by Lucy Worsley
She folded her arms and screwed up her eyes to examine me narrowly. ‘I did not want you,’ said the princess directly. ‘I wanted a real little girl, not some relation of Sir John’s. I only agreed to have you because he promised me a puppy. Is that it?’ Coming out from behind the sofa, she pointed at Dash with her little toe. I feared that she meant to kick him.
It was hardly possible that my spirits could sink any lower. But I realised, of course, what I was expected to do. My father’s gaze was drilling into me.
I did not attempt to curtsey again, fearing further ridicule. So I simply stepped forward. ‘Your Royal Highness,’ I said, ‘I am delighted to make your acquaintance, and I have the pleasure of bringing you your new dog, Dash.’
With a great tearing pain in my heart, I handed his lead over, handed dear Dash himself over, to Lord knows what.
Chapter 5
They’re Spies!
The Princess Victoria and I were crouched behind the sofa. I knelt on the floor, my heels tucked under me. No one had proposed that I should take off my cloak, and indeed I did not suggest it myself as the room was so far from warm. I also had a distinct need of the water closet, but these strange people did not seem to think it necessary to offer their visitors such things.
Over near the fireplace, the two German ladies and my father were chatting together in a hearty manner.
‘You wanted to play, Your Royal Highness,’ my father had said, rubbing his hands so hard the knuckles cracked. ‘So play!’
Given such an instruction myself, I would have stood uncertainly, wondering in what manner to begin, but the little princess did not pause for a moment. She had grabbed my elbow and pulled both Dash and I behind the sofa. And there she’d seemed to look at Dash properly for the first time.
All at once, her face had changed. From pale and peevish, it lit up like a lamp. Her little mouth dropped open. ‘Oh!’ she breathed. ‘He is beautiful!’
At that Dash arched his back and pulled his lips back from his teeth, just as if he understood her words and was smiling. He did it so quickly and sweetly that, to my surprise, I heard a small giggle slip out from between my lips.
My poor crumpled heart unfurled itself, just a little bit.
Soon the strange princess was caressing his long ears and trying to trick him into rolling over so she could tickle his belly. Dash, forever docile, was squirming in delight. I could not help putting out my own hand to the soft white hair of his stomach, and in doing so I drew near the princess on the carpet. We were hidden from the room by the sofa. I now saw that the dark green velvet curtain was looped over a corner of it, making a kind of tent against the window.
The princess caught me looking around in bemusement.
‘This is my playroom,’ she said.
‘Here, behind the sofa, Your Royal Highness?’
‘Indeed, yes.’ She dropped her voice and spoke to me very confidentially across Dash’s belly. ‘They can hear us, but at least they can’t see us here.’
‘Who do you mean? Those German ladies?’
Barely in time, I remembered and corrected myself.
‘I mean, do you speak of the German ladies, Your Royal Highness?’
I was worried that she would reprimand me for forgetting her title, and perhaps, even worse, that my father might overhear her doing so. And perhaps her eyes – which were a bright blue, but somewhat bulging – did widen a little. But she was clearly eager to seize her own turn to speak.
‘Madame de Späth is my nurse. Of course, I’m too old to need a nurse now, but she helps look after me, and sorts out my clothes, you know. That kind of thing. And Baroness Lehzen is my governess. But they are both spies.’
Although the Princess Victoria spoke exceedingly quietly, I had noticed before that people have an uncanny ability to hear their own names spoken, even over a buzz of general conversation.
‘Louder, girls!’ called the tall, thin governess. ‘Play together with more volume, please, so that we may hear you.’
The princess rolled her eyes.
‘What a DELICIOUS dog!’ she said shrilly. At the same time, she gave Dash such a volley of tickles that he barked. As she did it, I noticed that her fingers were red and raw where she had been biting her nails. There was also an unhealed sore on her lip.
The burble of adult conversation resumed. ‘Lord!’ she said, returning to her former tone. ‘Your clothes are very dull. You look like a nursemaid.’ She cast her eye critically over what I had thought that morning to be a neat, trim outfit.
‘But anyway,’ she quickly ran on, not giving me the chance to respond in any way, ‘I didn’t want you to come here to Kensington Palace. I thought you’d be just another of Sir John’s spies. But I’m quite glad you’re here now.’ She sniffed. ‘I have no brothers and sisters to live with,’ she went on, ‘and never had a father – he died when I was a baby. And I am not on comfortable terms, or at all intimate, with my mother. It is a very melancholy life that I lead.’
She gave a theatrical sigh.
I could only gape at her. She had left me quite astonished by her flood of personal information. I should never have revealed such things to a stranger; I had been brought up properly. But it was clear that this was no ordinary little girl, and not just because she was a princess. She seemed to have no notions of ladylike behaviour or discretion. My father had quite a job on his hands looking after her, I could see that. But then, it was only fitting that such a brilliant man should be chosen for such a difficult and important task.
Not knowing quite what to say, I asked if I was correct in thinking her mother to be Her Royal Highness, the Duchess of Kent.
‘The Duchess of Spent, more like.’ Now something like a convulsion passed over her face, and that chubby lower lip dropped open again. It was a silent giggle. ‘She spends all her time on a sofa like this one. “Oh, Vickelchen, I am spent!” she says. Yes, she means tired, but also …’ There was another silent peal of laughter. ‘She also could mean that she has spent all our money. She is a spendthrift. Or so says Sir John, master of everything.’
‘My mother, too, likes to lie upon a sofa,’ I said lamely. It was all I could think of to say. It had given me something of a start to hear my father talked about like this, casually, by a third person. I had never really imagined much about his life when he was away from Arborfield, and I had not considered that strangers might know him well. I had only wished he would spend more time with us at home. Maybe then my mother would not be so sleepy.
‘But … Your Royal Highness, why do you call your ladies “spies”?’
This question had been nagging me ever since she had first used the word.
‘Ah, they’re part of the System, of course.’
‘The System?’
‘Why! You really don’t know anything, do you?’ She laughed out loud this time, opening her mouth a bit too wide. I could see a gap in her pink gums where a tooth had fallen out, and there was a powerful, unclean scent of gumdrops from her breath.
It crossed my mind to say that I certainly didn’t know why a person in her right mind would live behind a sofa, but when in doubt, silence has always been my policy. I looked down at the floor. When we’d been playing with Dash, I had felt I could almost come to like her. But now she was just making me feel small.
She sighed, unable to wait more than two seconds, it seemed, before leaping into any conversational void.
‘They call it the Kensington System,’ she said with emphasis, but speaking once more in a furious whisper. ‘They think I don’t know what the word means, but I do. The System means that I’m not allowed to sleep in a room by myself. I’m not allowed to meet other girls. I’m not allowed to see my relatives. The System is why I’m never allowed to be alone but must always have Späth or Lehzen or my mother with me. I’m not even allowed to go downstairs without holding someone’s hand, in case I fall and hurt myself, they say. Well, it hurts me, I can tell you, to be so muffled and mollycoddled and spied upon.
That’s what hurts and upsets me! They say I upset myself, but they … bring it upon me.’
As she spoke, her tone grew more and more violent. Her little chest was heaving for breath, and I noticed that her hands were gripping the blue and white skirt so hard that I thought it might rip.
‘Lehzen, Späth, they do their best, but they’re just his spies!’
She hissed the last words so aggressively that it was as if the malignant parrot had spoken again.
‘But …’ I groped for words in my confusion. ‘But, Your Royal Highness, whose spies are they? Who has created the System?’
‘Oh, you are a fool,’ she cried softly. ‘They’re the spies of your father, of course. Sir John Conroy.’
I felt my own mouth fall open to mirror hers, in an ‘O’ of astonishment.
I gathered my breath to tell her at once that she must be mistaken, that my father was kind and good, but her passionate words had attracted unwelcome attention.
‘Your Royal Highness!’
The adult conversation had stopped. The room was completely silent.
‘Young ladies! Come out from behind the sofa at once!’ The words rang out in Lehzen’s booming tones. ‘You have become overexcited, Your Royal Highness, have you not?’
I believed that the little princess was being melodramatic with her talk of spies and a mysterious System. And of course she was quite mistaken about my father. What a ridiculous claim to make! But as we rose together to our feet, I could see that my companion was panting hard, still fighting for breath, and terribly upset. My own heart was pounding too, for we had obviously done something deeply wrong for Madame Lehzen to yell at us like that.
I gave a sheepish glance sideways at the princess. On her face was hostility, yes, and crossness, but something else too. She gave me a private little moue of the mouth as if to say that she didn’t blame me for the scolding.
‘You can keep your dog,’ she whispered as we crossed the carpet. ‘Just let me play with him sometimes, will you? That will keep Sir John quiet.’
Again, I opened my mouth to say that my father wasn’t her enemy. But I was too late. The adults were watching us intently. So I closed it silently, swallowing my words.
Chapter 6
‘What Is the Kensington System?’
With our introduction to the princess brought to this abrupt and distressing end, my father said a courtly goodbye to the two German ladies and led Dash and me from the room. It had been agreed that Dash should accompany me so that I could get out his bowl and his biscuits from our luggage.
‘Well done!’ my father said, as we groped our way down the gloomy staircase once again. ‘I think that passed off quite well. There was plenty of conversation, wasn’t there? Although it did get rather heated. What did she say? No, don’t tell me now. The walls in this palace have ears. We’ll wait until we are in our own apartment.’
The long day had been so dark and strange and uncomfortable that I was near fainting, and in great need of warmth and cheer. He noticed and suddenly swung me off my feet and carried me down the final flight.
‘You weigh no more than a feather, Miss V!’ he said. ‘And you’re cold! What a fool I am to have sent you to fight the good fight on poor provisions. An army marches on its stomach, you know.’
Of course I did know, for my father was fond of referring to his military days in Gibraltar in service with the dead Duke of Kent, this princess’s father.
In no time at all, we were out in the courtyard once again, dodging the raindrops and laughing. He took Dash and me along a cloister, round a corner, and I saw the mob-capped old lady again, looking at us through her opened window.
‘My daughter,’ my father called out, as he whisked me along upon his strong arm. ‘My daughter is here, but she feels faint. Excuse me, dearest lady, I shall return very shortly to pay my respects!’
Then we reached a snug little door. It led to an apartment much less grand than the suite where we had just been, but considerably more cheerful.
As I found my feet on the warm, yellow carpet, I saw that there was a lively little fire, and cushions on the couch. It was a welcome sight. ‘Here are our quarters,’ my father said. ‘This is where you’ll live during your visit. Normally I’m all alone – how delightful to have company! And here’s tea! Edward has already brought in your trunk and taken it to your own room.’
I looked around with intense interest, eager to see this new realm in which my father was king. I smiled when I saw a shiny piano. ‘Yes, I have had it tuned especially for you!’ he said. ‘You must play for me in the evenings. We shall be very cosy.’
Our domain turned out to be quite a rabbit warren of little rooms, panelled in wood, very dark, but warm and blessedly clean. My father introduced me to our own housekeeper, Mrs Keen. He explained that she looked after him when he was at Kensington Palace, and would now look after me too. Mrs Keen clearly kept this particular corner of the palace in very good order and had filled a vase with early tulips and placed it in the little attic where I was to sleep.
Then I came down to a muffin, and to the warmed slippers that my father had placed upon the fender.
‘Now,’ he said. ‘You did well. I think you won the confidence of all three ladies.’
I looked down at the floor. I felt that the meeting had been awkward and uncomfortable. Surely life in polite society wasn’t always like that?
He noticed my confusion.
‘The princess quite took to you,’ he said. ‘I have seen her behave … well, far worse than that. And this is important, Miss V,’ he went on, ‘because the friendship of the family will help your brothers to get good positions in the army and your mother and sister all the leisure and pretty dresses they require. I have a decent understanding with the princess and her household, but I must always be watchful for opportunity. You will help me. We must deploy our forces to best advantage. Now, what was she saying to you behind the sofa?’
He was right to consider that fun and dressing up were essential to the happiness of my sister Jane, just as endless leisure and a lack of what she called ‘bother’ was what my mother required of life. On the other hand, I myself only wanted to feel useful somehow, to someone. And, of course, to be well supplied with novels.
‘Dear Papa,’ I began tentatively, ‘what is the Kensington System?’
‘The System!’ He banged his teacup down on the table. ‘Now what does she know about that?’ He leapt up and began pacing about, all his previous good humour gone in a flash.
‘Well, Papa, Victoria … the Princess Victoria … said that she is kept away from other people and kept under watch, and that she does not like it. And, Papa, she said that you are responsible.’
Up and down the hearthrug he went, like Dash on a rainy day when we hadn’t been out.
‘Well, there is some truth in that,’ he eventually muttered. ‘But I can’t think where the little minx learned of what we call it.’
‘But, Papa!’ Now I was dismayed. ‘I don’t believe it! It can’t be true! Why would you want to lock up a little girl? I know you wouldn’t do that. She’s even younger than I am.’
‘She may seem younger,’ he said distractedly, ‘but she is eleven – the same as you.’
He paced on and on. I wondered why he hadn’t answered my question. Perhaps he was angry with me for even raising the possibility that he might lock up a little girl, even if she was strange and pert. A princess locked up! It did sound romantic, too romantic to be real.
Eventually he paused before my chair, looking down at me in a manner I could not interpret.
‘Can I trust you, Miss V?’
‘Of course, Papa.’
I lowered my gaze, hoping that he would go on.
‘Well, there is a system of sorts here at Kensington Palace, and it is true that the princess leads an … unusual … life.’
My breath caught in my throat. I could not believe this! The bars at the window? The sense of strain and captivity? The surveil
lance? No, my father would never do such things.
He must have seen my worried expression. He laughed and flipped out the tails of his coat to squat down by my chair. He took my cold hands to warm them between his.
‘Listen, Miss V,’ he said. ‘You know you can trust your father to tell you the truth. Here it is in all its ugliness. This isn’t a pretty story to please young ladies. It’s a serious business.’
I waited for him to go on, trying to look as serious as I knew how.
‘As you are aware,’ he said, after a pause during which I could see him searching for the simplest words in which to put the problem, ‘there is great uncertainty about what will happen when the king dies.’
I nodded eagerly, keen to show my understanding. He meant King George the Fourth, who had been on the throne for as long as I could remember and whose father had been the mad, blind, ancient King George the Third.
‘Now, the king has no children. You know this, don’t you? But he does have a large number of brothers, and one of them was the Duke of Kent, my kind and unfortunately deceased master – and the Princess Victoria’s father.’
At this he emitted the deep, respectful sigh he always gave when he mentioned this dead duke. After a moment, he went on.
‘And so the Princess Victoria, as the king’s niece, is very high up the line of succession. She may be queen one day. But she has cousins who are jealous of her high position and who would like the throne for themselves. Her cousin George, for example, is just one week younger. And there are other cousins too. These people wish our princess ill. They would rejoice should any harm come to her. Should any harm come to her, you hear me?’
He paused, as he could see I was struggling to take it all in.
‘Are you saying that some people … would want the princess out of the way, and that they might try to hurt her?’
‘I knew you would understand, Miss V!’
I smiled. Of course that crazy princess had got it all wrong. Her guardians weren’t trying to spy on her or keep her locked up. They were just trying to keep her safe.