Chapter Text
“It is time, Victoria, you end this so-called ‘attachment’ with him.”
At first, she laughed. Quite astonished, quite unabashedly, quite unbelieving of what she was hearing. She expected, if she laughed, they would begin to laugh with her, and the very idea would be carried away on the air with the sound of their chuckles. But she was met with earnest stares, and unmoving lips, and her own laugh dissolved almost as quickly as it had first sounded.
Uncle Leopold, first, so close to her that she could smell his acidic breath and see how his ascetic brow wrinkled before her eyes, then her husband, stood behind him, cold as a wall of stone, and just as adamant, then her mother, with her unbearable maternal gaze: faux-gentle, faux-loving, faux-motherly. They were aligned before her and she, powerless, felt the crumbling of her resolve.
They treated her ‘attachment’ as a ribbon bound around a parcel, trifling and pretty in its way, but destined to be cut off.
“There is no harm in it!” she cried, shaking her head, a vague smile plastered over her face, uncomfortable. “It is letters, that is all.”
“Drina, you have invited the Lord Melbourne to the palace more than once… and you have visited him, too!” The Duchess began, stumbling forward a few steps, holding out two despairing hands.
“And even if it were only letters. He was your Prime Minister. It is not appropriate,” Leopold added, blocking the Duchess’ advances, appealing with a wry grin to the Queen, as one appeals to a whining dog.
“He was my Prime Minister, and is no longer!”
“But he is still a Whig,” was Leopold’s response. Damning. Agonising. Yet irrefutable. Victoria gave a sigh, half-laugh and half-lament, and turned her eye to her husband. Upright, stood in a collection of pale shadows behind Leopold’s shoulder, his expression was like a shrouded mirror. She pleaded to him without words. Now, surely, after everything, he would defend her – as he must know it would make her so happy if he would. Please, Albert – her eyes begged – you must understand.
“Leopold is right, Victoria. If anyone were to discover-“
“How would they? Private letters between Lord Melbourne and I are no concern of the country!” Her distress was getting the better of her now: painting her face with red, clouding her mind with heat, stressing her voice into shrill exclamations.
“You are Queen, Victoria. You must know that everything you do is a concern of the country.”
“I do not need you to lecture me about my position, Albert! Or any of you!”
“Victoria.” There is was again. There is always was. Just as soon as she felt confident, powerful, independent, or beautiful, there was someone there to strike her down with a condescending cry of ‘Victoria’ – to belittle her, as they did at Kensington. They would cut her down, as one does a flower, and put her prettily in a pot to fawn at as it slowly wilts and dies. They would box her in to make her small as can be, so they felt in control of the flame that moaned and writhed inside her. “You must be rational.”
“I am being perfectly rational.”
“Drina-“
“Mama! I wish you would not call me that!” Her mother retreated back into the darkness like a startled creature. Victoria could have felt guilty, were she another woman, a different daughter. A deep breath gave birth to a calmer tone, carefully controlled like the eye of a raging storm, “So you will force me to sever ties with my oldest friend?”
The Duchess desperately tried to placate her daughter,
“You will have Dash!”
“So, all my companions shall be dogs?” she replied, “That is your grand plan, is it? So, I can remain like warm wax, to be plied by your hands alone?”
“You would rather be influenced by your family,” Albert began, stepping forward into the light, which was pale enough to make him look icy, “than by a politician.” Victoria snapped back at him, her vexation taking form in venom, which seemed to spit from her tongue at her husband,
“Lord Melbourne wishes only the best for me.”
“That may be so, Victoria, but you must be seen to be impartial.”
“But – I –“ What was she to say? Any reply she gave now would sound foolish. She knew, in the logical faction of her aching mind, that she was being foolish. They were right – though it grieved her excessively. Any reply she gave now would be picked up by her prosecutors, and thrown back at her, only for her to stoop to the ground to collect the broken pieces. It would only make her feel stupid. What was she to say, when she knew she was the only soul on earth who would understand the desolation? “So I shall cut off all contact with him right this very moment?”
“No,” Leopold began. He was leaning down as if explaining the ways of the world to a child. If only she were taller. If only she could look down on him, “To cut off communications so suddenly would only cause suspicion. You must be tactful.”
“A month, I’d say.” The voice was her husband’s. She turned a teary gaze to him. How could he persecute her in this way? Hasn’t he a shred of mercy?
“And, in that month… what?”
Leopold replied,
“You treat him as you treat any other minister. He can come to the palace on occasion, but – as time goes on – these visits will become less and less frequent. You can write to him, but these – too – will become fewer. You say your goodbyes. And, in one month, he will be nothing more than a fond memory for you.”
How dare he pretend to know how fond his memory would be to her? He would roll her awful fate in sugar to try and make her swallow it. She was already gagging it up again. She could feel it in the base of her throat, a tightening, like she was choking, the taste of bile and phlegm.
“Can I tell him?” she choked. No. Remain strong. They cannot break you.
“It would be best of you did. He will have to know his duty.”
He already does! She could have screamed it at them. They thought themselves so clever, so high and mighty, so royal, that Lord Melbourne was leagues and leagues beneath them, and worth nothing!
How could they not understand all he was?
“I am sorry, Drina-“
“No, Mama. I do not ask for your apology. I would like very much to be left alone.” Not a single person stirred. Their quiet defiance struck Victoria at the core, and they only conceded after her cry of, “You may leave us.”
Leopold took the Duchess from the room. They were both silenced by the Queen’s anger, but quietly proud that they had beaten her. Albert remained. He was about to speak, but Victoria would not let him have the first word,
“I said I would like to be left alone.”
“Victoria, don’t-“
“That includes you, Albert,” she said. Albert hated hearing her use that voice. She did not sound like a wife, or a lover, or even a woman. It was the tuneless cadence of a monarch’s voice. And it was indisputable. He left her, with no other option.
And Victoria was left alone to write and re-write letters to Lord Melbourne. The first she wrote was scribbled in bubbling ink, screaming from the page in agony and riddled with curses against her family who had always tried to stifle her. But that draft was scrunched to a stone, and tossed into the enveloping flames. She watched as the words she had written turned to glowing embers, like tiny droplets of flaming rain, and she could imagine that the light she saw was the very spirit of her passion, rising into the air: red-hot. She tried to be less ardent in her second draft; she wrote pragmatically, orderly, monarchically. She wrote the facts, and only those, and informed him as she would inform a manservant or a chef. But she destroyed that letter in the fire, too. One was too heated, the other too cold. One was too personal, the other too distant. One was a heartbroken woman, the other an unfeeling Queen.
Finally, sat in morning light of the window and only now beginning to hear the soft pattering of the spring rain, she resolved to invite Lord Melbourne to the palace, to tell him in person.
Dear Lord M,
I must ask you to come to the Palace at your earliest convenience. I have something very important to discuss with you. I hope you will be prompt, as I will be awaiting your arrival.
Victoria R.I
Lord Melbourne was asleep – a state he had so often found himself in when he felt he should be continuing his work on St. Chrysostom – and he was only awoken when his manservant entered with a silver platter and a letter.
“What is it? Can’t you see I’m working on my study!” he barked, pulling himself from the folds of his armchair into a position that appeared more waking than sleeping. His manservant, however, was not so easily fooled by the gentleman he had served for the better part of his adult life, and replied with more than a hint of sarcasm,
“Of course, sir. You are hard at work, I know.” If Lord Melbourne did not know the man so well, he would have him expelled for that. Or not. The effort may be too great. “But there is a message from the Queen.”
Lord Melbourne sighed. Hearing from her now always brought him pain. And, yet, he could not deny a tinge of something warm and invigorating caressing the tips of his fingers and the edges of his mind. After all this time, he still loved her, and that was as much grief as it was intoxicating. As exciting as it was awful.
“Leave it with me.”
The letter was placed on the table beside Lord Melbourne, who glanced at the handwriting. Ah. It was as familiar to him as his own hand, and twice as beautiful. His manservant left, closing the door behind him, and Melbourne turned to the pile of books that he had collected. Various volumes – leather-bound and yellowing – of Chrysostom, theology, Catholicism. Subjects that seemed so tedious to him now; that had once brought him such comfort, such life. He looked to his portfolio, what he had already written, and what he was yet to write. He knew it was all waffle – of course. He knew he should give up now. But he felt, whilst he still had Chrysostom, he had something of his youth, of his past. A totem of a happier time. Something he could still cling to, with cold fingers, that was far removed from matters of the Queen.
When he was working late at night, sometimes he could make himself forget. And those moments were often bliss.
But, today, it was evident he could not trick himself into forgetting – and so he progressed. He took a final look at the work he would never finish, and decided to leave it in favour of Queen Victoria. A jacket was fixed around his shoulders, creased just so, and his necktie was arranged precisely. His shoes had been shined, and he fixed his hair that had been ruffled from his nap. The Queen was ready to see him, and he must see her.
Arriving at the palace, Victoria greeted him with no less warmth but more urgency that he was used to. Her step was quicker, her gaze frantic, her arms stretched further to take his hands and, once she had grasped them, he noticed her palms were clammy. His palms, too, threatened to sweat – though not for the same reason, he thought. She gave him no time to kiss her hand but said, unprompted,
“I would very much like to have ridden with you this morning, Lord M.”
This was a strange introduction. But Lord Melbourne laughed sincerely, and replied,
“But the weather does not permit, I see.” There was now a steady rumble, thundering on the shutters and cobbles of London. “Perhaps when the skies are clearer, Ma’am,” he said, consoling her, though he knew – even if it were the clearest day in the very midsummer – he was not in good enough health for riding. Though, he would love to ride with her again. She had never looked more beautiful – he was sure – than when her face was painted with the healthy red glow of exercise, pink in her cheeks and huffing clouds forming before her face. Her hair would fall in strands from her bun, making her look refreshingly human. She had never quite smiled so. He would give anything to see it again. She smiled at his promise. Melbourne – however – had known the Queen for long enough to see a sadness behind her smile, like the condensation on a window, internally lit. “You said you had something urgent to talk of?” he prompted, growing wary.
“Yes.” Victoria’s throat was growing small again, tight, thin, and air was growing sparse. “I have been informed – no – I have been forced to consider… the… condition of our attachment, Lord Melbourne.”
Lord Melbourne. He felt a pang of torment at hearing her use that name. It felt so formal – so wrong. Though, of course, it was right. They must not be so friendly.
“Our attachment, Ma’am?” he replied.
“Our letters, and visits,” Victoria replied. Melbourne continued the charade of misunderstanding, because it was less painful than telling her he understood.
“What of them?”
“Leopold, and Albert, think we are too friendly.”
“Well,” he chuckled, “they may be right, Ma’am.”
“I do not think so! I am sure we do not have a thing to be ashamed of,” she cried, pulling her hand away from Lord M’s grasp. She could not have been angry with him, but he could infuriate her, sometimes. She was sure through no conscious act on his part – and that only made it all the more infuriating. Pulling herself higher, raising her chin, she said, “They have given us a month, before we must end it.”
“Ah.”
There was a bitter taste in his mouth: the pain of losing her tinged with relief, that he could finally retire, retreat and regret. Weaved into it, at least, would be the fine white light of Brocket Hall, the threads of the muslin curtains, the rookery, and the orchid petals in the glasshouse. But a month? He would sooner go mad. He would sooner cut her out, sever the very veins of it, leave himself bleeding but at least get it done quickly. It would give him time to heal, at least. But prolong the inevitable for a whole month? His heart wept to consider their borrowed time.
“I will not be able to write to you, or hear from you,” she began, shaking her head, and staring intently at the carpet to keep herself from gazing at him. If she did, she would cry. “Everything I hear of your wellbeing will be through the mouths of others, in the form of idle gossip, and all you hear of me shall be through proclamations and newspapers! There will be no talking to one another anymore; not real talking. Not as it has been, when we have learned of one another, and made each other laugh. You will be barred from the palace like a criminal, and I from Brocket Hall. Our days are numbered. I can hardly bear it.”
“I know it is difficult to image, since I have been your advisor for so long, continuing without me, Ma’am, but we both know it could not go on forever.”
Her gaze flitted up, and there he was. Just as handsome now as he had been at Kensington. She was only eighteen then. She knew nothing of men or politics. And she had been so afraid. But he had been the one to lift the curtain, and all the world that he had unveiled was nothing compared to him. He had given her all the light in the world, though she hardly knew it. She sighed, and with her sigh she breathed the perfume of a broken heart: rose petals, charcoal, bitter fruit and parchment.
“But I did not think the end would come so soon.”
“Well… no, Ma’am, neither did I, but that is the nature of the crown.” So pragmatic.
“I suppose you’re right, Lord Melbourne.” A sharp intake of breath and a straightening of her spine was carefully conducted to give the impression of propriety. Logically, he was right. Emotionally, he could not have been more incorrect. A moment passed between them, until Victoria – overcome suddenly with emotion – cried out, “Oh Lord M! How can you be so unfeeling? Does this not upset you in the slightest?”
He could have given in, in that moment, the undisturbed moment to which no other soul but theirs was privy, and he could have told her how it hurt him bitterly to have to leave her, but he knew that – if he did – it would only make the pain more acute. His mouth trembled with unspoken words. He swallowed the words he would not dare speak, and replaced them with new ones, proper words,
“Well, yes, it is bittersweet, certainly, your Majesty. But I am sure you can carry on quite well without me.”
“And what will you do?”
“Return to Brocket, of course. The rooks are so active this time of year. You can see them building their nests when the weather is clear, and their cawing can be heard in every area of the gardens. And I have a book to finish. And a glasshouse to care for-“
“And you will be content in that?” she asked, suddenly. Her eyes were full of water, and her voice full of meaning that she could not have understood. Could she see right through him? How could she know; at once; at all?
“Yes, Ma’am.”
His voice was stiff. Unfeeling. Void of warmth. And she recognised it at once; at last. Sobs threatened to stifle her, and she turned her face over her shoulder to hide her crumbling. One. Two. She breathed deeply, closing her eyes, willing no tears to fall. Be brave. And so she was, like a bronze statue of a Queen, not a living, breathing woman, she pulled a sheen over her features and a coldness on to her skin. And it felt as heavy as metal. Turning back to him, she asked,
“But you will spend this last month with me, yes?”
William could feel his heart breaking already. To laugh with her. To talk with her. To hold her hand and kiss it. To study the flutter of her eyelashes and the rise and fall of her breath. And to have all this, and know every time it was coming closer to the last, it would kill him. But what a sublime death. What a joyful agony.
How could he possibly refuse her?
“Your Majesty, it would be an honour to spend one last month in your company.”
To that, she smiled. Though she felt she had no reason to smile, she had hope there may be beauty to come yet.