CHAPTER SIXTEEN
May
MAY HAD RESENTED THIS RIDICULOUS evening from the start.
Several days ago, Queen Victoria had asked her grandchildren to perform “amateur theatricals,” pointedly leaving May out of the assignment.
May knew she was being snubbed, forced to sit in the audience with the likes of Bishop Cameron and Hélène d’Orléans while the Wales children and Alix were onstage.
And that was before May had seen the fake wedding. It was almost laughable, the lengths that Victoria would go to in order to push Alix and Eddy together. Except that May was in no mood to laugh.
She glanced around the drawing room, which was heavy with all the scents so distinctive to Balmoral—woodsmoke and leather and something else that might have been old wood, or old stone, or old everything.
The theatricals had just ended, and the “actors” were still in costume, making them stand out awkwardly from the other guests.
Uncle Bertie might have found the whole display as frustrating as May did, because he’d immediately retreated to smoke on the terrace; but everyone else was milling about near the fireplace, clutching glasses of brandy or sherry.
“I have to admit, I’m jealous that you were allowed to be part of the audience,” remarked a voice to her left.
May turned, startled to see Prince George standing next to her.
Belatedly, she realized that she needed to reply. “You didn’t enjoy acting tonight?”
“I loathed it. And I imagine that you would have, too.”
“I’d have preferred not to be left out.” Perhaps Agnes was rubbing off on her; May normally didn’t speak so bluntly.
George cast her a curious glance. They were standing near the edge of the oriental carpet, near a claret-colored tufted sofa.
“Perhaps you’re right,” George agreed. “At least if you were onstage with us, no one would have to worry about you forgetting your lines as Louise did.”
May was puzzled, though a bit gratified by the disloyalty to his sister. “What do you mean?”
“Just that you have excellent powers of recall. I’ll never forget that summer we were all children, when Grandmother offered a prize to whoever would be first to recite the catechism.”
May couldn’t believe he remembered; it was so long ago. “She promised that whoever could do it first would get a Bible embossed with his or her name.”
“Except that we were children, and not particularly motivated by the Bible as a reward. Chocolate would have been a better choice.”
Not to May. She had been enamored by the prospect of owning something marked with her name: the letters pressed into the cover by a stamp, never to be erased or undone. Something that was clearly, undeniably hers.
“You learned the catechism within a matter of days, while the rest of us were busy playing at pirates,” George went on. His eyes lit on hers as he asked, “I hope you still have that Bible.”
“Oh…I never got one, actually,” May admitted.
“That’s not fair.” George was positively indignant as he added, “I have half a mind to tell Grandmother that she owes you a Bible.”
She owes me far more than that for ignoring me my whole life, May thought. “It’s all right. I’m sure she just forgot.”
Except that if it had been Eddy, or her beloved Alix, Victoria would never have forgotten.
May steered the conversation back to a safer level. “Tell me, why did you dislike the theatricals? I think you may have had the best part of anyone.”
“Because I had no speaking role and just napped on a tiger skin?”
“Was it comfortable?” May asked, and to her surprise, George laughed.
“Extremely. Have you ever seen a tiger? Eddy claims he shot one in Nepal, but I’m not sure whether to believe him.”
“I’ve never traveled to Nepal, of course, but I did see the tiger at the Zoological Gardens in Regent’s Park.” May hesitated, then added, “I have to admit, I much preferred the hippopotamus.”
“The hippopotamus? You must be the only person in London who feels that way.”
“It’s not the hippopotamus’s fault that he was poorly named, and looks more like a hog than a Thoroughbred!” May protested. “One can hardly blame him for splashing people in retaliation.”
There had been such a fanfare when the animal had first arrived in London, newspaper headlines proudly announcing the Great African River-Horse.
Then when people saw it—expecting some kind of Pegasus with fins—they were sorely disappointed.
Within a week, children were throwing hunks of old bread at the hippopotamus, shouting insults in its direction.
May loved that the hippo ignored their criticisms, just gave a huge yawn of indifference and then jumped back into its pond, spraying water up onto the children. She wished that she could do the same when society threw barbs her way.
“Of course,” George said evenly. “I would splash people, too, if they kept me locked up in that pond with only the giraffes next door for company.”
He was smiling, May noted: a shy, almost playful smile. The remark was a joke.
“Giraffes seem rather stuck-up, don’t you think?” she replied. “The way they’ve always got their noses in the air?”
It was a silly, nonsensical thing to say, but George chuckled appreciatively.
How strange, that May had never really paid him any mind. As a child George had always trailed along in Eddy’s wake, watching the older, more rambunctious cousins. Yet there was clearly a sense of humor beneath his placid surface.
“You know what animal should have been named the hippopotamus? The dolphin. They are incredible—so fast, and as playful as frolicking puppies,” George told her, still smiling.
“You saw a dolphin? Was this in the navy?”
“Off the coast of Malta. Missy and I saw them, right alongside the yacht.”
Right. Missy.
When they were children, George had always been overly solicitous of their younger cousin: holding the lead rope when Missy learned to ride a pony, helping her try to catch fireflies at dusk.
The oldest daughter of Uncle Alfred and Aunt Marie, Missy was pretty in a bright, vivacious way, nothing at all like shy Alix of Hesse. Honestly, Queen Victoria might have considered Missy as a bride for Eddy if she weren’t so young.
And George was clearly still infatuated with her.
“George!” Maud bustled over, relieving May of the need to reply. “Father is looking for you.”
“Very well.” George cast an inscrutable glance at May, then nodded his goodbye and disappeared.
Maud watched him leave. “What were you and George talking about?”
May couldn’t explain the unexpected, almost whimsical turn their conversation had taken—or that the mention of Missy had acted like a dash of cold water to her face. “We were just discussing the theatricals. Did you enjoy them?”
“Not really.” Maud shrugged. “But you know how Grandmama is. It’s easier to agree to her demands than to put up a fight.”
Of course. Queen Victoria’s will went unquestioned, at least within her family.
A burst of laughter across the room caught Maud’s attention. May couldn’t help glancing over as well—to where Alix of Hesse stood with Prince Eddy.
They should have looked like a couple; they were standing so close together, both of them wearing those bizarre peasant wedding costumes.
And they were certainly both attractive.
In her cream-colored dress, her golden hair shot through with firelight, Alix looked ethereal, angelic.
Yet there was something stiff about the way they moved around each other, neither of them quite meeting the other’s gaze.
What was it Alix had said on the train? That’s the kind of love I’m looking for. The romantic, adoring devotion of a spouse who never stopped grieving you: the way Alix’s father had done for her mother, the way Victoria still did for Albert.
Alix would never find that kind of love with Eddy, May felt certain of it.
But Alix wasn’t brave enough to extricate herself from the situation.
If nothing happened to change their course, she and Eddy would get pulled into an engagement through sheer inertia—swept along by everyone’s expectations, by the force of Queen Victoria’s will.
Alix would say nothing in protest, until one day she looked up and realized she was married to Eddy after all.
May had her own reasons for wanting to sabotage things, but was it really sabotage when you were saving someone from a fate they didn’t want? May tried to think of what Agnes would say if she were here.
She knew the answer as clearly as if Agnes had whispered it to her all the way from London.
Agnes would want her to tell Maud the truth about Alix.
“The marriage vignette surprised me a bit,” May heard herself say. “I take it that an engagement is already in the works?”
Maud blinked at the directness of the question. “Nothing has been announced yet, but if Grandmama had her way, it would be in the papers tomorrow.”
“Perhaps it’s for the best that no formal announcement has been made,” May murmured in reply.
“What do you mean?”
Wordlessly they both took a step back, settling onto an ottoman upholstered in scratchy blue fabric. It meant they had to sit ramrod-straight, but at least this way they could see the entire room.
May sighed. “I worry about Alix, with all her ailments.”
“Ailments?”
This was the point of no return. May could still take it all back, pretend that she’d only meant Alix suffered from harmless headaches.
But then she would be lying. Besides, Alix’s panicked episode had happened out in public; for all May knew, other people had seen.
The truth would come out eventually, with or without May’s help.
Once more, she glanced over at Alix’s face—pale, strained, uncertain. It lent her the resolve she needed.
“Alix suffers from the vapors,” May explained. “Or, really, it’s like the vapors but far worse. I saw it happen last year at the opera. Her hands were paralyzed, clenched into fists so tight that she couldn’t open them. She couldn’t even talk.”
Maud lifted a hand to her mouth in surprise. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“And then, of course, there’s the bleeding disease.”
“The bleeding disease?” Maud repeated, in a near whisper.
“You know it runs in her family. A disease that causes uncontrolled bleeding.” It runs in our family, May could have said; it had killed Queen Victoria’s youngest son, Leopold. Though no one ever, ever mentioned that.
“Alix’s brother Friedrich died of it,” May went on. “And the doctors say it’s carried through the female line.”
“Really?” It was a mark of Maud’s inexperience, or perhaps her privilege, that she didn’t pause to consider whether she might be a carrier of that same disease.
May had wondered, of course. That was how she’d come by this highly sensitive information in the first place: she’d eavesdropped on her parents as they discussed the family curse, debating whether May might pass it on to her own children.
But unlike Alix, May didn’t have a brother who had bled to death. Her own brother was in perfect health.
“Alix is troubled, and…” May hesitated, then spoke the word Agnes had used. “And damaged.”
That word had sounded so perfect in her head—so confident, so definitive—but falling from her lips, it seemed unbearably harsh. May thought of Alix, smiling at her across the railcar, and felt queasy with regret.
Maud’s eyes widened. “How terrible for Alix. Do you think Grandmama knows?”
“Probably not.” May had always sensed that Alix’s family was tight-knit. Especially after Alix’s mother died, the Hesse siblings had closed ranks against the rest of the world, even their own cousins. They would have gone to great lengths to keep Alix’s paralyzing episodes a secret.
Thanks to May, it was a secret no longer.
“I’m so glad that you told me, May. I just want what’s best for Eddy.” Maud shook her head in concern.
Now that she’d dealt her blow, May felt the energy that had coursed through her rapidly drain away. She had been helping Alix, she reminded herself, because Alix wasn’t bold enough to help herself.
But the fact remained that she had also traded Alix’s secret for her own gain.