It was true that William had been over-excitable; it was true he made long, rambling speeches, that he was eccentric; but there was a long step between such conduct and … madness.

It was always as though there had been a force at work which was trying to send William mad.

There! She had faced it.

A force? She might go farther and bring out what was truly in her mind: the Duke of Cumberland.

It was so clear, so simple. The motive could not have been plainer. There was a crown and the Cumberlands wanted it – first for themselves and then for their son. Poor innocent young George, that charming boy whom she loved. God preserve him from the influence of his parents!

They shall never drive William insane, she thought. I will prevent that. I will stand between him and them. I will nurse him. I will not let it happen. It need not, I know – and yet the alarming thing is that it could.

William is safe … with me.

And Victoria?

Oh God, she thought, the child is in danger. Those rumours of her illness. What could they mean?

Whenever she thought of Victoria she saw a great shadow hanging over her, and she was afraid.

The Duchess of Kent and her daughter were back at Kensington Palace after the seaside holiday and Victoria, blooming with health, took her daily walks with the Duchess as far as Apsley House and back and the people cheered her as she passed.

Adelaide called at Kensington Palace. She had brought the dress she had been embroidering for Victoria who was enchanted with it. She must try it on at once, she declared.

‘You shall,’ said the Duchess. ‘Go and do so now and your Aunt Adelaide and I will have a chat while we await your return.’

As soon as she had left Adelaide looked over her shoulder furtively.

‘Is anything wrong?’ asked the Duchess.

‘I have been waiting for an opportunity to talk to you. Perhaps I am being foolish but I feel this is of such great importance to us all. Forgive me if I am stupid, but it is out of my love and concern for the child.’

‘For Victoria!’ cried the Duchess.

Adelaide nodded.

‘Pray go on.’

‘I am anxious. I believe that there is some … evil at work. I cannot forget those accounts of her weakness which were so false.’

The Duchess had turned pale. ‘Nor can I forget them,’ she said.

‘Who started those rumours? Who saw that they were circulated?’

The two women looked at each other and it was Adelaide who spoke first. ‘I believe it to be the Duke and Duchess of Cumberland.’

‘My dear Adelaide … sometimes I am terrified.’

‘I too. And there is William. Those reports about him. Oh, it is so clear. They want William put away.’

‘And Victoria?’ said the Duchess.

‘I don’t know, but I fear some evil. I beg of you, never let the child out of your sight. Keep her with you or that good woman Lehzen … all the time.’

The Duchess had put her hand to her heart. ‘Oh God, it is a terrifying thought.’

‘It is not, alas, so unusual. Crimes have been committed for a crown before. How I wish we were not so close to it. I can see great danger.’

‘I shall see that the child is guarded night and day.’

‘My thoughts will be with you.’

‘My dear, dear Adelaide!’

‘You know I love her as though she were my own daughter.’

The Duchess nodded. ‘If you should discover anything …’

‘Never fear, it is my concern too. Both for William and the child.’

‘They shan’t succeed.’

‘No,’ said Adelaide firmly. ‘We shall protect them and there is none who could do it as we can.’

‘She is coming back now.’

Victoria came in wearing the dress with the hand-embroidered flowers.

‘It is most becoming,’ said the Duchess.

Victoria turned round smiling, but she was not thinking of the dress so much as she pretended; she was wondering what they had been discussing while she had been out of the room. It was something frightening. She could see it in their faces. And she believed it concerned her.

Yes, there was certainly something mysterious going on.

They were afraid for her. It was obvious. If when she was riding her pony in the park she tried to stray a little from her attendants they were immediately beside her.

Orders, she thought.

And then Mamma’s sleeping in her room; and the Baroness’ sitting there until Mamma came. That was the most unusual thing of all.

Could it be that she was in danger?

She thought a great deal about the Princes in the Tower. They had been kept there and suddenly they disappeared, stifled in their beds and their bodies were buried under a stair.

What if someone was trying to murder her?

She told it to her dolls; she wondered whether Lehzen could make the little Princes for her. Mamma said she was getting too old for them, but they were not ordinary dolls. They had been with her so long; they were her family; besides, many of them actually represented her ancestors.

Thinking of her dolls she decided to visit them; and she rose and went to the head of the stairs. The apartments occupied by her mother’s household were on two floors and the staircase which led from one to the other was a spiral one. She had always felt it was rather an exciting place because it twisted so and if anyone were coming up and you were going down, if they were silent-footed you would suddenly find yourself face to face with them.

You could stand on the staircase and look right up to the little window in the roof at a patch of sky; she had always found that fascinating.

But now as she started down the staircase she was thinking of the little Princes in the Tower. Under a stone stair, she had heard, they found their bodies years later. What had they felt when they woke up in the night and saw murderers at their bedside? Did they scream out? Or were they too terrified to open their mouths? Or were they just suffocated in their sleep?

Poor little boys! Had they any suspicions on that last day when they heard the hammering going on close by that it was their murderers preparing the secret hiding-place which was to be their grave?

They were murdered because someone wanted what was undoubtedly theirs – a crown. It was that same crown which would be Victoria’s one day if no one took it from her.

Why was she standing here, looking up at the skylight? She was trying to frighten herself.

And then … she thought she heard a step on the stair behind her. She caught her breath and gathering her skirts in her hand she sped down the stairs.

At the foot of the staircase she almost fell into the arms of Baroness Lehzen.

‘What has happened?’ demanded the Baroness.

Victoria was too frightened to pretend.

‘I … I thought someone was coming after me … on the stairs.’

‘Nonsense,’ said the Baroness. ‘Who would want to come after you on the stairs?’

But they could not deceive her. The Baroness was frightened … even as her mother was.

And after that there was a new edict.

Victoria was not to go up and down the stairs alone. Someone must go with her. The Baroness Lehzen, if possible, or the Duchess’s own lady-in-waiting, Baroness Späth.

‘Not to go up and down stairs without someone to hold my hand!’ cried Victoria.

‘That,’ replied the Duchess coldly, ‘is exactly what I said.’

‘So now I know,’ Victoria told her dolls, ‘that they are afraid someone is going to kill me and the reason is the same one that brought death to the little Princes in the Tower.’

She could not really believe it would happen because it was impossible to imagine a world without Victoria.

The Duke of Cumberland was thinking a great deal about his niece. William was not so important. William would provide his own evidence he was sure; and in any case his brother was six years older than he was and suffered from gout and asthma, and these in addition to his mental aberrations made the Duke of Cumberland feel confident that he could not long stand in the way.

It was different with Victoria, the precious child who was hardly allowed to put one foot before another without someone to stand on guard.

It had been a mistake to try to make her out to be delicate. Madame Kent had soon put an end to that by parading the healthy little brat for all to see. He knew from friends in the Kent household that the child was never in her bedroom alone and that now a rule had been made that she was not even to walk up and down stairs on her own.

It was clear that she must be removed from Kensington Palace and the eagle eyes of her mother and that other watchdog, Lehzen.

He was determined to get her away from her guardians and he saw a way of doing it.

The rumours about the Duchess and the Controller of her household, Sir John Conroy, must persist; but it might be that he would not succeed in persuading the King through them, though they could serve to convince others.

With the King he had another method.

When they were together he talked often of the Princess Victoria.

‘I have seen that the child made a deep impression on you, George.’

‘I found her amusing.’

‘You should see more of her.’

‘Yes, I should like that.’ But would he? What would a mass of corrupting flesh look like in the clear sighted searching eyes of youth?

‘I think it is not good that she should be brought up in the way she is. A household of women … German women. There is her mother who can scarcely speak English and Victoria speaks German to her. And then there are the Lehzen and Spath creatures. All German. I believe she speaks English sometimes, but I have heard many people murmuring about that household. There seems to be a barrier between you and the child.’