A Girl's Feelings
Princess Alix of Hesse was born in 1872.
Blessed with a cheerful nature and a sweet, pretty face, she had been the darling of her entire family from the start.
Her parents called her Sunny and doted on her without measure.
Everything changed in 1878, when diphtheria swept through the household. The epidemic took her mother and her little sister Marie, and the bright child became a quiet, withdrawn girl.
Alix filled the empty place her mother had left with the love of her grandmother, Queen Victoria, yet the old sparkle never quite returned. A melancholy shadow lingered more often than not upon her face.
Grand Duke Ludwig IV of Hesse fretted over his grieving daughter. When his sister-in-law, the Crown Princess of Prussia, offered to send her own children to spend the New Year with them, he accepted the invitation with genuine relief.
“Sunny. Your German cousins are coming for the holidays this year.”
“Which cousins?” Alix asked, looking up from the English novel her British relatives had sent, her expression faintly puzzled.
“Prince Waldemar, and the Princesses Victoria, Sophie, and Margarete.”
“Oh.”
“Does the thought of your cousins visiting bother you?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
Suspecting that her father had arranged the visit solely for her sake, Alix forced a small smile. Father and daughter chatted lightly about the German relatives soon to arrive.
Before long Christmas came, and Victoria, Princess Royal, arrived at the Darmstadt palace with Waldemar and the three princesses in tow.
Alix and her elder sisters went out to greet them. She already knew every face among the German cousins; they were simply not as close as the English side of the family.
“How do you do, Aunt.”
“You’ve grown prettier since I last saw you, Alix.”
Alix offered the proper courtesies to her aunt, the British princess. Victoria, Sophie, and Margarete exchanged greetings in turn.
While speaking with them, Alix caught a faintly cool note in Princess Sophie’s voice. She could not recall ever having given the girl cause for offense, and the reaction left her a little unsettled. She kept her expression carefully composed and remained at her sisters’ side, receiving the guests with quiet poise.
The German cousins had brought gifts carefully chosen to please Hessian tastes. A few were costly, but most had been selected with personal preference in mind. Alix glanced over the presents her sisters received, then discovered, with mild surprise, that the one set aside for her had been prepared with noticeably greater care.
When she looked puzzled, Margarete leaned in to whisper the reason.
“Alix, the truth is your brother packed your gifts himself.”
“Baldi?”
Alix blinked at Margarete’s words. She and Waldemar had never been especially close—only the polite distance of cousins who exchanged greetings in passing. Why, then, had he taken such particular trouble over her?
She ventured the question carefully to Margarete, the cousin she found easiest to speak with. The answer was brief.
“Because Brother is interested in you, of course.”
“That’s impossible.”
Alix knew nothing of romance, yet she felt her cheeks grow warm. The notion was absurd. She had never once considered such a thing.
“Anyway, keep it secret.”
Alix opened and closed her mouth, then finally found her voice.
“What you just said—is it true?”
“Why would I lie to you?”
“Why would Baldi like me? I’m still much too young, and I’m not even pretty.”
“That isn’t true at all. You’re far prettier than any of us sisters. Up close you look just like a little doll.”
Margarete reached out and stroked Alix’s long, faintly reddish-gold hair. Alix’s cheeks flushed deeper at the touch.
“Don’t think too hard about it. We’re all still children. Just tell yourself you have a cousin who likes you very much.”
“All right.”
Alix decided not to dwell on the conversation. Yet every time she crossed paths with Waldemar afterward, the words returned unbidden and left her feeling strangely shy. Worse still, Waldemar himself seemed to appear near her with unnatural frequency. He never pressed conversation, but whenever their eyes met he always offered a word or two of greeting—phrases that sounded oddly like lines from the poetry volumes she loved.
Little by little, Alix began to feel a subtle stirring toward the German cousin she had scarcely noticed before.
I don’t understand. I really don’t understand.
The mere thought of Waldemar tangled her thoughts into knots. Why did this particular cousin leave her so unsettled?
At last she sought out her eldest sister, Princess Victoria of Hesse. After long hesitation she broached the subject with careful caution. Victoria burst out laughing. When her sister only laughed and said nothing, Alix’s temper flared.
“Sister!”
Only then did Victoria master her mirth and soothe her.
“I’m sorry, Sunny. Your story was simply too amusing.”
“What is so funny? I’m asking for serious advice.”
“All right.”
Victoria decided to give her the answer she wanted to hear.
“Sunny, it is a feeling every girl experiences at least once. When you look at someone your chest tightens and your heart races—that sort of feeling.”
“Ah, the kind of love one sees in plays?”
“If you fall truly deep, it can become that. But you are not yet of an age for such things.”
Alix felt a small sting of being dismissed.
“I—I could feel those emotions too.”
Though embarrassed, she forced the words out, determined to contradict her sister.
“Then has our Sunny fallen for Cousin Baldi?”
The question left Alix speechless. She herself did not know how to answer.
Did she like Waldemar? That was not clear. She felt none of the fierce passion she had watched on the stage. Did she feel nothing at all for him? That, too, would be a lie. Every time she faced him, something delicate and indefinable stirred inside her.
“I don’t know.”
After long thought, that was the only reply she could manage.
Victoria offered gentle counsel to her confused little sister.
“If you do not know, then take your time and watch carefully.”
“Take my time?”
“Even from a distance you can still exchange letters, can you not?”
At the word “letters” Alix’s cheeks burned. That was exactly what lovers did in the plays.
“Writing letters to a cousin would feel… rather embarrassing.”
Victoria laughed.
“Then don’t write any letters.”
Hearing that, Alix found herself torn all over again.
“Sunny, the way you agonize, one would think you were choosing a husband for tomorrow’s wedding.”
Victoria’s joking mention of marriage sent Alix’s innocent thoughts one step further. If this delicate connection continued and deepened, then perhaps… truly, truly…
She pictured herself standing side by side with Waldemar, exchanging wedding vows. Like the actors in a play they pledged their love and shared a kiss. The more extravagant the fantasy grew, the harder her heart pounded.
Marriage. That was the ending reserved for the heroes and heroines of novels and dramas.
Will I truly take him as my husband one day?
Without quite realizing it, Alix began to regard Waldemar not merely as a cousin but as a man—and the swift shift of feeling painted vivid new colors across a young girl’s heart. It was a kind of magic that turned a child into a woman.
Once she had begun to see Waldemar in that light, Alix no longer clung to her usual plain attire. She took out the costly gowns and jewels her father had carefully provided yet which she had left untouched in wardrobe and drawer, and she dressed with care. The sudden brilliance of her appearance quickly drew every eye.
“Sunny, you look so much prettier dressed like that. Why didn’t you wear such things sooner?”
The praise of her sisters and German cousins lifted her spirits. Waldemar’s reaction, above all, filled her with quiet delight. Without meaning to, she felt a little proud of herself.
Praise me more.
Waldemar possessed an uncanny gift for reading her thoughts. Whenever she longed for compliments he offered them freely; whenever she wished him to notice her attire, he noticed at once. Alix decided they suited each other better than she had ever expected. The hours spent in his company grew steadily more pleasant.
When the New Year approached and the German cousins prepared to leave, Alix came out to see them off with a strangely complicated heart. After bidding farewell to the princesses, she turned at last to Waldemar.
“Goodbye, Baldi.”
Waldemar smiled.
“Yes.”
When he seemed ready to walk away without another word, a tight restlessness rose in Alix’s chest. Then he added one more sentence.
“I’ll write once I arrive.”
The prince’s words stained Alix’s pale skin the color of autumn sunset. She answered in a shy murmur, half afraid someone else might hear.
“I would like that.”
She knew the reply advanced the delicate understanding between them. The moment the realization settled, her heart began to race.
Perhaps, if their feelings continued to grow, she might one day grant someone her hand.
And that someone—
Waldemar’s retreating figure filled Alix’s blue eyes completely.