by Roland Perry
‘Oh, he will agree, Noble,’ Victoria said, with a mixed expression of haughtiness and certitude. ‘I am the head of the Church, remember.’
‘Of course, ma’am,’ Noble said with a nod which grew into a bow.
Victoria pointed to another drawing.
‘It is this window in which I wish to see a second depiction in the bottom half. Again the top half may be of some other religious symbolism and, again, you may choose it.’
Noble leant over the second drawing and peered at it closely.
‘It is the same . . .queen,’ he said, ‘with a . . .’
‘A child clinging to her. Not a baby, mind you, a grown child.’
‘Hmm. Unusual. Is there meaning here, majesty?’
Seeing her famous look of disapproval for the question, he added quickly: ‘I only wish to have a sense of what I am to create, majesty.’
‘Just do your very best, Noble, which I know will be brilliant. I want the light to shine over the lord’s grave outside the church and onto the monument inside.’
‘Of course, majesty,’ he said, bowing again and aware that the consultation was over.
‘Just one question, if I may, majesty. What happens if the priest objects to my handiwork when he returns from his “sabbatical”? If he wants to remove the monument, he will have to take the Church down around it.’
‘If he objects he will have to live with it, Noble, or leave his parish.’
Husna received a letter from De Courey Peele,telling her of Elphinstone’s death at the same time she heard from the deceased man himself. Even though she assessed he was dying in his last days in Bombay, she was devastated by the sad news. She decided to leave India and return to Sweden where she hoped she would finally be accepted as a qualified medical practitioner.
34
THE END FOR ALBERT’S TORMENT
Exhausted by the emotion over Elphinstone, other family deaths and the usual issues of state, in the autumn of 1860 Victoria took time off with Albert to visit Prussia for the first time. A few weeks into the stay Albert was in an accident when he jumped clear of his runaway four-horse carriage just before it collided with a wagon at a level-crossing, He seemed to recover but Stockmar, whom Victoria and Albert visited, made the stark observation that Albert had been affected by the incident more than anyone realised.The prince, he believed, was not a resilient enough soul to overcome a serious illness if one were to befall him.
Stockmar’s private comment showed some prescience when Albert was about to leave Coburg. The prince broke down in front of his brother, saying he would never see his birthplace again. Albert was a sad figure, who had let his body and spirit go to seed. He was only 41 but physically and spiritually defeated. He teetered between hypochondria and real medical issues. A bright spot in his medical care was Clark’s retirement, aged 73. Albert had never approved of him and could never understand why Victoria had ordered her husband to be his patient when others had deserted him 21 years earlier. Clark had been replaced by Dr William Baly, a younger man with a brilliant reputation. But late in 1860 he was killed in a train accident, leaving Albert bereft. Clark did his duty at Victoria’s request and returned part time to find another doctor. He secured William Jenner, a pathologist. Albert continued to suffer ailment after ailment, from teeth problems to swollen glands, yet nothing, it seemed, would slow down his strenuous work habits. It was as if he had to keep proving himself in the special role that he had created as consort.
Matters were made worse for the royal couple when the Duchess of Kent died at Windsor on 16 March 1861. Victoria was present with Albert, who had done much as the mediator to bring mother and daughter together after years of bitter estrangement. Albert was upset. He had been close to his mother-in-law, aware that, along with Stockmar and Leopold, she had been instrumental in arranging his life with her daughter. Victoria had never completely forgiven her mother for her behaviour when she (Victoria) was ill at Ramsgate and for banishing Elphinstone from the kingdom. The duchess’s siding with Conroy in taking her lover from her had made Victoria think that her mother did not love her. But, on going through her mother’s papers, she realised that the opposite had been true. In recent years, the duchess and Victoria had been as close as any other mother and daughter in her circle, or perhaps even an average family. There were so many family events, births, deaths, marriages and birthdays among them that there was much to gossip about. They had been drawn together. But those private papers made Victoria realise that this love was not a late thing. Her mother had always had good feelings towards her, despite what the duchess perceived as Victoria’s headstrong adolescent years. The duchess’s death, Victoria’s remorse about not being fully aware of how her mother felt about her all along, and now the sense that another powerful influence in her life had been taken from her, combined to cause a breakdown, a profound bout of depression.
Victoria wrote to Leopold, telling him she felt no longer cared for by anyone. Albert was too busy to fill the void or even be aware that he could give more to his wife at this moment of loss. Yet she dared not reproach her husband, who was forever under a tremendous workload. Instead, she went into months of mourning interspersed with bouts of melancholia and hysteria. It reached a point where many at court, including Albert, wondered once more if she had inherited the madness of her grandfather, George III. This amateur assessment of her severe and unmedicated depression had come up occasionally in her life. Now, as she matured and moved into her forties, it was more frequently a subject for discussion among the chattering classes connected with the royal court. Shielded from the gossip, Victoria wore black for months out of respect for her mother as much as sadness for herself.
Victoria longed to be closer to Albert. She needed his attention now more than ever but he seemed unable to recover from his riding accident. His own ‘down’ periods and prolonged listless spells made her concerned about him.The thought of losing him was unbearable.
On the way to Stockholm, Husna De Crepeney diverted by boat to London and visited St Peter’s in Limpsfield to mark the birthday of the thirteenth lord on 23 June 1861. She arrived wearing a long black dress and hat, and could hear Matthew Noble putting the finishing touches to his creation of Victoria’s commissioned memorial. Husna found Elphinstone’s grave outside and placed a dozen roses on it. She ventured to the entrance and watched Noble chiselling at a huge marble block, his face covered by a gauze mask. He stopped working, took off his mask and approached her.
‘Can I help, madam?’ he asked. ‘I’m afraid the church is closed for a renovation. I am just finishing this work. We have a very important visitor coming in two hours.’
Robed church figures were bustling about, looking nervous.
Husna smiled.
‘It is pleasing,’ she said, ‘very pleasing that your little queen has sought to honour such a great man this way.’
‘Who are you?’ Noble asked impatiently, while still surprised at Husna’s comment.
‘I was Lord John’s very good friend and lover,’ she said, matter of factly. She stepped over to the marble figure and placed two roses in the finely honed hands.
‘How did you know—’ Noble began and then checked himself. His project was meant to be secret. Before he could say more, she had walked outside. He paced to the door to see her disappearing down steps to a waiting carriage on the road. Noble looked up for what he later described as the shock of his life. At the top of the hill running down to the church was an entourage of three carriages and several mounted and kilted guardsmen. He had no doubt that the gilded carriage in the middle of the halted procession was occupied by Queen Victoria. Noble went into a flap. He had been shaving off a few blemishes on the monument but now had to stop and have it swept up for Victoria, who was two hours early for the first viewing of Elphinstone’s effigy.
Victoria and her entourage watched in silence as Husna’s carriage clattered by up the hill to the road back to London.Victoria noted that, like her, its passenger was dre
ssed in black and she was curious to know who had been in the church before her. Could it be that Elphinstone’s half-sister come to pay her respects, she wondered.
Church dignitaries ran to the hill-top to greet, bow and beckon the royal procession down the hill. Victoria was helped from the carriage by two ladies-in-waiting and escorted by the stand-in priest, the rotund Reverend Arnold Potter, to the church’s entrance.
‘Who was that visitor, Noble?’ Victoria asked sharply as she stepped inside.
‘She did not give her name, majesty, but she did venture the most extraordinary comment.’
‘Oh, and what did she say?’ Victoria asked, trying hard to sound only vaguely interested.
‘Well, she claimed to be a good friend of the thirteenth lord’s, majesty, and . . .’
‘And, Noble?’
‘Er . . . um . . .’ He began with a nervous giggle, ‘She also claimed to be the lord’s lover, majesty.’
‘Lover? Poppycock!’ Victoria gathered herself and with a wince added,‘Really, Noble, you should not have allowed such an odd stranger into the church.’ She looked around and glared at the officials, who all examined their feet. Her eyes fell on the memorial, but she blinked at the two roses, which sat in the reclining statue’s hands.
‘Those flowers,’ she snapped, ‘get rid of them.’ She turned to a lady-in-waiting and motioned for her to place a small bunch of mixed flowers on the marble hands.
‘How . . .how . . .do you like the work, majesty?’ Noble asked bravely.
Victoria wandered close and leaned over the face. She was making an effort to compose herself and said after a lengthy pause, ‘It is remarkably good, Noble. Quite, quite special. Better than I imagined and so lifelike. I thank you.’
‘I am most honoured and grateful, majesty,’ Noble said with genuine relief.
Victoria admired the windows she had requested. She looked around and said: ‘Now, please, take me to the graveside.’ Reverend Potter, showing a certain presence of mind, scurried outside, grabbed the six roses on the grave and scattered them on other graves out of sight, just before Victoria appeared.
‘He was a very loyal servant of the crown,’ Victoria said, in an indirect effort to justify her being there, eyeing Potter and Noble.‘Saved India for the empire.’
At Elphinstone’s graveside, she bowed her head for a moment, causing the entire entourage and the church officials to do the same. After wandering with everyone else in tow into the church’s western graveyard, she spotted a couple of Husna’s scattered roses. She turned to Potter and said with a momentary wince rather than a smile: ‘Lovely roses, Reverend.’
Potter went red and swallowed before stepping forward to ask Victoria if she would like to stay for food and refreshment.
‘We have come a long way,’ she said, ‘and, yes, we would like that very much, thank you.’ Prince Albert slid into a mental and physical abyss through 1861, culminating in distress over nineteen-year-old Colonel Bertie’s dalliance with a prostitute, Nellie Clifden, at the Curragh military training camp, at Kildare, Ireland. Boisterous fellow officers paid Nellie to be in Bertie’s bed when he returned after a bout of drinking with them. Her royal duty, she was told, was to give the prince and future King of England ‘freedom from his state of virginity’. Nellie went about her mission diligently and so well that he wanted to secret her back to Cambridge where he was a student.
Word of the relationship filtered back to the royal court. When Albert heard of this event, he was mortified. It hurt him to think that his son had strayed so far from the godly life he had directed and instructed. The timing too upset Albert. A marriage was being arranged for Bertie. Victoria tried to placate Albert.
‘It is such a vile and crude thing to do!’ Albert remarked.
‘He is sowing his wild oats,’ Victoria said.‘Something not unknown in both our families.’
‘Yes, but apart from animal lust associated with his pursuits, it is so dangerous! It opens him to blackmail, ridicule, everything. It reflects on you and me so badly. Such depravity could threaten the monarchy.’
‘Now darling—’
‘No,think of it.It is just what those awful Scottish and Irish republicans would love to see. Ammunition for their cause.’ Albert buried his head in his hands.‘How could we produce such a thoughtless offspring?’
Hearing of her father’s distress, Vicky, on a trip to London, met with Bertie at Kensington Palace when he was on leave from Kildare.The air was crisp when they walked the fields close to the palace.
‘Papa is so distressed over your . . .“affair” with that notorious woman.’
Bertie was embarrassed.
‘You must understand, Bertie, he is from a different background than Mama. Such matters are abhorrent to Papa.’
‘Yes, “sex”. It is so appalling to him. I often wonder how we got here.’
‘But it’s not the same with Mama. She is a Hanoverian.They have a different outlook.’
‘She is an awful prude like him.’
‘I am afraid you are wrong there.’
‘What do you mean? How do you know?’
‘I cannot say.’
‘You can tell me. I thought there were no secrets between us.’
Vicky stopped and turned to Bertie, eyeballing him. ‘If I tell you, will you never mention it to anyone?’
He nodded, intrigued. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I’d never divulge anything you told me.’
Vicky knew this to be true. There was a strong bond between the siblings.
‘Mother wrote to me a long letter about an affair she had before she met Papa.’
Bertie was stunned. His eyes bulged as he struggled to assimilate this information.
‘Who was it? Not the Duke of Cambridge? Not one of those ghastly Dutch?’
‘Lord Elphinstone.’
Bertie’s hand went to his mouth. ‘No! He was often at the court, but . . .’
‘He was appointed by Mama. She wanted him there.’
‘I remember being told that he was sent to India for something . . .’
‘He was sent to Madras after his relationship with Mama.’ She paused to let the astonishing news sink. Her brother was torn between revelation and incredulity.
‘I liked the man so much,’ Bertie mumbled.
‘We all did, including Mama, very much.’
‘I often wished he, or someone like him, was my father.’
‘Mama was fifteen and very much in love before she met Papa. In that sense there was no betrayal of Papa.’
Bertie was deep in thought.‘You say she said this all in a letter?’
Vicky nodded. ‘Yes. It is safe with me,’ she said, ‘as is all our correspondence.’
‘She always wrote to you.’
Vicky touched his arm.‘Oh, Bertie, you know you are an appalling correspondent! If you had replied, she would have written much to you. She wants so much to know everything from all of us.’
‘I know,Vicky.You’re right.’
They strolled on. A shepherd was moving about fifty sheep close to them.
‘Amazing,’ Bertie said, shaking his head. ‘I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.’
‘You know you are like her?’
‘What?’
‘Mama had admitted that she fears you are the male version of her.’
Bertie was surprised.‘She never told me!’
‘It’s not the sort of thing to tell a son.’
He smiled ruefully and said: ‘I suppose not.’
‘It might encourage you to think—’
‘That cavorting with the likes of Nellie was acceptable?’
Vicky nodded. Then she stopped and turned again to him, her expression serious again. ‘Could you consider dropping her?’ she asked.
He stared. ‘They haven’t sent you to abort my relationship, have they?’
‘No, of course not. But I do know that Papa has organised a wonderful woman for you to marry.’
Bertie clench
ed his fists and stamped his foot. ‘They have been doing that for a year. I hate this!’
‘You won’t, dear brother, when you meet her.’
Bertie shook his head again. They waited until the shepherd had eased his herd past them.
‘Who is she?’ he asked.
‘That I cannot tell you.’
‘But you know her.’
‘I’ve met her. She is easily, easily the most beautiful woman of royal blood in the world.’
Bertie’s interest piqued. He tried not to show it.
‘Why not tell me?’ he asked.
‘That is the privilege of our papa. But I would ask you to let go this whore—’
‘She is no whore! She wants to be an actress . . .and I can help her.’
‘That’s in the future. She is now a common Irish prostitute, is she not?’
Bertie hung his head. ‘I don’t see her as common,’ he mumbled. ‘She . . .she is funny and amusing and interested in music.’
Vicky rolled her eyes. ‘Get rid of her!’
Bertie looked defiant.
When St Peter’s priest returned from France after a year away, he was not pleased with the large, elegant memorial to Elphinstone. He wanted the ‘carbuncle of a thing’ removed but was told by a higher church authority that this was impossible. The priest was never informed why the monument had been put there and who had commissioned it. Nor did he have much idea of Elphinstone’s achievements, which had received modest mention in the press.The reverend father had to accept it for the rest of his term at Limpsfield.
The efforts of Victoria and Albert with Bertie were a repeat of the events that had happened to them twenty years earlier when they, as young adults, were manipulated into a relationship to satisfy the royal social engineering ambitions of the Duchess of Kent and Leopold.The difference was that the two callow youths were at least consulted en route to their coupling. Albert’s dictation rather than consultation left Bertie confused. But this befuddlement was offset to an extent when he learned, as his sister had said with such certitude, just how beautiful his proposed bride would be.The young woman in question, Princess Alexandra of Denmark, would have no such luxury or compensation to look forward to. Albert wrote a ‘carrot and stick’ letter to his son. It demonstrated his shrewd mind by conjuring a picture of Nellie, now in London, becoming pregnant to one of her many ‘admirers’ in the burlesque halls. Albert warned that she would claim that Bertie was the father.
