Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter

by A. E. Moorat

  Oh, I can well believe, thought Victoria.

  But she kept smiling.

  'And are you called upon to act like Albert and I in these situations,' she asked, 'not just to look like us?'

  'Oh, indeed, ma'am,' said Coventry.

  'We have certain catchphrases they like us to say,' added Betty.

  'Such as?' prompted Victoria.

  'Oh, well, ma'am, I don't like to. Not with you standing in front me like this.'

  'Oh you needn't worry, Mrs Jones,' interjected Melbourne, 'I'm sure Her Majesty would be interested.'

  'Very well,' said Betty Jones, at which she drew herself up, pursed her lips very tightly, so that they resembled the puckered anus of a cat, and said, in a strangulated tone, 'We are not amused.'

  She looked at Victoria, smiling sheepishly.

  Victoria looked at her.

  Then at Melbourne.

  'Do I say that?' she said.

  'I think it has been known, ma'am,' replied the Prime Minister. 'I believe you were once quoted in letters as having said it in response to a ribald aside made by one of the grooms-in-waiting.'

  'Was I? But I like ribald jokes, as you well know.'

  'Indeed, ma'am, but I do believe in that instance you were speaking for the ladies around you, in the event that they might have been scandalised by the unsavoury humour, hence your use of "we", which was not in this instance a case of you employing the majestic plural, though it seems to have been interpreted by wider society in this manner. Hence Betty employing it as a catchphrase.'

  'I see,' said Victoria, 'and the people are associating this phrase with me, even though when I uttered the words, I meant them in a completely different sense?'

  'That would appear to be the case, ma'am. It would seem that it is an example of you being quoted out of context, ma'am.'

  'I see. Perhaps you could see to it that something is placed in The Times, clarifying this position?'

  'I shall certainly do my best, Your Majesty,' said Melbourne, who, of course, had no intention of doing anything of the sort.

  Victoria turned her attention back to Betty and Coventry, who smiled a little nervously, fearing they might have given offence, Coventry biting his lip.

  'It's quite all right,' said Victoria, hoping to put them at their ease, 'it can be unusual sometimes, seeing how one is perceived.'

  Then: 'Lord Melbourne?' she said, still smiling.

  'Yes, Your Majesty.'

  'Might I have a word in private?'

  'Certainly, Your Majesty. Maggie...'

  Maggie Brown came forward to direct Betty and Coventry from the room. Victoria waited until they had gone before letting the smile slip from her face.

  'Lord Melbourne,' she said, 'neither of these two people, though very charming as they no doubt are, bear the slightest resemblance to myself or to Albert. They do not speak like Albert and me, they do not dress in a similar fashion to Albert and me, they do not have our poise or posture. In short, they are nothing whatsoever like Albert and me.'

  Melbourne sighed. 'I agree that they may be a little...raw in their present state, but Your Majesty might remember that they are commoners. With the greatest respect, Your Majesty has lived her entire life with staff on hand to advise on matters of elegance and dress and manners and elocution. Betty and Coventry have merely admired from afar. I'm sure Your Majesty has heard the old saying that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?'

  'I'm sorry, Lord M, either we abandon this project, or find someone else,' said Victoria firmly. 'Would you be so kind as to bring Mr and Mrs Jones back into the gallery and I shall inform them that their services are not required.'

  'Certainly, ma'am.'

  Moments later, Betty and Coventry stood before her once more.

  'Mr and Mrs Jones...' Victoria began. Coventry was staring at the polished floor of the Gallery, his hands clasped in front of him, red and raw hands, Victoria saw, worn by the steam of the factory; Betty, Victoria noticed for the first time, was trembling slightly.

  The Queen paused. She looked over at Melbourne, who stood with his own hands behind his back, ready to help escort the pair of them from the Palace and back to their lives in the factory, earning extra pennies by doing poor impersonations of the Queen for people who probably thought them fit for little more than mockery...

  'I think you would make fine stand-ins,' she said, all of a sudden, 'and would be more than happy to have you on the staff. Betty, I am placing you under the wing of the Duchess of Sutherland, Lady Harriet, who is most certainly one of the most beautiful and stylish ladies in the land and will be able to advise you on all matters of dress, maquillage, coiffure and etiquette...'

  In response, Betty Jones' eyes had grown wider and wider and her mouth had slowly dropped open; Lord Melbourne, meanwhile, was exchanging an amazed look with Maggie Brown.

  '...and you, Mr Jones,' she continued, 'I am placing you in the care of Lord Melbourne who will assign you a groom-in-waiting on whom you can rely for instruction in all matters relating to your proper comportment. The two of you shall live in rooms in the Palace.' She turned to Lord M. 'Can I rely upon you to see that these wishes are carried out, Lord Melbourne?'

  'Yes, ma'am,' said the Prime Minister, coming forward.

  'Good. Then as long as you are satisfied...' this Victoria directed towards Betty and Coventry, who both nodded enthusiastically, unable to believe their luck.

  They were ushered from the gallery. The Queen turned to Melbourne, 'Lord M, I think I may have been powered by what is known as a second wind-and that it has just deserted me. I must take my leave.'

  'Very good, Your Majesty,' he said, then added, 'I wonder, if having had some rest we might then reconvene, for then we have something we must show you.'

  'Very well,' said the Queen, and with that, she called for the Duchess and together they left the room, Victoria adding, 'and Lord M?'

  'Yes, Your Majesty?'

  'You will see to it that Mr and Mrs Jones are well looked after, won't you?'

  'Certainly, ma'am.'

  They watched her leave.

  'Wouldn't it be ironic, Maggie,' said Lord Melbourne, 'if she, who is such a fine monarch for England, turned out not be England's monarch after all, don't you think?'

  Maggie looked at Melbourne. 'I don't think so, no,' she said, frowning. 'I don't think it is our place to think in such a fashion, Prime Minister-but simply to do our duty.'

  XXXV

  It was noticed, at the House that day, that Lord Montague Tales had several strands of long blond hair protruding from his mouth.

  The effect, it was observed later, privately in the offices and corridors of the houses of Parliament, on the balcony on which members stood, drinking port and spitting into the black, stinking Thames, was really rather hypnotic.

  For, as he spoke, the hair seemed to float, as though defying gravity, as though suspended, buffeted by his words (which were against reform-lately Sir Montague had been, in a surprising volte face from his previous position, vociferous against the implementation of the Factory Bill) and when he moved to address all sections of the house, members were treated to the sight of more hair. All subsequently agreed that Sir Montague really did have an awful lot of hair emerging from his mouth, with most coming to the conclusion that he had no doubt been in the company of a young lady shortly before arriving at the house; indeed, perhaps had even smuggled the woman into one of the rooms, there to avail himself of her, pausing only long enough to register his views against those measures being proposed making sure that women and children should not work long hours in the factories, and that all accidental deaths should be reported to the surgeon, and that factories should be washed with lime every fourteen months.

  Melbourne stood up, speaking against a set of proposed amendments to the act. 'I am saddened,' he began, 'to learn of the right honourable gentleman's change of heart on this issue...'

  Behind him sat the Whig MPs Granger and Tennant, each of whom had fel
t sleepy following a long and entertaining lunch, but were enlivened at seeing Sir Montague Tales' mouthful of hair and were even more alert now that it was the Prime Minister's turn to speak, for they liked to have a wager on the amount of times the Prime Minister would employ his favoured phrase, which was, 'Why not leave it alone?'

  'I say more than three,' growled Granger.

  'Indeed, sir, indeed, he may well do,' managed Tennant, behind a gutful of trapped gas. 'Normal terms and conditions apply, I trust?'

  'Absolutely, sir, absolutely,' agreed Granger.

  'Yes,' said Tennant, showing Granger the guinea wager he held, Granger doing the same in return, 'I think he rather hopes his phrase will be part of his legacy.'

  'I do declare Melbourne will not be happy otherwise,' added Granger. 'In private he speaks of his fond wish that one day a city might be named in his honour.'

  'Do you think so? Queen's Toady-on-Sea?'

  Tennant coughed to disguise a guffaw.

  'Perhaps he already has had a town named after him: Crawley.'

  The two men's shoulders shook with mirth.

  In the Strangers' Gallery, looking down upon the assembled parties from high above, sat Quimby and Perkins, Perkins wearing his scarf as was customary. They had the Strangers' Gallery to themselves so Quimby had suggested his manservant remove his sock and shoe to give the leg some air.

  'What do you think, sir?' said Perkins.

  'Of our government's touching regard for the plight of women and children in the factories, or the progress of our revenant?'

  He looked down upon Sir Montague Tales as he spoke. Monty had regained his seat, still with those gold slivers of hair in his mouth-his mouth which, Quimby saw now, chewed slightly, as though of its own accord; in his eyes a faraway look. What did that hair mean, exactly? That he had been entertaining a young lady? Or eating one?

  What's more, there were other members of Parliament of his acquaintance, who had also, recently been guests at Pembridge Villas, and they, too, sat glassy-eyed.

  Quimby wasn't sure. He wasn't sure at all...

  And his mind went back to the workhouse at the Old Nichol Rookery. Sir John Conroy's blade flashing. Little rhythmic arcs of red.

  Now Quimby stood and scuttled to the end of the bench, motioning to Perkins to remain seated.

  'Caught short,' he said, and darted up the couple of steps to the exit, which took him out of the House, and there on to a main corridor, darkened by oak panelling. Along it he found a toilet, so discreet as to be virtually a secret door, and let himself inside. There were two cubicles, and for a moment he stood, marvelling at this latest innovation, before stepping in, dropping his trousers and pants, retrieving from his jacket a hip flask containing one or two nips of whisky and allowing his sphincter to relax...

  'These sitting toilets are a wonderful idea, don't you think, Quimby?

  'Christ.' Quimby jumped a mile, his hip flask shaking in his hand and droplets of the precious fluid wasted. 'Christ, where are you?' he demanded of the voice.

  'Why, in the cubicle next to you,' said Sir John Conroy, 'look up.'

  Quimby did so, to see a hand waving at him over the top of the partition.

  'Hmph,' he said, 'what do you want anyway?'

  'To know how our plan progresses, obviously,' said Conroy. 'Time is of the essence, is it not. Do we yet have enough members of Parliament in our thrall to constitute a majority?'

  'Very soon we will have, yes,' said Quimby, 'in a matter of hours, in fact.'

  'And each of the revenants will submit to your will?'

  'Oh, yes, absolutely,' lied Quimby, to whom the issue of obedience ran a distant second to those concerns involving the zombies' hunger for flesh.

  'Good,' said Conroy, 'that is good.'

  'May I ask,' said Quimby, 'for what reason you require these MPs to do our bidding?'

  'No, Quimby, you may not. Your task is merely to see to it that we have enough revenants available to do our bidding, in which capacity you are so far performing admirably, it would seem. Now, I bid you farewell. Be seeing you, Quimby.'

  Quimby hoped not; he dearly wished for nothing more than to never see Sir John Conroy ever again.

  'Don't forget to wash your hands, Quimby,' said Conroy and Quimby heard the door open and close.

  He thought about Sir Montague Tales and the mouth of hair. And he thought about the little rhythmic arcs of red.

  He defecated.

  Meanwhile, in the house, Melbourne bellowed, 'Why not leave it alone?' as he finished his speech, thumping the dispatch box in order to make his point and taking his seat.

  A guinea passed from Lord Granger to Lord Tennant.

  'Just the three on this occasion, sir,' said Granger, 'your prediction wins the day.'

  'Well, then, what say I use my winnings to buy us a jug in the members' bar later?'

  'A most tempting offer I must refuse sir,' said Granger, 'for I have a dinner date with Lord Quimby at Notting Hill this very evening-and his Lordship has promised to lay on some entertainment of a most promising nature.'

  XXXVI

  'Careful, Your Majesty,' said Melbourne, walking ahead of the Queen and holding his torch high, in order to give them as much light as possible.

  The Prime Minister led the way, Maggie Brown at the rear. In the middle was the Queen, wearing her sword as instructed by Maggie. 'It's Protektorate business, ma'am,' she'd said, handing her a scarf with which to hide her face, a three-cornered hat to pull down low over her eyes, 'the tower is well guarded by the Yeomen Warders as you know, and they are accustomed to coming and going of a clandestine nature, but even so, they are not privy to information regarding the demonic threat.'

  Melbourne had ushered them past the Beefeaters at the gates, Victoria with her head down, and into the castle complex, on to a courtyard, hurrying across it to one of the towers. Here they had taken up torches, then gone inside and began descending stone steps, the air becoming dank and cloying around them as they went further and further underground.

  'Soon we will pass through into Lanthorn Tower,' said the Prime Minister. 'Your Majesty will recall that it was severely damaged in the fire of 1774. It is believed, in fact, that it was irreparably damaged, and now lies abandoned,' he continued, as they reached the bottom of the steps, 'but in fact that is not quite the case; instead, we have simply allowed the majority to believe this to be so, in order that we may use it for our purposes.'

  'And what are they?' asked Victoria, as Melbourne paused before opening a door at the foot of the steps.

  'It is used for interrogation,' he said.

  They were now deep within the black depths of the Tower of London, far underground. Victoria, aware of a sudden sense of depth, instinctively looked up and what she saw was tower stretching high, high above them-from the depths where they stood, to way above ground level, and she experienced a moment of severe disorientation, quite unable at first to make sense of what she saw, which was that the fire had completely gutted Lanthorn Tower but the walls still stood, so that it was as if a giant hand had reached in and dragged out its insides.

  Flickering torches lit the giddying expanse of stone, casting shadows on smoke-blackened walls. Towards the top were windows, and through them Victoria could see the grey of night. Looking closer she realised that strange angular shapes she had seen on the walls were in fact stone steps, suspended there, that must once have provided the access to different levels of the tower, destroyed in the fire. In places there were at intervals were the remains of picture frames, charred and rotting, but still, incredibly clinging to the walls, defying the years.

  For some moments she was transfixed by the dimensions of the room in which she found herself and was listening to the sound of the ravens from way above her in the rafters. So much so that she quite forgot what Melbourne had said.

  Then, however, she remembered.

  Melbourne had already made his way down a secondary flight of steps to the main floor area of the Tower,
which opened out before them, a huge expanse of stone interrupted by thick stone pillars that had once supported a ceiling, so that they now looked like a collection of tree trunks, shorn of leaves and branches.

  Now Victoria followed him, and as she came into the area she saw something else, apart from the pillars: that it was studded with apparatus. Brown, rusty, spiked contraptions.

  'Torture?' she said.

  'Such an ugly word, ma'am,' protested Melbourne, 'I prefer to call it coercive questioning.'

  'It's torture,' repeated Victoria.

  'In any circumstance,' Melbourne said, discomfited, 'it really is used only in the cases of the highest of treason, and then only for the extraction of information which might be vital for reasons of state security.'

  'I'm afraid there's no point in being squeamish about it, Your Majesty,' said Maggie Brown, 'call it a fact of war.'

  'I'm sorry,' said Victoria, 'I think there is every reason to be squeamish about it. Lord Melbourne, all this...equipment? Is this all torture apparatus?'

  'I'm afraid so, Your Majesty,' said Melbourne.

  'This? What's this?' She indicated the item nearest to her: a tiny wooden box, with a door and a padlock hanging from it.

  'This they call Little Ease, ma'am,' said Melbourne, 'it is intended to imprison a man, who would be in agonies, unable to move even a muscle.'

  'It's barbaric,' said Victoria.

  'We are in full agreement,' said Melbourne, his hands spread, 'you must believe that we in no way take this lightly.'

  'These?' asked the Queen.

  Two of the pillars were supplemented with manacles driven into a staple at their head. They were used to hang a man so that his feet might not touch the ground, explained Melbourne.

  'And this, Your Majesty,' he said when she pointed out an evil-looking metal contraption, 'is the Scavenger's Daughter, invented by Sir William Skeffington in the reign of King Henry VIII.'

  He indicated metal rings at its base, 'the feet go here and the arms go in here, and it compresses the body, like so, inflicting a great deal of pain by forcing the blood from the head.'