Chapter Thirty-Five Alix #2
Hélène seemed confused. “What does this have to do with your brother?”
“Nothing,” Alix said hastily. “It’s just—he and Ducky are not well matched.”
Hélène shrugged. “I suspect they’ll do better than most. Alix, just because your brother’s marriage was arranged for convenience doesn’t mean yours has to be. You can have more than nice or easy. You love Nicholas, and despite all the obstacles in your way, he loves you, too.”
“Yes, I love Nicholas, but it has always been so volatile, so—difficult!” Alix shook her head, tears pricking at her eyes.
“With Nicholas I felt overwhelming joy, and at the same time, so much pain. I may not love Maximilian yet, but I know I could come to love him someday. And it would be a more adult love, based on affection and trust. Not a wild storm of emotions.”
“A more adult love, or a safe one?” Hélène challenged.
“The kind that doesn’t leave you heartbroken!”
Alix could picture the love she might feel someday for Maximilian: the kind of love where two people pass a wailing baby back and forth, smiling over its head; where their lives grow so entwined that they know each other’s sleeping patterns, how they like their coffee. The kind of love you could rely on.
“Perhaps that kind of love is enough, if you never know the other kind,” Hélène said at last. “But you do, Alix. You have felt it—the combustible, overwhelming, heartbreaking kind. Which means you can’t give up on Nicholas.”
Alix ran her fingers over the tracery on the crystal tumbler. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew how much we’ve hurt each other. It’s hopeless.”
“You think Eddy and I didn’t hurt each other?” Hélène exclaimed. “We made all kinds of mistakes! But I would give anything, would feel all that hurt a million times over, for just five more minutes with him.”
Alix felt her eyes burning with tears. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”
“Don’t apologize,” Hélène said heavily. “You want to do something for me? Go find Nicholas, tell him how you feel. I know he hurt you—but maybe, when you love that hard, some pain is inevitable. Maybe that kind of joy has to be balanced by heartache and grief. I don’t know,” Hélène said helplessly.
“All I know for certain is that you still have a chance at that kind of love, because Nicholas still walks this earth. Eddy is gone forever! So don’t go telling me that you and Nicholas are hopeless, because you’re both very much alive. ”
When Alix returned to Buckingham Palace, where she and Ernie would be staying until the funeral, Ernie greeted her carriage. “What’s wrong?” he asked, perceptive as always.
“I saw Hélène. She said some things that I can’t stop thinking about,” Alix admitted.
Her friend’s words kept echoing in her mind: I would give anything for just five more minutes with Eddy and You still have a chance at that kind of love, because you’re both very much alive.
Alix used to be so certain of her and Nicholas. She had been ready to give up everything for him, to move to Russia and change her religion and her language, to say farewell to all she knew and loved.
Now there was Maximilian, and the feelings that were growing between them. The life they built together would be so easy, so familiar. Alix wouldn’t have to change anything for him.
“I’m sure Hélène is heartbroken,” Ernie murmured sympathetically.
Through wordless agreement, the siblings started up the stairs, lowering their voices. “She’s devastated. It made me wonder…”
“About Maximilian?” Ernie prompted.
“No, about Nicholas.” Alix sighed. “I never told you that I saw the tsar in Baden-Baden.”
She explained how she’d run into the tsar and his wife in Baden-Baden on holiday, taking the waters. How they had offered her a small fortune to write Nicholas a letter, telling him that she had moved on, and he should, too.
“Now I’ve seen Hélène, and hearing her talk about Eddy…” Alix trailed off.
Ernie filled in the blanks. “It made you realize that life is short and unpredictable, and you need to fight for true love?”
“She reminded me that Nicholas and I are not impossible. No matter how hard it might feel.” Alix glanced down. “I wish I knew what he’d written in all those letters he sent after the regatta. But we burned them all.”
Ernie looked distinctly sheepish. “I wouldn’t say all of them.”
“What?” Alix demanded.
“I saved two of them, in case you changed your mind. Do you want to see them?”
“They’re here?”
“Yes. I’ve been keeping them in my writing case, on the off chance you would—”
He hadn’t even finished the sentence before Alix was running up the stairs two at a time. She heard Ernie’s footsteps behind her as she reached his room and began tugging open his writing case, revealing loose papers, a wax seal, scattered pens.
“And you said you didn’t want to hear from him ever again,” Ernie declared from the doorway, watching her.
“I don’t want to feel like this, all right? But I do!” Alix’s voice shook as she found a pair of envelopes stamped with the distinctive red and white of the Greek mail system.
“Looks like they were posted from Greece,” Ernie explained. “My guess is that Nicholas enclosed the letters in a larger note to Tino, and Tino reposted them.”
“He was forbidden to write me.” And yet he’d still managed to send the letters. In his own way, Nicholas had fought for them, tried to vanquish the obstacles between them.
She sank onto Ernie’s rug, her skirts pooling around her in ripples of charcoal-colored silk, and tore open the first letter.
Alix,
I know you said to forget you, but I cannot.
Send just a word, I beg you, so that I may know whether or not to hope.
I have told my parents that I will not marry Hélène, that in fact I won’t marry anyone except you, and that if I cannot have you then I will remain unwed until the end of my days.
It might be enough to convince them, in time… .
The second letter was more of the same, but Nicholas’s normally precise handwriting had disintegrated into a frantic scrawl. There were smudges in the ink, thumbprints.
“Was I wrong to keep them?” Ernie sank onto the floor next to her and looped his arms around his knees.
“No, I’m glad you did. It’s just…” Alix lowered the letter, carefully smoothing the wrinkles from the page. “Remember the fairy tales Mother used to tell us when we were little?”
“About handsome princes and love that defies the odds?” Ernie asked, only a little teasing.
“Exactly. In stories, the lovers always end up together, no matter how hard it seems.” Alix’s voice fell as she added, “Do you think it’s the same in real life? That true love finds a way, no matter what?”
“I don’t know.”
They both sat with that for a moment; then Ernie blew out a breath.
“I do know this, Alix. Hélène was right; you and Nicholas are not impossible. She has lost the man she loves, and as for me and the man I love…I can never be with him, not in any real sense. But Nicholas is still alive, and he loves you. You have a chance at happiness. Don’t squander it. ”
Alix shifted closer, opening her arms to hug Ernie—but he paused, wrinkling his nose. “Alix. Have you been drinking brandy?”
“Hélène and I opened some,” she admitted. Perhaps that explained why her emotions felt so close to the surface right now, hope and hurt and love all swirling about.
Ernie chuckled. “I’m telling Grannie that you’re indisposed. Then I’m bringing you some bread and cheese, maybe some tea, and you are going to bed.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve never had brandy before, and if we don’t act now, you’ll be facing a rather brutal morning tomorrow. Come on.” Ernie stood, holding out a hand.
Alix let him pull her to her feet. Then, still holding her two letters from Nicholas, she followed her brother to her room.
It was quite nice, actually, being taken care of like a child. Ernie brought her food, as he’d promised, and called a lady’s maid to help Alix into her nightgown.
She went to sleep, the pages of Nicholas’s letters crinkling beneath her pillow.