CHAPTER FOURTEEN #2
“I just need to say hello to someone. I’ll be back.” Agnes’s eyes were fixed on another box as she started off. Probably going to flirt with some baronet that May wouldn’t approve of. That was Agnes, always scheming. How had she put it? I have my own campaign to wage.
As her friend headed off, May smiled to herself. “Good luck,” she whispered, not that Agnes could hear.
They both needed a healthy dose of luck. Yet for the first time in years, despite the odds, May felt…hopeful.
Perhaps both their campaigns might prove successful after all.
MAY ALWAYS FELT A FLURRY of anxiety when boarding a train. Her mind inevitably flung her back in time to that train, to the night of her family’s ultimate disgrace.
The creditors had descended like a pack of locusts, and no one—not even Queen Victoria—was willing to help the Tecks anymore.
Mary Adelaide and Francis had borrowed too many times for even their families to trust them.
They had no choice but to flee the country, to run away from their debts like the ragged vagabonds they were.
It had rained that night, as if God himself wanted to add to their punishment.
May would never forget how it felt to stand on the platform of Victoria Station with her parents and Dolly, rain battering mercilessly at her umbrella.
They had taken the midnight train to avoid seeing anyone they knew, and had traveled under the false name of Count Hohenstein and his family.
As if anyone abroad gave a fig about the Tecks.
It was a vastly different experience traveling in broad daylight, on the royal train.
May was well aware that the train had been summoned for Alix’s sake, not hers, but that didn’t dim her enjoyment.
Afternoon sunlight shone through the windows on both sides of the car, gleaming on the polished hardwood floors.
Aside from the gentle rattle as the train sped along its tracks, you might have thought you were in a well-appointed living room.
Everything in here was expensive, from the blue watered silk lining the walls to the pillows stitched with the Scottish thistle.
They had been traveling all day; May knew that they would cross into Scotland overnight, speeding past Edinburgh at dawn before finally arriving at Balmoral’s own Ballater Station.
Through the windows she saw rugged northern forests interspersed with the occasional town, smoke drifting up from chimneys.
May’s eyes darted from their chaperone, Miss Cochrane—asleep in a blue armchair—to Alix, who was curled up with a novel.
It was irritating how incandescently beautiful she was, her blond curls framing her face, her expression luminous.
Whatever silly story she was reading, she seemed engrossed in it.
May must have been staring too forcefully, because Alix looked up and met her gaze.
“Come sit with me?” she offered.
“Oh—of course,” May said quickly. The two young women had spoken a bit at lunch, but Miss Cochrane had been hovering over them, and they hadn’t really mentioned anything of consequence.
The train shook a little as May moved down its length, holding back her skirts to keep from tripping. She tried to think of a tactful way to bring up Prince Eddy.
“Aren’t you excited to be going back to Balmoral? I always love it there,” Alix said, when May had settled onto the seat next to her.
“Actually, this will be my first time there.” May tried to hide her annoyance, and embarrassment, but Alix clearly picked up on it and smiled apologetically.
“I hadn’t realized; you and your parents have traveled so much. You’ve been to Italy, haven’t you? I’ve always longed to go.”
Yes, they had been to Italy. That rain-soaked night at Victoria Station had launched the Tecks on several years of wandering, when they’d made their way through Europe like well-bred beggars.
They had stayed with Princess Catherine of Württemberg, with May’s awful uncle Willy—and then, in one of Mary Adelaide’s masterstrokes, they had lived for almost two years in Florence without paying a penny in rent.
The owner of the villa had evidently loved the thought of hosting royals, not realizing how tangential the Tecks’ royal status was.
“We lived in Florence for a year and a half,” May agreed.
Alix sighed at the prospect. “That must have been so lovely. Did you see Botticelli’s Venus?”
“Botticelli’s Venus is one of the few lovely things about Florence,” May confessed. “I actually found the city rather trying. It was so dirty.”
“Dirty? Really?”
“The river is rancid, there’s trash in the streets, and the Italians all chain-smoked black cigars. Even the women!”
May had expected to shock Alix, but to her surprise the Hessian princess nodded.
“The women in Russia smoke too, though cigarettes, not black cigars. The most high-ranking grand duchesses are the worst offenders! Even the tsarina smokes,” she added in a conspiratorial whisper.
“I saw her pulling cigarettes from a monogrammed case as carelessly as you or I might pull out a handkerchief!”
“The tsarina?” May repeated, surprised.
“I know! Before my visit to St. Petersburg, I thought only actresses smoked!”
May was surprised to see a glint of amusement in Alix’s eyes. How unexpected, that Alix of Hesse should have a sense of humor. The shock of it made her bark out a laugh.
Then Alix was laughing too, the two of them giggling like a pair of schoolgirls.
Was it possible that they were having fun?
“Tell me more about Balmoral. I really don’t know what to expect,” May admitted.
Alix eagerly began talking, explaining how “Grandmama” often had breakfast served outside near the garden cottage, while a piper marched back and forth playing the bagpipes.
Most days a party would go out hunting, while everyone else stayed at the main castle, walking the grounds or catching up on correspondence.
That didn’t sound very promising, at least not in regard to Prince Eddy. How was May supposed to get any time with him if he was out in the woods with a rifle every day?
“What about the evenings? Does Her Majesty do any entertaining?” May pressed.
“Usually just a small dinner. Though I believe Grandmama is hosting a ball for our final night. You did pack your tartan, didn’t you?” Alix added. “We always wear tartans over our gowns at Balmoral, pinned at the shoulder.”
“My tartan?”
“Surely your mother and father have their own plaid? Most branches of the family have designed one at some point….” Alix trailed off, her blue eyes wide with understanding.
Normally, May hated that look. There was nothing she despised more than being pitied. Yet Alix was so obviously guileless that for once May didn’t feel that resentful; she was just weary.
All her hard work getting here, and she would still look like an outsider because she didn’t have a plaid shawl.
“I didn’t pack a tartan. Will I be terribly out of place without one?”
“You can borrow one!” Alix said hastily. “There are always extras of the Stuart tartan in the linen closet at Balmoral. That’s the classic red print.”
“Is that what Her Majesty wears?”
“No, she wears her own personal print, a gray-and-black pattern. The Waleses will all be in it too.”
Great. Now May would look every inch the poor relation—which she was, of course—wearing some drab old tartan that had been sitting in mothballs for the last thirty years.
Her dismay must have shown on her features, because Alix cleared her throat. “You’re welcome to borrow one of mine, if you don’t mind dressing like the Hessian branch of the family.”
“You have another tartan?” It struck May as unbelievably extravagant to have extras of a custom-made fabric that you only wore once a year.
“Yes. I have mine, and my mother’s. She designed the pattern, actually,” Alix added softly.
May drew in a breath. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
“It’s all right, Mama would have loved that her tartan was being used.”
Alix’s features were bright with heartache. Talking about her mother made her seem so childlike, so vulnerable; May was torn between a desire to protect her and another, equally strong urge to shake some sense into her. The world isn’t a fairy tale, she wanted to say. Stop thinking that it is!
They both swayed a little in their seats as the train curved along its track. May adjusted the cushion behind her, then asked, “What was she like? Your mother, I mean.”
“My biggest fear is that I will forget her. Already she is blurring with Ella in my mind—because after Mother died, Ella became like a mother to me, too. I’m terrified that one day I’ll wake up and have forgotten her face completely.
” Alix’s voice broke, but after a moment she continued.
“One thing that I do remember is how much she loved music. She was always singing, making up nonsense songs, or changing the lyrics to some popular song so that it was actually about us. ‘Those aren’t the words, Mama!’ I would protest, and she just swept me into her arms and laughed that it didn’t matter.
She said that the words could be whatever we wanted them to be, that the song was ours for the writing. ”
“She sounds very special.” May couldn’t imagine how it might feel, having a dreamy and imaginative mother like that.
Her own mother could hardly be called practical, given how overdrawn their accounts were, but she had never been the type to make up words or games.
The only stories she’d told May were real ones about their family history.
“I miss her so much,” Alix murmured. “But as hard as it was on me, my father took it the worst. He never really recovered from her death.”
“Really?” May didn’t know much about Louis of Hesse; he kept to himself in Darmstadt. Come to think of it, how had he managed to marry a princess of Great Britain? His duchy was nothing special by German standards, hardly better than her own father’s home of Württemberg.
“They were so in love, you know, that they married only six months after Grandpapa Albert’s death. Everyone was still in mourning,” Alix offered.
That didn’t sound like an auspicious start to May, but it did explain things. In the wild throes of her grief over Albert, Queen Victoria might have agreed to a marriage she would never have let her daughter make under normal circumstances.
Alix kicked off her slippers, then pulled one foot up onto the upholstered cushion, tucking it behind her knee in utter defiance of etiquette. “For years people kept telling my father to remarry, but he always refused. He said that there was no one in the world like my mother.”
It was true: most men would have remarried within the year, simply for a pair of hands to raise their children and run their household.
“That’s the kind of love I’m looking for,” Alix added, almost in a whisper. “I know it’s foolish to think that I might find it, but I can’t help hoping.”
“Excuse me, Your Highnesses.” A maid emerged from the neighboring railcar and began lighting the oil lamps on the walls. May noted in surprise that the sun had set, its golden rays disappearing behind the distant hills.
“When shall I tell the conductor to halt the train for your supper?”
They both glanced at the figure of the elderly Miss Cochrane, who was still dozing in her armchair on the opposite side of the railcar.
“Perhaps we don’t need to pause,” Alix suggested, surprising May yet again.
The maid frowned. “Her Majesty always has the train come to a full stop before dining. She says that it is messy attempting to eat while in motion.”
“But Her Majesty isn’t here. Why don’t we attempt to eat while moving, and that way we can arrive at Balmoral a bit ahead of schedule?”
When the maidservant retreated with a nod, May lifted an eyebrow.
“Eating while the train is moving? A bit reckless, to be breaking Her Majesty’s rules before we even get there.”
“If I shatter a plate, promise me you’ll help me sweep it under the rug?” Alix asked lightly.
“Of course. We’re quite good at that in our family,” May heard herself reply.
Alix gave an appreciative smile. They were teasing each other, May noted in surprise, sharing jokes known only to the two of them. Acting the way that friends would.
The realization made her think of Agnes, who was a very different sort of friend, cunning and defiant where Alix was soft-spoken. Yet May had shared hidden pieces of herself with each of them.
After all these years of being on her own, it was rather a nice sensation—letting people in.