Victoria (2 page)

Later

Book under plaid cushion in Fanny's dog basket, just in time. Grampion moved the footstool over by the fireplace, to put my damp boots on. When he went out, I slipped my hand underneath the dog cushion to get my book, and also found the bit of ham bone Cook gave Fanny for barking at the rat in the umbrella stand. I have been going off, distracted, and did not finish confessing why I got this book. I suppose one reason to write regularly … is so as to be certain to tell all. Some days, a great deal occurs. Other days, scarcely anything but weather, hems being let out (or getting tripped on and ripped out), and what sort of pudding was served at tea. I shall attempt to be thorough in thinking about all that happens and what I am learning. I shall have to become a v fast writer. (For example, that is a fast way to write “very”!)

I am going to hide this diary, where no one will come across it, and I can get it without drawing attention, and write in it. The way today has proceeded, I expect I will have the most chances to write when the bedchamber is quiet and Mamma is abed, after Lehzen has lighted the night lights and dozed off. I cannot keep it under the mattress, for Lutie or the other maids would find it when they came in to change the linen on Mamma's and my beds. For now, I will slip it behind the big, ugly mauve settee in the upstairs drawing room. No one moves the thing, even to dust, so my book is probably safe there.

When Feo comes back to England, or when I go to Hohenlohe or Coburg or Vienna as I long to, perhaps to visit Feo and her dear husband, Prince Ernest, there … to Feo, I will show this journal. Only to you, darling sister!

See, here is a list of cows' names someone wrote in the ledger:

 

Baby

Dolly

Polly

Pet

Winner

Tully

Nellie

Nancy

Vinia

Rose

Agnes

Vashti

2 April

It is the most unfortunate thing for a girl not to remember her own father. Dear sister, Feodora, you must know this is so. Even you, who knew your own father for a while when you were small, and then had my own Duke Papa to be, as you said, the best of stepfathers to you and Charles – you must understand what I feel, to have
no
such store of recollections.

I try to push my memory back as far as I can make it go. Sometimes, I even pray a saint or guardian spirit will bless my memory. I would like to believe it is my own remembering that provides my idea of the tall man whose face filled the sky above my little bed. He speaks toward me, in this dream-memory I have of him, and he says,
Victoire, Liebchen
.
Victory
. I am not sure I remember him saying,
Victoria
.

Uncle King is the one who made them call me Alexandrina Victoria, I know. My Papa didn't much like his brother George insisting my first name be in honour of Tsar Alexander – even if he is King George IV of England. Maybe Papa first called me Drina in order not to mix me up with Mamma being “Victoire,” and Captain Conroy already naming his daughter for her. Do you remember, Feo? When he died, I was only eight months old. Maybe what I remember is only what Mamma and you and our brother, Charles, and Uncle Sussex have told me. I wish my Duke Papa were still here.

Later

For breakfast this morning, we had eggs and sausages, and apples and onions fried in bacon drippings, and buns as hard as the back of your head. I asked our dear old de Spaeth, “Baroness, why is the bread so hard this morning?”

She has been Mamma's lady-in-waiting for so many years, she is always at pains to be tactful. She said, “Perhaps it is because Sir John told Cook not to waste anything.” I am supposed to call Captain Conroy “Sir John” nowadays, but I shan't, not in my own book.

Later, I asked my tutor, the Reverend Mr Davys, why Captain Conroy would do such a stingy thing as to deny us fresh bread. Mr Davys said, “Perhaps because it is Lent.” So I didn't say anything about sausages and bacon to Mr Davys.

Toire Conroy, that sneak, hides behind curtains to listen in, and then tattles. Unless she's lying, the bread was hard because her papa said Uncle Ernest might hire a poisoner if he goes mad, as Grandfather George did, so, there was no soft bread, which might conceal vile tinctures. Victoire says Uncle Ernest murdered his servant.

I said to her, “Did you see him do it?” She said, “No, but everyone says so.” I said to her, “
I
don't say so, so, it's not
everyone
, is it?” She said, “Your Highness is not
everyone
. And you are not told
everything
.” I said, “I never said I am. But
you
must not talk about the Duke of Cumberland, my Papa's big brother, that way.” She said, “No, no one must say what you don't like, must they, Your Highness?” But that was not my point.

She says “Your Highness” as if she is spreading treacle on toast. Treacle with ants in it.

Later

Feo, I asked Charles, who is here for Easter holidays, what he thought of people who put rocks in front of one when one wants a nice, soft, warm bun. Charles just laughed and said, “Why,
Schnösel
, it's to remind Mamma to write notes to everyone who might notice your birthday's next month.”

He means that Captain Conroy is hinting to Mamma that she should write to His Majesty, my Uncle King, that our household requires more income from him or from the public treasury, and that would be a good birthday present for me when I turn ten years old.

I myself would prefer a tame young giraffe, like the one Uncle King has in his menagerie. Or, possibly, another jewel like the one His Majesty gave me two years ago, with diamonds all around his little portrait painted on a bit of china, like a rose on a teacup. Only, I would rather it be a painting of someone else, someone good-looking. His Majesty is too puffy nowadays, I'm afraid. It is because he has been so unwell. Everyone whispers about his health with dread. I wish with all my heart that it were not so. But his face looks so purple sometimes, he looks more like a bunch of heliotrope than a rose. So, I suppose, diamonds or not, I'd rather have a sweet, dear giraffe, with its cunning little knobby horns.

But, as to O'Hum (my name for Captain Conroy) working for my Duke Papa in the army to begin with, and managing Mamma's budget now and not just the horses, and ordering Cook, and all – they
all
think I am too young to understand what they are discussing. I think Charles and O'Hum
both
are dull to Mamma's feelings as a lady and a princess born, and as a duchess, and twice a widow, too, always to have to bring up the subject of the cost of everything. Any enjoyment she might have in meeting with my Father's family is always overshadowed by this matter of the budget. It is not elegant.

Besides, O'Hum is always telling Mamma how spiteful my uncles are, and how jealous they were of my Father. I think Mamma is afraid to vex them with complaints of what things cost, but she is afraid to displease O'Hum by not writing the letters as he thinks she ought. He even makes disapproving remarks about dear Uncle Leopold, Mamma's own brother, who is always so kind to us and so generous. O'Hum says Uncle Leopold does everything little by little and does not know how to get his horse over a hedge. This is not true. Uncle Leopold rides well.

3 April

Rain this morning, and fog. At half past nine the Reverend Mr Davys came to the drawing room for my morning Bible lesson. We have been reading about Jacob's sons, and how abominably they treated their half brother Joseph. I must say, I am glad Feo and Charles never behaved to me that way! Well, Feo never did. When Charles is around, he does always take sides with a Certain Person. He calls the rest of us “hens”. We are not amused by that.

I asked Mr Davys why all the older brothers were so jealous of Joseph's coat. Would not the older sons inherit so much more of their father's fortune that one nice coat to wear would not be too much for little Joseph?

But he said, “I believe they … ahh … they wanted to be the ones to receive their father's blessing.”

Then he rustled around in his chair the way he does. It often takes him a while to phrase his answers, and his hair looks like jackstraws by that time. Even Uncle Leopold says he is a lesson in patience.

By and by, Mr Davys said, “But, perhaps, you know, it was not so easy for Jacob to love the ones who were only eager to have what he'd leave them? Perhaps, not so easy as to love the one who … ahh … loved him for himself. Expecting no preference, you know.”

His hair was sticking out like little bird wings around his ears. I fancied he looked something like Mercury in his winged cap. But even so, he looked very meaningful when he said that. I think he wants me to understand why my Uncle King is so fond of me and so perfectly, stylishly polite and utterly selfish toward Uncle Billy and Aunt Adelaide, and Uncle Sussex, and Uncle Cambridge, and Uncle Cumberland, and His Lordship the Duke of Wellington, and Uncle Leopold, and all.

Of course, Mamma enjoys a degree of
almost
sisterly affection with my Aunt Sophia, as she does live here in Kensington Palace with us and Uncle Sussex. Mamma says my Papa was sorry for his princess sisters who were never permitted to marry. The whole of Grandfather George III's immediate family is not hostile to us, even though Mamma is a trifle more German in her habits. After all, the Royal Family of England also holds the Throne of Hanover, and that means we are all somewhat German.

But some of Papa's relations are no more fond of O'Hum than I am, I can tell. (Uncle Sussex calls him “that Irishman” – I heard him.) But Mamma is inclined to trust Aunt Sophia's sympathies, because before Papa died, he advised Aunt to entrust matters of her household purse to the Captain. It is unfortunate that Aunt Soap (she doesn't mind my calling her that) tells the Captain
everything
that is going on.

Uncle Leopold says Papa put “that devil” in charge of his affairs because O'Hum always saw to it that the horses were well kept, at least. And, for Papa, His Royal Highness the Duke of Kent, Uncle says, it was decent logic, because my Papa's military planning was one of his studied strengths.

So, all in all, O'Hum treats Princess Sophia just as sparsely as the rest of us, though she is a princess whose own father was King. But we do have nice horses and carriages. I would be very sorry not to have my mare, Rosa, I know.

I just wish O'Hum would allow Mamma to speak to me in German. I don't know so many words in French, and she is never quite sure what she's saying in English. This may seem an exaggeration, but I constantly feel that if I would like her to hug me, I must be prepared to stand before her and explain what “a hug”
is
. By that time, some visitor will have sent a calling card in, and there won't be time for her to attend to my request.

By the way – there was soft bread again today at teatime. Toire was probably making it all up, about the poison. I expect she has been reading about the wicked emperors of Rome. I believe their families were treacherous.

Later

Night light not quite guttered, Lehzen snoring delicately in her chair. I crept to the maids' closet and got a piece of rushlight to put in the candleholder, to keep the last of the wax burning. I am in the mood to write more about my day, lest I forget.

After lessons and before luncheon, Lehzen and I played dolls. I was going to make the two Dutch peg dolls we bought last week into opera characters – von Weber's Oberon, perhaps, and Beethoven's Leonore. But instead, we made them into Duke Omar and Duke Zepho. They are in the Bible. They were Joseph's cousins.

Omar had a sort of dressing gown of dark red plush, and Zepho, of Roman-striped ribbon, blue, red, green, and white. (I made Zepho.) We made sashes of gilt soutache trim, and cunning little white head-cloths tied on with black buttonhole thread. I drew Duke Zepho's face with brown ink, and one eyebrow goes up so he looks comical, though I didn't plan that. Lehzen drew Omar in black ink. She says her hand slipped, and he looks like an Italian dandy. But I think he looks more like Mr Punch in the puppet show at Uncle York's when I was eight.

Katherine is still my favourite doll, though. I tuck her in by my pillow every night.

5 April

Finally! A fair day, warm and pleasant! Mr Westall, my art tutor, and Aunt Soap and I went outside to sketch in watercolours. The footman, Grampion, went back and forth four times and brought out three India rattan chairs and two easels which, however, we did not use after all, it was so breezy. It turned out to be much easier to work with the drawing board on one's lap, so one could hover over the painting and keep the colours from drying too fast and streaky.

I painted a charming clump of ferns, with a VERY real-looking heartsease next to it, purple and gold with a saffron centre like a pheasant's eye. Mr Westall painted the vista overlooking the lime walk, with the yellow jasmine just opening. He painted it so quickly, but he captures so much perspective with the littlest quirk of his brush! I fear I will always be awkward, compared to his genius.

But the heartsease has a
look
to it.

Aunt Soap fiddled constantly with the lumpy brooch holding her shawl. She only wears it because my Uncle King gave it to her, not because it's well suited for the task. Other than that, she read the whole time. She does not turn pages very often. I think she is a slow reader. I am a fast reader. She says when she takes me to visit Uncle Sussex in his library, since it is practically on the other corner of the palace, she does not like to hurry right back to our apartments. I can read a good deal in his books without having to bring them back here – and without Aunt Soap catching on that I read so much. It's almost the only way I manage to read any novels for myself.

Mama and Lehzen don't approve of my reading novels. It's not part of the Kensington System of Education. They say I am too young for most fictions, except Mrs Trimmer. Mrs Trimmer supposedly writes “improving” stories that will make one a wise child. I think they could use much improving, themselves.

Here's a secret, Feo: Uncle Billy says so, too. He gave me
The Last of the Mohicans
last winter on a Sunday carriage ride, and advised me to keep it hidden in my fisher-fur muff. Sometimes he calls himself Good Old Hawkeye (like one of the heroes in the book), and then he laughs.

“Read now,” he said. “Presently, it'll all be nothing but dispatches and newspapers.”

I said, “Aye, aye, sir.” He liked that. But I wish I could have Mamma's permission to read novels. I
want
to be good, but I
must
read stories.

I hope Mamma does invite Lady Northumberland to be my English governess, as she says she might, by and by. Lady N will be on my side sometimes, I expect. She thinks I am an advanced scholar for one my age. Imagine!

I am afraid I am too lazy ever to be a really scholarly sort.