Queen in Waiting - Plaidy Jean (электронную книгу бесплатно без регистрации TXT) 📗

"Tell all the women to make ready. We are going at once."

"Where, Your Highness?"

"That I cannot say. All I can tell you is that we are leaving St. James's."

"And the children?" asked Henrietta.

"They are to remain," replied Caroline, bitterly, "on the King's orders."

"But..."

"I can tell you no more," replied Caroline. "We are to leave at once."

Mary Bellenden asked leave to give a note to the Prince or Princess. It was Caroline who took it and saw that it was from the Earl of Grantham. He had heard what had happened and wished to place his house in Albermarle Street at their disposal.

"So," said Caroline blankly, "we have somewhere to go."

At the same time the King's messenger had arrived with a note to her from the King.

She read it eagerly hoping that he had had some change of heart with regard to her children.

The King wrote that he understood she had not recovered from her confinement and was not well enough to move at present. He would therefore grant her permission to stay at St. James's with her children providing she made no attempt to communicate with her husband who must leave the palace without delay. Unless she kept this promise she would be ban-

ished with her husband while her children remained at St. James's.

Caroline re-read the letter. He was offering her her children or her husband.

Never in her life before had she had such a decision to make.

The Prince came to her. **Vat now?" he asked; and when she showed him the letter, his face grew scarlet with rage.

"He vould try to separate us ... he vould try to tempt a vife from her husband!"

"There are the children."

"You vill them see," he told her. "He does not say you vill not see them. From time to time, he says. But it vill not be for long. Ve vill think of something, my tearest."

And she looked at him and knew that she must choose to be with him. She was necessary to him. What would become of him without her? What would become of them both? He was as one of her children and she dared not desert him now.

She wrote to the King: "Where my husband goes there must I go too."

The maids of honour were packing hastily.

"This is disastrous," said Margaret Meadows. "It is the beginning of real trouble between the King and the Prince."

"We'll have a better time in the Prince's Court than in the King's," commented Sophie Howe. "Of all the dreary places in the world ... St. James's is the most dreary! "

"I wish it were like that summer at Hampton," said Molly Lepel. "That was a glorious time."

Mary Bellenden joined them; she was in high spirits, for where she went John Campbell as gentleman of the Prince's bedchamber would go.

"Are you ready?" she cried. "Then come—over the hills and far away!"

The coach jolted along to Albemarle Street. Already there were little knots of people in the streets to watch the party. The Prince of Wales turned out of the Palace! Who ever

heard of such a thing! These Germans had no family feeling. They didn't want Germans here. King Charles had always been jovial and kind to members of his family. It had been a pleasure to see him with his little nieces. And his brother James had doted on Anne and Mary; Anne's love for her only child who lived past his infancy was quite touching. But German George had been really cruel to the poor Princess. Not only had he taken her daughters from her but he had separated her from her newly born baby.

Family bickering was one thing, but to drive a woman from her children, soon after she's risen from childbed was real cruelty.

"Damn George," said the people. "Damn the German. And God bless the Prince and Princess of Wales."

In Grantham House the Princess was in a state of collapse. Her women got her quickly to bed and feared that she would not recover.

The Prince sat beside her bed covering his face with his hands and crying quietly.

Rumours that the Prince and Princess were ill circulated in the streets and little knots of people stood outside Grantham's house waiting for news of them while in St. James's the King gave orders that any foreign ambassadors who visited the Prince would not be received at his Court.

And now, he said, that the troublesome Prince is no longer with us let us enjoy some peace.

A new drama soon arose. The newly born child, deprived of its mother, became ill. The nurses whom the King had commanded to care for the little boy at first assured themselves that this was nothing but a normal childish ailment, but as the child grew more wan and fretful they could no longer deceive themselves and sent for the physicians, who, when they saw the child, decided that the King should be informed, without delay, of its condition.

"Well," said George gruffly, "what do you recommend?"

"That Your Majesty should send at once for the child's mother."

"That's impossible," snapped the King.

"We fear, sir, that if you do not the child will die."

"Nonsense. What can she do that you can't? Are you doctors or not?"

"In our opinion, Your Majesty, the child is pining for his mother."

George looked at them suspiciously. He was inclined to suspect them of working for the Prince.

"She is forbidden to come to the palace, so she must stay away."

And with that he dismissed the doctors.

But the people were too interested in the family quarrel not to have discovered what was happening in the Palace, and when it became known that the newly born child was ill and not allowed to see its mother, the crowds grew angry.

"Keep a babe from its mother I" they cried. "What sort of a monster is this we've got as a King."

Stanhope came to see George.

"If the child dies. Your Majesty, and his mother is not allowed to see him, there might be riots. These people are sentimental about children."

George was thoughtful.

"The Princess may come, but not the Prince."

"I will send a message to her immediately," replied Stanhope.

When Caroline received the message she immediately prepared to leave Albermarle Street for St. James's. The people crowded the streets to see her pass and shout their good wishes.

She smiled wanly; and when they saw how ill she looked and how sad they shouted: "God bless you. And down with the unnatural German monster."

Caroline felt comforted and wondered whether she would be

allowed to stay at St. James's and nurse her baby; and whether she would have a chance of seeing her daughters.

On reaching the Palace she was hurriedly taken to an apartment which had been prepared for her and when she saw her child she was overcome with grief for she realized how ill he was. He was suffering from fever and his cough was so incessant that she was afraid she had come too late.

She took him from his nurses and said she would have charge of him now, and all through the night she sat with him and although he continued to cough and his fever was as high as ever, she fancied he knew her and was comforted.

The child was sleeping in his cradle. He looked very ill, but at least he slept. Caroline kept her place at his cradle, rocking it gently to and fro and turning over in her mind whether she might not plead with the King at least to allow her to have care of this child.

Henrietta, whom she had brought with her, came silciitly into the room and said that the little girls were outside and longing to see their mother.