The Queen and Lord M Read online

  ‘I’m glad of that. But I’m sorry he was extravagant. I should like to think he was a good man.’

  Lord Melbourne smiled benignly at her and wondered if she had heard rumours of her father’s liaison with Madame Saint Laurent. It had, it was true, been as respectable in its way as William’s with Dorothy Jordan; and like William on his State marriage he had abandoned the woman who had been as a wife to him for … was it twenty years or so? These Royal Dukes would have been faithful husbands if the State had allowed them to be. But it had all happened a long time ago and although Victoria must have asked her mother, and those who would have known him, what her father was like, it was almost certain that no one would have mentioned Madame Saint Laurent.

  ‘Your mother might take charge of those debts. She has been granted an extra £8,000 which means she will now have an annual income of £30,000.’

  ‘That should please her. But I can see I must be the one to pay my father’s debts because if I left it to her Comptroller (I can scarcely bring myself to say his name!) he would never do it. I must think of those poor creditors.’

  ‘I can tell you that the sole reason why she was granted this money was out of respect for you. So she has you to thank for it.’

  Lord Melbourne fixed his tenderly tearful gaze upon her and she was happy.

  * * *

  Life could not be all happiness and Victoria was very sad because news had come to her that old Louie was very ill and not expected to live.

  ‘Of course she is very old,’ said Lord Melbourne.

  ‘But it is very sad all the same.’

  ‘We all have to go sometime,’ replied Lord Melbourne.

  He was right, of course, but she was very unhappy. She kept thinking of those visits to Claremont when Louie had greeted her with her own special kind of curtsy and then had carried her off to her own room and had chatted about Princess Charlotte.

  The Court was leaving for Windsor, but before she went she must go and see dear Louie.

  What a shock to find her so changed! She was quite distressed because she could not rise from her bed and make that very special curtsy.

  ‘Dearest Louie,’ cried Victoria, kissing her.

  ‘Your Majesty!’ murmured Louie, overcome by the honour.

  ‘Foolish Louie! Did you expect me to love you less because I am the Queen?’

  ‘It’s wrong that I should be lying here and Your Majesty standing.’

  ‘Then I’ll sit and you lie still. That is an order. I give orders now.’

  Louie laughed. ‘You always did.’

  ‘Oh yes. I could be very demanding, I am sure. Oh, they were happy days and how I used to look forward to them! I remember so well your having breakfast in your room in your neat morning gown and then in the evening dressed in your best. You always stood up so straight and the curtsy you gave me was so dignified … it was like no one else’s. I think you thought me a little like Charlotte.’

  Louie nodded.

  ‘And sometimes I declare you mistook me for her.’

  ‘Yet you are so different. Charlotte could be very naughty and you were on the whole such a good little girl.’

  ‘Mamma would not agree. She was constantly accusing me of having storms.’

  ‘Ah, that temper of yours. Is it still as fiery?’

  ‘I fear it is, Louie. I am very hot-tempered. I get really angry sometimes. Although not so much lately. Perhaps it is because I am Queen or it may be because Lord Melbourne makes everything so easy for me.’

  ‘You have good advisers. You will be a great queen. I wish I could live to see it.’

  ‘Oh, Louie,’ said Victoria and the tears began to fall down her cheeks.

  ‘But Your Little Majesty mustn’t cry for me,’ said Louie shocked.

  Victoria leant over her and kissed her. She couldn’t stop crying because she knew that it was for the last time.

  * * *

  She was at Windsor when the news came of Louie’s death. She wept bitterly and sat down at once to write to Uncle Leopold about it because of Louie’s having been so close to Princess Charlotte, she was sure he would want to know.‘I don’t think I have ever been so much overcome or distressed by anything as by the death of my earliest friend … I always loved Louie and shall cherish her memory …’

  Lord Melbourne, finding her red-eyed and disconsolate, immediately expressed his concern.

  ‘She was really my earliest friend,’ explained Victoria. ‘I feel that the first link has been broken with my childhood.’

  ‘As we get older,’ said the philosophical Lord Melbourne, ‘such broken links are so numerous that one scarcely notices them.’

  ‘How terrible!’

  ‘Nothing is so bad when one becomes accustomed to it,’ replied Lord Melbourne. ‘You have lost an old friend but you have new ones. That is the compensation of life.’

  So she looked at dear Lord Melbourne and was comforted, reminding herself that poor Louie was old, her time had come and she went peacefully.

  ‘She was prepared I am sure, although she thought she would get better,’ she explained. ‘What I mean is she was so good all her life that she was ready at any time to die.’

  ‘She was always very neat and her soul would be in as orderly a condition as her kitchen.’

  Lord Melbourne was rather wickedly flippant, but one would not expect him to make ordinary remarks; and he never shocked her, although he did some people, because she knew what a good kind man he was. In any case his light-hearted comments made her feel less unhappy and she told him so. She was therefore comforted.

  ‘To bring comfort to Your Majesty is the main purpose of my life,’ he answered.

  So of course she had to smile and try to put aside her grief.

  ‘There is the matter of a Coronation,’ went on Lord Melbourne.

  ‘Have you fixed a date for it?’

  ‘Most certainly it must be June – the month of your accession.’

  ‘I hope I shall not disappoint anyone.’

  ‘I have no fear whatsoever of such an occurrence. Now,’ he went on briskly, ‘if Your Majesty will be kind enough to give me a list of the ladies whom you would like to carry your train, that will be a beginning. You will, I know, consider the position of the young ladies and select them with that in mind.’

  ‘I shall try not to offend anyone.’

  ‘That will, I fear, be an impossibility because every young lady at Court will wish for the honour of carrying Your Majesty’s train, and will be offended if she is not chosen.’

  ‘Oh dear, how sad that one cannot please everyone.’

  ‘As one can’t, let us think of those who will be pleased and forget the others.’

  ‘It seems a little unfeeling.’

  ‘Good sound sense often does to those whom it affects adversely,’ said Lord Melbourne.

  ‘I hope I shall look well in my Coronation robes. How I wish I were even a few inches taller. Everyone seems to grow but me.’

  ‘I think you have grown in the last months.’

  ‘Do you really think so or are you being kind?’

  ‘If I were not kind I should deserve to be kicked out of the Castle; and when I say you have grown I am not necessarily referring to inches. Of what importance are they? You have grown in wisdom, dignity, understanding, sympathy. These are the qualities of sovereignty, not inches.’

  ‘Dear Lord Melbourne. You are such a comfort. But I do wish I were good looking – like Harriet Leveson Gower for instance.’

  ‘She is an old woman compared with you. She would make a very poor Queen.’

  ‘Now why do you say that, Lord M?’

  ‘Because she would never take the advice of her Prime Minister.’

  She threw back her head and laughed. Then she was sorry because she should really be crying for Louie. Trust Lord Melbourne to amuse her so much that she forgot her sorrow.

  * * *

  Victoria’s first thought when she awoke in her bedroom in Buckingham
Palace on the 19th of May was: This is my birthday. My first birthday as Queen of England!

  What a sobering thought. She had been Queen for eleven months and she was nineteen years old.

  This was going to be a very special birthday, different from the last when she had been under the control of her mother. Now she would say what the celebrations would be and she had already chosen a ball.

  We shall dance all night, she thought, and I shall not go to bed until four in the morning … five if I wish.

  She remembered the ball Uncle William and Aunt Adelaide had given for her and how Mamma had been so angry that she had made the Kensington Palace party leave when it had only been in progress an hour. How angry Uncle William had been, but Mamma had very rudely ignored the fact that he was King, just as she now forgot that Victoria was Queen.

  Well, there would be no interference this time. It would be her first State ball as Queen of England, and it was going to be the grandest and most magnificent occasion. Everyone was going to enjoy it thoroughly – most of all the Queen.

  First of all there would be the receiving of presents. Mamma had always been a great giver of presents. In the old days at Kensington they used to be set out on tables and at Christmas she, Feodora and Mamma had had their own tables. How fond Mamma was of giving bracelets and brooches containing a lock of her own hair!

  There was a knock on the communicating door which she had had cut in the wall between her bedroom and that of Lehzen.

  The Baroness entered.

  ‘Many happy returns of the day.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, Lehzen.’

  They embraced.

  ‘Nineteen. Really I am growing up, but at no time more than this past year. Lord Melbourne says there is a great change in me.’

  Not wanting her to start on a eulogy of Lord Melbourne – the easiest thing in the world for her to do it seemed – the Baroness reminded her of the busy day ahead of her and asked if Her Majesty would care to get up now and if she wished to breakfast alone.

  * * *

  It was rather a solemn day. There were so many people to see and so many congratulations to receive. The guns fired a salute in the Park and she went on to the balcony to wave to the crowds. The people were charmed with her. ‘Like a little doll,’ they said. ‘No more than a girl.’

  This was clearly a very important occasion, but one of Mamma’s presents gave her a few uneasy moments. It was a copy of King Lear.

  Oh dear, thought Victoria, I never really liked King Lear. It’s rather an unpleasant play. Besides it is about ungrateful daughters. I do hope Mamma is not trying to spoil this day.

  It was impossible to spoil the State ball. The ballroom was beautiful and the ladies in their laces and ribbons, satins and velvets, feathers and diamonds, were charming.

  They were all waiting for her and she went through the saloon to the ballroom feeling a little nervous (but she remembered that Lord Melbourne had said that all people with high and right feelings were sometimes nervous) and there the dazzling scene met her eyes; everyone watched her as she made her entrance; the men bowed and the ladies curtsied as she took her place on the sofa.

  The band played Strauss music and she thought she had never heard anything so beautiful as a Strauss band.

  Alas that she could not join in the waltz. That was too intimate and as there was no young Royalty present no one was worthy to put an arm about her waist as was done in this rather daring dance. So she could only join in the quadrilles and the gavottes and such dances, which she did with gusto.

  She would never never tire of dancing, she told her partners. And she hoped every one of her guests was enjoying this lovely ball as much as she was.

  There was one disappointment. She had expected Lord Melbourne to come and pay his respects. How pleasant it would have been to sit beside him on the sofa while the waltz was in progress which would have been almost as good as dancing. But Lord Melbourne was not at the ball, which was very odd indeed.

  While she was dancing she forgot Lord Melbourne. Lord Alfred Paget really was most amusing and very handsome. She had been slightly aware of him when out riding but had been too absorbed in Lord Melbourne’s brilliant conversation to take much notice of him. Now she could appreciate his good looks and his devotion; he really was rather charming.

  He was twenty-one, he told her, two years older than she was; and he had a retriever called Mrs Bumps. Victoria laughed at the name.

  ‘What an odd name! I daresay she is very dignified and adores you.’

  Lord Alfred thought this might be true of Mrs Bumps; he admitted that he had a portrait of Her Majesty which he carried with him always and that Mrs Bumps, whom he was determined should be as staunch an admirer of Her Majesty as he was himself, also wore a portrait of the Queen about her neck.

  ‘What a wonderful idea!’ cried Victoria. ‘I think that is excellent. A dog to wear my portrait!’

  ‘Why not?’ demanded Lord Alfred. ‘Mrs Bumps is one of your subjects also.’

  She was enchanted. What a wonderful ball! But now they were playing the waltz and she must sit on her sofa and watch them, when she would so much have loved to be dancing the waltz – perhaps with Lord Alfred.

  Then her thoughts turned to Lord Melbourne. It really was strange that he should be absent.

  It was supper time and she led the way into the banqueting room where the royal liveried footmen were waiting to serve. Everyone seemed to want to have a word with the Queen and she was eager to speak to as many as possible for she was not in the least tired.

  ‘Oh, no,’ she cried to solicitous enquiries, ‘I could go on dancing all night.’

  And she did, for it was four o’clock before the ball was over.

  When she was very young, before her accession, one of her greatest treats had been to stay up late and she still felt excited to do so. It had been a heavenly ball, and it shall be the first of many, she promised herself.

  She was too excited to sleep so she decided to write in her Journal:‘A charming ball. I have spent the happiest birthday that I have had for many years. I have been dancing till past four o’clock. Only one regret I had and that was that my excellent good kind friend Lord Melbourne was not there.’

  The next day while she was at breakfast a note arrived from Lord Melbourne. It contained profuse apologies and stated that he had been unable to attend the ball because he was both unwell and disturbed.

  Lord Melbourne unwell! Lord Melbourne disturbed! She was in a panic.

  ‘I knew he did not take enough care of himself,’ she told the Baroness. ‘I have told him often that he must not go out in the cold wind.’

  ‘The wind is scarcely lethal at this time of the year,’ commented Lehzen.

  ‘But it is precisely at this time of the year that we have to be most careful. Oh, I do hope he is not ill. I must send a messenger. I must know.’

  ‘Even if he is ill the Queen of England can’t very well act as his nurse, you know.’

  Victoria turned troubled eyes on Lehzen. Good Heavens! thought Lehzen, how far do her feelings go for this man? Is she in love with him?

  Absurd! Preposterous! Little innocent Victoria and a man of fifty-eight … fifty-nine more likely. Nearly sixty, cited in two divorce cases, involved in a cause célèbre with his wife. Melbourne and the Queen of England!

  Lehzen was beginning to feel worried.

  During the morning Lord Melbourne called at the Palace. Victoria could not wait to greet him. Her expression was very serious but she was immediately relieved to find that he looked much the same as usual.

  ‘My dear Lord M, you are unwell.’

  Lord Melbourne touched his brow with a beautiful graceful motion.

  ‘A little disturbed,’ he said.

  ‘Only disturbed … not ill?’

  ‘I was very, very anxious last evening because I fear a crisis in the House of Commons.’

  ‘Oh, is that all? I was afraid you were sick.’

  ‘Sick with a
nxiety perhaps,’ he said.

  ‘Is it so bad?’

  ‘You remember that we have perpetual trouble with Ireland. It’s a complicated situation, always on the simmer, ready to boil over into trouble. The tithe system and the poverty of the people, the state of their municipal government, all these are such as to make an uneasy country. They’re an excitable people. One feels that if their land were turned into Utopia they’d find fault with something. There is a continual conflict between the Catholic and Protestant population. They can’t settle down together as they do in England. They have to be at each other’s throats all the time. We can be sure of one thing only. Whatever legislation was brought in there would be trouble about it. The resolution regarding the Church is now under discussion as to whether or not it should be rescinded. You know we have a very small majority in the House, and a thing like this could bring down the Government.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘It’s true. If the vote went against us and we were defeated we should fall and Sir Robert Peel, the Leader of the Opposition, would come along and ask Your Majesty’s permission to form a new Government.’

  ‘I should never give my permission.’

  ‘But that is something you would be obliged to do.’

  ‘I … the Queen!’ Her eyes were brilliant, her cheeks flushed. ‘I never would.’

  ‘Your Majesty’s temper is a little choleric,’ he said with a tender smile.

  ‘Do you expect me to agree to this when I know what it would mean? You would cease to be my Prime Minister.’

  He nodded, making one of his grimaces which usually amused her but did not do so on this occasion.

  ‘That,’ she said firmly, ‘is something I should never allow.’

  Lord Melbourne’s eyes filled with tears and at the sight of them she wanted to repeat her determination even more emphatically.

  ‘Alas that you cannot enforce your sweet will,’ he said, so poetically, she thought, that she could have burst into tears. ‘Ours is a Constitutional Monarchy and that means that we all – even our Sovereign – must obey the rules of the Constitution. The Government is elected by the people and since our Reform Bill all sorts and conditions have been allowed to vote. Therefore Your Majesty’s Government cannot always be of your choosing.’