‘I wish I need never see him again.’

‘We might arrange that.’

‘Then you will have arranged something very much to my liking.’

‘We shall have to consider his demands in view of … er … his position in your mother’s household.’

She blushed rather charmingly as she said: ‘I know I can talk to you frankly, Lord Melbourne.’

‘I trust Your Majesty is able to do that because it is very necessary to our relationship that we should be entirely frank with each other at all times.’

‘A certain amount of scandal has been whispered about Mamma.’

‘Ah! Scandal,’ murmured Lord Melbourne, and she thought of his own very colourful life in which so many scandals had existed. Yet, she thought, he is the most perfect gentleman. But she was sorry she had mentioned the word if it brought back unhappy memories to dear Lord Melbourne.

‘There are some people,’ she said loyally, ‘whom scandal cannot touch. But that is, of course, if they are innocent.’

Grasping the implication Lord Melbourne gave her a grateful look. How well we understand each other! she thought blissfully.

‘But to return to this odious man,’ said Lord Melbourne. ‘He has been in the household of the Duchess of Kent for many years. I suppose a certain reward should be given him. Besides, it would be worthwhile to rid ourselves of him, would it not?’

‘I should be delighted to be rid of him.’

‘All Your Majesty need do is refuse to see him in any circumstances. But I would like to exile him to the country.’

She nodded.

‘In the meantime,’ said Lord Melbourne, ‘we will shelve the matter by considering it. It is always better to let these things simmer and avoid rash actions.’

She was sure he was right. He always was right in any case.


* * *

When Lord Melbourne left, a messenger came to tell her that her mother the Duchess of Kent wished to see her.

She knew what this meant. Mamma was going to ask her to agree to Sir John’s terms. Having no desire to be embroiled in one of her mother’s scenes, remembered with such distaste from the days when she was, as she now began to consider herself, ‘Mamma’s prisoner’, she sent back a message to say that she was too busy to grant the interview.

Then she sat down to think about Sir John and what a menace he had been in her childhood. If Mamma had not allowed that odious man to dominate her household, how different everything might have been and how glad she was that she now had Lord Melbourne to deal with this most disagreeable affair.

The Duchess’s fury was turning to despair. To receive a note from her daughter saying she was too busy to see her own mother was the last straw, she declared to Sir John.

‘She is dominated by Melbourne,’ he told her. ‘You can depend upon it. He is the one who is responsible for this high-handed behaviour.’

‘Who does he think he is … the King?’

Conroy grinned. ‘Well, he might well be aspiring to that position.’

‘You are not suggesting that she would marry the man!’

‘Oh, no, even I wouldn’t go as far as that. There’s forty years difference in their ages and the Queen can’t marry a commoner.’

‘I should think not. The sooner she is married to one of her Coburg cousins the better.’

‘Your brother Leopold will see to that, and I gather he still has some influence though he may well be ousted by Melbourne.’

‘It shall be Ernest or Albert. She shall have the choice. And the sooner the better, I believe.’

‘She is surrounded by our enemies, that is the trouble.’

‘And she is so easy to lead.’

‘We did not find it easy to lead her,’ Sir John reminded her.

‘By some people,’ amended the Duchess. ‘Melbourne … Lehzen …’

‘Ah, Lehzen,’ sighed Sir John a little reproachfully. ‘What a pity you cannot get someone more sympathetic to us into her household.’

‘I will beg her to take in Flora.’

‘That’s a good notion.’

‘And I shall ask her to see you sometimes. Her not doing so, in such a pointed way, makes it a little embarrassing for me.’

Sir John nodded. He knew that people were already whispering that the Queen’s aversion to Sir John was due to her mother’s relationship with him.

‘I will write to her since she is too busy to see her own mother.’

‘Write calmly,’ said Sir John.

‘You may trust me.’

She sat down at her desk and feathers quivering with emotion she wrote to her daughter. She hoped that she was not letting Melbourne know how much she disliked her mother’s Comptroller of the Household. In fact was she confiding too much in Lord Melbourne? Did she not think it might be wiser to see a little less of her Prime Minister?

‘Take care,’ she wrote, ‘that Lord Melbourne is not King.’

When Victoria received the letter she blushed hotly.

How dared they! She included Sir John in her condemnation because she knew he would have had a hand in this. He made outrageous demands which were like blackmail, and then they dared speak so of Lord Melbourne!

Definitely she would never see Sir John Conroy again if she could help it; as for her mother, she would have to learn that her daughter was no longer her prisoner but the Queen of England!


* * *

Lord Melbourne said that it was not very suitable for the Queen to continue to live in Kensington Palace.

‘Kensington Palace is all very well for the heiress presumptive to the throne; but when that heiress becomes the Queen that is a very different matter.’

Victoria was wistful. ‘It is no easy matter to leave one’s home.’

‘But it is an easier matter to leave one of your homes when you have many. And you can always come back for a spell to Kensington. Why your grandfather George III and his wife Queen Charlotte …’ She made a little grimace. ‘… who incidentally bore no resemblance whatsoever to Your Majesty …’ Victoria joined Lord Melbourne in his laughter. ‘Your grandfather George III and Queen Charlotte loved Kew and they were very glad to leave Windsor to escape to it. They would walk about the place like a country squire and his lady and the King so interested himself in the farmers thereabouts that he often gave a hand with the butter-making.’

How their conversation strayed from the main point at issue and how fascinating that was! They had begun by talking of this move and ended up with King George at his butter-making.

‘So,’ went on Lord Melbourne, having succeeded in lifting the slight sadness which the prospect of moving had made her feel, ‘Your Majesty will remember that you can always come back to Kensington when you wish.’

So she could but Lord Melbourne would understand that it was not quite the same.

‘If you surround yourself with familiar objects – and why should you not? – it will make little difference to you whether you are in Kensington or Buckingham Palace.’

‘You will come and see me every day?’

‘That will be my duty and my pleasure.’


* * *

And so she had been wise and given her attention to the packing, for as she pointed out to Lehzen, there were so many personal possessions which one wished to look after oneself.

She and Lehzen spent a happy hour packing her dolls because although she rarely looked at them now it was inconceivable that they should be left behind. Lehzen was nothing loath. She had made quite a number of the dolls which represented characters from history – Queen Elizabeth was conspicuous among them.

‘I never liked her,’ said Victoria. ‘She was really very cruel. I believe she was a great queen and perhaps I should try to be like her in some ways, but I shall try to be good. I want to make my people happy, Lehzen, and comfortable.’

Lehzen said that was a very worthy desire and she believed that Victoria in years to come would be known as ‘Victoria the Good’.

What a pleasant thought! And there was her little dog Dash looking at her rather disconsolately as though he knew something was afoot.

‘We are going to leave Kensington, Dashy,’ she told him; and he put his head on one side and regarded her in that bright and intelligent way which she loved.

‘The only good thing Conroy ever did,’ she announced, ‘was to give Mamma Dashy.’

‘And he, being a wise dog, immediately decided to be yours.’

And Dash hearing his name mentioned gave his little series of joyous barks.

‘Oh, Dashy,’ she said, ‘I do hope you are going to like Buckingham Palace.’

‘We all shall, I’ve no doubt,’ comforted Lehzen.

‘All the same it is rather a solemn moment when one leaves one’s birthplace. Just think, Lehzen, for eighteen years this has been my home. Think of all that has happened here. Do you remember how we used to sit up here and play with the dolls?’

Lehzen remembered very well. ‘I believe Amy Robsart was your favourite.’

‘Well yes, because she was so sad and tragic.’ Victoria picked up Queen Elizabeth and gave her a little shake, as she used to in the old days. ‘Do you believe that Amy was murdered?’

‘That is something we shall never know.’

‘I remember dear Feodora’s wedding. She is very happy now with her darling children. What fun it would be, Lehzen, if they could come and visit us. I’m sure they would love it.’

‘You have only to ask them.’

‘I shall, Lehzen, I shall. Oh dear, I am going to miss dear Kensington.’

‘Buckingham Palace, as Lord Melbourne said, is far more suitable.’