Chapter 13
“Good afternoon. Did you have a good day?” The Queen of England walks into the library where I’m brainstorming ways to get home, Abdul trailing behind her.
“Yes, Your Majesty. Thank you for the clothes. And the chaperone. And your general hospitality.”
She waves away the thanks. “You are very welcome. The Duke of Norfolk has invited us to his home for an assembly at Norfolk House tonight. Would you like to come?”
Well, not particularly. I’m kind of exhausted from pretending all day to Leo and pretending with him to everyone else. I was hoping for a quiet night where I could regroup and think of ways to get home.
“Thank you for thinking of me. I’ve had such a busy few days. I was wondering if maybe I should rest?”
“Nonsense. You shall feel better once you get out. I know it.”
I really don’t think I will, and would give anything to just get out of this very heavy Victorian dress for the rest of the night and be alone to recharge my social battery, but I can’t really refuse a monarch whose house I’m living in, so I grit my teeth.
“That does sound lovely. Thank you, Your Majesty.”
At least I’ll get to see Norfolk House. The house’s plan became the blueprint for the London townhouse and townhouse parties since it was built in the mid-eighteenth century, with its circuit of decorated rooms for guests to meander through instead of just one main salon where an event would be held.
A groundbreaking, historic house that didn’t make it until my time, torn down for office space before I was even born.
“Of course. A few of my godchildren will be in attendance, and maybe speaking to them can help you in navigating London. Charles tells me that he’s sent word to the Cooch Behars as well, and we can sort out what happened. But we do enjoy having you here with us in the meantime.”
Oh, shit. The smile freezes on my face. That letter will undoubtedly say they have no idea who I am, showing I’m definitely a liar. And as kind as Victoria is to an alleged fellow royal, she would be decidedly less kind to a liar. A common liar.
Less than ideal, this letter.
Charles probably sent a telegram, which is much quicker than a letter by mail.
The telegram still has to get to the right person, and then they have to travel to Cooch Behar to get a response, and then travel back to where the telegram machine is with the answer.
That gives me maybe a week or a few weeks, tops.
If anyone in the process feels there’s more to say than a telegram allows, they’ll send a letter, which won’t get anywhere for about two to three weeks.
Although the most likely response, “They don’t know her,” is simple enough to be telegrammed.
There was always a limit on my time here. And whether it ends with me back in LA in the twenty-first century or me thrown in a pit of lions for lying to Queen Victoria, this isn’t going to last forever.
I need to stop getting deeper entwined in the lives around here.
“And I will invite Basildon.” Despite the fact that this is not a good start to distancing myself from Leo, I’m relieved at this part of the queen’s news.
* * *
That evening, the royal carriage (and I will never get tired of this mode of transportation, because what it lacks in speed, heated seats, and a sound system to play my audiobooks, it makes up for in historic atmosphere), drives Victoria, Abdul and me to St. James’s Square.
We pull up to the facade which takes up more space than any other plot in the square but is surprisingly understated with its simple columns and pediment design. But they can’t trick me, I know what’s inside. I’ve seen the black and white pictures.
I trail the group into the hall. Victoria is immediately surrounded by people, and I fade further into the background, happy to be ignored.
I left the journal at home, despite every scholarly instinct telling me to take the book, but compromised by tearing some papers loose and slipping them into my bag with a pencil.
I walk the intended circuit, making a circle through the rooms of the ground floor and then moving upstairs to do the circuit there. Each room is decorated in different themes and color schemes, the only thing they have in common that everything is blindingly expensive.
I walk past furniture, paintings, and other decorative arts, pieces that must be in museums in my time, that are now brand new.
And some that are already old even now, like all the intricate gold covered wooden molding and panels from the Music Room that in my time are installed in the Victoria and Albert Museum as a room you can walk through.
It feels very different to walk through that same room now, with people in Victorian clothes milling about, instead of modern tourists with their cameras trying to capture the grandeur of the rooms and selfies as well.
Others are wandering through the rooms with me, admiring the wealth, good taste and power of the Duke of Norfolk, just as he intended.
“Hello,” a woman’s voice says from close behind me.
I freeze, my hopes of getting through this night completely unnoticed destroyed. “Hello?” I turn, trying to prepare myself for whatever might be coming towards me.
But I didn’t prepare for the sight walking toward me.
Like normal people meeting Pedro Pascal or Taylor Swift, my eyes get big, my jaw drops open and I start hyperventilating.
The Indian woman and the Nigerian woman in Victorian dresses in front of me look concerned, but I can’t force myself to have chill.
These women are both children of those displaced by the Empire: Sophia’s father from the Sikh Empire in India and Victoria’s mother was Yoruba from West Africa.
As the children of immigrants, they made their way in London with the help of Queen Victoria, and while one chose to stay here, the other returned to Lagos.
And I have spent a lot of my adult life reading and writing about them.
“Sophia Singh? Victoria Davies Randle?”
“Yes,” they both say. They don’t look as concerned about me knowing them as they do about my general demeanor, but apparently that’s how life is when you live in the world’s largest small town.
“It’s so nice to meet you! So nice! I’m Meera Chopra.”
“Related to the Chooch Behar royal family, right?” Victoria asks.
“Yes,” I say with a grimace. Lying to women I admire isn’t the easiest thing I’ve done, but the alternative is jail in a nineteenth century prison, so I’m going to dig deep. At least they haven’t asked why my accent is strange.
“Her Majesty sent us over here to help you navigate London society. I’ve grown up in it and Mrs. Randle visits often from Nigeria. We’re also both godchildren of Her Majesty’s,” Sophia says.
Oh, I know. In the least creepy way possible. “How has your experience been in London?”
“Some people will be excited about you because you are ‘exotic,’ like a zebra or an Egyptian sarcophagus. Some people will think you’re simultaneously much stupider than them and somehow successfully conning them out of what’s rightfully theirs.
Others will try to find out everything about you, the same way they would with anyone who gets invited into this tiny circle, and it won’t have anything to do with where you come from, but because you’re different, and these people do not enjoy change,” Sophia says.
“Fun. I think so far people are mostly in the staring phase. And the occasional rude comment.”
Victoria shrugs. “It is not that bad. There are worse places for a woman to be.”
That’s depressing. “Yes. I’m very grateful to Her Majesty for taking me in on such short notice.”
“That’s Her Majesty,” Sophia says. The woman lives in a grace and favor house near Hampton Court, so she’s well acquainted with the Queen’s hospitality. Even though she wouldn’t need the queen’s hospitality if she were the sister of the Maharaja of Punjab, instead of in exile.
See, complicated.
“But be careful of the people around her. She might have a soft spot for you as an Indian royal, but Parliament gets more powerful every day. They are much less enamored with you, and if they think you are a danger to the Empire, you will be dealt with as a threat. And her household will not appreciate you taking the attention they feel they deserve,” Sophia says.
The two women tell me stories about their very different experiences in England, from debuting in front of Queen Victoria, catching her attention, and getting lavish presents from her, but also sometimes dealing with her feeling she knows exactly what’s best for them and how hard it is to do what they want in light of Victoria’s “suggestions” for them.
And dealing with jealous courtiers and those who used them to get close to the queen.
Then too soon, Victoria sees her husband and excuses herself. Alone with Sophia, I bite my lip to stop myself from asking her all the questions I have. Victoria’s experiences are amazing and I’ve studied them, but Sophia is my actual thesis. The subject of my graduate thesis.
Princess Sophia Duleep Singh: Punjabi, German and Ethiopian, and one of the daughters of the last Maharaja of Punjab.
Not that she’s been to visit there yet. She was born in an English country house called Elveden in Suffolk, with a decidedly Indian interior full of scalloped arches, peacock fireplaces, plush Indian rugs and Indian furniture.
My parents are both from Punjab, so I can’t help but feel connected to the woman in front of me, not only because we’re from the same place, but because we were born and grew up somewhere else, only visiting the birthplace of our parents later in life.
But I have a feeling if I asked her all the questions I really wanted to, she would get a little scared and encourage those people who are already suspicious of me to look closer at the strange woman with no filter and too much knowledge of people’s personal lives.
Still… “How do you feel about being in England, if you don’t mind me asking? Instead of India?”