The Regent's Daughter: (Georgian Series) (52 page)

‘She will stay there, I suppose,’ she mused. ‘I have a feeling that I shall never see her again.’

Louisa tried to interest her in a new dress. As if she could be interested in dresses now! She had defied her father to go to her mother because she had wanted him to know that someone loved her if he did not; and she had been shown so clearly that her mother did not care that she was lonely and desolate and desperately in need of her.

‘So here I am, a prisoner,’ she said.

Her great comfort was in thinking of Queen Elizabeth who
had been a prisoner so many times. Why, she comforted herself, look what humiliations she had to suffer! Yet she became a great queen. So shall it be with Charlotte.

It could not last. Every month that passed was a month behind her. She must endure this imprisonment in Cranbourne Lodge because it could not last.

She had not seen
him
since he came to Warwick House on that fateful night. His carriage had taken her back to Carlton House where she had stayed for a few days before the journey with her band of old ladies.

‘Ugh!’ she said aloud, considering them. Lady Ilchester! Well, give her her due. She tried to be pleasant. As for Lady Rosslyn, she could not endure her. She was so thin that you imagined you could hear her bones rattling. ‘Old Famine’, Charlotte secretly called her. And then Mrs Campbell who had been in her household long ago. She had liked her well enough then, but the fact was she deplored the change and was not prepared to like any of them now.

She thought often of her father who at least had cared enough to make rules for her and to be shocked by her behaviour. Her mother had laughed with her, consoled her, comforted her and deserted her.

It was fortunate perhaps that she felt too listless to care. Her head ached and there was this persistent pain in her knee. She was content to spend long hours in her room reading. She liked reading about great queens of the past, Elizabeth naturally being her favourite of them all; she imagined her imprisoned in the Tower in fear of her life. At least, she thought, they can’t
kill
me. And when she came to the throne she hoped she would be as great as Elizabeth. She dreamed of herself being crowned in the Abbey. ‘Long live the Queen!’ She could hear the echoes of peers’ voices. To achieve greatness one must reckon to suffer first.

She would endure it – all the petty humiliations. She was not even allowed to have a bedroom to herself for it was her father’s order that one of her laides should sleep in her room. She had insisted that the woman sleep in the next room with the communicating door open and this wish had been granted her. She wondered whether her father had had a debate with his ministers over the matter, and she laughed, which showed she was no longer so miserable.

Every letter she wrote must be censored by Lady Ilchester or by Old Famine; every letter which arrived for her was first read by them. How could she receive the letters which might be coming to Cornelia from F? And Cornelia herself was completely cut off from her.

It’ll pass, she told herself, every week that goes by is a step towards something better.

Her optimism was rewarded when one day Lady Ilchester told her that she had a visitor who came to see her with the Regent’s permission.

She could not believe her eyes when the door opened.

‘Mercer!’ she cried.

‘Yes, I am here,’ said Mercer. ‘His Highness thinks that my friendship does you no harm.’

Charlotte began to laugh and hug Mercer at the same time and so fiercely did she laugh that she was almost in tears.

Mercer was shocked by Charlotte’s appearance and decided that she would find some means of letting the Regent know that this treatment was harming his daughter’s health. But the very sight of her beloved friend brought a sparkle into Charlotte’s eyes.

Mercer set out to cheer her with the news. The Regent had given a wonderful fête at Carlton House in honour of Wellington and there had been two thousand five hundred people there. The dresses! The costumes! Mercer described them in detail. People had lined the Mall to see the carriage pass along and there had been no dissenting cries at all. Everyone had been delighted with the celebrations.

‘Your father has such original ideas,’ said Mercer, and Charlotte nodded proudly.

‘A pity you couldn’t have seen the Jubilee in the parks. You know how fascinated your father is with everything oriental. Well, a Chinese bridge was put over the canal in St James’s Park and a pagoda was built on it. This was for the firework displays and alas, it was burned down during one of them. A temple was put up in Green Park, and a battle was staged on the Serpentine which was supposed to be a sea fight between the English and Americans. Guess who won.’

‘The English,’ giggled Charlotte.

‘Right first time. Then of course there was the balloon ascent. The Regent is determined that no one shall forget this
is victory year. There’s a fair in Hyde Park which has been going on for weeks.’

‘Oh, Mercer, it’s wonderful to see you. It’s like being alive again.’

‘His Highness has given his permission for you to go to Connaught House to say goodbye to Her Highness the Princess of Wales before she leaves on her travels.’

Lady Ilchester was smiling for she thought the news would please Charlotte. She really tried very hard to make life more bearable and Charlotte reproached herself for disliking her. But it was not really Lady Ilchester whom she disliked; it was the fact that she had been appointed jailer under the odious name of governess.

‘Thank you,’ said Charlotte. ‘When am I to be released?’

Lady Ilchester did not look shocked as she would have done a short time ago. They had all grown accustomed to Charlotte’s frankness.

‘We can go tomorrow if you so wish.’

‘Very well,’ said Charlotte. ‘Tomorrow let it be.’

So she would see her mother for the first time since that night when she had realized that she was of no great importance to her. She was not quite sure what her feelings would be. All the same it was pleasant to leave Cranbourne Lodge, like leaving prison and coming out into the world again.

No one recognized her carriage, for which she was pleased. She did wonder how the people would act, for they would have heard some version – probably garbled – of that night’s adventure. They would be on her side, she knew that, because they hated her father so much; and she did not want them to take sides against her.

The Princess Caroline was in a state of great excitement. Her voluminous velvet gown was almost slipping off her shoulders, her voice shrill with excitement.

‘My precious Charlotte!’ she screamed. ‘So he has allowed you to come and say goodbye to your mother.’

The embrace was suffocating and Charlotte wanted to escape from it.

‘So you are going on your odyssey, Mamma,’ she said.

‘Far away from this country and glad of it … except of course for leaving my darling daughter.’

‘You will have Willie to console you,’ said Charlotte with a touch of asperity.

‘Dear Willie, deprived of my Charlotte as I am, he is a great solace. The
Jason
will soon be sailing. Imagine it. I always wanted to see the world. Oh, Charlotte, you would be surprised if you could hear my plans.’

‘Nothing you did would surprise me, Mamma,’ said Charlotte.

‘How solemn you are, dearest!’

‘Is it not a solemn occasion?’

‘Why, of course it is, and a sad one, for we are to be parted.’

She looks anything but sad, thought Charlotte.

She was glad when the final goodbyes had been said and she was on the way to Cranbourne Lodge. She was seeing her mother through her father’s eyes. A vulgar, unstable woman, one on whom a daughter could place no reliance.

Mercer had intimated to the Regent, with the assistance of Sir Henry Halford, that the Princess Charlotte’s health was not as good as it should be. Her knee was troubling her, she suffered from mysterious pains, and her low spirits did not help to improve her condition. Sir Henry thought that sea air had always been beneficial to the Princess and that a few weeks at Weymouth before the summer was over would be of great benefit.

The Regent declared that his daughter should go to Weymouth.

Charlotte was delighted with the news, which Mercer came to impart to her. Mercer thought this might be a good time to tell her that there had been no communication from F in case she had been thinking that Cornelia had been unable to smuggle his letters to her.

‘I think,’ said the practical Mercer, ‘that you should consider that affair over.’

Charlotte was desolate. Was she to be deserted by her lover as well as her mother?

‘You know,’ said Mercer, ‘it was really never serious. Could you imagine a match being arranged between you?’

‘Why not? He was a prince.’

‘I don’t think he would have had the approval of your father or the Parliament.’

‘They are obsessed by Orange.’

‘Hush,’ warned Mercer. ‘Don’t mention him. Let us forget there was ever an Orange. Now, you must be looking forward to the sea breezes.’

She was, but she felt sad. Why was it that everything went wrong? Even F could not remain faithful – for she was sure he was not. And Leopold had not had the courage to remain.

It was time she stopped thinking of Leopold; and it would be good to be free again, because she was always more so at the sea. They could not keep her imprisoned there when she was going for the sole enjoyment of the fresh air.

She had Mercer; she was going to Weymouth; life was improving a little.

What pleasure to arrive at beautiful Weymouth. The people knew she was coming and were waiting to welcome her as though she were already their Sovereign. When she reached Gloucester Lodge she saw them all gathered on the esplanade and they kept shouting ‘Long Live Princess Charlotte’ and ‘God Bless her’ and lots of other comforting words.

How different from being incarcerated in Cranbourne Lodge!

She felt better already.

The Mayor and his Aldermen called on her and delivered a long loyal address – boring but comforting. She felt like Queen Elizabeth receiving them.

Every morning she rode out into the fresh and beautiful country, whipping up her horse, escaping when she could from her attendants. How she loved the hills and valleys but most of all the sea. Often she drove into the village of Upway – one of her favourite spots.

‘Hallelujah!’ she would cry to whoever was with her. ‘This is different from Windsor.’ She was better already.

Her great pleasure was to meet the people. She would stop her carriage and have a word or two with old men and women, and children above all delighted her; she loved their quaint sayings and their absence of awe because they did not know they were speaking to one who might one day be their Queen.

On one occasion she went across to Portland Island. How she enjoyed being on the sea! She climbed the rock and stood at a high point looking back at the mainland.

‘How beautiful it is!’ And that was England … her
England … the England of which she would be Queen. Why had she thought that life was dreary when she was to be the Queen of this beautiful country?

‘Take care, Your Highness. You are too near the edge,’ said Lady Ilchester.

‘I hope everyone standing on the brink of destruction will be able to retrace their steps as easily as I can,’ she said with a laugh.

Oh, yes, she felt alive again.

The Countess of Ilchester suggested that she might care to visit Abbotsbury Castle where her mother-in-law, the Dowager Countess, would be delighted to receive her. Charlotte said she would be pleased to visit the Ilchesters’ ancestral home and accordingly she and her party set out for the castle.

The Dowager Countess received her as though she were already Queen and after that nothing would satisfy her but to visit Lulworth Castle which was the home of Thomas Weld. Lulworth particularly delighted her when she learned that Mrs Fitzherbert had been married to a Mr Weld, the previous owner of the castle, and that she had actually been the châtelaine for the short duration of her marriage.

‘How I should like to see Mrs Fitzherbert again!’ sighed Charlotte.

And after Lulworth the magnificent ruins of Corfe Castle.

These trips, the fresh air, her pleasure in the beautiful county of Dorset greatly restored the Princess’s spirits and with them, her health.

There was no doubt that the visit to Weymouth had been an unqualified success, and with the coming of November, with its mists and cold winds, it was decided that the time had come for her to return to Cranbourne Lodge.

Shortly after her return to Cranbourne the Regent came to see her.

When she knew that he was in the house she was thrown into a flutter of excitement; she tried to calm herself; she prayed for courage. She was terrified that he would express his disappointment in her.

She found him looking younger than he had looked for some years. It was due to a nut-brown wig, discreetly curled and
unpowdered. His face looked less ruddy beneath it and this gave him a look of better health. His dazzling white neckcloth took care of his chins, and not having seen him for so long she had forgotten how beautifully his clothes seemed to have been moulded on to his body; and his buckskin breeches fitted so neatly that they too seemed like part of him; his calves really were magnificent and surely the diamond star on his dark-blue coat glittered more brilliantly than ever.

She lifted her eyes to his almost appealingly and was immediately taken into his scented embrace.

‘My dear Charlotte, I rejoice to see you in such healthy looks.’

‘Why, Papa … you … you look more handsome than ever.’

She had spoken spontaneously and for once she had chosen the right words.

He laughed. ‘I hear the Weymouth expedition was a great success. I am glad. You are like me. We do appreciate the sea air. You must come and inspect my new improvements at the Pavilion. You will see changes.’

So they were not going to refer to what he had called her ‘elopement’; that was done with; they were going on from there. A sense of wild happiness seized her. Perhaps now everything was going to be different.