The Queen and Lord M

by Виктория Холт

  ‘Poor Grandfather! And it seems so unfair that people should be loved and admired because of their good looks. Grandfather tried so hard to be good; and Uncle George didn’t care – yet they were on his side.’

  ‘The people love romance. When you marry, you will see how they adore you.’

  She avoided his eyes. Marriage was a matter she did not wish to discuss with him. Uncle Leopold was constantly hinting at it and mentioning the virtues of her cousin Albert, and she had thought Albert most attractive when she had met him on his brief visit to England before her accession; but now she felt differently. A husband would interfere and she wanted no interference.

  Lord Melbourne was aware of her feelings, but marriage like the results of a division on the Jamaican Bill was something which would have to be discussed sooner or later.

  She was depressed at the moment so he would try to cheer her.

  ‘I love hearing your accounts of my family,’ she said. ‘How wonderful to think that you lived through so much and saw it at first hand.’

  ‘I am not so sure. It betrays the fact that I am a somewhat aged gentleman.’

  ‘Some people are ageless. Dear Lord M, you are one of them.’

  ‘Your Majesty is in a complimentary mood today.’

  ‘You are cheering me considerably … as you always do. Tell me about your family.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘they are not illustrious like yours.’

  She giggled. ‘I fear some of mine have been far from illustrious. In fact they have been wicked and scandalous.’

  ‘Not really more so than the less exalted,’ he assured her. ‘They have had power some of them, unlimited power, and how do any of us know how we would act with such a weapon in our hands? Now mine is a very much more sober history. Most of it is wrapped in obscurity.’

  ‘Tell me what you know.’

  ‘Well, it was like this: a fellow called Peniston Lamb was born in Southwell in the year 1670. He was poor but he managed to go to London and study law. He went into business and made a fortune.’

  ‘That was clever of him considering he was born poor.’

  ‘Very clever. When he died he left his fortune to two nephews.’

  ‘Did he have no sons?’

  ‘No sons, only two nephews. One of these, Matthew, was my grandfather. He married a Miss Coke of Melbourne, a little spot not far from Derby. He knew how to multiply the money left to him and made a large fortune. He was knighted and when he died my father, who was Peniston after the founder of our fortunes, inherited his father’s money and the title. My father became very friendly with Lord Bute, who was a great friend of your grandfather’s mother, the Princess Augusta.’

  Victoria nodded. ‘I believe there was some scandal.’

  ‘She and Lord Bute were great friends, particularly after the death of Augusta’s husband, Frederick, Prince of Wales.’

  ‘It reminds me of Mamma and Sir John Conroy.’

  ‘It was rather similar. Lord Bute advised the Princess and your grandfather was then Prince of Wales, his father Frederick having died and George II (his grandfather) still being alive. Lord Bute was a man of great influence and remained so until George, having become King, threw him off. But what I wanted to tell you was that my father had some connection with Lord Bute, and Lord North (the Prime Minister who lost us the American Colonies, with the help of your grandfather of course) made my father a Baron and that was how he became Viscount Melbourne. Then the Prince Regent (your Uncle George) made him a peer of England. There you have the Melbourne history and you see that it is not nearly as exciting as your own.’

  ‘It is far less shocking.’

  ‘Oh, that is because it is obscure.’

  ‘There are too many quarrels in our family.’

  ‘The Hanoverians were noted for their family quarrels. George II quarrelled violently with George I; Frederick, Prince of Wales, who died before his father and so missed the crown, quarrelled with George II; and George III lost his father so he couldn’t quarrel with him, but his son George IV made up for it by quarrelling with his father and having the most gigantic public quarrel with his wife which ended in the famous trial.’

  ‘And now there is Mamma and myself. We’are carrying on the family tradition. Mamma is behaving very badly. Oh dear, it is all so depressing.’

  And here they were back at the Queen’s growing dissatisfaction with her life.

  ‘If Mamma could be induced to leave the Palace then I think everything would be well.’

  ‘The plain fact is that she cannot leave while you are unmarried, and there is only one way out of it. Since you find her so difficult to live with and cannot live without her, you see the alternative.’

  ‘Marriage.’

  ‘Exactly so,’ said Lord Melbourne.

  ‘I do not find the subject a very pleasant one.’

  ‘Quite a number of subjects are so, I fear, but often when one gives them an airing and looks at them from various angles one grows accustomed to them and familiarity breeds not always contempt as they say, but acceptance.’

  ‘I am very young as yet.’

  ‘You are the Queen.’

  ‘And therefore should not be obliged to do what I do not wish.’

  ‘Providing it is outside the interest of the State, of course.’

  ‘And this …’

  ‘Is a State matter. But let us look at it from another angle. You are unhappy in your ménage. You are an unmarried girl. You must have some sort of chaperone and who is reckoned to be better for that kind of post than a girl’s own mother? You would like to escape from that particular chaperone. How could you do this? By marriage. You have noticed that owing to this unfortunate affair …’

  ‘That nasty creature!’

  ‘Exactly, but the people see her as a wronged heroine and they love wronged heroines. Your role has shifted a little. How could we restore it? There is nothing to appeal to the people like romantic love.’

  ‘Could you so describe a State marriage?’

  ‘State marriages are always so described.’

  ‘But that is invariably quite false.’

  ‘But we are discussing how such marriages are described, not what they are. A young queen, a husband whom she loves … a royal wedding! These are the things which would drive that “nasty creature’s” martyrdom from their minds and it would rid you of your unwanted custodian.’

  The Queen was thoughtful. ‘I see that you think it is my duty.’

  ‘Well, it is bound to come sooner or later.’

  ‘You know that Uncle Leopold is pressing for me to marry my cousin Albert. They are planning to send him over in the autumn.’

  ‘And your mother? What does she feel about this?’

  ‘I think she would welcome it too.’

  ‘I daresay,’ said Lord Melbourne significantly, ‘she would welcome her own nephew. They might become very friendly. Do you think cousins are very good things?’

  ‘Well, they might think the same in many ways …’

  ‘The Coburgs are not very popular abroad.’

  ‘Everyone speaks highly of Albert. When I saw him I thought him … admirable.’

  ‘And yet you do not seem very eager to see him again.’

  ‘So much has happened since we last met him. Then I was very young.’

  ‘And Coburgs …’ Lord Melbourne made a wry face and shook his head. ‘The Duchess is a Coburg.’

  ‘Oh, the men are different.’

  ‘Perhaps the English are not very fond of foreigners.’

  ‘You mean the people would like me to marry an Englishman … that would mean a commoner.’

  ‘Which might not be satisfactory,’ Lord Melbourne agreed.

  ‘Is it necessary for me to marry just yet? There is plenty of time. I like to have my own way as you know.’

  ‘I have gathered that,’ said Lord Melbourne, and they both laughed.

  ‘You know my temper.’

  ‘I know it well.’


  ‘It would not be good if a husband roused it, would it?’

  ‘It is not good when anyone rouses it.’

  ‘But really do you not think that we could wait for a year or two?’

  ‘Well, you have just said that you like your own way and I will say that if the Queen decides that she will wait three or four years then she will wait. But in the meantime perhaps it would be advisable for her to give consideration to the matter. It will take her mind from other things.’

  She nodded smiling. He was thinking: Yes, from other things, from the possible defeat of Your Majesty’s Government from which it would inevitably follow that these encounters which mean so much to us both may well soon be at an end.

  * * *

  Lord Melbourne was very uneasy. It seemed almost certain that in a few weeks he would cease to be the Prime Minister. He was thinking of the Queen. For the last two years they had seen each other every day. He knew she regarded him as a necessary part of her life, but, highly experienced in the ways of the world as he was, he understood their relationship far better than she did. Dear child, he thought, how innocent she is!

  He knew that he had taken the place in her affections of Leopold. Was it due to the fact that she had never known her father that the father figure was glorified in her mind as the ideal to which she must give loyalty unlimited, and enduring affection. Had Edward Duke of Kent lived, it seemed possible that there might have been little differences between him and his imperious daughter, just as they had arisen between her and her mother; but he had died when she was a baby; therefore she had always felt the need for a father. She was a Hanoverian, and therefore overflowing with sentiment.

  She loved him and he loved her. But this was a love affair with a difference. When she had shown her jealousy of Lady Holland and the Duchess of Sutherland he had been a little alarmed. When she had asked him pointedly whether he thought this or that woman beautiful he recognised the signals. He knew exactly to what they pointed. Had I been forty years younger – her own age – it would have been different, he thought. What arrant nonsense! Had he been forty years younger the situation would never have occurred. It was only as Her Majesty’s Prime Minister that he had been admitted to her confidence and how could he have been in that position at the age of twenty? Pitt the younger was twenty-four. He was no Pitt and he was sure Victoria would have disliked that earnest young man. Pitt, who at seven had known he wanted to ‘speak in the House of Commons like Papa’, would never have taken time off from politics to study human nature which was exactly what William Lamb had done.

  Oh yes indeed, their relationship was an extraordinary one which few people but himself would understand. He loved the Queen; he was moved by her. The tears which she so often noticed in his eyes were genuine enough. She was so young, so innocent, so unformed, and it had been his task to form her. Thus he had felt about Caroline … and what disaster that had brought her to. When he had found himself vis à-vis with the Queen he had seemed to grasp at a second chance, to mould a young female creature, to guide her, to introduce her to queen-ship with a similar mocking tolerance and tenderness to that with which he had tried – and failed – to make Caroline into a happy woman. If to love a woman meant that she was the centre of his life then undoubtedly he loved Victoria. Without her life would be blank, dull, meaningless. It was significant that now he did not so much care that his Government was going to be defeated but that he was going to lose his intimacy with the Queen.

  And she, in her open innocent way, loved him too. She would be content to spend the days with him; she asked no other companion. When she had first met that cousin of hers, she had been enchanted by him, he had heard, for Albert was a pretty boy. Now she did not wish to discuss marriage or even think of marriage. Marriage was distasteful to her. Why? Because it would interfere with her friendship with Lord Melbourne.

  ‘It could not go on, William,’ said Melbourne sadly to himself. ‘It had to come to an end.’

  Not yet though. Perhaps in three or four years’ time, when she married.

  No doubt it would be better to tell her by letter. Yes, he felt that would be safer. He would break the news gently.

  On that dismal April day, for any day must be dismal when news of this nature must be broken, he took up his pen and wrote:‘Lord Melbourne presents his humble duty to Your Majesty and begs to inform Your Majesty that the result of the Cabinet has been a decision to stand by the Bill as we have introduced it and not to accede to Sir Robert Peel’s proposal. The Bill is for suspending the functions of the Legislative Assembly of Jamaica and governing this island for five years by a Governor and Council. If Sir Robert Peel should persist in his proposal, and a majority of the House of Commons should concur with him, it would be such a mark of want of confidence as it will be impossible for Your Majesty’s Government to submit to.’

  When the Queen read the letter her temper flared up. It was those tiresome Tories again, led by that perfectly horrid man, Sir Robert Peel. Lord Melbourne and Lord Palmerston knew best what was good for Jamaica and if the Colonial Assembly had trouble in managing the affairs of the country, of course they needed a Governor and Council. It was just a plot to overthrow Lord Melbourne.

  She discussed it with Baroness Lehzen.

  ‘How very stupid they are!’ she stormed. ‘Of course they must do as Lord Palmerston says. Lord Melbourne thinks it is the only way.’

  ‘Let us hope that Lord Melbourne gets his majority in the House because that is what he must have.’

  ‘But of course he will.’

  ‘I would say he seemed a little uncertain,’ said Lehzen, for she, too, was fully aware what the cessation of Lord Melbourne’s visits would mean to her darling.

  ‘I would never accept Sir Robert Peel and his Tories. I detest that man in any case.’

  * * *

  How gloomy it seemed in the Palace. Who would have believed everything could have changed so quickly? She wished that Flora Hastings would go away. It was really rather unkind of her to remain to be a reproach to them all.

  Lady Flora looked like a ghost. She was so pale and the flesh seemed to be falling away from her bones; the ugly protuberance was obvious though, just the same as it had been when they had suspected her of being pregnant.

  Victoria ignored her as much as possible, but occasionally she sent a message to her asking how she was. The Duchess continued to cosset her; there were still letters in the press. As Lehzen said to the Queen: Someone was determined to keep the affair alive and she suspected Conroy.

  Lady Tavistock and Lady Portman told the Queen that Flora Hastings gave them the shivers. She was like a ghost walking about the Palace.

  ‘She should really go home to her family to be nursed,’ snapped the. Queen. ‘That would be the best thing possible.’

  ‘The Duchess has said that she will see that Flora is well looked after.’

  She wants to keep her here, thought Victoria, as a reproach to me.

  She found Lady Tavistock, pale and trembling, and asked what ailed her.

  ‘It is that woman, Your Majesty.’

  ‘Oh, that nasty creature, you mean?’

  ‘I had a dream about her … that she was dead and came back to haunt me.’

  ‘You should put her out of your mind,’ said the Queen sharply. ‘After all, you only did your duty. There should never have been this fuss. There was an enquiry; our suspicions proved false and that should have been the end of the matter.’

  ‘I have always been blamed,’ said Lady Tavistock.

  Lady Tavistock was inclined to see herself as a martyr, as the Queen had once remarked to Lord Melbourne.

  ‘Nonsense!’ said Victoria irritably.

  Lady Tavistock dared not pursue the matter with Her Majesty but went away to tell the Baroness how she and Lady Portman had asked Flora to shake hands with them and say she forgave them. But Lady Flora would not. She just looked through them with that ghostly air and walked quietly away. ‘I can’t
forget it,’ said Lady Tavistock.

  Lehzen did not mention this to the Queen. Poor darling, she had enough trouble coming to her as it was.

  * * *

  It came in the form of a letter from Lord Melbourne who could not bring himself to call and tell her.‘Lord Melbourne presents his humble duty to Your Majesty and has to acquaint Your Majesty that the division upon the Jamaica Bill which took place about two this morning, was two hundred and ninety-nine against the measure and three hundred and four in favour of it …’

  That, thought Victoria, is a majority. Only five it is true, but a majority. So all is well. They have won. Her relief was so great that she had to read what followed twice before she could grasp its implication.

  The words danced before her eyes:‘Lord Melbourne cannot conceal from Your Majesty … leave Your Majesty’s confidential servants no alternative but to resign their offices into Your Majesty’s hands. They cannot give up the Bill either with honesty or satisfaction to their own consciences and in the face of such opposition they cannot persevere in it with any hope of success. Lord Melbourne is certain that Your Majesty will not deem him too presuming if he expresses the fear that this decision will be both painful and embarrassing to Your Majesty …’

  Painful and embarrassing! He was going to resign. There would be another Prime Minister. He would cease to call on her. She would rarely see him – only perhaps at social functions. Oh, no, she would not accept his resignation. No one … no one could take Lord Melbourne’s place.

  Lehzen came in to find her staring before her.

  ‘My precious angel, what is it?’ cried the Baroness.

  Victoria threw herself wildly into the Baroness’s arms. ‘They are going to resign. I cannot bear it, Daisy. He will not come here again. It is all over.’