Victoria

Victoria by Anna Kirwan Page A

Book: Victoria by Anna Kirwan Read Free Book Online
Authors: Anna Kirwan
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– I was permitted one cup, with lump sugar – we had a summer pudding of five kinds of berries plus peaches, and biscuits shaped like seashells.
    In the cool evening, Lehzen and I took hoops into the garden and ran them along the paths. It is no wonder they say Heaven smells of roses and lilies.
    Afterward, we were sitting on a stone bench, rather panting, and I said, “Is it not glorious , dear Lehzen?” She said, rather slowly, “I fear I have been so lenient with Your Highness of late, you will never again regard me with proper awe.” But I assured her I am most in awe of wisdom and learning, not so much of strictness. And I will forever be grateful for her trust.

5 July
    If I could live here at Claremont forever, Feo, I would. It is so different from ordinary life, it’s like dancing instead of trudging.

7 July
    Went to church at St George in Esher. After the service, we knelt and said a prayer by the pretty marble monument to my Aunt Princess Charlotte. Uncle held my hand as we came out into the sunshine.

Later
    These lovely evenings! Uncle and Lehzen and I make such wonderful conversation, just as if I am grown up. And, most times, Dr Stockmar speaks with me as well. Stocky is so quiet and gentle, and of course, so highly intelligent – very scientific, I must say. He knows chemistry and geology as well as the usual things. He always seems to me the ideal friend of our dear Uncle, Feo. (He told me I may call him “Stocky” because it was Aunt Charlotte’s name for him. He calls her “Your Aunt-Cousin-Princess Lottie.”) Even Mamma, when O’Hum is not about, engages in discussion with great interest, and makes witty comments, and laughs .
    Fortunately, O’Hum usually writes letters in his room in the evening, or in the study, when Mamma has correspondence to dictate to him. I think he stays there because he becomes so impatient with Uncle Leopold’s step-by-step way of coming to a point. And he becomes so annoyed with Stocky’s soft voice and his dry sense of humour, which I think O’Hum does not like to show that he does not always understand. (I don’t always, myself, but that does not bother me. Sometimes Lehzen explains it to me afterward. She does not miss anything.)

9 July
    Uncle has a most curious little toy. He calls it his “drizzler”. It is a little boxy machinery thing that undoes the gold and silver embroidery from old laces and epaulets, and makes little nests of golden and silver thread, fine as silk floss. I asked Uncle if he would give me a little of it, it was so pretty. He gave me a bit of the silver, but he said I should be patient, and he will save up the gold he drizzles each evening as we sit talking, and get me a more worthy present when he has accumulated more of it.
    I said, “I had thought the old lace on the officers’ jackets was mere decoration . Now I see that gold lace is – gold . But perhaps, if each of His Majesty’s officers had a little drizzling machine, then sometime, if their poor troops needed supplies on some foreign strand, they might undo all their epaulets and be able to buy what they wanted from the natives.”
    â€œAn excellent plan,” Stocky said. Somehow, though, the look he exchanged with Uncle made me think they only found my idea amusing. But I still think it would be prudent if every regiment and every ship of the line carried a drizzler along, in case some emergency should arise.

11 July
    An exceptionally rainy day. Uncle and Lehzen and de Spaeth and Stocky and Lord Craven, who came visiting, and I read Shakespeare aloud together, The Tempest . Uncle was Prospero, I was Miranda, Lehzen was Ariel, Stocky was Caliban, and Lord Craven and de Spaeth did everybody else. It was simply wonderful ! Lehzen and Stocky have the most ability, for they changed their voices admirably, and Lehzen seemed already to know her lines.
    Mamma was indisposed after staying up

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