The Regent's Daughter: (Georgian Series), page 3
She began to imitate Lady de Clifford which she could do very well. Mimicry was a gift she had inherited from her father and he would have been amused to see how good she was; but she could never bring it off in his company. Now her voice was exactly that of Lady de Clifford as she whined that the Prince of Wales would dismiss her for failing in her duty.
‘And she has, George Keppel, because I am rather w … wicked, you know.’
‘You are not wicked at heart,’ George told her.
‘You will see,’ she said. ‘Go and fetch the pepper pot. It is in the cupboard. I have seen them put it there. And be quick, George Keppel. This is a secret mission.’
He stared at her and he saw that she was growing really angry. Oh dear, why could they not play sensible games? But she liked rough ones with forfeits and she invented the most difficult tasks which had to be performed to her satisfaction.
He came back with the pepper pot.
‘Sprinkle it over the chops,’ she commanded.
He did so lightly. ‘Again,’ she cried. And then: ‘Again.’
‘It will spoil the chops,’ he warned.
‘George Keppel, will you disobey your future Queen?’
‘No,’ said George, ‘but it will spoil the chops.’
‘There are worse things spoilt in this world than chops. Here, give it to me.’ She took it and with an almost demoniacal delight, showered pepper over Lady de Clifford’s supper.
‘Someone is coming,’ said George.
She dashed to the cupboard, put the pot out of sight and made for the door.
Outside they started to laugh.
George sneezed and Charlotte rolled about with delight. She pushed him roughly and he sneezed again.
Someone was coming; they ran up the stairs gasping and laughing.
‘Poor Grandmamma …’ began George.
Charlotte frowned. ‘They will taste horrible. They will be spoilt. But she will order some more to be cooked.’
It was a wicked thing to have done, she reasoned, but in some way it soothed her. It made her think of something besides the cold look in her father’s eyes when they rested on her and the sound of Lady de Clifford’s voice droning on about her inadequacies.
Charlotte’s household
AT LOWER LODGE, Windsor there was less freedom than in Carlton House where one could pay visits to South Audley Street, Mrs Fitzherbert’s house in Tilney Street and Montague House at Blackheath. The last, though, had been out of bounds for some time and that was due to the mystery which Charlotte was determined to solve. There was some reason why they would not allow her to visit her mother.
They had never liked her going; she knew that. Grandmamma would have stopped it if she dared but Grandpapa, dear old Grandpapa, who mumbled and sometimes talked so fast that he was impossible to follow, and could behave in such a strange manner, had put his foot down and said she and her mother were not to be separated. And Grandpapa was after all the King. But now even he must be agreeing that she should be kept from her mother.
Why?
Here at Windsor she was in the heart of the family and had to remember constantly that she was the Princess Charlotte, one day destined to be the Queen. She had to learn how to be an example to her subjects.
‘Are kings and queens examples then?’ she asked the Bishop, Dr Fisher, who was in charge of her education. Secretly she called him Bish-Up – with the accent on the last syllable; and she could not enjoy his company for he preached continuously and he was never satisfied with her progress and, as she told Mrs Campbell, her favourite of the ladies who worked under the directorship of Lady de Clifford, one would think he were training her to be the abbess of a convent rather than a queen of England.
‘My dear Princess Charlotte,’ he had intoned in what she called his very reverend voice, ‘it is indeed the duty of all rulers to be a shining example to their subjects.’
‘It is to be hoped that they were not always so, for some were very wicked.’ She laughed mischievously, there was nothing she liked so much as an argument with some of her pompous mentors and if she could prove them wrong – which was often the case – she would chuckle over her triumph for days. ‘There was George I who imprisoned his wife for thirty years for doing once that which was a habit with him …’
Oh, delightful! The poor man was surely about to blush. She hurried on: ‘And George II who was ruled by his wife and didn’t know it. And …’ Well, she must not mention poor Grandpapa who behaved so oddly and kind as he was, such strange behaviour could scarcely be used as an example.
‘We have had great monarchs,’ he reminded her, ‘and you would do well to consider them.’
‘There was Queen Elizabeth. Oh, I think of her often. I read of her. But you must admit, dear Bish-Up, that she could be a little wicked sometimes. Perhaps it is necessary to be a little wicked sometimes. I do hope so. Being good all the time is a little dull. Although it is nice to come back and be good after one has been a little wicked.’
The Bishop frowned and turned her attention to theology.
I disconcert them, thought Charlotte. They do wonder what sort of woman I shall be when I grow up. I suspect that they would like to punish me very severely, but they do remember that I will one day be the Queen.
The fact was that one did not really want to mould oneself on anyone. One should be oneself. But what am I? wondered Charlotte, apart from a Royal Highness one day to be a Majesty? It is hard to separate oneself from that.
She really preferred Dr Nott to Dr Fisher because he was more humble, less sure of himself, and he really cared that she should improve; and he it was who had pointed out to her that she had a tendency to disguise the truth. It was difficult, of course, because when she was with her mother she had to pretend not to care for her father; she had to listen to disparaging remarks about him and pretend to be amused by them; and when she was with her father she must never betray the fact that she had seen her mother; and this tended to embarrass her, for she was so anxious not to refer to her mother that she sometimes found herself led into the indiscretion of doing so. Then she would try to extricate herself by telling some barefaced lie such as: ‘But I have not seen the Princess of Wales for weeks’ – when she had seen her but a few days before. Dr Nott took her to task for this habit; she must overcome it; to lie was a sin.
‘Yes, yes, dear Notty,’ she would cry, ‘but the Prince does not want to hear that I have seen my mother. I was thinking of his comfort, and should one not think of the comfort of one’s parents? One must honour one’s father and mother, but you must admit, Notty, that when they don’t honour each other that puts their offspring in a delicate situation.’
He was not going to be involved, dear Notty, who was far too meek to teach the Princess Charlotte; and because she was fond of him even though she liked to disconcert him now – she was always quick to come to his rescue and would add: ‘But I will try to be truthful. I do realize that one should be.’
Oh dear, she thought, how shut in I am at Windsor. And what is happening at Montague House?
She smiled, thinking of it – her mother’s home. The Princess of Wales embracing her when she arrived. ‘My angel, my pet, let me look at you. Why, you are lovely … lovely … though the image of your father! Ha, ha, he could not disown you if he tried. And he’d like to … just to put me out. But he can’t, not with those eyes of yours. You’re one of them, my precious darling.’
Hot, rather suffocating embraces, not always very fragrant. Mamma did not like bathing and her women found it very difficult to make her change her clothes. ‘Come along in, my sweetest.’ Arms entwined, into the drawing room, which was not really like a royal drawing room.
‘We are having a special entertainment for you, my darling. Oh, not a silly children’s party. You would not like that. And no ceremonies, eh? Enough of them with de old Begum, and de bulls and cows.’ Mamma laughed wildly. ‘Bulls and cows’ was Charlotte’s own name for her numerous uncles and aunts which, in a careless moment, she had whispered to her mother. The Princess of Wales loved laughing at the family into which she had married. And it was not surprising, for they all hated her and had been most unkind to her, with the exception of the King, of course. Dear Grandpapa would never be unkind to anyone. And there was another secret. She had long been aware of how everyone watched him as though expecting him to do something odd. She often wondered what. Perhaps it was to die – but that was not so very odd. Dear Grandpapa, she wanted him to go on living for a long, long time. She would tell him so. Oh no, she would not, because then he wondered whether anyone had discussed his death before her.
How careful one has to be in a family like ours, thought Charlotte.
She was shut in by people who watched her all the time because she was an heir to the throne. The only thing that could prevent her attaining it, as far as she could see, would be the birth of a brother to her parents. And that was most unlikely.
She did love some of these people who surrounded her – Dr Nott, for one. Well, hardly loved, but she was fond of him. Perhaps the two she loved most were her dressers Mrs Gagarin and Miss Louisa Lewis. They were comforting as one imagined mothers might be. They scolded in a tender way which pleased her so much that she often behaved in such a way as to provoke their reproaches.
But she did not talk to them of what happened at her mother’s house. She was aware when they accompanied her there of their silent disapproval. Mamma never gave them a thought. She never altered anything because they were there. At the entertainments she gave she laughed wildly as she ran about playing Blind Man’s Buff, her eyes bandaged, her arms outstretched, and she always caught one of the gentlemen and the forfeit for being caught was a kiss. There was always a great deal of kissing going on at Mamma’s parties and there were always plenty of bluff hearty gentlemen living in the house, it seemed. They were very courteous to Charlotte although they did not kiss her – only when there was a forfeit in the games in which she joined.
Her mother’s house was quite different from anything she had ever known – or was likely to.
There was a sailor whom everyone called Sir Sydney – and wherever he was, there was lots of gaiety; he was constantly chasing and kissing the ladies; but he could tell a good adventure story of how brave he was. Charlotte particularly liked the one in which he defended Saint Jean d’Acre.
Mamma used to listen, her eyes alight with pleasure.
‘One of these days,’ she said, ‘I shall sail round the world. Will you come with me, my precious?’
Charlotte had replied that she would like to but she thought that, since she would one day be Queen of England, her place would be at home.
That made her mother screech with laughter. ‘You see, Sydney, they are making a queen of her already.’
Strange Montague House, where everything was so different from what it was at Windsor or Carlton House. But perhaps it was Mamma who was so strange that she would transform any place where she was and even Kew would become strange if she lived there.
She had not realized how interested she was in the manner in which life was lived at Montague House until she was not able to go there.
It is excuses all the time. Well, I am going to find out, she promised herself.
Who would tell her? Mrs Gagarin and Louisa Lewis she had hoped, but however much she tried to worm it out of them they would not tell her. They had such a stern sense of their own duty.
Her thoughts went to Mrs Udney, who, with Mrs Campbell, was attached to the household as assistant governess. Charlotte was quite fond of Mrs Campbell, though she was rather a colourless woman always talking about her family connection with the de Cliffords – and it was no doubt due to this that she had been given the post. Mrs Udney was of a different nature. There was something about Mrs Udney which Charlotte did not like. She was rather good-looking, with charming manners, so that one took to her at first and then began to wonder. Charlotte had seen her fly into a sudden temper, which was something with which Charlotte could sympathize, but then she did not pretend to be so calm and gentle. She had heard Mrs Udney sniggering with Mrs Campbell, and when she was aware of the Princess’s attention she would smother her sniggers. Charlotte could not help wondering what it was that brought that expression to her face until one day she discovered that it was the affairs of the Princess of Wales.
There were, of course, many rumours; and she did hear of them at her mother’s house where one could read the papers and see the cartoons. But she believed that even her mother might keep some from her; and these would probably be the ones she most wanted to see.
Mrs Udney would be in the Princess’s bedchamber at this time putting her clothes away and setting out what she would wear for her audience with her grandmother and aunts. So to her bedchamber went Charlotte and there as she had expected she found Mrs Udney alone.
‘I thought you’d be here, Mrs Udney,’ said Charlotte, coming straight to the point. She sat down on the bed and bounced up and down on it while Mrs Udney put her head on one side and regarded her with amusement.
‘I want to know why I do not go to Montague House,’ said Charlotte bluntly.
‘Because Your Highness is at Windsor.’
‘As I am not a child, Mrs Udney, I would prefer you did not treat me as such.’
Mrs Udney inclined her head by way of apology. Oh yes, thought Charlotte, there is something about her which I do not like.
‘I command you to answer my questions,’ she said imperiously. ‘Do you know why I am not allowed to go to Montague House? A plain yes or no, please.’
‘Why … yes, Your Highness.’
‘Then pray tell me.’
‘Your Highness, I might be exceeding my duty.’
‘Your duty to whom?’
‘Those who place me in my responsible position.’
Charlotte coaxed: ‘Oh come now, please tell me. I do want to know. And why shouldn’t I? It concerns me, does it not?’
‘It does, Your Highness.’ Mrs Udney’s little pink tongue licked her lips and she really looked as though she found this rather to her taste. ‘Your Highness would not tell tales of me.’
‘Tales of you? Whatever for?’
‘If I were to talk of this matter it might be frowned on.’
‘I have told you I will frown if you do not.’
Mrs Udney came close to the bed and said: ‘You know all is not well between the Prince and Princess. You know they do not … live together.’
‘Of course I know this. The Prince lives at Carlton House and Brighton; and my mother is at Montague House; and if she comes to London she stays at Kensington Palace.’
‘I mean they do not live … as husband and wife. Your Highness understands?’
‘I understand p … perfectly,’ declared Charlotte, stammering a little because it was one of those lies which Dr Nott deplored.
‘But that does not prevent their having other … friends.’ Mrs Udney’s smile was sly; Charlotte felt that it was distasteful in some way but she was not sure why.
‘Friends. Of course they have friends. Everyone has friends … I hope.’
‘Rather special friends, Your Highness. And with special friends there are sometimes … results.’
‘Results? What results?’
‘Your Highness always disliked the boy. Your Highness said more than once that he was a vulgar little brat.’
‘You mean … my mother’s adopted boy?’
‘I did mean William Austin, Your Highness.’
‘What has he to do with this?’
‘Everything.’
Charlotte was puzzled.
Mrs Udney put her face close to Charlotte’s and all her fine manners had suddenly gone. ‘Some are saying that the Princess of Wales did not adopt the boy. They are saying that he is her own.’
‘That he is my father’s son! How silly. If he were …’ The enormity of the possibility overwhelmed her.
Mrs Udney went on: ‘Oh, no, not the son of the Prince of Wales. There were plenty of other gentlemen ready to be the … friend of Her Highness.’
Charlotte did not fully understand but she knew that was some fearful slander against her mother. How dared this … this creature stand there looking so sly and knowing … yes, and pleased.
The ungovernable temper of which Dr Nott and Lady de Clifford despaired was in the ascendant.
Charlotte brought up her right hand sharply and gave Mrs Udney a stinging blow across the cheek.
Then, appalled by what she had done and what she had heard, she ran out of the room.
Mrs Udney could not allow such treatment to pass and immediately reported it to Lady de Clifford.
‘Why, Mrs Udney,’ cried her ladyship, ‘what on earth has happened?’
Mrs Udney’s eyes were blazing with fury and there was a red mark on her cheek.
‘Her Royal Highness has just seen fit to slap my face.’
Lady de Clifford put her hand to her eyes. ‘Oh, no, no! How could this have happened?’
‘Madam came into my bedchamber in a mood. She fired a few questions at me, was not pleased by my answers; then she rose and slapped my face like a vulgar fishwife.’
‘Where does she learn such manners?’
‘Where could she but at Montague House?’
‘I greatly fear she is growing like her mother. Oh dear, if only she were a little more like the dear Prince.’
‘I pray she does not behave as her mother does.’ Mrs Udney’s fury was diminished slightly by a certain gleeful pleasure at the prospect. ‘Then there would be ructions at Carlton House and Windsor as well.’
‘I beg of you, Mrs Udney, do not even suggest such a thing.’
‘I believe she has heard something of what is happening.’
‘Do you think she could?’
‘Everyone is talking about the Investigation and the general belief is that William Austin is the Princess’s little bastard by Sir Sidney Smith or Captain Manby or Lawrence the painter. Young Willikins cannot be said to lack a father, although his actual identity is unknown.’
