by Jean Plaidy
He tried not to think of Hannah, but he could not forget her. It was natural that he should think of her with his wedding day so close. How different this would be from that other wedding day when he and Hannah had stood before Dr Wilmot and exchanged their marriage vows.
He shivered. How could he have been such a fool! But it had been no true marriage because Hannah had been married before to Isaac Axford, the Quaker grocer, one of her own sect. It was true that the marriage had taken place in Dr Keith’s Marriage Mill which was now declared illegal … but it was a true marriage all the same; and that made it impossible for the ceremony through which he had gone with Hannah to be anything but invalid. Besides, Hannah was dead. Or was she?
If he could be sure …
But he was supposed to be pining for the loss of Sarah, not thinking of Hannah. No, no, he was not supposed to be doing either. He was supposed to be thinking of welcoming his bride the Princess Charlotte.
George forced himself to think of Charlotte. He would be a good husband to her; they would have children, and when he was a father he would cease to be bothered by romantic follies.
But he could not dismiss Sarah from his mind; and while he made almost feverish preparations to receive his bride, images of Sarah continued to torment him.
*
In the nursery Caroline Matilda, the youngest of the family, was chattering about the wedding.
She was ten years old and had always felt herself to be apart from the family because she had been born four months after her father’s death. So she had never known him. Neither had her brother Frederick William really, although it was true he had been born a year before she had, when their father was alive but he could remember nothing of him, so he was as much in the dark as Caroline Matilda. Henry was sixteen and swaggered about the nursery, impatient because he was neither a boy nor a man, but very much despising his younger sister and brother. Then there was William who was eighteen, very much the man with no time to spare for ignorant little sisters. Elizabeth, the saintly one, had died what seemed like a long time ago to Caroline Matilda, but was in fact only some three years back; then there was Edward, Duke of York, who was twenty-two; and Augusta, haughty, eldest of them all, who was twenty-four years old; but she was not the most important member of the family. How could she be when there was George and although one year younger than Augusta, he was the King.
The thought that George was King of England made Caroline Matilda want to giggle, for George was less like a king than any of her brothers. He was always kind and even treated the youngest of them all as though she were worthy of some consideration. Now he was always giving audiences and receiving ministers, and even his family had to remember to show due respect to him, although he never asked for it.
Before he had become king he had had time to talk to Caroline Matilda about their father. She was constantly asking questions about Papa. It seemed to her so odd to have a father who had died before she was born.
She did not share George’s delight in Lord Bute, for he scarcely noticed her. All his attention was for George. And Mamma of course did not notice her much either – only to lay down a lot of rules as to how the nursery was to be run.
She liked to listen to her brothers, Henry and Frederick, talking together – or rather Henry talked and Frederick listened. It wasn’t only the gap in their ages which made Henry supreme. Henry was only sixteen but healthy, whereas Frederick always had colds and was often out of breath. Poor Frederick; he listened patiently, only too grateful that his brother talked to him.
Caroline Matilda knew better than to attempt to join in. Henry would soon have put her in her place if she had. He wasn’t like dear George – dear King George, she thought with a little chuckle – and the reason was that everyone knew George was king so he didn’t always have to be reminding people how important he was.
Henry was saying: ‘It’ll be different now George is king. They can’t keep us cooped up forever.’
Frederick timidly asked what would happen when they were no longer cooped up.
‘We shall go to balls and banquets. We shan’t just be the children in the nursery. You see. Of course you and Caro will be children for years yet …’
‘Frederick will be as old as you are in five years’ time,’ Caroline couldn’t help putting in.
Henry looked at her coldly. ‘As for you, you are only a baby still.’
‘I’m ten years old which is only six years younger than you.’
‘And you’re a girl.’
‘They marry before boys,’ Caroline reminded him cheekily while Frederick looked at her with amazement at her temerity. ‘After all,’ she went on, ‘the Princess Charlotte is only seventeen and that’s a year older than you are now.’
‘That is not the point of the argument. The trouble with you, Caro, is that you don’t think.’
‘I’m thinking all the time.’
‘What about?’ challenged Henry.
‘What I’m going to do when I grow up.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Run wild,’ she told them.
Henry laughed. She had voiced his own sentiments. So even little Caroline Matilda was longing for freedom; it all came of what he called being cooped up.
‘It is Mamma who keeps us as we are,’ said Henry. ‘She’s afraid we’ll be contaminated by wicked people if we aren’t kept shut away like this.’
‘George will be a good king,’ Caroline said, ‘so then there won’t be any wickedness, and when there’s no danger we won’t have to be shut away.’
‘Poor George!’ said Henry knowledgeably. ‘He’s not looking forward to his wedding.’
‘Oh, but he loves the Princess Charlotte.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Well, he must because she is going to be his wife.’
‘You don’t know anything,’ Henry told her, ‘and you would therefore be wise to keep your mouth shut. Our brother wanted Sarah Lennox not this Charlotte, and I repeat he is not going to be pleased with this wedding.’
‘But …’ began Caroline and was warned by a quick look from Frederick.
The door opened suddenly and Augusta their eldest sister looked in. They were immediately silent. One always was when Augusta arrived. It was well known that she delighted in carrying tales to their mother – whether to try to divert some of that affection which was lavished on George towards herself or because she liked telling tales and making trouble, no one was quite sure. But in any case her arrival was the signal to guard their tongues.
‘What are you children chattering about?’ she wanted to know.
Henry flushed at the term, which amused Augusta; she always knew what would hurt people most and contrived to do it.
‘I’ll swear it’s the wedding,’ she went on. ‘And Henry is telling you all about it. You should remember though that Henry knows very little. And sit up straight, Frederick. All humped up like that! No wonder you’re always tired. And you supposed to be working at your embroidery, Caroline?’
Caroline said: ‘I had only just laid it down for a moment.’
‘Then pick it up and make up for that moment of idleness. I shall be forced to tell Mamma how I found you all wasting time and telling each other stories about the wedding.’
‘Oh, but we weren’t!’ cried Caroline.
And Augusta looked at her in that way which implied she was lying because she, Augusta, had stood outside the door for fully five minutes before coming in.
Even when you were not guilty, thought Caroline, Augusta made you feel you were.
Augusta laughed unpleasantly and said: ‘Well, if you want to know, that silly little Sarah Lennox is furious because she will not be Queen of England. I spoke to her yesterday at the drawing room. I showed I understood how she must be feeling. “Poor Lady Sarah,” I said; and she tossed her silly head and pretended not to care. And something else I’ll tell you. She is to be one of the bridesmaids. That will be fun, I promise you.’
Caroline Matilda contemplated what excitement existed in the outside world; and even while she listened avidly to what Augusta had to tell about the King’s desire to marry Lady Sarah – which had been rightly thwarted it seemed, according to her sister’s account, as much by her, Augusta, as anyone – she was thinking of the story of Augusta’s birth when their father and mother, then Prince and Princess of Wales, had fled from Hampton Court that their first child might be born at St James’s; and how the King and Queen – Caroline Matilda’s grandfather and grandmother – had been so angry; and there had been no sheets at St James’s and nothing ready, so that the baby Augusta had to be wrapped in a tablecloth. What drama surrounded their lives. All except mine, thought Caroline Matilda. I have to stay in the nursery, ‘cooped up’, while all the excitement goes on in the world outside.
And how her grandparents had quarrelled with her parents! They were always quarrelling, Henry told them. They were a quarrelling family.
Well, she would have some fun one day. She would be free to run wild.
In the meantime she listened to Augusta’s account of the snubbing of silly Sarah Lennox who had believed mistakenly that she could be Queen of England.
*
And while the wedding was being discussed in the schoolroom, the Princess and Lord Bute were also talking of it.
There was to be no delay. In spite of the death of the Grand Duchess, the plans would go on as previously arranged.
‘She will be here soon,’ said the Princess Dowager of Wales. ‘I confess I shall not feel safe until she is.’
‘Never fear,’ soothed Lord Bute. ‘All will be well.’
He fervently hoped so. He was about to climb to the top of the pinnacle towards which he had patiently striven ever since he had seen the way to favour through George who was now the King.
Prime Minister, he thought. I shall rule this land. There is no end to the power which will be mine. Pitt will have to do as he’s told … or go. And Pitt would never be able to let go; he was too ambitious.
I’ll use Pitt, thought Bute. He’s too good a man to lose. But he’ll have to realize who is his master.
He smiled fondly at the Princess. They were in agreement. The sooner George was safely married the better. And the Princess Charlotte was ideal. Plain, so that she would not enslave George; daughter of a very minor dukedom, so that she should be forever grateful; and not speaking a word of English so that she could not wheedle with her tongue at any rate.
All would be well – and once the wedding was over they would feel so safe.
*
George too was thinking of the wedding.
Sarah, Hannah, Charlotte. He saw them all in turn. The two first so vividly – the shadowy charm of Hannah, the vital beauty of Sarah; and he turned away from those two and saw a Princess whom he endowed with their grace and beauty.
Charlotte. He kept saying her name over and over again. And he longed for her coming because it would end the uncertainty, and he was sure that once he saw her, once he had taken his vows neither Sarah nor Hannah would torment him. They would be banished from his thoughts for ever, for no faithful husband gave a thought to other women.
‘And I will be faithful,’ he assured himself. ‘I am impatient for her arrival and for the moment when she shall be joined to me … forever, I hope. And I pray God that He will make her fruitful.’
And all through the hot August days the whole Court talked of the wedding.
Royal Wedding
THE COURT OF Mecklenburg might be in mourning but there was to be no delay in the marriage ceremony. This was the order of the Duke.
He sent for Charlotte – bewildered Charlotte – who had so recently lost her mother, but was to gain a husband. Poor Christina had nothing to gain, thought Charlotte, but at least she remains at a Court familiar to her.
The Duke regarded his sister with the increased affection which he had felt for her since the King of England desired her for his bride.
‘My dear sister,’ he said, embracing her somewhat curtly, as a duty, thought Charlotte, and as an acknowledgement of her new importance, ‘I understand your grief for your mother. It is a grief I share. I have been thinking of the postponement of your marriage and I can see no good that can come from it.’
‘A wedding so soon after a funeral …’ began Charlotte.
But her brother silenced her. He had not summoned her that he might hear her views, but in order that she might hear his.
‘It is the best way to forget your grief,’ he told her. ‘I have asked that there shall be no delay.’
‘But …’
‘I am thinking of you, sister. This is what our mother would have wished. She knows you mourn in your heart. Your husband will comfort you.’
‘And Christina …?’
Her brother raised his eyebrows. Christina had been foolish; she had fallen in love with an English duke. That would not have been an impossible union but for the clause in Charlotte’s marriage contract; as it was the affair had ceased to exist as far as the Duke was concerned, and Charlotte was extremely indiscreet to have mentioned it. But Charlotte could be indiscreet. There was that letter she had written to Frederick of Prussia. What tremendous impertinence! But by great good luck it had worked to her advantage, and he was delighted that she had written the letter. But in his secret thoughts he considered it was most indiscreet.
What a mercy that Charlotte would soon be leaving for England.
Now he silenced her with a look.
He said: ‘The proxy marriage will take place almost immediately; and after that there will be little delay in your departure. The coronation is to be the twenty-second of September; and you must have been married to him before that. So you see there is very little time.’
‘So soon …’ gasped Charlotte.
Her brother smiled at her. ‘Your bridegroom is, where his wedding is concerned, a very impatient man.’
*
The Duke came into Charlotte’s bedroom. She was wrapped in a robe more splendid than any she had had before; beneath it she was shivering, though not with cold.
‘Are you prepared?’ asked her brother sternly.
‘Yes,’ she answered.
He took her hand. ‘All is ready in the salon,’ he told her.
Flunkeys threw open the doors that they might pass through to that salon which was lighted by a thousand candles. The cost must have been great, thought Charlotte. But the petty Dukedom of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was allying itself with the throne of England, so it was not the time to count the cost of a few candles.
And this is all on account of me! thought Charlotte, struck more than ever before by the awesomeness of the occasion and all that it meant. She saw the ceremonial velvet sofa on which she was to lie and beside it Mr Drummond, the representative of the King of England, who was to stand proxy for him in this preliminary ceremony.
The sight of the sofa filled her with dread because it brought with it a fresh realization of her responsibilities. This was not only leaving home, breaking up Christina’s romance, it was living intimately with a stranger, bearing his children, with the eyes of the world on her because she would be the mother of the next King of England.
The sofa represented a state bed, their royal bed which she would have to share with a strange young man and therein perform rites of which she was ignorant.
She was trembling; her legs had become stubborn and were refusing to carry her towards that symbolic couch. It was not too late even now. Suppose she refused to continue with this. Suppose she cried out that they must let Christina marry her Englishman for she had decided not to marry hers. Christina longed for marriage; she was breaking her heart because it was being denied her; whereas she, Charlotte, was realizing in this solemn moment that she did not wish to marry. She did not want to leave her home; she wanted to stay here … remain a child for a little longer, doing her lessons – Latin, history, geography – making maps with Madame de Grabow, mending, sewing. Why should she not
protest that this was too sudden? There was something she suspected about this hurried wedding. Why so much haste? Was her bridegroom being hurried as she was? Was he in England crying out against the marriage as she was here? Why should she, who had once written a letter to Frederick the Great, hesitate now.
But it was because of that letter … This web was of her own making. But at least it showed that one had the power to direct one’s own life.
‘It is not too late.’ It was a message tapping out in her brain.
Her brother took her hand and pressed it impatiently.
‘Come, come. We are waiting for you.’
‘No …’ she whispered.
‘Don’t be a baby,’ hissed her brother angrily. ‘You are going to be Queen of England.’
Don’t be a baby. She was seventeen years old … old enough to leave her home, to marry, to bear children. It was the fate of all Princesses. All through history they had found themselves in positions like this. They were not expected to have any free will. They obeyed orders. They married for the good of their countries, where their fathers or brothers decided they should. And they had decided that she should be a queen as readily and as ruthlessly as they had decided Christina should lose her hopes of happiness.
She lay on the sofa and the coverlet was placed over her. Beneath the coverlet she must expose her right leg; it was all part of the proxy ceremony.
Mr Drummond, the Englishman, removed his boot and thrust his leg, bare to the knee under the covers. When his flesh touched hers she tried to stop her teeth from chattering.
Now the symbol had been expressed, Mr Drummond removed his leg and replaced his boot, while beneath the coverlet she arranged her robe to cover her own bare leg and rose from the couch.
The ceremony was over.
