George Washington's Ghost

They had been allowed a sip of Champagne each and dismissed, indulgently, so that they could continue their chasing game outside.

“To what are we drinking?” Alonso, who had drifted into the Orangery, materialising by Melody’s side, asked of his Queen.

“Miss Danson and I have had a very interesting conversation,” he was informed in a gently teasing voice.

“I am intrigued.”

“I am sure that Melody will tell you all about it, in due course. In the meantime, I want to hear all about her adventures in the Mountains of Madrid with the Lady De L’Isle!”

Chapter 12

Friday 28th April

Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin

Eleanor, Queen Consort and Duchess of Windsor, never really felt relaxed in Berlin. Partly, this was because her command of the German language was ‘schoolgirlish’, and unlike her husband, she was not actually closely related to anybody of any importance in the city. There was also the fact that in Berlin most German men of a certain class – the ruling class – treated women with barely veiled condescension or as ignorant, pretty faces to be ‘talked at’. Whereas at home, or practically anywhere in the Empire no invitation to her husband would have specifically excluded her; here in Germany, other than in respect of wholly social events, or designated political ceremonies, she was automatically excluded, ignored as if she did not exist.

Bertie simply would not put up with it anywhere else.

Even here, he still got a lot hotter under the collar than she did, bless him.

“None of the bloody Electors trust any of the others!” The King seethed, coming into the drawing room where Eleanor was writing a letter to Elizabeth De L’Isle, in response to her old friend’s latest fascinating missive on the subject of her daughter’s adventures, and miraculous escape from Spain.

Eleanor looked up.

“Apparently,” she reported brightly, “Henrietta and her companion, Ms Danson, rescued a young boy, just four years old, during their adventures,” she explained brightly. “An orphan, by all accounts. It seems their escape was masterminded by several of the Duke of Medina Sidonia’s arms men. I can’t wait to sit Hen down and hear all about it from her own lips!”

This completely took the wind out of her husband’s sails.

As she had known it would.

“If you were the Prince of Bavaria or the Princess of Lower Thuringia,” she posed, smiling, “or the Bishop Protector of the Palatinate,” she went on, “would you

trust any of the other Electors, Bertie?”

“No, I suppose not,” the King agreed with a sulky ill-grace that he regretted a moment later. “I’m sorry, my dear. It’s just that here we are three-quarters of the way through the twentieth century kicking our heels in a country with a governmental system stuck in the bloody middle ages!”

“What do Sir Hector and Sir George think of all this?” Eleanor inquired.

The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary were as frustrated as their monarch; except, because they were intrinsically political animals, they were more adroit at concealing their angst. Had it not been for the war in the Americas and the dreadful catalogue of secrets the royal couple had carried with them to Berlin; the last few days might have been a prime jamboree of diplomacy, a melting pot of the nations. As it was, the paralysis at the heart of the German Empire suddenly seemed horribly dangerous, and the electoral system first designed to settle the question of the succession upon the death of a Holy Roman Emperor in times immemorial, had endless potential to be a disastrous global banana skin!