‘It’s so tiresome that they should want to see me.’
‘Even more tiresome, my dear child, when they lose interest in us, or worse still turn against us. The Prince and Princess of Wales will take the popularity which should be yours.’
‘Bertie gives me great cause for alarm.’
‘He’s a very wild young man, I believe. He takes after my father-in-law, George IV.’
‘Yes, I fear so. That sort of thing is in the family … like getting fat. I’ve noticed Bertie is putting on weight.’
‘Too much rich food and wine, you should tell him.’
‘Bertie is becoming quite unmanageable.’
‘All the more reason why you should take your place in society.’
She listened patiently. Dear Uncle, he did like to manage everything. He had always been so. She remembered how she had remarked on this to Albert.
‘I remember,’ said Leopold, ‘when your Cousin Charlotte first became my wife …’
The Queen’s attention strayed. He was rambling on about how docile Charlotte had been, how she had looked up to him, how she had been a little jealous of him …
Victoria had heard it all before. Dear Uncle, he was getting so old.
She would be glad to be back in Balmoral.
Old Pam was beginning to feel his age. He was past eighty, but he was not going to give up. ‘If it wasn’t for the gout,’ he told his wife Emily, ‘I’d be as good as I was twenty years ago.’
But there was the gout and that spring he had had a particularly bad bout of it. He had gone down to Brocket Hall which Emily had inherited on the death of her brother, Lord Melbourne, and she had induced him to stay there for a bit. But as she said, it was hopeless trying to keep Pam quiet. The despatch boxes came down regularly and he was up half the night dealing with them, because he liked to ride in the day and he urged her to continue giving her parties in the evening. There were frequent dinner parties at Brocket Hall and he liked the guests not all to be old. A sprinkling of young and pretty women was always desirable and he continued to have an eye for them which Emily assured him she was aware of.
‘Oh, I’ve followed the path of virtue since I married you, Em,’ he told her. ‘I never sin outside my thoughts.’
She was afraid for him and wondered how he would feel if he was no longer able to continue in politics; he was afraid of what would happen to her if he were to die. Theirs was a devotion which was almost incongruous but it was steadfast as both knew.
With the coming of October he began to feel ill but he tried to hide it. He would have a day in bed and the next day he would be up and go out with Emily for a drive.
Lord Russell thought it wise to advise the Queen that he was anxious about the Prime Minister’s health.
What joy to be at Balmoral! Brown was in his element. This was the place. This was the life. The Queen was planning trips she would take with John Brown.
‘Aye,’ said Brown, ‘that’s a bit of a rough road, woman.’
‘Nonsense, Brown. We should be perfectly safe with you. We will go to Loch Oishne. It was always a favourite spot of the Prince Consort’s.’
Brown muttered that he was nae going to be responsible if she got it into her head to travel too far away and come back by night.
The Queen laughed. ‘Oh, you’ll look after us. You always do.’
She was so delighted to be back among the beloved hills. But there was this terrible news about Lord Palmerston. She did hope he was not going to be so ill that she would have to return to London. She would write to Lady Palmerston and send her sympathies. How difficult it must be to nurse a man like Lord Palmerston. She was sure he would never do what he was told.
In the meantime she would forget her Prime Minister and enjoy the simple life. What fun it was when Dr Macleod came in and told them about a most horrible murderer with whom he had talked when he visited the prison. Dr Pritchard had murdered his wife and mother-in-law and had been a dreadful character. It was really very distressing to realise that there were such terrible people in the world. But he of course was no longer in it, having been hanged by the neck last July.
Death, she thought. We all came to it. Dear Albert now lay in the mausoleum at Frogmore and how often during the months following his death had she longed to lie there beside him.
Now … She thrust aside the thought, because it was quite a long time since she had wished she were there with him. It was not that she was forgetting, she reminded herself. She was merely reconciled to living out the span allotted to her.
All the same it was very interesting to listen to Dr Macleod and the next day which was Sunday they went to church where prayers were said for the recovery of Lord Palmerston.
Lord Palmerston lay in bed wondering whether he would reach his eighty-first birthday. He had breakfasted off mutton chops and port wine and told Emily that he felt better after such an excellent meal.
Emily came and sat by his bed but refused to allow him to get up. His protests were mild enough for he did not really feel well. But to cheer Emily when the doctor called he told him that he wanted to be up and about and couldn’t think why they were keeping him in bed. ‘You’ll die if you go out in this weather,’ warned the doctor.
‘Die!’ cried Palmerston with the accustomed wit. ‘My dear fellow, that’s the last thing I shall do.’
A few days later he was dead.
He was buried in Westminster Abbey and crowds witnessed the ceremony. They were silent crowds and the spirit of genuine mourning was evident. He had been the people’s darling with his amorous adventures in his youth which had earned him the name Cupid, becoming on his marriage to Emily the reformed rake, his wit, his unruffled good humour, his refusal to bow to royalty, his ability in foreign affairs – all this was remembered at the passing of good old Pam.
The Queen was saddened because she hated death.
‘But,’ she said, ‘I never really liked him.’
The Queen hated these ministerial crises and she was really very perturbed to contemplate that Lord Palmerston was no more. Although she had never liked him, she had to admit that she was feeling his loss deeply. He had been a strong man and that was what the country needed, particularly when it no longer had Albert to lead the way. He had been very courageous, anyone must admit that; and he had been calm; of course he had thought that he was infallible and he had been most disrespectful at times, but the country was going to miss him and apart from his vanity he was a great man. Moreover he had been the Prime Minister and there was nothing to do but summon Lord John Russell and ask him to step into Palmerston’s shoes.
Poor Lord John, he was getting so old, but what alternative was there?
When she considered her ministers nowadays she thought longingly of Sir Robert Peel, that great good man whom she had failed to appreciate until Albert had revealed his virtues to her. There was hardly one man of stature in her government now because she refused to consider Mr Gladstone whom she could never like. But there was one … She smiled tolerantly, thinking of him. Mr Disraeli was such a feeling man, and even his enemies – and he had many – would admit that he was clever. In the first place she had thought him rather odd – so was his wife, a very flamboyant woman, a widow too and she had never believed in widows remarrying. But Mr Disraeli had shown himself to be a charming man. While Mr Gladstone had fulminated against the cost of the Albert Memorial, Mr Disraeli had made such a delightful speech. Nothing was too expensive, in his opinion, to honour the great Prince Consort. She had warmed towards him immediately; and when they had spoken together he had talked of Albert as an Ideal and had so understood her grief that there was an immediate rapport between them.