It seems that they had sent for fresh tea for the second time, and the two old ladies had consumed an enormous quantity of muffins. They had been talking about their dead husbands, and when the Queen described how her beloved Albert had looked in his court dress when decked out with the Garter for the first time, she burst into tears. "He was so beautiful," she cried,
"and had such an elegant shape," and Lady Hardwicke sobbed in sympathy.
"They cried in each other's arms," said he, "and went on crying and drinking tea while swapping stories of their dead husbands."
When the Queen got up she wiped her eyes. "My dear," she sobbed, "I have never enjoyed myself more in my lie; a really delightful time-" and Lady Hardwicke mopped her eyes in unison.
"A really delightful time, dear."
When old age came upon her, bringing with it a certain measure of ill health through stoutness, she became irascible and impatient. As a girl even, she was far too broad for her height, and particularly short-necked. In her old age she was very stout, so stout that for ten years before she died, she had to be watched in her sleep continually by one of her women, for fear her head should roll on one side and she should choke, her neck was so short.
There was perpetual scandal in her late middle life about her relations with her Scotch gillie and body servant, John Brown. Even among the officers of her court, there were some who believed in her intimacy with the servant; while there were others equally well informed who would not harbor even a doubt of her virtue.
I remember asking Lord Radnor about it once, who had been in her household for twenty years, and whose daughter had been brought up with
the daughters of Prince Edward, but he would not admit the suspicion, though he told me a curious story of the privileges which John Brown arrogated and the Queen permitted.
On the occasion of a visit from the German Emperor, Lord Radnor had to arrange the reception. He formed up the lords and ladies of the court in two long lines, a sort of lane, in fact, through which the Queen and the German Emperor would pass to the dining-room. Just when he had got everyone in place, John Brown came in and began pushing the lines further back. Lord Radnor told him courteously that he had already arranged the court and that it was all right. John Brown told him he didn't know what he was talking about and pushed him, too, back into the line.
At the moment there was nothing for Lord Radnor to do but submit.
That evening Lord Radnor told the Queen that he had to complain of her servant. The Queen listened impatiently and replied that "It was only John's way; he did not mean any rudeness."
When Lord Radnor insisted that he had been rude, she replied, "You must forgive John. It is his way," adding, with curious naivete, "he is often short with me."
Brown's apartments were always near those of the Queen.
She sometimes sent for him two or three times in the evening. He would always come down, but he often made her wait, and even neglected to address her as "Madame"; he would just put his head in at the door and say,
"Well!" The Queen would say, "I just sent to see if everything was all right."
Brown would not even deign to give a word in reply, but went back to his rooms in silence.
Towards the end of his life she gave him a house and piece of ground in her own park at Balmoral, and when he died she set up his statue in the grounds.
One of the first things the Prince of Wales did when he came to the throne was to ask the relatives of Mr. Brown to take the statue away. It is, I believe, still regarded as a precious heirloom in the Brown clan.
In her later life, Victoria left all the ceremonies of royalty to Prince Edward.
He had to receive for her and fulfill all the social duties of the monarch, but there his power ended; he was a figure-head and nothing more. She hardly ever attended a court and gave scarcely any dinners, except occasional dinners to royal personages, particularly to her nephew the German Emperor, and now and then to some German prince; but to the end she kept in her own hands the reins of government. She did not even consult her son about anything or allow him to have any first-hand knowledge of state affairs.
She judged him almost as severely as the German Emperor judged him later.
She heard of scandals-stories of his relations with women; she regarded him as leicht-lebend-loose, if not dissolute, and there was no weakness she condemned so bitterly. She would never have a divorced woman at her court, and if she received anyone and they afterwards got mixed up in any scandal, she cut out their name relentlessly, even though she had liked them.
Looseness of morals was to her the sin that could never be forgiven.
Queen Victoria had all the intolerance of perfect virtue. People she knew and liked and esteemed tried to get her to forgive Colonel Valentine Baker; pointed out to her how nobly he had acted in not defending himself against the woman who accused him; how he had redeemed his fault, too, by years of high endeavor; how he had shed his blood for the English in Egypt. Nothing could move her. A man should be as pure as a woman, was her creed, and she would tolerate no infringement of it. Her eldest son's lax moral code was a perpetual offense to her.
Up to the very last Queen Victoria was Queen and would brook no interference or advice. Her relations with her ministers for the last thirty years of her life were always on a peculiar footing. She had not only grown more imperious with the years, but wiser. Again and again she had matched her brains with her ministers, and a woman learns rapidly through intercourse with able men; but it was her German husband who had taught her broad-mindedness and given her faith in herself.
This self-confidence grew in the nineties to absurd heights. She wrote several messages to her people which were plain translations from the German.
At a big reception one evening I followed Arthur Balfour up the Starrs and a lady, I think the then Duchess of Sutherland, was chaffing him about the latest Royal message. "Your English," said the lady, "is not so pure as it used to be, my dear Arthur."
"I had nothing to do with it," replied the Prime Minister. "The dear old lady never even showed me the message! I wish she would, but it is difficult now even to hint criticism to her. So I keep quiet; after all it doesn't matter much-"
"Would you like the practice to cease?" I asked him a little later.
"Indeed I should," he answered. "It might lead to an awkward position at almost any time: her ministers are supposed to do these things."
The next week I wrote an article in the Saturday Review, entitled "The Queen's English," in which I set forth how this expression came into vogue as expressing how careful her various ministers had been to put only good English into any document which the Queen was supposed to sign. I went on to say that the good custom was being neglected, and I took certain phrases from the latest messages and showed that the bad English of them was due to the fact that they were literal translations from the German.
Yet Arthur Balfour knew no German and was besides a master of good English: it was evident that the Queen herself had written these messages, a custom which, if persisted in, would soon ruin her reputation as a writer of English. "In fact," I summed up, "the Queen's English is now plainly made in Germany."
The exposure put an end to the practice: always afterwards the Queen used to call her ministers to counsel.
Queen Victoria grew to dislike radicalism through her dislike for Gladstone.
"He speaks at me," she said, "as if I were a public meeting."
She loved Disraeli's deference and courtesy, and when he made her Empress of India he won her heart of hearts.