The Italian hero entered that beautiful palace, where a grand company of the nobility were waiting to receive him, attired in a rough gray overcoat and trousers, a large pork-pie hat, a loose black neck-tie, and a red flannel shirt. This he never changed—I mean his style of dress, not the shirt—but Garibaldi would have been quite un-Garibaldi-ed in an English evening suit. Lord Ronald Gower writes that his noble, liberty- loving mother was very devoted to their guest, but does not add that by so doing she shocked the sensibilities of footmen and housemaids. One of the latter once told to another guest, a moving story of the strange habits of "Italian brigand": "Why, marm," she said, "he was such a common-looking person, and he would get up so awful early and go hobbling about in the garden. One morning at six o'clock, I looked out of my window, and there he was walking up and down, and the Duchess with him— my Duchess, walking and talking with the likes of him!"
The first public appearance of the widowed Queen was at the opening of Parliament, in 1866. I do not know whether the splendid chair of State she had provided for Prince Albert, in the happy old time, had been left in its place, to smite her eyes with its gilding and her heart with its emptiness; I do not know whether its presence or its absence would have grieved her most; but every sorrowing widow knows what it is to look on her husband's vacant chair. It does not matter whether it is made of rude, unpainted wood and woven rushes, or is a golden and velvet- cushioned chair of State,—it was his seat, and he is gone! Queen Victoria must have felt that day, in her lonely grandeur, like crying out with Constance,
"Here I and Sorrow sit. "
Lady Bloomfield gives a very touching account of her first visit to the widowed mistress, whom, nearly twenty years before, she had so gladly and proudly served—for true service is in the spirit, though the act may be limited to taking a part in a duet, or handing the daily bouquet. She wrote: "The Queen is dreadfully changed—most sad, but with the gentlest, most benevolent smile. Even when the tears rolled down her cheeks, she tried to smile." I think it was about this time that the Queen presented to our George Peabody her portrait, expressly painted for him, in recognition of his more than princely munificence in the gift of model lodging-houses to the London poor. It was a small portrait—enameled, I believe. I do not think it was an idealized picture, though the pencil was evidently guided by a delicate and reverential loyalty, "doing its spiriting gently," in marking the tracings of time and sorrow. In a description which I wrote at the tune of its exhibition in Philadelphia, I said: "With the exception of a touching expression of habitual sadness, this face is very like the one I looked down upon from the gallery of the House of Lords fifteen years ago. There is the same roundness of outline, only 'a little more so'—almost the same freshness of tints in the fair complexion. The soft brown hair is unchanged in color, if somewhat thinner; and the clear blue eyes have the same steady outlook. The whole figure is marked by a sort of regal rigidity. The face, if not positively unhappy in expression, is quite empty of happiness. There is about it an atmosphere of lonely state and absolute widowhood. The Mary Stuart cap is very becoming to Her Majesty, but the black dress mars the picturesque effect of the portrait. The neck and arms have all the roundness of youth, and are exquisitely painted. I remember hearing the late Mr. Gibson, who made several statues of the Queen, say that loyalty itself need not to flatter her arms or bust; in sculpture or painting, as they were really remarkably beautiful."
In 1868 the Queen had the misfortune to lose her "dearest Duchess"—that grandest daughter of the grand house of Howard, the Duchess of Sutherland. She floated all unconsciously out on the waves that wash against the restful palm-crowned shore, her last words being, "I think I shall sleep now—I am so tired."
The Princess Louise was married with really royal pomp and a brave attempt at the old gayety, in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, in March, 1871, to the Marquis of Lome.
The bride, who, according to Lord Ronald Gower, was. "very pale, but handsome as she always is," was accompanied by the Prince of Wales; her uncle, the Grand Duke of Coburg; and, to the great joy of all the assembly, by her mother, the Queen. The wedded pair went to Claremont for their honeymoon. As they drove away, "rice and white satin slippers were sent after them, and John Brown threw a new broom, Highland fashion."
The people were much comforted at this appearance of the Queen once more in the great gay world. They had begun to think that her social seclusion would never end. When she went down into the "valley of the shadow of death" with her beloved, though she struggled bravely up alone, she brought the shadow with her; it enveloped her and wrapped her away from her subjects—even the most loving and sympathetic. Now they took heart, believing that royalty was finally coming out from under its eclipse of mourning, that the Court would be re-established in Buckingham Palace, and things generally, go on as in the good old days. They never did, however, and never will, under her reign. It is too much to ask of her, it seems.
Whether it is true, as I hear, that the air of London is hurtful to her, giving her severe headaches, or that the scenes of her childhood and early queenhood, and of her marriage, are too much for her, and heart- ache is the matter, I know not; but it is undeniable that the Queen prefers any one of her other homes to Buckingham Palace. She only comes to it when absolute compelled by the duties of State. It is hard for London tradesmen and pleasure-seekers, who think Her Majesty's mourning immoderate, and doubt whether their wives would fret so long for them; but when, in the first year of her, reign, the pretty, wilful Victoria said to Lord Melbourne: "What is the use of being a Queen if one cannot do as one likes!" her people laughed and applauded. Surely, with years and trouble, and much faithful care and labor, and has not lost the right to have a mind of her own, or the will to maintain it.
Of late years I have seen Her Majesty some half dozen times; once on her way to prorogue Parliament, seated in the grand State coach, drawn by the superb, cream-colored State horses, in all imaginable splendor of trappings—escorted by the dashing Life Guards, and all the royal carriages, each with its resplendent coachman and footmen, most gorgeous of human creatures, and inside, very nice and respectable-looking people, with no particular air of pride or elation. The Queen wore a cloak of ermine, a tiara of diamonds, and a long, cloud-like veil of tulle, floating back from her face, which that day had a very pleasant, genial expression. She is changed,—of course she is; but she has even more of the old calm dignity, and when she smiles, the effect is magical; her youth flashes over her face, and quite the old look—the look he knew her by, comes back for a little while.