Love is the Enemy

Chapter 1 ~ 1848-1

Chapter 1 ~ 1848Queen Victoria rose and gave her hand to the Prince Consort.

Sir Rupert Wroth stifled a yawn. It had been a tedious evening, as was to be expected at Buckingham Palace. He wondered how anyone could enjoy the solemnity of these long-drawn-out Ceremonials and thought that perhaps Her Majesty was the only person present who found the stiff formality entertaining.

The Queen was smiling as she began the slow dignified promenade through the Throne room. There was a fluster and a rustle of silk, satin, tarlatan and tulle as the ladies swept to the ground in low obeisant curtseys. There was the sparkle of Orders and Decorations as masculine heads were bowed.

It would soon be over now, Sir Rupert thought and he felt a sudden craving for a breath of fresh air after this over-heated stifling atmosphere of starched pomposity.

But Her Majesty was not to be hurried. She stopped to speak with the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, and now she was smiling kindly on Lord Grey, the Secretary of State for War. The Prince Consort, severe and unsmiling, made an observation to Mr. Greville, which would undoubtedly be reported unflatteringly in his famous diary.

At last the Royal procession was on the move again and Sir Rupert was ready to bow and then realised somewhat to his surprise that the Queen was about to speak to him.

He looked down at her. It was extraordinary how, tiny though she was, she contrived to exude such an aura of regal dignity. It was impossible not to be in awe of her. Tonight she was smiling gaily, her eyes were bright and it was obvious that she had enjoyed the evening, but at other times that small mouth could be set in a hard line of affronted obstinacy and her eyes become steely with anger.

“It is nice to see you here, Sir Rupert,” Her Majesty said in her clear well-modulated voice, which always seemed to be a tone lower than one expected in such a diminutive person.

“I thank you, ma’am,” Sir Rupert murmured.

“But when you come again,” the Queen continued, “we shall be glad to welcome at your side – a wife.”

Sir Rupert had no reply ready.

He was so astonished that for a moment he thought he could not have heard aright and then before he could even bow an acknowledgement of the somewhat obscure honour that was being accorded him, Her Majesty had passed on.

The rippling wave of curtseying women and bowing men continued on down the room.

Sir Rupert stood very still. Indeed he felt for a moment as if his brain was paralysed, as if he could not understand or take in the full import of what had been said to him.

Then, as the doors were flung open by the red-liveried, gilt-laced flunkeys and the Royal procession with its attendant dignitaries and fluttering Ladies-in-Waiting disappeared from view, a murmur of voices restored his scattered senses.

The murmur grew louder and the restraint that had held the gathering silent for three hours vanished like a mist before the sun.

Suddenly Sir Rupert knew that he must get away and that he must escape before those around him began to question him. It would be only a matter of seconds before someone would be bold enough to ask him what the Queen meant.

Was he already betrothed? What were his matrimonial plans? Who was the fortunate lady?

They were questions that he had no intention of answering and, as he turned towards the door, there was an expression on his face that made those who were already approaching him shrink back abashed.

He strode quickly from the Throne room, passing through the Green Drawing Room where refreshments were being served and down the wide crimson-carpeted stairs where the Yeomen of the Guard were on duty.

Once or twice his name was called, a hand touched his arm and a friend attempted to impede his progress, yet he was blind and indifferent to everything save his own urgent desire to escape, to reach the fresh air he had craved so urgently but a short while ago and which had now become an absolute necessity.

At the door of The Palace he dismissed his carriage, which was waiting for him, and walked quickly past the Guard of Honour mounted in The Palace yard. Quite oblivious in his preoccupation to the big crowds waiting outside the gates he strode with long strides down The Mall.

In his Court dress, knee breeches and silk stockings, his purple-lined cloak blown back by the wind to reveal the shining decorations on his breast, he was obviously a person of distinction and as such of interest to those who had waited long hours for a glimpse of Her Majesty’s guests.

But it was not his clothes that made people stare at Sir Rupert Wroth. There were one or two ribald remarks as he passed, but there were many others that were invariably complimentary, softly spoken amongst the women who watched him hurry by.

It would have been strange if they had not admired him. He was handsome enough in all conscience, tall and broad-shouldered, his clear-cut features admirably set off by his raven dark hair. There were few people who, meeting Rupert Wroth for the first time, were not impressed by his looks.

But although nature might have intended him to be surpassingly and pleasingly handsome, the expression on his face was of his own making. Brooding and cynical there was a coldness and proud disdain in his eyes that chilled the most genial gesture of friendship.

There was too something aggressively arrogant in the way he held himself, in the way he asserted his opinion or contradicted an opponent and there was a bitter twist to his lips that would have been more fitting in a man of middle age than in one who had not yet reached the prime of his manhood.

And yet it was impossible to deny his attraction and one woman in The Mall said to another with a nudge in the ribs,

“That’s the sort of man I’d like to lie with, dearie, a man who is a man and looks it! Though something’s upset his Lordship for sure. There’s a touch of the Devil in his face right enough.”

She was not far wrong, for as Sir Rupert walked away into the darkness he was seething with a fury beyond anything he had ever experienced. Those who had stood beside him in the Throne room at Buckingham Palace might wonder what the Queen had meant by her remark, but he had no need to wonder.

He knew that Her Majesty was giving him both a warning and a command.

It had been so unexpected, something that he had not anticipated might happen in his cautious calculations, yet now that it had occurred he knew that it had been absurd to think that there would not have been those ready to spy on his private life.

There was little the Queen did not know. She had her own method of learning the most hidden secrets about people she was concerned with. And yet he had imagined himself too clever to be found out. Only to be publicly disillusioned. More than that, he knew that he had received a direct instruction that he dare not disobey.

Fool to have thought for one moment that his love affair with Clementine would pass unnoticed and not reach the ears of Court circles!

He wondered how long the Queen had known about it – a month, two, three or perhaps even when it had started six months ago? No, not as long as that, for it was in January that Lord John Russell had spoken to him and said frankly that when Lord Palmerston resigned from the Foreign Office he would be offered the appointment.

Sir Rupert had been overwhelmed. He had planned for it and worked for it, but he had not expected the realisation of his most aspiring ambition to come so soon. His political success had already been phenomenal, there was no doubt about that. From the moment he had entered the House of Commons he had been outstanding, first as a back bencher and then as an Undersecretary.

He was only twenty-seven when he had been sent on a mission to the Colonies to represent Her Majesty’s Government. The Foreign Secretary had been ill and there was no one else in a ministerial capacity at that moment to take his place. Rupert Wroth had his chance of showing his capabilities and he had not failed those who had trusted him. He had in fact been brilliantly successful, so successful indeed that Her Majesty had been pleased to Knight him for it and overnight he had become the most promising young man in the House of Commons.

The aptitude for Diplomacy that he had shown during his mission had not been forgotten. The Prime Minister had singled him out again and again for special attention and soon after the New Year of 1850 had been heralded with its usual train of international incidents, the threat of War and a dozen Diplomatic crises, Lord John Russell had sent for Sir Rupert and told him frankly what was in his mind.

He intended, he said, to remove Lord Palmerston from the Foreign Office. The Queen, who disliked the Foreign Secretary and had repeatedly complained of his behaviour not only to Lord Palmerston himself but also to Lord John, must, the Prime Minister thought, at long last be conciliated.

“I have told Lord Palmerston so often,” the Prime Minister told Sir Rupert, “that Her Majesty’s uneasiness is not always groundless, but he pays no heed.”

He went on to speak of the difficulties of foreign relations at such a crucial time in British history and Sir Rupert listened attentively, forgetting for once to look aggressive. But his hopes, like the Queen’s, of being rid of Lord Palmerston were to receive a severe setback.

The Prime Minister’s intention of replacing the Foreign Secretary was defeated partly by the attacks made on the foreign policy of the Government by the Opposition and also by Lord Palmerston’s vindication of it in the House. It was a vindication that put him on a pedestal of popularity. Sir Rupert, listening from a backbench, knew that he would have to wait and wait patiently, at least to all outward appearances, for office.

Well aware that time was on his side he was not unduly perturbed by this, but while he waited he amused himself or rather as usual suffered a woman to amuse him.

His love affairs were already the subject of much talk and speculation and to choose Lady Clementine Talmadge at this particular moment had been a mistake.

To begin with she was a notorious beauty and as such was very much in the public eye.

Secondly she had a reputation for being indiscreet, which was bound to bring upon her head the censure of the strait-laced and easily shocked young Queen Victoria.

Lady Clementine had spent the summer in the country and Sir Rupert had no idea how what happened in the rural North had so speedily come to the ears of those who were in London or Windsor. He had apparently underestimated for perhaps the first time in his life both his opponents and his friends.

Striding now towards St. James’s Street, he felt the first heat of his anger ebb away from him and the cool calculation of his brain taking in the situation. He was well aware that behind him those who would be leaving The Palace would be chattering about what the Queen had said to him.

There would be gossip of a hidden engagement, perhaps even of a secret marriage. Rumours of every fantastic sort would be rife before the morning, but only he and the Prime Minister would understand exactly what the Queen had said so clearly and unmistakably.

As plainly as if she had put it into words, Sir Rupert thought, she had told him that she would tolerate no indiscretions in his private life if he was to become Foreign Minister in place of Lord Palmerston. What was more his present entanglement with a married woman had gone far enough. Before he came to Court again he must produce a wife acceptable to Society, a bride worthy of becoming the wife of Her Majesty’s Foreign Secretary.

The calm insolence of it took his breath away and yet he could not help but admire the Queen’s methods, which were invariably direct. Indeed there was seldom any doubt left in the minds of those who listened to what Her Majesty required of them.