WHEN A HALF hour later she and Bertie were escorted by a footman into the Chinese Drawing Room, where the Prussian royals, now arrived, stood with Mama and Papa, her first thought was how tall they all appeared. Uncle Prussia she recognized immediately, his stern face framed on both sides by thick gray whiskers, and next to him stood a young man, surely Fritz. Father and son had the same big nose and square jaw, but Fritz sported neither whiskers nor mustache and had instead lots of wavy golden hair and a fine, smooth complexion. His expression and the way he tilted his blond head seemed somehow bashful. But when she smiled at him, he grinned and stepped forward, reaching for her hand and raising it to his lips to kiss.
Vicky felt gratified to be so greeted, and then Papa ruined it by laughing.
“Perhaps, as we are family, we can dispense with such formality.”
“The prince is only my distant cousin, Papa,” Vicky told him sternly.
“That’s true,” her father replied with a smile.
“I am very happy to meet you, Princess,” said Fritz in slow, heavily accented English.
“Can we not speak German?” said Vicky quickly, in that language. Können wir nicht Deutsch sprechen?
“In England, we will speak English,” declared the woman, surely Princess Augusta, who stood on Uncle Prussia’s other side, wearing a dark purple dress trimmed with black feathers. She had a long, solemn face; a small, pursed mouth; and hooded eyes, close together. She was looking Vicky up and down, assessing.
“How very short you are for ten,” the princess said.
Vicky felt again, as before with Mama, a sharp, deflating prick, followed by a flush of shame and a wave of sulkiness. She couldn’t make herself any taller, could she? But she mustn’t be distracted. She curtsied and said: “I am very pleased to meet you, Aunt Prussia. Welcome to England. Please present me to your daughter.” Out of the corner of her eye she sensed Papa beaming.
Princess Louise hovered close to her mother’s right arm. Wan, and wearing an unfortunate beige dress, she was quite a bit taller than Vicky but appeared ill at ease. Thin, lanky, mouse-brown hair was pulled off her face and fastened, half up and half down, at the back of her head.
“Yes, this is Louise,” said her mother brusquely as the girl bobbed at Vicky. “You two girls will be friends I hope.”
“I have so looked forward to your visit,” Vicky said. “First, you must meet my brother. Bertie, come here.”
She beckoned to Bertie, who, having bowed to Uncle and Aunt Prussia, had drifted off to the side. Now he stepped over.
“Let’s tell Louise about our preparations,” Vicky said.
“Preparations?” said Bertie cluelessly.
“Last evening we set things up in the nursery, don’t you remember? We got out the big dollhouse and the brick castle and the miniature shops from Berlin and arranged everything as a town.”
“Yes, that’s right,” Bertie said to Louise. “We hoped it might look like a Prussian town. I ringed it with my Prussian soldiers. That’s the best part.”
Louise didn’t respond. Was she offended?
“Maybe you think yourself too old for such things? I know you are twelve,” said Vicky hurriedly.
“I like dollhouses. Soldiers, not,” she said in a whispery voice.
“We have several other dollhouses, too, and of course many dolls,” Vicky said.
Louise made no reply.
“And if we get tired of dolls we can paint. I love to paint. Do you?” Vicky said.
Again, Louise said nothing.
Fritz came around from the other side of his parents to stand behind his sister. “It is kind that Vicky and Bertie think about you, nicht wahr, Loulee?” he said in an encouraging voice.
Mute Louise nodded.
“And the other children are upstairs waiting,” said Vicky, still anxious to get this girl to relax. “You know we have two little sisters? Really, it’s three if you count the baby, our Louise, and a little brother, Affie.”
“And tell her about the mare, Vicky,” prompted Bertie.
“Yes, the mare. Your father rode so much at Osborne, we imagined you must fancy it as well and Papa had the grooms bring one of the nicest horses from Windsor for you. She’s called Elsie.”
“We can ride in the park,” said Bertie.
The princess gave a small smile. “I do like to ride.”
“Das ist sehr schön,” said Fritz, putting his hands on Louise’s shoulders and smiling at Bertie and Vicky. “We can enjoy riding and many things together, here in London.”
BUT TRULY, LOUISE was exasperating. Vicky felt sure she wouldn’t be this timid visiting a foreign country. They took the princess up to the nursery to meet the little children and see the Prussian town they’d set out, and the other toys and books. At first it was fine and Louise got down on her knees to help Vicky rearrange some furniture in the dollhouse. Yet when Bertie and Affie began to quarrel over a wooden bayonet, and ended up tussling on the floor, Louise, wincing and dismayed, asked to be taken back down directly.
It was a relief to find Fritz good-natured at supper, served informally in Mama’s yellow sitting room. Vicky sat next to him and they chatted together in German despite his mother’s edict. He loved dogs as she did, but greyhounds were his favorite, not spaniels, which she preferred. He told her about his beloved horse, called Firefly, which he rode on maneuvers and in dressage competitions. He liked to read, but books about history and military strategy, not novels or plays or poetry.
“Perhaps next year when I study at Bonn I will have time for such things,” he said.
“How sad you have to wait so long. My papa says that poetry is food for the soul and everyone must indulge regularly.”
Fritz smiled. “Your father, he was also a student once at Bonn, nicht wahr?”
“Yes, before he came to England to marry Mama. He has a special green-shaded lamp on his desk from Bonn.”
“Now he has become an Englishman and is no longer a German.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Vicky interjected. She’d been told how, when Papa first arrived, many of Mama’s family and her ministers had been very suspicious of him. Now everyone respected him. An excellent statesman and counselor, he was called, a man of action who had single-handedly mounted the exhibition when no one believed it could be done.
She glanced down the table to see Papa at the head, conversing intently with Princess Augusta. “Papa is still a proud German,” she told Fritz. “He’s constantly speaking of what must happen in Germany. I know he’s happy that your parents have come so he can discuss those things with them, and also so you all can see the exhibition. It’s completely marvelous.”
“Your father described it a bit on the ride from the station.”
“I’ve been twice already. I’ve made a list of what to take you to see and in which order.”
“You will be an excellent guide, no question,” Fritz said, grinning in his friendly way.
She smiled back. He had such lovely wavy hair—bright blond, like Alice’s favorite doll, Ada. Vicky felt like reaching up and touching it. Ada’s hair was stiff and bristly; Fritz’s was likely softer. She wondered if Louise felt angry that her older brother had gotten the hair that was so much better for a girl, when she was stuck with such thin, colorless locks. Vicky leaned forward to see around Fritz to where Louise was sitting on his other side. She had stopped eating and, clearly tired after their long day of travel, was resting her head against Fritz’s shoulder. No, it didn’t seem like the Prussian princess resented her brother—Louise appeared in fact to quite adore him.