Виктория Холт - The Widow of Windsor

The pistol, he told her, had been unloaded and the young man who had pointed it at her was mentally deficient. When questioned he had babbled about frightening the Queen into freeing Fenian prisoners. He was, of course, Irish, and his name was Arthur O’Connor.

‘Those Irish!’ cried the Queen. ‘What trouble they make.’

Later when she heard that O’Connor had been sentenced to a year’s imprisonment she was alarmed. ‘What when he comes out?’ she demanded. ‘Has it occurred to people that he might make another attempt and this time be successful? Could he not be transported?’

As it was the understandably fervent desire of the Queen that O’Connor should be transported, the government offered him the opportunity of leaving the country and paid his passage money so the Queen had nothing more to fear from the dull-witted O’Connor.

There was one who had come out of the affair with honours. This, she said in secret glee, is a vindication. What did Bertie, Vicky and Alfred think now of the man of whom they had been so critical? They had to admit that John Brown had saved their mother’s life and they should be eternally grateful to that good and faithful man.

If they weren’t, she was.

Bertie, however, when she discussed the matter with him, replied that Brown did his duty, he would agree to that; but that was what he was employed for.

‘My dear Bertie,’ cried the Queen, ‘you should have seen the manner in which he leapt from the box and tackled that wicked young man.’

‘Arthur did the same.’

‘Arthur tried to protect me, yes. But Brown was there before him. Why, had the pistol been loaded it could have been fired before Arthur grasped the would-be assassin’s arm.’

‘Before Brown did too, had it been loaded,’ added Bertie. ‘But, Mama, do not let us consider such a terrible possibility.’

‘It is a possibility ever present where royalty is concerned,’ replied the Queen. ‘It has happened to me before and I feel some small consolation in the fact that all those who have had the desire to kill me have been mad.’

‘Pray do not talk of such a thing, Mama,’ said Bertie with real feeling which was touching, particularly as he looked so pale and so much thinner after his illness.

‘My dearest child,’ she said tenderly, ‘I believe you are glad that I have been spared.’

Bertie kissed her hand and the tears came to her eyes. Bertie was really good in many ways.

‘I am going to give good faithful Brown a gold medal commemorating the occasion and twenty-five pounds a year shall be added to his salary.’

‘A very excellent reward for doing his duty,’ said Bertie. ‘And you will let Arthur know how much you appreciate his efforts.’

‘I am having a gold pin made for him.’

The Prince of Wales raised his eyebrows. A gold pin was not very much when set beside a gold medal, the Queen’s effusive thanks and praises, plus twenty-five pounds a year.

As the Prince said to Alix: ‘This affair has made Mama even more besotted over that man Brown.’

The Queen had grave news from her stepsister Feodora, whose health was far from good.

‘Dearest sister,’ wrote Feodora, ‘how I long to see you. Sometimes I feel that there may not be many more opportunities.’

Such sentiments touched the Queen deeply.

Mr Gladstone thought it was not the time to leave the country. Royalty was enjoying a wave of popularity occasioned by the Prince’s recent illness and the action of Arthur O’Connor.

Both Queen and Prince could have been lost to the nation and since they had not been, they were appreciated. Now was the time to enhance that popularity.

How unsympathetically expressed! How unfeeling! Poor Mrs Gladstone, how could she cope with marriage to such a man! How different was dear Mr Disraeli, who was looking so forlorn these days! She knew the reason. His dear wife was growing more and more ill every day and he knew it.

He told the Queen of Mary Anne’s sufferings and how she tried to hide them from him. ‘I know, M’am, with your great heart, you will understand why I wish to spend so much time at Hughenden.’

‘I understand perfectly,’ replied the Queen. ‘Oh, I wish there was something I could do. Please tell her how much I think of her and of you.’

‘That will cheer her very much,’ said Mr Disraeli.

She could sympathise. Had she not suffered it all when her Dear Saint had been so ill. She knew how poor Mr Disraeli felt for his. And now her sister was ill, dying she feared, and Mr Gladstone thought that she should ignore the dear soul’s wishes and not make the journey to Baden Baden.

‘It would be an action quite contrary to your Majesty’s nature,’ said Mr Disraeli.

Oh, why were the people so foolish as to deny her the services of such a man as her Prime Minister and give her Mr Gladstone instead?

The Queen left for Baden Baden where she found Feodora wan and very ill.

They embraced tearfully and Feodora said: ‘I knew you’d come. I knew I shouldn’t ask in vain.’

The Queen tried to cheer her sister by talking of the past. ‘How beautiful you were!’ she said. ‘I was so proud of you for I knew I could never be so pretty.’

‘My dear modest little sister. You had a charm and dignity with which I could not compete. You always behaved like a little Queen.’

‘Do you remember Uncle King and how he cast his eyes on you and I am sure wanted to marry you?’

Feodora remembered.

‘I always loved Uncle King,’ went on Victoria. ‘He was my favourite uncle. But of course he was too old for you. That was why you were hustled out of his sight. Oh, I remember your wedding day and how Uncle George was going to give you away and didn’t come and Uncle William had to do it.’

‘How it brings it all back,’ said Feodora. ‘I could almost feel young again talking to you.’

They talked often, for Feodora was not able to go out much. Sometimes, though, they took a little carriage drive together but she tired easily and Victoria was very careful of her.

They took a tender farewell and the Queen was so pleased that she had made the visit. Particularly as later that year Feodora died.

* * *

At the same time the Queen heard that the Countess of Beaconsfield had passed away. Poor, poor Mr Disraeli! How sad and wan he looked. The Queen hastily sent her condolences.

‘But,’ she said to Brown, ‘he will have the satisfaction of knowing that he did everything for her.’

At Hughenden Disraeli brooded on his loss. Mary Anne had been eighty-one – a great age, but bright and devoted to the end. He himself was sixty-eight – an old man, but with Mary Anne he had felt young. He had always known what an emptiness her going would leave, but even so he had not believed it could be so great. There was nothing very much to life for him now, he supposed. Whatever ambitions were realised, there would be no one to share them with him. He knew that his triumphs had been doubled because he could come home and talk of them to Mary Anne over iced champagne and cold chicken; he knew that adversity would be greater without her to share it.

Life had certainly lost its savour.

He forced himself to sort out her papers and among them he found a letter addressed to himself.

She wanted them to be buried in the same grave, she wrote. She told him that he had been the perfect husband.

‘Do not live alone, dearest. Someone I earnestly hope you may find as attached to you as your own devoted Mary Anne.’

Never! thought Disraeli. Did she not know that for him though he searched the whole world, there could never be another like Mary Anne, whom he had made his Countess of Beaconsfield.

* * *

It was a tragic year. Shortly before the death of Feodora and the Countess of Beaconsfield there had been terrible news from Hesse Darmstadt. Alice had seven children. Really she had had too many far too quickly following on one another. The Queen was always deploring what women were expected to suffer in what she called the ‘shadow side’ of marriage. Her daughters did not seem to regard it as such and thought that the inconvenience and humiliation of birth was compensated for a thousand times by the children they produced. What Vicky had suffered over Wilhelm was amazing. She was constantly trying to find cures for his poor arm and the Queen believed that one of the reasons for his arrogance was that he was not disciplined enough.

And now poor Alice wrote in such distress. She had been in the courtyard of the Palace and little Frederick William, aged three, had suddenly appeared at the window. He had shouted to his mother and before Alice could call to the nurse he had leaned too far out of the window and fallen on to the cobbles.

‘My heart seemed to stop beating,’ wrote Alice. ‘Poor child! What a dreadful calamity!’

And now the child had died from his injuries.

How sad that one’s children had to grow out of their happy childhoods and live tragic lives of their own.

The Queen wrote long loving letters to Alice and was relieved that Dearest Albert was at least spared this terrible tragedy.

* * *

There was no end to family troubles. Bertie was growing plump and well; and as he lost his wan looks so he did his feelings of repentance. He was with his old companions again and there was scandal about the wild parties which were once more taking place at Sandringham. Stories reached her which she would rather not have heard. For instance, it was whispered that Bertie and Alfred were looking for a house where they could entertain their actress friends. They were too fond of the company of actresses. Bertie’s friends were men of questionable morals. In spite of that unsavoury Mordaunt affair Sir Frederick Johnstone was still constantly in his company; his greatest friend was Lord Hartington – Devonshire’s heir – known among his acquaintances as Harty-Tarty. Not without some importance in the political world, Harty-Tarty was a very unusual man; he pretended to be rather stupid, which might have been to call attention to the fact that he was really rather clever. One of the richest men in the country, he liked to go about looking like a tramp. Worst of all, of course, was his liaison with the Duchess of Manchester, a young German of great personality who had married the Duke of Manchester. Manchester was hardly a suitable husband for any young woman and Countess Louise von Alten, as the Duchess had been before her marriage, was not the woman to make the best of such a union. She had immediately selected Hartington as a more congenial companion; his political aptitude and his eccentricity appealed to her. They had been together for many years so that their affaire was almost a marriage; but of course it was rather shocking and the Queen had often warned Alix about being too friendly with the Duchess of Manchester. Poor Alix, as though she had any say in the matter!

Bertie had taken a long holiday convalescing after his illness but the better he grew the more he invited scandal. He was as at home in Paris as he was in London and he had a wide circle of friends there – aristocratic, elegant, extravagant and, the Queen feared, immoral.

There was no controlling Bertie – and Alfred was as bad without having half his brother’s charm and good nature.

Children were a trial; and not only children! Poor Napoleon had died at Chislehurst and many of his adherents had come over to attend his funeral. They had tried to work up enthusiasm for a protest against the new republic and Bertie behaved tactlessly in his good-hearted generous way by inviting several of the agitators to Sandringham, because he said they were friends of his. Mr Gladstone was most put out and very critical. The Prince’s sense of political decorum was sadly lacking, he said.

So life was becoming as difficult as it had been before Bertie’s typhoid attack. And now Alfred was set on marrying the Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna, the daughter of the Czar of Russia. The Queen did not like the idea of a match with Russia. She knew that Bertie and Alix were in favour of it because Alix’s sister Dagmar was married to the Czarevitch and Marie Alexandrovna was consequently connected to them by marriage.

It was all so distressing and what sort of a husband would Alfred make the young woman after the kind of life he had led? At least if Bertie was gay that had come mainly after marriage – so she believed. Of course there had been that disgraceful affair at the Curragh Camp.