The Queen's Husband (29 page)

LORD MELBOURNE DEPARTS

The Christmas holidays were coming to an end. Lord Melbourne wrote to the Queen condoling with her because, against her will, she must return to London for the opening of Parliament. It was an ordeal which the Queen would have happily missed.

The Queen had reproved Lord Melbourne for not coming to Windsor. It was a long time since she had seen him and he knew that she did not like to be away from him for too long.

He could not, wrote the Prime Minister, leave London because of the uncertain state of politics and when she did arrive in London he would have a few words with her about the speech from the throne, which would have to be more carefully worded than usual because of the country’s rather uneasy relations with France.

He was very happy though, he wrote, to hear that she was reluctant to leave the country, which he construed as meaning that the simple pleasures shared with her husband were more enjoyable to her than the unavoidably public life in London. He believed that this meant she was very happy and there was nothing on earth that Lord Melbourne desired more than her happiness.

‘Dearest Lord M,’ murmured the Queen when she read that letter. At least one thing would make her happy to return to London; she would see her Prime Minister.

Uncle Leopold wrote that although discretion had prevented his being present at Victoria’s coronation and wedding, he would come to the baptism of the Princess Royal.

Albert was delighted. It would be a wonderful reunion and they would have so much to talk about. He must not of course mention their differences. Uncle Leopold would make a big issue of that and could well give all sorts of advice not only to Albert but to Victoria which might prove fatal to Albert’s hopes.

On the 23rd of January Victoria opened Parliament and when that was over all her thoughts were directed to the christening. At the beginning of February the weather turned very cold and there was ice on the lake in Buckingham Palace gardens. The Prince’s eyes sparkled. It reminded him of the skating he and Ernest had so much enjoyed in Coburg.

Day after day the frost continued and a few days before that fixed for the christening Albert declared that the lake was hard enough for skating.

Victoria wanted to join him but he begged her not to. ‘I should be overcome by anxiety. It is too soon after Pussy’s birth,’ said Albert.

Because he begged and did not command, Victoria was happy to fall in with his wishes and touched, she said, by his care of her. So each day she and her ladies would go out into the grounds of Buckingham Palace to watch the skaters, and the Queen was delighted with the figure Albert cut on the ice. He was an expert.

The palace garden with its forty acres was a consolation to Albert for having to live in London. The lake was delightful and there was a pleasant summer-house situated on a mound for which he had plans. He was one day going to have it decorated and made into a refuge from the great palace which, though so close, was invisible during summer when the trees were thick with leaves.

On the day before the christening it seemed a little warmer. The Queen commented on it to the Duchess of Sutherland and some of the other ladies as they made their way to the lake where the Prince was already skating. He liked her to watch him.

As she came near to the lake she saw Albert. He waved to her. She waved back.

‘How beautifully he moves!’ she murmured.

As Albert skated towards her there was a sudden sound of cracking ice and the Prince, throwing up his hands, disappeared. Where he had been was a big hole of dark water.

The ladies started to scream. One of them ran to the palace to get help. But Victoria could only think that Albert had disappeared beneath the ice.

She ran to the lake. ‘Albert!’ she cried desperately.

His head appeared.

‘Albert, I’m coming,’ she said, though she was not quite sure what she could do.

‘Go back!’ called Albert. ‘It’s dangerous.’

But she took no notice. Cautiously she ventured on to the ice, testing it with her foot before taking a step forward. She held out her hands to him.

Albert by this time was scrambling out. ‘My dearest,’ he panted, ‘keep away.’

But she had seized his arm and was pulling him out of the water.

The ice seemed firm where Victoria stood and later she heard that it had been broken just where Albert had fallen in and had lightly frozen over again, which was why it was so weak at that particular spot.

Clinging together they reached the bank.

‘My brave love!’ said Albert. ‘You might have joined me beneath the ice …’

‘You are shivering,’ said Victoria sternly. ‘I must get you into the palace at once.’

The christening was a great success. Pussy behaved very well and did not cry as the Queen had feared she might. She appeared to be fascinated by the lights and the uniforms and everyone commented on her intelligence.

The old Duke of Wellington stood proxy for the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as one of the sponsors; Leopold was another. Queen Adelaide with the Duke of Sussex and the Duchesses of Kent and Gloucester made up the rest.

After the ceremony, which took place in Buckingham Palace, at six p.m. there was a dinner-party over which the Queen presided.

Beside her was her dear Lord Melbourne and she told him that she was reminded of the old days when he dined almost every evening at the palace and indeed had an apartment there.

She noticed that tears filled his eyes and she was deeply touched.

‘You will always be my dear friend,’ she said warmly, ‘and none of your other friends will be as fond of you as I am.’

‘Your Majesty once told me that before. I have never forgotten, nor shall I ever.’

‘Dear Lord M.’ She touched his hand briefly and then, because it was such an emotional moment, she changed the subject by asking what he had thought of the ceremony.

‘It went off perfectly,’ said Lord Melbourne, ‘and I could not help but be impressed by the chief performer.’

‘You mean?’

‘The Princess Royal. She looked about her, conscious that all the stir was for her. This is the time that character is formed.’

The Queen laughed aloud and repeated Lord Melbourne’s remark to the rest of the company.

She remembered how in the old days a dinner-party was always gay and amusing when Lord Melbourne was present, and rather dull when he wasn’t. It was different now of course that there was Albert.

Albert was sneezing violently.

‘Oh, dear,’ said the Queen, ‘I hope your ducking is not going to make you ill.’

‘It’s only a cold,’ replied the Prince. He looked at her fondly. ‘I shall never forget how promptly you saved me.’

‘I didn’t save you. You saved yourself.’

‘You showed great presence of mind. Different from your attendants. I was proud of you.’

‘Oh, Albert, I can’t describe my terror when I saw you disappear.’

‘My love, there was no real danger. The lake is not deep and in fact the ice was quite firm except at that one small spot.’

‘I thought of so many things in the space of those few moments,’ she said. ‘I thought of them carrying you into the palace … dead, and I knew then that if that had been so I should want to die too.’

Albert kissed her tenderly.

‘My dear love, we are happy are we not?’

‘Completely, Albert.’

‘We must try always to keep it as it was during that moment when I disappeared and you came out on the ice to rescue me.’

‘We will, Albert,’ she cried fervently. ‘We
will
.’

All Albert suffered from the skating incident was a severe cold. Victoria insisted on making sure that he did everything to rid himself of it. Having suffered that moment of intense fear when she had thought of losing him she realised how much she loved him.

She was blissfully happy for a few weeks. Then she made a discovery.

She was once more pregnant.

‘It can’t be,’ she moaned. ‘It is much too soon.’

Albert was delighted, but inwardly she was resentful. As she had remarked to Uncle Leopold, men seldom understood what child-bearing meant, that terrible ordeal being quite beyond their comprehension.

Lehzen grumbled that it was far too soon. Victoria should have had a year in which to recover from Pussy’s birth, she said, implying that Albert had been inconsiderate in forcing this new pregnancy upon her. Even the Duchess of Kent expressed the desire that there should have been a longer interval, although there was not a hint of criticism of Albert from her.

Victoria was even more difficult than she had been during the first months of Pussy’s gestation. She began finding fault with everyone and her ladies were beginning to dread approaching her. The famous temper flared up at the slightest provocation, and the atmosphere was quite different from that which had prevailed at Windsor during Christmas.

She was anxious too about the government. Trade was bad and the finances of the country were weak. When Lord Melbourne came to see her he was quite clearly uneasy and she felt that he tried to keep this from her. She could guess what it meant. The Opposition was being difficult again and the idea of losing her Prime Minister with the ordeal of childbirth looming ahead of her angered her.