The weeks after Albert and Ernest’s departure were sad and drab. I believe that they were harder on me than anyone else in the household, for I had to keep it from everyone that Albert and I had become sincerely attached to each other.
The only thing that lightened my gloom was the feeling that Albert shared my sense of having met a true kindred soul. As he followed his brother down the stairs to the carriage on the very last morning of their stay, he took my hand and drew me aside.
‘I entreat you,’ he said out of earshot of his brother, ‘to permit me to write to you.’
‘With pleasure,’ I said and smiled.
It was only as his back disappeared out of sight that I gasped with the boldness of what I had done. To enter into a secret correspondence with a young man would ruin my reputation if it were to become known. And it was contrary to the stated wishes of both the duchess and King Leopold of the Belgians, no less.
‘What was he saying to you?’ asked Victoria curiously, as the carriage drove away.
‘Oh, nothing!’
I should have realised that such a response would only encourage her.
‘Really, Miss V!’ she said. ‘Come on. You never have anything scandalous to tell me. What’s the secret?’
In the end I told her to leave me alone because I had a headache. And in truth the wretched, miserable experience of the princes’ departure had made me physically ill.
‘Well, go and lie down, Miss V,’ said Victoria. ‘You do look pale. I shall have to take care of you. It’s just you and me again now, isn’t it? Come on, to the sofa and rest, and then later on we’ll take Dash out. We haven’t taken him for a run together for ages.’
Her unwitting kindness made me feel even worse.
I knew that Albert, too, could see only insurmountable obstacles ahead of us. We could correspond, but it would hardly ease the pain of parting. He could never ask for my hand in marriage. The System would not allow it.
The daily round of pianoforte, walking Dash and writing letters resumed. Once I had revelled in this quiet life, but now it seemed a little tame. Partial relief came in the form of an invitation, in the summer, to Windsor Castle. Now that Victoria was an interesting young lady of seventeen, who had danced at a masquerade, King William the Fourth decided that he wanted to take a look at his niece. In the days before the visit, we at least had the excitement of packing a trunk and preparing dresses.
‘Oh!’ Victoria said one morning while I was reading and she was opening letters from Germany. The princess was also in correspondence with Albert, I knew, as a cousin and a friend, exactly as her Uncle Leopold would have wished. ‘The boys have been to a spa. Swimming! How about that?’
All at once I blushed and hung my head, feeling guiltier and worse than ever. I had so nearly said that I already knew about the trip to Baden Baden. ‘I … didn’t realise,’ I stammered out, ‘that Albert could swim.’
‘Why should you?’ she asked, but idly, scanning the rest of the letter quickly as if it bored her. ‘It is surprising. I suppose he is a bit of a drip. I can’t imagine he’s much good at it.’
‘Well, he does ride, and shoot, and hunt!’ I piped up loyally.
‘Really?’ she asked. ‘I never heard him talk about that. Only about boring old books or music or paintings. Yawn. What a pair of goody-goodies you both are. But I’m glad you mentioned it, because, do you realise, it’s practically the first thing you’ve said all morning? Come on, enough reading. Where have we got to with the wretched Windsor dresses?’
It was only with memories of Albert, especially his kiss on the night of the fire, that I consoled myself during the dull hours as Lehzen and I aired and refurbished Victoria’s gowns for a reception, a dinner and two nights away. There had been much negotiation, as was standard between the two rival courts of the king and the duchess, about the length of our stay. It had been finally determined as two nights.
Victoria herself was deeply ambivalent. Since our very first visit to Windsor to see the old king, the gloss for her had worn off. She wanted nothing to do with the king and the court, nothing that would remind her of what lay ahead. We had to coax her into the carriage, for appealing to her morality and reminding her of where her duty lay only made things worse.
When finally we climbed in and took the road to the west, my thoughts could not help but return to the time I had travelled in the opposite direction to begin my life at Kensington Palace. That had been long ago, before I met my dearest friend Victoria, and my dearest Albert. Then, as now, I sat opposite my father. But I pondered on how much stronger and more confident I had become. I knew now that I need not be a slave to my shyness. I still had it – I always would – but when I tried, I could cast it aside.
This time we were heading straight to Windsor Castle itself, a fine, fairy-tale sight as we climbed up the steep road into Windsor town.
‘King George the Fourth, bless his selfish old soul, really was quite marvellous at devising buildings,’ said my father, admiring the turrets and towers against the sky.
‘Yes,’ the duchess was quick to respond. ‘That is why he was so tight with his money that he never gave the future queen her rightful allowance!’
Once we had been shown to our rooms in the castle, I quickly went to find Victoria, hardly stopping to wash my hands and certainly without a pause to rest. I was very worried about her and about how she would behave during this stay.
As was only right for the princess, she had been given a vast room, and it was to be found along a wide, curved corridor. I discovered her standing and staring out of the window. There was a tremendous view over the great park below, with its avenue of trees marching up and up towards the sky. Merely the thought of walking along that seemingly endless avenue made me tired. And Victoria herself appeared still to be in a particularly sombre frame of mind.
‘Are you thinking about the time when you will come to live here yourself? I asked lightly, not wanting to intrude, but wanting to help if I could.
She turned and threw herself down upon the small armchair near the window. ‘Yes, I am,’ she said. ‘It’s splendid, isn’t it? So much more magnificent than Kensington Palace. But almost … like a cage. I won’t be able to walk in that park without many eyes looking at me from this great barrack of a building. This must be one of a hundred windows.’
‘But, Victoria,’ I pointed out, ‘ever since you were a baby you’ve had people watching you. You, more than anyone, are used to it.’
‘But at Kensington Palace I had you and Lehzen, and there are no crowds of people there unless we hold a party. Here it will be different. Everything will be different. I shall be quite alone.’
She sat unusually quietly, still looking out at the trees. In her face I could see traces of the ghostly, ghastly little girl I had first met at Kensington Palace. ‘I shall not leave you all alone if I can help it,’ I whispered to myself, and clenched my fists.
‘You know, there’s only nine months to my eighteenth birthday now,’ she said, turning suddenly as if reading my mind. ‘Everyone knows. Don’t pretend that your father and Uncle Leopold – and other people too, I’m sure – don’t keep calendars and count the days down.’
It was true. I could not deny that I had often seen my father looking in his pocketbook after dinner and checking off another passing day. I knew without being told that he was hoping the old king would die before Victoria’s eighteenth birthday so that there would be a regency. I needed no reminding that the duchess and he would then step forward as powers behind the throne.
‘Exactly, and I don’t think that the king will die tomorrow,’ I said. ‘He may be old and sick, but I’m sure that he will live another nine months. You will rule for yourself, as you want to, as a grown-up. I’m certain of that.’
She smiled a sad little smile. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I believe that the very thought of a regency makes my uncle the king cling on to life, so little does he want my mother and your father to rule.’
I also believed this to be true, for my father was not popular at court. I knew that we had to be more careful than ever of assassins, intruders, chills, illnesses and, more subtly, a loss of confidence that could reduce her chances of success.
‘Of course your uncle will live until at least then,’ I said with more warmth than I felt. ‘He is a tough old sailor, is he not? He sailed in the Royal Navy before he was king. And you wouldn’t be alone in any case. Lehzen and I will come with you, if you will have us, and in due course you will marry.’
‘Marry.’ Her eyes turned away and roamed back out of the window, towards the trees. ‘They all want me to marry,’ she said. ‘But I have met the only man I could ever marry, and he is gone away.’
It pained me to think of Uncle Leopold’s plan for Victoria and Albert, but I could not resist the chance of mentioning his name. ‘But you know your cousin Albert is your uncle’s choice. Have you changed your mind at all?’ I closed my eyes as if they were tired while I waited for her answer. I did not want her to be able to read my expression.
‘Well, he’s perfectly nice,’ she conceded. ‘But he’s too quiet. He likes going to bed too early. Do you know what, Miss V? He reminds me of you. You’re good for me; he’d be good for me; I know that. But I don’t always want things that are good for me. Sometimes I want things that are BAD.’
She was right about Albert’s love of early hours. When in recent weeks Victoria had been ragging and raging late at night and insisting that we should all stay up late, I had often wished that Albert had been there with his quiet, clever way of breaking up the party and allowing everyone else to retire. I had seen for myself that he had a knack of persuading her to do the thoughtful and sensible thing without the usual dramatic scenes.
‘But, Victoria!’ I could not help responding. ‘I’m not just like … medicine for you, am I? I’m not always such a prim little miss as you make out, you know.’
‘Oh yes, you are,’ she said. ‘Far too good to live on earth really. You ought truly to be an angel. You make me sit up straighter. But I still love you, you know, you dear old thing. We are like two old prisoners in a jail, are we not? We’re used to each other – after all, we’ve shared a cell for a long time now.’
With that she threw an arm around me and gave me a bold, smacking kiss. It was the sort of thing her mother did the whole time, but Victoria could somehow imbue such a light action with real warmth of feeling. When Jane had done this kind of thing, years ago, it had made me rigid with tension. But with Victoria it was easy to squeeze her back.
‘Ergh!’
With one of her strange, wild swings of mood, she pushed me away, leaned her head forward between her knees and began tearing at her hair. ‘I wish I were an ordinary girl! With dozens of gentlemen calling upon me and asking my hand in marriage, and me refusing them all!’
This was exactly the sort of thing that could damage her irreparably if anyone else heard her. ‘Oh, nonsense,’ I said. ‘Your uncle will choose well for you. And come on, it’s time to dress.’
‘No,’ she said, ‘I won’t dress. I don’t want to go to the stupid dinner with all those stupid, stuffy courtiers. You must go in my place.’
‘Victoria!’ I cried. ‘Don’t be silly. Come on, you really must pull yourself together.’
‘Pull yourself together, behave properly, that’s always, always the way, isn’t it?’ she said wildly. She began stripping off her dress, and was soon leaping about the room in her petticoat and pantaloons. ‘I’m not going,’ she shrieked. ‘I can’t go and sit there, good as gold, to be looked at. I really can’t. Honestly, Miss V, the only way I could get through it would be to take some of mother’s drops. Go and get them for me if you want me to go.’
I stared at her aghast. Then she leapt into the enormous bed and buried her head under the pillow. She lay there, silent.
I really was flummoxed. I was used to such displays, but at a time like this! With the king and his court waiting for us within the hour! I felt almost angry at her, as she placed me in a most trying position, but it was also tragic to see her so unhappy. What was I to do?
As I stood there uncertainly, hoping that Victoria would change her mind, the duchess came bustling in. But she had as little success as I in making Victoria talk, let alone dress. Her hot temper was quickly roused, and she spoke sharply to Victoria in German.
‘There’s nothing for it.’ Finally some words came distantly from under the counterpane, and at the sound the duchess froze. ‘Miss V will have to go in my place. Otherwise there will be an empty seat and a scandal, and the king will think that you, Mother, cannot be trusted to look after me at all.’ Victoria’s voice was buried beneath the pillow, but we heard her clearly enough.
Dismayed, the duchess and I stared at each other.
‘Vickelchen!’ she begged. ‘Please do not kill me with embarrassment. Please do me the credit of appearing like a good princess should.’
At that Victoria poked her head out from under the covers.
‘Mother!’ she said. ‘You don’t understand. I am not a good princess. I really cannot go down. My nerves will not let me. You must go, with Miss V, and all will be well.’
The duchess seized my elbow in a steely grip.
‘Get ready,’ she hissed. ‘Curl your hair. We will be at the top table. We will be far from the eyes of the crowd, and King William has not seen his niece since she has been grown up.’
I turned to her, embarrassed that she would recommend such a crazy course of action. But then I remembered just how crazy she was.
‘Go on, Miss V,’ came a little voice from the bed. ‘Please. Go and play my part for me. Don’t make me take the drops.’
I stood, dithering.
‘You’re letting us all down,’ I said to Victoria sharply, perhaps as sharply as I’d ever spoken to her.
‘Please!’ She begged me again. ‘Please! Don’t make me take the drops.’
It was the mention of the drops that did it. I succumbed to the two powerful personalities.
As soon as she saw my tentative, doubting nod of agreement, the duchess was pushing and pulling me into Victoria’s silver gown. It fitted so well it was almost made for me. But it was cut lower on the shoulders than I would ever have permitted in a gown of my own.
‘Look at your neck!’ the duchess said encouragingly. ‘It is as long as a swan’s. You will be very fine. Here, rings.’
I dropped one of them as I tried in my haste to thrust them too quickly on to my fingers. My eye caught my own familiar hands, bejewelled and lying against the backdrop of a skirt of rich, lustrous silver.
But there was no time to contemplate how odd they looked there.
‘Tiara!’ The duchess was back in front of me, more urgent than any lady’s maid would ever dare to be, imperiously gesturing me to bow my head for the reception of diamonds. Her hands were here, there and everywhere in a blur of motion, tweaking and thrusting my hair into place. ‘I wish,’ she said, through gritted teeth, ‘that it was this easy to dress Vickelchen.’
All too soon it was done, and I was standing uncertainly in the middle of the room without even having had the chance to examine myself in the looking glass.
‘There, Miss V! Now turn round and let me have one last check.’
Anxiously the duchess inspected my dress, smoothed my hair.
She smiled.
I passed the test.
‘You do look like her,’ she said, half pleased, half amazed. ‘You have always served us well, Vickelchen and I,’ she went on, imploring me with her big, bold eyes. I could see that they were bright with tears, and that it was only with a frantic, blinking effort that she was able to keep the liquid from spilling over. ‘Serve us now!’ she begged again. ‘Play your part!’
She turned decisively and led the way from the room. Then there was nothing for it but to follow her along the corridor, past the footmen, down the stairs. I kept close behind her, almost stepping on her train, my eyes on the floor. I was an impostor! This was a deception! Surely we would never carry it off. I felt my old enemy, my blush, starting to colour my cheeks. Nothing kept me walking but my memory of Victoria begging me to go down in her place.
At the bottom of the stairs, by some mismanagement of the household staff, there stood gathered a group of maids and porters. The duchess tut-tutted, but they parted like waves at our approach, and there was a general bending of the knees in curtseys. Then, from behind us as we passed, a young voice piped up.
‘God bless you, Princess Victoria!’ it said.
The young housemaid who had spoken was instantly shushed by her companions. These were well-trained servants who knew that they were to be seen and not heard. But somehow they did have their own way of expressing approbation. There was a murmur, or susurration, from among them, and I felt that they were pleased. As I walked away in the duchess’s wake, I straightened my back. I felt their hopeful eyes upon me, and their collective gaze strengthened my spine.
As we reached the very door of the drawing room, it occurred to me with a sickening jolt that a moment of great danger lay ahead.
My father would be there.
With seconds to go I prepared myself. Look for him at once, I told myself, just as a pair of footmen in powdered wigs, as if from the palace in the story of Cinderella, bowed and threw wide the double doors.
I saw before me a glittering crowd filling a rich, dim interior, a blue evening sky still softly glowing behind the vast windows of the drawing room.
The colourful blur soon began to separate itself into individual figures, and there he was. His mouth was open in an expression of amazement, and his brows were coming down to wrinkle his forehead into deep, black creases. Of course he was angry. The System did not allow such perilous tricks as this.
But I sensed the duchess ahead of me giving him a quelling look, and I gave him the tiniest shake of the head. He slowly closed his open mouth. He said nothing.
But as soon as he had the chance, he came slinking up behind me. ‘In the Lord’s name, what is going on, Miss V? Is this some silly girls’ game?’
‘It is by the wish of the princess,’ I said drily, and without further ado, stepped forward to greet another courtier who tottered towards me in unsuitable shoes and too many pearls.
For the rest of the evening, I had very little to do apart from to smile and look pleased as a succession of elderly ladies and gentlemen were introduced to me, all of them peering at me through their quizzing glasses or taking my hand limply in cold fingers and letting it drop. If anyone paused to talk, I deflected attention away from myself with polite questions to the speaker.
The old king was the next challenge, perhaps the biggest threat of all to our carrying off our deception. First he spoke to the duchess, as shortly as was compatible with politeness. I could see her back bristle up like a cat’s at the lack of respect.
Then she was turning and shoving me forward, and I was curtseying as deeply as I ever had done.
But as I rose and looked at him, he seemed scarcely able to make me out in the gloom of the great drawing room, lit by rather too few oil lamps. As he peered, I received an impression of geniality but disinterest.
‘Is that my niece?’ he croaked. ‘Welcome, my dear. You are always welcome here at the castle. What a pretty dress.’
Then the ordeal was over, we moved on and into the crowd. Suddenly my stays felt tight. I realised that I had been holding my breath ever since we had entered the drawing room, and had only now let it out.
As the duchess and I led the procession out of the drawing room through to dinner, I found myself strangely proud of my performance. After all, to stand and smile, to listen and nod, had been my life, a life of service. That is what these people wanted of their princess, someone to take their hands and ask them questions and make them feel good about themselves.
I could do this. I could do this.
It was such a tragedy that Victoria, the real princess, could not.