Jean Plaidy - The Regent’s Daughter

Charlotte settled down to hear an account of the troubles at home. The loss of trade because of the Napoleonic wars; the difficulty of calling a halt to Napoleon’s domination of Europe. The general ineffectiveness of Tory rule. Mercer would have liked to mention the state of the King’s health, but that was hardly a subject fit for his granddaughter’s ears. There were rumours that his strangeness was increasing; everyone would be prepared now for a return of his malady. He had aged so much in the last few years and was now almost blind and quite often wandering in his mind.

Hardly the man to wish to celebrate his jubilee. But there were banquets and fireworks and festivities everywhere. The Queen and the Princesses had given an open-air fête at Windsor, in spite of the fact that it was autumn; there were coloured lamps in the city of London and fireworks constantly lighted up the sky accompanied by the red glow from bonfires. The various houses of business illuminated their premises with signs of their trade; and in addition to all this there were many thanksgiving services in the church all over the country. The theme was ‘God Save the King’.

Exciting times, thought Charlotte, in which anything might happen.

But she was unprepared for the great scandal which hit the family and put even the Mary Anne Clarke scandal into the shade.

It was Mrs Udney who told her of this.

As soon as Charlotte saw the woman she knew that something especially exciting had happened.

‘I don’t know if I should tell Your Highness. It’ll be common knowledge soon enough … but there’s been a terrible tragedy in your Uncle Ernest’s apartments at St James’s.’

‘Do you mean Uncle Ernest is dead?’ asked Charlotte, her eyes round with horror.

‘He’s come pretty near it.’

Then she told the terrible story of how Uncle Ernest had been found in his bed with a great wound in his head which, so it was said, was meant to have killed him. But it did not kill him.

‘Providence was looking after him,’ said Mrs Udney with a knowing smile. ‘And lying in the next room was his valet Sellis … with his throat cut.’

Charlotte cried: ‘Did he try to kill Uncle Ernest? And who killed him?’

Mrs Udney shrugged her shoulders. Who could say? There would be a trial of course. This was murder … royalty or not.

There was a hushed atmosphere through Carlton House and at Windsor, in fact wherever the family were. If Charlotte attempted to mention the matter she was hastily silenced by one of the Old Girls. But that did not prevent rumours reaching her. Her mother showed her some of the cartoons, and some of the sly allusions in the papers.

It was being said that the Duke’s valet had a very pretty wife and that the valet had found her in bed with the Duke. The valet had almost killed the Duke and then committed suicide.

It was the biggest scandal that had ever touched the royal family. The romantic affairs of the Prince of Wales had never gone as far as murder. It was true he had once let it be believed that he had attempted suicide when Mrs Fitzherbert threatened to leave the country to elude him. But was that true? And in any case it was very different from murder.

Was Uncle Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, a murderer?

Aunt Amelia was very melancholy. She said once: ‘This has upset your poor Grandpapa more than anything that has ever happened.’

And poor Grandpapa was upset. He mumbled quite incoherently to Charlotte and did not seem at all clear who she was.

Amelia herself was looking more wan than ever. She was very melancholy, and Charlotte wondered what it was that made her so.

I don’t really know very much about them, she thought. They had been the old aunts to her for as long as she could remember; but when she thought of the sadness of Amelia she wondered if there was any cause besides her illness and that of her father.

Poor Amelia, thought Charlotte. It must be dreadful to be twenty-six and never to have been anywhere, never to have married, just ceasing to be a young girl and becoming an old girl.

But that, of course, was the fate of all the aunts.

AMELIA SAT IN her window looking out at the sea. She was feeling no better in spite of the sea breezes; but she was happy because her eldest brother had promised to ride over from Brighton.

Her embroidery lay in her lap. She was, in fact, too tired even for such work. Her tiredness increased with every week and she had a premonition that this time next year she would not be here.

Her sister Mary was with her. What would she do without Mary – the favourite among her sisters as George was among her brothers. Yet she supposed she had grown accustomed to Mary. George was a being from another world, a world of gay romance, whereas poor Mary who had been so pretty when she was young and who was now like a faded flower, was one of the frustrated sisterhood.

Mary came into the room and saw her sister’s hands lying idly in her lap.

‘You should sleep a little,’ she said.

‘I have slept all morning. I don’t want to sleep my life away … what’s left of it.’

‘Don’t speak like that, I beg you.’

‘Oh, Mary, let us be frank. You know it can’t be long now.’

‘I know nothing of the sort.’

‘But you do, dearest sister, and you won’t accept it.’

Mary shook her head almost angrily and Amelia said gently: ‘Come and sit down and talk a while.’ Mary picked up a footstool and leaning it against Amelia’s chair sat down.

‘What a lovely day,’ she said. ‘I hope it will be as pleasant for George’s journey tomorrow.’

‘It will be wonderful to see him. I wish he were happier though.’

‘Why shouldn’t George be happy? He has everything he could wish for. He is free.’

‘Freedom only seems good when you don’t possess it … like good health and riches … like youth.’

Mary sighed. ‘We are all getting old now. Even you, Amelia, are twenty-six. Twenty-six and the youngest of us all. As for George, if he is not content it is his own fault. They say he is breaking with Mrs Fitzherbert. I am sure that will not make him very happy.’

‘He thinks he will be happier with Lady Hertford.’

‘Our charming brother can be a little foolish sometimes.’

Amelia was not going to have him criticized. ‘His life is so full. It is natural that he should often act in a way we do not understand.’

Mary softened towards her brother. All the sisters were fond of him. She said: ‘He always said that the first thing he would do on coming to power would be to find husbands for us. I think he is sorry for us. He has a kind heart although he does not let his pity for us disturb his pleasures.’

‘It would be foolish if he did, for what help would that be?’

‘Oh, Amelia, sometimes I feel so frustrated, so full of resentment that I will do something really wild. Run away, perhaps, something like that.’

‘I understand,’ said Amelia. ‘But it would kill Papa.’

‘Amelia, has it ever occurred to you that Papa has killed something in us? He has kept us here. He has never allowed us to marry. It is like shutting birds in cages and letting them see other birds flying about around them in the sunshine … soaring, swooping, mating …’

‘Yes, it always comes back to that,’ said Amelia. ‘We should have married … all of us.’

‘But Papa does not wish it. We are royal Princesses. There is no one royal enough. Our sister Charlotte was the only one who found a husband. And do you remember how we feared that her marriage would not come off because her husband had had a wife who died mysteriously and they weren’t quite sure that she was dead?’

‘Poor Charlotte, she was so ill when she thought it was going to come to nothing. I could weep to think of her terror. It all seems so clear to me.’

Mary regarded her sister anxiously. ‘Does such talk upset you?’

‘Pray don’t change the subject. I want to talk about us … us and our lives. But it does not make me love dear Papa any the less.’

‘You were always his favourite.’

‘The youngest. Papa’s girl.’ Amelia smiled. ‘They used to send me in to amuse him when he was melancholy.’

‘And you always made him happy.’

‘He used to hold me so tightly that I was afraid. Do you remember the time when he clung to me so fiercely that they thought he would do me some harm?’

‘I remember it well. They put him into a straitjacket because he cried so much when they took you from him. That was when he was very ill.’

‘Mary, do you think … he will be ill again?’

‘I often wonder. I think of it often.’

‘So do I. We ought to remember it. We ought never to do anything that would upset him.’

‘Yet we are young … or we were once. Didn’t we have lives of our own to lead?’

‘Sophia thought so.’

‘Sophia!’ murmured Mary. ‘She was more daring than the rest of us.’

‘Poor Sophia. Is she happy, do you think? Oh Mary, what must it feel like to be the mother of a child you must never acknowledge?’

‘At least one would have been a mother. Better that … than to grow old and never have lived … just to have been a princess in a cage … sitting with Mamma, reading with Mamma, looking after the dogs, stitching, filling the snuffboxes. Sophia is perhaps not to be pitied.’

‘But she looks so tragic sometimes. Do you think that one day she will marry the General? Suppose they did … and the boy was with them. Do you think they would be happy?’

Mary looked over her shoulder. ‘Someone might hear.’

‘They know,’ said Amelia. ‘You cannot have a secret like that and keep it from your household.’

They were thinking of that day some ten years ago when Sophia had confessed to them that she was to have a child. Poor Sophia – almost out of her mind with worry. What would Papa say? What would the Queen say? She had feared the Queen more than their father, for since his illness he had become very meek and sometimes unaware of what was going on around him. ‘It is Papa’s own fault,’ Elizabeth had said. ‘He shuts us away and expects us to live like nuns in a convent. But we are not nuns and this is not a convent.’

Sophia was in love; and to think that the partner in her adventure was one of their father’s equerries and that he was still with them … a member of the suite which had accompanied Amelia to Weymouth. It made him seem like one of the family. Sophia had been just twenty-three then and she had been reckless, for at that age they might have found a husband for her. But as if they would! There were Augusta, Elizabeth and Mary all to come before her. She had been in love with Sir Thomas Garth and despairing of marriage had decided to do without it.

A royal Princess pregnant! It would have to be kept secret. Papa must never know. It would kill him, said Augusta, and Elizabeth believed her. Tom Garth was resourceful. He would make all the arrangements, Sophia must hide her condition, which was not difficult with the fashion for voluminous skirts; she must feign sickness, which was not difficult either for the poor girl was very worried and this in addition to the trials of pregnancy meant that she had little acting to do. The doctor – a friend of Tom’s – had suggested a change of air. Weymouth – a favourite spot, was suggested; and here Sophia had come with Mary, who was always delegated to care for the sick members of the family, and there she had given birth to her boy. It had all been very cleverly arranged. A gentleman’s tailor named Sharland who lived in the town had a pregnant wife and when this wife gave birth to a boy, there was no reason why it should not be believed that she had had twins.

Thus were these matters arranged in royal families.

And Sophia had carried this great secret for ten years. Her boy was growing up. She saw him now and then. Mary was always afraid that she would betray her secret by the very manner in which she looked at him.

As for Tom Garth he was devoted to the boy. He had already taken him from the Sharlands’ and ‘adopted’ him. He was constantly talking of him and planning his education; and indeed young Tom had the stamp of Hanover on his round rather vapid face, and in his wide blue eyes; his lashes were dark though and this was not a Hanoverian feature. (Poor Charlotte’s eyelashes were so pale that one could scarcely see them.) His lips had that sullen expression, except when he smiled and his jaw was heavy, but on the whole he was a handsome youth.