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

"The fact that they are given by Your Highness enhances their value."

"You flatter, Henrietta. Send for the little Carteret and afterwards bring my shoes and clock. I vill go for a valk. I must make the most of the Richmond air."

"It is very overcast, Your Highness."

"I vill keep close to the Lodge."

Bridget Carteret was delighted with the gifts and gave Caroline a graphic description of her adventure. While she was doing so it had become almost as dark as night outside, and the first raindrops had begun to fall.

"This is going to be a bad storm, I fancy," said Caroline going to the window and at that moment a flash of lightning lit up the room. The immediate crack of thunder showed it to be right overhead.

"Your Highness should come away from the window," said Bridget. "I've heard ..."

Caroline turned to smile at her lady-in-waiting.

"It's only a passing storm," she said.

"In your condition. Madam..." began Henrietta; and at that moment a flash more vivid than the last made Caroline step back from the window; but just at that moment one of the elm trees came crashing down and there was a

sound of breaking glass mingling with the roar of thunder.

Caroline cried out in alarm, stepped back hastily and tripped.

She was aware of the branches of the tree coming through the broken window, of the scream of Bridget Carteret, and Henrietta bending over her before she lost consciousness.

She was lying in bed. The Prince was seated at her bedside, fussily attentive.

"Vot have happened?"

"You're all right, my tear. The doctors haf assured me "

He held her hand. "I haf been so anxious. You are tearer to me than my life. But it is all right. They have me told."

"The child...."

"There vill be children. You vill not be upset now. You vill soon be veil ... and that is my only concern."

So she had lost the child!

Was there some curse on her? The children she had were taken from her; and it seemed that fate had decided she was not to bear another.

In time the Princess recovered from her disappointment. There would be another child, for George Augustus was as regular in his attentions to her as he was to his mistress. I cannot go on being so unfortunate she told herself. And she must be grateful for her good health which helped her to recover from these disappointments more readily than most.

She fretted constantly for the children. She heard that Fritzchen was drinking too much, and was getting a taste for gambling; she heard too that he was not very strong. He was subject to fever; his back was weak so he was obliged to wear whalebone stays—not steel, which would have pressed uncomfortably on his nerves. He liad glandular trouble. His doctors ordered a diet of asses* milk. What was happening to Fritzchen? How unnatural that all these years should be allowed to pass and a mother not be permitted to see her son!

And the little girls? She heard that they had danced for

their grandfather at Hampton; that they were treated with respect by ambassadors—different from the way in which that unnatural man insisted his son and daughter-in-law should be treated! They did meet occasionally; but how difficult it was when George Augustus wps not allowed to visit Hampton and they were surrounded by spies. The girls were growing up and one could not expect them to be unaffected by the conflict in the family.

How different was this summer from that glorious one at

Hampton 1

In Hampton George tried to forget that he had a son and daughter-in-law! He regarded Frederick Lewis his grandson in Hanover as his heir; and although he had no tenderness for his grandchildren he liked to see them now and then to remind himself of their existence and the power he had to take them from their parents.

From time to time he heard how the Princess grieved for them and that gave him a grim pleasure. The woman had flouted him; she was far too clever, luring men to her court and winning the affection of the people. She should pay for that as anyone who offended him had to pay.

He had no intention of trying to make Hampton like Richmond. His Court would be as he liked it. Some might say it was dull but what did he care. His Duchesses of Kendal and Darlington—in other words Schulemburg and Kielmansegge— pleased him, particularly the former without whom he never liked to go far. Ermengarda was to him as a wife—a good placid wife who never stood in the way of anything he wanted. In his youth his hobbies had been war and women; now he was getting too old for war so it was merely women. But although he liked occasional variety he went back and back again to Ermengarda. She was a rich woman in her own right now, for since she had been to England she had developed an unsuspected talent for amassing money, but that made no difference to their relationship. She was still his placid Ermengarda, always ready to obey.

There was one thing he did enjoy in England and that was

the theatre.

He therefore had the great hall at Hampton fitted up as a

theatre and sent to Colley Gibber and his company to come down to entertain him.

Gibber played Henry VIII and other Shakespearian plays, of which the King was especially fond; Gibber provided German translations which the King read beforehand that he might follow the action on the stage and so delighted the King; and the King delighted Gibber.

This to the King was a pleasant existence: to see the play, with the Duchess of Kendal and Darlington on either side of him—the three of them had long formed a habit of going about together—and then to retire with one of them, or a fancy of the moment, to what he called a seasonable bedtime.

So passed the summer months.

To see the King going to Drury Lane was a sight which amused the people of London. His Sedan chair would be carried from St. James's Palace preceded by his beefeaters and guards. Immediately behind would be two other chairs, and if the people were lucky they would catch a glimpse of the red and black wigs above what they considered to be two of the most grotesquely ugly faces in the kingdom.

George cared nothing for the jeers of his subjects. Nor did his two mistresses, who in any case had grown accustomed to them.

And when he reached the theatre and was welcomed by the manager he would refuse the royal box and ask for one where he could not be so easily seen.

Then he would sit at the back of this, a Duchess on either side of him and prepare to enjoy the play.

One evening that autumn as his chair came out of the palace a young man leaped out of the crowd and ran towards the chair. If one of the guards had not seen him, he would have shot the King; as it was the bullet merely grazed the top of the chair.

The young man was seized and dragged away. The King went on to the theatre.

In the cart the young man was being taken to Tyburn. His name was James Shepherd and he was only eighteen years old.

He shouted to the crowd: ''There is only one true King of England. He is James III. Down with the German I "

"Down with the German!" echoed many in the crowd.

"He's young to die," said others. "The King should have shown mercy."

The Jacobites watched sullenly and said the King was a monster. His own wufe, the Queen of England, was languishing in prison; he had quarrelled with his son; his daughter-in-law was deprived of her children. They hadn't a King on the throne. They had a monster.

Some remembered that the Princess of Wales had pleaded for the boy. He was young, she said; he was doubtless led astray. Let him be punished in some slight way and cautioned.