Ernest taunted his brother in his good-humoured way; but he would always watch over Albert on special occasions to make sure he did not disgrace himself by falling off his chair and continuing to sleep on the floor – which he had done once when they were alone.

The brothers understood each other. Albert had never had the physical energy of Ernest; Ernest had never had the mental ability of Albert. They were different; they respected the difference; and the bond between them grew closer as the years progressed.

Out into the beautiful forest they rode. They were at Reinhardtsbrunnen, the home of their maternal grandfather. He was dead but his brother Frederick had inherited the title and estates and the boys were always welcome there. How Albert loved the forest, with the sunshine throwing dappled patterns through the leaves of the trees; and riding on and on to where the trees grew more thickly, he recalled the fairy stories their grandmothers had told them and which invariably were set in forests such as this.

‘That was a long time ago,’ he said, speaking his thoughts aloud. Ernest shouted: ‘What?’

Albert told his brother that he was thinking of the stories about the forests where gnomes and trolls, woodcutters and princesses and witches had abounded.

‘You always enjoyed them. They used to tell them to keep you from howling. You were a little howler, Albert. Always in tears. I can remember your screams now. What a pair of lungs you must have had!’

‘I must have been a horrid child.’

‘You were. But one thing about you, you did know how to get your own way. I salute you, Albert. You always will, I’m sure.’

‘Ernest, have you ever thought that we shan’t always be together?’

‘Good God no. Why shouldn’t we be?’

‘Our grandmothers would not care to hear you use such oaths.’

‘Prude!’ Ernest jogged Albert with his elbow and almost knocked him off his horse, then he broke into a gallop and Albert, spurring his horse, went after him.

Ernest pulled up and waited for his brother. ‘What did you mean by that?’ he demanded, ‘Of course we shall always be together. Who’d stop us?’

‘Circumstances,’ suggested Albert. ‘When I marry the Queen of England I suppose I shall have to live there.’

‘Marry the Queen of England! Who says you will? Suppose I marry her instead?’

‘You! But she has been promised to me.’

‘Royal marriages.’ Ernest scoffed. ‘What’s suggested in our cradles doesn’t always come off. Surely you know that? And this queen … she’s not a queen is she?’

‘I follow what is happening over there. The old King George is dead and his brother William is King. He is old and half mad and his wife is sterile.’

‘Hold it a minute,’ said Ernest.

‘What an expression!’ chided Albert.

‘My dear old prude and pedant of a brother, old men often surprise the world with their virility. What if your little Alexandrina Victoria is not a queen after all? Then what, eh? If you marry her she’ll have to come to Coburg and I shall be the Duke remember. I am the elder brother.’

‘Perhaps Uncle Leopold wouldn’t want me to marry her if she isn’t a queen.’

‘There you are. Too many “ifs”. You stop fretting about this cousin until she is the Queen. Now what about tying up the horses. I believe this is a good spot for the butterflies.’

‘I was only saying, Ernest, that if she becomes Queen and I marry her and live in England I should expect you to come and visit me … often.’

‘Well, thanks for the invitation. My equerry will accept it in due course.’

‘As Duke of Coburg you might not have one. Father is always complaining about the expense of keeping up his Court.’

‘Don’t worry about that. My brother, King Albert of England, will send me one. That would be amusing, an English equerry.’

‘What nonsense you talk.’

‘Why I am only being amiable and sharing in yours. Don’t think too much about this marriage. The grandmothers were only romancing.’

‘And Uncle Leopold?’

‘Everyone knows he has plans for marrying the family all over Europe. You’ll probably end up in Spain or Portugal. Imagine that. It would be very hot in the Peninsula. You’d fall asleep at midday instead of after supper.’

‘Of course it’s true that one can never be sure what’s going to happen,’ agreed Albert. ‘You remember when we had whooping-cough.’

‘A trying time,’ said Ernest.

‘And when we were better everything was changed. It was like a dividing line neatly drawn through our lives; all the nurses went and Herr Florschütz came. Our mother went …’

Ernest glanced at his brother and his glance was sober.

‘Let’s tie up here, Albert,’ he said rather solemnly.

They did, and Ernest threw himself down and, plucking a blade of grass, started to chew it.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Albert, stretching out beside his brother.

‘It’s about our mother,’ said Ernest. ‘They didn’t tell you because they thought it would upset you.’

‘What about her?’ asked Albert.

‘She’s dead.’

Albert did not speak. He stared up at the sky through the leaves. He felt the sudden rush of tears to his eyes as he thought of her looking round the nursery door, showing him the pictures in a book, giving him that fierce sweet-scented hug. He had never given up the hope that she would come back; when he had talked of the future he had unconsciously seen her there, for when he was a man and the King he was certain he was going to be, he would have brought her back to be with him. And now Ernest was saying that she was dead.

‘Why did they tell you and not me?’

‘I am the eldest,’ said Ernest.

Albert sprang to his feet in sudden anger and Ernest said quickly: ‘No, I’m teasing. It was because they feared it might upset you. They told me to break it to you gently.’

‘They didn’t … kill her.’

‘Kill her! What a notion! She had been ill for years.’

‘They should have told us.’

‘Of course they shouldn’t.’

‘She was too young to die.’

‘She was thirty-two and she was very ill.’

‘She would have been thinking of us at the end, Ernest.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘But of course she would. We were her sons.’

‘We couldn’t have been important to her or she wouldn’t have left us.’

‘She didn’t want to leave us. I am sure she cried and cried.’

‘Everyone doesn’t turn on the tears like you did, Albert.’

‘She loved us.’

‘You were the favourite.’

‘I know,’ said Albert softly.

‘Well, she’s dead and she was unfaithful to our father. That was very wicked and she had to take her punishment.’

Albert was silent. She had been wicked, he admitted; and because of that, she had left them. What a terrible thing wickedness was! Every time he looked at a woman he would think of the wickedness which had separated him from her and had brought her to her sad and lonely death.

‘She lived in Paris,’ said Ernest, ‘which we all know is a very wicked city.’

Albert shivered, but Ernest had jumped to his feet.

‘Come on,’ he said, his relief obvious because his duty was done.

But Albert could find no pleasure in the forest that day. His thoughts were far away in the past with his beautiful mother; he could not get out of his mind the belief that temptation was lurking everywhere and if succumbed to could ruin lives. He would never forget what had happened to his beloved mother who had become a bad woman. Wickedness had its roots in that subject which Ernest found so interesting but which filled him with abhorrence: the relationship between the sexes.


* * *

Death was in the air that year. Grandmama Saxe-Coburg did not pay her usual visit to Rosenau, nor was she well enough for the boys to visit her. Duke Ernest was called to her bedside one day and the boys stood at the window watching him and his little party ride away. ‘They say she is very sick,’ said Ernest. ‘And she is old.’ Albert shivered. But one did not have to be old to die. He was thinking of his mother as he had last seen her and now when he thought of her he must imagine her lying in a coffin … dead. And the nails which were driven into that coffin were like her sins.

It was impossible to imagine never seeing Grandmama Saxe-Coburg again; Albert kept thinking of how she had looked after him and had meant more and more to him since his mother had gone.

Each day he waited at the window for a sign of the returning party. He would know as soon as he saw them what news they had brought. Ernest would stand silently beside him while they both watched the road.

‘Perhaps Father will bring Grandmama back with him,’ suggested Albert.

‘How could he if she were very ill?’ demanded Ernest.

‘Perhaps she is not so ill. Perhaps she has recovered. If she comes back I will sing my newest song to her and I am sure she will like it.’

Then they began to talk of what they would do to entertain Grandmama Saxe-Coburg when she came to Rosenau to get well.

And one day they saw their father returning and they knew that he came in mourning.


* * *

He sent for Albert and when his son stood before him he laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

‘She was my mother and your grandmother,’ said the Duke, ‘and she has gone from us now. It is a great sorrow for us all. And you perhaps more than any one of us. You were her favourite.’

The tears flowed down Albert’s cheeks; he brought out a handkerchief and dried them.

‘Death is terrible,’ said Albert.