Page 19 of The Heir
For example, Louise Lehzen, now Baroness Lehzen, was nursery governess for Her Royal Highness, Princess Alexandrina Victoria. This meant she attended to the princess inside her private apartments and accompanied her on all unofficial occasions, such as her walks about the grounds.
For all official and state occasions, however, Lehzen must give way to the state governess, Lady Charlotte Florentia Clive, Duchess of Northumberland. In practical terms, this meant that Lehzen could not attend the dinner with the princess and her mother and was very much at her leisure until the evening’s concert.
On such evenings, Lehzen normally stayed in the princess’s apartments—mending, tidying, working at her account books and journal, or possibly stealing a moment to sit with some of the palace staff for a drink and a cozy bit of gossip.
After all, one never knew what one might hear if one simply took the time to listen.
Tonight, however, Lehzen had different business to attend to.
Once Lehzen had ceded the princess and her mother to Lady Charlotte’s care, she sat down to write a very particular letter to her private friend Mrs. Martha Wilson. This she entrusted to Peter, a footman to whom she paid a sweetener so regularly it could well be considered a salary.
That done, Lehzen wrapped herself in her oldest woolen shawl and set out for the stables.
Properly, she should have taken her questions directly to the master of the horse. He had ultimate charge over the stables and all the persons who served there. There were, however, two problems with this. The first was that His Lordship was currently away in Ireland, seeing about some new breeding stock. The second was that His Lordship was very deeply in Sir John’s pocket. Even if he were here and knew anything, he would be off tattling the moment she poked her nose into the stable yard.
If Lehzen was to find answers rather than betrayals, she must seek them elsewhere.
The stables had a walled yard to themselves. While it might appear to be only a short walk from the palace, this was an entirely separate neighborhood, if not a separate world. These buildings housed not only the horses and carriages but also all the works required to maintain them. Here were the barns and the grainery, the blacksmith, the farrier, the saddlery, the wheelwright’s shop, the upholsterer, and a great deal else. The damp night air was thick with the smells of horses, iron, hay, dust, and ripening manure.
Like the rest of the palace buildings, the stables were made from red brick. They had been built as strong and as snug as any of the places meant for human habitation. They were also, Lehzen thought peevishly, better maintained.
This was one matter on which she and the duchess agreed. Kensington Palace was sorely neglected. That the old king, George, had kept them there was no surprise. His resentment of Princess Victoria had snapped and crackled like a halo of lightning whenever they’d been in his presence. No amount of drink or laudanum could fully dull the energy of it.
But George IV was long dead. The current king, William IV, could easily have found them better quarters or, at the very least, arranged for the palace to be repaired. But he did not. While this frustrated Lehzen, it enraged the duchess. Which was most likely the point. The duchess did not like the king, and the sentiment was more than reciprocated.
As she made her way up the gravel path, Louise felt her gaze stray to the great iron gate. Torchlight glinted on its gilded decorations. The gate hung open, so that the guests might come and go easily, and Lehzen could see the pale band of the carriage road cutting through the darkness.
For an odd, strained moment, Lehzen remembered standing in her mother’s parlor a thousand miles and a thousand years ago. The window was open to the fresh breeze and the rich green smells of spring. It had been years since that same breeze carried the smell of gunpowder, but some part of Louise was still surprised by its absence.
This was the day the letter had arrived from the woman who would become the Duchess of Kent. At the time, she was still the princess of tiny, impoverished Leiningen and in need of a governess.
“Do you think I should go, Mama?” Louise had asked.
Mama was writing. Mama was always writing. Even on the days when her knuckles were swollen and her shoulder ached, she would sit in this room, laboring over some page or the other—Papa’s accounts or the household’s, or letters to the parents of Papa’s students, reminding them of unpaid bills. Once all that was done, it would be time for her to take up her correspondence to her friends and her family.
“One should write a letter every day,” she’d told Louise. “It helps organize the thoughts and reminds one of what is truly important in life. Otherwise, it all becomes nothing but a muddle.”
Even when the roads were blocked by soldiers or snow, Mama wrote her letters. She would tie them into bundles with butcher’s twine until they could be sent. Louise had once accompanied Mama to the postal office carrying a full year’s worth of letters that she had not been able to send because of Napoleon’s invasion.
“Should your mama ever decide to become a modern woman and run off from her husband, I will be informed by return of post,” Papa teased.
Mama took the princess’s letter and smoothed it out on her desk. She always ran her fingers down any page she read, as if it were their tips that absorbed the information rather than her eyes.
“It is a reasonable offer,” said Mama. “But being a governess is a hard business, no matter how grand the family. You know that.”
Louise did know. Friends had done it. Young women like her—of sound but not exceptional families, educated but not wealthy—packed their bags and climbed into carriages and coaches, heading to all points of the compass. Eventually, they returned home, bitter, frightened and, if exceptionally unlucky, pregnant. They unpacked their bags and their stories of mistreatment, overwork, and unwanted attentions.
But the bills did not care about contentment, and families still needed help. Years of war had taken the lives of so many sons, leaving only daughters to care for parents and siblings. So, the girls put out their advertisements, packed their bags, and left again.
Now it was Louise’s turn.
“I will not deny the money would be useful,” Mama told her. Louise’s father was a schoolmaster. When times were lean or unsettled, the pupil’s fees were frequently delayed or simply never arrived. Boarding pupils might have helped make up the difference, but those had been scarce of late. Families were sending their boys to larger, more prestigious schools. Papa’s reputation was excellent, but families wished their boys to make connections, not merely pass exams.
If Louise went to be a governess, not only would she be earning an income, her parents would no longer have to bear the cost of her keep.
“But is it what you want, Louise?” Mama was asking her. “Our home is always yours, my heart, and we will always manage, as we always have, you know.” She touched the letter again. Her hands were very bad today, the joints so swollen it looked as if there were marbles stuffed beneath her skin. “These grand houses, they are sometimes easier to get into than they are to get out of.”
Oh, Mama, thought the woman who had once been Louise.You were right. And palaces are even worse.
