Alice Windsor | BRF Story

24.

Highgrove House, Gloucestershire

2005

She had been sent away. It was for her own well being and protection of her unborn child, of course, but nonetheless she was sent away to live in the countryside. How old fashioned of a family who was always been accused of living in the past and not moving forward with the world to send away the Prince of Wales' only daughter to hide her from scandal, almost barbaric. 

But Highgrove had been the home she had spent many weekends and half terms growing up, the place she remembered roaming and running through the gardens, once running after her brothers trying to join their own exclusive boy club, and then with her own friends or even alone, as she came to enjoy her own company and the solitude of the countryside. 

Apart from the rough start of her pregnancy, and the terrifying feeling of constantly looking over your shoulder, trying to see if there are any photographers or people who had recognised you, the first trimester had been fine, and she had been blessed with the fact that it was only during her second trimester that she truly started to show and different clothes just weren't doing the trick anymore. Alice hadn't been attending many engagements since she started university anyways, so her sudden disappearance from all main events wasn't that big of a surprise and didn't raise many questions.  

However, it was summer, and summer meant everyone in the royal family went MIA and hat was a good enough excuse for Alice to go to Gloucestershire for the remainder of her pregnancy. The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall had stopped by on the way to the airport a few weeks ago, as they were due in Scotland with the Queen to welcomed the Prime Minister, while William and Henry hadn't been around since July when their own separate holidays began, although each were now making small appearances and engagements here and there. 

Alice, as a consequence, was alone in Highgrove, which she didn't completely mind, after all she loved the countryside having been brought up around it, but when you had only your father's serious staff for company it started to become incredibly lonely every once in a while. 

Bella had been the drive over once classes were done, and she had stayed for the whole month of July, but she had a wedding of her father's friend to attend and she couldn't bail out even if desperately wanted to, and honestly Alice wouldn't make her stay more than it was appropriate, specially with there not being much to do around Highgrove. Her brothers popped by in June and July, and William even spend a weekend or two in August, but they too had to be in Scotland. Her grandmother called every fortnight or so, asking how she was and if baby was born, every answer was more or less the same every fortnight. The same happened with her father.

The only visits she had these days were from the doctors, the royal ones of course, who came by every week to see how she was feeling and how baby was growing. By the time September came around, both slowly and too fast for how long Alice had been pregnant, he doctors announced that baby was in position and now they just had to wait. 

So she went on walks, picked some flowers, sat in the garden, did what her father never allowed, use the garden fountain as a very small pool in the UK's latest heatwave, she even attempted to change a few things around in her room, to no avail, as she started to get too tired as she was midway through pushing the dresser across the room. It would probably look beautiful where she had imagined it, under the window, however, she was too pregnant and feeling too sick to try again.

The sickness, worse than the few bouts of morning sickness she had had at the very beginning, were plaguing her morning, noon and night, and had now found their final destination in stopping her from eating a full meal, and if she did she couldn't keep in her stomach for longer than an hour. Apart from that she was too tired to go up and down the stairs too many times a day, so she settled for going down once in the morning and up for the night, and if she needed something she either went without it or pleaded with one of her father's staff, who although were there to help her with whatever and whenever she needed, she had caught a few glances of piety a few times, and so she tried to stir away.

The previous night she had had some soup and talked with her grandmother on the phone, asking if everything was alright: 

"Everything is always perfect, granny."

Which was the lie most told inside this family Alice would presume, that everything and everyone was perfect and nothing was amiss, even if everything was falling apart. They talked for no longer than fifteen minutes before she rolled around and quickly fell asleep, waking up not even four hours later with the worst pain she had ever felt and a terrible need to pee. But she couldn't get up, no matter how hard she tried she just couldn't roll out of bed, so she used the bell beside her bed, the one she ignored most of her life, and waited for someone to come to her rescue. 

Her father's butler, an older man with a head full of very grey and white hairs, knocked on her door and she almost begged him to come in. 

"I can't get up, and I'm in so much pain." 

She wasn't huge, not like she knew many other women could get, but she still couldn't see her feet when she looked down and now she couldn't get out of bed, to her horror. The butler, thank goodness, was quicker than Alice, taking her feet and moving them to the side of the bed then taking her hands and helping her up, it was then that she felt a huge relief and laud noise on the carpet beneath her feet, which now felt too wet. 

"What happened?" The princess asked in a panic, placing her hand on her night-gown and feeling it just as wet as her own feet.

"I think your water broke, ma'am."

"What?"

The butler helped her sit down on the bed again as he went outside and Alice could hear him talking to someone, soon lights were turned on and voices could be heard from the corridor. Thirty minutes after her water broke she was in too much pain and holding tight to the hand of the elderly man that just moments ago had helped her through the first stages of labor. 

The doctors arrived in incredible time and soon the room was filled with people Alice didn't quite know but who seemed all too eager to help her deliver a baby at four in the morning. Although she didn't have her waters anymore and was already under some considerable pain, she was still a few hours from delivering, and it was only in the early evening that the doctors started asking her to push, an hour later she had a baby in her arms and a sense of immense relief inside her chest.