He had said that he would be her “companion,” just as Leicester had been to Elizabeth. That had been an arrangement that had suited Britain’s only great queen till now, and Victoria saw no reason to do things differently. Leopold and her mother were always telling her that she needed to get married, but it seemed to her that she needed to do nothing of the sort. She would be another Elizabeth, answerable only to herself. She looked in the mirror as she said this and was satisfied with the face she saw there. Resolve was the feeling she had woken up with; today she would do what she wanted. Her first act would be to get rid of Conroy. Whatever she had to give him to make him leave would be worth it if it meant that she would never again be reminded of the misery of her early years in Kensington Palace. And once she had done that, she would tell Leopold that she had no intention of getting married, to Albert or anyone else, and suggest that it was time for him to return to Belgium. Victoria smiled at herself in the mirror.
She rang the bell, and after a minute her dressers came in. Skerrett, the younger one, looked a little flustered. “I am sorry, ma’am, that we were not here earlier. To be honest, we did not think you would be up so early after such a late night.”
“No matter. I think I shall wear the green stripe today.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Skerrett went to fetch the dress as Jenkins brought in the washing things.
When Jenkins put the bowl down in front of her, Victoria noticed that the dresser’s eyes were red. She looked as though she had been crying. Jenkins started to pour the hot water over Victoria’s hands into the basin, but suddenly the air was filled by a crack of rifle fire and Jenkins dropped the pitcher with a shriek.
Victoria, a little alarmed by the noise and now quite wet, went over to the window to see what had happened, and saw a guardsman being reprimanded by his superior officer in the palace courtyard.
“Oh, it is just a soldier who has let off his rifle by mistake. Nothing to worry about.” She turned round and saw Jenkins crouched on the floor sobbing, her head in her hands, and Skerrett with her arm around her, trying to comfort her. Victoria looked at her in surprise; Jenkins was hardly the sort of woman she expected to have hysterics at the sound of gunfire.
“Mrs Jenkins, I believe you are indisposed. You have my permission to retire.”
Skerrett cajoled the still sobbing Jenkins out of the room and returned a few minutes later. In answer to Victoria’s look of inquiry she said, “You must excuse her, ma’am. She is out of sorts on account of the execution of the Newport Chartists, ma’am. They say they are to die a traitor’s death. Mrs Jenkins is from those parts, and I believe she feels it most strongly.”
Victoria looked at the girl in front of her. “Are there many people who feel as Mrs Jenkins does? About the Newport Chartists?”
Skerrett looked at the floor and hesitated before replying. Then she raised her head and said, “The punishment for treason, ma’am, is to be hanged by the neck until you are almost dead and then to be cut open while you are still alive. It’s not that Mrs Jenkins supports the Chartists, ma’am, but she thinks whatever they did, they don’t deserve to die like that.” Skerrett twisted her hands together, and continued haltingly, “Forgive me, ma’am, but I agree with her. And I don’t think I am the only one to do so.”
Victoria waved a hand at her. “That’s all right, Skerrett, I asked you for your opinion, and you gave it to me. And you are right, it is a terrible way to die.”
* * *
As she stood in her sitting room waiting for Melbourne to arrive for their audience, Victoria thought about the exchange with Skerrett. There was a picture at Windsor Castle of a heretic being disemboweled under the reign of Mary—or was it Elizabeth?—that she used to see on her rare visits to see her uncle, King William, when she was a little girl. She had passed it many times without really looking until one day it occurred to her that the string of pale lumpy things were not sausages, as she idly supposed, but the poor martyr’s intestines. She remembered feeling pleased that she lived in a less barbaric time.
Now it appeared that her assumption had been wrong. Those men from Newport, who even Lord Melbourne said had been motivated more by hunger than by wickedness, were to meet their end in this particularly horrible way. She felt something pricking at her eyelids, and a sob ran through her. It was not right that anyone should die so horribly. And all the emotion that had roiled about her for the last few days swirled and fixed on the fate of the Welshmen facing their awful death. She felt quite faint with pity and had to hold on to the windowsill for support.
She remembered what Flora Hastings had said to her that awful night as she lay dying: “To be a queen you must be more than a little girl with a crown. Your subjects are not dolls to be played with.” At the time Victoria had tried to erase those words from her memory, but now they seemed to have a new significance. Her subjects were her responsibility; she could not accept their cheers while ignoring their cries of pain. She must do something.
It was in this state that Melbourne found her a few minutes later: white and trembling. He saw it at once and rushed towards her, forgetting in his anxiety to bow.
“What is it, ma’am? Are you unwell?”
Victoria shook her head, and then said, with an effort, “When are the Newport Chartists to be executed?”
Melbourne tried to conceal his surprise; he could think of many reasons for Victoria’s tears, but the fate of the Chartists was not one of them.
“Next Friday, ma’am.”
Victoria took a deep breath. “And they are to be hanged, drawn, and quartered?”
“That is the punishment for treason, ma’am.” But seeing her face, Melbourne added, “I believe there are bishops organising a petition for clemency.”
Victoria lifted her head with a quick, decisive motion. “Then I should like to sign it!” She took a step towards him. “Such a punishment is not civilised.”
Melbourne said quietly, “I fear you don’t understand the severity of the crime, ma’am.”
“Indeed I do,” she retorted, the colour coming to her face in a way that Melbourne could not help but admire. “But I think you do not understand the severity of the punishment. Such things may have been necessary in the reign of Elizabeth—” She paused and gathered herself into her most regal attitude. “—but I should like my reign to be a merciful one.”
Melbourne thought there was something magnificent about her; he had never seen Victoria so passionate about something that did not directly concern herself. She was wrong, of course; these Chartists must be treated with the utmost and the most public severity to deter all those other hungry people who believed that they could fill their bellies with high ideals and splendid slogans, but he could not help but admire her spirit. So he smiled a little as he said, “Then you must know, ma’am, that as Queen, you may commute their sentences.”
She hesitated before replying, and Melbourne saw that she did not understand him.
“Forgive me, ma’am, I did not make myself clear. The Crown has the right to commute a sentence, to make it less severe. So you might decide that instead of being executed as traitors, these men should be transported to Australia to a penal colony, which some might regard as a lesser punishment.” He could not resist making that final sally, but Victoria did not smile.
Instead she said with great firmness, “Then I would like to exercise my right. I want their sentences to be commuted—” Victoria rolled this new and pleasing word around in her mouth. “—from execution to transportation.”
“You are sure, ma’am?” Melbourne said in a token protest, although he already knew the answer.
“Quite sure.” And for the first time since the interview had begun, Victoria smiled.
Melbourne gestured towards the boxes. “Shall we attend to these, ma’am?”
Victoria gave a peremptory little shake of her head. “No, I think those men in prison should know their fate as soon as possible. To lie in a cell and imagine that awful death,” she shud
dered, “I can think of nothing worse.”
“Your compassion does you credit, ma’am, although I can’t help feeling that these men deserve their torment. But if you require me to put your wishes into action immediately, I will attend to it at once.” He gave a formal nod of the head to signify that he was acting on orders, not by inclination.
“Before you go, there is one more thing I should like you to do for me. Sir John Conroy has asked me to grant him an Irish title with a pension, and I am minded to give it to him.”
“Really, ma’am?”
“Yes. He thinks that it is time for him to retire to his estate in Ireland.”
Melbourne looked at her with surprise and respect. Could she really have engineered a way of getting rid of Conroy?
“I think an Irish title with a pension, say a thousand pounds a year, would be a very suitable reward for all Sir John’s years of service to the Crown,” Melbourne said.
Victoria nodded. “My thoughts exactly, although I think that it might be safer to make it two thousand. I should not want him to run out of money and feel the need to return to court.”
“No, indeed. That would never do.”
Victoria leant forward and smiled. “I want Sir John Conroy’s ‘transportation’ to be permanent.”
When Melbourne had left, Victoria called to Dash and went out into the gardens. As she was walking down the steps, Lehzen caught up with her and held out a shawl. “It is cold today, Majesty; you should not go out without this. If you wait one moment, I will get my bonnet and accompany you.”
“No, thank you, Lehzen, I prefer to walk alone this morning. I wish to speak to my mother.”
Lehzen nodded reluctantly. “As you wish, Majesty. I believe I saw the Duchess walking with Sir John Conroy towards the lake about ten minutes ago.”
Victoria smiled. “Thank you, Lehzen.” She took the shawl, said “Come on, Dash!” and ran down the path to the lake, the dog at her heels.
She saw her mother and Conroy standing by the summer house on the other side of the lake. Their heads were close together, the Duchess’s face tilted towards Conroy like a sunflower facing the sun. The sight of her mother’s abjection brought Victoria’s resolve to a head, and she almost charged round the path to where they were standing, coming up on them from behind, so that they did not see her arrive.
“Good morning, Mama.” The Duchess and Sir John immediately moved apart, startled by her sudden appearance.
Victoria acknowledged Conroy with the briefest nod. “How fortunate to find you here with Mama, Sir John.”
The Duchess was looking at her daughter with bewildered attention. “You are looking very well, Victoria.”
“Yes, Mama, I feel well.” She paused, then said, “I am glad to find you together because I wanted to tell you in person, Sir John, that I have decided to grant your request.”
The Duchess moved her head with agonized slowness from Victoria to Conroy. “What request?”
A muscle at the corner of Conroy’s eye began to twitch, but before he could reply Victoria said with barely concealed glee, “Didn’t he tell you, Mama? I am going to give Sir John an Irish title and a pension of two thousand a year, so that he can retire to his estate in Ireland in comfort.”
The Duchess was very still, the blonde ringlets motionless. At last she said, gazing directly at Conroy, “You would leave me, for…” She hesitated, and then said with a cry that made Victoria wince, “For some money?”
Conroy said nothing, but looked at the ground. Victoria turned to him. “You have not changed your mind, I trust, Sir John?”
Conroy remained stock-still before shaking his head slowly, as if it were made of stone.
“Good. I am glad that is settled.”
Victoria was about to walk away when she saw her mother’s stricken face and stopped. “I have decided to raise your allowance, Mama. It is time you had some new clothes. You should be dressed as befits your status as the Queen Mother.”
The Duchess did not show any sign of having heard her; she was still staring at Conroy as if trying to commit every detail of his face to memory. Victoria, slightly in awe of her own daring, began to move away. “Come on, Dash.”
When the Queen and her lapdog were out of sight, Conroy spoke, his gaze still fixed upon the ground. “You must understand that I had no choice. There is nothing for me here.”
The Duchess erupted out of her frozen immobility. “Nothing? After nineteen years, you call me nothing?”
Conroy raised his head and tried to arrange his face into a smile. “You know that if I go, she will be kinder to you.”
The Duchess shook her head in disbelief, crying out, “Do you know how many times Drina asked me to dismiss you? It would have been so easy. But I would not do it. I told her that I could not do without you. But you can just walk away from me as if I do not exist.”
Conroy tried to take the Duchess’s hand, but she pulled away from him in fury.
This was even more painful than he had imagined. He had expected to be able to break the news to her in his own way, but Victoria, it seemed, was determined to make this as brutal as possible. There were tears in the Duchess’s eyes, and he saw the lines that her unhappiness had etched around her eyes and mouth. For a moment he saw the old woman that she would be before very long.
“Believe me, I have no desire to leave you. But your daughter will not be ruled, ma’am, and I must use my talents somewhere.”
In a gesture that he knew was the only correct response to her pain and his treachery, he slowly and painfully lowered himself to his knees before her. Taking her cold hand in his, he pressed it to his lips, and said in a hoarse cry, “Please forgive me!”
Rising to his feet, he walked away from her around the lake, back to the palace. He did not look round, but he felt the Duchess’s gaze on his back with every step.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Grand Duke was waiting for Victoria at the Roehampton Gate of Richmond Park. He had sent a note that morning asking if they could ride together somewhere where they could really gallop. “Your Rotten Row is a place to admire ladies in their fine habits, but today I am not interested in fashion.”
After her meeting with her mother and Conroy, Victoria knew exactly what the Russian meant. She too wanted to gallop so fast that the world receded and nothing mattered except the narrow strip of ground in front of her horse’s head. So she suggested Richmond Park, with its ancient trees and herds of deer, where they could let their horses go without the fear of bumping into a carriage or knocking over a nursemaid with her charge.
As the groom helped her mount Monarch, she saw that the Grand Duke’s face was set, his mouth harder than she had ever seen it. He clearly was in no mood for conversation, so taking up the reins she said, “Once round the park?”
The Grand Duke nodded and Victoria dug her heels into Monarch’s side. Delighted to be given her head, the horse set off at a clip, the Grand Duke at her heels. They raced around the park, scattering the deer and sending the pheasants nesting in the woods squawking into the air, ducking as they rode under the branches of great oaks and yelping with delight as they careened down the hill that led to the two ponds that bisected the park.
Laughing and breathless, they pulled up their horses in mutual agreement. The Grand Duke jumped off his mount in an easy movement, and before her groom could help her, he was lifting Victoria to the ground. She noticed that the rigidity in his face had gone.
“Thank you for bringing me here, Victoria. I was needing to ride like this very much.”
Victoria smiled. “My predecessor Elizabeth used to hunt deer in this park.”
“The queen who never married.”
“But whose reign was long and glorious.”
“I am sure. A great queen is the superior of any man.” His face was lit up by his smile. Then he turned to his equerry, who was loitering at a respectful distance, and snapped his fingers. The man produced a small package and put it into the Grand Duke�
��s outstretched hand.
“I have something for you, Victoria. A small token of our friendship.”
It was a snuffbox enameled in blue with gold edging. On the lid of the box the letters V and A in diamonds were entwined to form a graceful monogram, almost symmetrical in its peaks and troughs.
Victoria gasped. “It is so beautiful. And this monogram?” She looked up at him.
The Grand Duke nodded. “V and A, for Victoria and Alexander. It is not correct, perhaps, but I hope you will forgive me.” He put the box in her hand and closed her fingers around it with his own.
“V and A. The letters fit together very well, do they not?”
The Grand Duke nodded and then, releasing her hand, he said, “The Tsar, my father, has ordered me to return to Petersburg.”
“Is he ill?” asked Victoria.
The Grand Duke shook his head. “He is in perfect health, but fancies he will die at any moment, so he has decided that I must marry.” He looked at Victoria and sighed.
“My father has chosen a Danish princess. I forget her name. He says that she is very fond of herring.” He gave a shrug and a half smile.
Victoria was touched by his sigh. Although they both knew that any alliance between them could only be a diplomatic one, he was acting the part of a disappointed lover. And while she knew that it was almost certainly an act, she liked him for the conceit.
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