CHAPTER SIX
Alix
AT HOME IN HESSE, ALIX’S father kept a decidedly modest household.
Things were quite different at Buckingham Palace.
Here, when Alix woke, the fire in her room already crackled; someone had slipped in to light it while her bed-curtains were drawn, a luxury that always left her feeling slightly unsettled.
Breakfast was summoned at the touch of a bell, and fresh flowers materialized in vases as if by magic.
At home, Alix could visit her father simply by walking downstairs and knocking on the door to his study.
A conversation with her grandmother was far more complicated.
She had to ring for a footman and ask to see the queen, then wait for the message to travel through a spiderweb of servants and ladies’ maids, until an entirely different footman finally appeared to escort her to Her Majesty.
She followed the footman down one soft-carpeted hallway after another. The closer she got to her grandmother’s quarters, the more awed and hushed the palace felt, as if she had entered a religious sanctuary.
“Your Majesty.” The footman rapped at the final set of carved wooden doors. “Her Royal Highness, Princess Alix of Hesse.”
“Come in, my dear!”
Grandmama sat in an armchair by the window, dressed as usual in a black silk gown. She gestured for Alix to take the neighboring chair. “Are you excited for La Traviata?”
Alix sat, lacing her fingers nervously in her lap. “Of course. It’s the perfect outing for our last night.”
“Stay another month,” the queen said automatically. She did this each time Alix and Ernie were about to leave. “We’re heading to Balmoral soon, and you love it there!”
“That sounds delightful, but I need to get home.”
Hurt flashed in Grandmama’s eyes. “I’ve always hoped that you would think of England as your home, Alix. You’re just as much British as you are German, like my own dear Albert.”
Actually, while Alix was half British and half German by birth, Grandpapa Albert had been wholly German—and had given it all up to marry her grandmother, because he loved her so desperately.
Even now, almost thirty years after his death, Grandmama never took off the black of mourning.
It was a story Alix had heard a thousand times since she was a child, and each time, she was struck by the romance of it.
Alix hesitated. “Grandmama…yesterday Eddy asked if he could court me.”
Victoria clapped her hands together. “Oh, I’m so glad! It was about time!”
About time? Eddy had been right; the queen clearly wanted them to marry.
“I’ll write to your father at once,” Victoria went on, smiling broadly. “Given this news, there’s no question of you going home tomorrow. You must stay and spend some proper time with Eddy, not just at Balmoral but here in London. Society will need to get used to seeing you together.”
Alix hurried to interject. “But I’m not certain that Eddy and I are a good match.”
“Of course you’re not certain yet,” her grandmother said blithely.
“That’s what the courting period is for!
You’ve known Eddy your whole life, but as your cousin; now you must consider him as a husband.
I have such fond memories of my own courting period, with Albert,” Victoria added, a bit wistfully.
“We spent much of it at Windsor, you know. Perhaps you’d like to go there with Eddy. ”
Alix knew she was expected to let go of her objections, but they kept rising, blocky and sharp in her throat.
“Were you aware that Eddy keeps women on the side?”
She hadn’t planned to throw down the card May had dealt her yesterday, but to her surprise, her grandmother didn’t flinch at the statement. She had obviously known.
“My dear, those women mean nothing. Chorus girls and artists’ models! Eddy is just a young man in the military, acting his age. You are the one he intends to make his wife.”
“I doubt Grandpapa ever behaved like that,” Alix dared to say.
She was probably asking too much, hoping for fidelity in a royal marriage—more than that, hoping for love.
Yet Alix couldn’t help it. As outlandish as it was, she’d hoped that she and her husband might build a life together, instead of carving the world into domestic and social spheres and spending their days apart.
She wanted someone who knew every last part of her, even the darkness at her core that Eddy had never seen—and if he did see it, he wouldn’t understand.
He would be appalled at her illness, disgusted by it.
How could he ever love her when he didn’t see the guilt that constricted her every breath, woven around her rib cage like one of those tropical snakes?
“I will admit that Eddy is not perfect,” Grandmama said, with surprising bluntness. “But he is a good boy at heart, and means well.”
There was something irritating about the indulgent way Victoria spoke of Eddy, as if he were a misbehaving child and not a full-grown man.
“Be that as it may, I fear that Eddy and I are not well suited. Our dispositions are so different. How would we ever come to love each other?”
“Just as my disposition was so different from my dear Albert’s!” Victoria exclaimed, undaunted. “We understood each other, of course; we were cousins, as you and Eddy are. But we did not love each other at the beginning. To be truthful, we did not even like each other very much.”
Alix blinked, startled by the admission. Her grandmother had only ever spoken of Albert in the most glowing terms.
“Albert couldn’t stand me when we first met.
He was resolute and calm where I was impulsive; he was serious where I was emotional.
But that was what made our partnership so successful,” Victoria insisted.
“We each had different strengths. As for love, that grew over time, from the children we raised together, the shared goals we worked toward.”
Alix tried, and failed, to imagine working with Eddy toward a shared goal. She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Grandmama, but I’m not staying. Ernie and I will leave town tomorrow as planned.”
The queen frowned. “I hope this isn’t your sister’s influence. Don’t you follow her example and marry one of the Romanovs.”
“Ella and Sergei are happy together,” Alix protested, confused by the change of topic.
“And you and Ernie are visiting them later this year, yes? Please, just promise me you’ll be careful.” The queen sounded suddenly distraught. “Russia is dangerous.”
“I don’t think Ella is in danger.” From her sister’s letters, it sounded like her life consisted of summer picnics and masked balls.
“They are all in danger! That country is teetering on the edge, with anarchists loose in the streets, trying to assassinate the tsar and his family. Truly, the Romanovs’ wealth is too much.
To be so spectacularly rich in a country with so much poverty—” Victoria broke off, shaking her head.
“We aren’t like the Russians, who bomb their kings, or the French, who exile them.
Britain is a glorious empire, and being its queen is the highest and most exalted position on earth. ”
Except that Alix didn’t want to be queen. And even if she did, she wasn’t worthy of it.
She realized, shocked, that her grandmother’s eyes were brimming with tears. Alix stepped forward and hugged her, closing her arms around her grandmother’s back. Victoria stiffened, unaccustomed to the physical contact, but after a moment she relaxed into the embrace.
“If you don’t want to stay, I won’t insist upon it.
You can go home to Darmstadt tomorrow as planned,” Grandmama said, once they had pulled apart.
“But you must assure me that you won’t make any rash decisions about Eddy.
Let him keep courting you from afar, by letter.
Then, when you visit again next summer, you and Eddy can pick up where you left off. ”
Somehow Alix doubted that Eddy would prove a diligent correspondent. “Very well. We can write to each other.”
“And you promise that you’ll come to Balmoral next summer?”
Alix almost smiled at her grandmother’s insistence. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
“Good.” Victoria nodded crisply, as if everything was now decided.
Alix had a sudden fear that she’d set too much in motion—that by agreeing to visit Balmoral next year, she’d signed away her future.
But she hadn’t gotten engaged to Eddy, hadn’t made any real promises except to write him some letters over the coming months.
A courtship conducted at a distance hardly counted as a courtship at all.
At least, that was what Alix told herself.
THANK GOODNESS SHE’D INVITED THE Tecks to the opera that evening, Alix thought gratefully; she needed the extra buffer between herself and Eddy.
Ernie was here too—along with Eddy’s mother, the Princess of Wales—but there was something different about having the company of another young woman, especially one who knew your romantic troubles. One who was almost a friend.
If only there were a tactful way to lend May a new dress. Even Alix, who cared little for fashion, could tell that her cousin’s mauve gown was hopelessly outdated, and had been recut to fit the current trends. Alix had the horrified suspicion that May had altered it herself.
When May caught her staring, Alix flushed. “Thank you for coming tonight,” she said softly.
May whipped open her fan, holding it before her mouth to hide her reply. Of course, Alix thought numbly, she hadn’t even considered that someone might be peering through a lorgnette at them, reading their lips. In the royal box, you were always being watched.
“Have you made a decision?” May whispered.
Alix paused, uncertain. “I’m still leaving tomorrow.”
“So you rejected him?”
Below in the orchestra, the aria swelled to a loud crescendo. “Not exactly,” she admitted. “I suppose we’ll be courting from a distance?”