‘How my Mary Anne would have rejoiced in this day,’ he told her lugubriously; and they both shed tears for their dear departed.
She stood firmly beside Mr Disraeli in all his endeavours. She had told him that she was worried about him.
‘You are no longer a young man,’ she told him severely, ‘and I am very concerned about your health.’
‘Dear Madam,’ he cried, ‘you are not going to suggest that I retire?’
‘That is the very thing which I am anxious to avoid. But leading the House of Commons is too much for you and I am sure Mary Anne would have agreed with me when I say that I do not wish you to do so any longer. So I am offering you a peerage. I am sure the Earl of Beaconsfield will continue to serve me for many more years from the House of Lords than would have been possible in the Commons.’
He was elated yet melancholy. Here he was at the very pinnacle of success. Not even in his wildest dreams could he have visualised a greater glory. He was the Queen’s dearest friend and although he referred to her now and then to his intimates as ‘The Faery’ in a rather mocking mood, he loved her. Not in the romantic, tender way in which Melbourne had loved the young girl; but with a great affection tinged with irony; he stood back and laughed at himself – a very old man with dyed hair and touched-up complexion pretending to be a gallant admirer of a plump though still graceful mother of nine, never beautiful, now very plain, scorning as she did all adjuncts to beauty, in her widow’s garb to which she persistently clung. She was the only person in the world who was important to him. He came home to the house where Mary Anne used to wait for him and he thought of recounting to her his conversation with the Queen; how delighted she would have been. ‘But with Mary Anne gone,’ he said to one friend, ‘I am dead … dead though in the Elysian fields.’
What a prop Lord Beaconsfield was in the troubles that followed! thought the Queen. He reminded her of Lord Palmerston in his political outlook – not in any other way, of course; she had never liked Lord Palmerston. There was trouble between Turkey and Russia as there had been in the days of that most unsatisfactory Crimean War when Palmerston had acted so promptly. Lord Beaconsfield wanted to protect Turkey from Russia; Mr Gladstone was against English help to Turkey and indeed he did all he could to embarrass Lord Beaconsfield and the government. There was a point when the country was on the brink of war with Russia for Lord Beaconsfield had assured her that on no account must Russia get a hold on the Baltic ports; how magnificently he had extricated the country from that affair and brought about, as he said so succinctly, ‘Peace with honour.’
She was so relieved. She hated war; she could never forget the sufferings endured by the poor soldiers and in the end it almost always turned out to have been so unnecessary. In addition, there was also the family conflict – Alix’s sister Dagmar being Russian now through her marriage. How very awkward it would have been for the two sisters if there had been war between the countries into which they had married. And Alix was so fiercely loyal to her family – which was right of course, but when one married one’s family was one’s husband’s. People who were not royal were fortunate never to have to face problems like that.
The family brought her constant anxiety, but she was beginning to think that her children had not turned out so badly. She was growing a little fonder of Bertie who had such a good nature and was so eager to please; he was frivolous and she supposed in his pursuit of women rather wicked but now that memories of Albert were fading a little – although she did not care to admit this and now and then tried to convince herself that this was not so – she had begun to take rather a lenient view of Bertie’s peccadilloes. Alfred she would not easily forgive for behaving so rudely to faithful Brown and calling him a servant to his face; poor Alice was not well; the dear child seemed to have troubles and Louis was rather a weak man. Leopold was a constant anxiety because of his weakness through that disease which she was discovering was in the family. Some of the boys seemed to have it although the girls eluded it. She was terrified that Leopold would one day bleed to death. Arthur was a very good young man – more like Albert than any of them; he did not seem to get into those scrapes which her other sons seemed to find irresistible – strange as it was in the sons of Albert. She trusted Louise was happy with Lorne, but she was not sure; however, they all had their own lives to lead and she herself was very busy with her own. Fortunately she had her dear Lord Beaconsfield to assist her in public life and faithful Brown in private; so she was really quite fortunate.
And when Vicky wrote to her about the behaviour of her eldest son Wilhelm, she realised that she was indeed lucky. Wilhelm was turning out to be a very arrogant young man. She had always suspected that arrogance was his besetting sin; she remembered how he had wanted the place of honour in the pony carriage and how he had driven about at Balmoral and Osborne as though he were the Sovereign.
He always signed himself in family letters as Wilhelm Prince of Prussia, which since his father never signed himself Prince, seemed strange. Wilhelm was more like his grandfather and of course he had been brought up in the shadow of Bismarck.
What hurt Vicky more than anything was that he seemed to have taken a dislike to her and the reason was that she was English. Wilhelm hated the English; he could not bear that England was of more importance in the world than the new German Empire; he dreamed grand dreams fostered by Bismarck. Vicky wrote to her mother that he would allow people to talk in a disrespectful manner about her and instead of reproving them sniggered with them.
‘That is quite shocking,’ replied the Queen. ‘I cannot imagine what Dearest Papa would say if he could know of it. And to think that Wilhelm was his first and favourite grandchild. I suppose it is due to that arm of his. What a tragedy.’
Then Arthur became engaged to Princess Louise Margaret of Prussia. This was rather a shock because the Queen had never thought of Arthur’s marrying. There had seemed to be no need for him to hurry into marriage or indeed to marry at all. He was so good that it was clear he could live quite happily without women – unlike his brothers. So why marry? and if he must, why not wait until a more suitable bride could be chosen? But when she saw the bride she was enchanted by her looks, and susceptible as she was to beauty she immediately forgot her misgivings.
Alice was the one who caused her the greatest concern. The Queen imperiously told Alice that she, with Louis and the children, must take a holiday and there could be nowhere more beneficial than a seaside holiday in England. They should all go to Eastbourne for a few weeks and the sea air and sunshine would do them a world of good. She remembered how much good it had always done to her.
So Alice and her family went to Eastbourne and when they visited the Queen she was still concerned about Alice’s health. Alice was so devoted to her family; she was always engaged in good works. Alice and Arthur were the two who took most after their father.
The Queen lectured Alice on taking greater care of her health and spoke sternly to Louis. Alice had always taken her duties seriously. She was the one who had nursed her dearest Papa and later Bertie; and had worked so hard during the dreadful Franco–Prussian war. She was so clever; she had translated into German some of Octavia Hill’s essays about the London poor; and her reason for doing so was that she hoped the German authorities might take some notice of what had been done in London to alleviate suffering and follow the example in Germany.