Victoria in the Wings: (Georgian Series) (30 page)

‘Your Majesty will wish there to be a period of mourning?’ he was asked.

He was not going to pretend. Some might have expected him to play the part of bereaved husband but he was too good an actor for that. It would be a part which no one would believe in. So since it would be ridiculous to play the mournful widower, he would be the widower who was too honest to pretend to anything but the relief Caroline’s death had brought him.

The Court might have six weeks mourning. That would be expected; but it would be foolish to make it longer; as for him, he was on a State voyage; he was going to visit his Irish subjects; he wanted them to like him. They would not care for a miserable man.

He remembered how he had always loved the Irish. He hoped
they
would remember it now. His greatest friend had been Richard Brinsley Sheridan who had died some four or five years ago – a witty Irishman if ever there was one. Why even his present dearest friends the Conynghams were Irish. He anticipated a happy time.

And how could it be otherwise? If he exerted all his prodigious charm they could not fail to succumb; he was already rehearsing what he would say to them. ‘I feel I have come among my own people,’ he murmured.

He dressed with the utmost care in blue – blue neckcloth, blue breeches, blue coat – all of course of the most exquisite cut, and blue was the colour which suited him perhaps best of all. The only contrasting colour was the yellow of his coat buttons – quite dashing while they detracted not in the least from his general air of elegance.

He would speak to them from the heart as though the words came naturally. They would never guess what careful thought he had given to them. If his English subjects rejected him, that should not be the case with his Irish ones.

He was not disappointed. His emotional approach, his sentimental words were exactly what fitted the occasion best. Crowds had come to cheer him and escort his carriage to the Lodge in Phoenix Park.

There he addressed the multitude – a grand, imposing and decidedly regal figure.

‘This is one of the happiest days I have ever known. My heart
has always been Irish. I have always loved Ireland and now I know that my Irish subjects love me.’

He was going to drink their health, he told them, as he hoped they would drink his. It would be in Irish whiskey punch.

How they cheered! How they loved him! He had the gift of words. He must have kissed the blarney stone. He knew exactly how to win their hearts.

A real fellow of a King, they said.

And so began his first State visit. Nothing could have been more successful. They loved their King; he loved his subjects. It was so long since he had heard such cheers.

A beloved monarch. A free man. If he had been twenty years younger how happy he would have been! But even in the midst of his triumphs a voice within him kept reminding him, ‘Too late. It has come too late.’

Other People’s Children

VICTORIA WAS GROWING
up. She was almost three. She chattered constantly, mostly in German; but as Uncle Leopold said, it was essential that she speak English equally well.

Victoria was intelligent and was already aware that she was important not because of her charm and beauty but because of Another Reason, which was most intriguing. Mamma did not speak of this Other Reason. It was something she must not know of yet because she might in a moment of indiscretion betray that she knew to someone like Uncle Frederick, Uncle William or Aunt Adelaide, which would make them very cross – although she could not believe that Aunt Adelaide could ever be cross; and Uncles Frederick and William were most benevolent whenever she saw them.

There was another uncle – the most important of all: Uncle King. She saw very little of him, although sometimes she had been held up to see him pass by in his carriage. He was an
enormous, glittering being who thrilled Victoria merely to look at him. She respected Uncle Leopold, of course; she adored Aunt Adelaide and she loved Mamma, Sissi and Charles dearly, but for Uncle King she had a feeling of reverence. It would be a glorious day when
he
joined the band of Victoria worshippers. But he never came to Kensington Palace, nor was she invited to Carlton House. The oddest thing about Uncle King – in Victoria’s opinion – was that he seemed unaware of Victoria.

Sometimes she forgot him when she was playing with her dolls. She loved her dolls. People knew this and were constantly giving them to her. Sissi helped her dress them and knew all their names. Aunt Adelaide, dear gentle Aunt Adelaide, had just sent her a beautiful big one – the biggest she had ever seen, almost as big as Victoria herself and dressed in a blue silk dress with a sash, like Victoria’s.

‘She could be called Victoria,’ she had told Sissi, ‘but then who would know whether she was being called or I was.’

Sissi covered her with kisses and said she was the cleverest little girl in the world and thought of the most
sensible
things.

Of course she must be sensible because of That Reason; and there could not be three Victorias in the family; there were already Mamma and herself.

As it was a Wednesday afternoon Uncle Leopold left his beautiful house at Esher – Claremont which Victoria and her Mamma visited now and then – to come to Kensington Palace where he spent a long time talking to Mamma; and Victoria could not help knowing that she was often the subject of their conversation. She would be brought in to stand before Uncle Leopold and answer his questions while Mamma looked on, never missing any little lapse of good conduct, of which Victoria would be told afterwards. She must always be careful to behave as one in her position should. One in her position! It was a phrase she was constantly hearing; and she did not fully understand it except that it was involved with That Reason.

Uncle Leopold was asking her questions – in English, which he spoke differently from the people of the household, and she answered in English, now and then bringing in a German word, which made him frown.

‘She has not started lessons yet?’ he asked Mamma.

‘A little. She is learning to read. But she is only three.’

‘So young,’ said Uncle Leopold tenderly picking up one of her curls in his hand and twirling it.

She leaned against his knee examining his odd boots; they had thick soles so that when he took his boots off – she had once seen him do this at Claremont when he had come in on a very wet day – he sank down and became a much smaller man.

Uncle Leopold liked to talk of his ailments.

‘My rheumatism has been more painful even than usual this last week. It’s the damp weather.’

Sometimes it was the hot weather that did not agree with him and gave him headaches; the cold got ‘on to his chest’ and made him suffer ‘agonies’. Poor Uncle Leopold, and he was so good looking that she liked to watch his face while he talked. His hair was a magnificent mass of curls. Victoria, watching it, touched her own smooth locks, which Fräulein Lehzen spent a long time inducing to curl. They all said she had pretty hair, but it was not grand and glorious like Uncle Leopold’s. His was not always the same either – the colour varied, which made it even more interesting.

When she asked Sissi about it and Sissi whispered: ‘It’s a wig,’ that seemed even more clever – to have hair that came off and could be put on a stand at night.

Of course, she had been
very
young when she thought that. Now she knew lots of people had wigs. Uncle King’s mass of nut-brown curls might well be one, she supposed. But perhaps a King could command hair to grow. She had asked Sissi this and Sissi had laughed and said she thought of the funniest things.

But here was Uncle Leopold, studying her intently, asking her questions and telling Mamma what she should do.

Then he lifted her up on his knee. How were the dolls? Would she show them to him? And was she speaking English
more
than German? Yes was the answer to the two last questions.

‘Now,’ she told him; and he went with her to the nursery where the dolls all sat obediently awaiting their orders from her.

‘They obey your orders, I hope,’ said Uncle Leopold jocularly.

‘Oh yes, you see I am the Queen.’

Uncle Leopold and Mamma exchanged a somewhat odd glance – as though she had said something alarming.

While they were looking at the dolls Aunt Adelaide arrived and they went back to the drawing-room to receive her. She often called and Victoria knew why. It was to see her.

‘Do you wish I were your little girl?’ Victoria had asked her.

And the answer had been a fierce hug which had been very gratifying. And the big doll was from Aunt Adelaide – her favourite among them all. There had never been such a doll. How I wish she could be named Victoria, thought Victoria. That was the only name for such a big fine doll.

Aunt Adelaide had a look of happiness about her. Victoria presumed it was because she had come to see her. She threw herself at her aunt – forgetting Mamma’s instructions but Aunt Adelaide did not mind at all; she picked her up and kissed her many times and Victoria put her arms round Aunt Adelaide’s neck.

‘And how is my
dear
little Victoria?’

‘Victoria is well … and so is the Big Doll.’

‘She has no teething troubles that Big Doll?’ asked Aunt Adelaide.

Victoria laughed gleefully. ‘No, they have all come through now.’

The Duchess and Leopold looked on in some exasperation. Adelaide seemed to forget decorum in the presence of the child. She was so besotted about Victoria that she behaved like … The Duchess sought for words but could only think of A Common Person. Of course life with Clarence might be responsible for that. And where had she come from? A little dukedom! She would not pursue that because Meiningen was very similar to Leiningen – both small insignificant principalities. But at least the Duchess of Kent was aware of her position. To think that if two very likely events took place this Adelaide might be Queen of England.

Two Queens! thought the Duchess, good humour restored as she looked at the Duchess of Clarence talking animatedly to Victoria. The only occasions when she seemed animated were when she was with the child.

Victoria wanting to show Aunt Adelaide how the Big Doll was settling in with the others, had taken her hand and was attempting to drag her across the room. Really, Victoria! thought the Duchess of Kent. But perhaps since Adelaide could well be a queen it was permissible. Two queens! What a pleasant thought.

‘Victoria,’ she said in a tone of mild reproof, ‘I daresay your Aunt Adelaide would wish to stay here and talk with Mamma and Uncle Leopold.’

Adelaide would clearly greatly have preferred to go with Victoria but there was nothing to do but remain and talk to the adults. So she inquired politely after Leopold’s health and as this was one of his favourite topics he kept it going for some time.

When they talked of the King’s State visits, Victoria listened avidly. She loved hearing anything about Uncle King. She would keep so quiet that Mamma would forget she was here. It was the best way of learning that which they might not wish her to know.

‘I believe the Irish visit was a great success,’ said the Duchess of Kent.

‘William has heard from His Majesty that he enjoyed it. The Irish adored him.’

‘And of course he is feeling his
freedom
,’ said the Duchess of Kent who, in all matters not connected with her daughter’s accession to the throne, could be a little indiscreet.

‘It was a trying situation,’ admitted Adelaide.

Leopold looked a little supercilious. He had never been on easy terms with his father-in-law and in fact the King made no secret of his mild contempt for Leopold. He had never wanted Charlotte to marry him and would have much preferred the Prince of Orange as a son-in-law. Leopold’s abstemious habits and his somewhat pompous manners made him in the King’s view a dull fellow.

‘Rarely could a man have been so relieved to be free from the bonds of matrimony,’ said Leopold.

Victoria wished they would not use such long words. But she remained very still watching Mamma’s glorious curls bobbing up and down as she spoke and all the frills and ribbons on her gown; and Uncle Leopold’s thick soles and curly wig and Aunt Adelaide
who looked so simple beside them, but so kind. And I love her, thought Victoria.

‘Heaven alone knew what she would have done next … if she had lived.’ The Duchess of Kent shuddered. ‘And it would serve His Majesty right after the way he has treated her. The investigation … the trial …’

Leopold threw her a warning look.

‘It is all over now,’ said Adelaide. ‘William is relieved, of course.’

‘And now,’ went on the irrepressible Duchess, ‘he is on the Continent and I hear he is making a great impression everywhere he goes. Of course he could always
talk
people into admiring him.’

‘He has great charm,’ said Adelaide.

‘If his own people made as much of him as the foreigners do he would be a contented king, I doubt not,’ added the Duchess of Kent.

Leopold thought: I must impress on her the need to curb her tongue. The King already dislikes her. Heaven knows what he might do. What if he made some law which would enable them to pass over Victoria?

To change the subject he said: ‘I have heard that the King has been to see his nephews – the two young Georges who are named after him, Cumberland and Cambridge. They’re just about Victoria’s age.’

The Duchess of Kent laughed scornfully. ‘They will never have a
chance
.’

‘The King has always had a great respect for his brother Ernest,’ said Leopold. ‘It would not surprise me if Cumberland did not return to England now that the old King is dead.’

‘Let them come,’ said the Duchess of Kent recklessly.

Leopold frowned. But after all it was only Adelaide. She would not report anything, nor see any evil in it.

‘You are looking in exceptionally good health,’ said Leopold to Adelaide.

‘I am very well, thank you.’ Adelaide had flushed slightly.

Oh God, thought the Duchess of Kent. It can’t be. I couldn’t bear it.