“Yes, Mamma.”
Indeed, Lady Charlotte was VERY helpful in straightening out my use of silverware. She was also kind and did everything possible to please me. I had no idea how she felt about Daisy, or how Daisy felt about being replaced. Both ladies acted with absolute correctness. But when the duchess invited Mamma and me to visit the ancestral Northumberland home in London, Daisy did not accompany us.
The duke of Northumberland grew rare and exotic plants, as well as vegetables and strawberries and even pineapples in a glass conservatory. In winter, blocks of ice were cut and hauled up from the large lake, packed in straw, and placed deep inside a brick icehouse built partly underground, so that the duke’s guests could enjoy ice creams and sorbets all year round. The duchess made certain I had the delicious treat during my visit.
“And my dear princess,” she told me, her smile showing pointy little teeth, “as soon the duke can arrange it, you shall have your very own little bedroom here, and your dear mamma will, too.”
That pleased me very much indeed. At the age of twelve I was still not permitted my own bedroom at Kensington, but continued to sleep in Mamma’s room. She would have it no other way.
The iced desserts, the strawberries, the promise of my own room in no way made up for one of the biggest disappointments of my young life. Mamma still refused to allow me to attend the king’s coronation.
I felt utterly wretched. Nothing cheered me. I should have been in London at Westminster Abbey on Thursday the eighth of September, a major participant in all the glorious pomp and ceremony. Instead, I passed the day in Kensington, where it was just like any other Thursday. My lessons proceeded as though nothing of any importance were happening. Whenever I thought of what I was missing, I could scarcely keep from bursting into tears. I did not wish to see Mamma, afraid I would say something impertinent that would shock her, and then I would have to write another letter of apology. Dear Daisy tried to distract me, without success. I cried myself to sleep as Coronation Day ended.
Every aspect of my life was carefully watched and strictly controlled, always under the direction of Sir John. There was no room for error, no tolerance for failure.
As he promised, my dearest uncle Leopold wrote to me soon after he reached Belgium. I was VERY happy to receive a letter from him, though he did go on to lecture me in the kindest way possible, just as he had when he lived in England.
“If I were to give an opinion, I should say that a certain little princess eats a little too frequently, a little too much, and a little too fast.”
He said nothing about my posture, leaving that to Mamma. To ensure that Fidi’s back would be straight, my poor sister had been forced to wear a board strapped to her spine over her corset almost until the day she was married, but Mamma simply pinned a bunch of prickly holly under my chin as a reminder not to slump and to sit erect when I ate. If that had not succeeded, I knew, I too would be subjected to the board.
One morning I found on my writing table a small paperbound copybook, the title lettered on the cover: VICTORIA’S GOOD BEHAVIOR BOOK.
Mamma, and possibly Sir John, with dear Daisy’s approval, had concluded that I must record every single instance of bad behavior in a Good Behavior Book. “This will help you,” Daisy explained, “to become more aware of your failings and to correct them.”
Must every child in the world struggle, just as I did, to conduct herself perfectly? Or are some people born always to do the right thing? It seemed so terribly difficult always to behave well, and I often yielded to tempers and impudence and foot-stamping.
For the next six months I wrote down every instance in which I was peevish, vulgar, or impertinent, or—worst of all—refused to obey immediately and without question or argument. I filled one whole book with notations of bad behavior and had to begin a new one. Daisy sat with me through my lessons, and if at any time my answers to one of my tutors seemed too sharp, or I displayed displeasure of any kind, I was reminded to make an entry in the Good Behavior Book. Each entry was dated, and the pages were ruled off in advance for Morning, Afternoon, and Evening. I also made notes on such things as my riding lessons and whether I was improving or not. (Usually I was. I loved to ride.)
“You must be scrupulously honest in your comments on your own behavior, Victoria,” Daisy reminded me VERY often. “I see that you have written ‘Good’ and ‘Very good’ for your behavior this morning with Mr. Davys, but it seemed to me that you were rather pert when he corrected your Latin. And what about that little scene this afternoon when you were asked to wash your hands and you refused? That was quite disrespectful.”
“I refused because my hands were not at all dirty. There was no need to wash them.”
Daisy sighed and shook her head. “When you are told that you are to do something, then you must do it, at once and without dispute. Obedience, Victoria, is most important. And you were both disobedient and impertinent.”
“That is your perception,” I said stubbornly.
“And now you are being very impertinent and stubborn as well. Please make a note of it in the Good Behavior Book.”
I sighed. Was it impertinent to sigh? Even when the situation warranted? Daisy probably thought it was. Mamma surely did. My naughtiness nearly always had to be pointed out to me, for I obstinately refused to see it myself. Daisy opened the detestable copybook in front of my eyes and stood over me, watching as I made the required notation of my misbehavior. It was to be shown to Mamma at bedtime.
Mamma sent it back to me with these lines penned inside the front cover:
How pleasant it is, at the end of the day
No follies to have to repent;
But reflect on the past and be able to say,
That my time has been properly spent.
In my heart burned a fierce desire not to spend all my time properly! And not to repent! What would Mamma have said if she had known that?
Unbidden, the memory of my mother in Sir John’s arms rose up and inflamed me. I wanted nothing more than to fling the Good Behavior Book, and all the naughty misdeeds recorded in it, across the room with a loud shout: What about YOUR behavior, Mamma?
But of course I did no such thing.
Chapter 7
TRAVELS, 1832
On the summer after my thirteenth birthday we set off on another journey. “It is important for you to learn about the country you will one day rule,” Mamma explained. “It is equally important that your countrymen learn about you.”
As we were leaving Kensington, Mamma gave me a small book of blank pages in which I was meant to make a record of my travels—events that occurred, people I met, and any detail that I found interesting. This was not the same as my Good Behavior Book, which could not be avoided even when traveling.
I took this new assignment VERY seriously. I had a small pendant watch on a chain, a gift from Queen Adelaide, and checked the time as our carriages rolled out of the palace grounds.
We left K.P. at 6 minutes past 7 and went through the Lower-field gate to the right. We went on, & turned to the left by the new road to Regent’s Park. The road & scenery is beautiful, 20 minutes to 9. We have just changed horses at Barnet, a very pretty little town, 5 minutes past half past 9. We have just changed horses at St. Albans.
Throughout the day I dutifully noted in pencil every change of horses, every village through which we passed. When we arrived at our destination, Daisy read what I had written and suggested a few changes. Next Mamma asked to see it. “Well done, Victoria,” she said approvingly. I flushed with pleasure. I wanted her approval, and so often I failed to receive it.
I did this every day.
Wherever we went, curious crowds turned out to have a look at me, and their greetings were always enthusiastic. Mamma insisted that I be dressed in white, which she believed made me look young and innocent. I found this notion tiresome—I was thirteen! I felt so very old, not at all like a child, old enough to wear the pearl earrings I had received as a birthday gift. But
when I protested, Mamma said, “You are their princess, my dearest Vickelchen. The people want to see their future queen as a young, innocent girl, and we must give them what they want.”
I got out my little wooden Fidi doll. Its dress made of scraps from Fidi’s wedding gown was showing wear after five years of being stuffed in my pocket or hidden beneath my pillow.
Someday, I whispered to the miniature Fidi, when I am grown, I shall dress however I wish, and furthermore I shall keep a journal that will be entirely private, and no one—least of all Mamma—will be permitted to read it and to know my secret thoughts. Someday, when I am queen, my thoughts will be my own.
Meanwhile, though, I did exactly as Mamma said I must.
We passed through small towns where children welcomed me with flowers and song. I visited a cotton mill, a glove factory, and a slate quarry. We traveled north through country where coal was mined. I was quite shocked by the desolation everywhere—men, women, and children were blackened with coal dust, as were their houses. Burning heaps of coal, smoking and sometimes flaming up, were intermingled with wretched huts and broken carts and little ragged children. It was a heartbreaking sight.
“You may go over your entry now in ink,” Mamma said when she’d read my travel entry that day. “Though I think you might have included more about the children’s chorus and less about those wretchedly filthy urchins. It was so very unpleasant.”
Our carriages plodded slowly through the rolling hills at the same tiresome rate. I wished we could go faster, but I seemed to be the only one who cared about speed.
The Conroy family, including Jane and Victoire, traveled with us. Our ponies, Isabel and Rosa, accompanied us, as did Lady Conroy’s cunning little dog, Bijou. We required several carriages just to transport the trunks with our dresses and hats and shoes. My own small bed traveled with me and was set up for me at every stop.
One of the BEST days of the journey was a visit to Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire. We were treated to a magnificent fireworks display of rockets, wheels, and windmills, and my name spelled out in stars with a beautiful crown! Several weeks into our sojourn we crossed a suspension bridge to the Isle of Anglesey—more children strewing more flowers, more bands playing, more guns firing salutes, a number of formal speeches, and a men’s choir singing “God Save the King.”
God save our gracious King,
Long live our noble King,
God save the King!
Send him victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign o’er us;
God save the King!
Everyone stood listening respectfully. I could not help thinking how, when I became queen after Uncle William’s death, the words would have to be changed.
We arrived at Plâs Newydd, the home of Lord and Lady Anglesey and, at last, after so much traveling, settled down for a lengthy stay. What a dear, dear place it was, such a pleasant change from Kensington. When the weather was fine we boarded the royal yacht, Emerald, and were several times saluted by guns fired from the old castle as we sailed by.
I still attended to my lessons for a few hours every day—Scottish history, French grammar, arithmetic, religion, and writing—with dear Daisy acting as my master, but I found time to go out riding, even when the weather was foul. Dear little Rosa cantered beautifully and sometimes galloped like the wind. She literally flew! Finally, I could enjoy some speed!
On a fiercely hot day near the end of September, Victoire and I took Lady Conroy’s little Bijou down to the water’s edge. The strait was a channel of the Irish Sea and VERY cold. The dog rushed into the water, turned round and raced out again without stopping, and shook himself, splashing us. Victoire squealed and ran away, and I tried to coax the silly dog back into the water. Dear Daisy sat nearby on a bench with a parasol to keep her skin from darkening. If she had not been there, I might have removed my shoes and rolled down my stockings and waded into the water, no matter how cold. But that was not allowed. I blamed the restriction on Sir John, who maintained a long list of things I must not do, owing to my station. Perspiration dripped from under my bonnet.
The heat made me irritable, and I complained to poor Victoire, “If Sir John were not so pertinacious, we could go wading.”
She gazed at me, blinking. “What does ‘pertinacious’ mean, Victoria?”
“Pigheaded,” I explained spitefully.
Victoire’s lip began to tremble. “You do say such dreadful things about my papa,” she whimpered. “How can you be so cruel, when he does so much for you?”
I should not have said what I did, but I kept right on. “He does very little for me,” I retorted, “and he himself behaves cruelly at times,” I added, feeling entirely in the right, for he always did seem to take pleasure in teasing his daughters and me.
Victoire let out a wounded howl, scooped up wet and muddy Bijou, and ran up the grassy hill toward the mansion. I watched her retreating back without a morsel of regret.
Daisy was a witness to the scene. “Victoria,” she said severely, “Miss Conroy is your friend. I am appalled.”
Dear Lehzen closed her parasol with a snap and stepped aside, and I started up the hill, knowing she would follow close behind. We marched along in silence, the sun blazing hot on our backs. We did not exchange a single word until we reached the suite of rooms I shared with Mamma. The Good Behavior Book lay on the writing table. I opened it without being told and reached for my pen. Entries did not always have to be written first in pencil.
“24 September 1832. I was VERY VERY VERY VERY HORRIBLY NAUGHTY!!!!”
I underlined each word four times, the nib gouging a hole in the paper, blotted it more vigorously than was warranted, and clapped the book shut. There! It felt VERY, VERY good.
We had our last ride on Rosa and Isabel, and after a farewell breakfast we drove out amidst the shouts of the sailors. I waved farewell to the dear Emerald and her excellent crew, as we were on our way again. I felt quite sad to be leaving dear Plâs Newyyd.
In late afternoon we arrived at Eaton Hall, where we were well entertained for several days. Later, en route to Chatsworth House, we stopped in Chester where I opened the Victoria Bridge across the River Dee. All the while Victoire avoided me, turning her face away. I had written her a note of apology for saying that her father was pertinacious—I’d had a great deal of practice in writing letters of apology to Mamma, and this was not much different. I had not changed my mind about Sir John—I never would—but I should not have spoken so harshly to Victoire. She did forgive me.
Then it was on to Alton Towers, where a foxhunt was arranged for the amusement of the gentlemen. The ladies followed in carriages behind the immense field of horsemen.
Victoire, sitting next to me, was among the first to sight the fox. “Look!” she shrieked, as a flash of rust-brown fur dashed past us. The sounding of the hunting horn and shouts of “Tally-ho!” from the hunters drowned out her cry. A great pack of baying hounds chased after the poor, terrified fox, pursued by dozens upon dozens of horses, their hoofs thundering on the damp ground.
Our carriage came to a stop in an open field at the edge of a thicket of small trees. Fox, hounds, horses, and hunters were far ahead of us. I stole a glance at Victoire. She looked pale and was unusually silent and kept her face averted.
I detected a change in the baying of the hounds, and soon the huntsman, the gentleman in charge of the hunt, rode out of the trees with the limp body of the fox. The huntsman made a ceremony of cutting off the fox’s brush, affixing it to a stick, and presenting it to me. Then he cut off the ears and paws as trophies for the hunters and threw the mangled body to the dogs, which leapt forward and seized it, tearing it from side to side until there was nothing left.
Victoire, whose eyes had been shut throughout, opened them warily. “Thank goodness that’s over,” she said, her voice trembling.
“I found it quite interesting,” I told her. “I was very much amused.”
This was not precisely tru
e, my stomach was churning, but dear Daisy liked to remind me that I must learn never to show weakness. “A queen must not be weak,” she repeated. “Queen Elizabeth may have been cruel, but she was never, ever weak.”
Later, as we drove toward Wytham Abbey, the home of Lord and Lady Abingdon, Mamma commented on the woodlands surrounding the great manor house. Sir John, riding beside our carriage, said, “These woodlands are noted for having a large population of badgers.” Then, glancing at Victoire slumped in the corner, he added loudly, “I understand that Lord Abingdon is planning a badger hunt in honor of our visit.”
Poor Victoire, overhearing the remark just as Sir John intended, burst into tears. There was to be no badger hunt, but Victoire’s wicked father enjoyed teasing her as much as he did me. I reached for her hand and squeezed it sympathetically.
After an absence of more than three months, we were back in our old rooms at Kensington. The journey had ended and with it the need to record the daily events, but both Mamma and dear Daisy urged me to continue the habit. And so I did.
Chapter 8
LITTLE DASH, 1833
Christmas Eve was always celebrated in German style to please Mamma. After dinner, with the Conroy family in attendance, we gathered in the upstairs sitting room, the doors thrown open to reveal a beautiful evergreen tree decorated with little candles, sugared nuts, and sweetmeats. “Just as it was in my home as a child!” Mamma said happily.
Round the tree were several small tables on which our gifts had been arranged. I had a table for myself, on which I found several gifts from Mamma—an opal brooch and earrings, books, prints, a pink satin dress, and a cloak lined with fur. I received a pretty bag that Victoire had worked herself and a silver hairbrush from Sir John. Everyone else also got lovely gifts.
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