My Name is Victoria Read online

  How could I endure our stay in this horrible place where Dash, my only friend, was to be taken from me? How could I possibly return to Arborfield Hall without him? And how on earth could I make friends with his thief?

  Chapter 2

  The Face at the Window

  I hardly saw what was passing outside. Dash, now locked securely in my arms, gave out a whimper from time to time. It was almost as if he knew, clever dog that he was, that he was about to be torn away from the mistress who had loved him so well.

  When I did look up at last, we were in crowded streets with tall houses, white like wedding cakes, on either side. There were avenues with trees, and a bustling high street. Then we were passing a grassy green and drawing up at a gate in iron railings.

  The iron of the gates was wrought into the pattern of a golden crown.

  We heard the new Edward exchanging a word or two with some guards, and then, after a jolt that made Dash wince, we were creeping forward again into what seemed like a small town of red brick. Our own home, Arborfield Hall, was not a large house, but it was built in the up-to-date Gothic style with plenty of pretty decoration and beautiful coloured glass. Kensington Palace, on the other hand, seemed to be an enormous, sprawling building, but sadly out of fashion with its boring rectangular windows and grimy brick walls. It looked rather like my idea of a prison.

  At last we creaked to a halt in a cobbled courtyard. The sound of the horses seemed to echo three times around the high walls before it faded away. Edward jumped down with a thud.

  ‘Remember!’ my father said, his eyes twinkling at me once again over the top of his cane. ‘“Your Royal Highness”, that’s what you should say! And I know that you have the cleverness to bring this off, Miss V. You won’t fail me. Will you?’

  His confidence forced a tiny smile to raise the corners of my mouth.

  Now Edward opened the door and reached a hand to steady me as I stepped out. I lost my footing for a second on the cobbles, and Dash squirmed free of my arms to make a circuit of the courtyard with his light bound. My eyes followed him around the enclosing walls of dull dark red.

  There were lamp posts in the courtyard, just like a street, and the front doors of many different households. I knew that other members of the royal family lived here too, although the princess’s household was the most important. An old lady in a mob cap was sweeping the dirt from the step before one blue door and sending it flying down on to the cobbles below. But otherwise the courtyard was deserted and silent. The biggest door of all was marked by a portico, and lay straight ahead.

  I checked that all the little buttons were straight on my navy blue travelling cape, and settled my bonnet forward so that my vision was restricted to a narrow tunnel ahead of me. This, my mother had told me, was the correct way for a young lady to pass through life, gaze lowered, shielding herself from the hungry eyes of other people.

  My father was evidently pleased. He took the crook of my elbow. ‘Cool as a cucumber again, eh, Miss V?’ he said softly. ‘That’s my girl. We can carry it off. Always trust John Conroy for that.’

  And so, because of my bonnet, I could only see a thin vertical slice of building as he guided me towards the door, and perhaps that’s why I looked up. A movement had caught my eye. One of the upper rectangular windows, towards the top of my field of vision, had bars across it like a cage.

  With a tremor, I saw that the courtyard was not as deadly quiet as it had at first seemed. At that shrouded, barred window, a little white face was hovering. And it was watching me. I felt the two eyes boring into me with what felt like such malevolence that I gasped and glanced down instinctively to make sure that Dash was safe at my feet.

  But when I looked up again, the face had gone. Was it a girl’s face or a ghost’s?

  Perhaps I’d only imagined it after all.

  Chapter 3

  A German Welcome

  We stepped in through the heavy front door beneath the portico, where another lady, not young, but matronly and plump, stood waiting for us. She was wearing a dark gown and now came forward with her arms outstretched. In one hand was a lace handkerchief that she waved about to give further force to her words. It was as if her hands talked as well as her mouth.

  ‘Sir John!’ she cried out, before releasing a great torrent of speech. ‘We are so glad to see you again! This household of women needs a man, you know. You were cruel to leave us for so long! So long it has been!’

  She had a strange, guttural way of speaking. I wondered if she were German, for I knew that the princess’s mother and many of her attendants were from the princely states across the North Sea.

  ‘But, dear lady, my dear Madame de Späth!’ my father exclaimed. His voice was muffled. He was bowing over to kiss her hand, gallantly, fulsomely, while she whinnied and giggled at the attention. ‘I have my own ladies, you know, at Arborfield Hall, whom I must go home and see sometimes. I cannot always be here. And this is one of them. May I present my younger daughter, Miss V. Conroy?’

  ‘Ah … yes … this is the young lady of whom you spoke?’ The lady seemed a little doubtful; her hands wavered in mid-air. I tried to take up as little space as possible on the marble floor, as if to slink back into the shadows of the vast and echoing entrance hall.

  ‘Yes, indeed!’ said my father with confidence. ‘I have brought her to Kensington Palace for a visit, just as I promised. I believe that she will be a great comfort to Their Royal Highnesses.’ At this, I drew myself up a little straighter. I did not imagine that I would be much of a comfort to anyone, but if my father thought I could do it, I would try.

  All of a sudden, Madame de Späth smiled, and her handkerchief fell still at last. When she stopped fussing and fluttering, she looked like a grinning wooden doll with rosy apple cheeks, and I felt a bit more comfortable.

  ‘Well, my dear,’ she said, ‘even if you have no other good qualities, you have bravery to come among us in this strange life we have here. Come and meet your new playmate.’

  I could not help smiling back as I bobbed down into a curtsey. It seemed safest. At first I had thought this lady a servant, but she seemed rather a grand one, as if a colleague or an equal of my father.

  But then, despite her friendly smile, Madame de Späth’s eyes moved quickly onwards, away from me. That often happened. I am not … impressive. I am always the least in any gathering, the last to be noticed, first to be dismissed. But that’s just the way I like it. My sister, my father, even Dash: they all love attention, and as far I’m concerned, they’re welcome to it.

  ‘And this must be the new … schatz for the princess,’ she said, bending to give him a fluttery pat on the head. All at once my mouth turned dry once more. I knelt to clip Dash’s lead to his collar.

  ‘Yes.’ I spoke so quietly that I’m sure she could barely hear me. ‘This is Dash. He’s a very good dog.’

  ‘He’s also a very pretty dog, isn’t he?’ said the German lady, looking at him closely. ‘Does he bite?’

  ‘Never!’ This time my voice came out as a loud squawk, so incensed was I.

  She laughed. ‘Just as pretty as the little lady who has brought him!’

  She boldly put out her hand, and I had no choice but to place Dash’s lead into it. I would rather have put my hand into the fire and watch it be licked with flames, but I felt the weight of my father’s own hand on my shoulder. It lay there heavily.

  And then my darling traitorously frisked around the old lady’s skirt as she turned to lead us up an enormous staircase. I lowered my eyes to the steps, quite unequal to the task of watching him skip away from me so blithely.

  Concentrate, I told myself sternly, upon just what your eyes can see. This is no time to cry. You can count on a Conroy.

  And so, blinking hard, I gradually came to notice that the broad stone steps were not quite clean, and that cobwebs were draped over the oil lamps that should really have been lit on such a dim and gloomy afternoon.

  ‘Have care!’ the dumpy little
figure said from the shadows ahead of us. ‘The marble is slippery, and Lord knows we cannot get the maids to sweep the steps.’

  ‘Madame de Späth,’ said my father, ‘let us not have that conversation again now.’

  ‘Ach so. But later, Sir John, later. I have had so many bills come in while you have been away, and no means to pay them, as you know. You are the comptroller of this household, or at least so you always tell us, so the care of this should fall upon YOU.’

  She chattered on plaintively in the same vein. The weary arch of my father’s neck suggested that he’d heard such complaints many times before. In fact, he stealthily turned back towards me and stuck out his tongue so suddenly and so foolishly that, despite the traces of tears in my eyes, I almost laughed out loud.

  As we continued to climb, I thought that as well as being not quite clean, the great building seemed unnaturally still. Apart from Madame de Späth’s wheezy breath, I could hear Dash’s claws tapping and my father’s confident, prancing tread. But there were no other sounds, and we saw no one. A smaller, winding staircase followed the big one, and then we were in a carpeted passage. It was a little like the maids’ passage at home, with sprigged but stained wallpaper and a dirty carpet.

  Madame de Späth at last halted in the corridor outside a low and dingy door and gave it a smart rap.

  Again I settled my bonnet forward on my head and straightened my shoulders beneath the dark blue wool. This was it. We had arrived.

  But nothing seemed to stir inside the room.

  We waited, my breath coming faster and faster, even though we were doing nothing but standing there silently.

  Madame de Späth put her ear to a panel of the door, and then nodded her head. Despite the lack of an answer, it seemed that we were free to enter, and she slowly started to turn the knob.

  Little did I know it, but that pause in the dirty passage was the last moment of my old life. I was nervous as I stood on that threshold, but I had no idea of the surprises that would lie ahead.

  Chapter 4

  A Parrot and a Princess

  ‘Vickelchen!’

  Hardly had we crossed the threshold when the hoarse, violent word came hissing out of the dim room. Madame de Späth must have sensed me shrinking back into the passage, as she gave me a little encouraging nod over her black bombazine shoulder. As she had certainly appreciated Dash’s beauty and character, perhaps this lady could be trusted.

  Our German guide passed on into the room containing this strange harsh voice, and now I could see that it held scarcely more light than the dingy passage. The windows were swathed with curtains, and dimly behind them I could see the impression of bars. Perhaps this was the window of the very room that had given me the idea that it was haunted.

  Inside was a maze of musty furniture bearing dusty curios. A high glass dome was placed over an arrangement of faded flowers. It was so cluttered and murky that at first I did not see the tall, thin lady, also dressed in black, standing still on the hearthrug. But Madame de Späth bustled forward to introduce me.

  ‘This is my compatriot, the Baroness Lehzen,’ she said. Was she the possessor of that awful grating deep voice? I hung back, timidly hanging my head. I felt my father’s hand sharply in the centre of my back, pushing me forward so abruptly that I almost tripped.

  ‘My daughter, Miss V. Conroy,’ he said. ‘We usually call her Miss V, for short.’ In speaking he had emphasised our surname with a smile in his voice. It did the trick. I pulled up my spine in preparation to make a curtsey.

  ‘Vickelchen!’

  It was the voice again, harsh, sinister … but surely it came from behind me?

  It couldn’t be the tall, thin lady speaking after all. There must be some third person in the room. I whipped around to look, but saw no one. Bringing my eyes back to Baroness Lehzen, she gave a quizzical smile, and I saw all the lines on her brown, monkey-like face heave themselves up and settle into new patterns.

  ‘I see, Miss V. Conroy, that the parrot has discomfited you. I do apologise. It belongs to our mistress the duchess.’

  Now she used her hand to guide my eye, and I saw another dome under a cover. I had taken it to be the twin of the one with the flowers. The two German ladies exchanged a couple of words that I couldn’t understand. Madame de Späth handed Dash’s leash back to me, and together they crossed the carpet to lift the cover.

  Inside stood a malevolent grey parrot. He regarded me coldly out of one dull eye, turning towards me a profile that seemed to me to be identical to that of the Duke of Wellington, who was always in the newspapers.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ Madame de Späth was saying. ‘Come, come, he wants to meet you!’

  ‘Now, now, ladies!’

  My father had somehow slipped into the position he adopted in any room, the position of command, with his back to the fireplace, legs apart and palms rubbing heartily together. ‘I have not brought my daughter here to play with a bird.’

  Baroness Lehzen turned towards him, and I saw her giving him a long, cool gaze.

  ‘Oh, there’ll be time for Miss V. Conroy to meet the family,’ she said. ‘Plenty of it.’ She clapped her hands together in an impatient gesture. ‘Time!’ she repeated. ‘That is the one thing not in short supply at Kensington Palace.’

  Ever since we had entered it, the atmosphere of the room had seemed strange, although I could not have said exactly what was amiss. But now, with the baroness’s words, it suddenly occurred to me that these people might indeed be short of something: money.

  This was not at all my idea of a palace in which a princess might live. In novels and tales, royal surroundings were usually much more splendid. Here the furniture seemed so faded, the dust so thick. There were only a couple of coals glowing meagrely in the grate, despite the chill of the afternoon and the rain outside. Dash had seated himself in a noble, protective position at my feet, like a little lion, but I could sense his body quivering. I had thought it was fear of the parrot, but perhaps it was the cold.

  ‘Vickelchen!’

  Again that strange name, but this time the word was spoken in the deep, husky voice of Baroness Lehzen. Was someone else present? This mysterious room must contain yet another surprise. The baroness had looked like she was addressing the sofa that stood near the window, so I swivelled my eyes towards it. As we stood in silence, I heard a rustle. From behind the sofa, very slowly, the top of a head emerged. A head with brown hair like my own, blue eyes like my own and a tiny little pursed mouth.

  I knew immediately that this was the white face I had seen down below, watching me arrive. From the girl’s hostile expression, I guessed that I was on her territory and that she did not want me there. All at once, I wished I could disappear.

  The two ladies now turned towards the little apparition and sank, as one, into curtseys. She crept round the end of the sofa, and I could see she was wearing a pretty blue-and-white striped dress. But it was undeniably grubby.

  ‘Your Royal Highness.’

  My father had spoken. He was in a profound bow. So, tentatively, I too attempted to curtsey, the deep curtsey I imagined to be proper for royalty. But I found myself somewhat at a loss as to how to execute it properly, and ended up merely bobbing down towards the carpet and almost falling over.

  ‘Why does she curtsey in that ridiculous manner?’

  The little apparition had a powerful voice, with the same German inflections as the ladies who were perhaps her servants or nurses.

  ‘Your Royal Highness!’ my father said quickly. ‘I beg leave to present my daughter, Miss V. Conroy. She is quite new to court life and does not yet know our ways. But you will find her quick to learn and eager to please.’

  ‘You may call me Your Royal Highness.’ Was the girl talking to me? It was hard to tell, for she was pointing her nose in the air and avoiding my gaze. ‘Indeed, you must address me so. You may never call me Victoria.’ At that she turned suddenly and caught me looking at her. I hung my head at once.

 
I managed to stammer out a ‘Yes, of course,’ then tentatively added a ‘Your Royal Highness’ on to the end.

  The girl’s words had been confident, but spoken in such a strained voice, with such hectic emphasis and energy, that they seemed to indicate extreme nervousness and excitement. I saw her little frame almost quivering with anxiety and emotion. To my surprise, I felt protective towards her. I wanted to stroke her and calm her, as I stroked Dash.

  ‘Quite right!’ said the amicable Madame de Späth, as if the little girl’s pronouncement had been normal, indeed laudable. ‘Your Royal Highness the Princess Alexandrina Victoria of Kent is your name, and you must never allow other girls to become too familiar.’

  ‘What other girls?’ said this supposed princess crossly. ‘YOU never allow me to play with any other girls. Until today.’

  My eyes now were firmly fixed to the carpet, but from what I had already seen, she did not look at all like my own idea of royalty. She was tiny, rather like the younger sister I did not possess. Her face was sulky and looked almost unhealthy. I’m not surprised that her face is too pale, I told myself, if she lives in this dingy room.

  ‘Now, now, dear girl …’ said my father, becoming a fraction uncomfortable. I waited, confident that he would find a way of telling the little girl that her words had been rude.

  ‘Do NOT call me your “dear”, Sir John!’

  The little body produced quite an astonishingly loud sound.

  To my amazement, my father bowed at once. ‘My apologies, Your Royal Highness,’ he said. ‘Now, you will remember that I did promise you another girl to play with, as you have long requested, and here she is. Your wish is my command.’