The fatal 14th of December had come and she had visited the mausoleum at Frogmore and thought as she always did on the occasion of her wedding day and in contrast that dreadful 14th when she had sat at his bedside and been too stunned to realise the truth.
Then she travelled down to Osborne, the house he had loved and designed; and she thought of his pride when they had gone there for the first time and he had shown her how his ideas had been carried out; and how the whole household had gathered together and he had sung the German hymn about blessing the house.
She was not ill, but tired. Her rheumatism had grown worse and she could scarcely see to read – which was most trying of all. She had had at last to agree to wear spectacles for reading, but they were tiresome and not much good.
On the 15th of January she took a drive. She felt happier about the situation in South Africa where Lord Roberts had done so well and Lord Kitchener was proving so effective; but when she returned from her drive she felt so weak that she decided to go to bed.
Her doctors thought that the family should be sent for; they came, the sons, the daughters, the grandchildren. Bertie was in tears; he could not believe that his mother, who had dominated his life, was about to die. There had been so many differences between them but the family bond had grown strong with the years. They had at last learned to understand each other.
Wilhelm arrived, even his arrogance subdued; he waited humbly in the corridors hoping for a chance of seeing his grandmother before she died.
In the streets bulletins were issued; a solemn hush had fallen over everything.
‘The Queen is dying,’ said the people.
It could not be; she was the great figure-head, the symbol. The Queen had always been on the throne as long as they could remember. More than sixty years she had reigned over them. She could not be going now.
She lay in her bed. She could not remember exactly where she was. Sometimes she thought she was walking in the gardens of Kensington Palace with Lehzen, a bright, plump little girl who had just discovered that she might one day be Queen. ‘I will be good,’ she had said. Good Queen Victoria! ‘Victoria is not a Queen’s name’ her mother had said. It was now. The great Queen’s name – as great as Elizabeth. But that Queen had not always been good. Perhaps Victoria had not been but she had always tried to be.
She thought of storms with Mama whom she had later learned to love and understand; and Albert, dearest beloved Albert, who had guided her and made her what she was before he left her desolate. She hoped no one would mourn her as long and bitterly as she had mourned Albert.
All the figures of the past filed slowly through her mind – gay, solemn, good and bad. Mama, Lehzen, dear Lord Melbourne, Flora Hastings (Oh, the nightmares that woman had given her!), Sir Robert Peel, Disraeli, Mr Gladstone, honest John Brown, Annie MacDonald so recently lost, Alice, Leopold, Alfred, those babies whom she had nursed and her darling Albert whom she had never ceased to mourn.
He would be waiting for her. She knew he would. He would take her hand as he had on their wedding day and he would smile at her. ‘Gutes Frauchen,’ he would say.
‘It is the end,’ whispered Bertie and he covered his face with his hands and wept.
Her favourite doctor, Dr Reid, supported her on one side. Wilhelm on the other.
Her children and her grandchildren waited to be summoned to say farewell, but she was past knowing them. She lay half conscious, her eyes glazed, far far away in the past, waiting to step into the future.
Slowly life left her. A faint smile touched her lips; she was calm and her face seemed suddenly to grow young again.
At half past six in the evening she died.
A pall had settled over the nation. ‘The Queen is dead,’ the cry went up. The nation had suffered a great disaster. The indomitable little figure, the great Queen and Empress, was dead; and with her, it was believed, she had taken something of great value.
All had been well while she remained at the helm – the legendary figure who could subdue the country’s enemies, who could castigate the tiresome Russians, who could call her mischief-making German grandson to order, who could reduce Bertie to the state of a naughty boy in the nursery. But now the great Queen was no more.
‘We have lost our beloved Mother,’ was the cry. ‘The Queen is dead. Nothing will ever be the same again.’
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