Charlotte sighed. George was a good man and a good husband and she was lucky and once again ... pregnant. There would be a little gap between the birth of Fred and this child. It was what she had needed; the time between her darling firstborn and his little brother had been too short.
Now young George, already a little autocrat of the nursery, but so beautiful, and so bright, would be three years old by the time the new baby appeared and little Fred would be two.
Oh, she was fortunate indeed. But she wished that the King's health would improve. He was young to have these vague ailments which seemed to upset him so. In a man of fifty or even forty they would have been understandable; but George was not yet thirty. It was the worries of state.
Dear George, he was too conscientious. But how pleased he was to hear that they might expect another child.
Marriage in a masque
The King was extremely upset. He paced up and down his apartments. He did not wish to see anyone, but Charlotte went to him.
"George. You must tell me what is wrong.”
George looked at her blankly as though he did not know who she was. She took his arm and looked into his face.
"Hannah ..." he said. "Hannah ...”
Her heart leaped and then seemed to stop for a second before it raced on. He was looking at her so oddly, as though he thought she were another person. And Hannah! That name which she had heard whispered before. Hannah Lightfoot, the Quaker.
"George ... I beg of you, tell me what is on your mind.”
His eyes seemed to come into focus. He looked more like himself.
"Charlotte," he said. "Charlotte, my wife ... the Queen.”
"What has happened, George? You are ill.”
"Oh, yes, yes..." he said.
"Pray sit down. I will call the doctors.”
He shook his head but allowed her to lead him to a chair. "Call no one," he said. Then as though speaking in a daze, "She is dead. Hannah is dead. This time it is true.”
Charlotte knelt at his feet and taking his hand looked up pleadingly into his face.
"You must tell me," she urged and added: "If it will help you.”
He seemed to consider this. His brow was wrinkled, his eyes wild. Then he spoke a little incoherently: "Perhaps I should tell. Better. Charlotte, oh, Charlotte. It was wrong. It was wicked.
I never should ...”
She waited in breathless anxiety. What was the secret of Hannah Lightfoot? She must know.
"George," she said, 'perhaps you should lie down.”
"I feel dizzy," he said. "I can scarcely stand.”
She took him to the bedchamber and he lay down while 'she sat beside the bed holding his hand.
"Charlotte, you are a good wife ... a good queen.”
"I want to be everything you wish me to be, George.”
"All these years. What did Hannah think...?”
And then he was telling the story, somewhat incoherently, it was true, but she saw him as a young boy of thirteen passing through St. James's Market and being aware of the beautiful Quaker sitting in the window of the linen draper's shop.
"The people had gathered to see us ... my grandfather, my mother, myself ... we were all going to the theatre; and the linen draper had taken the bales of linen from the window that his family might watch the procession pass by. Hannah told me that... afterwards.”
"Yes, George.”
"She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.”
Charlotte winced, but the pressure of his hot fingers on her hand reminded her that however plain she was, he needed her; and he trusted her enough to confide in her.
"So we met. It was arranged for us and I loved her and she bore my children.”
"Children, George? Where are they?”
"Being well cared for. I am assured of this, but I do not see them now. They are growing too old.
It would not be safe. But I know they are well cared for. That is taken good care of.”
There was silence while Charlotte thought of her little nursery and compared it with that of another presided over by a woman ... the most beautiful he had ever seen, a woman who merely had to sit in a shop window to make him fall in love with her and risk all sorts of danger to be with her. Very different that must have been from marrying a plain princess who had been chosen for him. But it was over. It was of the past and now he was king with a queen and two sons and another child on the way. She told him this gently.
"Yes, it is over, but it haunts me, Charlotte. I think of her ... What must she have thought of me ...
for allowing it...? And in my heart I knew she wasn't dead.”
She listened to the incoherent fantastic story of how he had gone to the house ... their house in Islington ... and found that she was no longer there. She and the children had disappeared. The story they had told him was that she had died and been buried and the children were being taken care of.
"They showed me her grave, Charlotte. But it had another name over it. They cheated me. They told me she was dead ... and I knew in my heart that she was not. It was a ridiculous story. They had buried her under another name to avoid scandal, they said. I should have asked questions, but I didn't, Charlotte ... because I knew in my heart ... And I understood what it would mean. I was the King and I had married the linen draper's niece.”
"Married!" she cried aghast.
He nodded. "We went through a form of marriage. She was already married to Isaac Axford, but she said that was no true marriage and he thought so too for he had married again. It was never consummated. She ran away after the ceremony ... ran away to me.”
"Married!" repeated Charlotte.
"It satisfied her. She thought she was near death. It was after the child was born ... the last one ...
and she feared the weight of sin. So I married her ... and that made her happier. She was no longer afraid to die.”
He had closed his eyes; the telling had exhausted him mentally and physically. He seemed to sleep and she sat by his bed, thinking: "Married! So they went through a form of marriage!”
Charlotte could not sleep for thinking of the strange confession her husband had made to her.
When she had tried to broach the subject again he had looked at her coldly as though he did not know what she was talking about. A great fear came to her then. Was he pretending that he did not know or had he really been unaware of what he had said to her?
He was acting very strangely. There were times when he seemed bemused. He had changed in the last weeks. Could it be the result of the information he had received about Hannah Lightfoot's death? Who had told him? She imagined a letter arriving from Hannah herself, begging him to look after their children as she was dying. Was that not what any mother would do?
And George had actually gone through a ceremony of marriage with Hannah Lightfoot. So that wedding ceremony between herself and George in the Chapel Royal performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury was not the first George had undergone.
She thought she felt the child move within her and with that a faintness came to her, for with the movement of the child had come a thought. If George had been married before and that marriage of his had been legal, then he was not married to her, Charlotte; and little George and Fred were illegitimate and so was the child she carried in her womb. She clutched the table. No, she thought.