The ripple she had noticed among the courtiers on the balcony the evening of the coronation she now knew was disapproval. No one said anything, but Victoria felt the stiffness of the curtseys, the awkwardness of the bows, the failure to look her in the eyes. More than once she had come into a room and heard the conversation stop as surely as if a candle had been blown out.
One morning she had gone so far as to ask Harriet and Emma if something was troubling them. Harriet had looked at the floor, and Emma had said that the weather was putting them all in low spirits. It was not much of an answer, but Victoria was grateful for the effort. That evening she had asked Lehzen what people were saying about her, and Lehzen had said she did not know.
But Victoria knew that Lehzen was lying. The truth was that since the coronation, Lady Flora had gone into a decline. She had taken to her bed in the Duchess’s apartments and had not been seen in public for a fortnight.
Victoria had sent Sir James to inquire after Lady Flora’s health, but he returned saying that his services were not required. The Duchess and Conroy remained in the north wing and were only seen at church. Although in other circumstances Victoria would have welcomed this, now their absence felt ominous, as fraught as the thunderous skies outside.
Normally she would have found some respite in doing her boxes with Lord M. Since the coronation, however, that pleasure had been dimmed by the shadow cast by the invalid in the north wing. Victoria had not mentioned Lady Flora to Melbourne since they had heard the results of Sir James’s examination, and he had not brought up the subject, but she knew it was as present in his mind as it was in hers.
She heard the doors opening at the end of the corridor and Melbourne’s quick step echoing on the parquet. “Good morning, ma’am.”
“I am so glad to see you. I can’t tell you how much I miss our rides.”
“Indeed, ma’am. But this is not the weather for riding.”
There was a silence. Melbourne glanced about him as if he had lost something, finally looking Victoria in the eye. “I am afraid, ma’am, that I hear reports Lady Flora is likely to die.”
Victoria put her hand to her mouth. “Surely not. Why, she looked quite healthy only a month ago. I know Mama is nursing her, but she always likes to exaggerate these things.”
“In this case, though, I am afraid that the Duchess does not exaggerate.”
Victoria looked annoyed. “I can’t believe it. How can this happen?”
Melbourne said as gently as he could, “I believe, ma’am, that Lady Flora has been ill for some time; that is generally the way of these things. She has had a sickly cast to her countenance for a while. And, of course, the recent events have most likely precipitated her decline.”
Victoria turned away from him. “I have sent Sir James with offers of help, but she refused to see him.”
“I can imagine, ma’am, that in the circumstances Lady Flora would not want to see Sir James.”
Victoria looked at him sideways, her shoulders drooping. “You think I should have sent someone else?”
“Indeed, ma’am, I think the only visitor that Lady Flora would welcome at this juncture would be yourself.”
Victoria turned round to face Melbourne, her face mutinous. “You want me to go?”
“It is not a question of what I want, ma’am.”
There was a long silence. Victoria looked at the floor. Finally, she lifted her chin, and an expression of defiance fired up in her face. “Well, I think this is all … a … storm in a teacup. I see no reason to gratify my mother by taking this seriously. I suggest, Lord Melbourne”—Victoria only ever called her Prime Minister by his full name when she was angry with him—“that we stop gossiping and start on my boxes.”
Melbourne bowed his head. “As you wish, ma’am.”
Victoria sat down and opened the red box. It took her a full ten minutes to invite Melbourne to take a seat beside her. They worked through the boxes methodically, without the usual chat and badinage, and as a result accomplished a great deal but were left feeling unsatisfied. Victoria did not, as she usually did, offer Melbourne a glass of Madeira, and he left for the House rather earlier than usual.
After he had gone, Victoria decided that she could not bear to stay cooped up in the palace, and ran out into the garden with Dash at her heels. For a moment she stood with her face turned up to the rain, feeling the drops fall into her mouth and run down the back of her neck. She stared at the grey sky and said quite loudly, “It’s not my fault!” and then shook her head at her own folly.
Hearing a noise behind her, she turned round and saw Lehzen.
“Majesty, why are you standing here in the rain?”
“Melbourne says that Lady Flora is dying!”
Lehzen’s face made it clear to Victoria that she had heard the same thing. But she made an effort to conceal her knowledge, and put on her bright governess smile.
“We know that she is ill, Majesty, but I have known cases like hers to recover. If she is dying, it is because she has lost the will to live.” Realising that she had said precisely the wrong thing, Lehzen hurried on. “You know how religious Lady Flora is. I think she is wanting to be in heaven.”
Victoria was silent, and Lehzen, knowing she had blundered again, said with desperation, “If you stay out here in the rain, Majesty, you will catch a chill, and then we will have two invalids in the palace.” She touched Victoria’s arm, trying to guide her back inside, but the Queen shook her off.
“Leave me alone.”
“But Majesty, you are wet through. At least let me fetch you an umbrella.”
“I don’t want anything from you, Lehzen.” Victoria marched away down the shrubbery, leaving Lehzen staring after her, shaking her head.
The rain continued to fall. The newspapers started to talk of the Book of Job. The farmers stared at their ruined crops. In the clubs, and in the corridors of the House, there was no fresh air to blow away the vapours of rumour that swirled around the recumbent form of Lady Flora.
The conversations grew more heated as the weather remained damp. There was outrage in White’s, the club favoured by the Tories.
“Hastings had it all in a letter from his sister. The Queen asked Sir James Clark to perform an examination.”
“On Lady Flora? But the woman was born with a crucifix in her hand!”
“Nevertheless, the Queen believed her to be with child.”
“Must have been an Immaculate Conception, as the Papists say. There is no more determined spinster in the country than Flora Hastings.”
“Sir John Conroy was meant to be the guilty party.”
“Conroy! But his interests lie elsewhere, surely?”
The Duke of Cumberland, who did not normally care for White’s, where he felt the members did not accord him the respect that was due to a Prince of the Blood, found the card room of the club much more congenial than usual. He made sure to drop in every day to relish the latest morsel from the feast of the Hastings affair. He was too wary, of course, to comment, but the angle of his eyebrow and the sigh that he gave whenever his niece’s name was mentioned were enough to let his listeners know what he thought of the business.
Even in Brooks’s, where the Whigs predominated, there was no avoiding the ripples of scandal. When Melbourne walked through the great drawing room, conversations stopped, and members, even fellow ministers, looked down at their cards, instead of stopping him with a smile.
If Melbourne knew why the conversations stopped when he passed by, he gave no sign of it, his air of weary languor undisturbed. Only his butler knew that he sat up late all night in the library at Dover House, the decanter at his side.
The only amusement that the rain could not affect was the theatre. Victoria was looking forward to seeing La Sonnambula by Bellini. She loved opera very much, and Bellini in particular. Sitting in the dark of the royal box listening to opera was the only time she permitted herself to cry in public.
Sometimes she would imagine herself sta
nding on the stage, commanding the audience with the purity of her voice. How she envied La Persiani, her favourite singer. Not just for her voice, but for the ability to express her emotions perfectly.
Victoria had learnt from an early age to keep her feelings in check in public, to make her face as smooth and as imperturbable as that of one of her dolls. But it could be hard work. Sometimes when she went to bed she felt the muscles of her cheeks ache from the effort of keeping the slate blank.
But here she could relax and let the music do its work. She could feel the hairs on her arms stand up as the diva on stage began to sing the famous sleepwalking aria. It was a moment of pure enjoyment, the first she had had since the coronation. Her eyelids fluttered as she let herself sigh with pleasure.
Then something changed. The music continued, but her dreamy reverie was broken. He was here; she knew it even before she turned around to see Melbourne standing there, his face set. He leant down and whispered in her ear. “I am sorry to disturb you, ma’am, but I am afraid this cannot wait.”
His face was very close to hers. Victoria could smell water of limes and tobacco.
“Lady Flora?”
“Yes, ma’am. I am afraid the end is near.”
“I see.”
Victoria got up and, with a regretful backwards glance at the stage, walked towards the door of the box. In the red-and-gilt corridor, she said, “You think I should go to her?”
Melbourne nodded. “I think you will regret it if you don’t.”
Victoria put a hand against the red velvet wall. “I am afraid, Lord M.”
Victoria felt Melbourne touch her hand with his own. The brush of his skin jolted her with a current of warmth. She turned her head to look at him.
“I know, ma’am. But I also know what courage you have.” Melbourne’s voice was reassuring.
“Very well. Must I go tonight?”
“I believe tomorrow could be too late, ma’am.”
Victoria could hear the tenor launching into the love duet as she followed Melbourne down the corridor, to the foyer where her carriage was waiting.
* * *
Penge led the way to the room in the north wing where Lady Flora lay dying. Victoria had wanted to change out of her opera dress, but in response to a look from Melbourne, she had decided to go up as she was. As they walked down the corridor, Victoria noticed that the red carpet underfoot had given way to a thin drugget. There were no pictures on the wall. The candles in the sconces hissed and guttered; they were tallow, not the beeswax always used in the royal apartments.
At the door of the bedroom, Victoria hesitated. She turned to Melbourne. “You will come with me?”
Melbourne shook his head. “There are some things, ma’am, you must do alone.”
Victoria hesitated. Then she put her hand on the door and pushed it open.
The smell hit her first. Sweat, fever, and something that could only be decay. She wanted to put her hand over her face, but forced herself to keep her arms down by her sides. It took a moment to see Lady Flora in the room, which was lit only by one candle.
The dying woman was huddled in a pile of bedclothes in the middle of the bed, her shrunken form dwarfed by the coroneted half tester hanging above her. Her face was yellow against the white sheets, and her lips had begun to pull back over her teeth as if the skull was already showing beneath the skin. Her breath was heavy and effortful. Victoria could hear the rasp of the exhalation from her side of the room. Digging her nails into her palms, Victoria advanced slowly to Flora’s bedside. Flora’s head was turned towards the wall. She clasped a Bible to her thin chest.
The nurse who had been sitting there got up in a flurry of confusion and curtsied clumsily. Victoria gestured for her to go, and then, painting on her brightest smile, advanced to where Flora could see her.
“Good evening, Lady Flora. I am sorry to find you in ill health.”
Lady Flora turned her head, and her eyes gleamed at the sight of Victoria, but she said nothing, only the laboring, agonizing breath.
Unnerved, Victoria found herself talking brightly. “Is there anything we can do for you? Some beef tea? Peaches, perhaps? The ones they grow in the hothouses at Windsor are a real delicacy. I believe that they could tempt you back to health.”
Flora put up a feeble hand as if to say enough, and, with great difficulty, spoke with something approaching scorn. “I am beyond peaches.”
Victoria shook her head. “Don’t say that, Lady Flora! I am sure that with rest and care you will soon be on your feet again.”
Flora gasped. “I am going to a better place.” And she clutched her Bible.
There was a silence broken only by Flora’s awful breathing. At last Victoria could bear it no longer.
“I have wronged you, Lady Flora. I have come to ask your forgiveness.”
Flora tapped her Bible and said, “Only God can forgive you.”
Victoria rocked back a little on her heels. “Well, I intend to ask for his forgiveness too.” She swallowed. “I believed something that was not true because I wanted to believe it, and I did you a great injustice.”
Flora closed her eyes. For a long, awful minute, Victoria imagined that she would not open them again, but then the red-rimmed lids parted.
“Your subjects,” Flora gasped, “are not dolls to be played with.” She stared at Victoria with great intensity. Lifting her head with an agonizing effort, she said, “To be a queen, you have to be more than a little girl with a crown.”
And then Flora subsided back onto the pillows, spent, a dribble of saliva leaking from the corner of her mouth.
Victoria felt Flora’s words burning across her forehead. Impulsively she reached down and picked up the invalid’s hand and pressed it to her lips. The flesh felt cold and waxy, as if already belonging to a corpse. Flora did not stir, the only sign that she was still alive the terrible rhythm of the jagged breaths.
Victoria put down the cold hand and backed away towards the door.
Melbourne was waiting for her outside. “You weren’t in there very long, ma’am.”
“It was long enough.” Victoria hurried past him down the corridor, not wanting him to see the tears that were threatening to demolish her composure.
She felt his steps coming after her, and heard him say, “I imagine it was most upsetting, ma’am, but I think you must know that you have done the right thing.”
“That can hardly make up for the wrong I have done her,” said Victoria through her tears.
“You made a mistake, and you have apologized.”
“I have been so foolish,” she sobbed.
“Perhaps, but everyone is capable of folly, even a queen.”
“I wish I could believe you, Lord M.”
“You must believe, ma’am. After all, I am older and wiser than you.”
He touched her elbow and walked with her back to her apartments, where Lehzen was waiting for her. “Good night, ma’am.”
“I won’t be able to sleep a wink,” Victoria answered, but felt a great weariness steal over her.
Lehzen took her by the arm. “Don’t worry, Majesty. I will make you some negus and then you will be sleeping like a baby.”
Victoria leant on her for a moment and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, Melbourne had gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Victoria woke up the next morning to see the sun shining through the windows. She jumped out of bed, Dash at her heels, and looked out over the park. She would go riding today. Then she remembered the events of last night, and her sudden elation at the sunshine evaporated.
She wondered how long it would be now. Even as she reproached herself for such an uncharitable thought, she could not put aside the hope that Flora’s death would come sooner rather than later. The waiting was the worst part.
She did not have to wait long. Victoria was in the morning room playing a duet with Harriet Sutherland when the doors opened and the Duchess flew in, her face stiff with grief. “My po
or Flora is dead!”
Victoria’s fingers froze on the keys. She heard Harriet’s mumble that she hoped that ma’am would excuse her, and the rustle of her skirts as she hurried from the room.
Victoria stood up. She shut the piano lid as carefully as she could. “Oh, Mama, that is terrible.”
The Duchess narrowed her eyes. “You drove her to her death, Drina.”
“But I went to see her last night. To apologise for my … mistake.”
“Mistake! You send doctors to humiliate a dying woman!”
“And I said I was sorry.” Victoria tried to keep the note of panic out of her voice.
“Do you think that is enough, Drina? To say you are sorry, like a little girl who is breaking a glass? Anyway, it is not me you should apologise to, but Sir John. You accused him, and he too is innocent.”
At the mention of Sir John’s name, Victoria felt the rage beginning to build behind her eyes. All her mother could think of was her precious Conroy.
“Of that particular crime, perhaps. But he is guilty of far worse, Mama!”
The Duchess’s head snapped back as if she had been hit. “What are you saying? Sir John has always been like a father to you. And you have repaid his kindness with this … this slander.”
Victoria took a step forward, possessed by the desire to take her mother by the shoulders and shake her. “Kindness? Is that what you call it? Locking me up at Kensington like a prisoner, laughing at me about my height, my voice, my ignorance. And you laughed with him, Mama!”
The Duchess put up her hands as if to ward off a blow. “Drina, please.”
But Victoria would not, could not stop. “Ever since I can remember, Mama, you have looked at him first, then me!” Her voice was threatening to break, but Victoria kept the tears at bay by the fierceness of her anger.
The Duchess looked at her, bewildered. “Von was redest du? What are you talking about? I think you are not yourself, Drina.”
Victoria knew that she could not hold in her emotions much longer. She pulled back her shoulders and lifted her chin, and said slowly and clearly, with every shred of dignity she possessed, “This audience is over, Mama. You have my permission to withdraw.”
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