Chapter Thirty-One Hélène
Chapter Thirty-One
Hélène
When the telegram arrived at Sheen House, Hélène opened it eagerly, hoping it was from Eddy. Instead it had been sent by his sister Louise, asking if Hélène could come to Sandringham.
Finally, Hélène thought in relief. Eddy had left town a few days ago: he’d insisted on going to Sandringham first, “to soften Grandmother up before we tell her our news,” as he’d put it.
Then a cough had racked his chest, and he’d given a watery smile.
“And it seems that I’m still ill. Better that I recover in the country instead of passing this sickness along to you. ”
“Norfolk will have you better in no time,” Hélène had agreed. “My mother always says that country air will heal you faster than a city doctor.”
She needed Eddy back at full health so that they could decide together how to handle May. The two-week deadline was fast approaching, and May still hadn’t left London.
Hélène folded the telegram and looked at her parents across the breakfast table. “I’m headed to Sandringham with Prince Eddy,” she said. “Violette will accompany me, unless you have any objections?”
Her parents stared at her, then exchanged a surprised, confused glance.
Hélène saw all the questions they were valiantly swallowing back: What did it mean?
Were she and Eddy together again? But they seemed to decide against asking for details—ever since the Romanovs had written, informing them that there would be no engagement between Hélène and Nicholas, they had skirted the topic of courtship or marriage.
“Have a good trip,” her father said simply. But Hélène saw his smile of cautious hope.
When her train pulled up to Wolferton Station that evening, Hélène saw a solitary woman waiting on the platform, dressed in a fur-lined cloak and matching hat.
“I hadn’t expected a personal welcome,” Hélène exclaimed, giving Princess Louise—now the Duchess of Fife—an airy double kiss, the French way.
Louise didn’t smile, and an odd shiver traced up Hélène’s spine.
“Come on,” Louise said simply, pulling Hélène toward a waiting carriage and gesturing that Violette should follow in the buggy cart. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve arranged for you and your lady’s maid to stay with our neighbors, Lord and Lady Wyclif. They are most eager to host you.”
Hélène blinked at Eddy’s sister. “I’m not staying in the main house? Did Her Majesty refuse to see me, or are you keeping me a secret?”
“Grandmother isn’t at Sandringham. You know how she is about illness,” Louise explained.
It was true; Queen Victoria abhorred illness, and was always fleeing London when there were outbreaks of scarlet fever or influenza.
“I just…I acted somewhat on my own, bringing you here. I didn’t want to alarm Mother. ”
“I take it Eddy still hasn’t told anyone about our engagement, then?” Hélène asked carefully.
“Ah, so you did reconcile!” Louise nodded sharply. “I thought so.”
Hélène glanced out the window to hide her confusion. When she’d gotten the telegram, she’d assumed it was all Eddy’s doing, that he had asked Louise to send for her. But he clearly hadn’t told Louise anything. Why had Louise summoned her here, then?
They turned up the front drive, and Hélène caught her first glimpse of Sandringham, a sprawling brick structure with stone gables and cupolas that gleamed in the evening light.
The estate had not been in the royal family long; it was the last property that Prince Albert purchased before his death.
He’d gifted it to the Prince and Princess of Wales, supposedly in the hope that it would strengthen their marriage: that its remote location in Norfolk would keep Bertie away from all the temptations of London—namely, all his mistresses.
As it turned out, Bertie only came here for shooting weekends. But Alexandra loved it. Hélène suspected that she thrived in this English country air, in a way that she never did in Scotland. This was her house, after all, and Balmoral was the queen’s.
“Eddy has told me so much about Sandringham,” Hélène said, in an attempt to break the silence.
It seemed like one of the happier places of his childhood.
He’d described skating parties on the lake, lit by colored torches, where servants handed out mugs of mulled wine or steaming chocolate.
He’d told her about the pranks he and his father had pulled every Christmas morning, leaving pudding in people’s shoes or filling bicycle pumps with water and squirting his sisters.
With the royal family’s typical quirkiness, Sandringham was one of the places they were most relaxed, yet they held tight to rigid court etiquette.
Dinner was ruthlessly formal, requiring women to wear diamonds, men to wear their full decorations and orders.
Louise sighed heavily. “Hélène. You know that Eddy is quite ill, don’t you?”
No. There was a note of something in Louise’s voice, but Hélène refused to hear it. “Oh, influenza has been everywhere this winter. Have you all been taking your daily dose of quinine? It will cure most anything….”
She trailed off as their carriage approached the front of the house. Louise didn’t wait for a footman to open the door; she hopped out, jerking her head toward the front steps. “Why don’t I take you to him now.”
Hélène had a vague impression of the hallways they walked through: scrolling wallpaper hung with swords or suits of armor, painted porcelain plates arranged in circles and mounted to the walls. In one sitting room she saw a stuffed bird in a glass case.
Finally Louise paused at a wooden door. “He will be so glad to see you. Yours is the only name he keeps saying.”
Hélène nodded in reply, her throat dry, and turned the door handle.
Eddy lay in bed, the covers pulled up around his shoulders. He was so pale. For a terrifying moment Hélène thought the worst—until she saw the soft rise and fall of his chest, and her heart was able to beat again.
“Excuse me, miss.” A nurse who’d been seated in an armchair quickly stood. She left with a curtsy.
Hélène rushed to the side of Eddy’s bed and pressed a hand to his brow. He was too cold, wasn’t he?
“Hélène.” His eyes opened, and he smiled, the old winsome smile that lit up his face. Seeing it made her feel better.
“Eddy! I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. I had no idea you were this sick,” she insisted.
He reached for her hand, lacing their fingers. Hélène pressed a kiss to his knuckles, fighting back tears. How had so much changed in the span of a week? Eddy looked like he didn’t have the strength to get out of bed, let alone talk to his grandmother about their engagement.
“You should leave,” he said weakly. “I would never forgive myself if you got ill….”
“Please, I’m as strong as a horse. I don’t get ill.”
“That makes sense.” He started to say more, but dissolved into a fit of coughing. Hélène hated that she could do nothing. She just stood there, helpless, as he gasped for air, his hands clawing at the bedcovers.
“Damn this sickness,” he said at last, in an old man’s voice—high, wheezing. “You’re here, alone in my room, and I can’t even enjoy it.”
This time the old flirtatious smile was strained.
“Let’s see what we can manage,” Hélène said, with forced lightness.
They were already flirting with impropriety, having her in his room unchaperoned, under the roof of a royal residence. A residence that Hélène wasn’t even supposed to be at.
She didn’t care. If they found her like this, she would suffer the consequences.
Hélène sat back on the bed, moving slowly so as not to disturb Eddy, then stretched out until she was lying next to him, on her side.
She reached an arm around his torso, settling against him the way she did so often when they were in bed together.
He sighed a little in contentment, shifting to make space for her.
It was strange. When she tucked her head into his shoulder, she could smell the illness on him—a caustic, medicinal smell—but his body was as taut and strong as ever.
He certainly didn’t resemble the patients she had seen at the hospital, frail or wasted away.
Why, from the feel of his muscles, you would think he was in perfect health.
You just had to ignore that his skin was slightly cool to the touch.
“The nurse might come back. Or the doctor,” Eddy said softly.
“So what?” Hélène kept tracing her fingers in light circles over his skin, the way her mother used to do when Hélène was little and felt sick. “If the doctor walks in, I’ll say that I’m helping to cure you.”
“Ah, yes, physical touch. The oldest cure known to man.”
“And you said you weren’t French,” she teased.
They lay there for a while in silence, just listening to each other’s heartbeat. Then Eddy said, “Tell me something.”
“What?”
“Anything. I just want to hear your voice.”
Hélène tried to adopt her most upbeat tone, thinking of what might distract Eddy. “We had quite an eventful night on Saturday, leaving the Devanes’ reception. Lord Lawrence almost got into a brawl with my parents over our carriage.”
“He never could handle his whiskey,” Eddy remarked. Hélène tried to ignore how thin his voice was.
“It was quite amusing, honestly—Lawrence was so drunk that he couldn’t tell his coat of arms from ours, kept trying to shove my parents away from the door. In the end my father decided it was easier to give him a ride home than to forcibly kick him out.”
She went on like that for a while, talking about nonsensical things. When Eddy’s breathing had become more even, Hélène fell silent. But she didn’t move. She stayed there, her arm still thrown over his body.
Here was her happiness, she thought. Here was what she cared about most, held within the circle of her arms. She could not bear to lose it.
She began whispering again, but in French this time.
Saying things she never dared tell Eddy when they were awake.
That she believed their souls had been cleaved apart in the moment of creation, as the Greeks thought, and that now they were reunited.
That she couldn’t wait to have children with him.
That she hoped they had his eyes and his laugh, and his sense of mischief, too.
That those children would be raised in a new way—not to resent the throne, or to fear it, but to accept it as a privilege and a responsibility.
“Are you praying?”
Eddy’s question startled Hélène. She’d thought he was long since asleep.
“In a fashion,” she agreed, and leaned over to kiss his brow. She had been proclaiming her love for him, after all. Surely God had heard. Surely He would answer.
“I love you,” Eddy murmured. He drifted off again, and this time she knew he was truly asleep.
He was far more ill than she’d realized, Hélène thought nervously. No matter. She was here now, and she would bring him back to health through sheer force of will.
He would get better. Hélène had youth and determination and stubbornness on her side, and she refused to even think about the alternative.