The Widow of Windsor (25 page)

Lord Derby came in with his Tories and although he was the Prime Minister the Queen was amused to note that the leading light of the new government was her dear friend Mr Disraeli.

Benjamin Disraeli was jubilant. He could see in the very near future he would achieve the great ambition of his life – to become Prime Minister. And when he did he could be sure of the two women who were most important to him, Mary Anne, his wife, and Victoria the Queen.

Disraeli had always been a favourite with women – particularly those older than himself – but although the Queen was some fifteen years younger than he was, she was a matron, the mother of nine, and since the death of the Prince Consort appeared to be older than her years.

Derby was ailing; there was no doubt of that; Lord John Russell was too old for office; Melbourne was gone, Palmerston was gone. Who was left? The answer was Disraeli, who would tower above them all, his only rival being William Ewart Gladstone whom the Queen disliked more and more as time passed. Poor old Gladstone, he did not know how to treat romantically minded ladies – for the Queen was one no less than Mary Anne.

Disraeli’s great regret was that his sister Sarah was not alive. How she would have enjoyed his triumph. Dear old Sarah who had been so loyal all the years and followed his successes with such glee – how sad that she should die before he had reached the pinnacle.

But it was seven years or so since Sarah had died, and they had buried her in Paddington cemetery. She had never married, although twenty-nine years before her death she had been engaged to William Meredith who had died in Cairo when he and Benjamin were travelling together. Had she married him she would have had a husband and family with whom to concern herself and might not have been so devoted to her brother.

So he had lost Sarah, but he had Mary Anne and nobody could have been more faithful, no one could have lived more for another person than she lived for him.

Returning home late from the House he would always find her waiting up for him; she liked to make sure that there was a snack ready in case he should feel hungry.

On this occasion she would be jubilant, he knew, for she would be fully aware of the situation and what it meant.

‘I’m not clever like you, Dizzy,’ she would often say. ‘I’m a regular dunce.’ But she knew well enough what was good for her Dizzy and she would be fully aware of Lord Derby’s failing powers and that her clever husband was poised waiting to spring into the saddle.

True to custom when he arrived home, there was Mary Anne in a brilliantly coloured peignoir waiting up for him, presiding over a table laid with cold chicken and champagne.

‘Celebrations tonight,’ she greeted him. ‘This is a good day for my dearest Dizzy.’

Dizzy replied with that gallantry which had so delighted the Queen that the best part of it was coming home to Mary Anne.

‘I’ll drink a glass with you,’ she told him. ‘To the next Prime Minister.’

‘A little way to go yet, Mary Anne.’

‘A step or two,’ she admitted.

‘Gladstone’s waiting to spring.’

‘Sanctimonious old devil,’ said Mary Anne.

‘You sound like the Queen.’

‘Is that what she calls him?’

‘Not quite, but she looks really severe when she mentions his name.’

‘And she smiles for my Dizzy.’

‘I know how to treat her. It’s always well to flatter people but where royalty are concerned you lay it on with a trowel.’

Mary Anne giggled; her eyes grew sentimental. ‘Is the chicken good, my dearest? And you were hungry!’ She raised her glass. ‘May you be as good a Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House as you have been a husband to your Mary Anne. And,’ she added, ‘very soon I shall substitute for the first two titles that of Prime Minister.’

‘You go too fast, my dearest wife.’

‘No one goes as fast as my Dizzy.’

‘What should I do without you?’

‘Is that what you asked yourself when you married me for my money?’

‘Not so earnestly as I do now, for you know that if I had to make the choice again I’d marry you for love.’

She smiled at him, eyes glazed with affection.

‘Do you know, Dizzy,’ she said. ‘I believe you mean that.’

‘With all my heart,’ said her husband.

Chapter XI

A ROYAL BIRTH

The Queen was a little worried. She was laughing now and then, usually at some of Brown’s quaint sayings. She found that she was enjoying rides in the country, particularly at Balmoral which would always be nearest to her heart, although she loved Osborne too.

Was she being unfaithful to Albert because she was not thinking of him every hour of the day?

She wrote to Vicky and told her about her feelings. She would never forget that Beloved Papa was a saint and that there could never be anyone like him, but she did find that her grief was less vehement. Of course there were times when she was sunk in melancholy but she did find some solace in the children of course. Baby Beatrice – not such a baby now – had always been so amusing and it was so pleasant to have the children with her, reading together, but she feared sometimes they would go a very long time without mentioning Papa, and she was very ashamed afterwards; it seemed a slight to his memory.

Vicky wrote back that dearest Papa would be watching over her and perhaps it was his will that she should stop brooding.

‘You have your life to lead, Mama, and great duties to perform. I am sure it is Papa’s will that you should remember that, although you long to join him, you must await the call.’

Vicky was a comfort of course; and so was dear Dean Wellesley to whom she also confessed her waning grief.

She still mourned, replied the Dean, and that showed how deep her affection had been. To spend her days in brooding and weeping was not in fact a sign of great grief for a loss as much as pity for oneself.

She was comforted by this and allowed herself to be amused by
clever
Mr Disraeli and
honest
John Brown.

Whenever she rode out John Brown would be on the box; wherever she was he was never far away; he looked after her clothes and wrapped her cloak about her; he scolded her for not standing still while he fastened it; when she was feeling unwell he would carry her from her sofa to her bed. ‘Where is Brown?’ she would ask if he failed to appear.

One of the most startling facets of the relationship was that the handsome Highlander was more than a little fond of his whisky and there had been occasions when he had been unable to answer the Queen’s summons because he had taken rather too much.

When she demanded an explanation he replied nonchalantly: ‘I was o’er bashful last night, woman.’

Bashful! She knew what he meant. He had drunk too much whisky and had been unable to wait on her. What an amusing word! Bashful, meaning slightly intoxicated – or perhaps not exactly slightly.

She would say roguishly when she saw him helping himself to what he called a wee dram, ‘Now, Brown, pray do not become too bashful!’

‘Nae,’ he would reply, ‘I’ll content myself with a wee dram or two the night.’

The Queen laughed. He did her
so
much good.

But of course it was hardly likely that the relationship between them should go unnoticed.

It seemed incredible that this imperious Queen who could subdue any one of her ministers with a cold stare or an icy comment should find it amusing that one of her servants should be too intoxicated for his duties. What could it mean?

There seemed to be one construction to put on this – and it was immediately put.

Eyebrows were raised; titters were heard. What is the relationship, it was asked, between the Queen and her Highland servant?

It was a mystery. He was good-looking in his rough way – tall, curly-haired and bearded, with the famous strong chin which she admired; he talked to her as no one had ever talked to her in her life and was allowed to.

Such delicious scandal material could not be allowed to go unrecorded.

The scandal was taken up hilariously not only in England but also on the Continent.

There were cartoons, lampoons, imitation Court Circulars in which the activities of Mr John Brown were recorded. It was inevitable that sooner or later there should be talk of
Mrs
John Brown.

She had married him, said some. It was the only solution. She would never have allowed him the liberties she did if that had not been the case. Why was she always going up to Balmoral? So that they could live in comparative seclusion there? Why had she brought him down from his native Scotland? Why was she never seen out of his company? And all the time she was pretending to be heart-broken about Albert!

The Queen could not be kept in ignorance of rumours. She remembered an occasion long ago, before her marriage to Albert, when Lord Melbourne had been the most important person in her life. She had seen him every day; she had admired him, and in fact she was a little ashamed when she read her old journals and realised how besotted she had been. She had been pulled up with a jerk when someone had shouted Mrs Melbourne at the races. But that had not hurt her friendship with Lord Melbourne; and ill-natured gossip was certainly not going to rob her of John Brown’s.

People were wicked and ill-natured. They said unkind things and those dreadful cartoons, with their horrid pictures, were often quite lewd. But then their target was royalty; they had even maligned beloved Albert.

She would ignore them, and their ill nature should certainly do nothing to drive Brown from her favour. She was going to raise his salary to £150 a year. He was worth every penny.

But the Queen’s family and her ministers were concerned about the rumours.

She was gradually emerging a little from her seclusion. One of the public gibes had gone home. If the Queen was so overcome by grief that she needed seclusion, it was asked, she would not find it in the company of gillies any more than in that of her own class.

She refused to be ordered, she said. She would not allow anyone to force her into something to which she had no inclination; and appearing in public was something to which she was averse.

She did agree, though, to attend the opening of the new Parliament, but she would have none of the usual ceremony. She would not wear the robes of state but insisted on keeping to her widow’s robes and her ‘sad’ cap, and she commanded that the robes of state be laid on a seat beside her; she refused to read the speech from the throne, and the Lord Chancellor had to read it instead. The people were sullen; they had no wish to dispense with the brilliant ceremonies to which they looked forward, but since the Queen had gone into mourning there had been none – even royal weddings were sombre affairs.

She did, however, go to Aldershot a little later on to grace one or two ceremonies and there was Lenchen’s coming wedding to be arranged.

How different it would have been, she mourned, if Albert were here. How interested he would have been in Lenchen’s future.

There would soon be two weddings because as well as Lenchen Mary Cambridge had become engaged. And time too! thought the Queen, for it had seemed as though Mary would never get a husband. She was a good-looking woman but getting so large and she was no longer young, so it was a blessing that she had become betrothed to the Duke of Teck for he was her second cousin, his grandmother being the elder sister of Victoria’s own mother. Quite a pleasant man – and it was a relief to get Mary married.

It had been a disturbing year, the Queen decided. Prussia was showing itself to be fiercely militant and that man Bismarck was determined to carry out his policy of blood and iron. His great dream to amalgamate the German states with Prussia at their head was becoming a possibility. Prussia had squabbled with Austria over Schleswig-Holstein and war had broken out between them.

The Queen hated the thought of war and such a war was particularly distressing to contemplate because it made dissension in the family. Vicky and her husband must naturally stand with Prussia but other members of her family were on the side of Austria; there was Ernest of Saxe-Coburg, cousin George of Hanover and Alice’s husband of Hesse. It was unbearable to contemplate; she could not decide with whom to sympathise. Albert had always been devoted to Germany and a strong Germany was what he had always advocated; but what would his reaction have been if Prussia was at war with Saxe-Coburg, his old home, with Hanover which had always been part of British possessions since the days of George I, and Hesse of course where dear Alice staunchly supported her husband.

The Queen was aroused at last from her lethargy. She felt strongly for poor dear Alice; she commanded that the Hesse children be sent to her at Windsor and she herself despatched first-aid bandages and medicines for the wounded soldiers of Hesse.

Terrible news came from Hanover which the Prussians had seized. Poor Cousin George was driven from his kingdom. This was shocking. England had lost Hanover. She wept bitterly, thinking of poor blind George and how terrible it had been at the time of his accident when his parents – that wicked pair – had been so distressed that everyone had been so sorry for them.

One by one the small principalities and dukedoms fell before the might of Prussia and seven weeks after the conflict began Austria was defeated.

It was very, very sad. Vicky was triumphant in a veiled way; Alice was desolate; and when the Queen thought of poor blind George Cumberland, an exile from his kingdom, she could have wept bitterly.