Victoria Confesses (9781442422469) (11 page)

“And I find it altogether stifling!” I exclaimed. Mamma frowned but said nothing.

I was unaccountably nervous when at last we arrived at St. James's, and tried to convince myself that nothing could possibly go wrong.

King William signaled that it was time to begin, offering me his arm and leading me into the chapel. We were followed by dear Queen Adelaide and Mamma, who barely nodded to each other and did not speak. The pews were filled with members of the royal family, my uncles and aunts, and a few close friends—including, of course, Sir John. The king stopped suddenly, gazing at the assembled guests. “It is much too crowded in here!” he announced loudly, glowering at Sir John Conroy. “Only members of royalty are invited to attend. We shall ask any who are not royalty to leave us at once.”

Mamma gasped and let out a little cry. Apparently, the only one present without a noble title was Sir John. His jaw dropped and he looked stunned, but he stepped out of the pew, bowed to the king, and stalked out.

Trembling, my lips quivering, I took my place in the royal pew. Mamma was sobbing. The service commenced. No windows were open, and the chapel grew unbearably warm. I knelt before the archbishop and made my vows and received his benediction. I wept all the way through his long and very sobering homily. What was supposed to be one of the most significant days of my life had turned into one of the most wretched. I nearly drowned in tears.

That night as I was preparing for bed, a servant brought a letter from Mamma. My mother claimed that she could best express herself to me in writing, rather than speaking of important matters face-to-face. That meant our communication was entirely one-sided, a lecture, an effort to bend me to her will. I dreaded these letters.

I broke the wax seal and unfolded the cream-colored sheet closely covered with Mamma's cramped handwriting.

You have now reached a new stage of life with your sixteenth birthday and your confirmation, and your life will take a different direction. Your relationship to Baroness Lehzen must now undergo a necessary change. From this day forward, you are to treat your old friend with dignity, but at the same time you must place a certain distance between yourself and her. Your friendship may continue, but on a different level of intimacy.

I began to weep—not from sorrow, but from anger. I forced myself to read on.

You must always confide first in me, your devoted mother. The sacrifices I have made on your behalf have been great and will continue to be so, and you will continue to live and to thrive under my guidance until you reach the age of either eighteen or twenty-one years, and I shall be the determinant of that.

There was more, ending with her usual protestations of love and devotion.

I read the letter a second time, grappling with what my mother had said and growing more and more upset. What was this “different level of intimacy” I was to have with dearest Daisy? Did Mamma really expect me to confide in her and not in Daisy? I would confide nothing! And what of this: “Until you reach the age of either eighteen or twenty-one years, and I shall be the determinant of that.” Royalty always came of age at eighteen—I
knew
that! Why was Mamma suggesting that I
might have to wait another three years, if she said so? Was she trying to prove that I would not be capable of ruling without her—and without Sir John?

I crumpled the letter and flung it to the floor. For good measure, I stamped on it.

“Victoria,” said Daisy softly. That was all: “Victoria,” as though she knew.

Silently I bent and picked up the ball of paper, smoothed it out, and offered it to her. I watched her face as she read it. Her expression scarcely changed. Perhaps she had been expecting something like this. “Oh, my dearest Victoria!” Daisy sighed and placed the abused paper on my writing table, shaking her head sadly. “Someday it will be all right,” she said. “You must have patience.”

“But I have no more patience!” I cried, pounding the table. “She is my mother, and I hate her!
I hate her!
”

Three days later, Mamma and I returned to the royal chapel and took communion together. I could scarcely bear to look at her, my own mother. As we knelt side by side before the altar, I pretended that a certain letter had never been written and never read. I struggled to repent of the harsh feelings I held for my mother and earnestly prayed that I could be her loving and obedient daughter. Yet even as I sent the words “obedient daughter” drifting up toward heaven, I tried to snatch them back, like a hat blowing away on a wind-swept beach. Obedience was SO difficult!

After a summer holiday in Tunbridge Wells, we returned to Kensington. I felt stronger, less fatigued. But my things had scarcely been unpacked when Mamma sent a note informing me that she and Sir John had decided the time was ripe for another tour. We would leave in a few days to visit the northern counties.

Travels that had been an amusing distraction when I was younger were now a wearying chore. King William hated my “progresses,” as he called them. Going on another one surely meant yet another battle. I dreaded the battle, the tour, the speeches, the dinners, all of it.

“I do
not
want to do this!” I raged, and I rushed to the library.

Mamma was alone at her desk, writing a letter. “Yes, Victoria?”

“Please, Mamma,” I begged, “I feel so
very
tired, and I sleep poorly, and I can scarcely eat. Must we go on this tour?”

She laid aside her pen. “It is your duty,” she declared. “Your position demands that you travel and show yourself to your future subjects. Are you really unaware of that, Victoria? For once you must stop thinking only of yourself and the easy life you may think is owed you. This is only the beginning of the many claims that will be put on you in the future.” Mamma glared at me, picking up her pen. “Do your duty, Victoria,” she said sharply, and turned back to her letter.

I refused to be dismissed. Mamma had to listen to me!

“The king does not wish me to go on these progresses,” I said. My hands were balled into tight fists. I unclenched them and tried to keep my voice calm and reasonable. “He disapproves quite strongly of you and Sir John racing about the country with me. And if it displeases the king, then I
must
not go! It would be in plain defiance of the king's wishes. Surely you don't want to offend him.”

Mamma's eyebrows descended into a deep frown. “I don't know how you have come to be so certain of the king's disapproval. I do have my suspicions, however, for there are those around you who have loose tongues and speak to you of matters that should not concern you.”

“This
does
concern me, Mamma,” I argued. “How can you claim otherwise?”

My mother stared at me with a shocked expression. “You speak to me disrespectfully, Victoria. It is unbecoming. Since you appear to know so much, let me tell me what you appear
not
to know. I have spoken to the prime minister, Lord Melbourne, and asked him on what grounds I can be prevented from taking you on visits to various parts of the kingdom you will one day rule. He assures me that I am entirely within my rights to travel
with the heir apparent wherever and whenever I wish, and that it is entirely advisable to do so. And the king can do nothing to prevent it!” she concluded triumphantly.

“I don't care what Lord Melbourne says! The king does not wish it. He is so
very
kind to me, and I do not want to displease him.” I took a deep breath. “I shall not go,” I declared.

I had never spoken to my mother like this. Mamma appeared stunned, but she quickly recovered. “Don't be foolish, Victoria,” she snapped. “The king is simply jealous—of your youth, of the love the people have for you, of the enthusiastic receptions you are given wherever you go. If the king really loved you, as you are so certain he does, then he wouldn't try to stop you but would approve of the journey! It's your obligation to go, Victoria. You should be seen, you should know your country and be acquainted with people of all classes and all walks of life. This is of the greatest consequence, yet you choose not to recognize it.”

“Perhaps later, Mamma,” I pleaded. I was near tears, but my mother had never been moved by my weeping. I tried another approach. “I so often feel tired, and we cannot travel like other people—”

“My dearest love,” Mamma interrupted, using the sweet tone that sounded so false. “Listen well. If it were to be known that you are too lacking in will to undertake a journey that I and my advisors”—she meant Sir John—“feel is absolutely necessary, and that you fail to grasp the benefits to your people, then you are bound to fall in their esteem. And such esteem would be very hard to restore, I assure you!”

It was useless to argue further. Servants bustled round, packing and preparing, and it would not do for them to hear us
quarrel. My will collapsed. “Very well, Mamma,” I said, surrendering. “I will be ready to leave in the morning.”

I turned and fled. It had been a terrible scene. My head throbbed, my stomach felt very unwell, and I knew that sleep would not come easily that night.

For the next twenty-five days I endured the most grueling journey yet. I experienced it as long, slow torture, but Mamma pronounced it a triumph. The days were unbearably long and arduous. By the end it was a blur, one town after another decked in flags and flowers and triumphal arches with children's choruses and pealing bells. Cheering crowds stared and jostled and sometimes blocked the road so that our poor horses could make scarcely any headway.

We visited one stately mansion after another, dined at one lavish banquet after another, though my appetite had disappeared, and attended ball after ball. After one such, my head throbbed and my back ached so badly I could not continue after the first dance. Everyone was very cordial, but I could only pray for the day to end and a chance to lie down with a cold cloth on my forehead.

Never had I been so happy to see Kensington as I was on the day our carriage again rolled through the palace gates. I devoutly wished it would be a VERY long time before I had to spend another day like the previous twenty-five.

At the end of September we did travel again, but this time for the happiest of reasons: My dearest uncle Leopold came from Belgium by steamer, and we met him and Queen Louise in Ramsgate. What a joy to throw myself into the arms of my uncle, who had always been like a father to me! I had not seen him for four years and two months. This was the first time I had met my aunt, and I loved her at once. Such a perfection! She had a very pretty, slight figure, hair of a lovely fair color, light blue eyes, and a charming expression. She was dressed simply in light brown silk with a sky-blue bonnet. She was only seven years older than I, and in a very short time we became like sisters.

Uncle Leopold came to my room only an hour after their arrival. “I will be here for just one week,” he said, sitting down by my side, “and we must make the most of our time, for there are serious matters to be dealt with.”

Dear Daisy quietly slipped away, leaving us alone. “The most serious matter is John Conroy,” I told him bluntly.

“I've heard this from more than one source, and I'm not surprised,” replied my uncle. “I once thought highly of Sir John, but he seems now to be suffering from a form of madness. He desperately wants authority as a means to raise himself and his family to the level he believes he deserves. The way to that is obviously through you. Tell me what he does that offends you.”

At last, I could speak to someone who understood and could help me! “He treats me like a foolish child,” I said, “one who must be guided in her every word and act by a strong, intelligent person like himself. He boasts about his dreadful Kensington System with a strict rule for everything I do, and he isolates me from the king and queen and nearly everyone else. The second serious matter is Mamma. I'm still not permitted to descend the stairs without holding someone's hand! I'm still not permitted to have my own bedroom! Mamma allows Sir John to speak to everyone of my youth and inexperience and to use that as an excuse for exercising authority if dear King William should die before I come of age.”

Once started, I could hardly stop.

Uncle Leopold strode to the window and stared out toward the sea, frills of whitecaps now under heavy gray clouds. “We are aware that the king is in failing health. We pray for his strength to endure until you are of age—and well beyond, if it be God's will. In the event that he dies before your eighteenth birthday, your mother will rule in your stead as regent, but it is Sir John who will pull the levers. Even after you're of age, he'll look for ways to control you.”

“Mamma says I may not come of age until I am twenty-one.”

“She said that?” Uncle Leopold let out a bark of laughter. “It is not your mamma's place to decide!” he exclaimed and continued his restless pacing. “I shall have a frank talk with my sister. And with Sir John Conroy as well.”

I nearly wept with gratitude. I hoped Mamma would see that I was becoming more capable every day and took my duties VERY seriously, that I was not a silly, foolish child but a young woman with my eyes fixed on my future responsibilities. I did not need her lectures, and I most certainly did not need Sir John's.

I was still exhausted from our tour and had felt poorly for several days. My throat was sore and my head ached. Daisy had given me a dose of tincture of rhubarb—nasty stuff—that was her usual treatment when I complained of being unwell, but it did little to improve me. Worried, Daisy had suggested that my physician, Dr. Clark, should be called down from London to examine me. Mamma and Sir John had disagreed, and I was determined not to allow my fatigue or my illness to interfere with my time with my DEAR uncle and aunt. But now, in the midst of this VERY important conversation with my uncle, the room began to spin.