Victoria in the Wings: (Georgian Series) (27 page)

People were beginning to look with new interest at William. He had improved since his marriage. He no longer used the crude oaths he once had; his manners were changing; and instead of making himself ridiculous by offering his hand to impertinent young commoners who refused it, he had a dignified royal wife, who was very properly pregnant and who had undoubtedly brought some dignity into his somewhat disorderly life. But the main point of interest was his nearness to the throne. There were constant rumours of the Regent’s illnesses and the Duke of York did not enjoy good health. If they died, and they were becoming elderly, then this bluff sailor with the pineapple-shaped head and the habit of making endless and entirely boring speeches, would become the King of England, and the insignificant Adelaide the Queen.

There would be a king with ten illegitimate children all of whom were acknowledged by his family – and there would soon be another, legitimate this time and heir to the throne! For there was no doubt that the child the Duchess so proudly and delightedly carried would be the new King or Queen of England.

The Princess Sophia bade Adelaide sit beside her.

‘For you look a little tired, my dear,’ she said.

‘I have been so careful lately,’ replied Adelaide, ‘that I am unused to functions.’

‘You mustn’t overtire yourself, my dear,’ said Sophia.
‘Remember those other two occasions. Women get accustomed to having miscarriages.’

Sophia looked doleful with prophecy but Adelaide refused to be dismayed.

Her child would soon arrive. Only two more months and it would be here.

Sophia was saying: ‘I wonder if it will be a little girl or a little boy?’

Adelaide smiled. What did she care? It would be a child – her own child. That was all that mattered.

‘I believe the Duchess of Kent is taking it badly,’ said Sophia not without a trace of pleasure. ‘I for one am delighted. She was beginning to give herself airs and one heard of nothing but the perfections of her little Drina.’

‘I hope she will not be too put out,’ said Adelaide.

‘My dear Adelaide,’ laughed Sophia, ‘nothing in the world could put her out more. She has already taken on the role of Mother to the Queen, and the child not two years old yet!’

‘It is a pity that what brings so much joy to one should bring pain to others.’

Sophia looked at her shrewdly. ‘Is that not the way of the world, Adelaide?’ she asked.

Adelaide was not sure of this. She tried to dismiss the Duchess of Kent from her mind. This was such a happy occasion; she did not want it spoiled.

A week after Elizabeth’s wedding Adelaide’s pains started.

She was frightened because they had come six weeks too soon. Terrified, she called to her women who quickly sent for the doctors.

The labour had undoubtedly begun and was long and arduous. Adelaide was in agony; but through it all she reminded herself that anything was worth while if the child was alive and well.

The apartments in Stable Yard were scarcely adequate. How much better it would have been if the child could have been born at Bushy where she had arranged it should be; but how could she have known it would arrive six weeks before it was due?

At length the ordeal was over leaving an exhausted Adelaide
more dead than alive, but when she heard the cry of a child and knew it was hers her joy was overwhelming.

‘A little girl,’ said the Duke, at her bedside.

‘My own child … at last,’ she murmured.

For some days it was believed that Adelaide could not survive, but so great was her joy in her child that by her very will to live for it she slowly began to recover, and a week after the birth she was out of danger and able to sit up and hold her child in her arms. A little girl – a perfect little girl!

‘I have never believed such happiness was possible,’ she told William.

He assured her that he was as happy. This precious child was the future Queen of England unless they had a boy; but he had suffered so much from her ordeal that he did not want to think of her going through that again.

‘What’s wrong with a queen?’ he asked. ‘They say the English have no objection to them and like them better than kings.’

‘What shall we call her, William?’

‘We’ll have to have the King’s consent to whatever we choose because she is … who she is. It could be Anne or Elizabeth … both great queens.’

‘Anne or Elizabeth,’ murmured Adelaide. ‘I should like Elizabeth.’

The King called to see his little niece.

‘Perfect! Perfect!’ he beamed, as he came to sit down by the bed and study Adelaide. ‘And you, my dear?’

‘I grow better every day, Your Majesty.’

‘Nothing could please me more.’

He looked younger than when she last saw him, Adelaide thought. He wore an unpowdered wig with curls of a subdued nut brown which became him. He excelled on such an occasion as this – benign monarch, loving brother, unselfish in his delight for a brother who had what he had failed to achieve: a loving wife and an heir to the throne.

He leaned over and patted her hand.

‘
You
must get well.’

‘I am doing so quickly. Happiness is the best healer.’

His eyes filled with tears or perhaps they were not real tears. In any case he flicked his eyes with a scented kerchief.

‘Long may it last,’ he said. ‘Bless you, my dear.’

‘We have thought of our child’s name and want to know if we may have Your Majesty’s consent to it.’

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘that little one can in due course be the Queen.’

‘For that reason we should like to call her Elizabeth.’

He smiled. He remembered that the Kents – somewhat ostentatiously – had wanted a queenly name for their daughter. And he had refused. They had to put up with Alexandrina Victoria instead. And serve them right. That woman was too ready to push herself forward.

‘An excellent choice,’ he said.

Adelaide was delighted. ‘And if you would allow us to call her after you – Georgiana …’

‘On one condition,’ he said, with the utmost charm, ‘that she is also called after her mother.’

‘Elizabeth Georgiana Adelaide.’

‘I can think of nothing that would please me more,’ said the King.

The Duchess of Kent was frustrated. To think that the Duchess of Clarence – that fragile young woman – should have successfully come through her ordeal and the result should be a daughter!

She went into the nursery where Alexandrina was playing with her bricks, so intelligently, already taking an interest in the pictures and saying ‘Mamma’.

To think that that innocent child should be robbed of her birthright! thought the Duchess, and was ready to burst into tempestuous sobs.

‘My Drina, my darling child.’ She picked up the little girl whose wide blue eyes surveyed her mother wonderingly. She was accustomed to passionate embraces and already aware that she was a very precious person.

‘Mamma,’ she said triumphantly.

‘My angel! Oh, it is cruel … cruel!’

Alexandrina’s fingers seized the locket which the Duchess wore about her throat. She tried to open it.

‘It is your dear Papa, my darling. Oh, if only he were here to bear this with me.’

Alexandrina chuckled and began to pull at the locket so there was nothing to do but sit down and open it and show her the picture.

‘Your Papa, Drina.’

‘Papa,’ repeated Alexandrina. ‘Mamma … Papa …’ And she laughed at her own cleverness.

So soft were the flaxen curls, so clear the blue eyes, so soft the pink and white skin; she was the picture of health. What was that other child like, wondered the Duchess. Sickly, she was sure. The bulletins said that the mother and child were progressing well. How well? she wondered.

It would be a great tragedy if anyone stood in Alexandrina’s way. And while the Duchess of Clarence was able to bear children there would always be a danger.

Fräulein Lehzen had come into the nursery and Alexandrina laughed with pleasure. Here was another adorer.

‘Mamma … Papa …’ called Alexandrina.

Fräulein Lehzen’s face was pink with pleasure.

‘She is so forward, Your Highness,’ she said.

The Duchess nodded, while Alexandrina, having displayed her cleverness, imperiously signed that she had had enough of lockets and admiration and wished to be returned to her bricks.

Her mother put her back on to the carpet and said to Fräulein Lehzen: ‘
That
child is healthy, so they say.’

‘They say these things,’ said Fräulein Lehzen a trifle scornfully.

‘The Duchess is a kindly woman. I daresay she is beside herself with joy. I could be happy for
her
… but when I think of what this means to our angel …’

Fräulein Lehzen nodded. ‘I heard that His Majesty has called on the Duchess.’

‘He did not call on me. He was most
unkind
about darling Drina’s name.’

‘He has asked that the child be called after him, so I heard.’

‘Georgiana!’

‘Elizabeth first, they say. Then Georgiana Adelaide.’

‘Elizabeth first! But that is a
queen’s
name.’

‘I suppose that is what they thought,’ said the Fräulein gloomily.

‘Oh, it is
so
cruel! I wanted Drina to be called that if she could not be Georgiana and he refused. Yet he has given his consent to this child’s having it.’

‘I never thought the Duchess would bear a living child. She had all the appearance of a woman whose pregnancy was not a healthy one.’

‘Do you think …’

The two women were gazing at the child on the floor, so beautiful, so perfect in every way. Already a little queen, they were both thinking.

‘Alexandrina,’ said the Duchess. ‘It is not the name of an
English
queen. That was why he wanted her to be called that. And this other child is Elizabeth. She will be Elizabeth the Second … if she lives.’

‘
If
she lives,’ said Fräulein Lehzen.

‘Queen Alexandrina! No, it won’t do. And what else is there. Victoria.’

‘Queen Victoria,’ said Fräulein Lehzen. ‘It has a ring of dignity.’

‘It sounds more like a queen’s name than Alexandrina. Lehzen, my dear, we will cease to call our darling Alexandrina. From today she shall be Victoria.’

Fräulein Lehzen nodded. ‘Queen Victoria,’ she murmured. ‘Yes, it is not Elizabeth … it is not Georgiana … but Victoria.’

‘Victoria,’ said the Duchess. ‘Victoria, my darling.’

The child, not recognizing her new name, did not look up.

But of course she would soon realize that she was to be Victoria.

A Visit to St James’s

SO ADELAIDE HAD
her baby. She wrote to Ida of her happiness and told her that she looked forward to seeing her and showing her the little Princess Elizabeth who was all that she had ever hoped for. Why should Ida not pay a visit to Bushy House? There she could meet Adelaide’s other family – a most amusing family, she did assure her; something interesting was always happening to them; marriages and births, balls and love affairs. ‘My stepchildren are the most natural people in the world. I am so fond of them and I believe they are of me. I want you to know them, Ida.’

She particularly wanted to see her little niece Louise who suffered from some mysterious spinal trouble. Adelaide had a special fondness for little Loulou as she was called; and she longed to see her young brother Wilhelm. Please, Ida must come to England with her children soon; and what could be a better time to come than coronation year?

The King was becoming not exactly popular but less unpopular. After all, he was going to provide the citizens of London with a wonderful spectacle in his coronation, which meant visitors to the capital and trade for the shops, besides the excitement such occasions inevitably meant.

They could be sure that the coronation of George IV would be as lavish as any that had gone before. It was not in his nature to give a second-rate performance and at his own coronation he must excel.

So there were fewer hostile shouts when he drove out and he even heard a cheer or two; he was comforted, although Caroline continued to cause him great anxiety. She was determined, she made it known, to be crowned with him; it was no use trying to exclude her for she would not be excluded. The King had tried to prove a case against her and had failed; therefore she was entitled to be treated as the Queen of England.

She had taken up residence in Brandenburg House close to the river near Hammersmith and she made a point of driving out frequently and in such style that she could not fail to be noticed. Her face bedaubed with rouge and white lead, enormous hats
adorned by colourful feathers topping her black wig, she would sit in her carriage nodding and smiling to all those who crowded about her carriage. She enjoyed playing the injured wife and loved to encourage the cheers for herself and hostility towards the King.

‘It’s my coronation as well as his,’ she declared to her women: And she intended to make it so.

The King behaved as though she did not exist. Any communication from her was ignored. He could not prove her guilty of adultery but he firmly believed she was and that only an evil fate kept him bound to her.

The Duchess of York being dead, the Queen ignored, the first lady in the land was Adelaide.

The Duchess of York had not mixed in society but this could not be the case with Adelaide, for she was now the mother of the Princess Elizabeth, who might well be a future sovereign.

‘You see, my dear,’ said the King, ‘it puts you in a more prominent position.’

Adelaide saw this and was eager to do her duty. She was often at Court; she gave parties which the King attended – often with Lady Conyngham; she appeared at all important royal functions.

People were noticing her more now than they ever had. She was far from handsome, was the verdict, but she had a charm of manner which made up for her lack of beauty; and her effect on William was miraculous.

She regretted the need for these ventures into society because they kept her from her baby. She felt she would never be accustomed to the wonder of having a child of her own; every moment she could spare from her duties was spent with the child. Queen Charlotte had had a wax image made of her beloved son George – now the King – and she had kept it on her dressing-table that she might see it every day. Adelaide now ordered a sculptor to model a reclining figure of the little Princess Elizabeth.