An indiscreet princess, p.22
An Indiscreet Princess, page 22
—Queen Victoria to Lord Lorne
London, November 1876
“Your patronage and support have done so much for us, Your Royal Highness,” Dr. Garrett said as thanks to Louise as she led her and Lorne on a tour of the New Hospital for Women. “The expense of running the hospital is so great, we could never hope to remain open if it weren’t for your help. There isn’t another institution in England where women seeking medical advice from women or eager to be trained in medicine can come. Perhaps one day Your Royal Highness will be in need of our services,” Dr. Garrett suggested with a lilt in her voice, escorting Louise into the maternity wing of the hospital.
“One can hope.” Louise’s heart dropped but not her smile, as Dr. Garrett escorted her and Lorne past the beds of mothers and their newly delivered babies. Some slept with their swaddled babes in their arms, others quietly nursed them as Louise passed, her heart breaking. “These mothers are fortunate to have you and the hospital.”
“We also help foundlings by placing them in suitable homes in the country, then arranging for their education in a trade when they’re older.”
Louise steeled herself against the unfairness of life. She longed for a child and had none, while some mothers willingly gave their babies away. And others were faced with what might be a terrible and difficult decision.
Dr. Garrett escorted them to the surgical theater, with its viewing gallery for female students. They visited the dispensary, with its shelves of glass bottles filled with medicines to serve the needs of charity patients. In each ward, women of various ages tended the sick, oversaw administrative duties, and compounded medicines. It was like no hospital Louise had ever visited before, and she plied Dr. Garrett with questions about the new surgical techniques and procedures, eager to write to Alice about everything she’d learned. Alice was one of the few who knew of this visit. Louise had kept it a secret from Mama, who was not enamored of the female doctor, thinking her an abomination instead of a necessity.
Lorne trailed behind Louise, ignored by everyone, including the all-female staff who gathered in doorways and along the railings to catch sight of Louise. She didn’t disappoint them, readily approaching the nervous and blushing nurses to ask them questions about their work or patients. Thanks to her anatomy training, she understood many answers better than expected.
At the end of the visit, Louise collapsed against the carriage squabs, the strain of so many discussions, and appearing as if all were well in the maternity ward, leaving her exhausted. She touched her bodice and the medal of Edgar. He’d told her to be strong and she had been, but she hated it, wanting to lay down this burden, but she couldn’t. She must always pretend she wasn’t crumbling inside at the reminders of her barrenness, and play the part of the perfectly poised and polite Princess.
“I don’t know why you summoned me from Ireland to tour a women’s hospital,” Lorne grumbled. “It’s bad enough when I have to trail behind you at railroad openings and military reviews and I’m all but ignored by the press and the crowds, but a women’s hospital where there is absolutely nothing for me is pointless.”
“I told you, we have to keep up appearances or people will talk.”
“What they should be talking about is my appointment to a post of importance and the things I’m accomplishing there.”
“I secured you a place on Mama’s Privy Council.” It’d been the only position Mr. Disraeli had been able to convince Mama to give him. “What you choose to do or not do with it is up to you.”
“There’s nothing to be done with it. It’s a token gesture where I’m expected to sit and stay silent. Whenever I do speak up, the other counselors are vicious in reminding me my opinion is not needed or wanted.”
“What more do you want?”
“For you to uphold your end of the bargain, as I’ve upheld mine. I say nothing about those artist friends of yours and whatever liberties you allow them.”
“You should be happy someone is stepping in to do your duty, otherwise there might never be a child.”
“I don’t care what they do with you. Nothing will come of it anyway.”
For the first time, Louise felt as Smack did about her husband, wishing someone might rise up and rid her of him, but if they did, and God saw fit to finally grant her a child, she still needed the protection of this marriage and his name or it’d be a scandal not even she could overcome.
Chapter Twenty
Beware of incurring debt (as Alice has to a very serious extent) so I shall not be able to help you—I cannot with the help I have been asked and maybe obliged to give your other sisters. As I give you £2000 a year I have a right to see that the money is not improperly or at least improvidently and unnecessarily spent . . .
—QUEEN VICTORIA TO PRINCESS LOUISE
Windsor Castle, April 1877
You must stop your visits and public support for Mrs. Garrett at once,” Mama said to Louise from across her desk. “It is not seemingly for you to patronize a woman engaged in such inappropriate activities. A woman doctor. Lenchen, have you heard of anything so ridiculous?”
“I have not, Mama.”
“Alice is a great admirer of Dr. Garrett and her work on behalf of women. Many poor or destitute mothers have found solace in her care.” Louise rubbed the end of the beaten silver cross around her neck so hard the pads of her fingers polished it.
“Alice’s interests are indecent. It is unseeingly for you to follow in her footsteps. Patronize the School for Cookery or something of that sort. You see how Lenchen is much admired as the president of the Royal School of Art-Needlework.”
“I’m sure she is,” Louise replied dryly, certain she’d die of boredom at any of their committee meetings.
“Their work isn’t political either, and in many ways Mrs. Garrett’s is,” Lenchen observed from where she sat by the windows sorting Mama’s correspondence. “It isn’t our place to show favor to any political cause. We’re supposed to rise above and be separate from it all.”
“Especially when it is my money you are using to support that woman. It is as if I am supporting her too and it cannot be had, especially now that I am Empress of India as well as Queen of England.” She rubbed Sharp’s head, the dog resting its chin on Mama’s lap. Mr. Disraeli’s greatest achievement on Mama’s behalf had been to raise her to the elevated rank, one she didn’t shy from lording over everyone, especially Vicky, who had yet to become an empress. “You will not speak or engage with Mrs. Garrett again.”
Louise silently fumed, irritated at having her yearly stipend held over her head to make her obey. If she had the freedom to sculpt and sell her pieces, she might earn enough to do without Mama’s money and control, but Mama would balk at Louise entering into commerce more than she did Louise supporting Mrs. Garrett.
“You are also not to continue hosting Leopold in London. You and Bertie have taken advantage of my generosity in allowing him to travel by escorting him to dances and dinners not sanctioned by me. I will not have Bertie encouraging his corruption or you stoking his insolence. I refuse to have him led astray by those bohemian artist friends of yours. He is a guileless and innocent boy.”
“He is twenty-four years old, he hardly needs permission to dine with his sister or attend social events.”
“He is my son, and he and you will do as I say.” Mama tapped the ink off her pen as if the matter were settled. It might be, in her mind, but not in Louise’s. Leopold deserved some semblance of a life outside the palace walls.
“May I take my leave?” She didn’t want to have this row again.
“No, you may assist Lenchen with my correspondence.”
“I will not. My place is beside my husband, not here.”
Mama slammed down her pen. “You are never beside your husband.”
“That is not true. He accompanies me to art school openings and charity bazaars to benefit women’s infirmaries, and will be at a number of future events.” She and Lorne, through Smack and Major Francis de Winton, Lorne’s private secretary, had arranged a renewed schedule of appearances to keep up the pretense of a happy marriage while ensuring they didn’t spend too much time together.
“You should accompany him to his interests, sit in Parliament when he is there, and help make him a better politician.” Mama rose and came around the desk, clasping Louise’s hands in hers, a sincere concern filling her eyes. “All I want is your happiness. It is all I have ever wanted for my children. You would be so much more content and not need to flitter about London if you had someone as devoted to you and your well-being as I have Mr. Brown to attend to mine. Lord Lorne could be such a person for you if you but nurtured him and made his interests yours.”
Edgar was for Louise just as she suspected Mr. Brown was for Mama, but Louise dared not ever admit it. “Lorne and I have as much in common as can be expected of a man and wife, and we live together as best we can. He isn’t my drunken servant like Mr. Brown is yours, and I am not his monarch.”
Mama let go of Louise’s hands and marched back to her desk. “You are not his helpmate either, nor are you mine. Instead of settling my well-meaning and heartfelt concerns, you do nothing but irritate me by ignoring the most sensible advice and insulting my dear friend Mr. Brown. You are dismissed.”
Louise left Mama’s office, irked at having been sent out like a servant but relieved to not have to review dispatches. She had things to do in London, and needed to hurry to make the train. She was so involved in her thoughts about tonight and Edgar and dinner at Sir Coutts’s she nearly tripped over Beatrice.
“Louise, may I speak with you?” Beatrice’s face had gained a soft roundness that made her look younger than twenty. Her swan-white dress had a wider skirt and more lace and fripperies than the current fashion preferred, and it added to her youthful demeanor. But her tight-pressed lips spoke of more adult difficulties.
“A request. How refreshing an approach.” Louise kept walking, ignoring her youngest sister. She’d had enough of Mama and Lenchen and wasn’t in the mood for more irritation from any of her siblings, especially from Beatrice and her tattletale ways.
“Please, I need your help.” She stopped in front of Louise, forcing her to halt in the hallway. “I know I’ve been perfectly dreadful in the past, but you have no idea how lonely it is here.”
“I think I do know.”
“No, you don’t. You always had Lenchen, Arthur, and Leopold to play or study with. And Bertie’s always been on your side. I’ve had no one, no siblings or friends my age, nothing but Mama, who is so demanding. She smothers me like she does Leopold.”
Louise softened her hard stance, seeing Beatrice in a new light. She was so much younger than the rest of them and Mama kept her as close as Sharp. If Louise thought she’d had few outside friends as a child, Beatrice was a near-recluse. It wasn’t difficult to see her childhood sourness had been due to bitterness and loneliness, emotions Louise knew too well. “What do you want?”
“To attend the State Ball in July. The Prince Imperial will be there and he promised to dance with me.” She held out the sides of her skirt and twirled down the hall and then back again. “He’s handsome and ever so sweet to me when Mama and I visit him and Empress Eugénie at Camden Place.”
“I’m surprised Mama allows you to speak with him at all.”
“We speak when she and the Empress are busy and she doesn’t notice. Oh please, Louise, you have a gift for talking Mama into things, what with your schooling and Leopold’s going to Oxford. She listens to you in a way she doesn’t do with the rest of us.”
It struck Louise that Bertie had said something similar once. Hearing the comment on Beatrice’s lips made it more perplexing. Mama never indulged her, and everything she had she’d gained through fights and struggles and alliances with Mr. Disraeli and others.
Her siblings always made it sound as if she simply asked and was granted her requests. “I’ll do what I can, but she isn’t apt to listen to me at present. I’ll broach the subject when she’s in a better mood, and I’ll speak with Bertie and see if he can help.”
If Beatrice was this entranced by the handsome young man, it might be the undoing of all Mama’s plans to make Beatrice her unmarried old-age companion. Ruining their mother’s intentions, more than anything else, might convince Bertie to help her.
“Oh thank you, thank you. You don’t know what this means to me.” She flung her arms around Louise and squeezed her tight before skipping off down the hallway, her head clearly filled with dreams of waltzing with the Prince Imperial.
Mama railed when any of them defied her. It would be an absolute tempest if Beatrice decided to do the same by demanding a husband, and Louise hoped she was here to see the day it happened. She prayed that when the time came, Beatrice had the strength to fight for a life of her own.
H.R.H. the Princess Louise went to Sir Edgar Boehm’s studio by appointment and unattended by lady or gentleman. She discussed some of the sculptor’s latest work with him . . .
—EASTERN DAILY PRESS
London, May 1877
“What is this?” Louise leveled her fan at the nude statue of Skittles, Bertie’s current paramour, her hands thrown back, her robe gathered around her enviable hips in the manner of the Venus de Milo. Except this statue had a face and supple arms and an eroticism the one in the Louvre could never match.
“A commission from the Prince of Wales.”
“She’s a stunning woman, with an enviable figure.”
“Not nearly as grand as yours.” Edgar slid an arm around her waist and pulled her to him, covering her lips with a kiss. He wore a steel-gray suit, the two of them ready to venture to Sir Coutts’s long-awaited Grosvenor Gallery opening.
“Flattery from a man who’s had his hands on the marble body of another woman.”
“She means nothing to me, simply a commission for the Prince of Wales, and His Royal Highness Prince Leopold.”
“Leopold?”
Edgar slid a letter off his worktable and held it up to Louise. She recognized the letterhead and Leopold’s hand. “He asked me to commission a painted copy of a dimension appropriate for hanging above his bed.”
Louise took the letter, her cheeks burning at so earthy a consideration being written by Leopold. But, she reminded herself, he was a man, with all the same desires and cravings as Bertie, no matter how much Mama tried to deny it. Half his letters to Louise from Oxford had been about pretty young women, especially Alice Liddell, the Dean of Christchurch’s daughter and Lewis Carroll’s inspiration for Alice in Wonderland. He’d kept whatever relationship they’d enjoyed a secret, even from her, but Louise had her suspicions. “Dear me, Oxford certainly broadened his horizons. Imagine what a dukedom, a living, and a house of his own might do if Mama ever grants it.” Recently, Mama had made Arthur Duke of Connaught and Strathearn and given him the use of Clarence House. Leopold had been positively livid at not receiving the same consideration—a title in addition to prince, and a household of his own.
“He’ll get one. He has your persistence when it comes to pressing matters with Her Majesty.”
She leaned across the table and touched her lips to his, his mustache tickling her skin. “My persistence has paid off.”
“Indeed it has.”
Sir Coutts Lindsay, the proprietor and director of the Grosvenor Gallery, has adopted May-day as the fittest period for admitting to view his collection those who make a point of being amongst the first to “do” any new exhibition of pictures. His patrons, therefore, this year have four clear days’ start of the Academy for inspecting an exhibition of art-work which is full of variety and interest, and in many respects singularly unique . . . while in the space devoted to sculpture are examples by the Princess Louise, Count Gleichen, Professor Kopft, Mr. Boehm, Professor Encke, etc.
—WEEK’S NEWS
THE CATHEDRAL CEILING of the Grosvenor Gallery in Bond Street brought a reverence to the inaugural exhibition, and the toast of society and the arts mingled beneath the grand skylights to view the pictures on the high walls. They moved from the West Gallery to the East Gallery, and the Sculpture Gallery at the far end, where Louise’s equestrian statue Geraint and Enid stood on display beside Edgar’s terra-cotta bust of the artist Edward Armitage.
“You’ve made me proud, Your Royal Highness,” Mary Thornycroft congratulated Louise.
“I owe my success to you for starting me on this path.”
“I couldn’t allow your natural talent to go to waste.” Mary smiled, little about her having changed over the last few years except the gray in her dark hair at the temples and the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and lips. She was still the serene, proud tutor who’d escorted her into the National Art Training School. “You’ve accomplished far more than I’d ever dreamed for you.”
Mary wrapped her in a hug, the old familiar scent of rosewater perfume enveloping Louise and taking her back to those innocent and uncertain days.
“Would Papa be proud?” Louise whispered.
“He would be.”
Mary let go of her, tears glistening in her eyes as much as Louise’s.
“Her Royal Highness has flourished since the day you brought her to my classroom,” Edgar said. Unlike Louise, he didn’t care to stand beside his piece and receive praise.
“Careful, you’ll puff up my ego. In humbleness, I’ll say I owe my accomplishments to the marvelous studio Mr. Godwin built me.”
“Mr. Godwin is a miracle worker,” Mr. Whistler announced, his white cotton duck suit crisp and his monocle polished so it shone in the natural gallery light. “I’ll need one if he’s ever to finish mine. He’s a genius with a revolutionary design and the Metropolitan Board of Works balks at it, thinking a white house with a green slate roof beyond the pale. I refuse to throw up another one of those foreboding Gothic gargoyles already littering Chelsea. I’m an artist, not a Brontë heroine. My new studio will be clean, simple, and free of architectural fripperies. With your endless charm you could persuade them to change their minds and approve the plans.”
