Victoria Victorious: The Story of Queen Victoria by Jean Plaidy Page A

apartments. Mama pursed her lips and when I spoke of Spath, said she was an interfering gossiping old woman and she was not really suitable to be in the household.
    “But I love her,” I said defiantly.
    “You must not be so vehement,” said Mama. “You are a little vulgar in your expressions of affection for these people.”
    “These people! We are talking about darling Spath.”
    “Oh dear, we are going to have a storm, are we? Listen to me, Victoria. I have done everything possible to bring you up in a manner befitting your position. You know now that you have to be careful… far more careful than others. You have your destiny to fulfill. That is why I have devoted my life to bringing you up.”
    It is always disconcerting to be the object of so much self-sacrifice and I could not deny that Mama had taken great pains to be with me all the time. Often I had wished she was less zealous, but that did not lessen the sacrifices she had made.
    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