Виктория Холт - The Captive of Kensington Palace

So before they left she had given Uncle Ernest the letter and asked him to hand it to Uncle Leopold when they met.‘I must thank you, my beloved Uncle,’ she wrote, ‘for the prospect of great happiness you have contributed to give me in the person of dear Albert …‘He possesses every quality that could be desired to make me perfectly happy. He is so sensible, so kind, so good and so amiable too. He has, besides, the most pleasing exterior and appearance you can possibly see. I have only now to beg you, dearest uncle, to take care of the health of one so dear to me and to take him under your special protection …’

When he received her letter Leopold smiled complacently. He had known he could rely on Victoria.

When the cousins had left the Duchess decided that they would go and stay for a while at Claremont. Victoria was delighted. She loved Claremont – the home of dear Uncle Leopold where he had once been so happy with Princess Charlotte; and she could enjoy it even better now because Uncle Leopold was happily married to Aunt Louise – and even Charlotte, Victoria decided, could not have been more charming. So now there need be no sad thoughts at Claremont.

She had tried to adjust herself to the daily routine after the departure of the cousins and found herself talking of them constantly to Lehzen, of how Albert had done this and that and how very sensible he was.

‘Darling Dashy misses him. Oh, Lehzen, wasn’t he funny when he played with Dash?’

Lehzen thought: She has too much affection. She is ready to believe the best of everyone and love them. She is inclined to think that all people are as honest as she is, as kind and eager to be good.

What a credit the Princess was to her, for Lehzen believed in her heart that the Princess’s excellent qualities were the result of her upbringing rather than the Duchess’s. Charming, young, with such a defined sense of duty – what a Queen she would make!

The Princess’s face was flushed with pleasure now because a singing lesson was due. She wished, she had said, that she had singing lessons every day. She admired her singing master with all the fervour of her nature. He was the great operatic singer Luigi Lablache and when he sang Victoria laughed and wept with delight.

She would talk of him endlessly if Lehzen permitted it.

‘He is such a patient master, Lehzen. So good-humoured, pleasing and I’m sure he’s so honest. It is such a pleasure to hear his fine voice and to sing with him is a privilege. Throughout my life I shall remember my lessons with him. How the time flies when we are together. How active he is for his size. I feel so very small beside him, I love the way he comes in and gives that wonderful dignified bow.’

‘You are too ready to admire people,’ chided Lehzen.

‘Oh, Lehzen,’ cried Victoria mischievously, ‘is that why I admire you?’

Victoria was laughing as she went off for her session with dear Lablache.

And now to Claremont where dear Louisa Lewis would be so excited because she was coming. She could curtsy in that slow dignified way which was different from the way other people curtsied; and then when Victoria had made her quite sure that she was still the same girl who had sat and watched her eat her breakfast in her own room at Claremont, the barriers would be broken down and Louisa in her white morning dress looking so neat and clean would tell stories of Charlotte as she always did; and she would somehow imply that Victoria now had the place in her heart which had once belonged to Charlotte.

Dear Claremont!

The King’s health had deteriorated in the last months and Adelaide was constantly urging him to rest.

‘A fine one to talk,’ he said indulgently. ‘That cough of yours doesn’t get any better. I’m a good few years older than you and I have a right to be ill at my time of life.’

‘I only want you to take care.’

‘I know. I know. You’ve been a good wife to me, Adelaide. In the beginning I didn’t want you … I didn’t want you at all. But then I grew to love you.’

Tears fillxed his eyes and she smiled at him.

‘We have done well together, William.’

‘And we’ll go on, eh? I’m not finished yet. Don’t you think it. I’ve got to live till Victoria’s of age. I’ll refuse to go until that woman hasn’t a chance of the Regency.’

‘That’ll be next year. You must go on long after that.’

Sometimes he wondered, but he mustn’t worry Adelaide.

‘I will, you see,’ he assured. He added to change the disagreeable subject: ‘It’ll be your birthday on the thirteenth. We’ll celebrate it with a ball and we’ll let the celebrations go on until mine as the twenty-first is so close.’

‘We should ask Victoria.’

‘Oh dear, that means that woman.’

‘I can’t see how she could possibly be left out.’

‘For two pins I would leave her out.’

‘It would be impossible. We must ask her; and I hope that she will behave well.’

‘That’s where you’re asking the impossible, my dear.’

Adelaide sighed.

‘The Coburg visit went off all right.’

‘And don’t think I don’t know how hard you worked to make that happen. You’re too good, Adelaide. I’ve told you so before.’

‘It’s just that I hate quarrels and I think they do the family harm.’

‘The greatest harm the family ever did to itself was to bring that woman into it. The pity is that she is the mother of Victoria.’

‘Perhaps she would have been more bearable if she had not been. In any case I will write to her and invite her to the Castle and pray that during her stay all goes well.’

When the Duchess received Adelaide’s invitation she laughed.

‘So,’ she said to Conroy. ‘I am graciously asked to go to Windsor to celebrate Adelaide’s birthday. She forgets mine is on the seventeenth. Mine is, I suppose, of no importance. I shall go, of course, to the King’s because that is an occasion at which the heiress to the throne should be present.’

‘You will refuse an invitation from the Queen?’

‘My dear Sir John, do you doubt it?’

‘Of course I don’t.’

‘You will see.’

She sat down at her desk and wrote to the Queen.

She could not come to Windsor at the date the Queen suggested because she wished to celebrate her birthday at Claremont. She would, however, come on the twentieth, which date would not conflict with any of her arrangements.

When she had written it she showed it to Sir John.

‘Well?’

‘It might be the Sovereign writing to one of her subjects.’

‘I shall soon be the mother of the young Sovereign.’

‘And Adelaide is, of course, only the wife of the old one.’

They laughed together; it was so gratifying to know that however rudely she behaved William and Adelaide could do nothing to oust her from her position.

The King was in a bad temper. He had to come up from Windsor to prorogue Parliament. He was finding breathing difficult and was feeling irascible as he always was when he was not well.

That Woman again, he thought.

Adelaide would have kept the letter from him if she could have done so; she always wanted to save him irritation. But of course he had to know that she had declined the invitation to celebrate Adelaide’s birthday. It wasn’t that they couldn’t do without her. They could – most happily. It was the effrontery, the impertinence. He had demanded to see the letter and when he had read it his face had grown scarlet; the veins in his temples had stood out, and he had almost choked with rage.