Victoria Victorious: The Story of Queen Victoria Page 17

  We hugged each other, and Dash woke up, got out of his basket and leaped into my arms.

  “Dear Dashy! He doesn't want to be left out.”

  I felt very happy and confident in the future. I would have dear Lehzen as my closest friend; I had darling Dash; and now …Lord Melbourne.

  He called again, which delighted me. The first thing he said was how impressed they all had been by the manner in which I conducted the Council.

  “Believe me, Ma'am, they were all overwhelmed with admiration.”

  “I think Sir John Conroy has given the impression that I am a frivolous girl.”

  Lord Melbourne did not deny this.

  “I am dismissing him from my household,” I told him.

  “That does not surprise me. He will, however, remain in the Duchess's. It is a matter that you and I will discuss at greater length some time…very soon… with Your Majesty's permission, of course.”

  “Yes. That would please me,” I said.

  “We will deal with Master Conroy…Your Majesty and I.”

  I laughed. How good it was to have such a man beside me!

  “I was telling Your Majesty how successful the Council was. I heard it said that Your Majesty's hand was remarkably smooth and sweet.”

  “Did they really say that?”

  Lord Melbourne placed his hand on his heart and raised his eyes to Heaven.

  “I swear it, Ma'am.”

  I laughed and he laughed with me. He had such a wonderful gift for making everything amusing.

  After he had left I decided that I would not keep Sir John Conroy in my household a day longer. I had the Prime Minister's approval for my actions. So I sent a note telling him that I should no longer need him to serve me.

  I wondered what his reaction would be. I imagined his going to my mother, and their moaning together over the cruel fate that had allowed me to come of age and ascend the throne and so destroy their grandiose schemes for ruling the country together.

  I was so glad to be free of them that I felt a twinge of pity for them— but not much. And in any case I had too many other matters with which to concern myself.

  I said I would take my dinner upstairs… and alone.

  How I enjoyed that! I felt I could look back over the events of the day with satisfaction.

  I had not seen Mama all day and I was a little uncomfortable when the time came to say goodnight to her.

  She looked different—subdued even. I felt a little sorry to see her so unlike her old self, but I forced myself to remember all the trouble she had made, and reminded myself that the only way I could make her happy was by giving way to her, which would have meant to allow her to run the country's affairs.

  No. I had to be firm. She was vain in the extreme; she was quite unfit, as the last King had said, to take any part in affairs. She did not understand the people and had done much to antagonize them during the years of waiting.

  No, Mama, I thought, this has to be an end to your ambitions.

  I kissed her and said a cool goodnight. She looked stricken but she knew there was no turning back. Mama would no longer dare advise me as to what I must do.

  I turned and left her and went to my bedroom—my own bedroom with my bed in it—and no other.

  For the first time I should sleep alone.

  I lay in bed thinking over my first day as Queen of England.

  THE VERY NEXT day Lord Melbourne called upon me.

  “There is this matter of our friend Sir John Conroy to discuss with Your Majesty,” he said.

  The very manner in which he said “our friend” implied that Sir John was far from that, and that Lord Melbourne disliked him as much as I did.

  “Oh yes. It is a matter I should like to get settled as soon as possible.”

  “The man is a mountebank.”

  How clever of Lord Melbourne to have discovered that so quickly! Sir John had deceived so many—chiefly Mama; but also Aunt Sophia, and people like Flora Hastings had been ready to work for him.

  “When I was leaving the Council yesterday,” went on Lord Melbourne, “I was approached by Baron Stockmar who said he wished to speak to me urgently about Sir John Conroy.”

  “So soon?” I asked.

  “There is a man who knows when the battle is lost. Your Majesty was indeed a formidable enemy…fighting the forces of evil, I must say, and never wavering.”

  How well he understood!

  “Baron Stockmar told me that Sir John has given his terms.”

  “Terms?” I cried.

  “Oh yes. A sort of treaty. But he does not seem to realize he is the defeated. He is making the most exorbitant demands. He wants three thousand pounds a year, the Grand Cross of the Bath, a peerage and a seat on the Privy Council. I can tell Your Majesty that when I saw what was written in the paper, I dropped it in my disbelief.”

  “I am not surprised.”

  “Indeed not, Ma'am.”

  “It is outrageous. I shall say no.”

  “Quite so, Ma'am. There is a point. Unless we come to some compromise, he may still remain in the Duchess's service. Your Majesty can dismiss him from yours, which you have so rightly done. But the Duchess's service is another matter.”

  “But we shall not give way to his demands.”

  “It is a delicate matter, Ma'am.”

  “Delicate? But I want to be rid of him.”

  “And so do we all. We have taken the measure of Master Conroy and wish him … out. Let us wait a while, Your Majesty. Let him simmer in his uncertainty.”

  “I should like to know that he was out and that I should never have to see him again.”

  “There is no need for you to see him. Indeed, I fancy he will be ashamed to look Your Majesty in the face. At least, he should be. But will he be? He is a slippery customer.”

  “I should like to be rid of him once and for all.”

  “Ah. ‘…'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.' But let us be diplomatic, Ma'am. Let us leave it alone for a while. That can do no harm.”

  “And meanwhile he will stay with my mother.”

  “That is a matter for the Duchess to decide.”

  “But if I wish…”

  He looked at me, his head on one side, and there was a very tender expression in his beautiful eyes. He said, “Your Majesty's wish is law to her Prime Minister. Believe me, Ma'am, if I could wave a wand and grant your wishes, that is what I would do. But this…it is a difficult matter and when one is faced with a tricky situation, it is always better not to take hasty action.”

  “I will take your advice, Lord Melbourne.”

  He took my hand and kissed it.

  And although I was a little sorry not to make a clean cut and get rid of Sir John without preamble, I was sure that Lord Melbourne knew best.

  I WAS SEEING Lord Melbourne every day and my regard for him grew rapidly.

  I no longer looked for Uncle Leopold's letters with quite the same eagerness. I did not need advice from him now that I had someone near at hand.

  I wondered whether he sensed this. If I did not write to him so regularly and so fully, he must understand that I had my new duties and that my position had changed considerably.

  He wrote to me:

  My beloved Child, Your new dignities will not change or increase my old affection for you; may Heaven assist you, and may I have the happiness of being able to be of use to you, and to contribute to those successes in your new career for which I am so anxious…

  I have been most happy to learn that the swearing in of the Council passed so well… The translation in the papers says, ‘J'ai été elevée en Angleterre.' I should advise you to say as often as possible that you are born in England. George III gloried in this, and as none of your cousins are born in England it is your interest de faire reporter cela fortement. You never can say too much in praise of your country and its inhabitants. Two nations in Europe are really most ridiculous in their exaggerated praises of themselves; these are the English and the
French. Your being national is highly important, and as you happen to be born in England, and never to have left it a moment, it would be odd enough if people tried to make out to the contrary…

  I felt faintly irritated by Uncle Leopold's criticism of the English. But, after all, I told myself, he is not an Englishman, and foreigners are inclined to regard us with certain dislike … as perhaps we regard them. Lord Melbourne seemed to me to be the perfect English gentleman, and it is hard to find a more agreeable type of man.

  How lucky I had been in Lord Melbourne!

  I had heard that he was a man who had what is referred to as “a past.” He had been involved in two divorce cases, and had had a tempestuous marriage. His only son had died. And yet he was full of good humor and always appeared to me to find life comical and amusing.

  I longed to hear all about him but of course I could not ask him personally.

  There were means of finding out.

  I had appointed Harriet Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland, Mistress of the Robes. She was a very beautiful woman and I had always been drawn to beautiful people. She loved clothes and gossip, although she was involved in all kinds of good works. In fact she was a very interesting companion; and best of all she loved to talk and seemed to know a great deal about everyone at Court.

  I found it easy to slip into conversation with her about Lord Melbourne.

  She agreed that he was indeed a fascinating man. “And what is most amazing,” she went on, “is that he could have gone through all that scandal and yet become Prime Minister.”

  I did not get the whole story all at once and I could not make Lord Melbourne the topic of conversation every time I was alone with Harriet, but I always tried to bring the talk around to him and after a few weeks I had acquired most of the facts.

  His name was William Lamb, and he had inherited the title on the death of his elder brother. Even his birth was romantic. His mother had been the beautiful Elizabeth Milbanke, whose father was a Yorkshire baronet. Her family was more noble than that of the Lambs, for Lord Melbourne's father was only the first viscount. The Lambs had been lawyers who had built up a great fortune and were comparative newcomers to the peerage.

  Lady Melbourne was fond of admiration. One of her lovers was said to be the Earl of Egremont.

  “Lord Melbourne bears a striking resemblance to the Earl,” Harriet told me, “and I heard that he, as a boy, spent a great deal of time at Petworth, where the Earl made a great fuss of him. As his brother did not accompany him, it seemed rather significant that William was singled out. So perhaps the story is true.”

  “How very shocking!” I said delightedly.

  “But romantic,” added Harriet, and secretly I agreed with her. Everything about Lord Melbourne seemed romantic.

  “He must have been very handsome when he was young,” went on Harriet.

  “He is still very handsome,” I replied firmly.

  “Indeed yes. Men like that are attractive from the cradle to the grave. What is so fascinating about him is that he does not seem to care …I mean he is never striving for anything. He just takes everything that comes as his right, as it were. He seems unhurried. I don't mean about people. His manners are beautiful. I mean about what happens to him. He is always so unruffled, so unperturbed.”

  “I think that is because he is so much a man of the world,” I said.

  She agreed.

  “He is a man of the world. He goes everywhere. He was very friendly with George IV… especially when he was Regent. He was at Carlton House, Holland House and of course the Bessboroughs' place at Roehampton. That was where he met Lady Caroline Ponsonby—Lord Bessborough's youngest daughter. They say she was very attractive. They called her Ariel…Sprite and the Fairy Queen.”

  “She must have been lovely,” I said, “and I daresay you are going to tell me that he fell in love with her.”

  “Unfortunately for him … he did.”

  “Why unfortunately?”

  “At first her family did not think he was worthy of her.”

  “Lord Melbourne… not worthy!” I cried indignantly.

  “He wasn't Lord Melbourne then, only plain William Lamb. But then his brother died and Lord Melbourne was the heir, of course, and they changed their minds. At first the married pair were happy, and then she became … wild.”

  “Wild? In what way?”

  “Doing unconventional things.”

  “Poor Lord Melbourne!”

  “They said he endured it by developing that aloofness, that indifference. It was his only way of coping with that strange wife of his. And there was a child…a little boy who was never quite like other boys.”

  “You mean he was mentally deficient?”

  “Yes, I mean that.”

  “My poor, poor Lord Melbourne. How wonderful he is! He is so merry… always.”

  “But do you find him a little cynical?”

  “I would say that he is laughing at the world…finding it amusing. He is very clever, I am sure of that.”

  “He just shuts himself away with his books.”

  “He is so well read.”

  “Oh yes, he is certainly that.”

  “And what happened about Lady Melbourne?”

  “The great scandal was due to Lord Byron.”

  “The poet?”

  “Yes. She conceived a passion for him, and of course Your Majesty will have heard of his reputation.”

  “Most scandalous.”

  “She pursued him. He was very cruel to women. He took them up and discarded them. He took up Caroline Lamb, after she had made a shameful exhibition of herself, chasing him everywhere. He lived for a while at Melbourne Hall… about nine months, rumor has it. But of course he tired of her as he did of all women, and then, in the normal way, he discarded her.”

  “And what happened then?”

  “She was wild with jealousy and that meant that she behaved more outrageously than ever. She wrote a novel. I found an old copy and read it. It was called Glenarvon. The heroine, Lady Avondale, was of course Caroline herself. Lord Avondale was Lord Melbourne and the wicked Glenarvon was Byron. It had a big circulation. The whole of society was reading it. Poor Lord Melbourne separated from her, and then went back to her, and they lived in the same home but led separate lives, I believe.”

  “How could Lord Melbourne endure such a life?” I asked.

  “I have heard it said that his nature helped him. He cultivated that quality of aloofness which he has now. He was able to get outside events and view them from the edge. He did not allow himself to get involved. He devoted himself to his books. They say that he never fails to read every publication even now. It was his books which were so important to him. They enabled him to shut himself away from everyday life. He was just indifferent. Of course that maddened Caroline. She would have liked him to be frantically jealous of all her love affairs; but he would not be. He just smiled at them and let them pass over his head. Perhaps that is the only way to survive in such a situation.”

  “He is a wonderful man. And what happened to her? She died, I know.”

  “The end came when Byron died. She discovered this by accident and it was a terrible shock to her. She became really mad then and had to be shut away. She went down to Brocket, one of the Melbourne residences, and she died there.”

  “That must have been a happy release for poor Lord Melbourne.”

  “Indeed it must have been. He was already a Member of Parliament and he became Chief Secretary for Ireland in Canning's government. He went to Ireland and there he got caught up in another scandal. There was a certain Lady Brandon there with whom he became friendly and Lord Brandon accused him of improper intimacy with his wife, and sued him.”

  “I daresay he was just being friendly with her. He is a very friendly man.”

  “The Lord Chief Justice who tried the case pointed out to the jury that nobody could give a word of proof against Lord Melbourne who firmly denied the accusation, as did Lady Brandon. T
he case was dismissed.”

  “I am sure that was the right verdict.”

  “Then later there was the case of Caroline Norton.”

  “I have heard of her. Was she not the playwright Sheridan's granddaughter?”

  “She was. A very attractive woman, Your Majesty, and married to a rather insignificant man who was several years older than she was. He was a Member of Parliament but when the Reform Bill was passed and several boroughs were absorbed into others, he lost his seat. Caroline Norton asked Lord Melbourne's help to find a post for her husband. Lord Melbourne did help to find him something.”

  “He is always so kind.”

  “There was a friendship between Lord Melbourne and Caroline Norton, for she was a very intelligent woman and liked good conversation. She quarreled with her husband and he said he would divorce her and cite Lord Melbourne as co-respondent.”

  “So that was the second divorce case in which he was involved.”

  “There was a great deal of noise about that as you can imagine, he being Prime Minister; and of course the Tories thought this would be of great use to them and they decided to make the best use of it they could. The Norton servants gave evidence, and it was proved that they had been bribed, and many of them were far from reputable characters. The verdict in due course, much to the chagrin of the Tories, was in Lord Melbourne's favor.”

  “I am sure it was the right one.”

  “Your uncle, the King, was delighted, but he did say that Melbourne was lucky to have gotten away with it, and his friends induced him to be more careful in future. He was really very lucky both in the Brandon and Norton cases. He did offer to resign.”

  “He would, of course. He would feel it was the honorable thing to do.”

  “The Duke of Wellington would not accept his resignation. I believe he was of the opinion that Lord Melbourne was too good a politician to have his career ruined because of what might have been a run of bad fortune.”

  “How right he was!” I shivered. Suppose Lord Melbourne had resigned. Someone else would have been Prime Minister. I could not imagine that there could be anyone who would please me as Lord Melbourne did. I was indeed glad that he had not resigned.

  “And that son of his?”