The Regent's Daughter: (Georgian Series), page 9
The Queen had come into the room. She came unannounced, as she would never have done before his illness. He had been the master then; but now, he was too old, too feeble.
‘Your Majesty, I have come to accompany you to the Drawing Room.’
‘Oh, yes,’ he said, but he continued to sit at the table.
She was looking at him anxiously. She was always watching for the signs. When he began to speak rapidly, when he was incoherent, when the veins stood out at his temples and his face was puce colour she really began to be frightened. It was not that she had a great deal of affection for him. She had never loved him. That had not been possible. When she had come to England he had been kind to her and had successfully hidden his disappointment to find a plain and gauche young German girl was to be his wife when he had dreamed of lovely Sarah Lennox with whom he was in love; he had at least not blamed her, but had meekly accepted his fate while at the same time he made it clear that she should have no power outside her own household; she had come to England to bear children and that was what she had done for twenty years – fifteen children and that didn’t leave much time in between pregnancies.
But when he had lost his reason and she had made her alliance with Mr Pitt against the Prince of Wales and Mr Fox, Queen Charlotte had become quite a power at Court; and when the King had recovered – though not fully – he had been too weak, too ill to oust her from the position she had made for herself.
‘Is there any news?’ he asked.
‘You mean of the Investigation. There is nothing fresh.’
The King shook his head. ‘I thought she was a pleasant woman. Not without good looks … ready to be a good wife …’
The Queen’s mouth shut like a trap; it was thin and wide and even had she possessed perfect features apart from it – which she certainly did not – it would have prevented any claim to beauty.
‘I knew it was wrong, right from the beginning. And so did George.’
The King shook his head and tears came into his eyes. There were almost always tears in his eyes. The Queen was not certain whether they were due to ophthalmic weakness or emotion.
‘I thought he was going to refuse …’ he began.
‘Better if he had,’ retorted the Queen. She felt a grim satisfaction because the marriage had gone wrong. She had had a niece, beautiful, accomplished Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz who had needed a husband at the time – and the Prince, to plague her, had chosen his father’s niece, Caroline of Brunswick, rather than his mother’s.
‘Perhaps it will come right between them,’ said the King.
The Queen gave a snort of laughter. ‘After this Investigation that is hardly likely. She’s a coarse and vulgar creature and George is the most fastidious prince in Europe.’
‘Too much time spent on prancing about in fancy dress. This fellow Brummell …’
‘Oh, you know what George is. He’s always been the same.’ Her expression was one of mingling pride and anger. She had loved her firstborn as she loved nothing else on earth – or ever would. She had craved his affection. And when he had scorned her she had deliberately sought to soothe her feelings by turning that love into a fierce hatred. They would be surprised, she often thought, all these people who surrounded her and regarded her as cold Queen Charlotte, incapable of emotion. There could never have been fiercer emotion than that she felt towards her eldest son. When he had been born she had believed that to be the happiest moment of her life; she had not been able to bear him out of her sight; she had a wax image made of him which she kept on her dressing table. Her beautiful George, her clever precocious son who had charmed everyone with his brilliance and arrogant manners and his fastidious ways as a boy. And when he had flouted her, shown so clearly that there was no place for his dowdy old mother in his life, love had turned to hate – but the love was still there smouldering. This doddering old man meant nothing to her compared with her brilliant magnificent son.
And the idea of marrying him to that dreadful creature! Thank God, she had had no hand in that and had in fact done all in her power to prevent it. Now perhaps they were sorry they had not taken her advice … and none more so than George himself.
‘The child’s mother swears that this … Willie … is hers. She gives details of the hospital where he was born. That makes a clear case for Caroline. They can’t accuse her of being his mother. How I wish … What’s the use? These scandals. They’re no good for the family, eh, what?’
‘The sooner she is sent back to Brunswick the better.’
‘We can’t do that.’
‘Well, if she is not found to be the mother of this boy there are many other things she can be accused of. It’s quite shocking. The Princess of Wales living apart from her husband and entertaining men!’
‘It was he who refused to live with her, you know. I spoke to them both. “Never,” he said. “I’d rather die.” And as for her, she said if he didn’t want her he could stay away. But I could see she would have had him back if he would go.’
‘Nothing can be done until the Investigation is completed. But I do think that woman should be kept away from Charlotte.’
‘The little minx,’ said the King fondly.
‘Indeed so and in need of correction which she shall have. There is an improvement since she has been here at Windsor.’
‘Good fellow, Fisher. Nott too … She’s bright, eh, what?’
‘Far from brilliant but by no means foolish. I do not like the stammer though; and she is too impulsive and most ungraceful. I have seen her father shudder when he looks at her.’
The King’s face grew a shade more puce. ‘His conduct has not always been so … so good … that he can afford to be critical of others, eh, what?’
The Queen said: ‘I was speaking of deportment. Charlotte is gauche and clumsy. It must be rectified.’
‘She dances prettily.’
Fond and foolish where the young were concerned, thought the Queen.
She said: ‘She must spend more time with her aunts.’
Her aunts. His daughters. His darling love Amelia – kind and gentle, always affectionate to her own father, and yet he could not think of her without alarm, because of all the family she was the invalid.
‘Amelia’s cough …’
‘Is better,’ said the Queen.
They always told him it was better. But was it?
‘And that pain in her knee?’
‘It is nothing. The doctors say it will improve.’
He couldn’t really believe them. They had to soothe the poor mad old king.
‘It is time we went,’ said the Queen. ‘We shall be late for the Drawing Room.’
Ugh! thought Charlotte. What a family!
Lady de Clifford was close to her, praying she would do nothing to bring disgrace on herself and her governess. There seated on her chair was the Queen and beside her the King. No one need be frightened of him. He was simply poor old Grandpapa who was always kind and liked to be told one loved him. The old Begum was a different matter.
Lady de Clifford had made her practise her curtsey at least twenty times.
‘But Cliffy, I know how to curtsey.’
‘This is the Queen, my dear Princess.’
Indeed it was the Queen. How ugly she was! When she had been a little girl Charlotte had said: ‘The two things I hate most are apple pie and my grandmother.’ Someone had repeated that. They thought it funny. And on another occasion when they gave her the most horrid boiled mutton she had compared the Queen with that. ‘There are two things I hate most in the world, boiled mutton and my grandmother.’ The dish had changed but the grandmother remained. That was significant.
She must advance across the room which seemed enormous. Her hair hung in long ringlets and she was wearing a pink silk dress. There were a few pearl decorations on it. She felt stupid in it and would have been much happier in a riding habit. But of course one did not attend the Queen’s Drawing Room in a riding habit.
She almost tripped and righted herself in time. She was aware of the sudden silence. All the Old Girls ranged round Grand-mamma’s chair were watching her. Mary would be sorry. Mary was the prettiest of the aunts and she was always charming to Charlotte, but she had begun to wonder whether Mary repeated to the Queen some of the things she said.
She was close to the Queen; she made her curtsey. Yes, it was a clumsy one and the Queen had snake’s eyes; you almost expected a long darting poison-tipped fang to come out of that ugly mouth.
The thought so amused Charlotte that she began to smile unconsciously.
She turned to the King. She should of course have greeted him first. He would not notice though and perhaps the Queen would be pleased even though it was a breach of etiquette. He put out his hand and she grasped it.
‘Dear Grandpapa,’ she said with great affection because he was not like the Queen.
Oh dear, he’s going to cry, she thought. He looked awful when he cried; his great eyes looked as though they were going to pop out of his head. She did not curtsey – the one she had done would do for them both. That would show that it had really been meant for the King. She went and stood close to him and kissed his cheek. It was wrong of course but he did not care. He put an arm about her and said: ‘Well, and how’s my granddaughter, eh, what? Getting on with all those lessons, eh? Leading Fisher a dance? And Nott, eh, what?’
‘As well as can be expected, Grandpapa.’
Amelia laughed and when Amelia laughed the King was very happy. In fact, thought Charlotte, they wouldn’t be such a bad old family if it were not for the Begum.
The Queen said: ‘Stay by me, Charlotte. I have some questions to ask you.’
‘Thank you, Your Majesty,’ she said demurely.
The questions were about her household, about her lessons. How was she getting on with her religious instruction? The Queen had not always been pleased by good Dr Fisher’s reports.
‘But he is so good, Madam. We cannot all be as good as he is.’
‘It should be our earnest endeavour to try.’
‘Oh yes, Your Majesty.’
‘I am asking Dr Nott to let me see some of your work.’
Charlotte smiled, she hoped blandly, to disguise the apprehension in her heart. Would this give rise to longer hours of study? Oh, why could she not go to live at Montague House and become a part of that strange but merry household? Her mother would never have expected her to curtsey at this and that and address her by her title every now and then. Why could not her grandmother be a grandmother as well as a queen?
‘He tells me that you do not seem to be able to master the rules of grammar. Why is that?’
Charlotte thought for a second. ‘It’s because the rules of grammar master me, I expect.’
‘You are too frivolous, Charlotte. Try to be more serious.’
Charlotte lowered her eyes. ‘I fear it is in my nature, Madam.’
‘That is no excuse. It must be suppressed. I hear you are fond of writing letters to everyone you can think of … full of idle observations, and that you write pages of irrelevant nonsense when you should be more profitably engaged.’
‘George was the same, so I’ve heard,’ said gentle Amelia. ‘He loved to write. It is a gift in a way.’
‘What’s that, eh?’ demanded the King, eager to hear what his darling had said.
Amelia went to her father and put her hand on his arm.
‘I was saying, Papa, that Charlotte is like her father. She loves to write. I always remember hearing that.’
Tears again, thought Charlotte. What a watery old Grand-papa! But Amelia did look very affecting leaning against him – she was so slight and slender, like a fairy; she really did look as though she were made of some light and airy substance which a puff of wind would carry off. Perhaps Grandpapa thought this and that was why he was always so frightened of losing her.
‘It is a most unsatisfactory habit and quite useless,’ said the Queen.
Oh dear! sighed Charlotte to herself. How I wish that I were far away. At Montague House? For a while, But there was no security at Montague House. Mamma was affectionate inas-much as she kept embracing and kissing and calling one her love and angel. But there were times when she seemed to forget and perhaps she was more devoted to Willie Austin than her own daughter.
No, she would have liked to be in Tilney Street with calm and dignified Mrs Fitzherbert, whose affection would never be over-demonstrative but steady, so that one would know it was always there.
Tilney Street – or the house on the Steyne – and the Prince of Wales arriving and taking his place as though it were his home.
‘And where is my little Charlotte?’ he would say; and she would run out and climb on his knee and call him Prinney.
But this was what Minney Seymour did. Minney who was not his daughter at all.
It was unfair. She should have been there. How different that would have been.
‘Charlotte, you are not attending to what I am saying,’ said the Queen.
It was less of an ordeal to be with the aunts. They tried to pamper her a little; after all she was their only legitimate niece and they all adored her father, although they were afraid to say so openly.
So she was Darling Charlotte to them; but they kept a close watch on everything she did and said, and she did suspect that to curry favour with the Queen they reported these to her.
They are a nest of spies! thought Charlotte dramatically. Aunt Augusta was the oldest of the Old Girls although she had an elder sister who was now married and living abroad. That was Charlotte, the Princess Royal, who used to write long letters to Eggy – Lady Elgin – who had been Charlotte’s governess before Lady de Clifford’s time. Eggy used to read the letters to Charlotte sometimes to show what a good aunt she had and to teach her to count her blessings, of which Good Aunt Charlotte was supposed to be one. She used to send presents from abroad which were always unusual and welcome. There were dolls dressed like German peasants and once a miniature set of teacups and saucers. These presents however were usually accompanied by some homily. ‘Pray tell Charlotte that I am sending her a fan and when I go to Stuttgart I shall not fail to bespeak some silver toys if she continues to be a good girl.’
Dear old Eggy always read these letters in a voice of deep solemnity, impressing on Charlotte the need to improve herself. Eggy had been far more of a martinet than Lady de Clifford because Charlotte had quickly discovered that the latter was a little afraid of her – afraid perhaps of losing her position, of displeasing the Prince of Wales, of proving to them all that she was quite incapable of controlling the Princess Charlotte. Aunt Charlotte on the Continent must have received long letters about her progress not only from Eggy but from the Old Girls. Fragments of the letters came back to her now: ‘As she has once found that she is clever, nothing but being with older children will ever get the better of this unfortunate vanity, which is a little in her blood as you know full well. I approve very much of your trying to get the better of her covetousness.’
Such a little monster I must have been! mused Charlotte.
And her aunt had suggested that when she went to the country after being inoculated – for she could not be allowed to go near the cottage people until she had been – she might be taken among the very poor so that pity might be aroused in her. She should be encouraged to give freely of her pocket money to the poor.
And Eggy had seen that she had. Charlotte had found one of those account books only recently with the amounts she had given set down in her childish handwriting. It was all ‘To a poor blind man 2s;’ ‘To a lame woman 1s’ and so on – columns and columns of it.
Perhaps, Charlotte reflected, it was better that Aunt Charlotte was in Germany for she seemed to be of a critical nature: ‘As for Charlotte’s being much on one side you could easily make her get the better of it by making her wear a weight in her pocket on the opposite side.’ (She remembered those weights.) ‘As for her stutter, she must try and overcome that. She must calm herself before she speaks.’ ‘We must watch these little shadows on her character. If she behaves ill to others she should be punished severely. For lies or violent passions I believe the rod is necessary.’ ‘I always feared the child’s cleverness would lead her to be cunning to gain her points.’ ‘I hear that she is good at music and repeats French well and prettily. Though all this sounds very well I was a little hurt that she displayed these accomplishments without showing any timidity. Were she my daughter I should prefer a little modesty.’
Charlotte could see that there would have been no pleasing that aunt who bore the same name as herself and rejoiced in the distance which separated them.
That left Augusta, Elizabeth, Mary, Sophia and Amelia.
She studied them now as they bent over their embroidery; and she, of course, was supposed to be doing the same. Why did her threads always seem to get knotted? Why did she suddenly find that one stitch – some way back – was too big and in the wrong place? I was not meant to be a seamstress, she thought. Did Queen Elizabeth have to sit over her needlework, stitching away like some little needlewoman? How foolish it all was. She did not want to learn to sew but to be a queen.
Aunt Augusta was sketching. She was the artistic one of the family; she could also compose music which was very clever indeed. Grandpapa sometimes listened to it and sat nodding his head and afterwards he would say: ‘That was very good, Augusta my dear,’ as though she were of Charlotte’s age and had just mastered some difficult piece on the harpsichord. Then there was Aunt Elizabeth who was always affectionate and liked to be called Aunt Libby which was what Charlotte had called her as a child; she thought it showed what great friends they were, but Charlotte did not trust her. Aunt Elizabeth was always looking for drama. She would have liked to play a big part in State affairs and be involved in some terrific plot, Charlotte was sure. Mary was still pretty although she was getting old – she must be nearly thirty now. Poor Mary, who had been the best looking of all the princesses and was hoping to marry her cousin the Duke of Gloucester one day. He was very fond of her and was always at her side, and when he was there she glowed very prettily and looked nearer twenty than thirty; but then he would go away and she would be upset and grumble about how they were kept sheltered from life and then her face would pucker and she would look discontented and quite old. Poor Mary! Poor all of them! They were not very happy, and who could wonder at it, for Grandpapa, much as he loved them, could not bear to hear that any man wanted to many them and he went on trying to make himself believe that they were really very young girls who had to be protected from the world. Theirs was not exactly an enviable lot considering this and the fact that they were in constant attendance on the old Begum whose temper was very sharp, particularly in the winter when she was troubled with rheumatic pains.
