For several days he wished to be read to, and the Queen and faithful Alice read his favorite authors; he also asked for music, and Alice played for him some fine German airs. He even wished often to look at a favorite picture, one of Raphael's Madonnas, saying, "It helps me through the day."
At length the fever took on a typhoid form, congestion of the lungs set in, and there was no longer reason for hope,—though they did hope, till almost the last hour. Now, it seems that from the first, even when he did not apparently suffer, except from mortal weariness, there were little fatal indications. One morning he told the Queen that as he lay awake he heard the little birds outside, and "thought of those he used to hear at the Rosenau, in his childhood"; and on the last morning the Queen writes that he "began arranging his hair just as he used to do when well and he was dressing."
It seemed to the poor Queen as though he were "preparing for another and a greater journey" than they had ever taken together. His tenderness towards her through all this sad fortnight, was very touching. It was not calculated to loosen the detaining, clinging clasp of her arms; but it must be very sweet for her to remember. After the weariness of watching, the prostration of fever, he welcomed always the good-morning caress of his "dear little wife." Through the gathering mists of unconsciousness, through the phantom-shades of delirium, his love for her struggled forth, in a tender word, a wistful look, a languid smile, a feeble stroking of the cheek. It was "wondrous pitiful," but it was very beautiful. Even at the last, when he knew no one else, he knew her; and when she bent over him and whispered, "Tis your own little wife," he bowed his head and kissed her.
After she knew that all hope must be given up, the Queen still was able to sit calmly by his bedside, and not trouble with the sound of weeping the peace of that loving, passing soul. Occasionally she felt that she must leave the room and weep, or her suppressed grief would kill her. But she counted the moments and stayed her soul with prayer, to go back to her post.
It was on the night of December 14, 1861, that the beloved Prince-Consort passed away,—quietly and apparently painlessly, from the station he had ennobled, from the home he had blessed. Unconsciously he drifted out on the unknown, mysterious sea, nor knew that loving feet followed him to the strand, and that after him were stretched yearning arms.
That death-bed scene passed in a solemn hush, more mournful than any outcry of passionate grief could be. On one side, knelt the Queen, holding her husband's hand, trying to warm it with kisses and tears; on the other, knelt the Princess Alice. At the foot of the bed, the Prince of Wales and the Princess Helena were kneeling together. It is probable that all the younger children were sleeping in quiet unconsciousness of the presence of the dread angel in the Castle. The Dean of Windsor, Prince Ernest Leiningen,—secretaries, physicians and attached attendants were grouped around. All was silent, save that low, labored breathing, growing softer and softer, and more infrequent, and then—it ceased forever.
I have been told by a lady who had had good opportunities of knowing about the sad circumstances of that death, that the Queen retained perfect possession of herself to the last, and that after the lids had been pressed down over the dear eyes whose light had passed on, she rose calmly, and courteously thanked the physicians in attendance, saying that she knew that everything which human skill and devotion could accomplish, had been done for her husband, whom God had taken. Then she walked out of the death-chamber, erect,—still the Queen, wearing "sorrow's crown of sorrow," and went to her chamber, and shut herself in—her soul alone with God, her heart alone for evermore.
Ah, we may not doubt that this royal being, in whose veins beats the blood of a long, long race of Kings, was brought low enough then,—to her knees, to her face,
"For grief is proud and makes his owner stoop."
So absorbing and unwavering had been the love of the Queen for her husband, who to her, was "nobler than the noblest"; such a proud homage of the soul had there been—such a dear habit of the heart, in one with whom habit counted for much, that her people were filled with the most intense anxiety on her behalf. They feared that this cruel stroke which lopped off the best part of her life, would kill her, or plunge her into a depth of melancholy, sadder than death. For some time she was not able to sleep. The thought of that chamber, so lately the scene of all the anxious activity of the sickroom, wherein softly moved troubled physicians and nurses, tearful attendants and awe-struck children, but where now there were shadowed lights, and solemn silence, and where lay that beautiful, marble-like shape, so familiar, yet so strange—that something which was not he, yet was inexpressibly dear, kept her awake, face to face with her sorrow,—and when at last, the bulletin from Windsor announced, "The Queen has had some hours' sleep," her people all in mourning as they were, felt like ringing joy-bells.