Victoria (10 page)

Later

Now I understand. Captain Conroy thinks Mamma should have it in writing, legally binding, that she would be my Regent until I turn
eighteen
– or
twenty-one
! I think he expects Parliament will increase her income merely on account of her being named.

So Mamma is going to devise some examination I will have to endure, to prove the Kensington System is the best way to educate a modern child. I wonder whom she will have to hear me recite my lessons. She says it must be someone more important and impartial than my own instructors, if it is to impress anyone.

I fear such an examination, Feo. It will be torture to be tested, by strangers, with so much at stake.

 

 

24 February

I hate Captain Conroy. He is a terrible influence on Mamma, him with his bishop in the family. Mamma has decided my examination will be by the bishops! But of course, not Toire's great-uncle, old Bishop Fisher, who says whatever one wants to hear and makes himself so friendly and gives one cinnamon lozenges. Mamma is writing to the Bishops of London and of Lincoln, and to
Archbishop Howley
of Canterbury, inviting them to ask me questions to see if I have studied sufficiently! I am v sorry now for how lazy and slothful I have been with studying my Latin and learning division and multiplication.

Terrible thought: What if Georgie Cumberland, that awful boy, knows his Latin better than I do? Will the bishops scold me? Is it a sin to answer incorrectly if the bishops have told one to learn something and one forgets? What if they did not tell one directly, but they think one should know it by a certain age? I listen to the sermons every Sunday in church, but one cannot remember all of it. The Bible is a v large book. And so is the
History of Great Britain
.

The Bishop of London was with my Papa the morning I was born, and so was Archbishop Howley. Perhaps they will be kind to me for my Papa's memory's sake.

But I do not see why the Reverend Mr Davys cannot report to them what sort of scholar I am. He knows what I have learned and what I am only now learning. He knows about the Kensington System. He knows I work at my lessons every day except the Sabbath. Even when we were on holiday, I did my studying.

Mr Davys recommended I fortify my fainting heart by reading the Bible story about Daniel in the lion's den. I did so, and it says Habakkuk made pottage (that means bean soup, I think) and took it to Daniel. I don't see how that's supposed to make me feel better.

Later

I have been trying to be brave about my examination. But I know I am not sufficiently brave. One thinks of courage as a virtue of the battlefield. I regret that I have already shown myself lacking in this virtue.

If I had been brave enough to speak to Captain Conroy directly, instead of sending my dear Baroness, perhaps I would have saved Mamma from being hurt and de Spaeth from being banished.

My conscience is not clear on this matter. I am a mere child, and should not have to govern the behaviour of adults. But I particularly wish not to be a coward. I am a Princess.

My Mamma is a Duchess who was born a Princess. Captain Conroy does not take orders that he does not like from either of us. Mamma gives him credit for more obedience than he provides. The plain fact is,
she
obeys
him
. And if I obey her as I ought, she makes me obey him. That does not seem right.

It is a problem for which I cannot find the key.

But I must be brave about being tested. It would be far worse if Uncle Cumberland were to be my guardian.

28 February

The Reverend Mr Davys asked if I read Daniel. I said, “Yes.”

He said, “And what moral has the story?”

I said, “If one wishes not to be lionized, one should eat a dish of bean pottage?”

He said he was pretty certain that was not it.

I ought to stop writing and begin to study my lesson books.

1 March

Before the bishops' questions, the Reverend Mr Davys tells me, we had better do the Monarchs of England: Lancasters, Yorks, and Tudors. We must also discuss William and Mary and the Colonies.

I said I should like to discuss a question with the bishops that I have in mind about a bit of Scripture. As long as they are listening. (I think I ought to get
something
for all my trouble, don't you, Feo?)

Mr Davys thought they would be charmed to be asked, but he prays me tell him what text I will cite.

Now I will have to think of a good question.

2 March

No good ideas.

3 March

Nothing I can ask.

4 March

I must come up with something.

5 March

Can only think of blockhead questions.

 

 

 

 

6 March

Went to Lambeth Palace, where the Archbishop lives. All the bishops had gathered there. I really do not admire red brick, even when it is aged. Inside, everything is v shining, with lots of wax on the woodwork and brass knobs and so on. One cannot help leaving smudges.

His Grace the Archbishop Howley seems to be bald. He wears an old-fashioned white wig that leaves his forehead uncovered all the way back to a place about even with the front of his ears. The effect is that his face is like a very large hard-boiled egg with a napkin laid across the top to keep it warm.

(When I reread what I have written, it sounds as if it is an amusing sight. However, it is not. Foolish though it was, I felt again my childhood horror that His Grace intended somehow to set me afire!) Yet he was not unkind to me.

The Right Reverend Bishop of London has thick, white hair of his own. He is shaped rather plump, like a hot chocolate pot, but billowy. His Grace the Bishop of Lincoln has wiry umber hair, a moderate amount of it, and piercing, small, dark eyes. He clears his throat every now and then in a most startling fashion that sounds a good deal as if he is growling. He did not smile much all afternoon. (I attempted a smile toward him, but v quickly saw he disapproved of it.)

Mamma was wearing a dark grey cashmere coat with black fur trim and a visiting suit of heavy grey silk sultana. She looked v beautiful, probably the most beautiful, sad lady widow they ever saw.

I was wearing a white twill merino frock with blue velvet bows and Swiss buttons. I think it is v infantile, but no one cares for my opinion. And my long, blue pelisse (one of my favourite cloaks), and my fisher-fur muff, but, of course, I took them off once we were inside, out of the cold.

At first, I think, Their Graces were not certain how to begin. We sat down. The chairs in Archbishop Howley's study are large and hard, upholstered with dark green plush that is faded to burnt sienna on the sides facing the windows. I wished Mamma would not be there. However, she was.

They asked me baby questions. Can I say the Lord's Prayer? Do I know the name of the river that flows through London? What subjects have my Masters been teaching me?

I said, “Reading, writing, adding, subtracting, drawing, dancing, music, history, geography, Scripture reading, languages, and orthography.” I might as well not have told them the whole list, because all they heard was the last word, and they tested me from the spelling list Lehzen had provided: instrument; regiment; testament; complexion; phlogiston; antediluvian; scurvy; decorum; account; beaux.

I got all of them right, because, after all, Lehzen had me study them especially. The archbishop asked me if I know what “decorum” means. They did not appear to care whether I know about flood, fire, or disease. Perhaps they think everyone knows what a regiment is and what a complexion should be.

I remarked that “beaux” is really a French word, and then they gave me some French spelling to do. London said, “
Fleurs-de-lis
,” and Lincoln said, “
Aiglon
.” London said, “
Verrière
,” and Lincoln said, “
Vérité
.” I pronounced them in French and said “lily flowers,” “eaglet,” “stained-glass window,” “truth,” and spelled them. His Grace the Archbishop said my accent is v lovely and like Mamma's.

Then London said, “How much German do you speak?” And I remembered the Captain always forbidding us to speak German, so I said, “I read it more accurately than I speak it.” Lincoln said, “If it please Your Highness, say something in German,” and I couldn't think of ANYTHING clever, so I just said, “
Kein Blumenkohl, bitte schön
,” and translated it, “No cauliflower, pretty please.” That seemed to be enough. At least, London smiled and said, “Let us see what Your Highness knows about the world, then.”

Remembering tires me. I'll write more tomorrow.

7 March

On with the tale of my ordeal. We did globes for a bit, capitals, northernmost seaports, ice-free harbours, principal products, forms of government. By and by, they began to open my lesson books, history and arithmetic and also Latin, to search for details on which to question me in the chapters Mamma told them I have mastered.

They asked a good number of Catechism questions and I recited the answers, but they did not ask what the answers meant.

They asked me to read a poem, then handed me one stanza of Mr Keats's “Ode to a Nightingale”. (I do not know if Mamma or Mr Davys recommended it. Uncle Sussex is the one who gave it to me to see if I would like it as a recitation piece, for it was written the same week I was born. But I do not have it by memory yet.) However, I read it with good feeling.

 

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

No hungry generations tread thee down;

The voice I hear this passing night was heard

In ancient days by emperor and clown:

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that oft-times hath

Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam

Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

 

London talks more than Lincoln. I would almost say he chatters, but that does not sound as dignified as a bishop is. He does run on. Dr Howley is far more stately.

I began to wonder if the Reverend Mr Davys had told them I wanted to ask a question. For I had thought of one, finally, the night before, and no one but the bishops probably could offer me assistance with it. I was not certain they would think it a good question, though.

I had told Mr Davys the text. It is the v end of St Mark's Gospel. I read it one day because I am the sort of person who sometimes wants to know the end I am reading toward. I know it occasionally spoils a surprise to do so. But it doesn't spoil a holiday in Ramsgate to know one is on the way to Ramsgate, when one is thirsty and hungry and bored and having to change horses in Strood, does it?

At long last, Lincoln said, “Your good instructor, Davys, has informed us Your Highness has a curiosity about the Gospel. Would you like to air your puzzle, dear Princess?” I did not trust his calling me “dear”, not one particle. He seemed impatient, and I feared he would think my question silly.

“I want to ask you, Your Graces,” I said (and I wished Mamma were not there, for she will tell Captain Conroy, and I know he will not understand), “about how Our Lord said we may test if we believe, truly.”

“Go on,” Dr Howley said. He and London seemed more interested than Lincoln did.

“Well,” I said (trying not to speak too quietly, for Lincoln seemed a bit deaf), “the verse says this:

 

These signs shall follow them that believe. In my name they shall cast out devils. They shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. They shall lay lands on the sick, and they shall recover.

 

“I am just a child,” I began, “and very imperfect and needing improvement. I have never cast out a devil. For a very long time, though, I did say my prayers on every occasion I went into the rose drawing room, because I was afraid of the ghost of my sister Feodora's dormouse that was in the cushion Sir John sat on. We didn't know if it would haunt the drawing room or the tiger lily bed where we buried it. And no ghost ever bothered me, so I thought perhaps that is something like casting out a devil.

“And you can see, I am learning to speak in new tongues. That is, Latin is not new, but it is new to me.

“My Mamma will tell you it is true that when we were travelling back from Ramsgate, the water at Faversham was VERY bad, and everyone got ill from it, but I did not. I cannot say why, for I certainly had to have some when I brushed my teeth, but I only rinsed and did not drink it – perhaps that's why. So I don't know if one can call that a sign.

“And then, when we got home, I laid my hands on Dash, and he recovered from being very ill. Still, he is only a dog. Perhaps that doesn't count with matters of religion.

“So, it seems to me I must go on trying to improve myself according to the Scripture. Now, I would like to be brave, like my Duke Papa and my Uncle York and Lord Nelson. I suppose that is where the serpents have to come into things.

“And here is my question: How am I ever to learn how to take up serpents, if my Mamma will not let my Uncle Sussex and Baroness Lehzen take me to Astley's Amphitheatre, This Month Only, to see the Wild Animal Tamer and Charmer of Deadly Cobras?”

Unfortunately, I received no answer. The Bishop of London had some strange sort of snorting, coughing seizure that sounded almost as if he were laughing at the same time. The Bishop of Lincoln whacked him rather severely between the shoulder blades. Archbishop Howley said he must consult with some doctors of divinity on the matter. We adjourned.