Victoria Victorious: The Story of Queen Victoria Read Online Free PDF

have been so entirely without friends as she liked to believe herself to be.
    Nine days after my father's death, there occurred another one of the greatest importance.
    Poor Grandpapa, blind and mad, passed away, and the Prince Regent became King George IV.
    L OOKING BACK IT is difficult to decide between what I remember and what was told me. There are certain things though, which stand out very clearly in my mind and one was the visit to Windsor and my meeting with the King.
    I was playing with the dolls and talking to Feodore about them. I adored my sister. She was very pretty and twelve years older than I, so she seemed very grown up. I was about seven at this time, so she must have been nineteen. I also had a half-brother, Charles, who was three years older than Feodore, but he was in Leiningen looking after his estates there, although he did come to England now and then. Feodore was with us all the time, and I do believe she loved to be with me as much as I did with her.
    She was very interested in the dolls—almost as interested as Lehzen. Lehzen thought they were wonderful. It had been her idea that I should start the collection in the first place; and she and I made some of the costumes together.
    Being Lehzen, who always had her eyes on education, she pointed out that the dolls represented historical characters. Of course we had Queen Elizabeth. “The great Queen,” Lehzen called her, but when I learned more about her, I did not like her so very much. She seemed to have acted in a way that was not always good.
    Aunt Adelaide, who always showed affection for me and would have liked to see me more often if Mama would have permitted it, gave me a beautiful doll. It was bigger than all the others and it had such splendid clothes that Lehzen said we should not attempt to dress it in any other way. So among my collection of historical dolls, it was just the Big Doll, and she always reminded me of kind Aunt Adelaide.
    Feodore was saying that Queen Elizabeth's dress had a little rent in it. I knew this. I had torn it myself when I had thrown her down rather roughly. I had just heard that when she had died there had been three thousand dresses in her wardrobe, which was an excessive number. She had clearly been very vain and I was going to let her have a rent in her skirt for a while.
    “She is the most beautiful of the dolls,” said Feodore. “I am sure Lehzen will mend that tear very soon.”
    “It won't hurt her to have a torn skirt for a while, the vain creature.”
    Feodore laughed. “I believe you do not like Queen Elizabeth very much,” she said.
    At that moment Mama came in. She was quivering. Mama often seemed to quiver, either in rage or excitement. It was because of all the feathers she wore, and the pendants about her neck and in her ears, the frills on her bodices and the rustling of her skirts. It gave an impression of perpetual violent emotion.
    She had something to tell us. Normally she would have sent for us and we should have had to go to her, not forgetting to curtsy respectfully. We must always show our respect for Mama, always remember what she had done for us, sacrificing herself all the time for our good.
    But as this was a matter of great importance, she had dispensed with the usual formalities.
    “At last,” she announced, “that man has seen fit to invite us to Windsor.”
    I knew at once that she was talking of my uncle, the King, for he lived at Windsor.
    “I am of two minds as to whether I shall accept the invitation, but …” began Mama.
    I knew she meant that she would accept the invitation and I happened to have gleaned that it was a source of irritation to her that we had not been invited before.
    “I suppose, as after all he does
call
himself King…”
    “Do not other people call him King?” I asked innocently. I was verydirect, and as Mama and Lehzen constantly told me, at this stage of my development I took what people said too literally. In any case, Mama had implied that