I could see I was no match for her so I continued to brood in silence.

Lehzen was worried. I know now that she was thinking: It is Spath today. It could be me tomorrow.

It was a good thing that I did not know that then. I should have been completely terrified if I had. The thought of losing Lehzen too would have been intolerable.

It was from Spath that I heard more of what had happened. I supposed that when she had her marching orders she felt justified in being indiscreet.

“What started it,” she told me, “was due to that daughter of his.”

“Victoire?”

“Oh, I could do without those two… her and her sister Jane.”

She lapsed into German, which I understood well enough. Victoire had come to her while she was sitting at her tatting just after I had left for Aunt Sophia's apartments.

Victoire had taunted her. She wanted to know why she, Victoire, had not been invited to sing at the party. Why should Victoria go and she not? It was not fair. Her father was important. He was the most important man in the country. Everybody knew it. He gave the orders.

“It was more than I could bear,” said Spath. “I shouted at her, ‘You illbred monster. You have no right here, you and your upstart father…' She called me an old German woman and said I was a silly old fool, I… and caraway-seed-eating Baroness Lehzen, who had only been made a baroness because she had to mingle with people of high rank where she could not very well be a mere Fraulein.”

“Victoire can be a horrid child,” I said.

“Well, my Princess, I could bear no more, so I went to the Duchess. I was not thinking very clearly. I was so enraged. I said, ‘That Conroy child has been rude to me…' And your mother shrugged it aside and said she was only a child. I then lost my calm.”

“Dear Spath,” I said, “you never had much.”

“I said what I should not have said.”

“What, Spath? Tell me what.”

She shook her head and it took me a little time to prize it out of her.

“I said, ‘And that man, Duchess. The Princess Victoria has noticed… the friendship between you and him …' ”

“You really said that, Spath?”

Spath nodded.

Oh, it was clear to me now, Mama was guilty. Those flirtatious looks which Sir John bestowed on her and on others too …Aunt Sophia for one… but more on Mama… had a meaning. I felt horribly disillusioned.

I tried to comfort poor Spath. I told her that she would love being with Feodore.

“Feodore is the most loving girl in the world. Dear Spath, she is better than I…”

“No one could mean more to me than my dear little Victoria.”

“Oh, Spath you will love it! There won't be any storms… and you know how quickly they blow up. No storms and dear little babies. You know how you love them. And Feodore's will be especially lovely. Oh, you are going to love it. You're going to say it is all for the best. I have got away from the storms to these dear little babies.”

She shook her head. “My darling child, I know you can be willful… but then you can also be the most lovable little girl in the world, and I would rather serve you than any other.”

I wept with her and Lehzen came and found us together. She did not reprove us. She just sat with us, looking very sad. I had lost Feodore, Uncle Leopold, and now Spath.

Fearfully I wondered: Who next?


* * *

MY FEELINGS TOWARD Mama were changing rapidly. It was all because of Sir John Conroy. I disliked him more with every day which passed, and I blamed him for taking Spath away from me.

Instinctively I knew that he wanted to remove Lehzen in the same way. But that was something that I should never tolerate.

I began to see very clearly what was going on. Mama was one of those forceful women who want to rule everyone about her. How delighted she would have been if she had been destined to become Queen. In fact if ever I ascended the throne she wanted to be there, not beside me, but ruling in my place.

And with her would be that odious man. They would be King and Queen; they would rule the country as they now ruled the household.

Mama was always talking disparagingly about the King. What an old fool he was; he was doubtless going mad; anyone less like a king she had never known. He went among the people like a common man. Some might be able to behave so. Not bumble-headed William. He looked what he was, a foolish old man teetering on the edge of madness. He had even said on one occasion that he and his wife were quiet people. The Queen and he liked to sit by the fire, she tatting and he “nodding a bit.” If he got bees in his bonnet he would forget all dignity and make speeches about them—incoherent, rambling, boring speeches. That was her opinion of him. She even spoke kindly of Aunt Adelaide in her condemnation of him. “Poor thing, she has a lot to put up with. The best thing he can do is join his forefathers and leave the throne for those better able to manage it.”

That meant Victoria, of course, with Mama in control!

And in control she would be if I were not eighteen years old. When I reached that magic age I could tell Mama: No! You will not do this and that, because it is my wish that you should not. What a day that would be!

Mama was so exuberant now that she talked to me more openly.

“There will be a Regency,” she said. “That is if he dies before you are eighteen. You are not quite twelve yet. Six years. He can't last that long.”

I hated to hear her talk like that of poor Uncle William who had always been so pleasant to me; and I loved Aunt Adelaide who, I was sure, would be very unhappy if Uncle William died.

And I thought: A Regency! Mama as Regent! Oh no! Please God don't let Uncle William die until I am eighteen.

I thought I should never get over my sadness at losing Spath, but a greater catastrophe threatened. They were going to send Lehzen away.

I think they both realized that they would have to tread more warily over Lehzen. I had loved Spath but Lehzen was very special to me. She was, I had often said, the best friend I had ever had up to that time—and I meant it. If I faced any difficulties it had always been to Lehzen I had gone, and she had smoothed them out. She had been something of a disciplinarian, of course, but I think I needed that and I respected her for it. It gave me a sense of security. I could not really imagine my life without Lehzen, and as soon as I realized what was going on I became very determined to stop it.

I heard Aunt Adelaide say to Mama, “But you couldn't. It would kill poor Lehzen. Victoria is her life.”

They stopped talking when I came in—but I knew.

They shall never do it, I said to myself firmly.

I was growing up. I was destined to be the Queen; they must realize that they had to go very carefully with me.

Mama said to me one day, “Dear Feodore, she is so happy. Two little babies. What a joy. She needs a very good governess for them.”

I was alert. I said quickly, “I am sure she and the Count will find an excellent governess.”

“There is one Feodore would rather have than any other.”

I waited. Now it was coming.

“Who is that?” I asked in a cold voice.

“Well, there is only one,” replied Mama with a little laugh. “She is a very good governess, and now you are beginning to grow up, you need a different sort of tuition. Feodore would be delighted and so would dear Lehzen. She would be so good for the children.”

I said very firmly, “Mama, I could not do without Lehzen.”

Sir John had come in and I knew that they had discussed this together, arranging it, and he had come to add his voice to my mother's; that enraged me.

My mother laughed. “Oh, come, come. She was very useful to you when you were young, and I know how fond you are of her.”

“You do not know how fond I am of her, Mama,” I said. “She is the best friend I ever had.”

“My dear child, you have many friends and you will have many more.”

“There will never be one like Lehzen,” I said.

Mama laughed again. “Dear me, you are so vehement.”

“Yes, Mama,” I said. “Vehement and determined.”

Sir John said with an unpleasant sneering laugh, “Oh, here is the Queen herself.”

“I am not the Queen…yet, Sir John,” I retorted. “But I will not allow you to send Lehzen away.”

“You will not allow it,” said Mama.

“That is what I said, Mama. I will not.”

“You are only a child.”

“I am old enough… and I am getting older every day.”

“A profound statement,” sneered Sir John, “and one with which we must all agree.”

“If you attempt to send Lehzen away,” I told them, “I shall go to the King and ask him to forbid it.”

“That pineapple-headed old bore,” said Mama contemptuously.

“The King, Mama, whom I respect more than some.” I looked venomously at Sir John. “I am his subject and so are you… both of you. It would be well for us all to remember that.”

They stared at me in amazement and I could see that Mama was trying to reduce me to the child I once was. But I had acquired a new dignity since seeing that table in the history book. I was going to be the Queen, and as heir to the throne these two took their importance through me. But for me what would they be? I was young, it was true; but this was a matter of vital importance to me. I was learning to rule.

I could see that I was making some impression for they were both startled, and yes, I was sure they were a little alarmed.

“Oh,” said Mama, “I see we are in for a little storm.”

“Not a little storm, Mama,” I corrected her. “A big one. Lehzen is not going to leave me.”

“You are arrogant… conceited …,” spluttered Mama, her earrings shaking with the rage she felt.

“I am the heir to the throne,” I said. “I may be Queen very soon, though I hope Uncle William will live for a long time yet. But for now I say this: Lehzen is staying with me. I know the King will forbid you to send her away, and whatever you say about him he is the King and it would be well for us all to remember that we are his subjects.”

With that I walked out of the room. I was trembling with fear.

They were absolutely startled by my firmness—and so was I. But they knew they were defeated, and there was no doubt of it because there was no more mention of Lehzen's leaving.


* * *

I HAD SCORED a victory, but that did not mean that I had changed anything very much. Mama was still in command and although she realized that I could be what she called stubborn on matters over which I felt deeply, I was still the child as far as she was concerned.

Aunt Adelaide, who was a mediator between my mother and the King, intimated that, now I was recognized as next in the succession, I should appear more in public. Mama agreed with this.

Aunt Adelaide was doing everything she could to bring about a reconciliation between the King and my mother, and I have to say that it was Mama's fault that it was without success. That the King disliked her there could be no doubt, but if she had not continually asserted what she called her rights and attempted to push me forward and to behave generally as though Uncle William was already as good as dead and I on the throne, I think there might have been, if not a friendship, a fairly reasonable compromise between them. But she would not.

I was not so much invited to Court as summoned to Aunt Adelaide's birthday party celebration. I wanted to go. I loved such occasions. I was quite intrigued by the two Georges and they were very attentive to me on the rare occasions when I had met them; and there was dancing, singing, and playing games, which I very much enjoyed. Aunt Adelaide did everything possible to make all the young people happy, so I could have been very amused if I had been allowed to be.

That occasion was a failure. I should have thought that after my victory over Lehzen I should have been able to shake off Mama's influence, but this was not so and there were times when I felt completely overawed.

I was very apprehensive when I considered the way in which Sir John and my mother had managed to get rid of poor Spath and the attempts they had made to do the same to Lehzen. I was really worried and sometimes I felt very young and inadequate.

On the occasion of Aunt Adelaide's birthday there was a certain formality, which even the King could not escape, although, as my mother said, never had a king behaved with less majesty. This was true in a way. The King would go about and talk to his most humble subjects and when after a visit his guests left he would go down to see them off and help them into their carriages and then stand waving them off—which no king had surely ever done before. He was a bluff sailor, and he was not going to change his ways just because he was a king.