Dr. Chambers took this letter to Lady Sophia Hastings, who returned the following answer:—
“If I would have given the message, it is now beyond her comprehension, but you may say—if it would be any consolation to Lady Tavistock—I refer her to the Bishop of London.” In telling her mother of this reply, Sophia adds, “I hear Princess Sophia was enchanted when Lady Cornwallis told her this yesterday. She is very anxious to know if anything of regret had been expressed.”
As to this matter of regret, though it was expressed for the death of Flora Hastings, it was, as far as I can find out, only once connected with any allusion to the scandal. The Queen sent for Dr. Chambers and saw him alone, though the Baroness was in the next room. Her Majesty seemed much subdued, and after thanking him for the report he had sent, expressed her sorrow that suffering had been added to bodily illness. Lady Sophia commented upon this:—
“I told him I was very glad Her Majesty should have appeared to feel, and that she had done me the honour to enquire for me this morning. The Duchess of Gloucester was very much displeased she had not done it before, tho’ I believe she sent down that sad Friday morning, when I was collecting poor Flora’s things, and I have an indistinct idea of sending some answer, or Reichenbach (Lady Flora’s maid) did for me.”
A State ball arranged for Friday, June 28th, was postponed because of “the melancholy state of Lady Flora Hastings,” and a Royal banquet arranged for July 4th, the day on which Lady Flora died, was also countermanded. The Countess of Loudoun wrote some impassioned letters to the Queen, which eventually drew from Lord Melbourne the response that the Queen had acknowledged the unhappy error to Lady Flora, and it was not intended that any other step should be taken. This decision was, most unfortunately, adhered to. It may be that Melbourne, always praised for his generosity of mind, may have urged a different course upon his Royal mistress, and that she, swayed by less wise counsels or by her own pride, would not heed him. But it seems never to have been acknowledged by the Court that the terrible publicity given to the affair, which had been eagerly seized upon in the interest of party by the Press, had altered the whole matter, and that action of some sort was imperatively demanded. Lord Melbourne, who hated rows, who was inclined to concede too much rather than too little to obtain peace, and who was one of the justest and kindest of men, must have suffered torment through this period.
If only Her Majesty had been royal enough and wise enough to have made public the affair from her point of view, and, if she shrank from ruining a man like Clark by dismissing him, have boldly said that she could not do it, this matter would not have remained to burden her thoughts with shame; but she wrapped herself in an inadequate covering of dignity, trying to believe the antiquated saying that a Queen can do no wrong. As a matter of fact, Dr. Clark entirely lost his reputation with the public over this matter, and there is something pathetic in the request Victoria made to Albert before their marriage:
“I have a request to make too, viz., that you will appoint poor Clark your physician; you need not consult him unless you wish it. It is only an honorary title, and would make him very happy.” Whether the Prince did this I do not know. To the end of the Queen’s life this tragic affair must have pained Her Majesty; and she certainly wished it to be forgotten by everyone, for never anywhere is there given any mention of it. It is ignored in most of the “lives” of Her Majesty, and every scrap of allusion to it is withdrawn from her own letters and writings; she herself later wrote of destroying most of the letters which belonged to that, “the most unsatisfactory” period of her life. It must not be forgotten that the deepest injury of all was inflicted by those who were the first to make this matter public, that is to say, by those who first reported it, for unworthy reasons, in the public Press. Many mistakes as bad as this have been made and atoned for—in private, and the sense of injury has disappeared; but when all the world knows of a shameful thing, then the atonement should be public.
When Lord Hastings paid the doctors and nurses, his money was returned with the information that handsome fees had been received. Lady Flora’s maid showed him a brooch and a banknote for £50, which she offered to put in the fire; this he advised her not to do, so she banked it. Though it is not asserted in so many words, it is implied that the Queen had taken this way of showing her compunction. The presents to the maid had been conveyed to her through Viscountess Forbes. Lady Sophia, anxious as she was all through to show the keenness of her resentment, secured another note of the same amount, put it in an envelope, and returned it through the same channel. Of Lady Forbes, Sophia writes bitterly in the following letter, in which she also emphasises the painful position of the Duchess of Kent:—
“I found Dr. Chambers knew nothing accurately of Sir James Clark’s conduct, so I told him the real state of the case; and as at Harewood and at Lord Tavistock’s they had not told him the facts, I did. I parted from him with more feeling of regret than I did from anyone else. I saw the poor Duchess of Kent, who is ‘floored,’ I think. She was very kind to me, and about all of us; but she is beat down, she can fight no longer, and she will soon be completely under orders. I saw Fanny Forbes (Viscountess Forbes) and cleared my mind to her of her conduct. I cannot say that there was much good feeling in her going to the Opera every night, tho’ the Queen told her she need not; and tho’ she came in when she came back, her flighty, flirty, lively manner, just out of the world, jarred horribly with one’s feelings. When one night she came in with a jaunty step, we had just kept Flora from a fainting fit, and had sent off for Mr. Merriman, as he had told us such an attack might at any time prove fatal. When Mr. M—— came I said, ‘Thank God it is only a fainting fit,’ and he said in such a melancholy way, ‘Only a fainting fit, Lady Sophia, and who could tell how that might end?’ And Lady Forbes says she loved Flora like a sister, and anxiety and watching has afflicted her health! She offered to give back the hair Reichenbach gave her [after Lady Flora was dead], but will not take out that given her by the Queen. I told her that hair was probably false, as I could not trace how the Queen got it, but that she did not care for. The Duchess of Kent did not give it, for I asked her.”
To remove entirely any lingering feeling of doubt, Lady Sophia caused a post-mortem examination to be made, that a definite name might be given to the illness which brought about her sister’s death, and she writes thus of it to her mother: