Jean Plaidy - The Regent’s Daughter

Charlotte believed in saying what she meant. The niceties of diplomacy were not for her. It was not honest, she had long ago decided, to say one thing and mean another; and she would not be dishonest if she could help it.

‘He left because I was here,’ she burst out.

‘He had only called in for a short time,’ Mrs Fitzherbert assured her. ‘He did mention that.’

‘Yes, when he knew I was here.’

‘My dear Princess, surely a father would be pleased to see his own daughter.’

‘Not this father; not this daughter.’ She laughed. ‘We don’t want to pretend, do we, Madam.’

Mrs Fitzherbert did not answer, but she looked sad.

‘Because,’ went on Charlotte, ‘if we did, it would be no use, would it? The truth remains however much we try to hide it.’

She lifted her head defiantly. Mrs Fitzherbert had taken a step towards her, her beautiful face softly maternal, her hand a little unsteady as she laid it on Charlotte’s arm. Charlotte’s defiance suddenly deserted her; she flung herself against Mrs Fitzherbert and hid her face. She needed every bit of restraint to prevent herself bursting into tears.

‘I’m his daughter,’ she said in a muffled voice, ‘and he doesn’t like me. It’s the truth. No one can deny it.’

Mrs Fitzherbert placed her hand tenderly on Charlotte’s head and held her against her. She did not deny Charlotte’s words; she was mutely telling her that it was so and that she was offering her sympathy.

‘Why,’ cried Charlotte. ‘Why … why?’

Mrs Fitzherbert did not answer. What need was there for an answer? Charlotte knew it already and was not so much asking a question as expressing indignation at such injustice.

Charlotte gave herself up to the luxury of this sympathetic embrace.

Then she said: ‘You … you could perhaps speak to him.’

She looked up into Mrs Fitzherbert’s face and saw there were tears in the lady’s eyes; this was too much. Charlotte began to cry in a quiet, sorrowful and resigned way.

Then they were sitting side by side on Mrs Fitzherbert’s blue satin couch, Mrs Fitzherbert’s arm about her while they both wiped their eyes.

‘You … you will speak to him?’

Mrs Fitzherbert nodded.

‘If anyone could make him like me, you could.’

‘I will do my best,’ promised Mrs Fitzherbert.

Charlotte smiled wryly and thought: People should not have to be persuaded to love their children.

After a while she took her leave of Mrs Fitzherbert and went and joined George and Lady de Clifford in the carriage.

She was silent during the journey back to South Audley Street. George noticed the traces of tears on her face and was apprehensive. Charlotte rarely wept except in sudden anger and then the mood was over almost as soon as it had begun. But it was unusual for her to be so quiet. Clearly this mood was due to her encounter with her father.

Lady de Clifford did the talking. Her turban shook with dismay. The Princess had not been a credit to her governess. Upon her word, it would not surprise her to receive a summons from His Highness to be told that she was not considered suitable to have the charge of his daughter. Oh, no, that would certainly not surprise her, for by the manner in which the Princess Charlotte had behaved, he would most certainly be right.

‘Perhaps,’ said Lady de Clifford, ‘I should resign. Perhaps I should admit my unworthiness before it is pointed out to me.’

‘Perhaps you should,’ snapped Charlotte suddenly.

George looked from his grandmother to the Princess. In a moment Charlotte would leap up and fling her arms round Lady de Clifford’s neck, kiss her rouged cheeks and beg forgiveness. That was Charlotte’s way. Her dear, dear Cliffy must not talk of leaving her. Charlotte would be desolate without her.

Charlotte did no such thing, but she allowed the drive to proceed in silence.

Oh dear, thought George, she is put out. And he longed for Minney’s comfortable society.

In his grandmother’s house he was aware of the seriousness of the occasion.

When they were alone together, she said, ‘I’m angry, George Keppel. I’m boiling over with anger.’

‘With whom are you angry?’ George asked fearfully.

‘With fate,’ she said mysteriously.

‘That’s a funny thing to be angry with,’ said George with a giggle.

‘It’s not funny in the least. It’s t … tragic. You have to soothe your feelings; and that is what we are going to do now.’

‘How do you soothe feelings?’

‘I’ll show you.’ She was mysterious. ‘I’m glad,’ she went on, ‘that we haven’t got that silly little Minney Seymour under our feet.’

‘Oh,’ protested George mildly.

‘I know you think she’s pretty and you want to protect her and all that, which is just what you would do. She doesn’t need protecting. She has Mrs Fitzherbert to do that, and I can tell you this, George Keppel, she’s the best p … protector anyone could have.’

‘All right,’ said George. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Follow me,’ said Charlotte.

‘Where?’

‘You don’t ask questions. You obey your future Sovereign.’

She laughed suddenly, her resentment momentarily forgotten. She could always make George do what she wished by referring to herself as his future Sovereign.

She herself was not certain where she was going. All she knew was that she wanted to soothe her hurt feelings. She wanted some sort of revenge.

Her steps led her to the kitchen – always an attractive place. The servants at South Audley Street were in awe of her and at the same time they were delighted when she came down and ate fresh cakes as they came from the oven.

She pushed open the door of the kitchen and looked inside. There was no one there. But on a baking tin lay two juicy looking lamb chops.

‘Those,’ she said, ‘will be for your Grandmamma’s supper, I’ll swear. There’s nothing she likes so well.’

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.

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.’