by Lucy Worsley
‘There’s nothing for it.’ Finally some words came distantly from under the counterpane, and at the sound the duchess froze. ‘Miss V will have to go in my place. Otherwise there will be an empty seat and a scandal, and the king will think that you, Mother, cannot be trusted to look after me at all.’ Victoria’s voice was buried beneath the pillow, but we heard her clearly enough.
Dismayed, the duchess and I stared at each other.
‘Vickelchen!’ she begged. ‘Please do not kill me with embarrassment. Please do me the credit of appearing like a good princess should.’
At that Victoria poked her head out from under the covers.
‘Mother!’ she said. ‘You don’t understand. I am not a good princess. I really cannot go down. My nerves will not let me. You must go, with Miss V, and all will be well.’
The duchess seized my elbow in a steely grip.
‘Get ready,’ she hissed. ‘Curl your hair. We will be at the top table. We will be far from the eyes of the crowd, and King William has not seen his niece since she has been grown up.’
I turned to her, embarrassed that she would recommend such a crazy course of action. But then I remembered just how crazy she was.
‘Go on, Miss V,’ came a little voice from the bed. ‘Please. Go and play my part for me. Don’t make me take the drops.’
I stood, dithering.
‘You’re letting us all down,’ I said to Victoria sharply, perhaps as sharply as I’d ever spoken to her.
‘Please!’ She begged me again. ‘Please! Don’t make me take the drops.’
It was the mention of the drops that did it. I succumbed to the two powerful personalities.
As soon as she saw my tentative, doubting nod of agreement, the duchess was pushing and pulling me into Victoria’s silver gown. It fitted so well it was almost made for me. But it was cut lower on the shoulders than I would ever have permitted in a gown of my own.
‘Look at your neck!’ the duchess said encouragingly. ‘It is as long as a swan’s. You will be very fine. Here, rings.’
I dropped one of them as I tried in my haste to thrust them too quickly on to my fingers. My eye caught my own familiar hands, bejewelled and lying against the backdrop of a skirt of rich, lustrous silver.
But there was no time to contemplate how odd they looked there.
‘Tiara!’ The duchess was back in front of me, more urgent than any lady’s maid would ever dare to be, imperiously gesturing me to bow my head for the reception of diamonds. Her hands were here, there and everywhere in a blur of motion, tweaking and thrusting my hair into place. ‘I wish,’ she said, through gritted teeth, ‘that it was this easy to dress Vickelchen.’
All too soon it was done, and I was standing uncertainly in the middle of the room without even having had the chance to examine myself in the looking glass.
‘There, Miss V! Now turn round and let me have one last check.’
Anxiously the duchess inspected my dress, smoothed my hair.
She smiled.
I passed the test.
‘You do look like her,’ she said, half pleased, half amazed. ‘You have always served us well, Vickelchen and I,’ she went on, imploring me with her big, bold eyes. I could see that they were bright with tears, and that it was only with a frantic, blinking effort that she was able to keep the liquid from spilling over. ‘Serve us now!’ she begged again. ‘Play your part!’
She turned decisively and led the way from the room. Then there was nothing for it but to follow her along the corridor, past the footmen, down the stairs. I kept close behind her, almost stepping on her train, my eyes on the floor. I was an impostor! This was a deception! Surely we would never carry it off. I felt my old enemy, my blush, starting to colour my cheeks. Nothing kept me walking but my memory of Victoria begging me to go down in her place.
At the bottom of the stairs, by some mismanagement of the household staff, there stood gathered a group of maids and porters. The duchess tut-tutted, but they parted like waves at our approach, and there was a general bending of the knees in curtseys. Then, from behind us as we passed, a young voice piped up.
‘God bless you, Princess Victoria!’ it said.
The young housemaid who had spoken was instantly shushed by her companions. These were well-trained servants who knew that they were to be seen and not heard. But somehow they did have their own way of expressing approbation. There was a murmur, or susurration, from among them, and I felt that they were pleased. As I walked away in the duchess’s wake, I straightened my back. I felt their hopeful eyes upon me, and their collective gaze strengthened my spine.
As we reached the very door of the drawing room, it occurred to me with a sickening jolt that a moment of great danger lay ahead.
My father would be there.
With seconds to go I prepared myself. Look for him at once, I told myself, just as a pair of footmen in powdered wigs, as if from the palace in the story of Cinderella, bowed and threw wide the double doors.
I saw before me a glittering crowd filling a rich, dim interior, a blue evening sky still softly glowing behind the vast windows of the drawing room.
The colourful blur soon began to separate itself into individual figures, and there he was. His mouth was open in an expression of amazement, and his brows were coming down to wrinkle his forehead into deep, black creases. Of course he was angry. The System did not allow such perilous tricks as this.
But I sensed the duchess ahead of me giving him a quelling look, and I gave him the tiniest shake of the head. He slowly closed his open mouth. He said nothing.
But as soon as he had the chance, he came slinking up behind me. ‘In the Lord’s name, what is going on, Miss V? Is this some silly girls’ game?’
‘It is by the wish of the princess,’ I said drily, and without further ado, stepped forward to greet another courtier who tottered towards me in unsuitable shoes and too many pearls.
For the rest of the evening, I had very little to do apart from to smile and look pleased as a succession of elderly ladies and gentlemen were introduced to me, all of them peering at me through their quizzing glasses or taking my hand limply in cold fingers and letting it drop. If anyone paused to talk, I deflected attention away from myself with polite questions to the speaker.
The old king was the next challenge, perhaps the biggest threat of all to our carrying off our deception. First he spoke to the duchess, as shortly as was compatible with politeness. I could see her back bristle up like a cat’s at the lack of respect.
Then she was turning and shoving me forward, and I was curtseying as deeply as I ever had done.
But as I rose and looked at him, he seemed scarcely able to make me out in the gloom of the great drawing room, lit by rather too few oil lamps. As he peered, I received an impression of geniality but disinterest.
‘Is that my niece?’ he croaked. ‘Welcome, my dear. You are always welcome here at the castle. What a pretty dress.’
Then the ordeal was over, we moved on and into the crowd. Suddenly my stays felt tight. I realised that I had been holding my breath ever since we had entered the drawing room, and had only now let it out.
As the duchess and I led the procession out of the drawing room through to dinner, I found myself strangely proud of my performance. After all, to stand and smile, to listen and nod, had been my life, a life of service. That is what these people wanted of their princess, someone to take their hands and ask them questions and make them feel good about themselves.
I could do this. I could do this.
It was such a tragedy that Victoria, the real princess, could not.
Chapter 32
Where Is the Money?
After that strange evening living the life of a princess, I’d soon had enough of the stiff and formal ways at Windsor Castle. We managed throughout the visit to keep Victoria’s nervous attack a secret, and she did eventually get out of bed and go to ride out in the park.
‘Thank you, Miss V,’ she said. I was
handing her the hat that went with her navy blue habit, and she took my hand as well as the hat itself. ‘Thank you,’ she said again, as sombre as I had seen her even in these sombre days. ‘You are a true sister to help me like you do. I shall never forget it.’
It was a relief to all of us to return to quiet Kensington Palace. Its gardens were now in the heavy scented stage of summer, and the year was beginning to turn. One evening I found myself passing the front door of Princess Sophia’s temporary new apartment. It was in fact very old and very poky, but she had moved here while the smoking mess of her own abode was cleared up.
I decided to tap on the door very gently, and to leave at once if there was no reply.
But to my surprise, she opened the door immediately and stood there twisting her apron in her hands. She seemed to have taken to doing all the cooking and cleaning herself. I had even asked my father why he had not done more to provide her with domestic help. ‘She admires you so much, you know,’ I had reminded him.
‘Ridiculous old woman,’ he had muttered. ‘I have spent far too much time already pandering to her needs.’ I had not dared to press him further.
‘Oh, my dear, come in,’ she now said in her anxious, fluttery voice. ‘Do sit down.’ She looked around her helplessly. ‘Now, I have some tea or maybe some seltzer water, or, stay a moment, maybe that is gone …’ She trailed off, confused.
‘No, Your Royal Highness,’ I said, ‘I beg you to sit down. I shall make us both some tea.’ So I bustled into her tiny kitchen and gave a sharp kick to the range, and in no time had a kettle boiling. I found some stale seed cake and put it on to a grimy plate.
When I brought in the tea, I noticed that her hands looked terribly fragile, like the twigs of a birch tree in winter.
‘Oh, that’s better!’ she cried, nibbling her cake. ‘It has been so hard, my dear, since the news. Doubtless your father has told you?’
‘News? I’m afraid not,’ I answered tentatively. I didn’t sip my own tea because I wasn’t quite sure when the cup had last been washed, and I didn’t want to risk it.
‘Oh!’ she sighed, and dabbed up even the crumbs of the cake with her finger. ‘I thought that the news of my humiliation would be all around the palace by now. Any gossip here travels so fast.’
I knew that myself. Despite the palace’s sleepy aspect, a deep throb of life pulsed in its veins, life that was indiscernible to the eye but none the less powerful for that.
‘It’s the railway company,’ she said. ‘If you ask your fine papa, he will tell you, I’m sure, of the unfortunate turn of events. Needless to say no blame is attached to him. He was advised, on very good authority, that I could double my fortune if I invested it all in the new Wales-to-Scotland Railway Company. I thought it was too good to be true – oh, how I wish I had heeded my own judgement!’
‘A railway company? Your fortune?’ I asked incredulously.
‘Yes, dear, a company run by fools and madmen, so it turns out. They have spent all the money, yes, all! My own, and the money of many other private investors too. All is lost. We were too slow, you see. The Grand Junction Railway has beaten us and taken all the new investors and all the profit.’
I twisted my untouched teacup round in its saucer.
It seemed plausible, and certainly her penury was plain enough. But this was shocking. And something about it did not quite ring true.
But no, I thought, surely not. This could not be the answer to the question that had bothered Lehzen and I for months. Whence had the money come for the grand remodelling of Victoria’s apartment at Kensington Palace? No, of course there been no dishonesty.
And yet the thought was now inside my head, like a mouse crept into the cellar of a building.
‘But, my dear,’ she said more briskly, ‘you don’t wish to hear my troubles. Tell me about that fine young man of yours. Are you engaged yet?’
I felt a fiery blush rise at once to the very roots of my hair. This was indeed torture, or would have been if I hadn’t been thinking so hard about money. An engagement! No one should even know or guess about Albert and me. What if my father were to hear?
I felt a rising tide of consternation, which made me leap up from the tea table and begin to pace about. What if King Leopold were to discover? Everyone would be furious if it were to come out.
‘I could see that matters were well advanced between you on the evening he saved my life from the fire.’
I slowly shook my head.
‘I fear there has been … a misunderstanding,’ I said. ‘The prince … well, I have nothing to do with the prince. That would be quite wrong.’
But although her eyes were dim and old, she detected something off in my response.
‘Oh, my dear,’ she said reproachfully. ‘You don’t mean to say you’ve refused him? Alas, you need your mamma at a time like this to advise you. A gentleman, even Sir John your father, can never quite understand a young lady’s feelings. But you must, you know, you must accept him. He is a perfect match and loves you dearly, that much is clear. I only wish the Princess Victoria could find someone half as good.’
I could hardly begin to tell her what obstacles lay in the way of a match between Albert and myself: the disapproval of Uncle Leopold, his plan for Victoria to marry Albert, the impossibility of my marrying and leaving Victoria to the mercy of my father …
The thought pulled me up short. My father. What had my father done?
The old lady could see that I was dismayed, and I had no words to answer her. Instead, she came over, placed one hand on my shoulder and with the other chucked me tenderly right under the chin. ‘It will be all right, my dear!’ she said, raising my head up so as to meet her eyes. ‘I might have no money, but I don’t need it at this time of life. And you have something much more valuable than money anyway. You have the love of a good man.’
With that, or perhaps it was her earlier reference to my mother, she felled me. I leaned forward on my hands and wept as I had never wept before.
I knew all too well that the System would keep me apart from Albert. The System, my father’s creation.
For weeks, all through the stay at Windsor, I had tried to pretend that everything was fine, that Albert and I could one day see each other again. But I had been pretending to myself. Deep down I knew that we would never be together. Although the kind old princess would have been aghast had she known it, it seemed to me that her words were cruel, heartless almost.
Had I really found Albert only to discover that I had to leave him? The System was hurting me. It was hurting Victoria. And now I had a horrible fear that it had hurt this kind old lady as well.
In fact, what good lay in my father’s System at all?
Chapter 33
Letters from Germany
When Princess Sophia had asked me if there was an engagement between Albert and myself, I had answered truthfully in the negative. But my words skirted very close to being an untruth. For pressed close to my heart under my bodice was a letter from him. If its existence were known by the world, our correspondence would have been taken as a sign that we were engaged. And yet we were not.
Back in my own room, after leaving Princess Sophia’s apartment, I looked out at the gardens below once more. As I opened the window, I reflected upon how much time had passed since I first sat here. Then the palace had seemed alien and cold; now I was close to its warm, innermost workings. Despite my worries and my concerns – and my deep new fear about the Princess Sophia’s money – I realised I had become truly part of the System. I had internalised it, lived my life by it.
Once again I took the thin packet of Albert’s letters from the front of my dress. My flesh had heated it very slightly, and each one was growing worn from where I had unfolded and refolded it.
Germany.
Victoria,
I hope that I may have the privilege of using the name that stands for you: victorious, alive. No one seeing your little figure and your little blue eyes would know how strong th
e spirit is within. It has been one of the great joys of my life to make your acquaintance in the last few weeks. I hope I do not offend or presume when I say that the world is a better place for having you within it.
Albert
Italy.
Victoria,
How happy your letter made me! How wildly my heart beat! I have been singing all day, the same song that we played together on the piano. Ernest and the rest have been asking me what has happened. I can hardly answer. The answer, should I have made it is this. I am in love! In love! With the sweetest girl in the whole of the British Isles.
Albert
Germany.
Victoria,
You are right that Uncle Leopold has plans. You are right that the Princess Victoria is in a position of great danger and great responsibility. I know how well you have served her. But I am not as willing as you are to do what my uncle says.
Albert
Postscript: I cannot see that my duty requires me to give you up.
Germany.
Victoria,
My dear heart. I long to see your little face again, and to kiss it. You are so good, so true, so pure. Like the flame of a candle burning bright. I know that I can trust you. I wish that you would do me the honour of making me the proudest man in the world. I would be that man should you consent to be my wife.
Albert
I knew that some time I would have to answer this most recent letter and that it would be the hardest letter I would ever have to write. I longed to consult someone. I even longed to tell all to Victoria, to share the burden with my friend. But she was the last person in the world with whom I could discuss Albert.
I looked down on the gardens once more, and a movement caught my eye. It was Victoria herself, in a pink dress, head down, walking disconsolately between the trees, Dash at her heel. Her head was bowed. Her small figure looked completely alone. She must have been thinking of the trials that lay before her. It gave me a pang of guilt. After all, how could I possibly weigh my concerns alongside hers? The stability of a whole country would soon rest in her hands.