Читать книгу The Lost Diary of Queen Victoria’s Undermaid - Alex Parsons - Страница 12

After all the excitement, life goes on. I don’t get to see much of Queen Vic, actually. She doesn’t visit the laundry and I’m not exactly invited to tea in the Grand Saloon. Most of what I know I get from QV’s Maids of the Bedchamber when they bring me the hampers of dirty linen to scrub. It’s the gossip – and Brian the underfootman – that keeps me going. Take this week for instance. QV is not having a good time.

She’s got a problem with her mother, the Duchess, who is plotting behind her daughter’s back to be the power behind the throne, along with her ‘financial adviser’ (ho ho) Sir John Conroy. QV has started a rumour that Sir John is having an affair with one of the Ladies in Waiting. So you can imagine the atmosphere at the dinner table.

She’s got a problem with her relations, who all turn out to be kings of Holland and Belgium and other such places, and all want favours from her while they fight with each other.

She’s got a problem with her weight. She’s getting distinctly plump and being so short, it shows. Her drawers are a size larger than they used to be. I should know. Lord M is trying to get her to take some exercise, but she says she won’t and queens don’t do what they don’t want to do. She may live to regret this.

She’s got an even bigger problem with Lord Melbourne. The thing is she’s so dependent on him. She thinks everybody at the Palace (apart from Lord M and her beloved Baroness Lehzen – her old governess) are deaf, stupid and vulgar bores. She may be right of course, but what’s going to happen to her when Lord M’s party gets voted out of office? I think she can see it coming and it’s making her sulky and lazy. Apparently she’s even given up brushing her teeth.