Too Many Notes, Mr Mozart

by Bernard Bastable

  ‘The Duchess wants for the Princess a simple, natural upbringing,’ he said, over the fish. ‘Far from pomp, grandeur, formality.’

  ‘I see,’ said Lord Howe, a chilly figure, so remote as to be almost inhuman, and wrapped in a stately formality which seemed to belong to another age. ‘And for companionship?’

  ‘She has my own children. And … and selected children, from time to time.’

  ‘I see.’ Lord Howe gave no impression of disapproval, but added, ‘It is to be hoped that the Duchess will gradually introduce her to polite society. The King is not a young man, nor as healthy as he looks. She will need to know something of it before she becomes its Head.’

  An obstinate expression came over Sir John’s face.

  ‘She will have natural tastes and strong moral principles to guide her,’ he said. ‘You may trust the Duchess’s instincts. She has been a mother before.’

  ‘Ye-e-erse,’ said Lord Howe, returning to his fish.

  Lowly as my position at table was, I could from time to time get a view of the great ones. I could see the Princess Victoria conversing solemnly with Prince George, both of them being quite desperately grown-up. He was a good-looking boy of her own age, and when the Princess was not stealing glances at the grand company that surrounded her (which was rather difficult, as they were more often than not stealing glances at her) I saw her looking thoughtfully at her young companion, sizing him up, I suspect wondering if he was husband material. I also saw the Duchess of Kent throwing worried looks in the direction of her daughter. I felt sure that the King’s happy thought of letting his niece mingle with his court had been an unpleasant surprise for the Duchess. If she had had her way her daughter would stay a child for ever.

  I could also contrast the behaviour of two of the FitzClarences. The King’s daughter, the beautiful Countess of Erroll, surrounded by the nobility and notables of the court, talked, laughed, gossiped unaffectedly, as if she were born to court life. She acted not as a princess, but as one who had no doubts about her place among the country’s great and powerful.

  Her brother, George FitzClarence, was seated between the Queen and the Princess Sophia. The Queen from time to time talked earnestly to him, and the Princess was clearly delighted with his good looks and his impressive presence: she flirted with him outrageously, quite unworried by the difference in age. FitzClarence himself said little, but whenever anyone around him addressed any remarks directly to him, his manner took on an air of prickliness, mingled with self-regard, a desire to assert his position. His unease in society detracted from the natural effect of his handsomeness and air of distinction. He was, in short, all too aware of his position as King’s son and not King’s son.

  As dinner drew to a close, King William rose. Queen Adelaide immediately began to look worried. Gradually a hush descended on the tables. The King swayed, but gently. He was not drunk, only happy.

  ‘No speeches,’ he began. ‘Except mine. Privilege of kingship, what? And mine won’t be long. This is a family occasion. Family and friends. No call for speeches. But I want to bid a special welcome tonight to my brother Edward’s widow, and her damned fine daughter. I can’t tell them what pleasure it gives the Queen and me to see them here tonight.’ He was in his stride. The Queen looked even more worried. The Duchess’s expression said as clearly as words that she would very much have preferred not to be singled out. ‘I remember something m’friend Lord Nelson once said. Wasn’t Lord then, of course. Captain then. Finest man I ever knew in my life. Model for the country’s youth in every way.’ The Duchess pursed her lips, as if to convey that she could think of a respect in which Lord Nelson was no model at all. ‘And if I say he was the finest man this county has produced in my lifetime, by God I defy any other country to produce finer men than British men!’ General murmur. A king’s patriotism doesn’t have to be subtle. The Queen cleared her throat. ‘And what Nelson said to me was “A victory at arms gives a man a damned good feeling, but …” Ah no. Perhaps not. Not suitable. But the gist of it was that a damned fine girl makes you feel even better.’ The Queen cleared her throat again, much more loudly. ‘Ah – you’re right, my dear. Quite right. I’ve gone on long enough. I remember m’late brother once said to me – no. Time for a toast. I give you the Duchess of Kent and her damned fine daughter!’

  There was an enthusiastic rising and compliance with the toast. The Princess looked uncertainly at her mother to see if she should rise, but otherwise behaved very prettily. There was no mistaking the singling out of her, not just by the King but by all present: if her mother thought she remained ignorant of her closeness to the throne after this then she would be badly underestimating her daughter’s intelligence.

  I withdrew quite soon after the ladies. All-male society does not appeal to me – in fact the King’s conversation was a bit too all-male for quite a number of his guests, including the Queen’s Chamberlain Lord Howe, who withdrew tight-lipped as if he had never heard a risqué story in his life. In the Grand Salon the Princess Victoria was watching the refugees from table, and came up to me at once.

  ‘Did I do satisfactorary?’ she asked.

  ‘You did wonderfully well.’

  ‘My cousin was a bit of a burden to have to talk to for so long. He is rather good-looking, in fact decidedly so, but he is very boring.’

  ‘Very few men unite good looks with high intelligence, Your Royal Highness.’

  ‘Is that not sad? And when I choose my husband it has to be someone of royal birth as well. How very difficult that makes things! Never mind. Some day my Prince will come. Meanwhile I must enjoy such days as this when they come my way … Oh.’ She had turned away from me, to greet a passer-by. ‘You are my cousin, are you not? I am Princess Victoria.’

  It was the Countess of Erroll. Close to she was even more lovely than she had seemed across the table of the dining room, and quite enchanting of manner. My heart gave a lurch as I remembered her mother in her early days in the theatre. Mrs Jordan was a woman and an actress in a thousand, and rather wasted, in my view, on a royal duke.

  ‘I am indeed your cousin, and very happy to make your acquaintance, Your Royal Highness,’ she said, curtsying gracefully. ‘I have long hoped for the pleasure. May this be the first of many visits you pay to Windsor.’

  ‘I hope so, but I don’t think it likely,’ said Victoria, with her usual directness. ‘Mama is very insistent that I be brought up simply and naturally. It is probably very good for me, but it is terribly dull as well.’

  She threw a look in her mother’s direction. The Duchess was deep in conversation with the Duchess of Cambridge, another minor German princess and mother of the dull boy. If her mother had not been preoccupied, I felt sure that the Princess would not have been so daring as to introduce herself to her bastard cousin.

  ‘I can imagine life being brought up naturally and simply could be extraordinarily dull,’ said the Countess gaily. ‘But I could imagine you getting a great deal of fun working around the rules, cousin.’

  ‘Some,’ admitted the Princess, with a brief wicked smile. ‘But the possibilities are limited. Now I shall go and thank George Cambridge for his company at dinner, tedious though it was, and then go to bed, because if I don’t, tomorrow Mama will say that after such dreadful diss … dissipations I should have lessons the whole morning.’ She flashed her funny pig-smile at her cousin. ‘Can you imagine wasting any moment of a wonderful experience like this by doing lessons?’

  As she went in the direction of Prince George the Countess whispered to a footman that the Princess was about to go to bed. When Victoria came back I bowed to her and escorted her to the stairs and bade her goodnight. She looked happier than I had ever seen her. As she toiled up the staircase Mrs Hattersley appeared in the mysterious way that servants have, and escorted her through the magnificent corridors to her room.

  I lingered in the shadow of the stairway, uncertain whether I wanted to go back among the glittering throng. Glittering they might be, but th
ere wasn’t one among them I was confident of securing a loan from, should I broach the matter. As I considered, the last men were coming from the direction of the Waterloo Chamber. With a shock I realised it was the King and his eldest son. The King was a little unsteady on his feet, and his voice was thick. George FitzClarence was not unsteady at all. I stayed in the shadow, not wishing to be an eavesdropper, but not wishing either to intrude on father and son. The voices made a dull rumble in the vastness of the castle, until at last they were only a few feet away and words became plain.

  ‘My dear boy, you know I love you very much, but you are always asking, always wanting.’

  ‘No more than my due, Papa, no more than my proper place.’

  ‘Difficult things to decide, those.’

  ‘Not difficult at all, Papa.’

  ‘Dear boy, you have too keen a sense of your wrongs. You ask, ask, ask. What can I do that would content you?’

  George FitzClarence’s next words were hissed, so I could not be sure that I heard them correctly. Even if they had been spoken aloud I doubt I would have believed the evidence of my ears.

  ‘What can you do, Papa? Make me Prince of Wales!‘

  7. Gunshots

  The next morning I was very busy. I had been so exhausted the night before that I slept well, though in the waking moments that I did have my mind buzzed with that absurd demand of George FitzClarence that I had overheard in the shadow of the stairs: ‘Make me Prince of Wales!’

  But almost from sunrise I was too preoccupied for these words even to cross my mind. I was supervising the setting up of a stage in the Grand Reception Room. There had been theatricals there in the old King’s time (the theatre was about the only human weakness of Queen Charlotte, apart from fecundity), and a rudimentary stage with curtains existed, which King William had remembered and caused to be resurrected from some distant lumber-room. The garden staff who were charged with its erection were willing but inexpert. The musicians and actors, along with Mr Popper, arrived from London around eleven, and one or two of them ‘helped’ – that is, got in the way, contradicted my directions, ridiculed the gardeners’ efforts and so on. The rest, led by a fawning Popper, mingled with their betters in the castle or the park.

  On the rare occasions when I needed to go to other parts of the castle (mostly to require something of the footmen, who were unhelpful in the extreme) it seemed swarming with people. On one such occasion I came upon Princess Victoria and her governess Baroness Lehzen, together and talking animatedly in a corner of the Crimson Drawing Room.

  ‘De Princess is not inclined to her lessons,’ explained Lehzen, her plain face lighted by suspicious little eyes.

  ‘It’s all so interesting,’ said the Princess, her own eyes sparkling and frank. ‘How can I miss what is an education in itself? Oh, Mr Mozart, do look at Cousin George!’

  I looked in the direction of her gaze. The young Prince George of Cambridge, all of eleven, was talking to Hetty Forbes, who played the secondary role of Anne in our piece that afternoon. Hetty had a weak voice but she more than passed muster because she was enchantingly pretty and unaffectedly jolly. Prince George was fixing her with a look of besotted admiration. Princess Victoria regarded him, in her turn, with fascination.

  ‘Look at him! Isn’t it wonderful? He can’t take his eyes off her. And she is lovely, isn’t she? And charming too. Oh, I wish I looked like that! That really is what they mean when they talk of love, isn’t it, Mr Mozart?’

  ‘Princess Victoria! The young lady is an actress!’ protested Lehzen. I had to conceal a smile.

  ‘I don’t think you would say that if the King were by,’ said the Princess. ‘And it’s not very polite to Mr Mozart, who is a man of the theatre. Anyway, some men have a penchant for actresses, don’t they, Mr Mozart?’

  ‘Quite a lot of men do,’ I said solemnly.

  ‘I think cousin George has … Isn’t that a lovely word, penchant? went on the little sprite. ‘I don’t like to use French words, because it’s not patriotic, but there isn’t an English one that would do half as well.’

  By half-past twelve the little stage, with the elementary set and props which had come with the party from the Queen’s Theatre, were up and in place. As I and the garden staff were surveying our handiwork one of the footmen came with a tray, on which was set an elegant little meal, with a glass of wine.

  ‘By order of the King,’ he said distantly, to emphasise that, left to himself, he would never have deigned to bring a musician food. He looked like an unfrocked bishop who felt his position keenly.

  As I settled down happily to eat, under-footmen began to bring in chairs, supervised by the Bishop himself. When the Grand Reception Room was nearly half full of chairs, and still they kept coming, I went over to him.

  ‘Surely there are enough?’ I suggested.

  ‘The King has asked quite a number of extra … people.’ His Lordship drew in his breath and spoke as if a grave sin had been committed. He was a large man, with an intimidating paunch, and he seemed born for theological conversations over port. ‘For the day. To see the … entertainment. And some will be staying on. To dinner.’

  He gave the impression that he would shortly be applying for a position with the Marquis of Bath or the Duke of Malborough – someone who knew how to maintain the proper distance and dignity of his position. He had explained the crush of people in other parts of the castle, however.

  The performance was due to start about two. Afterwards there were to be refreshments, both inside the castle and outside on the terraces. It had started as a fine day and I had seen the footmen taking trestle tables outside. As people drifted in for the play I noticed that it had clouded over, and they were starting to bring them in again. The King and Queen came in at five to two, he looking around him incessantly and talking to and greeting all manner of people here and there around the improvised theatre. I feared that he would chatter all through the performance, but then I remembered he had been constantly at theatres during his twenty years with Mrs Jordan, and certainly knew how to behave. The Queen smiled graciously at newcomers, then sat down quietly. Four seats had been set aside for her and the King, and the Duchess of Kent and the Princess. These were some five rows back, with a seat on the aisle for the Princess so that she could see better.

  ‘Doesn’t do to get too close,’ the King explained to her when she arrived only a minute or two before curtain up. ‘See all the powder and paint. See they’re not as young as they look. No better than they should be, some of these actr – No. Pretty little stage, ain’t it? M’father had it made, and we spent many happy hours in the audience. Don’t make plays like they used to, you know …’

  And he rattled on till I signalled for the curtains to be drawn to shut out the daylight, and began leading the six musicians in the pretty overture.

  About the performance I shall say little. It went with a swing: actors are naturally obsequious, and do their best when performing for an audience from whom patronage of one sort of another is to be expected. The new King’s long association with an actress encouraged hopes: no doubt the lower decks of the Navy expected double rations of rum. The theatre people should have remembered that Mrs Jordan died in Paris, deserted and forlorn.

  My main pleasure, when my direction of players and singers permitted it, was watching the Princess Victoria. She sat there, her head hardly coming up to the top of the seat-back, her eyes sparkling, her little mouth slightly open. She was totally entranced, and I thought that, if the theatre was to have expectations, they should be addressed to her.

  As the piece progressed, during the stretches of dialogue, I was able to take in the audience. There was a smattering of politicians, doubtless invited to give them a rare chance to pay their respects to the heiress Presumptive. The Iron Duke was unmistakable, but I also spotted Lord Grey and Lord Melbourne. I saw the Princess Sophia, rouged, a little haggard, but ineffably charming, and two seats away from her George FitzClarence, seemingly in a world of his
own, not only oblivious to Victor and Victoria (which was understandable), but oblivious to the fact that the Princess Sophia shot him frequent glances of admiration. Between them was a man who seemed somehow to have found himself mingling with his betters – a man in his thirties, in a shabby brown coat, not ill-looking but with shifty eyes and the air of a scamp. I found myself wondering how he had come to be invited (even, as the footman would say, ‘for the day’) to Windsor Castle. Was he perhaps a Windsor tradesman to whom the royal household owed a lot of money? Was he another FitzClarence being smuggled in against the agreement with the Duchess of Kent? If so he had none of the distinguished looks or air that the other representatives already there possessed.

  I also noticed Prince George of Cambridge. His raptness in the performance was equal to Princess Victoria’s, but had a difference: she was enchanted by the play, and he was besotted by Hetty Forbes. As a man of the theatre I recognised the two sides of its appeal. The Prince sat beside his parents, but behind him sat Sir John Conroy and the Baroness Lehzen. The Baroness’s eyes were on her pupil, with a fond smile at her reactions to the piece. But Sir John was thoughtful, his laughter automatic, triggered by the reactions of the rest of the audience. I wondered if he had had that talk with the King’s Secretary, and was realising that his conduct of the financial affairs of the two royal ladies was about to be subjected to more scrutiny than it could comfortably bear.

  The piece had been considerably shortened (it was so trivial this could only be to its advantage), and we brought it to a conclusion not long after three. The audience was unusually enthusiastic for a Royal Command Performance, and the King led them in cheering the actors who basked in curtain calls punctuated by childish cheers. King William and the Duchess led Princess Victoria over to thank me, and after she had done this formally she pulled me aside to express her real opinions.