Jean Plaidy - Victoria in the Wings

A queen. A great queen.

He knew that he wanted to marry the Princess Victoria. If it were not for Julie he could be completely reconciled to his position. And what could he do? He had come to court the lady; it would be churlish not to do so.

She was charming; so were her children; she was serious and made no secret of the fact that the marriage would be one of convenience.

She told him quite frankly that she would forfeit a considerable income if she married. The Duke must understand that she would be giving up her independence.

He saw this clearly; at one moment he was anxious to urge her not to give up her freedom; in another he was almost imploring her to. He was unsure what he wished for. She was very attractive; he liked the children; and he kept hearing the gipsy’s prophecy.

Did she sense his hesitancy? Was that why she gave voice to her own? They were both mature people, she pointed out. They had sacrifices to make. She thought they should not make up their minds in a hurry.

He was relieved by the delay.

He returned to London but he did not call at Brussels on the way.

When he reached London a letter from the Princess Victoria awaited him. She had decided to give up a life in which she had enjoyed independence and comfort; but she hoped to find compensation in the Duke’s affection and the children they would have.

So he was committed. But he would keep secret … just at first. He would make sure that everything was made as comfortable for Julie as possible. She must be looked after. She must have an adequate income. She must be allowed to live with dignity. He must impress on everyone that Julie was no ordinary mistress. Theirs had been a marriage in all but the legal sense. Julie had never lived with anyone else. It was merely the fact that he was a royal Duke who could not marry without the consent of the King and Parliament that had prevented his marrying her.

They must understand this. She must have a dignified life, servants, carriages … He would accept nothing else.

He could not understand his feelings; they ran in opposite directions. Complete desolation at the thought of what he was doing to Julie; exultation at the future with Victoria.

Julie wrote to him. He must not grieve. It was inevitable. They must be thankful for all the happy years they had enjoyed together.

She wished him success in his new life. She herself had decided to go into a convent and he must think no more of her.

‘So,’ said the Queen, ‘Edward is happily settled. He could not have a better bride than the Princess Victoria. Now we must get William’s affairs arranged without delay.’

The Regent agreed.

‘Now that Parliament have made it clear that he cannot have his Miss Wykeham, he is reconciled. Parliament have supplied his reasons to the lady for him. He couldn’t have a better excuse.’

‘We must bring Adelaide over as soon as possible,’ said the Queen.

‘I don’t anticipate any difficulties.’

‘I shall not rest until they are married,’ said the Queen, moving stiffly in her chair. And she thought: I hope I live long enough to see the unions fruitful. But she did not mention this to the Regent who hated references to death.

‘It would be pleasant if we could arrange a double wedding,’ he was saying. ‘William’s with Adelaide, Edward’s with Victoria.’

WHEN ADELAIDE WAS born to the Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Meiningen there was great rejoicing throughout the Duchy, for after ten years of fruitless marriage it had been feared that their efforts to provide the heir were destined to fail.

A princess, it was true, when a prince would have been more welcome, but at least the baby proved that the Duchess was not a barren woman and a girl-child was better than none at all.

‘Nun danket all Gott,’ sang the choir at her christening; and the Duke gave orders that there were to be concerts and similar decorous celebrations throughout Saxe-Meiningen. In the mountain chalets and the inns of the Thuringer-Wald the people danced, sang and drank the health of the child who had been christened Amalie Adelaide Louise Thérèse Caroline.

The small Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen was north of Coburg and Bavaria, a land of rich green forests and mountains; since the Duke had come to power farming had flourished. The Duke was a man who had the good of his people at heart; he liked to mingle with them and discuss their problems – not in order to win popularity but to discover how they could be solved. When he had married Princess Eleanor of Hohenlohe there had been great rejoicing, for she was of the same mind as her husband; her great desire being to further the good of the people and to produce a son who would continue with the work she and the Duke had set in progress. Thus while the Duchy flourished there had been the shadow over it. What would happen when the Duke was no longer with them? Into whose hands would the Duchy pass?

And then had come the great news that the Duchess had given birth to a living child. And if the baby was a girl – still it was a child; and every man and woman in Saxe-Meiningen rejoiced for their Duke and Duchess and themselves.

The Duchess devoted herself to her daughter while she prayed that her union might be further blessed.

She was not disappointed. Fifteen months after the birth of Adelaide she was once more pregnant.

With what excited anticipation was the birth of this child awaited. Surely the prayers of the people would be answered.

‘Let it be a boy,’ prayed the people in the churches.

‘Let it be a strong healthy child,’ prayed the Duchess.

The Duchess’s prayers were answered but not those of the people and the Princess Ida joined Adelaide in the nursery.

The two little Princesses were the Duchess’s delight. She wanted them to be wise and good. Nor did she despair of providing them with a brother for she now seemed to have entered into a productive rhythm; two years after the birth of Ida she was ready to give birth again. This time there was a disappointment. Her daughter was still-born.

The two little girls were devoted to each other. Ida looked to Adelaide to lead the way and Adelaide was always conscious of the responsibility of looking after her younger sister.

Her mother had talked to her very seriously. ‘You are a princess, my dearest child,’ she told her. ‘You must never forget that. You are born with responsibilities.’

Adelaide looked in some alarm about the schoolroom as though she expected to see them there, but her mother smiled and laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘You will recognize them when they come,’ she said. ‘And then you must let nothing stand in the way of your duty. And you must help Ida to do the same.’

Ida was just a little frivolous. It was due to her being the younger.

‘You must always lead Ida in the right direction,’ said the Duchess.

And Adelaide was faintly worried, wondering whether she would know which was the right direction when the time came to lead Ida.

But of course it happened continually. She had to stop Ida stamping when she did not get her own way; she had to tell her how wrong it was to kick their nurses, to throw the milk over the table, to stare out of the window when she should be studying her books.

Adelaide recognized those responsibilities; and as the best way of teaching Ida was to set a good example she became a model of decorum herself. ‘Adelaide is such a good child,’ they said in the nursery. But Adelaide discovered that they were more amused by Ida and it was Ida who received the caresses, the smuggled-in sweetmeat. It was Ida who was the pretty one.

Their father frequently came to the nursery with the Duchess. He was often thoughtful on account of the burdens of State, but he wanted to see what the children were doing and he questioned their tutor Friedrich Schenk very closely and heard them read to him in French and Italian.

The Duke would take the inattentive Ida on to his knee and put an arm about Adelaide while he talked to them of the importance of learning. It was the gateway to knowledge. They must never forget it. They must listen attentively to everything Herr Schenk told them and they would discover how much more exciting it was to acquire knowledge than to play idle games.

He was starting a girls’ school in Meiningen. Was that not an excellent thing? He did not believe that the education of girls should be neglected. Perhaps he had a special affection for girls – because he had two of his own. Ida, watching the smile on his lips started to laugh, and Adelaide permitted herself to smile with him.

Yes, he wanted his girls to be an example to all the girls of the Duchy. In this school they would be taught Latin. So his girls must work hard at their Latin, for they did not want to be outpaced by his subjects, did they? Ida did not care in the least, but Adelaide could see that this must not be so and made a vow that she would try to work even harder and listen even more carefully to Herr Schenk.

Education and work, said the Duke, were the most gratifying things in the world. One must not forget work. That was why he had commanded that young people when they were not learning should work in the gardens or be taught trades. They earned money, and the Duchy had prospered in the last years because of work and education. He wished it to remain like that.

Adelaide listened gravely while Ida played with the buttons on his jacket.

Afterwards he said to the Duchess: ‘Adelaide is such a dutiful child. She will make someone an excellent wife when the time comes. I want good matches for them both.’

‘I am sure they will marry well. There are not many Protestant Princesses in Europe.’

‘Oh, you are thinking of England.’

‘The King has so many sons and they always come to Germany for their brides.’

‘I should like to see them marry into England.’

‘We shall hope,’ answered the Duchess, ‘and in the meantime look to their upbringing.’

‘I doubt the system of education in England compares with ours,’ said the Duke proudly.

‘I doubt it, too, now that you have introduced your schools, and the Duchy is becoming so prosperous.’

‘How I wish we could have a son.’

‘We shall not always be disappointed,’ replied the Duchess.

Adelaide remembered vividly the seventh year of her life. That was when the weather was so cold and the snow lay in drifts about the castle. She and Ida knelt on the window-seat looking out at the white-encrusted firs and listening to the wind whistling round the castle walls. Ida thought of ski-ing down the mountain slopes; Adelaide thought of the poor people who might not have enough fuel to warm their houses and keep out the cold. She asked the Duke how the poor managed to keep warm and he told her that he had given an order that they might help themselves to wood in the forest providing they did not take green wood. ‘For you see,’ he said, ‘our forests provide a large part of the Duchy’s wealth and to cut down striplings would be folly.’

Everything her father did was wise and just, Adelaide knew. He was a very stern and righteous man; and although his edicts sometimes meant a certain hardship, his people realized that everything he did was for their own benefit and they accepted this.

‘It is for your own good,’ it was a phrase Adelaide had learned to use to Ida.

There was a sadness in the castle too because it was three years since the Duchess had had her still-born daughter and it seemed as though the two-yearly happy event was not to be repeated.

It meant that the little girls were even more important than they had been before, because if the Duchess Eleanor was to have no more children Adelaide as the eldest daughter might take over the reigns of government.

It was an anxiety. But Adelaide was a serious child, pointed out the Duchess. It was true, but she must become even more serious and be made to realize the enormity of her responsibilities.

A new tutor was introduced to the schoolroom, Herr Hofrats Schmidt Buckeburg, and there were even stricter rules to be obeyed. There was to be no singing or dancing on Sundays.

‘It is a rule I have made throughout the Duchy,’ said the Duke, ‘and what we ask our people to do we must perforce do ourselves.’

Life was very serious. When the snows of that winter were cleared away the Princesses must drive through the country with their parents and see for themselves how the people lived; they must bring relief to the hard-working poor by taking them blankets and clothing – which they had helped to make themselves. Oh, those coarse shirts over which Ida wept tears of frustration and anger while she pricked her delicate fingers and spattered them with blood! Adelaide did not like to sew them either but she remembered her responsibilities.