‘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.

Then there was Sophia – a bit of a mystery, Sophia; there were secrets in Sophia’s eyes, and Charlotte had seen her whispering with General Garth in corners. General Garth was often in attendance because he was one of Grandpapa’s favourite equerries; but, Charlotte ruminated, he seemed to like Sophia even better than the King.

And then Amelia – dear fragile Amelia, whose health gave her family so much anxiety; and who was sweet and kind to everybody, particularly poor Grandpapa, and who did not worry as the others did about not being allowed to marry because she knew that she was far too fragile to be a wife.

These were the aunts then – the Old Girls – whose company must be borne. They were always kind to her and she would have liked them if only she could have trusted them.

Now Aunt Elizabeth had taken up Charlotte’s piece of embroidery and was clucking over it in an amused sort of way.

‘Why, dearest Charlotte, this would never do. What would your Papa say if he saw a piece of work like that?’

‘He wouldn’t know that there was anything wrong with it. He’s an authority on women, art and fashion – and that does not I believe include embroidery.’

Aunt Elizabeth gave a little gasp of dismay; Aunt Mary chuckled.

‘One thing we can always say of our dear little Charlotte,’ said Amelia, ‘is that she says what’s in her mind.’

‘How could one speak of what was not in one’s mind?’ asked Charlotte gravely.

‘I meant, dear, that so many people dissemble. They say one thing and mean another.’

‘And is it a fault to be outspoken?’

‘Far from it.’

‘Then at least I have one virtue.’

‘You have many, dearest child,’ said Amelia.

‘But,’ said Elizabeth, ‘they do not include embroidering.’

The sisters all laughed.

‘Put it right for me, dear Aunt Libby, before the old … before anyone sees it.’

Covert smiles. They knew she was going to say the old Begum. Perhaps they thought of their mother as that. Perhaps they did not like her any more than Charlotte did, but because they were old and were expected to behave with decorum, they had to pretend. I shall never be like that, thought Charlotte. But then when I’m old I shall be the Queen.

She watched Aunt Elizabeth’s deft fingers unpicking her clumsy stitches.

‘I should like to know,’ she said boldly, ‘when I am to see my mother.’

Hushed silence! But she was not going to let them pretend. ‘I have heard, of course, about this Delicate Investigation. What a strange way of describing an investigation!’

The Princesses looked at each other in dismay and Mary said: ‘It describes it exactly. It is a very delicate matter.’

‘You mean one that is not to be discussed.’

‘I mean one, dear, which it is better to forget.’

‘But how can I forget it when I don’t see her? It’s weeks and weeks … months and months …’

‘His Majesty thinks it best,’ said Aunt Elizabeth as though that solved the matter.

But everything His Majesty thought best was not necessarily so – for instance, refusing to allow his daughters to marry and making them live this life of frustration until they were ready to do almost everything to escape it.

‘A child should surely be allowed to see its own mother,’ said Charlotte primly.

‘It would depend,’ replied Augusta mysteriously.

‘On what?’

‘On circumstances.’

‘What circumstances?’

‘Oh, dear Charlotte, you must not speak in that er … peremptory manner. It’s not really very becoming.’

‘But I want to know.’

‘You will understand,’ said Amelia gently. ‘All in good time.’

‘But Willie Austin is not my brother.’

Augusta said: ‘Where does the child hear these things?’ No one answered.

Charlotte knew that they were thinking she was far too precocious. Perhaps having parents who hated each other and created public scandals made one precocious.