The Prince and the Quakeress - Plaidy Jean (книги полностью бесплатно TXT) 📗

Jane stood before it and gazed at it in awe.

‘It’s beautiful, Hannah. Oh, it’s really beautiful! And this Mr. Reynolds...he really is an important man. A lady mentioned him in the shop. She said no one could paint quite like Mr. Reynolds, and that she was trying to persuade her husband to have her portrait painted.’ Jane assumed a haughty expression and went on: ‘"Anyone...just anyone who is anyone...must be painted by Mr. Reynolds." And I laughed to myself and I thought: Well, I know someone who has been painted by him. It was an order...a royal command. "Go and paint that lady..." And, of course, he had to go.’

‘Jane, you talk too much.’

‘I always did, didn’t I? I was the talker, you the listener. Well, don’t you fret about Mr. Isaac Axford. I’d say this is good news. He’s not going to go sniffing about for his first wife, is he, when he’s got a second?’

After Jane had left, Hannah sat looking at the picture. Mrs. Axford, the lovely Quakeress, by Joshua Reynolds.

Mrs. Axford no longer.

Change was in the air. Isaac no longer considered her his wife. The Prince’s visits were less frequent. At any time now she might hear that he had become the King of England.

Was this a premonition she felt—or was this sense of doom due to the fact that she was with child and feeling less well than she usually did at such times?

• • •

When George next called at the house he was alarmed by the sight of her.

‘Are you ill, Hannah?’ he asked fearfully.

‘It is nothing...nothing,’ she hastened to assure him, for she could not bear to lee him anxious. ‘Perhaps this time it is a little more difficult than usual.’

‘I must send for Fothergill.’

‘It is not necessary. All is well. Thou must not worry.’

‘But I shall if you are ill. And I know all is not well. Do not think you can deceive me, Hannah.’

‘Jane has been here. She has news of Isaac Axford. He has recently married a Miss Bartlett.’

‘Married!’

‘Yes, Jane is certain. She has seen the lady. She has brought him a little fortune so...perhaps that is why...But he is no longer searching and what strikes me is that he has either committed bigamy or...he does not consider himself married to me.’

George was silent. He was beginning to be apprehensive. For the first years of his liaison everything had gone well and smoothly. But since his eighteenth birthday, when he had begun to realize what would be expected of him as King, he was realizing too what a difficult position he had put himself—and Hannah—into.

It was all very well for a young Prince to have a mistress living in secret in a house in Tottenham–well, not all very well but it was accepted as a not too unusual affair—but for the King it was another matter. Kings had their mistresses. Indeed they did—and none more blatantly than his ancestors, but they were recognized as mistresses, they lived at Court; it was considered as natural as marriage. But could a King make periodic and secret journeys from St. James’s, Kensington or Kew to a house in Tottenham and not be discovered? Certainly he could not.

Like Hannah, he could sense change in the air.

Yet he could not imagine Hannah at Court, living as the Countess of Yarmouth did, or Miss Chudleigh...

Then, of course, he would he expected to many. One of the first duties of a King was to provide ide the country with heirs. He had evaded the ladies of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel and Saxe-Gotha...but how could he go on avoiding marriage? It would come...inevitably, and then he would have to accept it, and he would have to make some plans about Hannah.

What could he do? Consult Bute or his mother? He knew in advance what their answer would be. He must bring Hannah to Court, a place could be found for her in his mother’s household doubtless, the children would be cared for by people who could be trusted; and he must marry a woman of their choice and do his duty by his Queen and country. There was one other alternative; part from Hannah. That he declared vehemently to himself, he would never do.

But something had to happen soon. Each day that was becoming clearer to him.

He said slowly: ‘It is well that Axford has married this woman. Now he will no longer search for you.’

She nodded and they went to the nursery and played with the children, but he was deeply aware of her melancholy, and he was concerned for her health.

‘You must hide nothing from me,’ he told her gently. ‘You are troubled. Tell me why.’

‘It is nothing. Thou hast enough with which to concern thyself. Tell me of thy dear Lord Bute’s care for thee. I love to hear that thou hast such a good friend. And of thy dear mother who loves thee so tenderly.’

He talked of Mr. Pitt and his ambitions and how everything was going well abroad, but that Mr. Pitt was an arrogant man who would have to be watched. Lord Bute had said that when he came to the throne he would be King of a great expanding Empire.

‘I mean to be a great King, Hannah. I mean to be a good King.’

‘Thou wilt, George, because thou art a good man.’

‘But now I am uneasy about you. There is something on your mind. Pray tell me. Are you having dreams?’

‘Oh, I dream, George. I wake in the night trembling with fear. Last night I dreamed I was at the Judgment seat with my load of sins on me. They were heavy. They weighed me down and I knew that there was no place for me in Heaven.’

‘There is no happiness for me unless you share it,’ he told her soberly.

She seized his hands and kissed them; and after that she made a great effort to be gay. Temporarily they forgot the gloom which thoughts of the future must amuse in them both; but when he had gone back to Kew he remembered, and so did she, alone in the house in Tottenham.

• • •

His solace was to be found with his sister Elizabeth and his brother Edward. Elizabeth looked very wan; her health did not improve as time passed and she was particularly sympathetic when she heard that Hannah was not well either.

‘What can I do?’ demanded George. ‘I am afraid for Hannah. Soon she will be delivered of our child and there is a melancholy about her...a sadness. Do you think people can die of melancholy?’

Elizabeth thought they could. She believed that if people desperately wanted to live they could often overcome illness and even face death and triumph; but if a person wanted to die, if he...or she...held out welcoming aims to death...then death came quickly.

‘I know how her mind works. She believes that this affair can bring no good to me. She thinks only of me.’

‘Nor can it,’ Edward said practically. ‘It is clear, brother, that soon you will have to take some action.’

George looked helplessly from his brother and sister. Then he said almost defiantly: ‘After I left Hannah, I came to a decision.’

‘Yes?’ they asked simultaneously.

‘I...I am going to marry Hannah.’

Marry her,’ breathed Elizabeth. ‘But that is not possible.’

‘It is possible. I do assure you. All we have to do is get a priest to marry us.’

‘Secretly?’ cried Edward.

‘How else?’

But, George, think..!’ begged Elizabeth. ‘How can you possibly marry Hannah?’

‘Merely by taking our oaths before a priest.’

‘I know. But...it would never be permitted.’

‘You cannot imagine that I intend to publish my intentions to the world.’

‘Oh...George...have a care.’

‘I have thought and thought about this and I see only one way out. Hannah is broken-hearted. I have a terrible fear that she will not live long. She believes she has sinned...and that she is condemned to eternal damnation. There is only one thing which can save her in the eyes of God. Marriage. There is only one way to salvation.’

‘Remember that soon you will be the King, George.’

‘I know it. But that is no reason why I should deny her salvation. I love Hannah...as I shall never love another woman, and I fear she is close to death. She feels it too. Do not ask me how this can be so. I only know it is. And she is afraid. Her soul is in torment...because she cannot face her Maker with this load of sin upon her.’