She was silent for a second. There was a terrible secret which she must keep from him for as long as possible.
‘I almost didn’t marry you,’ said Mary Anne quickly. ‘You flung out of the house and I called you back and then we told each other not to be silly. Our only difference really was that I thought we ought to have waited a while before marrying and you didn’t want to wait. But we made up and married and lived happily ever after. And now you are at the top of the tree.’
‘Say rather I am at the top of a greasy pole,’ said Dizzy.
‘You’ll stay there,’ she prophesied. ‘Or even if you do slip down you’ll pop up again, because that is where you belong.’
Then he talked of his plans for the future and how his real opponent was William Ewart Gladstone; but he, Dizzy, had the Queen on his side and should he tell Mary Anne a secret – the Queen had no liking whatsoever for Mr Gladstone.
Mary Anne urged him to talk and he did and while she listened she was turning over in her mind whether she should tell him.
No, she would not. Let them go on for a while being happy. She would not mention the pains she had had, the fears which might well be realised. How long would she have to live? How long did one live when the malignant cancer had begun its deadly work?
But no matter. She would say nothing tonight; she would sit there in the candlelight, her face averted lest he should notice the strain and she would think of these thirty happy years when she had taught Dizzy to love for herself the woman he had married for her money.
She would always remember the dedication ‘the perfect wife’ which he had made to her in his novel Sybil.
Chapter XIII
DIZZY’S BEACONSFIELD
How pleasant it was to have a Prime Minister on whom she could not only rely but who was able to charm her at the same time. The relationship was ripening fast; she looked forward to his letters, which she answered with pleasure. It was like Lord Melbourne all over again, and yet different in a way because dear Lord M. had treated her as though she had been a beloved daughter; for Disraeli she was not exactly that. He behaved as though she were not only the Queen, possessed of statesmanlike qualities, but a very attractive woman as well. He made her feel as she had when Albert was alive – desirable, charming, feminine, though Albert had never flattered her as her Prime Minister did and it really was rather pleasant – although Albert would not really have approved – to let oneself be persuaded that one was still a woman.
To him she could confide her fears about Bertie. He mixed with such a rackety set, she said. She had never liked some of those University friends of his. There was for example Sir Frederick Johnstone – a very wild young man. When Bertie had run away from Cambridge he had been on the point of joining Sir Frederick and some of his other cronies who were at Oxford. Disraeli was sympathetic. It was a great worry to the Queen in view of all her other responsibilities, he understood; but he believed that she should not concern herself too much over the Prince’s high spirits. He would settle down in due course. Young men often believed they had to sow their wild oats. He himself had been no exception.
How very amusing, thought the Queen, and when her Prime Minister called and they had discussed State matters she would enjoy settling down to hear of his early struggles and the great excitement he had felt when his book Vivian Grey was published.
He told her how he had met Lord Melbourne at Caroline Norton’s house.
‘Dear Lord Melbourne,’ said the Queen.
‘A very civilised gentleman,’ commented Disraeli. ‘He asked me what I wanted to be in life and I said Prime Minister.’
‘How prophetic!’
Then he told her of his marriage and his devotion to Mary Anne, which touched the Queen deeply. It was wonderful, she said, in this age to find a really happily married couple.
She spoke of Bertie and hoped all was well between him and Alix. Did the Prime Minister think that the Princess of Wales was somewhat neglected by her husband and were people noticing that this was so?
The Prime Minister replied that the Prince of Wales always behaved with the utmost consideration to his wife in public.
‘Ah, but in private?’ insisted the Queen.
‘I am sure the Prince would never be anything but charming, in private or public.’
‘Is it possible to neglect charmingly?’
‘Absolutely!’ said the Prime Minister smiling so that the Queen felt she had been very witty.
‘All the same,’ she went on, ‘I do not like his friendship with the Mordaunts. The wife I have heard is rather flighty and the Prince is seen with her more than with her husband. And then there is that actress: what’s her name? Hortense Schneider.’
‘The Prince is gregarious by nature.’
‘His father would be grieved if he were here. At least it is a relief that he doesn’t have to suffer that.’
‘And if he were here how delighted he would be by your book, M’am.’
The Queen smiled. She really was rather delighted with her venture into authorship. Arthur Helps, a very clever man and so useful, as his name implied, had edited it for her and Messrs Smith, Elder and Company had just produced her Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands, which was taken of course from what she had written at the time. It was enjoying a success which gave her great pleasure.
‘Ah,’ said Disraeli roguishly. ‘I know exactly how we authors feel when we see our work in print and the public all agog to read it.’
The term ‘we authors’ gave her such pleasure, for after all it was true. She was not of course an author in the sense that Mr Disraeli was, but nevertheless she had produced Leaves.
‘I found the dedication so poignant,’ said Disraeli and he quoted in a very moving voice: ‘To the dear memory of him who made the life of the writer bright and happy, these simple records are lovingly and gratefully inscribed.’
‘So you remembered it word for word,’ said the Queen softly.
‘M’am, I can never forget it. So much is said in so few words. In that seemingly simple sentence is compressed twenty years of perfect marriage.’
‘How well you understand! But then you are as fortunate as I was.’
Disraeli wiped his eyes with perfect composure.
It was so pleasant to have such a man for her friend, thought the Queen.
When she left for Osborne, she asked him to continue to write to her, not only on political matters – just his clever chatty letters which told her so much. A Queen did not want to be left in the dark.
He promised and of course he kept his promise. Her letters were a delight, he told her. It was two writers who communicated though a Queen and a Prime Minister.
When the primroses were out at Osborne she gathered a quantity and sent them to him.
‘I thought you might like these, particularly as I gathered them myself.’
He had always delighted in them, he told her, and from now on they would be his favourite flower.
The Irish question which obsessed Mr Gladstone was threatening the first Disraeli ministry. Gladstone wished to dis-establish the Irish Church and there was a great deal of opposition in Ireland. As for Disraeli, he told the Queen that the Irish question had not really been acute since the famine and he was certain that the Fenian uprisings had been aggravated by foreigners and that they would die out of their own accord. His idea was to let the Irish solve their own problems without too much interference from Her Majesty’s Government. Mr Gladstone did not agree with him.