The Queen and Lord M (33 page)

‘It is not exactly seemly for a young female monarch to live alone.’

‘Alone, dearest Uncle! I am surrounded by people.’

‘And your Prime Minister even lives at the Palace!’

‘He has private rooms there of his own because it makes it so much easier when we have to discuss State matters.’

‘That seems to me to be rather inviting criticism.’

Victoria flushed hotly. Cries of ‘Mrs Melbourne’ echoed in her mind.

‘Lord Melbourne is my Prime Minister, Uncle. Naturally he has a suite in the Palace. I cannot see anything to criticise in that.’

‘Yet am I right in assuming that there has been criticism?’

‘There has been a great deal of senseless criticism. This distressing affair of Flora Hastings, for instance …’

‘I was thinking more of the affair of the Bedchamber Ladies. You know it was said that you acted as you did because you were so fond of Lord Melbourne that you were ready to go to any lengths to keep on intimate terms with him.’

‘What a wicked scandal!’

‘It is, but we have to reckon with wicked scandals. A sovereign is in the arena to be shot at. A sovereign has to make sure that he – or she – gives no opportunities to people to cast slurs. You understand what I mean. Marriage is what you need, my precious angel. And soon.’

She was a little shaken but adamant. The fiery temper showed itself in her eyes though her voice was tender as always for dear Uncle Leopold.

‘Dearest Uncle,’ she said, ‘I should never allow unworthy gossip to drive me into a situation which was abhorrent to me.’

‘Abhorrent!’ cried Uncle Leopold in horror.

‘I was speaking generally, dear Uncle. Of course Albert is not abhorrent to me. I love all my cousins. Dear Alexander was delightful. So were Augustus and Leopold. I am wretched at the thought of parting with them. And I am sure Albert and Ernest are equally pleasant. I merely mean that I will not allow malicious people to dictate my actions.’

Nor even beloved uncles, she was implying.

Oh, she had indeed changed; and it was necessary to get Albert to England as soon as possible.

Uncle Leopold could stay no longer. He and Aunt Louise were due to start very early in the morning to catch the tide. Victoria, who had determined to say goodbye once more before they left although they had already said their farewells the previous night, arose at a quarter past four and went to their apartments. They were sitting in their travelling clothes ready for departure, eating their breakfast by the light of several candles. Sad as she was, Victoria’s mouth watered at the sight of thin bread and butter and eggs and she could not resist joining them in their breakfast.

This was not the time, even Uncle Leopold realised, to indulge in further persuasion so he contented himself with a tender farewell; and from her bedroom window the Queen tearfully watched them leave.

How very sad it was, to say goodbye to dear relations; but her sorrow was tinged with apprehension. Very soon Cousin Albert would be arriving and then she would have to make her decision.

She was touchy and irritable with Lord Melbourne.

‘I believe you are pleased to see my cousins depart,’ she accused him peevishly.

‘They were rather noisy,’ he answered.

‘And of course they spoke in German which
you
do not understand. That must have been very tiresome for you.’

‘Not at all,’ said Lord Melbourne blandly, ‘for I do not believe I missed a great deal.’

‘I enjoyed their company very much.’

‘Which was evident and made their visit worthwhile.’

‘Poor Lord Melbourne! I believe their noise interrupted your little naps.’

‘That is exactly the case,’ agreed Lord Melbourne.

She burst out laughing. ‘I am young after all. I don’t think I see enough young people.’

‘You certainly did during the visit.’

‘A young person like myself must sometimes have young people to laugh with.’

‘You lead rather an unnatural life for a young person,’ admitted Lord Melbourne. ‘It’s the life of a man.’

‘I do feel that is so sometimes. But the excitement did me good.’

‘You may suffer for it afterwards. You must always take care of your health. You have complained of a certain listlessness. It would be dreadful if you were to take a dislike to your official duties.’

‘You need have no fear, Lord Melbourne, that I shall ever fail in my duty,’ she said coldly.

She was tense; she was apprehensive. The thought of marriage frightened her. Oh, why, she demanded of Lehzen, did everything have to change? She kept harking back to that happy,
happy
summer when everything was so pleasant and the people loved her.

‘Nothing stands still,’ Lehzen reminded her.

‘I know that,’ she snapped. ‘I am not a child, although I am well aware that you sometimes think I am.’

Her ladies whispered together that she had changed. Once she had been so considerate to them; now nothing they could do seemed right for her.

Even Lord Melbourne displeased her. Understanding her better than anyone else and realising that it was fear of marriage that made her so irritable and bad tempered he sought to soothe her. He wanted her to realise that there was absolutely no need to consider marriage a necessity at this stage; he wanted to lull her into a peaceful frame of mind. All she had to do was inspect her cousins and if she did not like them she could send them packing.

She was aware of this and was afraid of marriage; yet she wanted to marry. She loved Lord Melbourne, and she had never analysed her feelings for him. If he had been young and royal how easy that would have been! Lord Melbourne understood their relationship far better than she did and he was saddened because he knew that it had reached its peak and must now inevitably decline. Her present state of mind affected him deeply. He could not bear to see her unhappy. If she could marry now and make a success of her marriage and her life, his work had been well done. He knew – and had known all through – that his place could only be on the edge of that life, and he must now be ready to stand aside.

He tried to see less of her. This called forth abuse from her.

She was soon writing to him:

‘The Queen was a good deal vexed at Lord Melbourne’s not coming …’

This was to one of her dinner parties to which he had not received a formal invitation but it was regarded as the accepted thing that he should be present and he always had been in the past. She was miserable without Lord Melbourne to sit beside her and make his amusing comments and go to sleep and
snore
if he wished to. This last habit might displease her and sometimes embarrass her, but she wanted him there.

‘The Queen thinks it is important that Lord Melbourne should be here at large dinners. She
insists
upon his coming to dinner tomorrow, and begs him to do so on Wednesday also, her last two nights in town, as she will probably not see him for
two days
.’

When Lord Normanby changed places with Lord John Russell as Home Secretary, Melbourne, who had felt it wiser to avoid her company for a while, omitted to tell her and she learned of the change through Lord Normanby.

She was incensed … and against Lord Melbourne.

‘Lord Melbourne never told the Queen that this was definitely settled. This has happened before.’

Then remembering that he had looked a little tired at their last meeting and the old tenderness returning she added:

‘The Queen has such unlimited confidence in Lord Melbourne that she knows all that he does is right but she cannot help being a little vexed at not being told things.’

When he came to her in the blue closet he could see from her expression that her mood was stormy and it was not his good friend who stood before him, but the Queen. So cold and regal was she – and nobody knew how to convey this manner better than herself – that he did not sit down in his usual easy manner but remained standing until she gave him permission to do so.

She withheld this and sitting herself, talked to him as he stood.

Realising suddenly how tired he looked she was filled with remorse and insisted at once that he sit down when she began upbraiding him for not taking enough care of
his
health. He was always talking about hers. She commanded that he be more careful.

She saw the tears in his eyes and then everything seemed just as it had been. She was foolish to worry about Albert’s coming when she had this dear good friend to advise her.

The next day she sent him a little present.

‘The Queen sends this little charm which she hopes may keep Lord Melbourne from all evil, and it will make her very happy if he will put it with his keys …’

She wanted him to understand that although she was going through a difficult stage, and although she appeared bad-tempered and nervous sometimes, her feelings for him could not change.

Sometimes she was quite herself and they talked in the blue closet.

‘I feel very much
against
marrying,’ she admitted.

‘It’s a very serious matter,’ agreed Lord Melbourne, ‘concerning as it does both the State and your personal happiness. To get the ideal man we should have to make one.’

That was typical Lord Melbourne and she was soon laughing while he conjured up a picture of the perfect man he would make to share the throne with Victoria.

‘He must not be in the least stupid.’

‘Of course not. Do you think I want a stupid husband?’

‘Nor cunning.’

‘Do you think he would get the better of me?’

‘He would never do that.’

That made her laugh again and almost restored her old merriment.

‘He would have to be equable in temperament.’

‘And not have a quick temper?’

‘One of those is enough in any family – royal or otherwise,’ said Lord Melbourne.

He was
so
amusing.

‘I have no great wish to see Albert.’

‘You might change your mind when he comes.’

‘I hate to have to decide.’

‘Decisions which are so final can often be disagreeable,’ said Lord Melbourne.

‘Do you think I might decide never to marry?’

‘I need notice of that question,’ said the incorrigible Lord Melbourne.

She felt so much
better
talking to him.

‘How I wish Albert were not coming,’ she said.

But when Albert wrote to her and told her – without adequate reason – that he would be arriving three days late, her temper flared up.

‘He does not seem very eager to get here,’ she commented to Lord Melbourne. ‘
That
seems to me very odd. After all who is he but quite an obscure prince?’

‘And a German,’ said Lord Melbourne.

‘And I am the Queen.’

‘Of England,’ added Lord Melbourne.

She was angered by Albert’s apparent indifference which, said Lord Melbourne, was a little odd seeing that she was not in the least eager for him to come.

Chapter XII

THE BRIDEGROOM ELECT

F
rancis Charles Augustus Albert Emmanuel, otherwise known as Prince Albert, the second son of Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, was not feeling very happy as the carriage carried him and his elder brother Ernest towards the dock where he was to take ship to England.

In fact only the company of his brother, to whom all his life he had been devoted, and that of his pet greyhound Eös comforted him.

Albert was reserved by nature and he hated all the preparation and fuss which had gone into making him a suitable husband for the Queen of England. He would have been glad if Ernest had been the chosen one except that he was too fond of his brother to want him to be submitted to what he had had to endure. He had been faintly surprised when he heard that he was the bridegroom elect. It had happened after that visit to England three years ago when he had first met his cousin Victoria, a very self-possessed young person of sixteen. Surely he had thought she would have preferred Ernest – besides Ernest was the elder. But no, it seemed her choice had fallen on him!

His Uncle Leopold, who ran the family affairs, was determined on this match. He had already succeeded in marrying other members of the family into the royal houses of Europe, but nothing, he had said, was as important to him as to see his niece and nephew united and ruling England together.

That was all very well, Albert reasoned to himself, but Victoria was the Queen and he could only be her consort, which he did not feel to be a very dignified position.

He had discussed it with Ernest who had retorted, ‘Oh, yes, but you will have to see that Victoria obeys
you
.’ When he remembered that rather regal girl of sixteen he wondered whether this could be achieved; and nothing else would suit him, of course.

Then he knew that Uncle Leopold had been trying to bring about a definite betrothal for more than a year and that Cousin Victoria had said that she did not wish to be definitely betrothed.

‘It is somewhat humiliating,’ said Albert to Ernest.

Ernest was less serious and more intent on enjoying life, whereas Albert wanted to do what was right and honourable and be respected.

‘And if,’ went on Albert, ‘there is any delay I shall simply release myself from any understanding.’

‘My dear Albert,’ replied his brother, ‘she will only have to take one look at your manly beauty and she’ll succumb.’

But Albert was serious. Life to him was a solemn affair and he had first realised this at the age of four, when he had lost his mother.

There had been a mystery about his mother’s departure, for she had not died. She had simply gone away. Albert had adored her and he had been her favourite and for a long time he could not understand why she had left him.

He and Ernest had had whooping cough at the time and he remembered how he had waited for his mother to come and see them … waited and waited.

‘Where is my Mamma?’ he had demanded, but all they would tell him was that she had gone away.

He remembered her as a supremely beautiful being. Warm-hearted, and tender, who had loved her little boys, particularly Albert.

He learned the story later, of course. His beautiful mother in her very early twenties had been guilty of an intrigue with a gentleman of Jewish blood, a cultured man of some importance at her husband’s Court. The Duke – who was years older than his young wife – had had so many mistresses that he lost count of them and the young Duchess Louise in desperation had turned to her lover. Not only had she committed adultery but she was
discovered
to have committed adultery. It was unthinkable that such conduct should be pardoned.

The story was similar to that of George I and his wife Sophia Dorothea who having taken the Count of Königsmarck for her lover was caught with him. Königsmarck was murdered and Sophia Dorothea sent away to a lonely castle where she spent the rest of her life as a prisoner. Times had changed, but while the Duke expected his wife to turn a blind eye to his countless amours he would not do the same to hers. So leaving the two little boys in the nursery she retired from her husband’s house and was in due course divorced. Albert learned afterwards that she had gone to Paris, where she had died when he was eleven years old.

He never forgot her. He became shy and thoughtful. As a consolation for the loss of that maternal love he became absorbed in his own illnesses and noted them all down in his diary. He did not know why this gave him so much satisfaction although he wondered now whether subconsciously he had believed that if he were ill enough his mother would come back. He had never liked women very much; he had always felt nervous in their presence; and when at the age of five he was at a children’s party and a little girl had been brought to dance with him, he had burst into tears and refused to perform.

But as he grew up he showed a greater desire to absorb knowledge than Ernest did; Ernest was lazy and Albert was always determined to prove his point providing he thought it was a worthy one. He was intelligent without being brilliant; but what was most outstanding in his character was his moral rectitude. When he was only eleven years old, when asked what he wanted to be in life, he startled his worldly father by answering : ‘A good and useful man.’

It was by no means an idle comment. Albert worked hard and painstakingly; yet he was prepared for a little fun of a sort. Lacking in humour and wit his jokes were of the practical kind but he and Ernest partook in all kinds of outdoor sports for their father was determined to make men of them; as long as the brothers were together they were content. Albert was a credit to his teachers. He was more sensitive than Ernest, who took after their father, and the effect of their mother’s disappearance from their lives had had little effect on the elder boy. It was different with Albert. Loving his mother passionately, hearing vague reports of her mysterious past, he developed a great distaste for women and it was clear that he was going to be quite unlike his father in that respect.

Albert loved riding and hunting and enjoyed surprising his tutors with the painstaking excellence of his work; best of all he loved music. He had grown up considerably since his first meeting with Victoria, having been educated in Bonn and done a great tour of Europe in the company of Baron Stockmar, as well as being primed by his Uncle Leopold as to what was expected of him.

And now he was on the way to meet his fate.

The sea was very rough and he was never a good sailor. He lay sick and wretched wishing for death and asking himself why he had come.

He thought longingly of the little schloss near Coburg where he and Ernest – always together then – had spent their happiest times. Oh, to be there now – a boy with no ambitions but to be a good and useful man.

The heavy seas pounded against the sides of the paddle steamer until he thought his last hour had come. At least, he thought, it will rescue me from a difficult situation.

Ernest was prodding him.

‘We’re there, Albert.’

He noticed then that the violent rocking of the steamer had abated a little; he staggered up to see the white cliffs, which he thought forbidding rather than welcoming. But he did feel better as he stumbled onto land and the ride to Windsor began.

On the morning of the 10th October Victoria awoke little guessing that she would come to regard this as the most important day in her life.

She was feeling a little sick and she remembered that dinner last night had been somewhat rich. Had she over-eaten? Or eaten too quickly? The Baroness was always telling her that she did.

Lehzen came in as usual first thing in the morning.

‘A stone was thrown at one of the windows early this morning,’ she said.

‘How tiresome!’

‘There is not much damage done. Only a broken pane or two of glass.’

Victoria felt melancholy. How sad to think that some of her people disliked her so much that they were impelled to throw stones at her windows.

‘I feel a little sick. I wonder if Lord Melbourne feels well. We both ate pork last night.’

‘There is an “r” in the month so it should be all right,’ said Lehzen. ‘I’ll send to see if the Prime Minister is well.’

The message came back that Lord Melbourne was suffering from a little internal disturbance which he felt was due to the pork. He intended to walk it off this morning.

Victoria sent a message back. She would walk off her pork with Lord Melbourne while he walked off his.

They strolled through the grounds together discussing the pork and from that Victoria changed the subject to Albert’s imminent arrival.

‘I still feel very uneasy.’

‘It is so natural,’ said Lord Melbourne.

‘And if he does not think there is any hurry to see me I shall let him know that I feel no urgency to see him.’

‘I should do that,’ said Lord Melbourne.

‘Then he can go back and we shall hear no more of the matter. I wonder if he will be as fascinating as my cousin Alexander?’

‘Oh, that is hardly possible,’ said Lord Melbourne, with a hint of mockery.

‘Why, what do you mean?’

‘You always speak of that young man as though he were Adonis.’

‘Well, he is very handsome.’

‘And you were completely fascinated by his handsome looks.’

‘I like beautiful people. Beauty moves me deeply no matter in what form. I have always admired beauty.’

‘That is true,’ said Lord Melbourne. ‘And you particularly admired Coburg cousin Alexander’s.’

‘As you must have done if you admire beauty.’

‘Alas I must be insensible to it because Alexander’s did not make much of an impression.’

‘You were annoyed because you could not understand our conversation. You know you were. Well, never mind. This is very pleasant walking in the grounds here. Are you feeling better now?’

‘I am walking it off,’ said Lord Melbourne. ‘And Your Majesty?’

‘I am also walking it off.’

‘And look, there is one of the pages running towards us. It appears that he has urgent news for one of us.’

‘I daresay it is for you, Lord Melbourne. Some State business.’

‘In that case it will be for us both.’

The page had a letter for the Queen. ‘It’s from Uncle Leopold,’ she said. She read it.

‘They are on their way,’ she said, turning pale. ‘Albert and Ernest will be here tonight at seven o’clock.’