Chapter Text
“It’s a feeling like nostalgia
Keeps me turning back to you
And a feeling like nostalgia
For the dreams that we once knew
If you’re feeling like what we were feeling is through
Why do I feel nostalgia?
Why do I feel nostalgia like you?”
(from "Nostalgia" by Mirror, featuring Dave Gahan)
*A beautiful, haunting song that really sets the mood of this piece. Video can be found on YouTube.
He had to rewrite the thing twice. The first copy was stained with brandy; the second with his desperate tears.
Why be honest now? Would she even care? She might even laugh. Find him a pathetic old fool. He did not want her pity. It was one thing to be brought low by scandal, but quite another to become someone to truly feel sorry for. How much humiliation could one man endure in a lifetime? Well, this he had brought on himself. Lord Melbourne knew it long before Victoria approached him at Brocket Hall.
His steady daydream for over two years was to be able to express his feelings for her, without reservation. To love her, cherish her...all those reasons he gave her to give up on modeling her life after that blasted Tudor Queen. Such all-consuming devotion now sat listless and despondent because his role had been diminished as of late, no longer her primary protector; her confidant – her almost companion.
He was not ready to let her go, which was completely hypocritical, given it was he who encouraged her to find a husband! Even though he knew marrying one’s first cousin was a terrible idea. What on earth possessed him?
Leopold.
Damn that man. Damn him, damn him, damn him and all his ‘subtle observations’ on the nature of his relationship with his niece. To imply that he viewed Victoria in any way besides as a close friend and mentor was utterly absurd.
No. No, it wasn’t. The King was so terribly spot on it hurt.
It was too much.
True, the thing had cost Melbourne a small fortune to have created, but what need had he for money these days? He had no wife to waste it on tawdry baubles and French perfume; no son to will it to when his time came; and no daughter in need of a dowry or lavish wedding ceremony. At least he would be able to afford the considerable medical expenses that would accrue as he drank himself to death. Perhaps, instead of a Bible, they should bury him with a full bottle of brandy tucked inside the crook of his arm. Alcohol was the closest thing to religion he had now that Victoria all but abandoned him.
Who would even mourn him? His family? Naturally. Friends? He could count his true friends on one hand. Colleagues and acquaintances could go sod off. He was no great Prime Minister – he would be leaving no impressive legacy behind for the public to recall for generations to come. Beyond this motley group, who would truly miss him?
Victoria. His heart would blanch at the thought of how his death would devastate her – strong yet sensitive creature that she was – as if it were not already hers to control entirely.
Almost since their first meeting – since that night his resolve nearly melted under the heat of a thousand candles, amidst the cacophony of color, sound, and too much champagne - he was hers, body, mind, and deplorable soul.
Lord Melbourne again contemplated his cruel move. But what was more gut-wrenching than watching the love of his life give his gardenia away to that clockwork nobody, however innocent her reaction to that ill-timed tale of woe? Perhaps it was a bit inappropriate, but at this late stage, after so many sleepless nights dulling his perception – often well into the next morning, with or without his beloved French-pressed coffee – he found he did not care one jot. His new companion, the daily hangover, would never disappoint him. And he could always handle things well if his affliction ever grew tired of him.
Or bored. Or found someone younger. More handsome. Less political.
Royal.
His stomach began to clench in knots, while the searing pain of overindulgence presented itself most demonstratively in that oft abused organ, as well as underneath his mercilessly graying temples.
He stretched in his worn armchair and rubbed at the familiar crick in his neck. The countdown to his own special version of purgatory was about to begin – he was to travel to Windsor Castle that evening for Christmas Eve festivities.
“Coffee!”
His manservant appeared seconds later, belying his hesitance. “My lord, I must inform you that, unfortunately, the brew is not palatable today. We believe the beans are not at all fresh. May we bring you some strong Assam tea instead?”
“Oh God!”
Melbourne leaned forward with his head in his hands and groaned in genuine agony while his servant stood at attention. Eventually his hand rose in a gesture of futility the experienced servant recognized as, “Yes, fine. Go on.” He bowed, uttering a practiced, “Very good, sir” and rushed back towards the kitchen.
Eight more hours until almost certain misery ensued.
"You had better not try that again, brother. It is most unbecoming,” Prince Albert warned in urgent, hushed tones to Prince Ernst, who merely chuckled and waved his fork full of fried potatoes in the air.
“I know not of what you speak, but I am sure you are just being a – how you do you say it? – ah, yes – a stick in the mud!” he replied with too much gaiety for so early in the day. He aimed his soulful brown eyes at Victoria, who sat silently chewing a small piece of toast laden with marmalade. Then he had the gall to wink at her.
She smiled blandly. “Is this what I have to look forward to, boys?” she said to neither brother in particular, reaching for her china teacup. While Albert scoffed, her Uncle Leopold patted her hand in mock consolation. He was spectacular at fake sincerity.
“Oh Victoria, how very little you know of what your cousins are capable of. And especially Albert here,” he nodded across the table. “No mere boy will bring you as many fine sons to carry on our impressive Coburg legacy.”
“Uncle!” Albert bristled, color high in his cheeks. He wondered how much longer he would have to endure this strange English breakfast, not to mention his uncle’s untimely remarks about spawning children. He was fully aware of what his duties entailed; of that there was no question. If only he could return to his borrowed room and curl up with one of the three novels he brought written by this bright fellow, Charles Dickens.
When the Queen proposed to Albert back in October, during his second visit to the castle, (which had nothing whatsoever to do with her mother and Uncle Leopold’s excessive extolling of the younger prince’s many virtues and attributes), she had been so sure, so immensely certain that he was her destiny. Victoria made what she believed to be a most rational decision after having reacquainted herself with her German cousin after only five days. Yet as she was so young and inexperienced, she easily got swept up in the windstorm of a whirlwind romance. And the fact that Albert was of royal lineage was just too good to be true!
Just as suddenly as she became infatuated with Lord Melbourne, he had been banished from her thoughts, locked away for some sentimental reason should she decide to reminisce about him long after her anger had worn off. Even after the gentlest of rejections, it still irked her that he dared to turn her down after she had poured out her soul to him. He effortlessly spun a tale about being like some bird called a rook and how he was too stuck on the memory of his deceased wife – the very same wife who cuckolded him with Lord Byron – to make room for her heart. It didn’t just feel like he threw her confession back in her face – he didn’t want her heart anywhere near his person, as if it were infected with typhus – or the plague!
About a week after the costume ball, everyone gathered to watch Victoria give a piano recital. She played dexterously, determinately, losing herself in the discordance of the melody, pushing that part of her who thought to give her whole heart to Melbourne to the deepest recesses of her mind. She did not pound on the instrument due to the nature of the composition; that was done for deliberate effect.
Melbourne sat in the audience, and she felt his eyes burning through her back like molten lava. She played with greater intensity then, practically slamming her lithe fingers against the keys, developing a mantra straight from her soul to help keep her strong and maintain her dignity– I will move on! Who is he? He is no one. I am Queen. I AM QUEEN. Over and over she would repeat herself. If Albert had not arrived and turned the page of her songbook when he did, she would fear for her very sanity.
Albert made her forget to be miserable. He challenged her – indeed, she discovered that hearing truth, as opposed to flattery, was refreshing. Albert was the same age, even sharing the same hair and eye colors. (Then again, they were related.) But while her eyes took on a darker, murkier oceanic blue, his were an icy, crystalline, pure blue. And the mustache! He had not worn one the last time she saw him. It was neither puny, nor flashy. It was elegant. He was elegant.
And he was so frightfully intelligent! University educated, he was not of an antiquated mindset, interested in tomes of the past like Lord M. Albert invigorated her mind in an entirely novel way. He broadened her worldview. Victoria found his secondhand telling of tales of the destitute living outside her very doorstep very compelling and heart-rending, while Lord Melbourne would never condone discussing such a sordid topic. Albert never shied away from expressing his opinions on even the most controversial issues of the day, which had not been part of her regular discourse with Lord M. She had been shielded from the world long enough!
It also didn’t hurt that Albert cut an exceptional figure in his form-fitting white cashmere breeches. Well, that was something her uncle had been correct about – he was most definitely not boy anymore.
At twenty, Victoria believed she was mature enough to know her own heart, and now had someone who could openly return her unquenchable affections. She felt perfectly aligned with Albert and giddily awaited his leather booted footfalls to pass through the archway of the Blue Room at Windsor. She had fragrant gardenias woven into her fashionable, sophisticated hairstyle, so au courant, as Skerrett had remarked playfully. Her petite form was draped in a diaphanous peachy-pink gown, as romantic as it was becoming against her clear ivory complexion. A hundred white candles were spread throughout the room, completing the effect.
Afterwards, the newly engaged couple joked about how theirs would be a “marriage of inconvenience.”
But those words would come back to haunt them. Barely two months into their engagement, she started to tire of Albert and his overly strict, borderline precocious attitude. Their arguments were no longer an unorthodox form of getting to know each other; they became a way of life. To emphasize their mutual dissatisfaction, he and Victoria began to put on airs, a defense mechanism that each young royal grew to rely on whenever the need arose.
Even Ernst, with whom she shared a similar temperament but could not marry for political reasons, started to trample on her last nerve. The cad had been flirting with Harriet Sutherland almost since their first encounter, the night of his and Albert’s arrival. He smoothly complimented her lady-in-waiting about everything imaginable: her hair, her gown, her perfume. And Harriet, a married woman, had encouraged his behavior. Victoria knew nothing physical came of it. But still...she would never do that to her husband. Or her companion.
Victoria would always be thankful for her Lord M, for that is who he would always remain. He had told her she would be a great Queen even before he taught her the basics of the British constitution. He seemed to know everything (and everyone) under the sun. But knowing and trusting were two different sides of the same coin. And he did not trust her with his heart; instead, he held onto it like a stubborn old mule (not that she had an inkling of what a mule actually looked like).
“Drina? Drina! You are not eating,” her mother scolded.
Indeed, she had forgotten all about her breakfast. Her eggs had grown rubbery and cold, unpalatable. Abruptly, she rose from her seat. Ernst and Albert, as yet unused to royal protocol in England, had to put down their forks and knives immediately. Albert only had a few bites of bacon remaining, while the ever gregarious Ernst was not even halfway through with his meal.
“I am going for a walk. Alone.” She called for Dash.
Oh to be away from stupid, stupid Windsor and Albert’s beloved trees. If she could climb a damned tree, even he wouldn’t be able to find her to bother her about Dickens. Or trains. Or mathematics. Or anything. What a colossal mess!