The Duchess’s suspicions were of course those of the FitzClarences.

‘She is two or three months gone,’ said the Earl of Munster, that George FitzClarence whom Adelaide had nursed during her honeymoon when he had broken his leg. ‘There is going to be a big scandal over this.’

It was whispered of in the streets. A fine thing. This German ‘frow’ who had lived in a housemaid’s bedroom before she came to the Court of England was about to give birth to a bastard and foist him on to the throne of England.

At length the rumours came to Adelaide’s ears. How had they started? she wondered. Why did people make up these cruel stories about her? If it were possible for her to be pregnant, how happy she would be! But alas, it was not so. She would never be a mother now.

And how dared they say such cruel things about her relationship with Earl Howe? It was true theirs was a tender friendship; he treated her as though she were an attractive woman, something which for all his affection the King had never done. But the Earl was just a dear friend; she had been too rigorously brought up, she was too conscious of her duty for it to be otherwise.

There was nothing to do but show the King the newspapers which she knew his secretaries had been keeping from him.

He read them and threw them from him in contempt.

‘Damned stuff,’ he said.

And when the scandal was proved to be groundless it was forgotten.

The Duchess of Kent regained her serenity. ‘How could we have thought that poor creature possibly could! No, it can never happen now. The throne is safe for Victoria.’


* * *

The Duchess complained continually of her apartments in Kensington.

‘Really,’ she said to Sir John, ‘it is a scandal. We are expected to live in these rooms which are scarcely better than servants’ quarters.’

This was far from true but Sir John never contradicted his Duchess unless it was absolutely necessary to his interests to do so and the Duchess’s antagonism towards the King was never that.

‘I think I have been patient too long. Good Heavens, doesn’t that man realise that Victoria is the heiress to the throne?’

‘It can scarcely be called my dear Duchess’s fault if he does not,’ replied Sir John with one of his ironical smiles.

‘I have long thought we should have a larger apartment. Why not? There are plenty of rooms available in the Palace. Why, therefore, should we be confined to these miserable few? I have decided to write to His Majesty and tell him that I require a larger apartment. There are seventeen rooms which I could take over and no one would be the worse for it. Then I might be able to provide apartments for my daughter comparable with her rank.’

‘Why not write to the King and ask his permission to take over the rooms you have chosen?’

‘Oh, how infuriating. To have to ask the permission of that … of that …’

‘Buffoon?’ supplied Sir John; and they both laughed.

Dear Sir John! What a blessing that with all she had to put up with from her most tiresome brother-in-law, she had Sir John with whom to share a little jocularity.

‘I shall write immediately,’ she said. ‘I see no reason to delay.’

As Sir John did not either, she sat down and wrote her request to the King in her usual imperious manner.

When her letter was put before William, his eyes bulged with rage.

‘So the apartments are not good enough for Madam Kent, eh? She would like more space. She will take over seventeen more rooms and she has already chosen them. By God, that woman will go too far one of these days. Write to her. Ask her when she proposes to take over St James’s and when she would like me to vacate Windsor so that she can move in. Or perhaps that’s not grand enough for her. Seventeen rooms! No, I say. She will stay in her present apartments. And the answer to her request is No, No, No!’


* * *

When the Duchess received his reply she was so angry that she tore it up and flung it from her.

‘Ill-mannered, uncouth, vulgar …’ she stammered.

‘Buffoon,’ supplied Sir John, smiling tenderly at her.

She laughed.

‘But,’ she added, ‘I shall never allow the creature to get the better of me.’

Chapter XV

A VISIT FROM LEOPOLD

Victoria’s sixteenth birthday would soon be with them.

‘Dear me,’ said the Duchess, ‘how time is flying. Two more years and she will be of age!’

Sir John admitted this, with some gloom. ‘I hope that she will be … amenable.’

‘My dear Sir John, what do you mean? Of course she will do as she is told.’

‘There are the little tantrums. I fancy a certain resistance is growing in our Princess.’

‘It must be crushed,’ said the Duchess with the air of a general about to go into battle.

‘She has spirit. If she fancies she is being … crushed she will refuse to be. I have seen that much in her eyes. Lehzen encourages her. It was a mistake not to get rid of her with Späth.’

‘My dear Sir John, I am sure that would have been disastrous. Victoria more or less threatened to go to the King.’

‘The King is an old fool.’

‘But a stubborn one and Adelaide is not such a fool as people believe her to be.’

‘You are right. But trust me in this, my dear Duchess, do not attempt to force the Princess. Coercion, persuasion … that is what we need. And when the day comes … and it must soon … we shall be there.’

‘The King must die before the next two years are up. How I wish she were a year or two younger.’

‘But she is not. So … let us try to please her. I believe she has a notion that we wish for power for ourselves. This is alienating her. It is her birthday. Think of something she really wants and give it to her. She likes music better than anything. Why not invite some of her favourite artistes to the Palace to give a concert for her. I am sure there is nothing she would like better. She grows lyrical about that Grisi woman; I am sure an invitation to give a concert here would send our Princess into rhapsodies of gratitude.’

‘It is an excellent idea,’ said the Duchess, ‘and shall be carried out.’


* * *

It had been a wonderful concert, and it was the Duchess’s birthday present to her. What a truly wonderful present. She could not have had anything to please her more.

‘How very thoughtful of Mamma,’ she remarked to Lehzen.

She wrote of it in her Journal – how she had sat in the front row with the family, joined by poor Aunt Sophia and the Duchess of Cambridge – George’s mother – who was now in England because George was going to be confirmed and later with George Cumberland to receive the Order of the Garter. The singing was heavenly; and what a joy to see Grisi off the stage – so tall and pale with such a lovely mild expression; her eyes were dark and beautiful and her eyelashes long. She had definitely not been disappointed in dear Grisi. Victoria was transported with delight when she sang Tanti affetti from Donna del Lago. There were other artistes, too, for Mamma had determined to bring in all her favourites. But there was none to compare with Grisi – dear, beautiful, talented Grisi!

She found it difficult to stop writing of the concert; she described it in detail reliving it as she did so.

‘Now,’ she told Lehzen, ‘I only have to read this account of it and I shall hear it all again. Aunt Sophia loved it. Poor Aunt Sophia, she had never heard any of the singers before! But nobody was as enchanted as I was. I shall never forget it. What a wonderful, wonderful birthday present.’


* * *

‘A great success,’ said the Duchess when she read the Journal. But she was less pleased when she read the entry of a few days later.‘Sunday, 24th May. Today is my sixteenth birthday. How very old that sounds; but I feel that the two years to come till I attain my eighteenth are the most important of almost any.’

Yes, those words were ominous. Victoria was thinking of that important eighteenth birthday when she could, should the King die, become the Queen, when she could, if she wished, demand that her mother cease to control her, when she could refuse to sleep in the same bedroom, and insist that she was alone when she wished to be.

‘She is becoming too much aware of her position,’ said the Duchess. ‘We must be more watchful than ever.’

There was the usual present-giving on the birthday and Victoria was awake soon after six with the delicious anticipation which birthdays always gave her. Mamma was ready with the presents.

‘Oh, but, Mamma, you gave me the most wonderful of presents. That beautiful … beautiful concert.’

The Duchess kissed her; she was always softened at present-giving time. She had had a brooch made containing a lock of her hair.

‘I thought you would like it as it is my hair.’

‘Oh, Mamma, it is beautiful.’

There were other gifts from the Duchess, of course, including a bracelet with a lock of her hair to match the brooch, a shawl and books; Lehzen’s present was a lovely leather case containing little knives and pencils. The King sent a pair of sapphire and diamond ear-rings, and there was a Bible from a bookseller named Mr Hatchard.

All day long the presents were arriving. She wondered where she would put them all, she confided to George Cambridge who sat beside her on a sofa – closely watched by Mamma – while they looked at the drawings in the album which was his birthday present to her.