22

“There’s no doubt, ma’am, the tour has been a wonderful success.”

The Queen stared coldly at Lady Lyttleton. It needed courage to tell Her Majesty that anything her eldest son did was successful, but Lady Lyttleton was notoriously brave. The other ladies waited nervously. The Prince of Wales had gone to Canada and to America on a tour. And the reports of his reception had delighted the country as much as they annoyed his mother. Huge crowds had cheered him; he was mobbed wherever he went; his speeches and manners were praised to an extent that Victoria thought quite out of proportion. He was only a stupid boy, and nothing Albert, with all his wisdom and nobility, had said or done had gained such recognition. She was furiously jealous for his sake.

“So it appears, if one can trust the hysterical outbursts in the newspapers. Personally, I find them unreliable. I shall be happier when the Prince returns and I hear from Colonel Bruce exactly what happened. Perhaps you imagine that to attract a crowd of curious vulgarians is a wonderful success, Lady Lyttleton?”

“Indeed not, ma’am. But I believe His Royal Highness has inspired the Canadians with great loyalty to you. He is very young, after all——”

“If you suppose”—Victoria’s voice was freezing—“that I depend upon my son’s efforts to maintain my subjects’ loyalty, you are sadly mistaken. As for his youth, the Prince has the very wisest advisers to make up for what he lacks. And always will lack, I fear, whatever his age. It would oblige me, Lady Lyttleton, if you reserved your opinions in the future. If you cannot, then be so good as to refrain from expressing them to me.”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am.” Lady Lyttleton had blushed; she had known and served the Queen for many years, and nothing but genuine love for the Prince of Wales had given her the courage to mention the tour at all. Everyone knew that the Queen would rather it had been a failure, that she-read the reports of his popularity with mounting anger, and told everyone that it was due to the vigilance of the Prince Consort that her son had managed to behave himself at all. Really, Lady Lyttleton thought angrily, she was a monstrous mother. It was no use criticizing Albert because he had no understanding anyway, but a mother … She curtsied and sat down, out of the Queen’s view.

“Lady Augusta, would you kindly play for us? I am quite distracted with all this talk of tours and nonsense.”

Victoria sat staring ahead of her while the piano was opened. She did not hear a note of music, though Lady Augusta Bruce played everything she could think of that Her Majesty usually liked, for nearly an hour.

That wretched boy. How grossly unfair that he should have done so well, that the speeches others wrote for him should be applauded and written about in the papers, while her own darling worked himself to death for the common good and never received a word of unqualified praise.

If only Albert could be recognized, praised, loved, as he deserved, she would gladly give ten years of her life. And with all that burden of disappointment, Albert must listen now to the raptures about Bertie in Canada, opening a bridge over the St. Lawrence, Bertie attending a ball in New York, Bertie being feted, honored, praised. His charm of manner—who had ever remarked on his father’s charm? Bertie’s frank and pleasant looks—to think of the chiseled beauty of his father, and to read rubbish like that! Bertie, who was stupid and a liar, who had to be made Knight of the Garter, who had to be Prince of Wales and one day King of England … It was too unfair. And if Lyttleton dared to mention his name again, she would relieve her of her post.

Those in the Queen’s sitting room saw the deep line between her brows and the gleam in her eyes under the heavy lids. Nobody moved or even coughed until Augusta Bruce finished her recital.

“Stockmar said he thought an early marriage was the only solution, my dearest.”

Victoria gazed into Albert’s face, pleading with him not to be anxious. Poor darling, he looked so worried. There were deep lines across his forehead and at each corner of his mouth. He had lost so much of his beautiful brown hair that he was really rather bald. She squeezed his hand and gave the back of it a little kiss.

“And I know Stockmar’s right; marriage will settle him down, give him a sense of responsibility. After all”—she disguised her annoyance with the whole subject of Bertie and tried to make a joke of it—“remember how headstrong and pleasure-loving I was, until you married me? Nobody knows better than we do how the right husband or wife can change one.”

Albert sighed. It was kind of her to try and make light of their anxiety, but he knew her far too well to be deceived. Their son had returned from his trip abroad with an exaggerated idea of his own importance. He was objecting violently to Bruce’s supervision. The Colonel wrote to the Prince Consort that his son now lost his temper and actually shouted when he was corrected. He had once tried to travel up to London without permission. The escapade was discovered, and a royal carriage was waiting at the station to convey the culprit straight to Buckingham Palace, but everyone felt that a major scandal had only just been averted. Bertie was addicted to every vice from which his father had tried to protect him. He wanted to play cards, he drank, and he had paid unseemly attention to a pretty lady in waiting when his sister Vicky came on a visit from Germany.

“I’ve been so disappointed in him so often that I have no hope left,” Albert said. “My greatest fear is that he will involve himself in some immorality if he’s not married soon.”

“Albert!” Victoria exclaimed in horror. She was genuinely shocked. It was so unlike Albert to speak about such horrible things, and in connection with their son … “Albert dearest, you don’t think he would ever do anything wrong?” She became suddenly pale. “Albert, you’re not keeping anything from me——”

“Nothing, my dear, I promise you. But it is a danger and we must face it. He should be married. He’s heir to the throne and he’s twenty, nearly twenty-one.”

They had confided their anxieties to Vicky, and she had inspected every eligible German Princess. The selection was poor; the candidates were either too young or else so plain that on meeting them Bertie had refused to even consider them. And he would not be forced into an uncongenial marriage.

The list had shortened, because Vicky insisted, with unusual foresight, that an ugly or graceless bride would never do for Bertie. They appeared to have reached an impasse. Albert wished his son to marry a German, but none of the German princesses would do. Now a letter from Vicky had mentioned a young Danish princess as a possibility. She was reputed to be both pretty and charming, and the Crown Princess intended meeting her to see for herself, if her parents agreed.

“You never know,” Victoria said. “This child Alexandra may be suitable after all.”

“An alliance with Denmark will upset Prussia,” Albert said gloomily. “But I suppose Vicky had better see her. There doesn’t seem to be anyone else.”

“My darling, if she is as nice as Vicky’s heard, we can make it clear that the marriage doesn’t tie us to Denmark in any way. Marriage to the Prince of Wales will be a sufficient honor in itself. Now I shall write to Vicky myself and tell her to see this girl and let us know her opinion. And I beg of you, don’t worry about Bertie until we hear.”

As a guest of the Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Vicky saw Alexandra of Denmark for the first time. Alexandra was seventeen years old, and the first thing which came into Vicky’s mind when she saw her was that “pretty” did not describe her at all. She was not only tall and graceful: she had the most beautiful face Bertie’s sister had ever seen. Red hair, wide blue eyes which seemed almost violet in some lights, a perfect complexion, lovely teeth—it was hardly possible. And there was not a trace of arrogance, not a suggestion in her voice or expression that Alexandra knew how beautiful she was. Looking at her, Vicky tried to imagine the reaction of her parents, and decided that no one could withstand that combination of beauty and modest serenity.

The young Princess was nervous. Her parents, who were desperately poor, had run into debt providing her with suitable clothes, and the whole happy, close-knit family had sat up the night before her journey hopefully discussing the outcome. So much would depend on the Crown Princess; Alix must make a good impression on her.

When Alix curtsied, her exquisite skin turned pink as she met the daughter of the Queen of England; but after a few moments her natural sweetness and gaiety became uppermost. She sat side by side with Vicky, gazing up at her with those astonishing eyes, full of gentle admiration, and within half an hour Vicky had decided that this was the only possible wife for Bertie.

No one could resist the child: certainly not Bertie, who had managed to be polite to some of those dreadfully stodgy German girls, however cross he had been about them afterward. Alix was perfect. Most important, she would be a perfect daughter-in-law, too. Papa, and especially Mama, who was very dictatorial at times, would find her easy to manage.

Vicky stayed at Strelitz for two days, and then wrote to her parents that the search for Bertie’s bride was over.

In February of 1861 an old lady sat in an armchair by the fire, dozing and watching the logs burn. An embroidered handbag lay in her lap, the needle threaded through an unfinished stitch. The house at Frogmore was full of the Duchess of Kent’s handiwork; fire screens and cushion covers, beautifully embroidered, some of them in beading, which was becoming very fashionable.

The volcanic, bustling Duchess, who had once made herself such a nuisance to King William IV, had turned to gentler pursuits in her old age. Her ambition had died years ago; like her spirit, it had not survived the struggle with Victoria. No one mentioned those early days; it was so long since she had been at enmity with her daughter that the snubs and disappointments were blurred, like the details of a bad dream. For years she had been safe within the family circle, the beloved mother and grandmother, respected and secure.

One of the logs in the grate crackled, and the old Duchess woke up. She felt the pain again; it was more persistent than usual, and she realized that she had been dreaming of her dead husband. How strange that the Duke of Kent should come into her mind after so many years. Her memories of him were suddenly clear, as if they had only just parted. She could almost see him, with his red face and ungainly way of standing, going round the room winding up that interminable collection of clocks. She smiled, thinking how the routine of setting and winding used to irritate her, and the noise of their chimes kept her awake. But she had got so used to them that after a time she didn’t notice. He had been a good husband in his way, and though he lived and died in debt, they had come very close together in the end. She remembered his last words, mumbled as he lay dying forty years ago: “Do not forget me.”

She closed her eyes again, trying to escape the nagging pain in her breast, and then rang a little bell which stood beside her chair. Though the fire was blazing and the curtain drawn, shutting out the gray February evening, she felt cold. It was early, too. The little household had not dined, but the Duchess did not feel like eating.

When her ladies came she asked to be helped up to bed. The last thing she did before she fell asleep was to take out the Duke’s old tortoise-shell watch and carefully wind it up.

When the Queen and the Prince arrived from London, the Duchess had passed into a coma. They stood in the shadows round her bed, and Victoria slipped to her knees and caught the slack hand in hers. The years fled in that moment.

“Mama! Oh, Mama!”

She was dying; her own dear mother, with whom she had been so happy for such a long time … She was lying there in that awful stiff attitude of unconsciousness, breathing so noisily, and the hand she kissed and stroked was damp and lifeless.

The tears began pouring down her cheeks. The Duchess’ ladies withdrew farther into the background. There was something rather frightening about the Queen’s grief. It seemed unreal that she should kneel there and cry tears and call her mother, just like any ordinary woman. One by one the ladies slipped away, leaving Albert alone with her.

His eyes were dry. Weeping would never have expressed his feelings at the sight of the old Duchess lying there. His grief was almost tinged with envy. He had been fond of her, and his efforts to make her life easier had been repaid with deep gratitude and affection. He knew that she had looked on him as if he were a son. Thank God he had been able to reconcile her with Victoria. Thank God that as Victoria knelt there, she could feel easy in her conscience. Gently he put his arm around her and drew her away.

“You must rest,” he whispered. “There is nothing anyone can do. We will be called if she wakes.”

But the old Duchess never woke again. Through the night the Queen came down to the bedroom, carrying a lamp, and waited for some sign of returning consciousness. At half past nine the following morning, Victoria heard the harsh breathing suddenly stop. As it did so, her father’s old watch chimed.

“Oh, when I think how unkind I was to her!”

Albert gazed at Victoria’s distracted face, eyes swollen with incessant crying, and wondered whether he had better send for the doctor again. Sir James Clark had already seen the Queen, and had announced that only time would ease the extravagances of her grief. Albert thought he should have prescribed, but then he had never liked the man or had much faith in him. He had a rough manner, which the Prince found disconcerting. There was an old story about him and one of Victoria’s ladies, Flora Hastings—or was she a member of the Duchess of Kent’s household? He could not quite remember the details, but he was sure that Sir James had not emerged from the affair with credit. Nevertheless, Victoria had the greatest faith in him. And he did say that she would recover from the shock of her mother’s death in her own time.

Actually the effect on the Queen had alarmed everyone at Court and caused some anxiety in the Government. Victoria had suddenly collapsed after the funeral. She could not eat or sleep or attend to business. She spent all her time going through the Duchess’ belongings, reading her old diaries, and weeping and lamenting until Albert seriously feared a breakdown. He had never suspected that his wife’s nervous system was so delicately balanced that it could be almost unhinged by the Duchess’ death. He never suspected, nor indeed did Victoria herself, that the agonies of regret and the floods of hysterical tears were an expression of a much deeper feeling than sorrow for the loss of her mother. She had never really loved her mother until late in life, and her affection then had been fostered by Albert and encouraged by her mother’s love of Albert.

She cried and worked herself into a frenzy because she had experienced the omnipotence of death. And death meant only one thing to Victoria, however she covered her terror with talk of the Duchess of Kent. Death had taken her mother. Death could take Albert. Death would take Albert, unless by God’s mercy she died first. And though it would not be for many, many years, the inevitability of that separation nearly unhinged her mind.

“When I think how I once turned against her, I can’t bear it, Albert. It was all the fault of that wicked Lehzen. She was so good to me—I’ve found things in her diaries when I was a little child—such sweet things … Oh, Albert, I’d give anything in the world to have her back and make everything up to her.”

“You’ve nothing to regret,” he insisted. “You were a perfect daughter to her: you made her wonderfully happy.”

“But only toward the end,” Victoria cried. “I should have been good to her all the time. Oh, Albert, Albert, isn’t it terrible to think that when that happens one can never call the person back. I never realized it before. I can’t believe I shall never see her again.”

“You must accept it,” he said gently. “You must calm yourself and remember, dearest, that your mother was a very good woman, and now she’s safe with God. And it would only grieve her to see you making yourself so unhappy and neglecting your duties. And you will see her again. We will all be reunited one day.”

“If only I could be sure of that.” Victoria wiped her eyes with a very wet handkerchief.

“But you must be sure of it.” Albert was quite shocked. “My dear, we will all meet again in the next life—you know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, of course I do. It’s just that one has doubts sometimes. When I think how Mama looked afterward, I couldn’t believe that there was any life anywhere.”

“That was very wrong,” he said.

How strange to think that religion had run such shallow roots with her, after all their years of Sunday attendance and daily prayers. He had never suspected that she had not really shared his steadfast convictions—that a good life was rewarded in heaven, and that loving families were gathered in eternal union in what he described to himself as their Heavenly Home. It was a beautiful, touching belief, and he was horrified to think that Victoria doubted it. That explained her unreasonable grief for the Duchess; what a hard and comfortless thought to harbor in her heart.

“You must have stronger faith, dearest,” he said earnestly. “You must never, never allow yourself to doubt what you know to be true. And when the time comes for one of us to die, it will help the other to bear it so much better if they realize it is only a little separation.”

Victoria suddenly threw her arms round his neck. She clung so tightly it was quite uncomfortable. “I won’t think about that. Albert, you are not to mention that happening to us, or I shall break down completely. I can’t bear the thought of it. Please, darling, don’t talk about it any more. I’ll try and control myself and not fret over Mama so much. And I know I shall see her again and we’ll be just as happy as we were before. But don’t mention one of us dying.”