Now she walked over to the window and peered out at the terrace and the lawn that rolled down to the sea. The sun shone and she could catch tantalizing glimpses of sparkling water between the far trees. She could ask Papa to take her to the beach. That was a good idea. To talk and to look for shells. Vicky had started a collection, and Papa’s eyes were sharp—he always spotted good ones. She hurried off to find him.
A SHORT TIME later they set off hand in hand. “Only a few ladies before Mama have been queen,” Vicky began as they walked down the gravel path.
“Ja, if you mean queens in their own right and not married to kings,” Papa replied.
“Why?”
“Because a king’s sons have precedence over a king’s daughters in the succession; you know this. Remember Henry the Eighth and how he searched and searched for a wife who would bear him a son?”
“But in the end Elizabeth was queen. And she was very able and commanding.”
“After her younger brother, Edward, died, and her elder sister too, she ascended, ja.”
“Papa, I am the elder sister of Bertie,” she said, glancing up to check he was listening to this important point.
“That’s true.”
“And as it was good that Elizabeth was queen, don’t you think it would be good for me to be?”
“To be queen of England?”
“Yes, after Mama.”
“So you wish to kill off not only poor Bertie, but Affie as well?” her father asked lightly.
“I do not wish them to die,” she explained. “I think the rule should be the eldest is always heir. That’s fairest.”
“Oh, Puss.” She saw him smiling now. He shouldn’t.
“This works especially well for our family,” she told him. “Because I am clever and Bertie, well, he’s rather silly.”
Papa laughed now.
“Bertie doesn’t care about what you and I care about, Papa,” Vicky went on, not liking the laugh. “Books and poetry and behaving properly.” In truth she frequently wished not to behave properly, but appearing less naughty than Bertie had many advantages.
“Ah, this matters not,” her father said.
“Why not? Bertie won’t mind. He thinks I will be queen someday and he’ll be like you and help. He often says this!”
“He’s a little boy still.”
“That’s why now is a good time to change things. You could tell the prime minister. He always listens to you.”
Papa laughed again and squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll have your own important job to do. Mama and I discuss it sometimes—the best future for the queen of England’s eldest daughter.”
“So you don’t want me as Mama’s heir? You prefer it be Bertie?” She dropped his hand and stopped walking to stare directly up at him.
He stopped too, and looked down at her, serious now.
“Ah, liebe Vicky, your question is not reasonable. God made you and your brother as you are. One a girl and the other a boy. It is our duty—mine and Mama’s—to educate you and bring you up honorably and arrange for a purposeful life equal to the high station to which you have been born.”
“So you don’t choose me?”
“You can’t be chosen.”
“Can’t?”
“Males will always come first in the succession,” he said.
Her brows squeezed together and her arms and hands tightened. She was so much better than Bertie. Papa knew that, and yet he didn’t care? He was happy she’d be pushed aside? Something deep inside her chest seemed to rip and she began to cry. Papa crouched down and she felt him catch her raised wrists before she could beat her fists against him.
“Vicky, no, no, mein Kind. You mustn’t cry.”
“It’s so unfair.”
“Your life will be beautiful.”
She just wept.
“I promise, your position will be worthy of not only who you are but how you are,” said Papa, trying to embrace her, but she wriggled away from him.
“Your excellent mind and your determination—these cannot be wasted,” he said next.
She cried more.
“The world is very big, and I will find the right place for you. Please, Vicky, won’t you stop crying?”
Through tears she saw him, at her eye level, gazing over sympathetically, and she did love him although what he said was very wrong.
“I suppose I might,” she said finally, the ripped feeling beginning to fade.
He held out his white cotton handkerchief, and she took it. After a minute he asked: “Aren’t we going to look for shells, after all?”
“No, I want to go and sit on the oak bench.”
Dozens of trees had been cut down during the building of the house, and Papa had had one made into a long bench, with a high back, for the beach.
Sitting down side by side, they looked out at the sea—today a wavy carpet of blue and green patches with occasional flecks of white where the wind stirred it up.
“What do you think will happen, Papa?”
“To you?” he asked. His voice was gentle.
“Yes, me.”
“Perhaps you will marry a king who lives in a different country, where they need you. Only God can guide us.”
Vicky considered this. If she were queen she’d sit on a throne like the enormous one in Buckingham Palace where Mama sat sometimes. But who would be beside her? Would he look like Papa? She hoped he wouldn’t look like those naughty uncles of Mama’s, the old kings of England. They’d had fat red faces and wore stiff white wigs. She wouldn’t want to marry anyone like that.
She leaned against Papa, resting her cheek on the scratchy wool of his jacket sleeve. After a minute he put his arm around her, pulling her closer. The afternoon was breezy, and puffy cloud castles glided by above. In her mind’s eye all the days of her future stretched out ahead so far she couldn’t see the end, but she felt herself embarked, being carried slowly forward on the stream of time, buoyant and alive.
2
Windsor and the Isle of Wight, 1848
Papa required everything to be correct; he often used that word. And Mama preferred things nice and quiet and she hated to be fussed. But Laddle was different. She’d sit by the window doing her cross-stitch and let Vicky and Bertie overturn the toy chest on the nursery floor. She’d watch as they set up opposing armies of wooden soldiers and laugh when they mowed them down with sweeping arms. Laddle, whom everyone else called Lady Lyttelton, lived with them in the nursery, taught them to read and write, and told them stories from the Bible. Her thick hair was brown and wavy, arranged splendidly on the back of her head. Her smile was serene, but her eyes saw everything. One rainy afternoon, Bertie and Vicky dropped the cows and sheep and horses from the toy farm out the window to see which animal fell quickest. “Now Flora has to go and bring back all of those toys, children, and get wet along the way. It hardly seems fair, does it?” she asked.
“What else is Flora doing?” Vicky answered back.
Laddle tut-tutted and said: “I expect better from you, Princessy.” Which made Vicky stomp away until it was time for tea. But mostly she and Laddle were friends. At the end of the day they said prayers together and discussed God’s commandments. Laddle was very “high,” Vicky had heard, although what that exactly meant she wasn’t sure. Something about the sort of religion Laddle preferred. Her teacher liked to say that in life nothing was more important than being kind. And Vicky always thought, yes, but how very nice and important it was to be the Princess Royal.