Chapter XVIII
SOME COBURG COUSINS
How pleasant it was to be back in Kensington and well enough to return to the well-tried routine.
‘I so missed the times when my hair was being done and we did our reading,’ said Victoria. ‘Oh dear, what a lot of time I have wasted.’
‘You can soon catch up on your reading,’ soothed Lehzen, ‘and if you do all Dr Clark and I tell you you will soon be strong again.’
‘And my hair will grow thick and my cheeks pink again,’ said Victoria with a smile. ‘And it will be wonderful to go to the opera again and perhaps see a play. I am longing to go back to my own singing lessons.’
‘You know the doctor said you were not to strain yourself.’
‘I know, but I believe that pleasure is good for the health and singing gives me pleasure.’
Lehzen smiled and Victoria picked up the Irish history from which she was reading aloud.
Later that day the Duchess sent for her; she was in a very good mood, Victoria noticed.
‘I have here a letter from your Uncle Leopold.’
Victoria’s eyes shone at the mention of that beloved name.
‘We’re to have visitors. Your Uncle Ferdinand is coming to stay with us and he is bringing his two sons with him. Your cousin Ferdinand is on his way to Lisbon.’
‘I know that he is betrothed to the Queen of Portugal. How strange, Mamma. She is about my age and she is already a widow.’
‘You would not surely wish to be the same.’
Victoria laughed at the idea, and then she was serious. ‘Oh no, but I suppose I might think that I may soon be a wife.’
‘It is something you will be made aware of when the time comes.’ Victoria looked a little sullen and the Duchess went on: ‘I am sure your Uncle Leopold would say the same.’
At the mention of his name the sullen look passed as the Duchess knew it would. It was a little exasperating that after all she had done she must come after Leopold. Of course she trusted Leopold to look after the family affairs – but this adoration for him was a little childish. Sir John had said that Victoria was apt to be a little too whole-hearted in her devotion to some and her dislike of others. It must be watched.
‘We shall entertain my brother Ferdinand and his two sons. I am sure you will like Ferdinand and Augustus and be a good hostess to them.’
‘Oh yes, Mamma, I shall do my best; and I know I shall love them as I did my Württemberg cousins.’
‘There is a letter for you from your uncle.’
‘Oh, thank you, Mamma.’
‘Are you not going to open it?’
‘I think I will read it in my sitting-room.’
The Duchess frowned but said nothing and Victoria went out clutching the letter to where Lehzen was waiting to conduct her to her sitting-room.
She opened the letter with that slight tremor of the hands which the dear handwriting always aroused in her. As usual Uncle Leopold assured her of his undying devotion to his ‘dear soul’. He wanted her to like her cousins who would be shortly paying her a visit. They were charming young men; she would find them both good-looking and clever. They were a little ‘new in the world’. New in the world! what a wonderful expression and how apt and how like Uncle Leopold to explain so exactly that she understood immediately. They were not worldly young men; she was glad of that; she would like them the better for it.
Uncle Leopold went on to say that he hoped she would have a visit from two more cousins very shortly. These she would admire even more. He was sure of it because he knew his dear little soul. He wanted her to like these two Coburg cousins even better than Ferdinand and Augustus whom of course she would like very much. Ernest and Albert would be coming later in the year. Uncle Leopold was very fond of them and he naturally wanted her to be the same. He hoped she would like Albert particularly.
Of course she would. She was determined to like whomsoever Uncle Leopold wished her to.
The Saxe-Coburg cousins, Ferdinand and Augustus, arrived with their father Ferdinand, and how charming they were and how exciting it was to have such guests! There was so much to show them, so much to talk about and how attentive they were to their young cousin!
Victoria loved her Uncle Ferdinand; with her father’s relations there always seemed to be some conflict, but this was not so with the Duchess’s family. All was harmony and the Duchess herself softened considerably in their company. They were so proud of her because of the grand marriage she had made and the Duchess was pleased with herself too while she seemed to dislike or despise almost every member of the family into which she had married.
But Victoria was delighted with her German relations. How amusing the young men were with their German accents and their habit of shaking hands every time one met. They thought her clever and pretty and charming, so how could she help loving them?
Besides they so admired Uncle Leopold and they saw a great deal of him and Aunt Louise. Ferdinand admitted that he loved Aunt Louise very much and that Uncle Leopold had been so wonderful to him teaching him how to be a good King when he reached Portugal and even laying down a set of rules for him.
‘Uncle Leopold,’ cried Victoria glowing with pride and happiness, ‘is the wisest and most noble of Kings. Belgium was a poor little country when he took it over. Now it is of great consequence. He is an example to all. Oh, how lucky we are to have him.’
Augustus said that when he next saw Uncle Leopold he would tell him what Victoria had said.
‘My great regret,’ she went on, ‘is that I cannot be often in his company. His recent visit was so very short that the pain of losing him almost equalled the pleasure in seeing him – not quite, that is, for it was wonderful to see his dear face again.’
They were such happy days; everyone was gay and seemed to love each other, and Victoria, whose young heart was so eager to love all her dear relations, to help the poor, to be kind and good was happier than she had been for a long time.
There came an invitation for the Duchess to bring their relations to Windsor.
Oh dear, thought Victoria, I do hope everything is going to be all right. Aunt Adelaide is so kind and so is the King; and yet the thought of a visit to the royal household filled her with apprehension.
Adelaide was worried about the King. He was very breathless and seemed to be suffering from more than his usual asthma. What worried her most, of course, was his peculiar behaviour. She was always terrified that he was going to say something outrageous to some important person and that it would be reported and get into the papers. He never seemed to think before he spoke; he often rambled on, and he would not give up the distressing habit of making long speeches. The disrespectful press delighted in caricaturing him – always with the same-shaped head which had been likened to a pineapple. ‘What could one expect from a man with a head like a pineapple,’ commented one anonymous writer. Although others compared the head with an egg – an addled one at that.
There were the dear grandchildren to comfort him. Thank God for them! thought Adelaide. He would listen to their childish troubles as though they were important matters of state and they did much for him. When they lived simply, shut away from affairs, William was like a normal grandfather – getting on in years, it was true, a little feeble, a little inclined to sudden bursts of anger, but on the whole an ordinary man.
On one occasion he said: ‘Adelaide, how I wish we could get away somewhere in the country … you … myself … and the babies!’
Adelaide wished it too.
If only his children would be kinder to him! Who would have believed that Dorothy Jordan’s sons could be so cruel and so acquisitive. It was not as though William had ever attempted to disown them; he had given them honours, but the more they had the more they seemed to want. Unnatural children indeed. George FitzClarence, the Earl of Munster, would not come to see his father because he considered he had been badly treated. Monster would be a better name than Munster, someone had said, and Adelaide was inclined to think there was something in this.