The Queen, Her Lover and the Most Notorious Spy in History

by Roland Perry

  ‘You are not injured, I hope, my lord.’

  ‘Only my pride,’ he said, trying to regain his dignity as he dusted himself off. De Crepeney offered him her hand, and he climbed on behind her.

  ‘What about Victor?’ he said, squinting off into the hills beyond where the horse had bolted.

  ‘I’ll send some hands out to retrieve him.’ She called instructions in Urdu to a stable hand and then looked around and grinned, her face close to Elphinstone. ‘Hold on tight, my lord. We wouldn’t want any more dents in you or your pride.’

  He did as instructed, wrapping his arms around her slight midriff.

  Lennox appeared shocked to hear that de Crepeney had broken out Victor for Elphinstone.‘He is the most fractious horse we have! Do you still want me to invite her to the ball?’

  ‘Yes, of course. I like her spirit. She clearly tested my riding capacity. I didn’t do well.’

  ‘But you’ve been ill until now, my lord.’

  ‘No excuse. One should never lose the skills.’

  ‘That bloody Victor is impossible to ride! De Crepeney is the only one who can handle him and even then she picks his moods before she ever saddles him.’

  ‘Just make sure she comes to the ball, captain.’

  For the first time since taking up his Madras appointment, Elphinstone felt good. There was a sense now that his unwanted governorship may have some attractions and even meaning after all.

  The ball at the mansion was a glittering affair with fireworks and a traditional bonfire on the front lawn. Elphinstone’s appearance with Husna caused a mixture of shock, pleasure, titillation and not a little jealousy. She wore a red traditional Indian sari, daringly bare at the back and split to the thigh to reveal glimpses of tight black breeches that showed off her long, shapely legs. Elphinstone, as was tradition, began the dancing to a waltz played a fraction stodgily by an army band. He and de Crepeney were both superb movers on the floor.When they had finished the first bracket together there was spontaneous applause from the hundreds of onlookers.

  A banquet created by both Indian and English staff was followed by an acrobatic display and some traditional Indian dancing. To the whispers and shock of some onlookers, de Crepeney spoke to the members of the band and invited two of the female Indian dancers to join her on the floor for a special performance. The other guests whispered that it was an Indian variant of the Dance of the Seven Veils. Two plump, middle-aged wives of East India Company directors approached Elphinstone.

  ‘It’s shameful!’ one said. ‘How can you stand for something so brazen to be enacted in front of senior members of the Raj?’

  ‘I think the music is wonderful,’ he replied, poker-faced. ‘Seemed like an Indian version of something German, don’t you think?’

  ‘We meant that—that Indian woman!’ the other complainant said indignantly.

  ‘The harp and the zither gave it away as a brilliant composition,’ Elphinstone said, ignoring their comments. ‘Great theatre!’

  After her exotic show, de Crepeney joined him.

  ‘That was extraordinary!’ he said, clapping her in full view of the other guests.

  ‘I think I have shamed the governor,’ she whispered.

  ‘Not at all,’ he said.‘I loved it! Where did you learn such wonderful movements?’

  ‘Do you know the young and beautiful Mrs James, the wife of a lieutenant in the Indian Army?’

  ‘Yes, I do. Met them in the first month I arrived here. She is a wilful lass, if ever I saw one!’

  ‘She taught me that dance, among many. She called it the “Spider Dance”.’ De Crepeney looked around at a group of Raj wives, who were giving her unfavourable looks. ‘I am an embarrassment to the governor. I will take my leave in a minute.’

  ‘No, no,’ Elphinstone said, ‘I shall see you home.’

  ‘No,’ she said smiling, ‘we don’t want any more wagging of tongues.’

  Husna slipped away, much to the disappointment of Elphinstone, but her parting remark of ‘I trust I shall see you before dawn at the stables, my lord,’ had him smiling.

  The governor’s love of the high life, and the daring public company of such an unusual and exotic woman, was noted by the rather stiff officials used to a more conservative and perhaps business-like approach to running an Indian presidency. A British civil servant noted,‘We want a governor; we want a statesman, and they send us a dancer’.

  Elphinstone lifted his spirits, when well enough, by riding every day with Husna, exploring the surrounding area with her. They rode, often in silence, for miles across the countryside through paddy, mustard and bean fields, the latter providing a unique and appealing scent.As the light heralded yet another humid day of searing heat, peacocks strutted across their path. In awakening villages, people greeted them warmly and offered them food and other items. They trotted by, observing meals being cooked and women beginning their day’s washing. Dogs, chickens and even cows occasionally blocked their way. Beggar children ran beside them, reaching up and touching the horses and them. Some pointed to their mouths, indicating hunger. At a station—one of the many towns acting as halfway houses on the lonely dirt tracks between the major cities—there were stalls selling hot, spicy snacks, piles of sweets, sherbets, oranges, bananas, figs and dates. Hawkers balanced on their heads trays of everything from coconuts and mangoes to soda water and lemonade.

  Elphinstone made an effort to make his acquaintance with the locals and the British civil servants there to look after him. After a few months, he sought inspiration from his uncle’s efforts. Mountstuart had compiled what became known as the ‘Elphinstone Code’ for the state education of India. New Governor Lord Elphinstone soon began exploring the possibility of adding another layer of education at least in his region. Madras did not have a university. He began talking up the idea of creating one.

  ‘I wish you luck, my lord,’ Husna said on a morning ride.‘Education for the masses here has drifted since your uncle was in charge, or so my mother tells me.’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘Encore, bon chance,’ she said with a wistful look. ‘I was forced to study in Sweden.There was nothing in the medical profession, not even nursing, that was attractive in India.You English, pardon, ‘British’, resist educating the natives.’

  ‘Then it is a challenge. I will start with a preparatory school, then a high school, and then a university.’

  ‘Education by stealth?’

  ‘You could call it that, yes.’

  Victoria asserted her right to independence from her mother and Conroy a second time just a few hours into her reign when she granted Melbourne an audience in her room at 9 a.m. He was impressed by her calm and readiness. When he departed at 9.30 a.m., Victoria ordered her bed removed from her mother’s room. She intended to sleep apart from the duchess from the very first night of her reign.Victoria yearned for Elphinstone to share her bed, but that would remain a dream for the moment at least. She regretted that he was not among the Privy Councillors (although he would remain one for life) but far away in mystical India when the council assembled for her for the first time in the Red Saloon at Kensington Palace. It was 11 a.m. on the morning King William had died and yet a record number of councillors were in attendance.

  Dressed in black, Victoria hid her nerves. She felt ‘quite alone’ as she entered the Saloon. There was not a good friend in sight let alone a lover who could inspire and give her confidence. She was led to the throne for this ‘audience’. The men were all taken by her elegance and grace as she composed herself and began her declaration. It was a further moment of revelation for all present. Despite inner tensions, her voice sounded nerveless and clear. Her precise language lifted their spirits. If this were the way she presented herself on the first day, they thought, how magnificent would she be with experience?

  The swearing in of all the councillors and ministers followed: all bent their knee to her.Though not close to any, she knew many of them. But as they kisse
d her hand, she showed no preference or familiarity. Men such as Wellington, Palmerston, Melbourne and Robert Peel, leaders who would stand with any company in British history, were smitten with her charisma. Still an adolescent, she was eloquent, modest yet strong, and with that very English self-possession based on a confidence that seemed unshakeable. Few of them knew of her recent ordeals that had made rather than broken her. Cynical, sardonic, humorous and stern men of achievement, all were buoyed. Even when she looked to Melbourne for advice on proceedings, she did it with style without being deferential, and grace without an apparent amateurism. After a year of an old man in decline on the throne, Victoria was as fresh as the summer mornings of that 1837. It generated new hope in middle-aged men. The moment was romantic for all of them. She drew out paternal instincts. Even, or perhaps particularly, the middle-aged gay blades among them wanted to help and serve her. Victoria’s charm was palpable. Instead of degeneration in the royal family, there was regeneration that touched each one of their eminences.

  There were parallels in those early months for Victoria and Elphinstone in their new jobs. Both were guided by distinguished, experienced uncles who remained at a distance. Mountstuart never visited Madras while his nephew was governor, but wrote to him. Leopold stayed out of London for the first fifteen months of Victoria’s reign, but dispensed guidelines for her behaviour in letters. Mountstuart suggested his nephew should err on the side of caution in political, military and other matters, and only after reflecting long and hard on any issue. Leopold, using circumlocution, said more or less the same thing.Victoria was told she ‘could not cultivate too much discretion’. This was natural to her anyway but having Leopold articulate it reaffirmed her own instincts. She was advised never to give ready responses to ministers, even her prime minister, whom she surprised when she told him she would ‘think things over’. This often meant her garnering advice from others before delivering an answer.

  Mountstuart told Elphinstone never to be slothful or a dilettante. He should have strict daily routines except on weekends. This suited his nephew. He rode most mornings with Husna before arriving at the governor’s residence, and walked, swam or played polo (he started his own team) in the evening. He was in his office at 10 a.m. after a leisurely breakfast reading the papers, primarily The Times, which were four months old coming from London by steamer. He spent two hours on issues of importance, including his initiatives concerning education, construction and defences. In the afternoon he gave audience in equal proportions to his staff, advisers and locals with grievances, with a one-hour lunch break. He drifted from the office by 5 p.m. Mountstuart advised Elphinstone to be benevolent wherever possible in dealing with native issues.

  One morning Elphinstone and Husna were trotting back into Madras when they spotted smoke billowing near the city centre. Elphinstone spurred Victor to a gallop and arrived to see a three-level building enveloped in flames. Hundreds of people were scurrying and yelling, with some trying to douse the flames. In the pandemonium, no-one at first recognised the mounted European, who began bellowing orders.

  ‘Form a line to the well!’ he called, and then repeated,‘from the fire to the well!’ He dismounted and handed the horse’s reins to Husna. He bellowed more orders. She translated. Soon a long line had formed and buckets of water were passed to several Indians near the flames. Police and firemen arrived. Elphinstone and Husna joined the bucket line. After an hour, the fire was under control and locals realised that their new governor had been among them managing the response to a fire that could have developed into an inferno.

  Leopold suggested a disciplined daily routine for Victoria. Dr Clark had cultivated in her the habit of exercises, first thing in the morning, always with windows open for that most important commodity and cure-all from his perspective: fresh air. There was much of it on her riding, depending on her mood and the weather. She received ministers to discuss affairs of state between 11 a.m. and 1.30 p.m. After lunch, Victoria attended to duties and functions to which she had been invited. These were endless and had to be sorted on advice and personal inclination. A civic reception might be left to her discretion, but an invitation to an embassy affair might be accepted or vetoed depending on the moment. The queen appearing anywhere from a business to a consulate would be viewed as a royal—and, by association, a government—endorsement.

  Both she and Elphinstone were encouraged to fill journals and write as many letters as possible. Victoria had been keeping an almost daily written account of her life for several years. Now, as queen, she had much more to say in her diary even if it were trite and mundane. Elphinstone made time for diary-type notes and letters. He compared Madras to Elba, the island where Napoleon had been exiled in 1814. The Indian isolation precipitated copious writing, a pastime and occupation he had disdained in the past. He preferred horse-riding and social activities. Yet there was time for all things, if managed well. One growing, new attraction for him was the ‘magnificent’ Husna, with whom he was building a strong friendship in the third, then the fourth month of his Madras appointment.

  Elphinstone was soon irritated by his ideas for change in the colony being frustrated by the bureaucracy, the inertia of which seemed resistant to progress in India. Early on, Elphinstone was disturbed by the poverty he witnessed. He realised that his life of privilege, wealth and status in the top strata of British society had been sheltered. He believed that the main way out of the slums that he encountered would be via education.There could never be enough riches to spread around to make everyone ‘comfortably off’ but learning could give millions a chance to enhance their lives. He became determined to use his ‘weight’, power and influence to this end, no matter how long it took.

  7

  THE GOVERNOR’S DISTRACTION

  Two months into Victoria’s reign she began to express her will, although without a real sense of authority. Melbourne had encouraged her to believe this authority would come with time. Leopold had urged her to avoid talking about personal matters such as on her feelings about marriage. The temptation to do so could come after a probe, however indirect, about whether or not the rumours about Elphinstone were true. Charlotte Canning (a lady-in-waiting to the queen, and later wife of the first viceroy of India) wrote to a friend in mid-summer 1837: ‘All the people here [in the town of Spa, Belgium] ask us every day if the stories about the Queen and Lord Elphinstone are true, and if he is to come back to England to marry her.’

  Canning was mixing with members of Leopold’s court, where the tale circulated and it was rife in Britain. Lord Falkland wrote to Elphinstone from his Curzon Street Mayfair home: ‘The Queen always speaks most highly of you and asked Lady Falkland the other day if I corresponded with you or had written to you . . .some country folks believed you were coming home to be King Consort.’

  When Elphinstone did not respond to this gossip, Falkland became indignant: ‘You did not answer my first long question [in a previous letter in which Elphinstone was asked if he were coming back to marry Victoria]. I presume you will not pay this [second allusion to the same issue] much more attention. If you do not [reply], I will not write again. Whether I do or not, however, you will always have my very best trust.’

  Elphinstone received daily probes about Victoria. His aunt, Carlotte E. Fleming, the wife of his uncle Charles, wrote in the same week: ‘I hear a new story about you every day and I cannot help telling you of what honourable mention is made of you in all papers on both sides of the question. [The papers] are full of rumours and inventions and anecdotes and surmises and calculations about you and the little queen. I wonder how it all arose at first.’

  The stories spread to Madras.When Elphinstone and Husna strolled away from the stables after a ride, he invited her to dine with him alone at the mansion.They had ridden together almost every day for six weeks, but after the reaction to her at the governor’s ball, she refused to attend any more functions or parties with him.

  ‘Why won’t you come?’ he asked, perplexed by her
attitude.

  ‘I have heard the many stories about you and your dear little queen,’ she replied.

  ‘She is in England. I am here.’

  ‘But where is your heart, my lord?’

  ‘Here, with me,’ he said, tapping his chest.

  ‘With great respect, my lord, you are still in love and you know it.’

  When he did not deny it, she added:‘Do not expect me to give my heart or any other part of me to you, when yours is with another, who happens to be so important in the scheme of things.’

  ‘So these rumours have kept you aloof from me?’

  ‘I am French in affairs of the heart, and Indian in matters of the mind.And I will be frank with you, my lord. At first I was not impressed with your imperial airs. But I realise that you are an honest, warm and compassionate man.You are a rider, rather than a breaker, of horses.You love them as I do.’ She smiled. ‘And you are the best dancer I have ever met. But until you match me in a third area, well, then we remain just friends.’ She stopped, grinned sexily, tapped his nose and added, ‘Albeit good friends.’

  ‘And what is that third thing?’

  ‘True, unencumbered and honest singleness.’

  Elphinstone looked despondent. She locked her arm in his.

  ‘You would make my life that much nicer here if we were closer,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know why you want me,’ she said. ‘All the women here are swooning over you. And the Indian princesses!’ Her eyes widened to match her smile. Then she looked serious again. ‘Pardon me, my lord. That was indiscreet.You already have the most beautiful, desirable little princess turned queen of them all.’ They strolled on to the sloping lawn that ran up to the mansion. As they came into view of the governor’s staff, she unlocked their arms and folded hers.