It was Lehzen who noticed that I had something on my mind.
Her lean figure suddenly loomed above me as I sat on the sofa in the princess’s apartment the next afternoon, trying to concentrate on my book. The whiff of caraway preceded her as she leaned over with a newspaper to slap at a fly buzzing against the pane of glass behind me.
Victoria was at the pianoforte, separated from us by several overstuffed chairs, a variety of little tables, a potted fern and a broken rocking horse. As usual her playing was more forte than piano. She was practising scales, which sounded like a giant running up the stairs and back down again. There was no denying that she had a great love for music but, as Lehzen was constantly telling her, she lacked lightness of touch.
Lehzen’s deadly aim dispatched the fly. She raised the sash to let in a little more air, but instead of retreating back to the stool from where she’d been turning the pages of the music for the princess, she folded her angular body down on to the sofa next to me.
‘What are you reading, Miss V?’
Lehzen, I knew, would never embark directly upon a personal conversation, so I understood that this was just a warm-up question. I showed her the volume of poetry I held in my hand, though in truth I had absorbed little of it.
‘Sir Walter Scott … “The Violet” …’ she read, talking out of the side of that mouth of hers that never seemed to open itself properly. ‘Violet, lavender, mauve … and you, Miss V. Conroy, are looking mauve under your eyes today, and very pale too. Did you not enjoy a good repose last night?’
I looked away from her out into the sun-filled courtyard. Today a ginger cat belonging to one of the sleepy apartments on the other side sat on the step licking itself. It was the only sign of life.
‘It was a little too hot for sound sleep,’ I conceded. I had gone up early so that I would be out of the way when my father returned. I had the excuse of our disturbed rest the night before. But then, naturally, I had been unable to sleep and had risen several times in the night to open the window and to fetch a glass of water.
‘You are in many ways the oldest and wisest of us all,’ Lehzen continued, staring straight ahead at the potted fern and leaning forward to snap off a dead dry frond from it, just as if her mind were quite concentrated upon the care of houseplants. ‘But I fear,’ she continued, ‘that despite having your father to hand you must miss your mother.’
‘My mother is not … like the duchess,’ I stammered, uncomfortable with the more delicate turn our talk had taken.
‘You mean she is not so passionate, so bold?’ Certainly Lehzen was right to note that the duchess was a tempestuous character. But what I had really meant was that I’d observed, despite the drama, that the duchess was deeply devoted to her daughter, while my own mother back at Arborfield had seemed scarcely to notice when I came or went. As far as I knew, she had never asked after me since I had left. And she had still never once written.
I did not want to think about the duchess, though, so I sat mute, shaking my head. To my horror, tears had filled my eyes.
Lehzen’s bony hand was on top of my own. ‘What is it, little one?’ she was whispering in her deep voice. Victoria had moved on to arpeggios, staring down at her fingers in total concentration. ‘What has upset you?’
‘My … father … I saw … the duchess …’
Her unexpected kindness had overwhelmed me, and I could not keep the quaver out of my voice as I tried to swallow a sob.
Lehzen looked grim. Abandoning the pretence that the potted plant interested her, she twisted my unwilling shoulders towards her and forced me to look up at her. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked sharply. ‘Did you see something … improper?’
From the concern in her eyes, I realised that she had suspicions of her own. ‘Last night,’ I stammered, ‘I … saw them … t-t-together.’
It was a breach of the System to mention it, I sensed that. I knew that nothing good could come of this. I had vowed to say nothing. But it was such a sweet relief to share what I knew, even with the desiccated Lehzen.
‘What were they doing?’ she hissed.
Victoria moved on to a creeping, hammering finger exercise that created a cloud of sound.
‘I saw them together. Out in the grotto. They were hugging, or … fighting, or something. It seemed wrong.’
Lehzen’s hand flew up to her mouth. ‘Lieber Gott!’ she hissed. ‘I had hoped there was no truth in these rumours.’
I hung my head, panting. For a moment I wished that she would treat me a little less like a colleague and more like what I was, her pupil. I needed someone to tell me what to do.
She seemed to recollect this.
‘Your father,’ she said sternly, ‘is not the only father in the world to have a … lady friend. It is quite normal. You know that even the king himself has lady friends, many of them. So does his brother the Duke of Clarence, who lives with an actress. It is not uncommon in good society. Even the Princess Sophia, who lives across the courtyard, has an illegitimate son, you know.’
I was surprised to hear this, but it did not really help. I hung my head lower, while tears trickled silently down into the bib of my pale blue summer dress. My own father! I had thought there were no secrets between us. It pained me to think that I was wrong.
She gave me an awkward pat on the shoulder, and in no time at all I found myself cradled against her angular bosom. ‘They have no discretion!’ she said. ‘They will bring down the System if they are not careful. And what will become of us all then?’
I sniffed and hiccupped. ‘But what should I do? I think I must ask if I can go home. I must ask my father if I can go home to my mother.’ My words came out as half a whisper, half a sob.
‘No,’ said Lehzen firmly, ‘you cannot do that. The princess needs you. We must all be together.’ She paused, sighed and continued in a softer voice. ‘Madame de Späth and I need you too. We have come to love you, you know. Do not leave us.’
A new fountain of tears started up in my eyes. Lehzen was sitting up straight now and spoke more decisively, handing me a handkerchief. ‘I am pleased that you have told me,’ she said. ‘But nothing good can come of your speaking of it to anyone else. Pretend all is well.’
Then she turned away from me. She muttered something, as if to herself, but with my sharp ears I heard her quite clearly. ‘But it is different for me. I cannot allow this to go on.’
Feeling just a little better, I took the handkerchief, dried my eyes and was even ready with weak applause when Victoria’s performance drew to its merciful end.