. I’m longing to show them Rumpenheim and Bernstorff and I know my parents would love to see the babies.’
Bertie grimaced inwardly at the thought of Rumpenheim and Bernstorff; they were so dull and his parents-in-law didn’t know how to give the kind of parties he enjoyed, but he pretended to be enthusiastic. While Alix and the children were in Denmark he might slip off somewhere else – perhaps even to his delightful Paris.
‘Copenhagen yes,’ he said. ‘But I meant a long leisurely tour – say to the Middle East … somewhere where you can enjoy the sun and get rid of all those rheumaticky pains.’
‘It would be very pleasant, Bertie,’ she said. ‘Is it possible?’
‘I’m sure there’d be no difficulty from the P.M.,’ said Bertie. ‘Nor any of his colleagues. Of course, there is Mama.’ He grimaced openly. ‘You can imagine the dismay such a suggestion would rouse from that quarter. I have already put my foot down about the races. Really, Mama is quite cut off from real life. What can she know about what the people expect shut away with only that odious Brown to talk to?’
‘She’ll not agree, I’m sure,’ said Alix.
‘Leave it to me,’ said Bertie. ‘You’re going to show your parents the children, I promise you.’
The following month the new baby was christened Victoria Alexandra Olga Mary; her sponsors were headed by Queen Victoria, the Emperor of Russia, and the Queens of Greece and Denmark.
The Queen had moved a little out of seclusion that summer. She had held the first Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace since Albert’s death, had given a party in the grounds of the Palace and reviewed twenty-seven thousand volunteers in Windsor Park. This had been achieved by the gentle persuasion of Mr Disraeli. In August following the christening of the new baby she went to Switzerland.
‘No fuss,’ she had said. ‘Unlike Bertie I like to go about incognito.’ So she travelled as the Countess of Kent, stayed at the Embassy in Paris and was rather pleased when the Empress Eugénie came to see her without any formality; then she went to Lucerne and rented the Villa Pension Wallace which was right on the lake and charming. She spent a very pleasant week or so there with John Brown in attendance driving her when she wished to be driven, taking care of her comfort generally; and when she returned home she went almost immediately to Balmoral.
Some time before she had discussed with Brown the possibility of finding a little house where she could enjoy even greater seclusion than she did at Balmoral, for Balmoral was in fact a castle and there were so many servants and it was impossible to live simply as she so often longed to do.
Brown knew the spot. It had been a favourite one for Prince Albert who had often gone to the Loch Muick; it was isolated and she would be sure of not being worried there. So she built a little cottage there where she could live with just a few servants – those who were old friends like Brown and Annie MacDonald, who could forget that she was the Queen and treat her without that homage which she felt was replaced by loyalty and love.
‘This will be somewhere which will not be haunted by him,’ she said. ‘Somewhere entirely new which he has had no hand in building.’
It was a beautiful spot, known as Glassalt Shiel, which meant Darkness and Sorrow, and that, she said, was so appropriate to her mood. She could never look on that scene without experiencing a great excitement. The scenery was almost terrifying in its grandeur and she would stand for hours watching the Glassalt burn falling headlong down the mountainside into the forbidding Loch Muick.
So she had her house – her ‘Widow’s House’ she called it and although members of her family tried to dissuade her from living even for a short while in such a lonely spot, she did find to some extent what she sought there – peace.
The Queen was at Glassalt Shiel when she received a note from Bertie suggesting that Alix needed some relaxation and that she wished to take the children to see their grandparents in Denmark. The six months’ tour of Europe and the Middle East had been voted desirable by the government but the Queen could not approve of Alix’s taking the children out of the country.