The most vulgar thing of all was the wallpaper for the Queen’s apartments which she had chosen herself.
And this was the palace on which a million pounds had been spent!
William himself did not like it when he went to look over it with Adelaide.
‘I suppose we’ll have to move in. They’ll expect it of us … after all that money’s been spent on it.’
William was thinking of the FitzClarence grandchildren playing hide and seek behind the raspberry pillars. They would not like it he was sure. Not like Old St James’s for all its gloom, or Windsor for all its grandeur. And there was nothing like Bushy with its homeliness and memories of the old days with Dorothy when the children were all growing up and were much more respectful and affectionate towards the Duke of Clarence than they were to the King of England.
‘Why not offer it to the country?’ suggested Adelaide. ‘It could take the place of the Houses of Parliament.’
‘Capital!’ cried the King. ‘That’s what we’ll do.’
He was disappointed when the Government announced that it did not believe that Buckingham Palace would be suitable as the Houses of Parliament. Moreover, plans were hastily going ahead to rebuild them on that spot on the river where the old ones had stood.
How glad Adelaide was to go to Brighton for a respite! It was so pleasant not to have to worry every time she drove out that she would be confronted with one of those horrid placards about herself. The sea air was good too, even though it was autumn and the winds blowing in from the sea were bitterly cold.
One of her greatest comforts, apart from the grandchildren, was George Cambridge, who was growing into a very handsome boy, and was devoted to her. There was one who showed gratitude. But she had to face the fact that he was growing up and she supposed he would have to take up some training – military perhaps, which would entail his going away, probably to Germany where it seemed to be the custom to send royal Princes. But that was not yet and she would enjoy this period in Brighton.
The FitzClarences, however, would not allow her to be at peace, so they started a rumour that the Queen was pregnant.
When the Duchess of Kent heard this news she was wild with rage. She stormed up and down her drawing-room declaring that it was impossible. It could not be. That poor pale sick creature! How could it possibly come about? There was a mistake. Sir John must tell her it was a mistake.
Sir John did; but he shared her horror. If indeed it should be true, if Adelaide produced that child and it lived … then this would be the end of all their hopes.
Victoria said to Lehzen: ‘Do you think this story is true that the Queen is going to have a child?’
‘It has been neither denied nor confirmed,’ said the judicious Lehzen.
‘Lehzen, think what it will mean! I shall not be the Queen after all.’
‘My dear Princess, will that make you very unhappy?’
Victoria was thoughtful. ‘I think I shall be very disappointed. You see, everything that has happened has been leading up to that. But I can’t help thinking of Aunt Adelaide. She is a sweet kind woman, you know, Lehzen, and I love her dearly. I know what she wants more than anything in the world is a baby of her own. Oh, she loves all the King’s grandchildren – whom I am never allowed to see – and she loves the Georges and I believe she loves me too – when Mamma allows her to see me – but she does long for her own baby. So if I lost the throne and Aunt Adelaide gained a baby … Really, Lehzen, I can’t honestly say, but I think I should feel happy for Aunt Adelaide.’
Lehzen was moved to comment. ‘You have your storms and tantrums, but I think you have great honesty and that is a very fine characteristic to have.’
Victoria smiled. ‘I can’t help thinking too that George Cambridge has a much happier time than I do. He is not told he must not do this and that; he is allowed to be alone sometimes. So perhaps I feel too that there is a great deal to be said for not being the heir to the throne.’
Lehzen said calmly: ‘I am glad you see it in this way, because if you should not be Queen you will still make a very happy life for yourself.’
The Duchess was far less philosophical.
‘This is monstrous!’ she cried. ‘That old fool could not beget a child. And who is the man who is always beside the Queen, eh? Earl Howe. She is known to have a fancy for him. If the Queen is with child, then depend upon it, Earl Howe is the father.’
The Duchess’s suspicions were of course those of the FitzClarences.
‘She is two or three months gone,’ said the Earl of Munster, that George FitzClarence whom Adelaide had nursed during her honeymoon when he had broken his leg. ‘There is going to be a big scandal over this.’
It was whispered of in the streets. A fine thing. This German ‘frow’ who had lived in a housemaid’s bedroom before she came to the Court of England was about to give birth to a bastard and foist him on to the throne of England.
At length the rumours came to Adelaide’s ears. How had they started? she wondered. Why did people make up these cruel stories about her? If it were possible for her to be pregnant, how happy she would be! But alas, it was not so. She would never be a mother now.
And how dared they say such cruel things about her relationship with Earl Howe? It was true theirs was a tender friendship; he treated her as though she were an attractive woman, something which for all his affection the King had never done. But the Earl was just a dear friend; she had been too rigorously brought up, she was too conscious of her duty for it to be otherwise.
There was nothing to do but show the King the newspapers which she knew his secretaries had been keeping from him.
He read them and threw them from him in contempt.
‘Damned stuff,’ he said.
And when the scandal was proved to be groundless it was forgotten.
The Duchess of Kent regained her serenity. ‘How could we have thought that poor creature possibly could! No, it can never happen now. The throne is safe for Victoria.’
The Duchess complained continually of her apartments in Kensington.
‘Really,’ she said to Sir John, ‘it is a scandal. We are expected to live in these rooms which are scarcely better than servants’ quarters.’
This was far from true but Sir John never contradicted his Duchess unless it was absolutely necessary to his interests to do so and the Duchess’s antagonism towards the King was never that.
‘I think I have been patient too long. Good Heavens, doesn’t that man realise that Victoria is the heiress to the throne?’
‘It can scarcely be called my dear Duchess’s fault if he does not,’ replied Sir John with one of his ironical smiles.
‘I have long thought we should have a larger apartment. Why not? There are plenty of rooms available in the Palace. Why, therefore, should we be confined to these miserable few? I have decided to write to His Majesty and tell him that I require a larger apartment. There are seventeen rooms which I could take over and no one would be the worse for it. Then I might be able to provide apartments for my daughter comparable with her rank.’
‘Why not write to the King and ask his permission to take over the rooms you have chosen?’
‘Oh, how infuriating. To have to ask the permission of that … of that …’
‘Buffoon?’ supplied Sir John; and they both laughed.
Dear Sir John! What a blessing that with all she had to put up with from her most tiresome brother-in-law, she had Sir John with whom to share a little jocularity.