The Queen's Husband (41 page)

Her devotion to her dearest child was selfless and she could say with absolute sincerity that what she wanted more than anything was Victoria’s happiness.

She could never like Albert. He was stern, serious and prudish; he could never really enjoy life because he was so eager to do his duty, and one sensed that he felt there was something sinful in enjoying the good things of life. He would mould her to his way. She would change. She would always be sincere, deeply affectionate, loving to dance and gossip, the adorably human Victoria of the past, but he would change her.

It is time I went, said Lehzen.

She would see the Queen for the last time today. She would be calm; there must be no stormy parting and tomorrow very early she would slip quietly away. She did not want Victoria to be harassed by painful goodbyes.

Lehzen had gone.

The Queen was deeply affected. After all those years they had parted. She could not remember a time in her life when Lehzen had not been there.

In a way she was relieved. The last months had been a strain. And Albert would be so delighted. It was what he had always wanted; he blamed Lehzen for everything that had gone wrong; and it was true he had made her see the Baroness differently from the way she had before.

It was better that she went and the last thing Lehzen wanted her to be was unhappy – just as she herself longed for Lehzen to find peace and happiness with her family.

The end of a phase was always a solemn time. She wanted to recapture the spirit of those old days absolutely as they were then, not as she saw them now, and the best way of doing this was to read through some of her old journals.

She blushed a little as she read. Had she really felt like that about Lord Melbourne? She wrote of him as though they were lovers. She had been thoughtless then. It was all rather artificial really. That was not true happiness.

But reading the journals made her realise how contented she was with life.

‘Thank God,’ she said aloud, ‘that Albert has taught me what real happiness means.’

  Chapter XIII  

A VISIT TO THE CONTINENT

With Lehzen out of the way Albert decided to investigate the management of the household which he was well aware was in need of urgent reform. He quickly discovered that offices were still in existence which had been inaugurated two hundred years before although some of them were nothing but sinecures. There was no discipline; the servants were terrified lest they should do work which was not in their province and the most ridiculous anomalies prevailed. There was a Lord Steward who in the reign of Victoria’s grandfather George III, had control of the entire household except the royal apartments; but recently the office of Lord Chamberlain had been inaugurated and no one was quite sure what duties he was supposed to take over from the Lord Steward. There could be a dispute over the cleaning of windows for instance and although the Lord Chamberlain might order the insides to be done there was a difference of opinion as to who was responsible for the outsides which meant that the outsides went uncleaned for months. None of the servants was sure to whom he or she was responsible, which from a certain point of view was an advantage because it gave quite a number of them liberty to do all sorts of things which, under proper authority, would have been forbidden.

It was one person’s duty to lay a fire, another’s to light it; which meant that very often there was no fire at all.

At the time of the visit of the Boy Jones Albert had discovered that a broken window could remain so for months at a time because no one knew whose duty it was to replace it; he had even discovered brown paper pasted over broken windows because the servants could not as they said ‘abide the cold wind coming through’. And this in one of the most magnificent of palaces in the world!

Something had to be done and with characteristic efficiency Albert set about doing it.

He studied accounts; he found that the Queen was being cheated. He looked into the amount of food and drink which came into the palace and discovered that some of the grooms were drunk every night.

‘My love,’ he said, ‘you are paying very heavily for inefficiency and a badly run household.’

Victoria, who was beginning to think that everything he did was wonderful, declared that she could not imagine how she had ever lived without Albert to look after her. He must do everything he wished.

There was fury among the servants. Who was the Prince coming over from Germany to interfere with their pleasant lives? It used to be so good in the old days with the old Baroness liking a joke and shutting her eyes to anything that might, as she said, upset the Queen. As long as her caraway seeds were scattered over everything she ate she didn’t care what went on in the servants’ quarters.

Albert was indifferent to his unpopularity; he was used to it in any case. He was going to make sure that Victoria had a well-run home.

On one occasion he went quietly into the nursery and found one of the under-nurses bouncing the Prince of Wales up and down on her knee.

‘Now what’s popsy-wopsy laughing at?’ the nurse was demanding. ‘Popsy-wopsy’s laughing ’cos his liddle toes are tickled.’

‘I do not understand,’ said Albert. ‘By what absurd name were you addressing the Prince of Wales?’

‘Oh, it’s just baby talk, sir.’

‘Please do not use such baby talk to His Royal Highness.’

He went at once to Victoria.

‘There is a most unsuitable person in the nursery,’ he said. ‘She was moving The Boy up and down on her knee and talking
nonsense
to him. No wonder he is so backward.’

‘How stupid of her!’ said Victoria who a few months before would have laughed at popsy-wopsy’s liddle toes being tickled. ‘I will send for Lady Lyttleton at once.’

Lady Lyttleton was sent for and the result was that the under-nurse was dismissed on account of her unsuitability.

There was no doubt that the royal household was more efficiently run and the Queen was delightedly impressed. The rooms were warmer (at no greater cost, Albert told her) and the palace was not only a much more comfortable residence but a safer one.

Albert was wonderful.

She was growing more and more to appreciate the quiet of the country because there she and Albert could live a more intimate life. They could take walks; they could ride; they could come home and play music or sing duets. Albert – in a laughing way – had undertaken her education. ‘Rather neglected, my love, in some respects.’ Another slight to Lehzen whom she had begun to think of as
poor
Lehzen. It had been a very dull childhood, she supposed; in fact any part of her life which had not included Albert seemed dull. ‘To think I ever thought that I was happy before my marriage. I did not know what happiness meant then.’

In the evenings Albert read to her from Hallam’s History. ‘You cannot rule a country well without knowing how your predecessors did it,’ said Albert. Previously she would have thought it such a dull book. How different it was, read by Albert.

Lord Melbourne, with whom she corresponded now and then, was delighted that she was so happy. ‘An example to all her subjects,’ he wrote, and she could imagine the tears in his dear eyes as his pen moved over the paper. He was pleased too that she and Albert were reading Hallam together. It was a wonderful education.

Sometimes Albert would go to the nursery and bring Pussy into the bedroom and the dear child would sit on the bed; she looked like a little doll, she was so pretty. ‘Remarkably like her dear Mama,’ said Albert. The Boy, she feared, was not going to be as bright as his sister.

‘Pussy was speaking when she was his age,’ said the Queen.

‘He is not going to be as intelligent as our little Vicky,’ said Albert.

There had been none of the irritable moods at the beginning of the present pregnancy.

‘This little one is behaving well,’ said the Queen.

It was a very happy year apart from the social unrest throughout the country which was making some of her ministers very anxious. As if it wasn’t bad enough to have trouble abroad the people at home had to be difficult. Menacing, Lord Melbourne called them. Wales had joined the bands of troublemakers and there rioters were dressing up in women’s clothes and calling themselves ‘Rebecca and her daughters’; they were smashing toll gates and causing a great deal of uneasiness. The Irish – always troublesome – were agitating; even in dear Scotland there was trouble about private patronage of the Established Kirk; and at home Mr Cobden was quarrelling with Sir Robert over the Corn Laws. It would all have been very distressing if Albert had not been there beside her. Albert was passionately interested in these matters; he was present at her meetings with her ministers; he read all the state papers with her. Her constant cry was: What should I do without Albert?

On April 25th they were delighted when a daughter was born. Three healthy children in four years of marriage. ‘How very lucky we are,’ said the Queen.

She was to be called Alice. ‘A good old English name,’ the Queen declared, ‘and perhaps Maud, and as she was born on Aunt Gloucester’s birthday, Mary after her.

There was all the preparation of the christening.

‘We had better ask Uncle Ernest this time. He was so annoyed because he wasn’t invited to The Boy’s. Perhaps he won’t come all the way from Hanover. I hope not. I never feel very comfortable when he’s around. But I shall insist on darling Feodora’s coming. It will be a lovely excuse to see her again.’

The christening was a great success, although the King of Hanover having rather ungraciously accepted the invitation, arrived late, and the service was over before he put in an appearance.

Alice behaved beautifully and did not cry during the ceremony. In fact, as the Queen remarked to Albert, she reminded her of Pussy. Did he remember how bright Pussy was at her christening, just as though she knew what it was all about?

There was a
déjeuner
afterwards and the tables were beautifully decorated with gay June flowers. The Queen was happy to see her half-sister and they looked forward to some exciting talks about their respective nurseries. There was so much the Queen wanted to ask darling Feddy because she was so much more experienced a Mama than she was.