I was getting to know Benjamin Disraeli, and I found him a very interesting man. Albert had not liked him very much. He was sure he dyed his hair. Perhaps he did but he was certainly most gracious in his manners, and what a respect he had for Albert! This made me warm to him and I found that I could talk to him easily. He was extremely clever; he was an author of some note and because I myself liked to write that was an added interest we had in each other.
He gave me a copy of his novel Sybil and I was very touched to see that it was dedicated to The Perfect Wife.
I said, “You had the perfect wife, Mr. Disraeli. I had the perfect husband.”
He looked at me with great emotion and replied, “It is the greatest good fortune, Ma'am, to find the perfect partner; and those to whom this falls are indeed to be envied.”
I could talk about Albert to him; he responded glowingly. He had always had the greatest respect for Albert, he told me. He had always seen him as the great statesman.
When Leaves from a Journal was published he came to congratulate me. “I know how we authors feel when we see our work in print,” he said.
I laughed and replied that I was not an author in the sense that he was, but he thrust that aside and said that Leaves would live as long as literature lasted.
“I shall never forget the dedication: ‘To the dear memory of him who made the life of the writer bright and happy, these simple records are gratefully inscribed.' ”
“You remember it perfectly, Mr. Disraeli.”
“Ma'am, such words are not easily forgotten.”
I felt my spirits lifted; and my thoughts went back to those days when Lord Melbourne had made me so happy.
I believed I was going to find great comfort in Mr. Disraeli.
IT WAS HARDLY to be expected that the people would allow me to rest in peace. It was difficult for them to understand how helpful John Brown was to me with his blunt manners and wonderful fidelity. They must besmirch everything that was good. I would never forget what they had said of Albert; now they turned their attention to John Brown, and it was their aim to hurt me through that excellent creature.
There was even a rumor that I had married him! But that was so absurd that I could only dismiss it as ridiculous. Memories of long ago came back to me. Ascot and that insidious and wicked murmur of “Mrs. Melbourne,” simply because a beautiful friendship had existed between us. Now they were turning their crude thoughts to John Brown…and me! They seemed to have forgotten that I was the Queen.
I tried to think what Lord Melbourne would have said if he could have heard these rumors. Or Lord Palmerston even. They were ridiculous, too absurd—and yet they persisted.
“Mrs. John Brown,” they were calling me. How dared they. And they were so blatant. Punch had published an imaginary Court Circular headed Balmoral.
“Mr. John Brown walked on the slopes. He partook of a haggis. In the evening Mr. John Brown was pleased to listen to a bagpipe.”
A scurrilous paper called the Tomahawk was publishing pieces that were all insolent and defamatory. There was one cartoon with a caption: “Where is Britannia?” The robes of state were depicted draped over a throne with a crown perched precariously on the top of them, and obviously in a position soon to topple over, which I presumed was meant to be significant. “It is so much more exhausting to entertain people of one's own rank than gillies and servants!” was printed below it.
How dared they! Had they no sympathy for bereavement? They were the victims of their own depraved minds.
It was amazing how little details seeped out to the Press. I had always known that John Brown liked what he called “a wee dram,” which meant that he was rather partial to Scotch whiskey; and naturally there were occasions when he did not realize how much he had taken. Then he would be in a state which he described as “a wee touch of the bashful,” I rarely saw him when he was thus, for he would always keep away from me then and confess to me next day that he had been “bashful” on the previous night.
I found this rather endearing and so honest.
There was another matter that caused a great deal of trouble. Prince Christian, who was staying with us, was apt to sit up late; he would sit smoking and talking until the early hours of the morning. John Brown mentioned to me that this kept him up late and I asked my equerry, Lord Charles Fitzroy, to drop a hint to Prince Christian that the smoking room should be closed at midnight.
This leaked out. Servants will talk. It caused a great deal of amusement. Royalty must bow to the wishes of Mr. John Brown. Why? Because Mrs. John Brown said it should be so.
There was one cartoon entitled “A Brown Study,” published in the obnoxious Tomahawk. It depicted John Brown, sprawling close to the throne with his back to it, a glass of whiskey in his hand.
Bertie came to see me one evening. Brown barred his way and said, “Ye canna see the Queen now. She's resting.”
Bertie hated Brown in any case, and he was furious.
“The Prince of Wales will see the Queen,” he said.
“It's your eldest,” called Brown. “I've told him ye're too tired to see him the night.”
“Thank you, Brown,” I said.
I could imagine Bertie's fury, but I would not have him rude to Brown.
The following morning Bertie came to me waving a paper in his hand. I knew at once that it was “A Brown Study.”
“This is disgraceful, Mama,” he said.
“I ignore such scurrilous nonsense.”
“It is an attack on you…on the crown. It should be considered. Mama, Brown must go. He was abominably rude to me. He was rude to Christian. He is quite impossible. It is all becoming a laughing stock.”
“He is my servant, Bertie. I will choose my own servants.”
“He is no ordinary servant.”
“You are right,” I retorted. “Indeed he is not. He understands me as some of my family fail to, or perhaps do not take the trouble to.”
“We are all concerned.”
“I think, Bertie, that the family is more concerned about you than about me. I am sure Alexandra is quite sad about the manner in which you carry women.”
“Oh Mama!”
“You were always a trial to us, Bertie. Your beloved Papa had many an anxious hour worrying about you. Why, at the end of his life he went to Cambridge in that dreadful weather…I often think of what might have happened if he had not gone.”
It was the sure way to subdue Bertie. He lifted his shoulders and after a while took his leave.
I was annoyed with him and that wretched Tomahawk. How dared they print such libelous nonsense when all I wanted was the comfort of a good and faithful servant
ALEXANDRA WAS PREGNANT again. Really, it seemed as though she was going to have one child after another, as I had done. It would have been so much better for her not to have them so close. She was a very good mother—adored by her boys. She was very fond of her family and took their troubles to heart. I shall never forget how almost demented she was at the time of the Schleswig-Holstein affair. Now her sister, Dagmar, had had a disappointment. Her fiancé, Nicholas of Russia—a marriage that would have brought much glory to the Danish family—had died of tuberculosis; but Nicholas had a brother, Alexander, and Dagmar was to have him instead. I shuddered and pictured myself losing Albert and having to take Ernest in his place. It was rather absurd to say that she found she loved Alexander after all, but it was what they always said in such cases.