I was greeted first by Uncle Ernest, who smiled so warmly and affectionately; then Albert's brother, that other Ernest, who was tall and handsome, but not quite so tall, nor quite so handsome as Albert; and he was very thin, far too thin. Albert was a little … just a little stouter—and that was just right.

Mama was so kind and gracious. How charming she could be when she allowed her love to overcome her need always to have her position recognized! There was a wonderful family feeling about this encounter. Mama knew Uncle Leopold's wishes about Albert and me, and she was in wholehearted agreement with them. So this was the happiest occasion I had ever known because it was my first meeting with my beloved Albert.

It is hard to recall it in detail, and it is too sad now that he has gone and there are only memories left. But I remember our going into the drawing room where Uncle Ernest gave Mama a beautiful lory, knowing how fond she was of birds; and Albert told her that it would not bite even if she put her finger into its mouth.

“The colors are so lovely!” I cried. “I shall paint your lory, Mama.”

“Victoria is very pleased with her little sketches,” said Mama, and dear Albert said he would like to see them; so I sat on the sofa, between my two cousins, and showed them my sketch books.

Ernest said flatteringly, “They are wonderful. You are a great artist.”

Albert commented that they were really quite good, which was, after all, honest.

Then we talked about music and I discovered that they both loved it, and that they played the piano and sang. How wonderful to sing duets with Albert!

Mama clapped her hands and said how well our voices went together.

My seventeenth birthday came. Another year and I should be eighteen—the magic age. Seventeen seemed almost there. I wrote in my journal:

“Today I completed my seventeenth year. I am an old person indeed.”

The days were so short. Every morning I woke up, I thought: The cousins are here. Dear Ernest and dear, dear Albert.

I wonder sometimes whether I should have been quite so taken with Albert had it not been that Uncle Leopold had imprinted such a picture of his perfections in my mind.

Perhaps I eulogize, looking back, and imagine I felt more strongly than I did. I had been deeply impressed by all the cousins. Should I have been as ready to fall in love with any one of them as I was with Albert? And was I in love with Albert at this stage, or did the overwhelming love for him which came later, make me believe I had been?

We were not so much alike in those days, although afterward we grew to think alike, to admire the same things and strive for the same ends.

I was at that time frivolous and pleasure-loving. How I enjoyed dancing! And it was my great delight to stay up late indulging in light entertainment. I was impetuous, loving people almost as soon as I set eyes on them, and showing my feelings. I could dislike people too. There was nothing restrained about me, and my dear Albert was all restraint.

Then he did not care about dancing when to me it was the most enjoyable of entertainments, and he grew very sleepy at night. I was never sleepy when something was going on and I wanted to take it all in.

No, we were not very much alike. It was only later that we grew together. So it may well be that I did not appreciate him at the time as much as I later thought I did.

We were invited to Windsor. The King could hardly ignore them, even though he had not wanted them to come. I was in a fever of apprehension during the visit, but it went off fairly smoothly. I noticed that Albert was yawning during one of the King's levees and I was afraid that others would see it too. I could imagine the King's comment. Not that he could talk. He often nodded off and everyone knew it for when he opened his eyes he would often say something quite irrelevant to what was happening.

Albert was aloof, reticent by nature; I was the reverse. He was witty and very thoughtful; he was cleverer than his brother; and when I looked at Albert I wondered why I had ever thought Ernest handsome.

So it was a wonderful and memorable visit, and when it came to an end I was desolate. I could not bear it. The days had been so full and exciting.

Albert said goodbye regretfully, but quietly. I on the other hand could not stop my tears from falling.

“Dear Albert … dear Ernest…you must come again.”

Mama wept too and said how delightful it had been to have her dear relations with her.

“There must be more meetings,” she said.

I had written a letter for Uncle Ernest to take to Uncle Leopold and in it I told him of my pleasure in meeting Albert.

I must thank you, my beloved Uncle, for the prospect of great happiness you have contributed to give me in the person of dear Albert. Allow me then, my dearest Uncle, to tell you how delighted I am with him, and how much I like him in every way. He possesses every quality that could be desired to render me perfectly happy. He is so sensible, so kind, so good, and so amiable too. He has besides the most pleasing and delightful appearance you can possibly see.

I have only now to beg you, dearest Uncle, to take care of the health of one, now so dear to me, and to take him under your special protection…

I was desolate for weeks after they had left, and my only comfort was in remembering little scenes from the visit and some of the wise comments of my dear Albert.

He told me, long afterward, that when he saw Uncle Leopold after that visit, and our uncle asked him what he thought of me, his only comment had been, “She is very amiable.”

I laughed when he told me and compared his comment with all the fulsome compliments I had paid him.

But, as I said at that time, Albert and I were very different from each other.


* * *

DASH COMFORTED ME during those days after the cousins' departure. The dear little thing seemed to understand. When I sat remembering, he would leap onto my lap and nestle up to me as though to say: The cousins have gone, but you still have me.

“Yes, darling Dashy,” I said. “I have you.” And then I remembered how funnily Albert had played with him, for the two had taken to each other immediately, and that made me sad again.

Now that I was soon to be eighteen I felt a new independence. My dislike for Sir John Conroy had increased. I should never forgive him for coming into my bedroom when I was ill and trying to extract a promise from me in the hope that I was too weak to refuse. It seemed a dastardly act—and typical of him. Mama was as close to him as ever, and I began to think of them as “the plotters.” Mama was so furious because Uncle William lived on, and she was becoming so dictatorial to me, and told me several times a day how much she had done for me. I said, very coldly, on one occasion, “No, Mama. You did it for yourself.” And I swept out of the room and left her.

I think that shocked her, for she was silent, and there was a long conference with Sir John.

I was changing. I was beginning to feel that there were two factions in our household, and my mother and I were opposing each other. Sometimes I felt I had only one real friend in the household; and that was my dear Lehzen.

My half-brother, Charles, Prince of Leiningen, was with us at this time. He had two adorable little boys and I loved playing with them; but I believed that Charles was on my mother's side and planned with her and Sir John to make me subservient to her will, which was for her to be Regent, even after I was of age, and to make Sir John Conroy my private secretary. I knew what that would mean. They would make the rules and I should be expected to obey them.

No! It was not going to be like that at all.

For a long time Aunt Sophia, who was a constant caller at our apartments as she was also living in the Palace where visiting could then be easy and unceremonious, was somewhat enamored of Sir John. I knew that she was a spy for him. What was it about that man that women found so irresistible when he was to me quite odious? I was always careful what I said in Aunt Sophia's presence.

Another sly creature was Flora Hastings, whom I had never liked since she was so rude to Lehzen, sneering at her German ways and her love of caraway seeds—as though that mattered, weighed up beside loving and selfless devotion, which was very different from what I found in some quarters!

Looking back, I can see that I actively disliked Mama at this time.

I wished to dissociate myself from her. I did not want the King and Queen to think that I approved of her behavior toward them. I am afraid my mother was not a very wise woman. She was very uneasy about the growing change in me but she did not attempt to alter her ways by practicing a little diplomacy. She could so easily have won me back, for she was after all my mother, and I felt a strong sense of duty toward her. I wanted to love her and tried hard to—but it was just that she would not let me. She must have known that I was acutely embarrassed by her assumption of royalty, but she continued in exactly the same way. I think in her heart she could not accept the fact that I was no longer a child.

I was deeply distressed when Aunt Adelaide invited us to Windsor on the thirteenth of August.

Mama said, “Here is an invitation to celebrate Adelaide's birthday.”

“Oh, that will be fun,” I cried.

“Not for us,” said Mama, in the role of haughty Regent which she loved to play. “We shall not be there.”

“But, Mama…”

Mama held up a hand and I saw Sir John's eyes on me…mocking…because he knew that I wanted to go to Windsor and even if I did not enjoy going I would believe we should do so on such an occasion.