The Queen's Husband Read online

‘But he was clever to hide there,’ said Alberinchen.

  ‘It was very clever. Well, the good Duke Frederick was not going to allow his sons to be kidnapped, so he sent his trusty soldiers after the villains and they caught them and the boys were restored to their father. Now, that is a true story and it happened in the year 1455.’

  ‘I like that story,’ said Ernest.

  ‘So do I,’ Alberinchen laughed. ‘I liked it when Albert hid under the bed.’

  ‘It’s history,’ said Grandmama Saxe-Coburg. ‘Now you know how exciting history is you must pay great attention to your lessons.’

  ‘I like history when it’s about us,’ said Alberinchen.

  ‘That wasn’t about us was it, Grandmama?’ asked Ernest.

  ‘It was about our family. And as most royal families are connected with each other, history is about us.’

  ‘I like history,’ said Alberinchen. ‘I wish Mama would come. I want to tell her about how Prince Albert hid under the bed.’

  * * *

  They were playing the capture of the Princes. It was a good game because they could each play the part of a prince, but there were other exciting roles. They both wanted to be the wicked Kunz at the start of the game and Duke Frederick at the end. Ernest thought he should have the choice as he was the eldest, but Alberinchen did not agree with this and it seemed as though the game was going to end in a fight and the inevitable tears when their mother put her head round the door and said: ‘Are my boys pleased to see me?’

  The game was forgotten. They dashed at her.

  ‘My darling, darling Alberinchen. Dearest Ernest!’

  ‘Oh, Mama, how beautiful you look.’

  ‘That’s because I’m pleased.’

  ‘Why are you pleased, Mama?’

  ‘Let’s sit down and I’ll tell you all about it. We’re going to have a children’s ball.’

  ‘What’s that, Mama?’ asked Ernest.

  ‘We’re going to dance.’

  Alberinchen’s face puckered.

  He didn’t like dancing, he said. It made him tired.

  ‘Tired!’ cried Mama. ‘Why I could dance all night and not be tired.’

  ‘So could I,’ said Ernest. ‘It’s only silly Albert who can’t.’

  Alberinchen’s lips trembled and his mother hastily embraced him. ‘Albert is not silly, are you, Alberinchen?’

  ‘I’m clever like Albert who hid under the bed.’

  ‘Oh, that story, yes. It was interesting, wasn’t it, my pets? Now you’re going to love my ball and we’re all going to dress up. What would you like to be, Ernest?’

  Ernest could not think but Alberinchen wanted to be Prince Albert who was nearly kidnapped.

  ‘Well, I don’t think so, darling. I’ve got a lovely idea for you.’

  ‘What is it, Mama?’

  ‘It’s a surprise. You’ll learn all in good time.’

  ‘A surprise!’ The little boys danced around joyously.

  ‘Now,’ said Mama, ‘who doesn’t want to dance? Look at Alberinchen.’

  * * *

  The surprise was his costume. He was to be dressed as Cupid.

  ‘Who was Cupid, Mama?’ asked Alberinchen.

  ‘The God of Love. He carried arrows with him and when he shot them into people they fell in love with each other and married.’

  ‘Like you and Papa?’ asked Ernest.

  Alberinchen watching her face saw a strange expression flit across it. It frightened him but he did not quite know why.

  ‘Like people who fall in love,’ said Mama.

  ‘Shall I have arrows?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘You can shoot them,’ cried Ernest. ‘Mama, I want arrows too.’

  ‘No, darlings, you won’t shoot them. Alberinchen will just carry them and he will dance with the pretty little girls.’

  ‘I don’t like little girls,’ growled Alberinchen.

  ‘Oh, my dearest boy. You are not very gallant.’

  ‘What is gallant?’ asked Ernest.

  ‘It’s something nasty,’ Alberinchen said, confident that it must be if he was not it.

  ‘Well, it’s something Princes must learn to be.’ Mama laughed and hugged him. ‘My precious little Cupid!’ she added.

  So there he was in satin costume and Ernest was similarly garbed.

  ‘What darlings they look,’ said the grandmothers to each other; and their fearful eyes were on the Duchess Louise who was rather hysterically gay as though she knew that there would not be many more such balls where she would be able to dress up her children and join in the fun.

  All the young guests were lined up together.

  ‘You know the steps,’ whispered Ernest to his brother. ‘They’re those you learned yesterday.’

  ‘I don’t like those steps,’ said Alberinchen.

  But Ernest wanted to dance; he liked the look of the pretty little girls who were placed opposite them, and it was interesting to be with other children.

  Ernest took his partner’s hand and they danced along the line of children as they had been taught to do, while the grownups looked on and were enchanted.

  ‘Ernest is quite the little gentleman,’ said Grandmama Saxe-Coburg.

  ‘A real little Prince,’ agreed Grandmama Saxe-Gotha.

  Alberinchen stood sullenly. He did not like being dressed as Cupid. He wanted to be dressed as Prince Albert. He did not want to dance with silly girls but to hide under the bed and then fight and scream when the wicked Kunz came to take him.

  They were waiting. The music was playing. The little girl was standing before him, smiling. He hated her; he hated all little girls. He stood sullenly, his eyes lowered.

  ‘Albert.’ Grandmama Saxe-Coburg was calling to him. But he remained, his eyes lowered.

  His mother came over. ‘Alberinchen, darling, it is your turn to dance.’

  He would not dance. He hated dancing.

  He began to cry. He was aware of the shocked dismay all about him, so he yelled; soon his screams were drowning the music. His face was red; they were always afraid when he screamed like that and he knew that they wanted to stop him at all costs.

  One of his nurses came forward at a sign from Grandmama Saxe-Coburg, seized him and hurried him away.

  In the room he shared with Ernest he stopped screaming. Once again his tears had brought him what he wanted.

  * * *

  But that was not the end of the affair.

  Grandmama Saxe-Coburg came into the room. He stood eyeing her defiantly.

  ‘Albert,’ she said, ‘I wish to speak to you.’

  The fact that he was called by his proper name was a sure sign that he was in disgrace.

  The tears started to fill his eyes.

  ‘Your conduct in the ballroom was not what I would have expected of a Coburg Prince,’ said his grandmother.

  ‘I didn’t want to dance,’ said Albert.

  ‘But what about the little girl, your partner? She wanted to dance.’

  ‘But I didn’t.’

  ‘And because of you, she couldn’t. Was that kind?’

  ‘It makes me tired,’ said Albert pathetically.

  ‘What, you, a Prince … too tired to dance with a little girl!’

  ‘I don’t like dancing. It’s silly.’

  ‘It’s a necessary social grace, and that is something you will have to learn, Albert, social grace.’

  He wondered about social grace. Was it as exciting as history and stories of his ancestors?

  ‘One day, you will grow up and you will marry. You won’t be able to cry then, you know. I wonder what Uncle Leopold would have said, if he could have been in the ballroom today.’

  At last the child looked contrite. What power Leopold had! It was three years since Albert had seen him but so impressed had he been that he remembered still and was eager for his uncle’s good opinion. But perhaps Leopold’s name had been kept alive by constant references to this god-like uncle.

  ‘Yo
u must not think, Albert, that this is an end of the matter. That was a disgraceful scene and you will hear more of it.’

  As Albert was about to burst into tears, his grandmother left him.

  Albert was silent. There was no point in exercising his lungs on unresponsive silence.

  * * *

  Duke Ernest was in his study and his younger son stood before him. The Duke was holding a long thin cane which fascinated Albert.

  ‘Now, Albert,’ said the Duke, ‘I am ashamed of you. You have insulted a lady. I have heard all about your conduct in the ballroom. Your partner in the dance, a little girl of nobility, stood before you and you refused to dance with her and screamed so much that you had to be carried struggling from the ballroom. That is conduct which I cannot tolerate in my Court.’

  Albert continued to stare at the cane.

  ‘Therefore I am going to punish you. I am going to beat you with this cane and you will still feel the effects of this beating for days to come. Now don’t start to cry. Is that the way princes behave? You can scream to your heart’s content but Ernest is gone for a walk and will not hear you; your mother will not hear you either. As for your grandmothers, they agree with me that what I am about to do is necessary. So Albert, take your punishment like a man and remember that when you are about to behave badly in future the cane will be applied with even more severity than I shall apply it now.’

  His father seized him. ‘No!’ screamed Albert.

  ‘But yes,’ retorted the Duke.

  Albert’s screams were deafening.

  ‘I won’t be defied,’ shouted the Duke.

  Albert screamed the louder. His face grew red; he was gasping for breath. The Duke raised the cane but Albert’s piercing screams grew louder.

  The Duke hesitated. The child would do himself an injury; he had heard of Albert’s screaming but had never realised how alarming it could be.

  It grated on the Duke’s nerves; he felt he had to stop it at all costs; at the same time the sight of that small face suffused with blood and growing more purple every moment alarmed him.

  The boy would do himself an injury; and the Duke knew that if he applied the cane those terrifying screams would grow worse.

  ‘Stop it, Albert,’ he commanded.

  Albert continued to scream.

  The Duke could not bear the sound; it seemed to pierce his eardrums. And then suddenly the child started to cough.

  The Duke put the cane down. Albert, they said, was delicate. That was why he didn’t like dancing. It tired him. Albert went on coughing; he found he couldn’t stop.

  The Duke said: ‘If you promise to behave better next time, I shan’t use the cane now.’

  That quietened Albert.

  ‘I think,’ went on the Duke, ‘that we have come to an understanding.’

  It was true. Albert understood that his screams were as effective with his father as with others.

  The cough had helped too. He started to cough again. He went on and on making an odd noise as he did so.

  His father went with him to the nursery and the grandmothers came in for a consultation. Meanwhile Albert discovered that Ernest, returned from his walk, was coughing too.

  The brothers had contracted whooping-cough.

  * * *

  They must stay in the nursery, said the grandmothers. Everything that could be found to amuse them was brought to them. There were not so many lessons and more picture books; and Albert studied the drawings in one of these picture books which told the story of the two Saxon princes who had been kidnapped.

  He did not mind being kept in the nursery because Ernest was with him; they could play and fight and listen to accounts of the treats that had been planned for them when they were better.

  ‘Why does Mama not come to see us?’ asked Albert.

  Ernest couldn’t answer that; and when they asked the grandmothers they talked of something else.

  * * *

  The young Duchess was imprisoned in her room. She was frightened. Everything was known now. They had spied on her. She had been seen with her lover; they knew that she had visited his house.

  What would become of her? What of her little boys? They were confined to the nursery now with whooping-cough and she longed to be with them.

  They were cruel, these German Princes – cruel and crude. There was one law for the men and another for the women. Why should Ernest be so shocked because she had taken a lover? She wanted to laugh when she thought of the hosts of mistresses with whom he had humiliated her. Yet she was supposed to ignore that side of her husband’s nature; to remain coldy virtuous and await those occasions when he deigned to share her bed for the purpose of getting children. Her part of the bargain had been kept. He would have to understand that.

  She would never forget – and who else would? – the terrible case of their ancestress, Sophia Dorothea. How very like her own: a crude boor of a husband from whom no female was safe, be she lady of the court or tavern woman; and poor tragic Sophia Dorothea had loved romantically the Count of Konigsmark. The discovery of their liaison had brought about the murder of Konigsmark and the banishment and divorce of Sophia Dorothea. Poor sad Princess who had languished in her prison castle for more than twenty years while her coarse husband went to England to become George I. And she had had two children – a boy and a girl. How heart-broken she must have been to leave them!

  And here she was … she, Louise, married to Ernest, mother of two dear little boys, her Ernest and little Alberinchen. Poor darlings, if I am sent away what will they do without me? she asked herself.

  The door was unlocked and her husband came in. He looked at her with contempt and her expression became one full of loathing.

  ‘It’s no use making any attempt to deny it,’ he said.

  ‘I was unaware that I was attempting to do that.’

  ‘Szymborski is leaving the country.’ She was silent. ‘We have put no obstacle in his way. We think it better to have him out of the way with as little scandal as possible.’ She nodded. ‘As for yourself, you may go tomorrow. You shall go quietly and without fuss. There has been enough gossip.’

  ‘You and your women have created a fair share of it,’ she retorted.

  ‘I have behaved as a natural man is expected to behave.’

  ‘By crude peasants, perhaps.’

  ‘Whereas you have behaved in a manner which is intolerable to me, my family and the people.’

  ‘Why should what is shameful in me be so natural and commendable in you?’

  ‘I did not say commendable … only natural. And the difference is, Madam, that you are the mother of the heirs of Saxe-Coburg. How long have you been consorting with your Jewish lover? Was it before Albert’s birth?’

  ‘How … dare you!’

  ‘I dare because we are here in this room alone. I would not have the boy’s future jeopardised by voicing these fears outside.’

  ‘Albert is your son.’

  ‘With a wanton for a mother how can I be sure of that?’

  ‘A mother can be sure.’

  ‘I can conceive circumstances where even she might not be sure.’

  ‘You are making me an object of your insults. Pray don’t.’

  ‘You are an obvious object for insult. How can I know that you have not brought a bastard into my house?’

  She ran to him, her eyes blazing; she would have struck him but he caught her wrist and twisted her arm till she screamed with the pain.

  ‘Albert is your son,’ she said.

  ‘I believe you,’ he said, releasing her. ‘If I thought he were not, I would kill you.’

  ‘Always be good to Albert. He is not as strong as Ernest.’

  ‘Albert is my son and shall be treated as well as his elder brother.’

  That placated her to some extent; but she felt desolate. She knew that she would be sent away, but for the first time she realised how wretched she would be when she was unable to see her children. Perhaps she would never see them ag
ain.

  ‘Yes, Ernest,’ she said, ‘Albert is your son. Never doubt it. I swear it.’

  He looked at her searchingly and there was still a niggling doubt in his mind. His impulse was to seize her, to throw her to the ground, to beat the truth out of her. But Albert is my son, he assured himself. He must believe it. It was unthinkable that he could accept anything else. He had feared that under stress she might confess that Albert was not his son. What if Ernest were not also? Then he would be a man without sons. That was unthinkable. He loved the boys in his way. They were his. Ernest surely was, there could be no doubt of that. Ernest had his looks. And so was Albert. It was true those fair delicate looks were inherited from his mother but many babies resembled their mothers and bore no likeness whatsoever to their fathers.

  He could not afford his suspicions. Albert was his son and no one must doubt that in the years to come.

  He looked at his wife with hatred.

  ‘You will not take the boys away from me,’ she said.

  ‘Are you mad? You play the whore and then think it would be pleasant to be the mother for a while. You will never see the boys again.’

  ‘That would be too … cruel … wicked.’

  ‘What a pity you did not think of that before.’

  ‘Ernest, listen to me, I beg of you. I’ll go away. You can divorce me … never see me again. I admit I have done wrong, but please … I beg of you don’t take my babies from me.’

  ‘It’s a pity you did not think of your children when you were with your lover.’

  ‘I have thought of them constantly. Only they made my life worth while.’

  ‘They … and Szymborski?’

  The Duchess broke down and wept.

  ‘Be ready to leave the schloss tomorrow morning early,’ said the Duke. ‘I want no one to see you go. You will just disappear.’

  The Duchess, thinking of her little boys, began to weep silently.

  * * *

  The boys were recovering. Grandmother Saxe-Coburg stayed with them and she was constantly in and out of their room.

  ‘Why doesn’t Mama come?’ Alberinchen asked Ernest.