"Oh, but...”
The Princess Dowager held up a playful finger which accorded strangely with her cold and calculating glance.
"It is all for your good, my dear," she said. "We cannot allow anything to go wrong now, can we?”
So Charlotte left Buckingham House and went to Richmond where the weeks of waiting passed slowly and monotonously.
George joined Charlotte at Richmond, and here began to live the life of the country gentleman.
Richmond was near enough to St. James's to enable him to return for levees and important state occasions; but the thought of being a father and living a life of domestic happiness greatly appealed to him; and at Richmond he had time to be the devoted husband.
He enjoyed the rural life and nothing pleased him so much as to go among the local people and talk to them, waving ceremony aside and asking them questions about their work and lives. He was particularly interested in the farms and would talk at great length with the farmers and even their labourers on agricultural matters. He became very popular in Richmond and he was delighted that the local people there touched their forelocks or curtsied, according to sex, and called a "Good morning, sir' instead of cheering for His Majesty.
And then there were the days with Charlotte. They both had a love of music and he would listen approvingly while she sang or played the harpsichord. Sitting with Charlotte, talking to her in German, he was happy; she sewed or embroidered and as he did not like to sit idly, he took up the craft of button-making to which he applied a great deal of patience.
But he did not forget the state matters in spite of the simple life. Every morning he arose at five to light the fire in his bedroom which his servants had laid the night before. Then he would go back to bed until the room was warmed up. After washing and dressing he would study state papers until it was time to breakfast with Charlotte. Each morning he surveyed her with pleasure. She appeared in good health and there was no doubt that the simple life and Richmond air agreed with her. She was a goodly size and some of the experienced were saying the way she carried the child implied that it was a boy.
At eight o'clock they took breakfast. "Just a dish of tea for me, my dear Charlotte." His usual remark.
To which she replied: "Oh, but George, it is not enough.”
But he would sternly resist her efforts to press food on him. He was not going to indulge his inherited love of rich food and incur the obesity which went with it, he told her. It was all part of the discipline of his life. He put it from him as he had Hannah Lightfoot and Sarah Lennox; and he accepted his dish of tea as though it was exactly all he desired, in the same way as he accepted the plain woman sitting opposite him. Such happy days they were in spite of all the conflict in the government. Charlotte had no intention of concerning herself with that. Her thoughts were concentrated on the child.
On one of his visits to St. James's, George heard the news. It was Mr. Fox who told him slyly, thought George, taking pleasure in the discomfiture which he must know such a revelation would cause.
"Your Majesty, my sister-in-law Sarah Lennox was married a few days ago.”
George felt his face growing pink. "Oh... is that so?”
"Yes, Sire. In view of Your Majesty's kind interest in her I thought you would wish to know.”
"Er ... yes ...”
"A quiet wedding in the chapel at Holland House. Not perhaps a brilliant match, but...”
"Who was the bridegroom?" asked George quickly.
"Bunbury, Sire. Charles Bunbury. He is a fortunate man. He is not rich and of course heir to the baronetcy. But it is a match of her making and Your Majesty will agree with me that happiness does not depend on riches.”
"H'm," grunted George, and turned away to speak to someone else. But he was not listening to what was said; he was thinking of Sarah, married to someone else; Sarah who might have been his wife.
The King returned to Richmond. How plain Charlotte was. Plainer than ever now that her body was bulky! She was grotesque. He thought of Sarah, Sarah teaching him that dance, with the silly name, the Betty Blue, was it? Sarah laughing and teasing and making hay in the gardens of Holland House. He had given up Sarah for Charlotte and now Sarah had another lover: Bunbury.
Silly name, thought George angrily. Who was Bunbury? A petty baronet... not even that until his father died ... and no fortune either. But Sarah had never looked for title and fortune. If she had would she ever have refused the King? And she had refused him at one time ... although later she would have accepted him and then he was persuaded to take Charlotte instead. He might have had Sarah ... and he had Charlotte.
There was no longer contentment for him at Richmond. He could not bear to look at Charlotte.
His mind and body were crying out for Sarah and wherever he looked he saw her ... with Bunbury. He could not stay within walls; he went out and walked. It started to rain and he went on walking. The rain soothed him; it soaked through his clothes; it was inside his boots, but he didn't care. He found some savage pleasure in the discomfort. He was cold and shivering when he returned; he felt feverish and was sneezing violently.
The King was suffering from acute influenza; he was delirious and to the doctors' consternation his chest was covered with a rash which they could not identify as being a symptom of a known disease.
Charlotte insisted on nursing him and she was in despair because, when she brought the doctors to bleed him, he cried out that he did not want them. They should not touch him. His behaviour was very strange, and he was not like the reasonable, amenable young man they had known before.
"Go away! Go away!" he cried.
"Leave me alone ... all of you.”
There was great consternation throughout the Court, for it was believed the King might die. And then what? A Regency? What a state of affairs. A young king suddenly stricken down and the heir to the throne not yet born. Charlotte now showed a strength of character which astonished those about her. This was the young woman who had written a letter to Frederick of Prussia. Nobody was going to turn her out of the sick room, not the King's mother, nor Lord Bute. She was his wife and she was in command.
She ordered the doctors to bleed the King; and by this time George was far too ill to protest. She was in the sick room night and day and there was nothing anyone could do to shift her. Under her care and that of the doctors George began to get better; and the day came when he was sitting up in bed asking for a little food, no longer feverish and quite lucid in his mind.
"You will soon be well again," Charlotte told him.
"That must be so, for I have affairs to attend to.”
"Ah. You will not get up until you are well enough, I promise you.”
The King felt a surge of resentment. He was not going to be ruled by this bulky little creature. If she thought so, she must be quickly disillusioned.
"I shall get up tomorrow," he said. Charlotte regarded him tenderly and shook her head. How dared she, who was not beautiful Sarah, how dared she tell him what he must or must not do.
When he heard from the doctors that the Queen had been a wonderful nurse, and that no one could have been so devoted, he softened towards her. She was a good woman; it was not her fault that she was not beautiful; she could not be blamed because beautiful Sarah had married Bunbury.
"I hear you have been a good nurse," he told her. He must try to love her. She was carrying their child who might be the heir to the throne if he were a boy ... and if it were a girl and there were no more children that child might be the Queen. He must be good to Charlotte. He must forget Sarah Lennox and love his wife.