Читать книгу The Lost Diary of Queen Victoria’s Undermaid - Alex Parsons - Страница 9

Made it! What can one say about my new boss, our esteemed monarch, William one-vee? Well, to put it kindly, our dear King looks about a hundred years old and his eyes stick out like a frog’s. He has zillions of children by an actress called Mrs Jordan and none at all by his wife, the rather dotty Queen Adelaide. Setting an example to the lower orders indeed!

The heir to the throne of England is his niece, Princess Victoria, who lives with her pushy mama in Kensington Palace. Princess Victoria is exactly the same age as me and she keeps a diary. I think this is an omen.

Meanwhile down at the palace laundry I get to wash the king’s drawers. They are not a pretty sight. He has three hundred pairs of fine linen underpants with holes in the front so he doesn’t have to take all his clothes off when he goes for a piddle. The Queen has the same number of roomy drawers, trimmed with pintucks and lace.

As everybody knows, ladies’ drawers are not stitched together, otherwise we’d have to rummage about in an unseemly way under layers of petticoats every time nature called.

The head laundry maid told me that pants were named after a Christian martyr called Saint Pantalone. I have to take an interest in these things or I’d go mad.