Vicky imagined Uncle Prussia traveling back to Prussia on a boat. He’d taken off his uniform and was walking the deck, swinging a cane, wearing a smart tailcoat and striped trousers, the clothes Lord Russell and the other ministers wore. But his face was stern as ever.
AT CHRISTMAS VICKY found on the present table at Windsor a large wooden crate that Mama said had come from Berlin.
Inside were three dozen Prussian toy soldiers, beautifully crafted in lead, meant for Bertie. Vicky received dollhouse-sized replicas of fruit and vegetable stalls. She admired the careful painting on the tiny round tomatoes, oranges, and pears. Mama read from the accompanying letter: “Tell the Princess Royal we have such shops in Berlin. And we hope the Prince of Wales will enjoy playing with our soldiers. We send you and Albert and all your beautiful children fond wishes, and many thanks for your hospitality. We hope to meet again one day soon. Frohe Weihnachten, Wilhelm and Augusta.”
3
London, Spring 1851
Now that Bertie had turned nine, Papa declared he was too old to be supervised by Laddle in the nursery and needed a proper tutor to educate him for his future. A washed-out, pained-looking man who had formerly taught at Eton College, called Mr. Birch, was employed to instruct her brother, but Bertie didn’t like his lessons and being forced to sit and study for hours at a time. Sometimes he’d get so fed up he’d knock over the pile of books in front of him, crawl under the table, and refuse to come out. Papa would fume and Mr. Birch would look even more pinched and disconsolate.
Baron Stockmar had said that because Vicky was very able, her education could not be ignored, and Alice showed promise too, so he hired a young woman, a Miss Hildyard, a parson’s daughter from Norfolk, to teach them both. After Alice mangled the name at first meeting, their new teacher was forevermore called Tillayard, or just Tilla.
Vicky thought Tilla resembled a clever, ardent bird. She had keen, small brown eyes and wore her shiny crow-black hair smooth over her ears and fastened up in a simple bun. Tilla worshipped Shakespeare, knew every chapter of English history, and could recite reams of verse. Also, she was passionate about politics, the rights of man, and all the rapid progress that, she told them, was the hallmark of the age.
“Imagine, girls, how for centuries people believed that tomorrow would be just like today and yesterday,” she said. “But industrial inventions and scientific discoveries are advancing the way everyone lives. Who knows how far civilization will progress in your lifetimes?”
Papa, too, believed in the promise of the future, and he was planning a great exhibition to put on display everything that Britain—and the world—had to offer that was new. There would be huge machinery—steam-powered lifts, mechanical printing presses, and giant railroad locomotives—along with cunning inventions like a folding piano, a carriage drawn by kites, and various velocipedes that men could pedal, sitting atop two wheels or three.
To house these marvels a new building was being erected in Hyde Park. When Papa first took them to see, there was nothing there but a huge, ugly skeleton of thin iron poles, stretching much longer than the front of Buckingham Palace and reaching high over the grass, bushes, even two tall elms. The next time they went workmen were placing wide panes of glass between the iron poles. And finally, they visited one cool April evening, when the structure was complete and lit up on the inside. The newspapermen called it “the Crystal Palace” and Vicky understood why: it glowed with white-yellow luminosity in the darkening park, a strange, magical fairy form like nothing she’d ever seen before.
With the official opening of the exhibition fast approaching, Papa invited Prince Wilhelm back to England.
“I want him to see what’s possible in a strong, modern nation, where men are unfettered to pursue progress,” he announced at supper one Sunday. “If Germany were united, it could step up beside Britain and lead Europe.”
“Angel, why not invite Princess Augusta as well?” Mama said. “And the son, said to be a handsome lad?”
Papa smiled. “He’s a Prussian, thus he’s a soldier, like his father, his grandfather, his great-grandfather before him . . .”
“Still, I think we should see him,” Mama said, smiling back.
“Kinder, would you like to meet some young Germans?”
“Yes, I would,” said Vicky.
“Tell them to bring more excellent toy soldiers,” said Bertie.
It was soon fixed. Prince Wilhelm and Princess Augusta would come accompanied by their two children: the older was the boy, aged nineteen, Friedrich Wilhelm, called Fritz, and the younger a girl named Louise, aged twelve.
“You will be responsible for showing them around, Vicky,” Papa said.
ON THE MORNING of the day the Prussians were to arrive, Vicky was up early, sitting on the edge of her bed, impatient for Flora to come and take the knotted rags out of her hair. She had asked for ringlets for the occasion, and although the knobby ties all over her skull had made it hard to fall asleep, the discomfort was worth it. The moment Flora was done, Vicky hurried over to the glass to stare at herself: her springy brown curls and big blue eyes looking back at her pleased her, and once she got out of her nightgown and into her new white muslin dress, she knew she’d look very nice and Papa and many others would admire her.
Flora had laid out a pink sash to wear, but Alice and Lenchen had the same, and Vicky didn’t want to match. When Flora turned her back, Vicky fished a teal blue sash out of the wardrobe, tied it as best she could, and then left the nursery, heading for the Queen’s Gallery, intending to watch out the window for Papa. He had gone to the London Bridge railway station to pick up their guests.
Passing along the corridor, she heard Mama’s anxious voice floating out of her suite.
“Why does this flounce on the right droop?”
“Let me pin it up,” said Mrs. Moon, the head seamstress.
“And the neckline definitely sits too low,” Mama said.
Vicky heard the seamstress reply: “We can pull that higher from the back.”
Vicky crossed the open doorway, and Mama called out: “Puss, I want to see you!”
She slid reluctantly into the room.
“Your sash is loose. Come here, turn round,” said her mother.
Mama pulled and tugged, then she snapped: “Someone help me with this.”
Mrs. Moon needed only a moment to tie a tight bow at the back of the dress.
Mama sighed. “Pretty, but just emphasizes how there’s no waist there at all. She’s the shape of a suet dumpling.”
“Ah, ma’am, she’s a young girl still,” Mrs. Moon said.
“True,” Mama replied, gazing dolefully at Vicky.
Vicky felt suddenly cast down, as if Mama had taken a pin and popped the balloon of her excitement for the day. Her mother often complained aloud about her own appearance—longing to be taller, fairer, and more slender. And while she’d smile when guests declared that Vicky was Her Majesty in miniature, in private their resemblance worried Mama, and she’d fret over her daughter’s looks as well. Papa disapproved of all such talk.
“Obsession with appearance is the preoccupation of a shallow mind,” he’d scold.
“How like a man to think so,” Mama would retort.
Now a lady’s maid brought in Mama’s jewelry case, and her mother started fussing about which necklace to wear. Vicky took the chance to slip away. As she walked down the hallway, she smoothed down the front of her skirt and wagged her head from side to side to feel the lovely bouncy ringlets. Her new pointy-toed white shoes tapped sharply on the varnished wood floor. Mama hadn’t been nice to say that she looked like a dumpling, not nice at all, but she mustn’t think about that now. She had her job to do. Papa had said: “I rely on you to be a gracious and charming hostess, Vicky.”