‘Cornelia instead on my driving in the Park when she heard of the rumours,’ she said.
Mercer’s lips tightened at the mention of Cornelia. ‘I hope you don’t allow that woman to order you.’
‘Oh, no, Cornelia would never do that. Dear Mercer, she reminds me of you.’
But Mercer was not pleased by the comparison.
‘Why, she is an old woman. Because I am a few years older than you, do you see me as of an age with this Miss Knight?’
‘Of course not. You’re young and beautiful and dear Notte is old. Look, Mercer, I am wearing your bracelet. I do every day.’
Mercer was placated and passed on to the subject which she had come to discuss.
‘I have heard rumours about Orange.’
‘The Prince, you mean?’
Mercer nodded. ‘They have chosen him as a possible husband for you.’
‘I have heard he is very young and graceless,’ said Charlotte.
‘He is both.’
‘Oh, Mercer, what a bother it is to be royal. I shall not accept him.’
‘They might insist.’
‘They?’
‘Your father, of course.’
‘I would not have Orange. I hate the whole family.’
‘Still if the Prince Regent insisted …’
‘I should have to worm my way out of that.’
‘Could you?’
‘Trust me,’ retorted Charlotte.
But she was uneasy. She would find out all she could about William of Orange, son of the Stadholder – but she knew she was not going to like what she heard. They have forced me to have a governess, she thought, but they’ll not force me to take a husband I don’t want.
On a bleak March day Mercer again called at Warwick House, this time with the news that she had come openly. She had heard, through the Regent’s equerry, that she had his master’s permission to visit the Princess Charlotte.
Charlotte laughed gleefully. ‘My father is trying to please me. Perhaps,’ she added wistfully, ‘it isn’t for the sake of pleasing the people but because he wants to please me.’ Mercer brought sad news. The old Duchess of Brunswick was very ill and in fact not expected to live.
‘It’s a long time since I saw her,’ said Charlotte. ‘Poor Grandmamma. Not seeing my mother has meant that I didn’t see her either.’
A few days later the Queen sent for the Princess to tell her that her grandmother was dead. ‘A death in the family is always an occasion for mourning,’ she said, ‘but I think we may say that this is not a very Important death.’
Poor Grandmamma, who had once been Princess Royal and had had such a humiliating life! Charlotte’s mother had talked of her now and then – how she had left England for Brunswick and found her husband’s mistress installed there, and how Grandpapa Brunswick would not give up his mistress, and the poor Duchess had to accept a ménage á trois. And she had had her strange wild children – none of whom had been quite normal (for Mamma was a little odd, Charlotte had to admit), and then when Napoleon had captured Brunswick the old Duchess had come to the country of her birth to find no welcome there for her, for her kind brother was on the verge of madness and his queen was indifferent to the plight of a sister-in-law whom she had always disliked. So the Duchess had lived in that dingy dark house which was not at all like a royal residence, but there she had held court as though it were a palace – and perhaps lived in illusions.
Now she was lying in her coffin – neglected in death as in life. Not a very important death, so the old Begum had said.
Charlotte was sorry and wished she had seen more of her.
She went to Cornelia and talked of her grandmother.
‘She used to sit on a chair in that cold and ill-furnished room and receive us. Oh Notte, dear, it was pathetic. And now she is dead and I might have been kinder to her.’
‘It is no use regretting now,’ soothed Cornelia. ‘What could you have done? The situation was so awkward.’
‘I should like to see her in her coffin. Would that be frowned on?’
‘I don’t see why it should.’
‘I will pay my last respects, as they say. It’s not much use, is it, but if she is watching she will be pleased.’
‘Then we will go,’ said Cornelia, ‘for you will feel happier for it.’
‘You were on the point of going out?’ cried Mercer who had just arrived.
‘To pay my last respects to Grandmamma Brunswick.’
Mercer gave Cbrnelia a cold glance. ‘You think that wise?’
‘I see no harm in it,’ said Cornelia. ‘It’s a natural thing.’
‘Natural to gaze on the dead!’
‘It is the Princess’s wish,’ Cornelia reminded her coldly. Really, one would think the woman was the Queen at least.
‘I consider it quite ghoulish!’
Charlotte looked from one to the other in dismay. She had wanted to see her grandmother in her coffin but clearly Mercer did not approve and perhaps it was ghoulish. Now she was wondering whether she really did want to see the dead Duchess – certainly not so much that she would offend Mercer by doing it.
She took off her cloak. ‘I think Mercer is right, dear Notte. Perhaps I should not go.’
It was triumph for Mercer and defeat for Cornelia.
Really, thought Cornelia indignantly, that woman rules the household!
Charlotte drove to Blackheath with Cornelia and the Duchess of Leeds beside her for she had received her father’s permission, in these special circumstances, to visit her mother.
The Prince and the Queen had come to the conclusion that because of the death of Caroline’s mother that permission could not be withheld. The meeting in Hyde Park had been the main item of news in the papers for a few days; the lampoons had intensified. The Prince’s enemies gloated over his callous treatment of his wife. To separate a mother and daughter! they reiterated. And to see the affection of those two leaning out of their carriages to embrace was so touching.
‘Devil take them both,’ cried the Prince. ‘Not only have I the most vulgar woman in the world for a wife but I have also the most capricious of daughters.’
But in view of the fact that his mother-in-law was dead he had lifted the ban on meetings because there was nothing like a death to arouse public sentimentality.
The Princess of Wales wore purple for mourning and it did not become her. Charlotte always forgot how grotesquely colourful her mother was until she came face to face with her. The brilliantly rouged cheeks, the painted black brows, the black wig with its profusion of curls always gave her a fresh shock.
‘So my angel has come,’ cried the Princess, fiercely embracing her.
‘Papa gave me permission.’
‘The wicked old devil!’ She laughed. ‘What I have to endure from him! But nothing he can do to me hurts me like separating me from my dearest Charlotte.’
‘And how is Willie?’ Charlotte always had to remind her mother of Willie when she became too effusively affectionate. Was she jealous of Willie? She did not think so but she was not sure. There was so much which bewildered her in this strange relationship with her parents.
‘Willie is adorable,’ declared Caroline. ‘He is my solace. But it is of you, my precious, that I wish to talk today. You are no longer a child, you know.’
‘I know it well,’ cried Charlotte. ‘My complaint is that others forget it.’
‘You heard the people cheering as you alighted from your carriage. We have them on our side … against him.’
‘But it is not good that they should be against him. He is after all the King in a way … until Grandpapa recovers at least and we all know he never will.’
‘Poor old King,’ said Caroline. ‘He was always my friend. The only one of the whole miserable family who showed me any kindness.’ She broke into one of her bursts of loud laughter. ‘He had a fancy for me. His mind was wandering half the time, I do believe, but he had a fancy for me. If I’d come as his bride that would have been a different story.’