Chapter Thirty-Eight Hélène
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Hélène
“A carriage just pulled up the drive.” Violette stood at the window of Hélène’s dressing room, lifting a corner of the drapes to peer out. “It has no crest. Who would come in an unmarked carriage?”
Hélène didn’t reply. She tilted her head back on the chaise longue and closed her eyes. Various satin-lined trunks were opened around her, gowns and stockings spilling out in frothy abandon.
She didn’t care about the carriage, or what Violette packed, as long as they left.
Hélène couldn’t bear another day in England.
The entire country felt saturated with memories of Eddy.
Wherever she went—walking through Mayfair with her mother, on a ride through Richmond Park—she kept expecting him to appear, grinning mischievously.
It was even worse at social gatherings, where all anyone talked about was Eddy and May, and how their brief engagement had ended so tragically.
The only bright spot lately had been the night she and Alix sat up drinking brandy, speaking of Alix’s romantic affairs.
For a brief moment, it had distracted Hélène from the howling storm of her grief.
Perhaps she would take Alix up on her invitation, and visit her in Darmstadt.
She could attend Ernie and Ducky’s wedding later this spring.
Not that Hélène was in the mood for a wedding—but Alix had seemed so worried about her brother, and Hélène wanted to be there for her friend, just as Alix had been there for her.
Besides, it wouldn’t be all that difficult to travel to Darmstadt from Eu.
Eu. Hélène still couldn’t quite believe it, but miraculously—impossibly—the Third Republic had lifted the terms of exile for her and her mother. Her father and brother were still banned from the country, but the Orléans women had apparently been deemed nonthreatening enough to visit.
Hélène and Marie Isabelle were going to Portugal first, to collect Amélie and her new baby: a girl this time, named Maria Ana.
Then they would all make their way to Normandy, to spend some time at the Chateau d’Eu.
A house full of Orléans females; if Eddy were here, he would joke about how loud and chaotic it would be.
If only Eddy had ever gotten to visit Eu. But perhaps it was better this way; it didn’t contain any memories of him.
Hélène’s chest loosened as she thought of the house.
The great bay windows where she used to hide.
The apple orchard, where she and Amélie would sneak away as children, to eat tarts stolen from the kitchen.
The cool green of the woods in summer. The salt air that lingered on the breeze.
Hélène used to love visiting the port, watching the sailors come in on their ships, imagining that they had come from wondrous faraway lands.
“Mademoiselle.” A footman appeared at the door, looking flustered. “Forgive my interruption, but your presence is requested downstairs.”
Hélène sighed. “Please tell my parents I’m indisposed.”
She couldn’t bear the prospect of another mindless social visit.
Another tea where some society matron would go on and on about Eddy’s death, about what a terrible loss it was for the country, and what would poor May do now?
Hélène hated nodding along as if she, too, viewed Eddy’s death with the dispassionate view of an outsider.
As if she believed May’s show of well-rehearsed grief.
Most painful of all had been the funeral.
After the service, Hélène had waited in the long line to approach the coffin. Then at last she’d been standing next to Eddy. Looking at his beloved face one more time.
He lay there so peacefully; still so handsome, even in death. Hélène had mouthed the words I love you, her fingers itching to reach out and touch him—
The person behind her, some gentleman with a gray beard, had let out a pointed harrumph of impatience. And Hélène had torn her gaze away, her heart shattering.
“Your parents were quite insistent that you come downstairs,” the footman said now, cutting into her thoughts.
Hélène stood, feeling rather put-upon. This had better not be another suitor. If her father had summoned Nicholas, or worse, some other prince…
“Shall I redo your hair, mademoiselle?” Violette suggested. “Or perhaps you might change?”
Hélène glanced at her reflection for the first time in days. Her face was pale, making her brows and golden-brown eyes seem darker than usual.
“No, I’ll head down like this.” In the privacy of her home, Hélène had been wearing black. She couldn’t do so in public; she wasn’t technically entitled to grieve Eddy. But here, she was dressed in the full mourning that befitted a woman who had lost her fiancé.
Downstairs, Hélène hesitated at the threshold of the sitting room. The footman must have been mistaken; no one was there.
Then she heard an all-too-familiar voice: “Don’t dawdle, Miss d’Orléans. Come in, and shut the door behind you. I would speak with you in private.”
The Queen of England was at Sheen House.
Hélène did as Victoria had asked, and shut the door. The sitting room felt eerily silent, dust motes dancing in the morning light.
“Your Majesty. I hadn’t expected such an honor,” she murmured, and sank into a curtsy.
This was positively unheard of. Queen Victoria hadn’t gone out on a social call in decades. She attended balls, or events in town; but if she wanted to speak to someone, she summoned them to her, at Buckingham Palace.
In answer to Hélène’s unspoken question, the queen nodded toward the unmarked carriage outside. “This is why I keep such a carriage. There are times when I wish to see someone, and don’t want it advertised.”
Victoria gestured to the opposite sofa, and Hélène took a seat.
“I know you are grieving.” The queen’s gaze drifted to Hélène’s black gown. “I spoke with Eddy before he died, and he told me that he was desperately in love with you. That the two of you hoped to get married after all.”
“Yes,” Hélène said levelly. “Eddy was planning to speak with you. He wanted to break things off with May, and eventually, once the scandal had calmed down, announce our engagement.”
“I won’t lie, it would certainly have been a scandal. But we could have weathered it. Stranger things have happened in this family,” the queen added, almost to herself. She drummed her fingers in their black silk gloves against the arm of the sofa, thinking.
Hélène realized the silence had stretched on an inappropriate amount of time. “Your Majesty, shall I ring for some tea?”
The queen ignored her. “When Albert died, people told me such nonsense. That God had drawn Albert back to Himself because Albert’s soul was too good for this world.
‘His death makes a link between you and heaven,’ the Archbishop of Canterbury said.
” Victoria huffed impatiently. “Albert was certainly not too good for this world. He was a good man, with a strong moral code and a kind heart; but he was still a man. He was not flawless. As for a link with heaven—I did not want that. I wanted my husband with me, alive.”
Hélène nodded, her throat closing up, and the queen met her gaze.
“What I am trying to articulate, perhaps poorly, is that after I lost Albert, there was nothing anyone could say to make it better. So I will not waste your time with any such useless sympathy.”
“Thank you,” Hélène said softly.
“For what it’s worth, I am sorry.” The queen spoke clumsily; she clearly wasn’t used to giving apologies. “I regret the role I played in keeping you and Eddy apart. It would seem that I’m not as good at matchmaking as I once was.”
That last was said lightheartedly, but Hélène didn’t smile.
“Given the circumstances, I wanted to bring you this,” Victoria added, holding out a hand.
Hélène rose and walked over; because even here, in a private audience, Victoria would never do anything so indecorous as lean. When the queen dropped a gold band onto her palm, Hélène stared at it in shock.
“Eddy’s wedding ring,” Victoria said unnecessarily. “He would want you to have it.”
“I don’t know what to say. Thank you.” Hélène held the ring so tight that it dug into the flesh of her palm.
“It is devastating, is it not?” The queen’s voice broke. “I keep regretting that I was so hard on him.”
Hélène didn’t argue with that. Instead she said, “Eddy loved you.”
The queen shot her a grateful look. “Someday, if you have children, you will understand. You do your best as a mother; and then you grow older and notice all the mistakes you made. Your grandchildren feel like a chance at doing things differently, correcting those mistakes. Albert and I were far too indulgent with Bertie, and look how he turned out,” Victoria observed, with shocking disloyalty.
Hélène suspected she would never have made such a remark to anyone else—that they had entered some strange territory where they could both speak frankly.
“After Bertie, I thought I would do things better with Eddy, take a stronger hand. But I fear that I never gave him the credit he deserved. Certainly I never understood him the way you did,” Victoria added, nodding at Hélène.
“You had a hard role, playing both monarch and grandmother,” Hélène said magnanimously.
Silence descended in the sitting room once more. Hélène wondered, suddenly, where her parents were. What did they think of this strange audience between herself and the Queen of England?
“If you’ll forgive an old woman’s meddling, I should like to give you some advice,” Victoria went on, after a beat. “You were the great—the only—love of Eddy’s life. But that doesn’t mean he needs to be yours.”
Hélène looked up defensively. “Of course he is. I will never love again.”