He would be waiting for her. She knew he would. He would take her hand as he had on their wedding day and he would smile at her. ‘Gutes Frauchen,’ he would say.


* * *

‘It is the end,’ whispered Bertie and he covered his face with his hands and wept.

Her favourite doctor, Dr Reid, supported her on one side. Wilhelm on the other.

Her children and her grandchildren waited to be summoned to say farewell, but she was past knowing them. She lay half conscious, her eyes glazed, far far away in the past, waiting to step into the future.

Slowly life left her. A faint smile touched her lips; she was calm and her face seemed suddenly to grow young again.

At half past six in the evening she died.


* * *

A pall had settled over the nation. ‘The Queen is dead,’ the cry went up. The nation had suffered a great disaster. The indomitable little figure, the great Queen and Empress, was dead; and with her, it was believed, she had taken something of great value.

All had been well while she remained at the helm – the legendary figure who could subdue the country’s enemies, who could castigate the tiresome Russians, who could call her mischief-making German grandson to order, who could reduce Bertie to the state of a naughty boy in the nursery. But now the great Queen was no more.

‘We have lost our beloved Mother,’ was the cry. ‘The Queen is dead. Nothing will ever be the same again.’

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