Jean Plaidy - Victoria in the Wings

He let her talk; it was less exhausting to listen than to attempt to break in. She had always been animated and that had been part of her charm in her youth and at first of course one did not realize that a virtue could so soon be seen as a vice. She laughed frequently – on happier occasions than this – and that too had begun to grate.

But that was in the past. Now he knew her for a good woman and as long as he was not expected to live with her he could be fond of her. A pity she had been unable to bear a child. If they had had a son that son would now have been third in the succession and it would have been almost certain that he would have been a King. But it was not to be and fortunately Frederica was too old now to bear children so their existence need not be disrupted.

He broke in on her talk then: ‘You know what this means. It’s what I came to talk to you about. The Queen is hinting that my brothers should prepare themselves … my unmarried brothers.’ He smiled grimly. ‘All those who are not married now have to think about getting wives.’

‘Clarence has been trying … unsuccessfully for some time.’

‘Now he will have to succeed.’

‘And Kent and Sussex and Cambridge. Cumberland is the only one who so far has obliged.’

‘Obliged! The Queen would hardly call it that. She still refuses to receive his Duchess.’

‘Poor Frederica, my namesake! How difficult it makes it when so many of us have to share each other’s name! But I do not think she cares … that she is not received, I mean. I believe she and Cumberland are devoted to each other.’

‘It’s strange to think of my brother Ernest being devoted to anyone. But love works strange miracles, they say. It would not surprise me if Charlotte’s death brings them back to England.’

‘I heard she had given birth to a daughter.’

‘Still-born. But that does not mean they won’t have more. Frederica has had children in her adventurous life, and as she is still young enough there is no reason why she should not present Ernest with a son. And now that Charlotte is no more … it might seem very important to them that they should.’

‘Ah yes, but none has become as important as you, my lord Duke.’

‘Every one of us has taken a step nearer to the throne.’

‘It will be interesting to see who reaches it,’ said the Duchess. ‘But I shall not be here to do so.’

‘What makes you say that?’

She lifted her shoulders. ‘My dear Frederick, I am nearly fifty years old.’

‘That is nothing.’

Again she lifted her shoulders. No need to tell him that she believed herself to be very ill. Would he care? Yes, she thought. A little. In any case the subject of marriage was so much more entertaining than that of death.

‘I think,’ said Frederick, ‘that I’ll go and talk this over with my brothers. When George returns from Brighton they’ll be summoned and presented with an ultimatum. They must prepare themselves.’

‘They will know this.’

‘Clarence, yes; and it will not displease him. I am thinking of Kent.’

‘Ah poor Madame de St Laurent! Do you think he will abandon her?’

‘I think it will be impressed on him that he must do his duty.’

‘The Regent is very sentimental where such affairs are concerned.’

‘It’s true, but I believe that it is the Queen who will decide what should be done; and I do not think for one moment that she will allow sentiment to cloud her judgement.’

‘If she did it would be for the first time in her life.’

Frederick nodded. He was next to George but the thought of a world without George who had been his idol since they shared the royal nursery at Kew was distressing. He was, he reflected, the only one of the brothers to be unaffected. He was already married to a barren woman so they could not think of marrying him to anyone else; he could not long for the crown when to receive it would mean losing his best friend and beloved brother.

Charlotte’s death had made less difference to Frederick, Duke of York, than to any member of the family – in spite of the fact that it had brought him nearer to the throne than any of them.

THE DUKE OF Clarence was driving down to Brighton to propose to the lady whom he had decided to make his wife and he was certain of the outcome this time. He had to admit that he had been very unlucky so far. No Prince could ever have been so constantly refused. He could not understand it. Sometimes he thought it was the ghost of Dorothy Jordan mocking him from her obscure grave across the Channel.

‘Nonsense,’ he said to himself. She would be the first to wish for my happiness. Had it not always been so? She had always thought of him. Why, when she drew her salary at the theatre she would write to him and say: ‘Do you want it? Please let me know before I spend it.’

Dorothy had invariably understood as soon as he had explained his motives to her.

‘Dear Miss Wykeham.’ He rehearsed the speech he would make to his prospective bride. He enjoyed making speeches and the proposal of a Prince who was third in the line of succession was surely the occasion to make one. ‘Dear Miss Wykeham, I have something of the greatest importance to say to you. I have not a farthing to my name. I owe sixty thousand pounds. But if you would like to be a Duchess, and perhaps a Queen, I should have great pleasure in arranging it.’

There! A rough sailor’s wooing. That was after all what he was.

He was fifty-two – not an ideal age to become a bridegroom but still able to beget children, he would explain to her, as she would discover. She was young; and if they could get a son that boy would most certainly be a King of England. Unless, of course, the Regent realized his ambition to divorce Queen Caroline, remarry and have a son of his own, which was very unlikely. George was three years older than he was, and hadn’t worn so well. In spite of his gout and asthma he was in better shape than George. The life at sea had been a healthy one; it had hardened William and he had lived quietly and respectably for twenty years at Bushy Park with Dorothy Jordan and their ten children, whereas George had indulged himself far more.

Not such a bad figure of a man, thought William, considering himself. Why had the women refused him? It was a mystery to him. Had it had anything to do with Dorothy?

He frowned remembering her. He wished he could forget her; he couldn’t help feeling ashamed of the way in which he had treated her. They had been good days when she had agreed to set up house with him and they had been together – a husband and wife in all but name – and the children started to arrive; he, a young man of twenty-five, Dorothy a year or so older, clever, piquant, charming, the finest comic actress on the stage; and how deeply he had loved her! He had thought it would have lasted for ever and it would have done but for the fact that they grew older and Dorothy put on weight and he had his gout and asthma; and there was always the vexing question of money between them. Dorothy was always trying to save up money to give a good dowry to the girls she had had before she met him. That had rankled; and of course they had been the subject of considerable comment and ridicule in the press.

Moreover, he was after all the son of a king and a king’s son was expected to do his duty to the State as his mother was constantly reminding him, and one of his most unpleasant duties had been to remind Dorothy of this.

Poor dear Dorothy! How stricken she had been at that last meeting. He could see that she hadn’t believed it was possible. ‘It’s only because I have to do my duty …’ His voice had been a little more high-pitched than usual, and false.

That was the dreadful thing. It had been false. He need not have deserted her. The Queen might complain that he did not do his duty but his brother George, the Regent, would have stood firmly behind him if he had refused to leave Dorothy.

But he had wanted change. That was the plain truth. He was weak; he was vain. He would not accept the fact that he was an ageing man; and how better to prove that he was not than by taking a young wife. If he married he could expect the government to settle his debts and increase his income. It had happened with George and Frederick. And if he married a woman with money, the unfortunate pecuniary difficulties need not arise again.

Miss Wykeham was an heiress to estates in Oxfordshire – pretty enough, young and rich. He asked no more. This time he would succeed.

He could not understand why he had failed to do so before for he had made several attempts since he parted with Dorothy. Was it because he was no longer young or because he had ten children named FitzClarence whom he acknowledged as his own, or because the press ridiculed him mercilessly and immediately involved the lady he was wooing in that amused contempt as soon as it was known his fancy had alighted on her. That was it, he assured himself. It was the ridicule of the press which had persuaded Catherine Tylney-Long, one of the richest heiresses in the country, to choose Wellesley Pole instead of him. He remembered now the humiliation when she refused his offer; she a commoner to refuse the proposal of marriage from a duke; whereas Dorothy, a leading actress, a woman of high principles, had become his mistress for love of him.

The refusal of Miss Tylney-Long might have been lived down had not another heiress, Miss Mercer Elphinstone, refused him too.

By that time he was becoming a laughing-stock. He would offer to elevate no more commoners; next time it should be a princess and then perhaps the Misses Tylney-Long and Elphinstone would begin to realize what they had missed.

His brother Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, who was some nine years younger than William, had been sent to Hanover to act as Viceroy there. Adolphus was one of the most endearing of the brothers; there was an innocence about him; his manners were charming and he was good looking. One could trust Adolphus.

William wrote to him: ‘My dear Adolphus, I want you to look for a suitable bride for me. She must be a princess, young enough to bear children, charming, one who could, if the occasion arose, grace the English throne. She must be a Protestant, as you know, and you may well run across her at one of the German Courts, the stables from where our princesses come. Where else could they come from, since they must be Protestant? The family needs another German princess for England. Find her for me, my dear Adolphus.’

As he had told himself repeatedly, one could trust Adolphus who had immediately set to work and found the lovely Augusta Wilhemina Louisa, daughter of the Landgraf, Duke Frederick of Hesse-Cassel.

No sooner had Adolphus set eyes on this lady than he knew she was the most perfect woman he had ever met; and who better suited to the throne of England than such a paragon? Adolphus, not addicted to the use of the pen, turned it now to express his admiration. He must write of the perfections of Augusta. She had lived through the hazardous years of the Napoleonic occupation which had increased her understanding; she grew in beauty every day. She had the most glorious dark eyes and brows – a bewitching contrast to the flaxen-haired blue-eyed princesses who were commonplace in Germany. Life had tended to make her a little serious but this merely added to her charm; she could sing exquisitely and to see her with a piece of embroidery in her fine tapering fingers was to see Grace personified.

‘I know of no one who would make a more ideal Queen of England,’ wrote Adolphus.

William read his brother’s letters, picturing the joy of receiving such a beauty in England, and all that would follow on his marriage: the government grant, his heir to the nation.

Adolphus continued to write, and his letters consisted of nothing but praise for the perfections of Augusta, until at last, reading one of these letters an idea flashed into William’s head. Surely no woman could be quite as perfect as Adolphus painted Augusta. ‘He’s in love with her himself,’ cried William.

This amused him. He laughed aloud. His laughter had become louder, his oaths more frequent since Dorothy died.

Adolphus, a young bachelor of forty-three, was in love with a young princess whom he was wooing on behalf of his brother! And she, how did she feel? It was almost certain that she was in love with the charming, nine-years-junior prince who had discovered her perfections.

William resembled his brother George in that he was sentimental in the extreme and enjoyed making a fine gesture. He was also fond of Adolphus. He now made the gesture.