The Queen and Lord M

by Виктория Холт

  The Baroness led her to a chair and made her sit down.

  ‘Perhaps it will not be so. Perhaps they can come through this. After all they have not been defeated.’

  ‘He says …’ began Victoria and gave the letter to Lehzen. Lehzen read it as she read most of the Queen’s correspondence.

  ‘Oh my love,’ said Lehzen, ‘this is terrible!’

  They wept together. ‘I cannot imagine it without him,’ said Victoria.

  ‘You will find the new men easy to get along with. You will find someone as willing to advise you.’

  The Queen stamped her foot angrily. ‘I will find no one,’ she cried. ‘Do you think anyone could take his place?’

  Her anger was more bearable than her grief.

  Lehzen said: ‘He was the Prime Minister …’

  ‘Was! He still is the Prime Minister. He shall remain Prime Minister. I shall refuse to accept his resignation.’

  Lehzen looked hopeful and the Queen went on. ‘Am I the Queen or not? If I say I won’t have these horrid Tories, I won’t. Lord Melbourne is my Prime Minister now and nothing is going to change it.’

  Lehzen shook her head sadly. ‘It is no use,’ she said. ‘You know the Constitution.’

  ‘But they haven’t been beaten, Lehzen. They won by five votes.’

  ‘You read here what Lord Melbourne says. He is summoning a Cabinet meeting this morning and he tells you what the Cabinet’s decision will be.’

  ‘I must beg them not to. Let them give up their Bill.’

  ‘Even the Queen cannot interfere with State affairs like that. You know that, my darling. You are overwrought.’

  ‘Oh, Lehzen … darling Daisy … I am going to lose him.’

  Lehzen tried to soothe her. She must lie down. She must rest. She must remember she was the Queen. Malicious people would be watching. There was gossip enough. ‘Oh, please, please my darling, control your feelings. Remember you are the Queen.’

  ‘Daisy … what should I do without you!’

  ‘You have me until I die, my dearest.’

  ‘But if I lose him, Daisy, I don’t want to live.’

  ‘What sort of talk is this? Is this how a Queen talks?’

  ‘But he … is going to leave me, and I cannot endure that Daisy.’

  ‘Of course he is not going to leave you. He is still here. He will be the Leader of the Opposition, I suppose. He will not be far off. You will see him now and then. You speak as though he were going to die.’

  That cheered her a little. ‘Yes, I shall see him now and then. We shall be at dinners together. I shall invite him to my box at the opera.’

  ‘There you see,’ said Lehzen.

  ‘But it won’t be the same, will it? He won’t be able to come here and we shan’t have our chats … alone. He will have to move out of the Palace. All our fun will be over. Oh, Daisy, you have no idea … no one has … how amusing he is. He makes everything so lighthearted and he is so good and kind and there is no one like him.’

  ‘He will come and see you.’

  ‘No, that horrid Peel man won’t allow it. He will come instead and I won’t have him.’

  ‘Once again,’ said Lehzen, ‘I beg of you to remember that you are the Queen.’

  ‘He would say the same, Daisy. He always reminds me that queens have to do all sorts of things that are distasteful to them.’

  ‘Yes, if he were here now he would say what I am saying.’

  ‘Oh, yes, dear Daisy, it’s true.’

  ‘And you would want him to be proud of you. People will be calling to see you soon. You must remember that you are the Queen. Have you forgotten how wonderful you were when Conyngham and the Archbishop came to tell you you were the Queen. Everyone said how calm … how dignified … how queenly.’

  ‘But that was something I wanted to hear … something I had been waiting for. Now I am going to lose my dear Prime Minister.’

  ‘Let me bathe your eyes. I have a wonderful lotion. No one must see, must they? There would be gossip … scandal …’

  Victoria stared at the Baroness. Scandal! It was the first time she had thought that her relationship with Lord Melbourne might be considered scandalous.

  She said brokenly, ‘He is the best and kindest of men. I was fortunate beyond everything that he should be my Prime Minister.’

  ‘And still is as far as we know.’

  ‘For how long, Daisy, for how long?’

  ‘Let’s cross our bridges when we come to them,’ said Lehzen just as she used to when they were in the nursery together before Victoria was a Queen.

  * * *

  ‘Lord Melbourne has called,’ said Lehzen.

  The Queen clasped her hands together. She was trembling.

  ‘He is waiting,’ added Lehzen gently.

  Victoria covered her face with her hands.

  ‘Try and control yourself, dearest. You want to see him. Remember you are the Queen, and this is not goodbye to him.’

  She nodded and went to him.

  She held out both hands to him. He kissed them. When she raised her face to his she saw the tears in his eyes.

  ‘It … has happened?’ she asked fearfully.

  Lord Melbourne nodded. ‘Lord John will be coming to see you. He will tell you that at our Cabinet meeting it was agreed that the Government should resign.’

  ‘I shall lose you,’ she said.

  ‘I shall be close.’

  ‘You will not forsake me, then?’

  ‘You cannot believe that I would ever do such a thing.’

  ‘I am a little comforted, but most unhappy.’

  ‘Your Majesty does me too much honour.’

  ‘But you know my feelings.’

  ‘Yes, I know them. And I believe you know mine.’

  ‘You could be here just the same?’

  ‘Your Majesty’s new Prime Minister would not allow the Queen to be in constant conference with the Opposition.’

  ‘Those Tories!’

  He smiled. Like Lehzen he preferred to see the flash of temper rather than the sorrow.

  ‘You must try to get on with Sir Robert Peel.’

  ‘I never shall. I hate the man: He is quite loathsome to me.’

  ‘He’s all right. Stiff and formal. But you’ll get to know him.’

  ‘I shall refuse to.’

  ‘You will remember your duty, I know.’

  ‘Why do you have to have this miserable Bill?’

  ‘Well, you see, something had to be done for Jamaica. We believe we are right. They believe they are. That’s politics.’

  ‘But us … our … friendship. That was not politics?’

  ‘I have been honoured as I never thought to be. I shall remember the esteem you have had for me as long as I live.’

  ‘Esteem!’ she cried. ‘You are usually so good with words. That is not the right one, you know. Oh, dear Lord M, I will not let you go. I will not.’

  He took her hand and patted it gently as he might a child’s. ‘I have explained to you what constitutional government is,’ he said. ‘A party that cannot rule must resign. This has been coming for a long time. Now we are going to show the world how a queen behaves. I know you will do that … admirably, and when I see you working with your new Government as you have with mine I shall say: There is indeed a queen. And I shall be so proud. I shall be arrogant and I shall deceive myself into thinking that I am in part responsible for my great little Queen.’

  ‘Oh, my dear, dearest Lord M!’

  ‘Oh come,’ he said, ‘it’s not the end. We shall meet … often.’

  ‘Yes, we shall. I shall insist.’

  ‘And of course we shall have to obey the Queen for her temper can be a little choleric and one has to be a brave man to risk arousing that.’

  ‘You were always very brave in that respect.’

  ‘I knew how kind and good a heart she has despite the flashing eye and frowning brows, and I always trusted to luck that I should not be dismissed from
my Sovereign’s presence.’

  ‘That Peel gentleman will not find my heart so kind, I do assure you.’

  ‘I would not wish you to be as kind to him as you have been to me. That would be asking too much of me. But remember he’s not such a bad fellow and he is only doing his duty. I can assure Your Majesty that he is highly thought of in some quarters.’

  ‘Not in the Palace, and he never will be. Oh, you are teasing me, you are trying to make me forget how unhappy I am.’

  ‘I must leave you now,’ he said, ‘but if I have your permission to come back again this evening, I will by then have worked out a plan of action for you. Have I that permission?’

  ‘I shall be waiting for you this evening.’

  He bowed and smiled at her.

  ‘All will be well,’ he said.

  She shook her head not trusting herself to speak.

  ‘I knew it would happen,’ said Lord Melbourne, ‘some day.’

  Then he was gone and she was alone … desolate.

  * * *

  At three o’clock that afternoon there was another visitor. It was little John Russell for whom she had always had a special affection, partly because he was a supporter of Lord Melbourne, partly because she liked him for himself and partly because like her he was well below average in height.

  She held out her hand to him with the tears streaming down her cheeks.

  ‘Your Majesty!’ cried Lord John.

  ‘Oh, dear Lord John, this is terrible.’

  ‘I cannot tell Your Majesty how it grieves me to inform you that your Cabinet must resign. I want to thank Your Majesty for all your kindness to me in my recent bereavement.’

  ‘How are the darling children?’ she asked.

  ‘They are well but missing their mother,’ said Lord John, which made her weep afresh.

  ‘What a sad, sad world!’ she sighed. Poor Lord John had lost his wife and she was about to lose her dear Prime Minister.

  Lord John did not remain long. He had done his duty in giving her this unwelcome news and he was unhappy to be the bringer of such tidings. Lord Melbourne would be calling on her again that day, he added to cheer her up; and even he was surprised to see what an effect this had on her.

  Another chance to see him! To try to persuade him to forget this wretched Bill. Were not the people of Buckingham Palace more important to him than those of Jamaica?

  * * *

  In the afternoon Lord Melbourne was back at the Palace. He had recovered most of his normal nonchalance, as though he had had a tussle with himself and come to the conclusion that he must not let his feelings get the better of him.

  He kissed her hand; and she clung to his for a few moments fiercely as though she would not let him go.

  ‘I have come to see Your Majesty,’ he said, ‘because I have been aware for some time that this was inevitable and I had already considered the advice I should give you when the day arrived.’

  ‘Then,’ she demanded, ‘why did you allow this Jamaican business to happen?’

  He raised those bushy but beautifully marked eyebrows and gave her that half-amused half-exasperated look which had so often enchanted her. ‘Your Majesty forgets that our Ministry was never strong. Our majority was small and the Lords have never favoured us. Lord Brougham has constantly waited his opportunity to finish us off. It has been almost impossible to get any legislation through the House. Everywhere we have turned we have been baulked. This is a situation which cannot, for the good of the country, be allowed to continue. But for Your Majesty’s kindness to me and my ministers I doubt we should have lasted as long as we did. So you see, we have been fortunate. Now I must tell you what I think you should do.’

  ‘I do not want to see Sir Robert Peel,’ said the Queen firmly.

  ‘Your Majesty is not being fair to this man.’

  ‘He is the man who has opposed you. It is because of him that you have to go.’

  ‘He opposes me naturally because he is in Opposition so that is a perfectly logical thing for him to do. And my departure is by no means due to him. You must not blame him because he is a Tory.’

  ‘I would prefer to see all people Whigs as we are.’

  He looked at her sadly. Had all his teaching been in vain? Here was the child of the nursery. Then he was filled with tenderness. She is too young for such a burden, he thought.

  ‘If you do not wish to send for Peel you can send for the Duke of Wellington. Tell the Duke, if Your Majesty feels this is so, that you were entirely satisfied with your late Government and that you part from them with reluctance.’

  ‘Oh, dear Lord M, have you any doubt of that?’

  ‘No, indeed I have not. Tell the Duke that as the head of the party which has been responsible for removing your late Government from office you turn to him to advise you as to the manner of replacing it and continuing with the country’s business. Now if the Duke should decide not to do this Your Majesty will have no alternative but to call in Sir Robert Peel.’

  ‘I can’t bear to hear his name.’

  ‘And first,’ went on Lord Melbourne, ‘you must overcome this aversion which in fact has no foundation in logic. For Your Majesty has scarcely seen the man.’

  ‘Oh, I have seen him, but he did not have the grace to present himself to me.’

  ‘Then he was a fool … but in that respect only. I do assure Your Majesty that he is far from foolish in the House of Commons. He is formal; he is self-conscious and it is for this reason that he did not present himself to Your Majesty. But he is an extremely able statesman and if the Duke refuses you must – for there is nothing else you can do – ask him to form a Government. But you should insist that the Duke of Wellington is part of that Government.’

  ‘Are you sure there is nothing else I can do?’

  He smiled at her tenderly, ‘Ah, I can see that now you are accepting this unpleasant state of affairs.’

  ‘I shall never accept it in my heart.’

  ‘But you will remember you are the Queen. This is how it is with Sovereigns. There are times when we all have to act in a manner which causes us great sorrow; but this is particularly so with Sovereigns.’

  ‘You will dine at the Palace tonight?’

  ‘Your Majesty must excuse me, for I do not think that would be advisable.’

  ‘You are still my Prime Minister until I have a new one.’

  ‘Our actions are noted, commented on, exaggerated you know. I do assure you that it would be very unwise for me to dine at the Palace tonight. I have already accepted an invitation to dine at Lady Holland’s. I think I should be there.’

  She nodded. ‘I shall see you again … soon?’

  ‘As Your Majesty commands,’ he said.

  Then he left her; and she went to her room to weep quietly.

  Lehzen came to her and there was some comfort in talking to her.

  ‘It will not seem so bad tomorrow,’ said Lehzen.

  ‘It will never be the same,’ she answered. ‘All, all my happiness has gone! That happy peaceful life is destroyed. Lord Melbourne is no longer my minister.’

  She stayed in her room. ‘Which will be noted,’ Lehzen reminded her.

  ‘I don’t care,’ cried the Queen; and indeed she was in no state to appear.

  Lehzen imagined the sly comments that were no doubt being exchanged in the Duchess’s household; Conroy would be jeering, the Duchess gloating. But certainly the Queen could not appear with swollen eyes and silent grief, unable to eat.

  In her own room Lehzen tried to tempt her with food but she could not touch it, but as the evening wore on she grew a little calmer.

  ‘Lord Melbourne expects me to be calm,’ she told Lehzen. ‘He says I must behave as if this is merely a change of Government which it is obvious I would rather not have taken place, but I must show that I am ready to work with these people.’

  ‘And Lord Melbourne is right. You used to say he always was.’

  She sat brooding until midnight; then she
went to bed and to Lehzen’s relief slept soundly.

  As soon as she awoke next morning she wrote to Lord Melbourne.‘The Queen thinks Lord Melbourne may possibly wish to know how she is this morning; the Queen is somewhat calmer; she was in a wretched state till nine last night when she tried to occupy herself and to think less gloomily of this dreadful change and she succeeded in calming herself till she went to bed at twelve and she slept well; but on waking this morning all – all that had happened in one short eventful day came forcibly to mind and brought back her grief; the Queen, however, feels better now; but she couldn’t touch a morsel of food last night nor can she this morning. The Queen trusts Lord Melbourne slept well and is well this morning; and that he will come precisely at eleven o’clock …’

  She was sitting brooding in her room waiting for eleven to come when the Duke of Wellington was announced.

  ‘It is not a bad dream,’ she mourned. ‘It really has begun.’

  The great Duke was seventy and seemed quite ancient to the young Queen. The idea of his taking the place of her beloved Lord Melbourne was grotesque – yet just a little better than horrid Peel’s doing so.

  ‘Your Majesty!’ said the Duke bowing.

  ‘Pray be seated,’ replied the Queen. ‘Now I suppose you know why I have sent for you?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ replied the Duke.

  A fine future leader of Government, she thought, who doesn’t know what is going on!

  ‘Lord Melbourne’s Ministry, in which I had the greatest confidence, has resigned.’

  ‘I am grieved to hear it.’

  ‘As your party has been instrumental in removing them,’ said the Queen with a flash of temper, ‘I am obliged to look to you to form a new Government.’

  ‘Your Majesty, I have no power whatsoever in the House of Commons. I can only advise you to send for the leader of the Opposition there – Sir Robert Peel.’

  The Queen’s lips tightened and the Duke went on: ‘Your Majesty will find him a man of honour.’

  The Queen ignored this and said that she hoped the Duke would have a place in the Cabinet.

  ‘Your Majesty, I am seventy years of age. My prime is long past. I am so deaf that it is difficult for me to take part in any discussion.’