THEY STOOD AROUND me, my dear family. Alice was the first child I had lost and the tragedy was almost more than I could bear.
Bertie put his arms around me and tried to comfort me. He had especially loved Alice. When they were young she had often tried to cover up his misdemeanors. I was sure she had saved him from many a beating.
We knew then how she had caught the infection. In expressing her love for her son, and trying to comfort him she had caught the disease herself. Beatrice wept bitterly and so did Alexandra. Dear girl, she was very much one of the family.
It was strange that it should have happened on the dreaded fourteenth.
Brown gave me some comfort with his silence and shocked looks; he urged me to drink a little. I could not eat. He said nothing, but it is amazing what comfort there can be in silence.
Lord Beaconsfield called.
“I thought you would not wish for visitors at such a time,” he said. “But I felt that if you could not bear to see me you would say so. Therefore I came. What can I say? I can only offer my deep sympathy.”
I was pleased to see him at any time, I told him. It was true that I should not have wished to see anyone else. I was able to talk to him about Alice, about Albert, the two whom I had loved best in the whole world— and I had lost them both.
“How well I understand, Ma'am,” he said, and I knew that he was thinking of Mary Anne.
“You had a wonderful wife,” I told him. “I had a wonderful husband. You called her the perfect wife. Albert was, without doubt, the perfect husband. You have often said how fortunate we have been to have these wonderful beings even for a short time. But I have often wondered if we should have been happier if we had never known them. Then we should not have had to suffer their loss.”
He said he did not agree with me on that, and I was sure he was right.
Later he sent me a copy of the speech he had made in the House of Lords. I read it again and again and I could not stop the tears flowing as I did so.
“My Lords, there is something wonderfully piteous in the immediate cause of her death. The physician who permitted her to watch over her suffering family enjoined her under no circumstances to be tempted into an embrace. Her admirable self-constraint guarded her, but it became her lot to break to her son the news of the death of his younger sister to whom he was devotedly attached. The boy was so overcome with misery that the agitated mother clasped him in her arms and thus she received the kiss of death.”
I was so touched, so deeply moved. How like Lord Beaconsfield to express it so beautifully!
When he came to see me we wept together.
“The kiss of death!” I said. “It was so beautifully expressed. And that was what it was.”
He sat with me talking in his fluent way. He thought it was significant that Alice had died on the fourteenth of December.
“So you think Albert wanted her with him and he chose that day to take her?”
Lord Beaconsfield said he thought that might be the case.
“I should have thought he would have taken Vicky rather than Alice. Vicky was his favorite. She was the clever one. My dear sweet Alice was never that.”
It was all very mysterious, said Lord Beaconsfield; and we talked of death and the after-life and whether those who had passed on could come back to watch over those whom they had loved on earth.
And talking with Lord Beaconsfield assuaged my grief.
Farewell John Brown
HOW GRATEFUL I WAS TO LORD BEACONSFIELD IN EVERY WAY. I thanked God for him. He was a solace in that time of trouble. I pictured what it would have been like if I had had to rely on Mr. Gladstone at that time. I knew Gladstone had his good points. He was very popular with the people. He was known in fact as “The People's William.” But I could not like him. He saw me as a public institution whereas Lord Beaconsfield saw me as a woman.
The Zulu War had broken out. There was a great deal of unrest in South Africa. Sir Bartle Frere, the Governor of the Cape, was not the most diplomatic of men. Lord Beaconsfield did not approve of his actions, but, as he said to me, the government had to support its representatives. His great aim was to make us, and keep us, at the head of all states which, as he pointed out to me, meant an increase in our commitments.
There was a great deal of opposition from Gladstone who accused the government of Imperialism. Gladstone was one of those pacifists who will stand for peace at any price. I often thought that they with their timid approach are more responsible for wars than those who stand firm and strong. It is because our enemies suspect we are weak that they come to attack us.
Lord Beaconsfield agreed with me. It was the reason why, under his premiership, we were becoming mightier.
I had a terrible shock when I heard that the only son of the Empress of France, who was fighting the Zulus with us, had been captured and hacked to death by the savages. Poor Eugénie was heartbroken. I went to Chichester to comfort her. I, who had so recently lost my Alice, was in a position to understand.
It was heartbreaking. I determined to look after the poor sad creature and visit her often. Life was so cruel. It was hard to recognize in that poor woman, the dazzling Empress who had ruled over her court with Napoleon—so beautiful, so elegant—and now an exile, a sorrowing mother, who had lost her only child. I at least had eight left to me.
Meanwhile Gladstone was making virulent attacks on Lord Beaconsfield, deploring his Imperialism. What was the result of Mr. Gladstone's interference? War. I was furious.
Lord Beaconsfield smiled at my anger.
He said, “It is true that I am ambitious. I want to secure for Your Majesty, greater powers than you already have. I believe it is the way for peace and prosperity, not only for us but for the whole world. I want you to dictate the affairs of Europe. For the sake of world peace I think it is necessary for Your Majesty to occupy the position I plan for you.”
I told him that I feared Prussia might be troublesome.
“Young Wilhelm has been brought up under Bismarck. It is not surprising that he is imbued with ideas for the aggrandizement of Prussia.”
“I am really beginning to dislike Wilhelm. It seems so strange that he should turn out like this. He was the first grandchild. Albert and I were so proud of him.”
“I only hope,” said Lord Beaconsfield, “that I live long enough to see Your Majesty where you belong.”
“Please do not talk of your not being here. I have suffered so much lately. I could not bear any more.”
“Gladstone has a great following,” he said warningly. He smiled at me apologetically. “Facts have to be faced, Ma'am.”
I was alarmed.
He nodded. “Support is dropping away. It may be that before long we shall be obliged to go to the country and if we do…”
“Oh no. I could not bear that. Not that man again! I thought he had retired once. Why does he have to come back?”
“By public request, Ma'am. The people love their William.”
“Do they know he prowls the streets at night?”
“I think he has given that up. And it was said to be most virtuously done.”
“If one believes it!”
“Of Mr. Gladstone! Surely one must.”
“If I have to accept him …I…I shall abdicate!”
“Dear Madam!”
He left me very uneasy for I knew that unless he was almost sure that there would be a change of government, he would not have suggested it to me at this time, for he would know how it disturbed me.
Of course he was right to prepare me and although I was deeply distressed when Parliament was dissolved and an election was called, it was not such a shock as it would have been if I had not been prepared.
The following day I went to Germany. I had to see Alice's stricken family who had now recovered from their illness and had to face their irreplaceable loss.