The Queen tapped her fingers on the table impatiently; Lord Melbourne was a little odd nowadays, and if it were not for the fact that she used to delight so much in his company, and being not quite so enraptured by it now felt a little sorry for him, she would often have been much more short with him than she was.
‘Of course,’ went on Lord Melbourne, coming back to the business in hand, ‘your bridesmaids will be chosen according to their rank.’
‘I shall have to explain to Albert.’
‘One should only take note of the characters of the lower classes,’ said Lord Melbourne. ‘You cannot do it with people of rank.’
‘So then,’ said the Queen, ‘there is one law for the rich and one for the poor.’
‘Certainly there is one law for the monarchy and one for commoners. Consider if we began to judge the Sovereigns of the past on their morals.’
Victoria agreed there were very few who would pass the test of morality.
Lord Melbourne looked at her earnest young face and his sentimental emotions gushed forth. She intended to be good. As for Albert, he was a puritan. But one could never be sure of what went on in puritanical minds in private.
He speculated on the future. Victoria would keep Albert in order – and how would Albert succeed in imposing his will on this rather pleasure-loving girl?
‘I shall write to Albert to explain,’ said the Queen rather sadly. ‘Oh dear, it is rather sad constantly having to write and say No.’
Another rap over the knuckles for poor Albert, thought Lord Melbourne.
Chapter XV
VICTORIA AND ALBERT
February had come – the wedding month.
Albert was travelling across Europe full, as he had told Uncle Leopold, of misgivings. He could not visualise the future very clearly at all and the last few months had convinced him that his position might bring with it certain humiliations which he would find intolerable. The prospect of a wintry Channel crossing lay before him – and after that, what?
He tried to think of Victoria as she had been when he last saw her, her little face alive with affection and the manner in which she had flown into his arms and had told him he was beautiful and wonderful far beyond anything she had dared hope for.
Could that dear loving almost humble little creature be the arrogant Queen who had written to him saying: You will do this. You cannot do that.
All his hopes were in Victoria if she truly loved him. And how could he doubt that she did? She had protested it many times and she was too honest to deceive him. Of that he was certain. Victoria was honest and she loved him. She had, he believed, been led in certain ways by unwise counsellors. When he was her husband he must be the one to advise. That was his only hope of happiness.
The Queen was equally uneasy. When dear Albert had been with her she had been so sure. It was all those horrid controversies which had made her so anxious, so apprehensive, so uncertain.
She was thankful to have Lord Melbourne at hand and there were constant meetings in the blue closet. There was so much to discuss: the ceremony; the bridesmaids; the procession; a new residence for Mamma because Victoria did not intend to have her living in the Palace when she married. Albert had implied that he did not approve of her feeling for Mamma. Albert was so good that he could not feel it was right for mother and daughter to be on bad terms. One day she would make Albert understand what her childhood had been like and how impossible it had been to live in harmony with the Duchess.
Lehzen had already gone to Windsor to make sure everything was in readiness for the honeymoon.
She herself had developed a horrid cold which everyone had feared was going to be measles. That would have spoilt everything; but it turned out to be only a cold and she was already feeling better.
Tomorrow, Albert would arrive and she was afraid that when she saw him again she might not feel quite so much in love with him.
She could discuss all this with Lord Melbourne.
‘I feel a little agitated and nervous,’ she confessed.
‘Very natural,’ said Lord Melbourne. ‘It couldn’t very easily be otherwise.’
‘Such a short time ago I had made up my mind not to marry at least for a long time.’
‘Depend upon it you are doing the right thing in marrying,’ he said. ‘It is in human nature. It is natural. Of course, it makes great changes in one’s life and at times may be a little inconvenient.’
‘When I saw him I was so sure.’
‘Right and proper,’ said Lord Melbourne.
‘And now …’
He would not let her say that she was not now sure for he knew she would regret that. ‘And now,’ said Lord Melbourne, ‘tomorrow when he comes you will be even more sure.’
She looked at him earnestly and it was as though she were the new young Queen again discovering her beloved Prime Minister. She felt as she had in the beginning, that all was well because he was there.
‘You will not … forsake me?’ she said.
He laughed and she felt he was near to weeping; because he knew and she knew that they had come to an end of something very precious to them both.
‘I shall always be here … if you want me,’ he said.
‘Dear Lord M I shall never forget.’
She had turned slightly from him, her lips parted, her eyes wide; she looked very young and a great tenderness overwhelmed him. Fervently he hoped that she would be happy.
For himself … he would be her Prime Minister for a while … a short while, it seemed evident. He would call on her in the blue closet; they would talk, but it would be different; her husband would overshadow their relationship and if she loved this husband he would take all the affection she had to offer – he knew well her loving heart, her tendency to idealise the dominant figure in her life to the exclusion of all others. He himself had briefly held that place in her heart, knowing all the time – old cynic that he was – that it could not last.
I had my day, he thought, and that day is over.
But not quite.
‘We are going to Windsor for the honeymoon,’ she said. ‘You will come to see me there.’
‘It will be of such short duration … only a few days … three at most.’
‘Yes, I had to explain that to Albert. But I wish you to come. It will make me happy to have you there. It always does.’
‘But at such a time?’ he asked, raising those beautiful eyebrows which she loved.
‘I wish it,’ she said.
‘The Queen commands me,’ he answered lightly, but she noticed the little catch in his voice.
She said earnestly: ‘None of your friends are as fond of you as I am.’
She placed her hand in his and he bent to kiss it.
Albert was on the way. He would arrive at any moment. She was watching from one of the windows for his carriage. Eös, his greyhound, had arrived a day or so before and waited with her.
‘He will be here soon, dear Eös,’ she whispered. And there was the carriage. She saw him alight. Oh, how beautiful he was! Nothing … nothing mattered but that he was here and tomorrow she was to marry him, and he was the most handsome, the most saintly man in the world.
Why had she doubted her feelings? She had been mad.
She ran down to greet him. She would have no ceremony.
‘Albert … dearest Albert.’
She had flung herself into his arms.
‘How wonderful that you are here.’
They kissed; they clung together; then they drew apart to look at each other.