Виктория Холт - The Widow of Windsor

She sent for Disraeli and told him that she wanted to reward him for his services to her and the country. Would he accept an earldom?

He thanked her in the flowery manner at which he was an adept. He was honoured; he was flattered; he would never forget, etc.; but he declined the earldom.

‘Yet I have one thing for which I should be grateful.’

‘Please tell me what it is,’ said the Queen.

Then he told her that Mary Anne was ill – very ill. She was dying slowly.

Disraeli wept genuine tears and the Queen, greatly moved, wept with him.

She understood absolutely; her heart bled for him; she had suffered it all before him.

‘With Your Majesty it was a sharp blow – so much harder to bear,’ said her tactful ex-Prime Minister. ‘At least fate is giving me time to prepare myself.’

The Queen admitted this and wanted to know what it was that he desired.

‘It is for her. I should like her to be made a peeress in her own right.’

Oh, how devoted! How unselfish! The Queen could not hide her emotion.

A peerage for Mrs Disraeli – certainly.

‘I know,’ she said, ‘that you once dedicated a book to the perfect wife. I should like Mrs Disraeli to know that I believe her to have a perfect husband.’

* * *

Mary Anne – now the Countess of Beaconsfield – could not contain her delight. She displayed her coronet whenever possible. She called herself Dizzy’s Beaconsfield. What a wonderful husband she had!

She had perhaps two years to live – and not very pleasantly she knew. Each week the pain would grow a little more. Never mind, she would hide it as best she could. She would manage. She remembered that occasion not so long ago when she had been accompanying Dizzy to the House and he was going to make one of the most important speeches of his career. She had planned to drop him at the House and drive home to wait for him there. He had been a little nervous. That fearful Mr Gladstone with his heavy manner – not a bit witty like dear Dizzy – could be very formidable. All the way he had sat murmuring what he was going to say and when he alighted and slammed the door of the carriage he caught her hand in it. She did not cry out because she had known that would have disturbed him and he would have been worrying all the time how badly she was hurt. So while he said good-bye to her she sat with a smile on her face ignoring the agony and let the coachman drive on without telling him that her hand was caught in the door. As soon as Dizzy had disappeared she called the coachman to release her. Well, if she could hide pain then she could hide it now. She did not wish to worry him.

‘Poor Dizzy!’ she said now. ‘But you’re only out of office temporarily.’

‘Oh, only temporarily,’ he assured her.

‘What will you do? After all to be Leader of the Opposition will not demand half the time that a Prime Minister has to devote to his duties. There is one blessing, though. Your Beaconsfield will be able to see more of you.’

‘I look forward to it,’ he told her. ‘We’ll go down to Hughenden. I can finish my book and we can have a very cosy time together.’

‘Very nice,’ she said, ‘for Beaconsfield.’

‘And for Disraeli,’ he assured her.

He was reconciled. He wanted to spend time with Mary Anne. There was tragically little left, and he knew in his heart that he would one day take his place on the Government bench of the House – just as surely as he knew that when he did his beloved Beaconsfield would not be at hand to comfort him, to cherish him, to give him that which he had finally learned through her was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

How tiring was Mr Gladstone! He gave the impression of having too much to do in too short a time. He was too energetic and so sure of himself, backed up by that enormous majority in the House. He was all for reform. In fact he seemed to live for reform. Not only did he want to interfere with the Church but the Army and the Navy as well. He would take up the matter of whether sailors should be allowed to have beards with or without moustaches as though it were some war which had to be won. He could not express himself simply; the Queen could not understand the documents he presented to her – nor even his letters. One sentence would last for pages. Oh, tiresome Mr Gladstone! Someone had told her that when he proposed to Mrs Gladstone he had done so in a letter which was so long and involved that the poor woman was quite bewildered and refused him. And at that, commented the Queen, the Queen is not surprised. Although he persuaded her to marry him later. Poor Mrs Gladstone!

One grew quite weary trying to keep up with all the papers and to grasp what the man was writing about; how different it had been with dear Lord Melbourne; and with Sir Robert there had been Albert. Mr Gladstone made her realise afresh how much she needed Albert. If only dear Mr Disraeli could come back. How could people have been so stupid as to give Mr Gladstone that big majority.

She was worried about Bertie whose finances were in a terrible state. He was now in Egypt doing the country so much good, so said Mr Disraeli, and being very popular and visiting the Pyramids and the Sphinx; and the Khedive and the Sultan were being very hospitable. She did hope Bertie was not getting into any trouble there. But Alix was at hand; she should keep a firm grip on him. The children had been sent home and she did enjoy the company of darling Eddy and Georgie and little Louise; her namesake was too young at present to interest her for she never had liked the very young. The two boys were darlings although they were not as respectful as they should be, which of course was due to the way in which Bertie and Alix brought them up; she gathered from little hints they dropped that they were allowed to go into Bertie’s study while he was writing letters and climb all over him and that Alix often put on an apron and bathed them herself. There was no discipline and that should be rectified. But Bertie had uttered a dark warning when he had said that the children had grown to love their Danish grandparents in a very short time. He hoped they would feel as affectionate towards their very important English grandmama.

They appeared to like her and called her ‘Gangan’, which was amusing. She tried not to think of what Albert would have said to certain naughtiness. After all if the children were so fond of the King and Queen of Denmark they must have some regard for the Queen of England too.

She approached Mr Gladstone about Bertie’s allowance. Mr Gladstone answered the summons – so unattractive because he was so solemn. He bowed very courteously and she told him that she hoped Parliament would agree to give the Prince of Wales a larger income.

Mr Gladstone addressed her as a public meeting with such long sentences that she was not at all sure what he was talking about.

Finally she demanded. ‘But Mr Gladstone, I should be pleased to know what Parliament will decide about the Prince’s allowance.’

Mr Gladstone was off again but she did gather that Parliament had no intention or disposition to augment the income of the Prince of Wales.

Well, of course, she did deplore Bertie’s extravagance; he should not go so often to the races and gamble; he should not entertain fast women. It served him right and was a lesson to him; all the same Mr Gladstone was a very tiresome man.

* * *

The Prince and Princess of Wales had returned from the East and had reached Paris. The Queen wrote to them there and when Bertie saw the notepaper heavily edged with black he moaned.

‘Oh dear, will Mama never forget?’ he wailed.

Alix was excited; she was longing to be home to see the dear children. She was again pregnant and expecting another in November. She couldn’t have too many, she told Bertie; she adored them all; but she did wonder how they had fared under the eye of the Queen.

Bertie had further cause for groans when he read his mother’s letter:

‘I fear you have incurred enormous expenses and I don’t think there is a disposition to give you any more money.’

‘How do they expect me to maintain myself in dignity,’ he demanded, ‘when they won’t help me pay for it? Imagine the Prince and Princess of Wales travelling abroad like paupers.’

‘Well, they hardly did that,’ said Alix with a laugh.

And Bertie laughed with her. ‘Disraeli would have been far more sympathetic. Gladstone’s such an old preacher. And they say too that he prowls about the West End at night looking for prostitutes.’

‘Only so that he can take them home to Mrs Gladstone and together they can persuade the poor girls to lead a respectable life.’

‘Ha, ha,’ said Bertie.

‘You’re prejudiced,’ accused Alix.

The fact that the government would not increase his allowance did not worry Bertie greatly. Princes always had debts. It was something governments had to accept.

‘She goes on to say that the boys are little dears and Eddy is quite sensible when she has him alone. She thinks they are a little undisciplined. But none of our boys is going to endure what I did from my father.’

‘The way to bring children up is to make them happy and secure. I know that. I was very fortunate.’

‘Now, you’re not sighing for old Bernstorff and the Yellow Palace, are you? You like Marlborough House? You like Sandringham?’

‘Of course. I’ve been doubly lucky.’

He was pleased. She looked at him rather wistfully, though, and thought that she might have been completely happy if Bertie was not sometimes more eager for the company of others than for her own.