Виктория Холт - The Queen's Husband

‘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.

‘You 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?’