I soon began to worry less about Leopold for marriage seemed to suit him, and soon after the wedding Helen was pregnant. Her child was due to be born ten months after her wedding—which was really very prompt.
I had so many grandchildren that I had to concentrate to count them. But Leopold's would be rather special because I had never thought he would have children.
I was at Windsor. I had been down to Frogmore to be with Albert and when I came back I was very sad as I always was after these visits. I must have been deep in thought for as I was coming downstairs I slipped and fell.
There was consternation. Brown came rushing out, sweeping everyone aside. He picked me up looking very angry with me and said, “What have ye done now, woman?” which made me smile in spite of the pain in my leg.
He carried me to my room. Everyone fussed around, but I said I should be all right in a day or two.
But the next morning I could not put my foot to the ground without pain. The upset had started my rheumatic pains and they came on more virulently than ever.
The doctors came and said I must rest.
It was very tiresome. I hated to be inactive. But I certainly was bruised and my leg was painfully swollen.
Brown used to carry me from my bed to the sofa and then, because he thought I should get some fresh air, took what he called the wee pony chair and he would drive me around the park.
What should I do without Brown? I wondered.
Each morning he would come unceremoniously to my room with a “What'll ye be wanting today?” as though I were a fractious child whose wish must be consulted to keep me quiet. It always amused me and the sight of him cheered me up.
Just over a week after my fall it was not Brown who came to my room for orders but one of the other servants.
“Where is Brown?” I asked.
“He is unable to wait on Your Majesty this morning.”
Oh, I thought, amused. I supposed he had been a little “bashful” on the previous night.
“Very well,” I said.
I would tease him about it when he appeared.
But Brown did not appear. Later in the morning I sent for him. One of the others came instead.
“His face is swollen, Your Majesty,” I was told.
“Face swollen! What has happened? Has he had a fall or something?”
I had to find out for I could glean nothing from the servant.
“I want to see him,” I said. “Send him to me.”
He came and the sight of him shocked me. His face was indeed red and swollen.
“What on earth has happened, Brown?” I asked. “I dinna ken,” he said shortly. And I could see that he was ill. I told him to go back to bed at once. Then I sent for Dr. Jenner.
When Jenner had examined Brown he came to me and told me that he was suffering from erysipelas.
“Is that dangerous?” I asked.
Dr. Jenner shook his head.
“I want the best attention for him. You yourself, Dr. Jenner, and Dr. Reid.”
“That is hardly necessary, Ma'am …” began Dr. Jenner.
“It is my wish,” I said regally.
Dr. Jenner bowed. There would be gossip, I guessed, because I had ordered the royal physician to attend John Brown. But I did not care. He was of great importance to me.
ANXIOUS AS I was over John Brown, I was delighted to hear that Helen had been safely delivered of a little girl. So Leopold was a father!
I must visit the mother and child at once even though I had to be carried out to the carriage. Alas… not by John Brown.
I found Helen recovering from the birth looking fit and well, but lying on a sofa. Leopold had one of his bleeding bouts and the doctors had warned him to take the utmost care for a while, so he was on another sofa. And because of my indisposition one had been put in for me.
The three of us reclining on sofas made quite an amusing scene.
The child was brought in and admired. Leopold was in the highest spirits; and as for Helen she was very proud of herself. It was a happy occasion but when I went back to Windsor I was greeted by alarming news. John Brown had taken a turn for the worse.
“For the worse!” I cried. “But I thought that from which he was suffering was not very serious.”
“Your Majesty, he does not seem to be able to throw off the illness.”
“But he has twice the strength of an ordinary man!”
“That does not seem to help him, Your Majesty. John Brown is very ill indeed.”
I was deeply disturbed. I went to see him immediately. He looked quite different and he did not recognize me. He was muttering in delirium.
Oh no, I thought, this is too much!
But, alas, what I had begun to fear, happened.
The next morning they came to tell me that John Brown had died in the night.
I COULD NOT believe it. Not another death. People were dying all around me. Was that part of the pattern of getting old? It seemed only a short time before that I had lost my dear friend Lord Beaconsfield. John Brown had been a comfort to me then…and now he had gone.
It was such a blow that it stunned me. I could find no solace anywhere. None of the family mourned with me. They had never liked him and deplored my relationship with him. They did not understand, of course. They had called him one of the servants. He had not been a servant. He was something far closer than that.
I wanted to raise some memorial to him. Sir Henry Ponsonby was very uneasy. He dropped veiled warnings. We did not want to give the Press a field day. No doubt there would be damaging speculations as to my relationship with him if too much attention was paid to his passing.
I did not care. I was tired of the Press and trying to placate a fickle people. They listened to cruel libels and slander; and then when Bertie had nearly died and I might have been assassinated they found they loved us dearly. What was such shifting affection worth?
It was one's friends like Lord Beaconsfield and honest John Brown who mattered.
I had a statue of John Brown set up at Balmoral. I charged Lord Tennyson to write an inscription and he wrote:
Friend more than servant, loyal, truthful, brave,
Self less than duty, even to grave.
I discovered that Brown had kept diaries and thinking what a magnificent job Sir Theodore Martin had made with his Life of the Prince Consort, I asked him to write a life of John Brown. I believe pressure must have been brought to bear on Sir Theodore for he declined on the grounds of his wife's ill health. I guessed that Sir Henry Ponsonby may have had something to do with this. Sir Henry was a dear friend but he had always been uneasy about the scandals concerning John Brown and he did not, I know, want these to be increased, which he believed would be the case if a life of Brown was brought out. But I wanted to show the world what a wonderful person he had been.
As Theodore Martin would not write the book I engaged a Miss Macgregor to edit the diaries with me.
To soothe myself I published an addition to Leaves from a Journal with More Leaves from a Journal of Our Life in the Highland.
With mingling sadness and pleasure I recalled those days with Albert when the children were young. It brought it all back so vividly. I could relive it all, but the sorrow of remembering what was past, was hard to bear.
I had many congratulations, but the family was shocked.
I heard that the old Duchess of Cambridge had said that Leaves was vulgar, such bad English, trivial, and boring.