The Queen and Lord M (27 page)

The Queen stamped her foot angrily. ‘I will find no one,’ she cried. ‘Do you think anyone could take
his
place?’

Her anger was more bearable than her grief.

Lehzen said: ‘He was the Prime Minister …’

‘
Was!
He still
is
the Prime Minister. He shall
remain
Prime Minister. I shall
refuse
to accept his resignation.’

Lehzen looked hopeful and the Queen went on. ‘Am I the Queen or not? If I say I won’t have these horrid Tories, I won’t. Lord Melbourne is my Prime Minister now and nothing is going to change it.’

Lehzen shook her head sadly. ‘It is no use,’ she said. ‘You know the Constitution.’

‘But they haven’t been beaten, Lehzen. They won by five votes.’

‘You read here what Lord Melbourne says. He is summoning a Cabinet meeting this morning and he tells you what the Cabinet’s decision will be.’

‘I must beg them not to. Let them give up their Bill.’

‘Even the Queen cannot interfere with State affairs like that. You know that, my darling. You are overwrought.’

‘Oh, Lehzen … darling Daisy … I am going to lose him.’

Lehzen tried to soothe her. She must lie down. She must rest. She must remember she was the Queen. Malicious people would be watching. There was gossip enough. ‘Oh, please, please my darling, control your feelings. Remember you are the Queen.’

‘Daisy … what should I do without you!’

‘You have me until I die, my dearest.’

‘But if I lose
him
, Daisy, I don’t want to
live
.’

‘What sort of talk is this? Is this how a Queen talks?’

‘But he … is going to leave me, and I cannot
endure
that Daisy.’

‘Of course he is not going to leave you. He is still here. He will be the Leader of the Opposition, I suppose. He will not be far off. You will see him now and then. You speak as though he were going to die.’

That cheered her a little. ‘Yes, I shall see him now and then. We shall be at dinners together. I shall invite him to my box at the opera.’

‘There you see,’ said Lehzen.

‘But it won’t be the same, will it? He won’t be able to come here and we shan’t have our chats … alone. He will have to move out of the Palace. All our fun will be over. Oh, Daisy, you have no idea … no one has … how amusing he is. He makes everything so lighthearted and he is so good and kind and there is no one like him.’

‘He will come and see you.’

‘No, that horrid Peel man won’t allow it. He will come instead and I won’t have him.’

‘Once again,’ said Lehzen, ‘I beg of you to remember that you are the Queen.’

‘He would say the same, Daisy. He always reminds me that queens have to do all sorts of things that are distasteful to them.’

‘Yes, if he were here now he would say what I am saying.’

‘Oh, yes, dear Daisy, it’s true.’

‘And you would want him to be proud of you. People will be calling to see you soon. You must remember that you are the Queen. Have you forgotten how wonderful you were when Conyngham and the Archbishop came to tell you you were the Queen. Everyone said how calm … how dignified … how queenly.’

‘But that was something I wanted to hear … something I had been waiting for. Now I am going to lose my
dear
Prime Minister.’

‘Let me bathe your eyes. I have a wonderful lotion. No one must see, must they? There would be gossip … scandal …’

Victoria stared at the Baroness. Scandal! It was the first time she had thought that her relationship with Lord Melbourne might be considered scandalous.

She said brokenly, ‘He is the best and kindest of men. I was fortunate beyond everything that he should be my Prime Minister.’

‘And still is as far as we know.’

‘For how long, Daisy, for how long?’

‘Let’s cross our bridges when we come to them,’ said Lehzen just as she used to when they were in the nursery together before Victoria was a Queen.

‘Lord Melbourne has called,’ said Lehzen.

The Queen clasped her hands together. She was trembling.

‘He is waiting,’ added Lehzen gently.

Victoria covered her face with her hands.

‘Try and control yourself, dearest. You want to see him. Remember you are the Queen, and this is not goodbye to him.’

She nodded and went to him.

She held out both hands to him. He kissed them. When she raised her face to his she saw the tears in his eyes.

‘It … has happened?’ she asked fearfully.

Lord Melbourne nodded. ‘Lord John will be coming to see you. He will tell you that at our Cabinet meeting it was agreed that the Government should resign.’

‘I shall lose you,’ she said.

‘I shall be close.’

‘You will not forsake me, then?’

‘You cannot believe that I would ever do such a thing.’

‘I am a little comforted, but most unhappy.’

‘Your Majesty does me too much honour.’

‘But you know my feelings.’

‘Yes, I know them. And I believe you know mine.’

‘You could be here just the same?’

‘Your Majesty’s new Prime Minister would not allow the Queen to be in constant conference with the Opposition.’

‘Those Tories!’

He smiled. Like Lehzen he preferred to see the flash of temper rather than the sorrow.

‘You must try to get on with Sir Robert Peel.’

‘I never shall. I hate the man: He is quite
loathsome
to me.’

‘He’s all right. Stiff and formal. But you’ll get to know him.’

‘I shall refuse to.’

‘You will remember your duty, I know.’

‘Why do you have to have this
miserable
Bill?’

‘Well, you see, something had to be done for Jamaica. We believe we are right. They believe they are. That’s politics.’

‘But us … our … friendship. That was not politics?’

‘I have been honoured as I never thought to be. I shall remember the esteem you have had for me as long as I live.’

‘Esteem!’ she cried. ‘You are usually so good with words. That is not the right one, you know. Oh, dear Lord M, I will
not
let you go. I
will
not.’

He took her hand and patted it gently as he might a child’s. ‘I have explained to you what constitutional government is,’ he said. ‘A party that cannot rule must resign. This has been coming for a long time. Now we are going to show the world how a queen behaves. I know you will do that … admirably, and when I see you working with your new Government as you have with mine I shall say: There is indeed a queen. And I shall be so proud. I shall be arrogant and I shall deceive myself into thinking that I am in part responsible for my great little Queen.’

‘Oh, my dear,
dearest
Lord M!’

‘Oh come,’ he said, ‘it’s not the end. We shall meet … often.’

‘Yes, we shall. I shall
insist
.’

‘And of course we shall have to obey the Queen for her temper can be a little choleric and one has to be a brave man to risk arousing that.’

‘
You
were always very brave in that respect.’

‘I knew how kind and good a heart she has despite the flashing eye and frowning brows, and I always trusted to luck that I should not be dismissed from my Sovereign’s presence.’

‘That Peel gentleman will not find my heart so kind, I do assure you.’

‘I would not wish you to be as kind to him as you have been to me. That would be asking too much of me. But remember he’s not such a bad fellow and he is only doing his duty. I can assure Your Majesty that he is highly thought of in some quarters.’

‘Not in the Palace, and he never will be. Oh, you are teasing me, you are trying to make me forget how unhappy I am.’

‘I must leave you now,’ he said, ‘but if I have your permission to come back again this evening, I will by then have worked out a plan of action for you. Have I that permission?’

‘I shall be waiting for you this evening.’

He bowed and smiled at her.

‘All will be well,’ he said.

She shook her head not trusting herself to speak.

‘I knew it would happen,’ said Lord Melbourne, ‘some day.’

Then he was gone and she was alone … desolate.

At three o’clock that afternoon there was another visitor. It was little John Russell for whom she had always had a special affection, partly because he was a supporter of Lord Melbourne, partly because she liked him for himself and partly because like her he was well below average in height.

She held out her hand to him with the tears streaming down her cheeks.

‘Your Majesty!’ cried Lord John.

‘Oh, dear Lord John, this is
terrible
.’

‘I cannot tell Your Majesty how it grieves me to inform you that your Cabinet must resign. I want to thank Your Majesty for all your kindness to me in my recent bereavement.’

‘How are the darling children?’ she asked.

‘They are well but missing their mother,’ said Lord John, which made her weep afresh.

‘What a sad, sad world!’ she sighed. Poor Lord John had lost his wife and she was about to lose her dear Prime Minister.

Lord John did not remain long. He had done his duty in giving her this unwelcome news and he was unhappy to be the bringer of such tidings. Lord Melbourne would be calling on her again that day, he added to cheer her up; and even he was surprised to see what an effect this had on her.

Another chance to see him! To try to persuade him to forget this wretched Bill. Were not the people of Buckingham Palace more important to him than those of Jamaica?

In the afternoon Lord Melbourne was back at the Palace. He had recovered most of his normal nonchalance, as though he had had a tussle with himself and come to the conclusion that he must not let his feelings get the better of him.

He kissed her hand; and she clung to his for a few moments fiercely as though she would not let him go.

‘I have come to see Your Majesty,’ he said, ‘because I have been aware for some time that this was inevitable and I had already considered the advice I should give you when the day arrived.’

‘Then,’ she demanded, ‘why did you allow this Jamaican business to happen?’

He raised those bushy but beautifully marked eyebrows and gave her that half-amused half-exasperated look which had so often enchanted her. ‘Your Majesty forgets that our Ministry was never strong. Our majority was small and the Lords have never favoured us. Lord Brougham has constantly waited his opportunity to finish us off. It has been almost impossible to get any legislation through the House. Everywhere we have turned we have been baulked. This is a situation which cannot, for the good of the country, be allowed to continue. But for Your Majesty’s kindness to me and my ministers I doubt we should have lasted as long as we did. So you see, we have been fortunate. Now I must tell you what I think you should do.’

‘I do not want to see Sir Robert Peel,’ said the Queen firmly.

‘Your Majesty is not being fair to this man.’

‘He is the man who has opposed you. It is because of him that you have to go.’

‘He opposes me naturally because he is in Opposition so that is a perfectly logical thing for him to do. And my departure is by no means due to him. You must not blame him because he is a Tory.’