There was an interview with Joan Bennett in which she did admit that, if the character of Vicki had hung around (it appears "Icky Vicki" killed that), it was to be revealed that Elizabeth was, indeed, Victoria's mother. I once found the recorded interview on-line; maybe google-search it.
Not to bring it up again, but in my version of what-if-DS-had-continued, accepting what Miss Bennett had said, I had a storyline where Vicki returns (again, I took liberties and had, after several years, Alexandra Moltke return to the series). In my WIDSHC, Elizabeth fesses up. Using flashback scenes, she reveals that as a 15-year-old in 1932, she and her younger brother sail to Europe with their father Jamison (and their governess with whom Jamison was having an affair - what a cad). On the ocean liner, she meets a dashing 17-year-old with whom she begins a shipboard romance. But once they dock in Le Havre, she doesn't see him again. Well, she does, in 1944 when she serves as a WAC in New York City. Their romance reignites and in Spring of 1944, she discovers that he is to be shipped out. They consummate their love before he goes. He is killed in the Normandy Invasion. She is pregnant. When her parents find out, to prevent a scandal, they have her kept in NYC. She wants to keep the baby, but they will have none of it. But the Collins', always wanting to do the upright thing, decide to support the baby. Elizabeth gives birth in the cold, winter days of 1945. She's allowed to hold her baby once. To demonstrate her resilience to her uptight parents, she names the baby Victoria - "victory." The woman hired by the Collins', having a moment of compassion before she deposits the baby by the doors of the foundling home, includes the note written by Elizabeth: "Her name is Victoria..." Because of the winter of 1945, Victoria is given by the orphanage the last name of "Winters."
Gerard