Victoria Confesses (9781442422469) (24 page)

I sighed. There was no way to avoid it. “Very well, then. I shall go.”

It was terrible, very much worse than I expected. I found poor Lady Flora stretched on a couch looking as thin as anybody could, a mere skeleton, but her body very much swollen. There
was a searching look in her eyes, but she spoke in a friendly manner and said she was glad to see me. “I am very grateful for all you have done for me, madam,” she said, and that made me feel uncomfortable, for in truth I had done nothing at all for her.

I was most anxious to leave this upsetting situation as quickly as possible, and so I took her hand and said, “I do hope to see you again when you are better, Lady Flora.”

She squeezed my hand and shook her head, as if to say,
I shall not see you again.

And then I fled.

A week later, the fifth of July, Lady Flora was no more. The surgeon who performed a post mortem on her body found a large tumor on her liver, which is what had killed her.

He also declared that she was a virgin, though I still had my doubts. He may have said it simply as a comfort to her family.

That should have been the end of it, but it was not. The newspapers wrote about me as though I were responsible for Lady Flora's death, stating that I had gone dancing while she lay on her deathbed and railing that I should be filled with remorse but showed none. Those parts of the public who are easily led by the press added their voices of blame, claiming that it was my cruelty that caused her death. The Hastings family made clear their loathing of me. When I drove to the races at Ascot, two foolish, vulgar women in the stands loudly hissed at me. There were more shouts of “Mrs. Melbourne,” making my cheeks burn with embarrassment. I could go nowhere in London without having insults hurled at me. Gentlemen did not lift their hats when I drove by, and I was told that when my health was drunk at dinners, the guests responded with silence.

The more I was hounded for my lack of remorse, the more strongly I denied any fault. But the damage had been done. My spirits, already low, sank lower. I took no pleasure in the duties that only a year or two earlier had given me such deep satisfaction. Nor did I find enjoyment in the entertainments I had always loved. I no longer cared to go out riding—my handsome equerry failed to charm me. I did not want to go anywhere or do anything. I hated even to leave my bed in the morning. Several times I shouted at poor Maggie when she was doing my hair and reduced her to tears. This went on for the weeks of summer, until finally the press and the public lost interest and turned their attention to other matters.

I had done nothing wrong! I was convinced of it!

Despite my innocence, a worm of guilt gnawed at my conscience. I was
in no way
the cause of Lady Flora's illness, but was it possible that I might have behaved differently toward her?

Dearest Daisy assured me, over and over, that I had acted correctly. “Lady Flora brought it all on herself by her conduct,” she said. “Not her illness, of course, but the rumors and gossip. She was
most
indiscreet.”

Dear Lord Melbourne offered a different view. “I must shoulder most of the blame for what has happened,” he said. “I did not advise you as well as I should have. Much of this pain could have been avoided. But now we must take steps to get beyond it.”

“What can be done?” I asked miserably. “I'm no longer their beloved little queen. All of that is gone! The world seems to me a very black place.”

“Your best days are still ahead of you, Victoria,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “You need to spend time with people who care deeply about you, to restore your confidence.”

“And who would that be?”

I wished that Fidi were here. She would have known exactly what to say to me. She would have known it was that monster, Conroy, who was truly at the root of the trouble.

“Permit me to suggest that you invite your cousin Albert and his brother to come over for a visit, as King Leopold has been urging.”

Lord Melbourne's suggestion took me by surprise. “My cousin Albert! Really, my dear Lord Melbourne, I have no wish to see Albert. The whole subject of marriage will undoubtedly come up, and I find it an odious one. I hate even having to think about it.”

“Very disagreeable,” Lord Melbourne said sympathetically. “A very serious question.”

“I know that I said I would see him, but I'd prefer that the visit be postponed indefinitely. I am in no mood to contemplate marriage. Please, no Albert, not now—perhaps not ever.”

“I understand.”

“I would rather not marry at all!” I went on heatedly, thinking again of Queen Elizabeth, who had managed so successfully to avoid it.

“Now, that's a very different matter,” he said.

Lord Melbourne was trying to soothe me, but I did not wish to be soothed. “Albert should understand that absolutely
no
engagement exists between us. I have made
no
promises to him, and I would not even contemplate making any sort of final promise this year. I have
great repugnance
at making such a drastic change in my life, and if marriage were even to be contemplated, it would not take place for two or three more years. I believe that was made clear.”

“Quite so,” said Lord Melbourne.

There the matter was left. In a letter to my uncle Leopold I laid out in great detail my reluctance to give any sort of assurance to my cousin or to anyone else. In fact, I wished the whole matter could simply be dismissed. But letters flew back and forth, the court moved to Windsor in mid-August, and despite my deep misgivings and vehement protests, plans moved forward for a visit that I would have given ANYTHING to avoid.

Albert and his brother, Ernest, would arrive on the tenth of October, a Thursday. I did not want them to come, and yet I did. In truth, I didn't know
what
I wanted. I felt very LOW and spoke harshly to my servants. Poor, patient Maggie again bore the brunt of my bad temper. I was cross even with Lord Melbourne when he made the mild suggestion that I might introduce a few Tories to Albert and Ernest while they visited.

“The devil take the Tories!” I cried. “There is not one I will tolerate under my roof!” I stalked out of the room, leaving Lord Melbourne looking startled and speechless.

What could have possessed me to speak so sharply to that
dear excellent man
, who was kindness and forbearance itself, and whom I loved MOST dearly!

On the morning of the tenth, I awoke feeling unwell and out of sorts. While I was out walking in an effort to clear my head,
a note was delivered from Uncle Leopold; my cousins would arrive that evening. Somehow I got through the day, trying and failing NOT to think about what lay ahead. At lunch I could eat nothing, and by five o'clock I was ravenously hungry and sent for an egg and toast. When Daisy brought me the tray, I looked at the yellow yolk staring up at me and my stomach turned over.

“Then please eat the toast, Victoria,” Daisy pleaded, whisking the offending egg out of my sight, “or you will be ill.”

I did as she asked and felt a little better.

Maggie was waiting to help me dress and to do my hair. I had decided to wear the rose-colored silk gown sent by my dear Aunt Louise, but after studying my reflection in the looking glass I changed my mind. “The blue-striped taffeta, then,” I told Maggie. Off came the rose silk, on went the striped taffeta. That did not look right either. “Perhaps the purple velvet?” I was nearly in tears. Albert and Ernest would soon be here, and I was not READY! Maybe I could send word that I had fallen ill and would see them the next day. “Oh, Maggie, I don't know what to
do
!” I cried.

“The rose silk suits you perfectly,” Maggie said.

Off came the striped taffeta, on went the rose silk. My hair still needed doing.

I had been wearing my hair with two little puffs in front and a false braid like a crown on top, and I wanted something more sophisticated. Maggie suggested plaits coiled round my ears—“As Lady Harriet wears hers”—and I consented.

At twenty-five minutes past seven, Maggie fastened my pearl necklace and diamond earrings, and I drew on my long gloves and took one last anxious look at my reflection. I liked what I saw, but in any case it was too late now to change. At half
past seven I stood at the top of the Grand Staircase and waited to greet my cousins. It had been three years since I'd last seen them, when I had just turned seventeen. A GREAT DEAL had happened in the past three and half years. In all that time we had not exchanged a single letter. I had not the least idea what to expect.

The Coburgs arrived, and in that instant
everything
changed.

Ernest looked quite pale after a stormy crossing from Brussels. Perhaps Albert did, too, but I failed to notice. All I saw as he climbed the marble staircase toward me was how BEAUTIFUL he was! Everything about him was so excessively handsome—his blue eyes, his pretty mouth, his exquisite nose, his delicate mustachios, his very slight whiskers, everything! Tall, but not
too
tall, and not at all fat, as I had thought on his earlier visit. He had been just a boy then, a few months shy of his seventeenth birthday, but now he was a man, with broad shoulders and a very fine waist. In those first moments there was
nothing
about him that did not please me. A smile spread across my face without my even trying. I could not help wondering what he thought when he had his first look at
me
—no longer a young girl but a
woman
and a
queen
.

The customary greetings were exchanged, but when Albert bent to kiss my hand, I felt—or imagined I felt—that his lips lingered there a bit longer than was quite necessary. I returned to my apartments while the visitors were settled in their quarters, and prepared for dinner. Lehzen was waiting for me, her eyes questioning.

“Oh, Daisy,” I said breathlessly, “Prince Albert is superb! Just wait until you see him!”

A knock at the door interrupted before I could describe my
first impression, and a servant delivered a message from the princes: Their trunks had not yet arrived, and they did not have the proper clothes in which to appear at dinner. They offered apologies; their traveling clothes would not do. And so I had to wait until
after
dinner, which I thought would NEVER END, to have the chance to converse with him.

As the hours of our first evening together flew by, I discovered that Albert was clever, charming, intelligent, and thoroughly agreeable. He spoke English very well, and his French was even better than mine. The trunks had finally been delivered, and Albert's dress that evening was elegant—I particularly admired his red top-boots. He had with him a sleek and obedient black greyhound with a white muzzle called Eos, for the Greek goddess of the dawn. She never left his side and was the subject of some VERY lively conversation.

The next morning Albert played the piano in my apartments—Haydn symphonies!—and quite dazzled me with his musical ability. In the afternoon when we looked through an album of drawings together, I found his comments wonderfully acute and sensitive. After dinner that evening, we danced. Albert performed SO gracefully in the quadrilles, and I watched with a pounding heart as he waltzed with some of my married ladies. How I longed to be among them! It pleased me that on this visit Albert did not seem ready to fall asleep before the evening had scarcely begun.

I had not expected any of this. What I
had
expected was to find an amiable young man of average looks and average accomplishments. But Albert was not at all average! Albert was MAGNIFICENT!

But if Albert had changed, so had I. In a matter of weeks,
it seemed, I had become a completely different person. Where was that drab, unhappy girl of the past summer who had gone about sleepless and complaining, weeping and shouting, seeing the world as a dark and dismal place? She was gone! Gone forever!