Виктория Холт - The Queen’s Husband

When Papa said ‘pray’ it usually meant one really was in trouble but Bertie felt confident that he was not in the wrong about this. It was that wicked boy who had beaten him; he had scarcely been able to touch his adversary; Bertie put a hand to the bump on his brow and said: ‘Affie and I were building castles and the boy came along. He stared without asking if he could. I knocked his fish all over the sand.’ Bertie wanted to giggle at the thought of the squirming fishes. He elaborated a little: ‘Great big fishes … a big whale and he was going to swallow Affie so I picked up a big stick.’

‘You will go to your room, Bertie, and wait there until I send for you,’ said his father.

Bertie went to his room but was not disturbed. The boy would be punished for fighting the Prince of Wales and he liked his story about the whale. He went on with it in his mind. It swallowed Affie and it was like the Jonah story. Bertie kept it and talked to Affie from inside and then he climbed into the whale and rescued Affie.

His father sent for him and when he went into the study the Prince said: ‘We are going to see your fisher boy. I have discovered who he is.’

Bertie felt very proud. Now he would stand beside his father and that boy would know what a bad thing he had done.

The fisher boy came into the room where the Queen and the Prince received visitors. With him was a man who was clearly his father. They looked very shy and awkward as though they wondered what was going to happen to them – and well they might, thought Bertie.

The Prince had gripped Bertie’s shoulder and pushed him forward.

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘you are here. My son has an apology to make to yours. He is very sorry he behaved so churlishly. Now, Bertie, let me hear you say how much you regret your conduct and that you promise not to behave in such a way again.’

Bertie was astounded. Papa had got it wrong. It was the boy who must apologise to him.

‘I am waiting,’ said the Prince.

He really meant it. Somehow, Bertie was in the wrong again. He couldn’t understand it but there was nothing to be done but obey so he said that he was sorry that he had upset the basket of fish. He had behaved badly and would never do it again.

‘And now,’ said Papa to the visitors, ‘I will have you conducted to the kitchens where you will be amply compensated for the loss you suffered.’

The boy and his father, as confused as Bertie, bowed their way out. The Prince was still gripping Bertie’s shoulder. He looked at him with an expression of mournful regret in his face but Bertie saw a gleam in his eye which he always associated with an imminent caning.

He was right.

‘You will go to your room and prepare for a beating, which I shall administer myself. Lies I will not tolerate. First you disgrace us by indulging in a fight with a fisher boy and then you tell me monstrous lies.’ He put his hand to his forehead. ‘I have no alternative but to beat the wickedness out of you.’

Bertie went fearfully to his room.

* * *

They could not stay at Osborne for ever. With the opening of Parliament imminent it was necessary to return to London, but the whole family was sad to leave dear Osborne.

‘Never mind,’ said the Queen, ‘we shall be back soon, and won’t it be fun to see what dearest Papa’s plans have added to the house. How fortunate we are to have such a clever Papa!’

Vicky said that Papa had told her what he was going to do about the new staircase. He had shown her the drawings.

Surely not, thought the Queen, before he has shown me! Really sometimes she thought Albert thought more of his daughter than of his wife.

Albert certainly doted on their eldest daughter. She supposed it was because Bertie was such a disappointment.

Down on the shore they went to embark on the royal yacht. One of the yachtsmen picked up Vicky and carried her on board, but Vicky hated to be carried. She thought it made her look like a child, and in front of Bertie too. ‘There you are, my little lady,’ said the yachtsman as he set her down.

Vicky said coldly: ‘It would be well for you to remember that I am a Princess, not a little lady.’

The Queen, who had been standing by, said sharply: ‘You had better tell the kind sailor that you are not a little lady yet although you hope to be some day.’

Vicky was startled. It was not often that she was reproved by her parents. She blushed scarlet with mortification. Bertie was sorry for her. He knew what it meant to be snubbed in public. He allowed himself to be lifted aboard without protest.

* * *

And back at Buckingham Palace was Mr Birch.

Bertie regarded him with some suspicion when he was brought to the schoolroom by his father and Baron Stockmar.

‘You will find the Prince of Wales somewhat backward, I fear,’ said the Baron. ‘He is not exactly devoted to study. But I have worked out a curriculum for you to follow and I think if you will abide by this you cannot go far wrong. I have His Highness’s approval of what I have mapped out. But you will see for yourself.’

Bertie was quaking inwardly, wondering what a curriculum was. Surely something horrible since the Baron had devised it.

‘If he is disobedient,’ the Prince was saying, ‘you have my permission to beat him. It is a procedure I have often found myself forced to follow, even though it has invariably been very painful to me.’

Bertie listened to an account of his shortcomings and when his father and the Baron had left him alone with Mr Birch he almost expected him to bring a cane and apply it right away. Instead of this Mr Birch smiled at him and said: ‘Let us sit down and look at this plan of work, shall we?’

‘Is it a … cur …’

‘Curriculum? A very long word for nothing very much. Just a plan of what we are going to do together.’

‘Is it very hard?’

‘I don’t think you’re going to find it so.’

‘I’m not clever like Vicky.’

‘How do we know?’

‘They know.’

‘Ah, but we might surprise them.’

‘Might we?’

‘We can never be sure, can we?’ said the strange Mr Birch.

Bertie laughed suddenly, not because it was very funny but because he was relieved. Something told him that he and Mr Birch were going to be friends.

* * *

He was right. With Mr Birch lessons were not so difficult. He had a way of explaining things which made them amusing or interesting.

In the first place he had said that they would take lessons alone. He had not come to teach the Princess Royal. As soon as Vicky was no longer there to show how much cleverer she was, Bertie became less stupid. He found he could give a wrong answer to Mr Birch and not be laughed at.

He told him once how when they were in the gardens years and years ago and Mama had been telling them about flowers, he had asked if the pink was the female of the carnation. They had all laughed at him so much that he had been afraid to ask any more questions. This had come out when Mr Birch told him that he must always ask if he did not know.

Mr Birch listened gravely. Then he said: ‘We all have to learn at some time. It is no disgrace not to know. You must always ask if you don’t understand anything. Never be afraid that I would laugh. There are so many things I myself don’t know. And so it is with all of us.’

Yes, thought Bertie, Vicky did not know everything; nor did Mama; nor even Papa.

He began to look forward to lessons. He ceased to stammer. He no longer wanted to throw books at windows. He was happy.

Mr Birch had changed everything, and Bertie loved Mr Birch.

A new year had arrived and by February alarming news reached the palace. The Queen, once more pregnant and expecting to have her sixth child in April, was terribly shocked to hear that France was in a state of unrest.

Albert brought the news to her as she lay in bed resting because as usual pregnancy was irksome. Albert sat by the bed and said gloomily: ‘The revolution has begun.’

‘Albert. It can’t be.’

‘It is so, my dear. The mob is marching on the Tuileries.’

‘Oh dear. The poor King and Queen! What will become of them?’ She sat up in bed. ‘It is terrible, Albert. I picture it. Advancing now as they did before on poor Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. How dreadful! Poor dear Aunt Louise will be demented.’

‘It is a terrible thing to have happened.’

‘Perhaps it will pass. If the King is strong and has the Army with him …’

Albert shook his head. ‘It is a sad thing to see a monarchy totter. All royal houses must deplore it.’

‘And to think I was so angry with poor Louis Philippe only such a short while ago. I can’t bear to think of what he may be suffering at this moment. Such terrible things can happen. A mob can be fearful. To think it was such a short while ago that he sent the doll and the soldiers to the children. Who would have thought this possible!’

‘It is well for all of us to remember that this sort of thing could happen at any time.’

‘Not here, Albert. Not in England.’

Albert did not answer and she remembered what the people had been like at the time of the Flora Hastings scandal, and the stone that had been thrown at her carriage at the time of Flora’s funeral.

Fearfully she awaited news from France. There was nothing comforting when it came. It was a repetition of that terrible revolution at the end of last century. At midnight the tocsins had sounded throughout Paris, the sign for the people to rise. It was almost exact in detail. The royal family were in flight. Victoria could picture them hurrying across the Tuileries gardens and she was imagining it happening in Buckingham Palace.

‘Louis Philippe must fight,’ she had told Albert. ‘He cannot run away.’ But the French King had the terrible memory of the disaster which once before had overtaken his family. He had no wish to suffer as they had and when he was presented with an act of abdication he immediately signed it. He was so fearful that he said to everyone who came near him, ‘J’abdique, j’abdique.’

When the Queen heard she buried her head in her hands. She could not get out of her mind the picture of the mob’s marching on Buckingham Palace.

The palace was alive with rumours. The French family had arrived, said some. They were smuggled into the palace. Others said they had been executed by the mob.

‘There are always rumours,’ said Albert.

Lord Palmerston called. The Queen swallowed her dislike and received him immediately. Albert remained with her.

Palmerston bowed to the Queen and gave Albert that benign smile which suggested he thought him a young man of no great importance, but since he was the Queen’s husband he would indulgently allow him to be present while business was discussed.

‘Your Majesty,’ said the Foreign Minister, ‘it seems certain that the King of France, if he escapes, will try to reach England. If Your Majesty wished to put a ship at his disposal the Foreign Office would have no objection, but I must warn you that if Your Majesty attempted to harbour royalists, the country might object.’

‘I don’t understand you, Lord Palmerston. Are you suggesting that I should turn my own family away?’

‘I am suggesting, Ma’am, that taking into consideration the state of the country at the moment – Your Majesty will have been made aware that there has been a certain amount of unrest in various areas – it would not be wise to make too great a show of supporting the royalist cause.’

‘Lord Palmerston, we are royal,’ said the Queen imperiously.

Lord Palmerston bowed, smiling his superior smile as though he realised he must placate the children.

‘Ma’am,’ he said, ‘it is my duty – and I am sure Your Majesty would always insist that I should not shirk that – to warn you that there is unrest throughout Europe. A revolution in one country could spark off one in others. Like fire revolution can easily spread.’

‘Do you suggest that here in England …’

Lord Palmerston as usual had no compunction in interrupting the Queen. ‘I suggest, Ma’am, that we should take every precaution that it should not happen here. Many of the small kingdoms of Europe are shaking at this moment, Ma’am. The success of the revolutionaries in France will inspire others throughout Europe.’

Albert spoke then. ‘This is so,’ he said, and Victoria could see by the expression on his face that he was thinking of Ernest and Alexandrine in Coburg.