“I think the colour of the silk is matching your eyes, Majesty. It is most becoming.”
“I know, but Lord M says that he hates to see a woman in blue. He says it is not an elegant colour.”
Lehzen sniffed.
“Yes, I shall wear the brocade. I think it is more fashionable.”
Lehzen sniffed again.
“Do you have a cold, Baroness? Or do you disapprove of my choice?”
“I would never disagree with your choice, Majesty.”
Victoria saw the downward droop of her governess’s mouth in the mirror, but decided to ignore it.
“Diamonds or pearls?” she said, pointing at her jewellery box.
* * *
Melbourne was waiting for her in the antechamber that led from the private to the state apartments. “How splendid you look, ma’am.”
“Do you like this brocade? It comes from Venice, I believe. Mama does not like it; she says I am not old enough to wear it.”
“I think a queen can wear anything she wants.”
“Except blue; you told me that you never liked to see a woman in blue.”
“Did I, ma’am?” Melbourne smiled. “Are you ready to go in?”
“Quite ready, Lord M.”
The buzz and chatter of the three hundred guests went quiet as the double doors opened, and every head turned to catch sight of the new Queen. The silence gradually evaporated into a hum of excitement as people turned to each other to confirm their impressions of their new monarch.
“Small, certainly, but not a midget.”
“Everything is quite in proportion.”
“Of course she has the Hanoverian chin.”
“You mean the lack of one.”
“Nonsense. She is quite charming. What a change to have a pretty young Queen.”
“An eighteen-year-old girl who is barely out of the schoolroom, with a made-up name. I have never heard of anyone called Victoria. It’s preposterous.”
“I would rather have a Queen Victoria than a King Ernest.”
“I think Melbourne agrees. I have never seen him so attentive to a woman who wasn’t someone else’s wife.”
“I hear they are calling him the royal nursemaid in White’s.”
“Well, he has the experience—think of his wife.”
“Little Vicky must seem easy after Caro.”
“She needs a husband, of course.”
“Some German prince with side-whiskers and onions in his pockets.”
“Heavens preserve us. There are enough Germans in the palace.”
“Pumpernickel Palace.”
But Victoria could hear none of the swirl of chatter and gossip that surrounded her. The only voice she attended to was that of Lord Melbourne, whispering in her ear the names and attributes of the guests as they ascended the dais to be presented.
“This is the Duchess of Sutherland, ma’am. I think she would be an excellent candidate for Mistress of the Robes.”
Victoria looked at the tall, elegant brunette in front of her, whose hair was arranged à l’anglaise with cascades of ringlets on either side of her face. It was a style that Victoria admired very much but had never dared attempt.
She smiled as the Duchess raised herself from her curtsey. “I look forward to making your acquaintance, Duchess.”
As the Duchess retreated with great dignity towards the throng, Victoria turned to Melbourne. “She is most elegant, certainly, but is she respectable?”
Melbourne hardly missed a beat. “As respectable as a great lady can be, ma’am.”
“Lehzen says that the morals of the women in the highest ranks of society are deplorable. The duchesses, she says, are the worst.”
“Is the Baroness speaking from firsthand experience, I wonder, or has she perhaps been listening to gossip?”
“That is possible. Do you know that before our first audience she warned me about your reputation? She said you were disreputable.”
“Well, the Baroness is quite right there, of course.” Melbourne smiled at her. “If I were not your Prime Minister, there could be no excuse for you being alone with someone like me.”
“Now you are teasing me, Lord M.”
“On the contrary. Now, ma’am, I would like to present Lady Portman. Her husband is the Under-Secretary for the Colonies and something of a booby, but Emma Portman knows everybody and everything and I think would make an excellent member of your household.”
Lady Portman, a well-presented woman in middle age whose grey eyes glittered with intelligence, curtseyed before her.
“Lady Portman knew your father, ma’am.”
Emma Portman smiled. “I had the pleasure of dancing the polka with him, Your Majesty. The late Duke was an excellent dancer.”
Victoria looked delighted. “Really? I did not know that. I suppose that is why I love dancing so much, but I have not had much chance to practise.”
Emma smiled. “But surely there is to be a Coronation Ball, ma’am? I believe it is customary.”
“Oh, I do hope so.” She turned to Melbourne, suddenly concerned. “That is, if you think we can afford it, Lord M?”
Melbourne smiled. “As I trust you will only be having one coronation, ma’am, I think we can afford a little celebration.”
Victoria beamed. “I shall open the ball with you, Lord M.”
“Oh, I think you will find there will be more promising dancing partners, ma’am, but perhaps you will save me a dance further down your card.”
It was fortunate perhaps that only Lady Portman overheard this exchange, but others in the ballroom could not fail to observe the entente between the monarch and her prime minister. Sir John Conroy, who stood behind the sofa where the Duchess of Kent and Lady Flora sat, watched the conversation between the pair with a face that seemed frozen in disapproval.
“It seems, ma’am, that Melbourne means to fill your daughter’s household with the wives of his ministers. Do you see how he is introducing her only to ladies of the Whig faction?”
“But it is customary, I think, Sir John, for the ladies to come from the same party as the prime minister.”
“Perhaps, but they are all the wives of Melbourne’s particular friends. There is no one to check his influence on her.”
“I think she is a young girl who is enjoying the attentions of a man very much older than herself. It will all change when she marries.” The Duchess shrugged. “I shall write to Leopold and suggest that Albert and Ernst come and visit soon. Her cousins will distract her from Lord Melbourne.”
“I wish I could share your confidence, ma’am,” said Conroy.
Lady Flora leant towards the Duchess. “Her partiality for Melbourne has been much remarked. My brother says that it is the cause of gossip in the clubs. I wonder if the Queen is aware of how much interest her behaviour is provoking.”
The Duchess looked over to where her daughter was whispering to Melbourne behind her fan. “I am thinking that my daughter is aware of the dignity of her position, but there can be no harm in giving her some guidance,” she sighed, “although it is not easy for me to see her as it was at Kensington. We used to be so close; every night I would listen to her breathing and thank God that she was still alive. But now if I want to talk to her, I have to make an appointment.”
The line of guests to be presented to the Queen had finally dwindled to nothing. Seeing the Queen fighting to suppress a yawn, Melbourne leant over and asked her if she would like to bring the ceremony to a close.
“Oh, I have enjoyed it tremendously. But I confess that talking to so many new people has made me a trifle fatigued. I did not know there were so many ambassadors to the Court of St. James. The world is a much bigger place than I imagined.”
“You are a long way from Kensington today, ma’am.”
“I wish sometimes that I had been better prepared. I know that people expect me to talk to them, but I can never think of anything interesting to say.”
“You mustn’t worry on that
score, ma’am. Everything a queen says is interesting.”
Seeing her mother making her way toward her and having no desire to talk to her, Victoria stood up. At her movement the assembled company also stood and parted before their Queen like the Red Sea before Moses. As she left the room, the hum of conversation rose. If anyone noticed that the Queen had seemed anxious to avoid her mother, they did not mention it, or at least not until the men in their silk stockings and the women in their ostrich plumes were waiting outside for their carriages.
“Did you see how the Queen scurried away as the Duchess of Kent approached? It looked as though she would rather put an end to the Drawing Room than talk to her.”
“Sir John Conroy had a face like thunder. I suppose the Queen is not as susceptible to his charms as the Duchess.”
“The star of the Conroyals seems to be in decline.”
“Conroyals! That’s droll.”
“But apt, don’t you think?”
“Undoubtedly.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The green drawing room in Buckingham Palace was the place that Victoria liked to sit with her ladies. It had the advantage of only having one entrance, so that if she gave orders that she did not want to be disturbed, it was impossible for the Duchess or anyone else to come in through a back door.
Victoria had been a little nervous at first about appointing the Duchess of Sutherland and Lady Portman to her household. Lady Portman was only a little younger than her mother and famous as a wit. Lord M had told her that he had only made Lord Portman a minister so that he could benefit from Emma’s experience.
Harriet Sutherland, who was much closer to Victoria in age, was known as a leader of fashion. Engravings of her latest hairstyle or the ingenious way in which she knotted her fichu were much in demand. Her penchant for wearing a thin gold chain across her brow had set a fashion in the drawing rooms of Mayfair and indeed in the palace, where Victoria herself was now wearing gold links threaded through her chignon, with a small pendant lying in the middle of her forehead.
For all her elegance, however, Harriet was not in the least intimidating and was always ready to advise on the niceties of fashion, although Victoria did not agree with her reluctance to wear diamonds in the daytime. One of the great pleasures of her new position were the jewels that were now in her possession. But in deference to the Duchess, she had only put a couple of diamond clips in her hair.
Today they were looking at one of the illustrated fashion magazines that Victoria had sent over from Paris. The current fashion for leg-of-mutton sleeves had reached its zenith, and Victoria and her ladies were marvelling over a plate showing a pair of young ladies with sleeves so voluminous that they resembled nothing so much as butterflies with their small round heads nestling between their gaudy wings.
“The French always go too far,” said Harriet. “How could anyone have a conversation wearing sleeves like that?”
“I think these styles are for women who only want to be admired from afar,” said Emma. “I saw Mrs Norton wearing something similar at the opera last week. But as no one wants to be seen speaking to her, I suppose the sleeves are no impediment.”
Victoria looked up. She wanted, very much, to know more about Mrs Norton. “Why does nobody want to be seen speaking to Mrs Norton?”
Harriet and Emma looked at each other. Harriet shook her head, but Emma, who had deduced the reason for the Queen’s curiosity, leant forward.
“You must know, ma’am, that Mrs Norton’s husband brought a case against her last year for criminal conversation.”
Victoria remembered Lehzen’s embarrassed explanation of the term.
“Mr Norton, an odious man, alleged that his wife had been having relations with Lord Melbourne. And went so far as to prosecute.”
Victoria blushed and looked down at her hands.
“William was called as a witness and made to answer all kinds of impertinent questions in court, but fortunately the jury would have none of it and the case was dismissed.”
“So Lord Melbourne was innocent?”
Emma looked at the Queen’s shining young face and chose her words with care. “Of course, William was friendly with Mrs Norton; I believe he sympathised with her plight in being married to a most uncongenial man. He is, as you know, a man who is always easy in the company of women.”
“How monstrous that he should be put to the misery of a trial.”
“I feel sure that the Tories were behind it, ma’am. I believe they persuaded Norton to bring his case. They would like nothing better than to bring Melbourne down.”
Victoria stood up, and so Harriet and Emma did likewise. “I wonder that Lord Melbourne does not marry again?”
“I think, ma’am, that his experience of marriage was not a happy one, and perhaps he has been reluctant to repeat it.”
Emma had been in political life long enough to know that the Queen had many questions she wished to ask about Lord Melbourne’s marriage, if only she knew how. And because she was very much enjoying her place at court and her new status as the Queen’s confidante, she decided to speak.
“Caroline, his wife, ma’am, was charming but, I regret to say, unstable. They were very happy at first, I believe, but then Caro made the acquaintance of Lord Byron. He was an awful man, of course, quite depraved yet devilishly handsome. Caro was completely enamored with him, and behaved in a way that was most unbecoming in a married woman. Poor William was made a laughingstock. I believe his mother wanted him to divorce her, but he refused. When Byron threw Caro over, she was quite distraught; there was talk of committing her to an asylum. But William would not abandon her. He is a man of great feeling.”
Victoria’s mouth fell open. “How could any wife do such a thing?”
“Caro was not an ordinary woman, ma’am. She was a Bessborough, and I am afraid her upbringing left much to be desired.”
“And yet Lord Melbourne stuck by her?”
“Yes, ma’am. He cared for her until her death a few years ago. And then he went back to politics. He could not, of course, have become Prime Minister with Caro at his side.”
“What a sad story, and yet Lord Melbourne always seems so cheerful.”
Once again Harriet and Emma exchanged glances. Emma Portman continued, “I think, ma’am, that if you had known him last year you would not say that, but his mood, of late, is much improved.”
“My husband thought he was ready to give up politics after the Mrs Norton affair,” said Harriet, “but now he seems quite happy to be Prime Minister.”
“I am very glad that he did not give up,” said Victoria. “I do not think that I could have managed half so well with someone else.”
Harriet and Emma smiled, and so did Victoria, but for different reasons.
* * *
Since moving to Buckingham Palace, Victoria had done everything she could to separate herself physically from her mother. She had been quite successful, but there were some occasions where protocol left the Queen no choice but to be at her mother’s side.
One of these instances was the weekly service in the Chapel Royal. Victoria would drive over the short distance from Buckingham Palace, but it had become her custom to walk back across the Mall. This habit had become known to the public, and crowds would gather on a Sunday morning waiting for a glimpse of their Queen.
The sermon that morning had been on the fourth commandment, Honour thy father and mother. Victoria had been conscious of her mother’s eyes upon her as the priest talked about the respect due to a parent being the model for belief in God. She shifted in her pew and wished that Lord M was with her. She had asked him to come with her on previous occasions, but he had told her that he was not a churchgoing man.
As the organ played, Victoria got up to leave the chapel, and as precedence demanded, her mother followed immediately behind.
When they reached the steps of the chapel, there were a few cheers from the people waiting outside. Victoria felt her mother’s hand on her shoulder, a
nd had no choice but to walk out arm in arm with her.
“Such a beautiful sermon, do you not think, Drina?”
“Fisher was certainly eloquent, Mama. But I don’t think I have ever found a sermon too short.”
A little girl ran out from the crowd and held out a small bunch of flowers to Victoria. She bent down and took them, and a murmur of appreciation went up from the crowd.
“Oh, how charming.”
The Duchess said nothing, but then another, slightly bigger girl came from the other side with a posy for her, and she too bent down and went so far as to plant a kiss on the little girl’s cheek.
“You see, the people do not forget the mother of their Queen.”
“No, Mama. You have always been popular with the people.”
Victoria tried to move on, but the Duchess once again put her arm through hers, a gesture that made the crowd sigh with pleasure. How lovely to see their young Queen walking with her mother.
Victoria realised that there was no escape.
“So, Drina, are you happy with the Duchess of Sutherland as Mistress of the Robes?”
“Very happy. She is so charming and elegant.”
“And what about Lady Portman?”
“I like her very much. She told me that she once danced a polka with Papa.”
“It is possible. She is certainly old enough.”
“I find her most amusing.”
“But both these ladies are married to friends of Lord Melbourne, Drina. I think it is not wise.”
“They are not my only ladies, Mama, and it is quite normal for the ladies of the household to be connected to the party of government.”
The Duchess shrugged. “Quite usual, perhaps, I am not knowing. But what I think is not so usual is for you to be surrounded only by Melbourne’s friends. There is no one there to tell you what he is really like.”
“I think I know what he is really like, Mama. I believe Lord Melbourne to be the most capable of men. He has been invaluable to me since I came to the throne.”
“Of course he has. But I warn you, Drina, as your mother, I wish you to be on your guard with him.”
“On my guard? What on earth can you mean, Mama?”
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