Lord Melbourne was called to the palace at the utmost urgency.
A lad, young and pasty with red spots on his face, barely sixteen, delivered the message from the palace, breathless with the journey, his thin frame heaving beneath his red wool and finery. He had the look of a soldier, too young. Melbourne was sitting over a book, but no more. Fearing the worst, he made no delay, taking his horse and whipping through the London landscape, and he burst into the palace without shame, roving like a wild thing in pursuit of the Queen, aimless before being told where he would find her. In the sitting room, my Lord. The tone of voice told him what state he would find the Queen in. They did not speak frankly with him. It was as if they forgot to tell him that she was in a state of sorrow. Forgetting himself, he was not polite. He needed to find her. Discretion was meaningless.
The door between them could have been paper thin. He could feel her. And, with her, came pain. Great pain.
"Sir Robert has killed us!" Victoria cried the second she first lay eyes on her lover, who came almost silently through the door, despite the speed at which he did so. Delicate in all things. Melbourne himself was startled, nerves shredded and muscles tensed. Confused, he gawped at her. Concerned, his heart broke for her. She had been crying, that was obvious from the rings around her eyes, her mottled cheek, her hoarse throat. Her black garb suffocated her like a flame deprived of air.
"Whatever's happened? My dear, Victoria!" He wanted her to burn.
"We will never be happy! Never!" Her voice was rough, barely there, but so jarring that it could not be ignored. Oh, how she screeched. Oh, how she raged against fate. His hand took her arm in consolation, and his eyes scoured her, darting over every inch of her, desperate to find some visible sore he could heal. There was none. He took the poor girl and bound her into his chest, muttering,
"You've been crying, come here."
She fell into him, her cheek crushed into his clothing. It scratched against her skin, but the smell of him soothed any pain that may come. Soft. Rich. Deep. Like the smell of fireplaces long extinguished, or books unread and living on shelves. And the feeling of his arms bound tightly around her, holding her close and safe, embalmed her. And she cried. Closing her eyes tightly, letting her tears soak into the cloths that clothed him, choking back her rising sobs. She trembled in his arms, her heart beating against him. He heard it, felt it, and softly paced on,
"What has Sir Robert done?" he asked, taking his hand to her hair, and stroking it away from her face. The feel of his hand was comforting, and she closed her eyes and took a quiet moment to feel it, take it, and keep that memory sacred. A breath, and then she spoke,
"I asked him… I asked him whether a marriage… a marriage between… us… is possible," she wept. Melbourne stiffened, his gentle hold on her becoming tense. He pulled momentarily away from their embrace, looking her in the eye. Victoria's heart broke to see him. She had disappointed him. Upset him. Oh, she had been a fool. It wounded her to think she had caused him discomfort.
"Victoria." His voice was strained. He wanted to sound caring, but was failing, faltering under the weight of her words. His mind was aflame with Sir Robert's refusal. He heard it in a million languages – languages he did not know – and every syllable was agony. "You have asked Sir Robert for his permission for us to be married? And you did not think to tell me first?" he asked, not angry as such, but fuelled by another emotion. Fear? He was afraid, yes. Of the consequences. Of what this would hold for them. He was afraid that their happiness, they sweet little unmarried happiness, would be taken away from them. He feared it would be cruelly prised from their hands. He was afraid she had done something rash, and that they would both suffer for it. Oh, what had Sir Robert said?
"Well, no, I did not ask you first! And, for that, I am sorry, William! But I did not ask for his permission for us to be married! I asked for his advice! I asked if it would, in any circumstances, be possible!" she gushed, her tears turning to an unending voice, panicked and fast. So fast that Melbourne feared he could not understand her. Trying to keep up, Melbourne replied,
"I did not know you wished to marry me, Ma'am."
"Of course I do!"
"Well," William began, stifling an embarrassed laugh, "in that case, I fear you may be disappointed. It will certainly cause a scandal."
"You have said that you are not afraid of a scandal!" she wept. William sighed and calmly replied,
"At my age and in my position I am not. But you are young and the Queen and, more importantly, someone I deeply care about. I cannot bear to see a scandal hurt you!"
"Why should it be such a scandal?"
"It is not tradition!"
"Damn tradition!"
"Victoria!"
Victoria's cheeks were streaked with tears and, taking pity on his love, and responding to his own heart – which, like Victoria's, wished for a marriage – he asked her,
"And what did he say?"
"He said that we would have to wait at least a year and, even then, he could not guarantee Parliament's approval!"
Lord Melbourne laughed. A clear laugh. An awful laugh. Victoria's tears dried up. Her lip quivered and her mouth fell into a small and stubborn frown.
"Why do you laugh, Lord Melbourne? Do you wish for us to be unhappy forever?" she cried, her face turning scarlet. It looked sweet on her, William thought.
"I do not understand why you are so upset, Victoria! I thought he had said no! I was sure he would say no!" William cried, a great grin cracking his face, shining at her. It mocked her, first, as she did not see the goodness in this situation. But then, she admired his smile, and it made her grin, too. He had such a handsome smile. How she loved that smile. Taking the prompt of her smile, small and beautiful, a friend, he continued, brightly, "We need only wait a year! It is possible, my love."
"But a year, William!" Victoria repeated, laying desperate hands on his collar, turning her chin up. Her smile had been wiped clean again, and her expression was a serious one, a yearning one. The face of someone whose heart throbbed and tore at its strings to break free from the ribcage prison, to sing loudly and pulse in the chest of another. "I am so tired of wearing black, William. I want to wear white."
Oh, Ma'am, he thought, what I would give to see you in white. And, yet, what a bitter impossibility. This world may not allow it, my love. You must be brave.
"Ma'am, do you remember when I told you of Elizabeth and Leicester?" he asked. His voice, sonorous as ever, gravelly, and struck at Victoria's very core. He drew all her breath with it, slowly from her lungs and through her open mouth. "Companions," he said, like a thought expressed aloud, that should have remained inside. He said it to himself as much as to her. "If you will have me, I would give myself to you as a companion. If we cannot marry, will that satisfy you?"
"You have always been Leicester to me. You have been my companion since I met you. And that has been an honour, William, and I adore it. But I would so much like to be your wife."
Melbourne sighed, his brow knotted, his head beginning to throb with the beginnings of a headache, a storm raging behind the skull, before a sudden calm, a clarity, like the breaking of the light through a cloud, and then he spoke slowly,
"I may have an idea."
"A secret marriage?" Sir Robert spluttered, a couple of days later, after looking through the dispatches with the Queen. He had noticed her fidgeting whilst signing the necessary papers, and her absent mind, busy with other things that he had hoped did not concern William Lamb. He was wrong.
"Yes, Sir Robert," Victoria replied. She sounded sure of herself. It was an act. "A ceremony performed by the Archbishop, perhaps, in the chapel." She saw that Sir Robert was unsure. Afraid. "But no one need be invited! Simply under the eyes of God, we say our vows. What harm could that do? I have an heir, and I am seen to mourn by all. I am only a married woman in the privacy of my home!"
"Forgive me, your Majesty, but the Queen does not have 'the privacy of her own home'!" Sir Robert replied. His complexion had turned dull as rubber, and he was chewing his lip in such a way to indicate that he was – in fact – composed entirely of rubber. He tugged at his fingers as if trying to stretch them.
"Oh, that is a foolish thing to say, Sir Robert!" Victoria implored, throwing her hands up in defeat, slumping. She began to pace. "I know very well that I have a private self and a public self! My public self can be seen to mourn, whilst my private self is allowed happiness!"
"But Lord Melbourne was a Whig minister! You know very well that the monarch must be impartial!"
"He has retired from politics! And I do not think that Lord Melbourne has ever wished to influence me in the slightest. This is not a political marriage-" She was about to protest that it was a marriage of love, but stopped herself. She was still the Queen. She need not embarrass herself. She straightened up, like a ruler. Queen. Empress. Goddess. Sir Robert was not dissuaded, however, perhaps because he did not look at the Queen's steely expression quite hard enough to notice how metallic it had become.
"Ma'am, Lord Melbourne may consider himself liable to certain… rights… or privileges, rather, as the monarch's husband. A title. A pension." Victoria snapped at him,
"Do you suggest that Lord Melbourne wishes to marry me for his own ambition?" she shouted, a fire beneath the skin. Her eyes flashed silver. Her dress became armour. Her skin was ivory. Robert recoiled, grey again, and mumbled obsequious apologies to the carpet. This was all very familiar, he thought. And, with a shock that almost forced a gasp from him, he remembered his Julia's words, and her request.
I ask you, Robert, as a wife to her husband, if it even comes to you to make a decision regarding the couple, please, remember what we have, what we had.
"Will Lord Melbourne inherit?" he asked, carefully, resigned, not meeting her eye, his heart beating and his tendons taut with stress. He felt sick.
"No. It will be a… morganatic… marriage," she pronounced, disjointedly. She did not know what the word meant when Lord Melbourne had first said it to her. She was sure she was remembering it wrong. Morganatic… mornatic… morganitic? She should have asked him to repeat it a few times to her, but perhaps he would have laughed at her naivety.
"And you have discussed this with Lord Melbourne?"
"Yes."
"And he has consented to a morganatic marriage?"
"Yes. It was he who suggested it."
"I see."
A silence. A silence that almost lasted a lifetime. A silence that Victoria wished to scream into, just to break it. A silence that stifled her.
"I can do nothing more than to introduce the movement to Parliament, Ma'am."
Her eyes filled with tears, and she choked a sob, drawing her hand to her mouth, half-laughing, half-crying.
"Sir Robert, I-"
"Of course, Ma'am, you understand that, if Parliament votes in favour of the marriage, it must be conducted with the utmost care."
"Yes, of course!"
"And you must understand that a child cannot come of the marriage."
Victoria opened her mouth but uttered not a word. Sir Robert was sure that there were tears of sorrow in those eyes, grey and sad as the fog or the drizzling rain, softening the metal: molten. Victoria remembered how soft William was with her children: how he spoke kindly to her daughter, and how he held her son in his arms, and told him stories he couldn't possibly understand just to pass the time, pass the hours, and then how his eyes would shine when the child fell asleep. She remembered how, with such pain, William would remember his own children.
She had always hoped they would bring their own babes into the world.
How green their eyes could have been.
But, never mind. Not all could be. Husband would be enough. She must be grateful for that.
She put on a brave smile.
"Thank you, Sir Robert. You are a kind, kind man."
"I cannot promise how the vote will go, Ma'am. Politicians are wily things. I will try my hardest."
She held his hands.
"You are a good man. A good man."
Lord Melbourne was assured by the news that he received from the Queen and, still, he was nervous. Two weeks passed. There was a riot in the Commons. The chandelier trembled with it. The light fractured.
"Are we not, as Parliament, the representatives of the people of this nation? And therefore, are we not obliged to mirror the mood of the nation?"
"We are protectors of the realm! We uphold the constitution!"
"Hear, hear!"
"Lord Melbourne is a good man. As long as I have known him, he has shown no signs of political motivation in his relationships. Perhaps, if it were the honourable gentleman," (he was looking straight at the Earl of Aberdeen, cushioned within the plump and fleshy throng of Tory ministers) "who was wooing the Queen, then there would be need for concern!"
There was a great cry which rose from the Tory benches for the Whig minister to retract the statement. But there was no offence in it, the speaker protested. So, it stood. Sir Robert despaired. He agreed with the sentiment, but the delivery was foolish.
Damned Whigs.
"Is it the role of this Parliament to deliberate on the justness of love? We have no obligation! I am shocked that the Right Honourable Gentleman has even suggested such a thing to the House! Parliament has no sovereignty here!"
Sir Robert took this opportunity to stand,
"Need I remind my honourable friend that this is not some common marriage I am asking this House to discuss but the marriage of our monarch! It is our role to approve of the monarch's marriage! We did so for the late Prince Albert, and we will do so again. I ask the House, nay, I beseech you to consider the Queen's nerves, and how stress has – on multiple occasions – prevented her from fulfilling her duties as a monarch!" Sir Robert spoke through a grate of his teeth. He knew that the Queen's wits were sharp, sharper than those of almost the entire house, but he also knew that their blunted wits were susceptible to believing the folly and hysteria of women – and feared it like the plague.
"Then, am I right in saying that the Right Honourable Gentleman wishes Parliament to turn over in submission to the Queen's whims, simply because we fear a little hysteria? Am I to believe that we shall humour her in every wish, simply because we are afraid of her madness?"
"I believe we must be afraid of madness! Whilst King George III is still a recent memory, we must endeavour to keep the monarch sane!"
"And a marriage to Lord Melbourne will keep her sane?"
"Drive her insane, more like!"
"Order! Order!" the speaker cried. "Order! Gentleman! Order!"
The papers thrust into the air made a whirlwind. The jeers and cries bubbled into the air, making thunder, hooves of war, flags of war, trumpets and drums.
The bell tolled out whilst Victoria and William were walking together in the gardens of Buckingham Palace and, hearing the bell which a lifetime of politics had taught him was the signal for a vote, he said, softly, sadly,
"There's the vote, Ma'am." He had a politician's temperament: always believing every other man to be against you. Victoria was not that way inclined and, although afraid of the result, she smiled at him, and jeered,
"I do hope, William, that, whatever the result, you will cease calling me 'Ma'am'!"
"A habit," he laughed at himself, hanging his head, a blush forming on his cheeks. "It is difficult to pull an old man from his habits!"
"Old? Why do you insist on calling yourself 'old'? Whatever the result, you must stop insisting you are 'old'!"
"You seem to have many objections. Perhaps you have changed your mind, and you do not wish to marry me?" William asked, cocking his head at the woman he loved, who had stooped to the ground to hold the head of a flushed peony. Her skirt, as pink and pretty as the peony, bunched beneath her, blossoming out at the base of her, into petal-like shapes, blooming.
"Unfortunately, William. I am quite in love with you," she said, nonchalantly, picking the peony from the bush, standing up again, walking on air towards her love, and bringing the flower to his face, stroking the petals along his cheek, and watching the effect fondly. She kissed the places where the petals had touched.
The bell ceased. And time passed. And, eventually, the pair were told that Sir Robert had arrived at the palace. Time had grown short, and they had hardly noticed the sun setting and the salmon paintbrush strokes in the sky. They had hardly noticed the crickets chirping in the darkened leaves and the cold encroaching on the land. They could not have noticed the stars and the moon, full and bright, alighting. Their peace was disturbed. Their hearts were pulled, and their nerves buzzed. They felt their tether being stretched, and the scissors poised, ready to fall, ready to fall. Blades sharp. No matter how they told themselves that this would not mean the end of what they had.
They went inside together, and silently.
Sir Robert looked tired, they both observed it. And it struck them with fear. He did not look pleased, they both observed it. And it struck them with fear. He did not speak for a while, they both observed it. And it struck them with fear. The room seemed larger now than ever, more hollow, filled with empty spaces and echoes and cold drafts and gusts. It could have been filled with spider's webs and dust. It could have been completely unfamiliar. It could have been haunted.
And then, to banish the silence, the hollowness, the drafts and the gusts, the spider's webs, the dust and all the ghouls, Sir Robert opened his mouth to speak and pronounced, carefully, the words he had rehearsed a thousand times in the carriage on the way to the palace.
"The House took a vote this evening. As a result, Parliament have not only consented to a allow a secret morganatic marriage but, after one year's public mourning, the House have deemed it acceptable for a public declaration of marriage and a marriage ceremony to take place between the two of you. Allow me to congratulate you, first, Ma'am, on your engagement."
A gasp. More of a cry. Victoria and William were given a blessing. That was what it felt like. They could have kissed. William could have taken her into his arms and lifted her into the air. They could have cried. But Sir Robert Peel was in their company, so they were civil. They thanked him. They gave each other glances that expressed it all: disbelief, shock, relief, confusion, excitement, joy, utter joy, and so much love. So much love.
Sir Robert Peel did not say that it was he who introduced the movement to allow a public marriage. He did not explain how he had argued the case for it, today. He did not explain that he did it to allow them a child. They would not have understood Julia's words still on his mind. He kept quiet. And watched. Was this suicide for his ministry? Perhaps. But Julia would be very proud of him. And that would make him happy.
And it did. She was one of the few in the whole of England who would know for the time being. The others would have to wait a year. But Julia Peel was very, very pleased, and kissed her husband with fervour. It upset her that she could not attend the ceremony, but was consoled by the fact that – in one year's time – she would be able to. Oh, how she looked forward to the day!
But, for Victoria, the day came quickly. A secret marriage, but a marriage nonetheless.
There was no ordering of dresses for a secret marriage, so she wore the same dress. The same Honiton lace, so fine, and she loved it just as much as she did when she first wore it, though – now – the circumstances were far more beautiful, and made the delicacy of the lace so much more fine. Her satin slippers hugged her feet and her skirts brushed and waved at her ankles. The sapphire brooch, his sapphire brooch, still rested on her bosom, a token to her dear friend who her heart still grieved for, but now, within the confines of the brooch's pin there lay the head of an orchid. One of Brocket's orchids, grown and given Brocket's light and soil, the same light and soil that was rooted within her lover's past. And soon her husband's. No orange flower blossoms this time, but gardenias. Their flower. Laced in her hair and on her dress. She was a garden and a lady, and her face glowed with the sunlight, butterflies on her lips and dew drops in her eyes.
She was told that gardenias were a symbol of untold love.
And so, her untold love buried and clasped in her bosom to hide from the world, but not from he who would receive the full force of that love, she walked unaccompanied and unaided down the aisle of the chapel, a small place, not grand like the Chapel Royal, but perfect and quaint and intimate. There was gold, and that gold was nothing in comparison to her. There were shards of coloured light fractured by the stained glass in the windows, falling on her and breaking her form into those colours. Her shoulder was a sliver of green. Her cheek became a splinter of deep purple, her eye fell in a circle of pale icy blue. And, yet, she brought every fraction of her multi-coloured form together into a perfect whole as she walked from colour to colour, everchanging. She could feel God within her. It was holy. It was divine. She was sure she could hear angels; their choirs, more beautiful than any opera, with greater tune than Mozart, an ecclesiastical sound, rapturous.
And the lady walked in light.
And William Lamb stood at the end of the aisle, awaiting his angel. Awaiting his epilogue. He saw every flower that bloomed on her and understood its placement. She was beautiful, goddess-like. She was demure, and yet strong. He was the luckiest man. Filled with a golden light, flowing in every vein, pouring into every artery, every chamber and valve.
She reached him, her body numbed. This was all very surreal. It seemed like a dream, for this had happened so often in a dream for her. This could not be her reality. Surely. It had always creeped into her bedchamber, seeking her out. Every day of her marriage to Albert she would dream of this. She knelt beside her love.
She thought she could never have it. And, now, she would.
Alexandrina Victoria, wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together according to God's law in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love him, comfort him, honour and keep him, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?
It was their choice to omit the promise to 'obey' her husband. They did not deem it appropriate for a Queen, or for any wife of William Lamb. What need had she to obey him? He would sooner obey her. Victoria smiled to herself when she did not hear the Archbishop say it. She remembered the joke that William had made when they were discussing the matter. Kneeling beside him, she turned her eye to look at him, and he cast a quick look at her, too. He, too, was smiling.
"I will."
William, wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together according to God's law in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour and keep her, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?
He did not hesitate. His heart told him the truth.
"I will."
He looked at her, when he said it. That gaze: green and gold, shared only with her. She gasped at the intensity of it. She gasped at the sensation of being bound under God to him. She gasped to realise that he was her husband. And, as he guided the ring on to her finger, speaking the words of the Archbishop, she was so happy she thought she would weep! This happiness, this joy, was something she never thought she would feel again.
The band of gold, tied around her finger, burned into her skin, sending a glow through her. She looked to his hand, and the same ring dwelt there.
Husband and wife. William and Alexandrina. Widow and Widower, no more.
And, for a moment, Victoria was sure that she was composed of stardust.
That night, which came so quickly after the day which seemed so heavenly they thought it would last forever, Victoria sat on her bed in the quiet of her bedchamber, clothed in her nightgown which suddenly seemed so thin. She thought it would tear like butterfly wings. It gave her no relief from the cold, which nipped at her skin, and made her shiver. It was very strange. Her wedding night to Albert was dizzying. There were all the celebrations: the cake, the food, the alcohol and the people all chattering and laughing. But this was different. There were no public celebrations, no chattering, laughing people. The palace was almost silent.
She was not afraid, not that, but she was a little nervous. She wanted to make him happy.
When William entered, Victoria's heart skipped. She had seen him in a state of undress before, but now it was dark and they were alone and it was intimate. He wore a nightshirt, and his hair, silvery, fell in tousled rings over his forehead. She always loved his curls, particularly in the wind, when they became more real, more raw. He looked genuine, in the lowlight, the flickering warmth of the candlelight falling delicately over the lines of his face, the raise of his cheekbone, and the shadow in the hollow of his cheek. He was so beautiful. And hers. Hers, hers, hers.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
He, too, was nervous. She looked so delicate in her nightgown, her hair free from braids and oils, falling across her shoulders, long and dark and in waves. She gazed at him, and he was made breathless and heartless. He wanted only to please her.
He sat next to her on the bed, his breathing steady and rhythmic. The sound of it soothed her, lulled her. Her breathing was not so steady as his. He was so close to her, now. She yearned. He loved.
"Of course, we cannot consummate properly yet, my love, for fear of you becoming laden with child," he explained, taking Victoria's hand from her lap, and wrapping his own hands around it. Oh, what a joy, Victoria thought, to have those hands at long last. His voice was barely audible and so mellow. "But, Victoria," he was hushed, and he leant into her, close, whispering his words to her ear, so – out of all those souls on this earth – only she could hear them, "when the time comes, I would be honoured to make love to you."
Oh, William.
Then, he took her into the bed, guided her, and, as in all things, was gentle as can be.
Widow and widower no longer.
