Lord Melbourne, finding her red-eyed and disconsolate, immediately expressed his concern.
‘She was really my earliest friend,’ explained Victoria. ‘I feel that the first link has been broken with my childhood.’
‘As we get older,’ said the philosophical Lord Melbourne, ‘such broken links are so numerous that one scarcely notices them.’
‘How terrible!’
‘Nothing is so bad when one becomes accustomed to it,’ replied Lord Melbourne. ‘You have lost an old friend but you have new ones. That is the compensation of life.’
So she looked at dear Lord Melbourne and was comforted, reminding herself that poor Louie was old, her time had come and she went peacefully.
‘She was prepared I am sure, although she thought she would get better,’ she explained. ‘What I mean is she was so good all her life that she was ready at any time to die.’
‘She was always very neat and her soul would be in as orderly a condition as her kitchen.’
Lord Melbourne was rather wickedly flippant, but one would not expect him to make ordinary remarks; and he never shocked her, although he did some people, because she knew what a good kind man he was. In any case his light-hearted comments made her feel less unhappy and she told him so. She was therefore comforted.
‘To bring comfort to Your Majesty is the main purpose of my life,’ he answered.
So of course she had to smile and try to put aside her grief.
‘There is the matter of a Coronation,’ went on Lord Melbourne.
‘Have you fixed a date for it?’
‘Most certainly it must be June – the month of your accession.’
‘I hope I shall not disappoint anyone.’
‘I have no fear whatsoever of such an occurrence. Now,’ he went on briskly, ‘if Your Majesty will be kind enough to give me a list of the ladies whom you would like to carry your train, that will be a beginning. You will, I know, consider the position of the young ladies and select them with that in mind.’
‘I shall try not to offend anyone.’
‘That will, I fear, be an impossibility because every young lady at Court will wish for the honour of carrying Your Majesty’s train, and will be offended if she is not chosen.’
‘Oh dear, how sad that one cannot please everyone.’
‘As one can’t, let us think of those who will be pleased and forget the others.’
‘It seems a little unfeeling.’
‘Good sound sense often does to those whom it affects adversely,’ said Lord Melbourne.
‘I hope I shall look well in my Coronation robes. How I wish I were even a few inches taller. Everyone seems to grow but me.’
‘I think you have grown in the last months.’
‘Do you really think so or are you being kind?’
‘If I were not kind I should deserve to be kicked out of the Castle; and when I say you have grown I am not necessarily referring to inches. Of what importance are they? You have grown in wisdom, dignity, understanding, sympathy. These are the qualities of sovereignty, not inches.’
‘Dear Lord Melbourne. You are such a comfort. But I do wish I were good looking – like Harriet Leveson Gower for instance.’
‘She is an old woman compared with you. She would make a very poor Queen.’
‘Now why do you say that, Lord M?’
‘Because she would never take the advice of her Prime Minister.’
She threw back her head and laughed. Then she was sorry because she should really be crying for Louie. Trust Lord Melbourne to amuse her so much that she forgot her sorrow.
Victoria’s first thought when she awoke in her bedroom in Buckingham Palace on the 19th of May was: This is my birthday. My first birthday as Queen of England!
What a sobering thought. She had been Queen for eleven months and she was nineteen years old.
This was going to be a very special birthday, different from the last when she had been under the control of her mother. Now she would say what the celebrations would be and she had already chosen a ball.
We shall dance all night, she thought, and I shall not go to bed until four in the morning … five if I wish.
She remembered the ball Uncle William and Aunt Adelaide had given for her and how Mamma had been so angry that she had made the Kensington Palace party leave when it had only been in progress an hour. How angry Uncle William had been, but Mamma had very rudely ignored the fact that he was King, just as she now forgot that Victoria was Queen.
Well, there would be no interference this time. It would be her first State ball as Queen of England, and it was going to be the grandest and most magnificent occasion. Everyone was going to enjoy it thoroughly – most of all the Queen.
First of all there would be the receiving of presents. Mamma had always been a great giver of presents. In the old days at Kensington they used to be set out on tables and at Christmas she, Feodora and Mamma had had their own tables. How fond Mamma was of giving bracelets and brooches containing a lock of her own hair!
There was a knock on the communicating door which she had had cut in the wall between her bedroom and that of Lehzen.
The Baroness entered.
‘Many happy returns of the day.’
‘Oh, thank you, Lehzen.’
They embraced.
‘Nineteen. Really I am growing up, but at no time more than this past year. Lord Melbourne says there is a great change in me.’
Not wanting her to start on a eulogy of Lord Melbourne – the easiest thing in the world for her to do it seemed – the Baroness reminded her of the busy day ahead of her and asked if Her Majesty would care to get up now and if she wished to breakfast alone.
It was rather a solemn day. There were so many people to see and so many congratulations to receive. The guns fired a salute in the Park and she went on to the balcony to wave to the crowds. The people were charmed with her. ‘Like a little doll,’ they said. ‘No more than a girl.’
This was clearly a very important occasion, but one of Mamma’s presents gave her a few uneasy moments. It was a copy of King Lear.
Oh dear, thought Victoria, I never really liked King Lear. It’s rather an unpleasant play. Besides it is about ungrateful daughters. I do hope Mamma is not trying to spoil this day.
It was impossible to spoil the State ball. The ballroom was beautiful and the ladies in their laces and ribbons, satins and velvets, feathers and diamonds, were charming.
They were all waiting for her and she went through the saloon to the ballroom feeling a little nervous (but she remembered that Lord Melbourne had said that all people with high and right feelings were sometimes nervous) and there the dazzling scene met her eyes; everyone watched her as she made her entrance; the men bowed and the ladies curtsied as she took her place on the sofa.
The band played Strauss music and she thought she had never heard anything so beautiful as a Strauss band.
Alas that she could not join in the waltz. That was too intimate and as there was no young Royalty present no one was worthy to put an arm about her waist as was done in this rather daring dance. So she could only join in the quadrilles and the gavottes and such dances, which she did with gusto.
She would never never tire of dancing, she told her partners. And she hoped every one of her guests was enjoying this lovely ball as much as she was.