(I wasn't too sure where to put this so it can be moved.)
A story I have been writing for a while now and Sunny requested that I post some of it. There is loads, so this is only the prologue, just to see what you think. I hope you like it.
14th December 1861, Windsor Castle
She shouldn’t have seen what she saw.
Beatrice knew that she shouldn’t have, she should have been tucked up in the nursery with Leopold snoring next to her. Leaving the nursery after she had been put to bed was a very naughty thing to do and when she was naughty, Mama and Papa were very sad.
But this she hoped would count as an exception. Papa was ill and she had wanted to cheer him up. He had even told her, just this morning that she was his darling liebchen and made him so happy. Beatrice’s little chest had puffed up with pride as she kissed her father goodbye and went to her lessons with Alice. Papa had looked so weak and miserable lying there in the Blue Room that her heart had melted and she desperately wanted to run back and cuddle him again. So she had concocted a plan.
It had been very clever really, Beatrice thought proudly. Lady Carr always fell asleep in the chair by the fire long before Beatrice did, so there was no danger of being caught by her and Leopold slept soundly enough. After that it was only a matter of opening the big heavy door, which she had blocked open with a heavy book before going to bed, and hiding in the shadows until she got to the Blue Room, then she could be with Papa until ten o’clock, when Mama and the doctors would come. She had wheedled this information out of Bertie this afternoon, when he came to sit with her and Arthur and Leopold. She could get absolutely anything out of Bertie when she wanted to, as she could from almost anyone, apart from maybe Alice.
Papa had told her off gently when she had crept in.
‘Bad liebchen’, he had murmured, but kissed her and allowed her to stay. She had shown him the dance she had seen Helena and Louise practice and sang a new song for him, but very quietly.
‘My clever Baby,’ Papa had croaked and Beatrice smirked with glee. Papa loved music and often took her on his knee to play the piano and sing German lullabies to her. She loved to please him by learning them and singing them back and then they would sing them together.
They had only been together for an hour when footsteps could be heard on the corridor and voices drifted into the room.
‘Der Schrank, schnell!’ Papa whispered; the wardrobe, quickly!
Quick as a wink, Beatrice had hidden herself in the large, oak armoire. She stifled a giggle, this was such an adventure!
A gaggle of voices woke Beatrice from her sleep. Groggily, she sat up from her slump and looked around. She wasn’t in her bed, she remembered, she was in the wardrobe in the Blue Room, which was why her back was aching. She peeked through the gap of the doors and saw the doctors, Mama, Alice, Bertie, Arthur and Helena gathered around Papa’s bed. Why were they here? She wondered and looked closer. Mama was on the floor beside Papa, kissing his hand and muttering soothing words to him in German. Alice and Bertie were talking in low, worried voices, the ones they used when Leo had fallen and was bleeding, and the others were looking very worried.
Suddenly, the mood changed and the doctors began to move more urgently. What’s going on? Beatrice wondered, and then thought, when will they leave? After a few minutes of frantic talking, Beatrice began to get anxious. Was something really wrong? Then, quite abruptly, the doctors stopped. A horrible moment of silence followed. Then Mama screamed.
It was the kind of scream that would chill a grown man to the bone. To Beatrice, a four-year-old child, it was the most frightening thing she had ever heard and would ever hear. To witness her usually composed and regal mother lose control like that was so terrifying, that the little girl whimpered and cowered further back into the wardrobe.
After she had finished screaming, Mama flung herself onto the bed and sobbed into the bed clothes. Her brothers and sisters were crying too, but more quietly, and Bertie had his head bowed. Slowly, one by one, the doctors began to trickle out, followed by Arthur and Helena. Alice went around to Mama and took her shoulder, but Mama shook her off. Alice stepped back, as if she had been stung, and Bertie lead her gently from the room.
As quietly as she could, Beatrice crept from the wardrobe and to the door, glancing at Papa as she went. He looked very still and very pale, like he was a marble statue at Osborne. It frightened her to see him like that, so she stole from the room as fast as she could.
She hadn’t gotten far when she heard Mama come out behind her. Beatrice swiftly ducked into an alcove, but she needn’t have worried, because Mama couldn’t see her. Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom was too blinded by grief to notice anything at all, let alone a tiny child crouching behind a curtain. She closed her eyes and let herself fall to the floor. There she lay, wailing her heart out, while Beatrice, utterly disturbed by this display of emotion, fled though the castle to the nursery and flung herself into bed. When she woke up, she prayed, it might all be a bad dream.
Beatrice awoke to the sound of crying. She opened her eyes cautiously and saw Alice, Lenchen, Louise and Arthur all clustered on Leo’s bed. Leo was sitting on Helena’s lap, which he himself had decreed himself too old to do and even 11-year-old Arthur was clutching Louise’s hand. Beatrice felt with a terrible certainty that last night had not been a dream.
Helena, ‘Lenchen’ noticed her first. ‘Alice,’ she whispered, and Alice looked up at her. Helena nodded towards Beatrice and Alice closed her eyes. She had been dreading this.
Alice got up and moved to sit on the end on Beatrice’s bed.
‘Baby, darling,’ she began, then cleared her throat and started again. ‘Liebchen, a terrible thing has happened.’ She looked into those innocent blue eyes and a lump appeared in her throat. ‘Papa has died.’ Louise sobbed again and so did Leopold, but Beatrice remained dry-eyed. Alice tried again. ‘He’s dead, Baby, he’s gone. Do you understand?’ Alice’s voice broke and she began to cry, the others joining in. Beatrice looked away. Dead. Her Papa was dead. Dead and cold, like marble.
Note: I tried to make this as realistic as I could, while still making it a good story. It is highly unlikely that Beatrice witnessed the death of Albert, that is just part of the story. The one thing that I took artistic license with is that Leopold was in France at the time of his father's death (as members of this forum told when when I queried it) and not at Windsor.
This is just part 1.
Sorry it's so long.
