The Third George: (Georgian Series) (6 page)

‘It is the most humiliating business I ever heard,’ declared Lady Caroline.

‘Let’s see what Sarah herself thinks,’ suggested Mr Fox.

‘Sarah!’ spat out Caroline. ‘Sarah has no opinions about anything but horses and hedgehogs … and perhaps squirrels. Sarah is a fool – as we have learned in the bitterest manner possible.’

‘Poor Sarah!’ murmured Mr Fox. ‘At least she should be allowed to give an opinion.’

Mr Fox summoned a servant and asked that the Lady Sarah come to the drawing room.

As soon as Sarah entered it was clear to the gathered family that she knew what matter was under discussion.

‘I’ve decided to go,’ she announced.

‘What!’ cried Caroline.

Sarah shrugged her shoulders. ‘If I refuse he will think I am sulking.’

‘Which you have every reason to do.’

‘He might even think that I
care.
I am going to show him that I do not. I shall look at him …
insolently
… while he is marrying that woman and I shall make him feel so uncomfortable that he’ll wish he had never seen me … or her. But I shall go. I have decided.’

‘I don’t think you have given the matter serious thought,’ said Caroline.

‘I have made up my mind,’ retorted Sarah. ‘And after all, the invitation is sent to me. I am invited to be the bridesmaid, remember, and it is for me to decide. All I’m telling you is that I have decided.’

‘It’s madness,’ cried Caroline.

‘I’m not so sure,’ put in Lord Kildare.

They were all waiting for Mr Fox to express an opinion; after all he was the most important member of the family.

He lifted his shoulders. ‘To go or to stay away … either is not very comfortable. Which ever is done will raise comment.’

‘At least Sarah should show she has some
pride,
’ insisted Caroline.

‘But I don’t think I have, sister … not much in any case. Everyone knows George is still dangling on his mother’s apron strings, they know that she and Lord Bute arranged for him to marry this Charlotte person and he wasn’t man enough to refuse. Poor Charlotte! I pity her.’

‘I should have thought you would be envying her,’ snapped Caroline. ‘You would if you had any sense.’

‘But you always said I had none of that useful commodity,’ smiled Sarah. ‘And … I have decided. I am going to be a bridesmaid at the King’s wedding.’

Mr Fox smiled at her, half amused, half exasperated. He deplored his sister-in-law’s failure to achieve the royal marriage as much as anyone, but he couldn’t help being fond of her.

We shall have further trouble with Sarah, he prophesied to himself.

Sarah flounced out of the room back to Sukey the hedgehog and immediately sat down to write to Susan.

Dear Pussy,

I have only time to tell you that I have been asked to be bridesmaid and I have accepted it. I’m sorry to say it’s against my sister Caroline’s opinion a little. I beg you to tell me what your opinion is. I think it is not to be looked upon as a favour, but as a thing due to my rank. Why refuse it and make great talk, be abused by those who don’t know and perhaps by those that do, for they are always in the right, you know … Those that think about it will say perhaps that I want spirit and pride, which is true enough, for I don’t dislike it in the least, and I don’t like to affect what I don’t feel though ever so right …

Sarah put down her pen and laughed. Yes, there was no doubt writing to Susan helped her to understand her own feelings.

And even when Susan replied that she thought Sarah was wrong to be one of the King’s bridesmaids Sarah clung to her opinions.

She was determined to go.

*

When George heard that Sarah had accepted the invitation he did not know whether to be relieved or alarmed. While he was being married to this strange young woman, Sarah would be standing close by! He was sure he would not be able to think of anything but Sarah. If Sarah only knew how much he had wanted to marry her! But perhaps she did. Had he not made it plain? Scarcely perhaps, since he had so quickly been persuaded. But there were secrets people did not know. There had been Hannah. He thought of her, his beautiful Quaker, and how he had loved her and believed he always would, until he met Sarah. If he could have married Hannah, made her first Princess of Wales and then Queen of England perhaps he would never have noticed how beautiful Sarah was.

He tried not to think of Hannah, but he could not forget her. It was natural that he should think of her with his wedding day so close. How different this would be from that other
wedding day when he and Hannah had stood before Dr Wilmot and exchanged their marriage vows.

He shivered. How could he have been such a fool! But it had been no true marriage because Hannah had been married before to Isaac Axford, the Quaker grocer, one of her own sect. It was true that the marriage had taken place in Dr Keith’s Marriage Mill which was now declared illegal … but it was a true marriage all the same; and that made it impossible for the ceremony through which he had gone with Hannah to be anything but invalid. Besides, Hannah was dead. Or was she?

If he could be sure …

But he was supposed to be pining for the loss of Sarah, not thinking of Hannah. No, no, he was not supposed to be doing either. He was supposed to be thinking of welcoming his bride the Princess Charlotte.

George forced himself to think of Charlotte. He would be a good husband to her; they would have children, and when he was a father he would cease to be bothered by romantic follies.

But he could not dismiss Sarah from his mind; and while he made almost feverish preparations to receive his bride, images of Sarah continued to torment him.

*

In the nursery Caroline Matilda, the youngest of the family, was chattering about the wedding.

She was ten years old and had always felt herself to be apart from the family because she had been born four months after her father’s death. So she had never known him. Neither had her brother Frederick William really, although it was true he had been born a year before she had, when their father was alive but he could remember nothing of him, so he was as much in the dark as Caroline Matilda. Henry was sixteen and swaggered about the nursery, impatient because he was neither a boy nor a man, but very much despising his younger sister and brother. Then there was William who was eighteen, very much the man with no time to spare for ignorant little sisters. Elizabeth, the saintly one, had died what seemed like a long time ago to Caroline Matilda, but was in fact only some three years back; then there was Edward, Duke of York, who was twenty-two; and Augusta, haughty, eldest of them all, who was twenty-four years old; but she was not the most important
member of the family. How could she be when there was George and although one year younger than Augusta, he was the King.

The thought that George was King of England made Caroline Matilda want to giggle, for George was less like a king than any of her brothers. He was always kind and even treated the youngest of them all as though she were worthy of some consideration. Now he was always giving audiences and receiving ministers, and even his family had to remember to show due respect to him, although he never asked for it.

Before he had become king he had had time to talk to Caroline Matilda about their father. She was constantly asking questions about Papa. It seemed to her so odd to have a father who had died before she was born.

She did not share George’s delight in Lord Bute, for he scarcely noticed her. All his attention was for George. And Mamma of course did not notice her much either – only to lay down a lot of rules as to how the nursery was to be run.

She liked to listen to her brothers, Henry and Frederick, talking together – or rather Henry talked and Frederick listened. It wasn’t only the gap in their ages which made Henry supreme. Henry was only sixteen but healthy, whereas Frederick always had colds and was often out of breath. Poor Frederick; he listened patiently, only too grateful that his brother talked to him.

Caroline Matilda knew better than to attempt to join in. Henry would soon have put her in her place if she had. He wasn’t like dear George – dear King George, she thought with a little chuckle – and the reason was that everyone knew George was king so he didn’t always have to be
reminding
people how important he was.

Henry was saying: ‘It’ll be different now George is king. They can’t keep us cooped up forever.’

Frederick timidly asked what would happen when they were no longer cooped up.

‘We shall go to balls and banquets. We shan’t just be the children in the nursery. You see. Of course you and Caro will be children for years yet …’

‘Frederick will be as old as you are in five years’ time,’ Caroline couldn’t help putting in.

Henry looked at her coldly. ‘As for you, you are only a baby still.’

‘I’m ten years old which is only six years younger than you.’

‘And you’re a girl.’

‘They marry before boys,’ Caroline reminded him cheekily while Frederick looked at her with amazement at her temerity. ‘After all,’ she went on, ‘the Princess Charlotte is only seventeen and that’s a year older than you are now.’

‘That is not the point of the argument. The trouble with you, Caro, is that you don’t think.’

‘I’m thinking all the time.’

‘What about?’ challenged Henry.

‘What I’m going to do when I grow up.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Run wild,’ she told them.

Henry laughed. She had voiced his own sentiments. So even little Caroline Matilda was longing for freedom; it all came of what he called being cooped up.

‘It is Mamma who keeps us as we are,’ said Henry. ‘She’s afraid we’ll be contaminated by wicked people if we aren’t kept shut away like this.’

‘George will be a good king,’ Caroline said, ‘so then there won’t be any wickedness, and when there’s no danger we won’t have to be shut away.’

‘Poor George!’ said Henry knowledgeably. ‘He’s not looking forward to his wedding.’

‘Oh, but he loves the Princess Charlotte.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Well, he must because she is going to be his wife.’

‘You don’t know anything,’ Henry told her, ‘and you would therefore be wise to keep your mouth shut. Our brother wanted Sarah Lennox not this Charlotte, and I repeat he is not going to be pleased with this wedding.’

‘But …’ began Caroline and was warned by a quick look from Frederick.

The door opened suddenly and Augusta their eldest sister looked in. They were immediately silent. One always was when Augusta arrived. It was well known that she delighted in carrying tales to their mother – whether to try to divert some of that affection which was lavished on George towards herself or because she liked telling tales and making trouble, no one was quite
sure. But in any case her arrival was the signal to guard their tongues.

‘What are you children chattering about?’ she wanted to know.

Henry flushed at the term, which amused Augusta; she always knew what would hurt people most and contrived to do it.

‘I’ll swear it’s the wedding,’ she went on. ‘And Henry is telling you all about it. You should remember though that Henry knows very little. And sit up straight, Frederick. All humped up like that! No wonder you’re always tired. And you supposed to be working at your embroidery, Caroline?’

Caroline said: ‘I had only just laid it down for a moment.’

‘Then pick it up and make up for that moment of idleness. I shall be forced to tell Mamma how I found you all wasting time and telling each other stories about the wedding.’

‘Oh, but we weren’t!’ cried Caroline.

And Augusta looked at her in that way which implied she was lying because she, Augusta, had stood outside the door for fully five minutes before coming in.

Even when you were not guilty, thought Caroline, Augusta made you feel you were.

Augusta laughed unpleasantly and said: ‘Well, if you want to know, that silly little Sarah Lennox is furious because she will not be Queen of England. I spoke to her yesterday at the drawing room. I showed I understood how she must be feeling. “Poor Lady Sarah,” I said; and she tossed her silly head and pretended not to care. And something else I’ll tell you. She is to be one of the bridesmaids. That will be fun, I promise you.’

Caroline Matilda contemplated what excitement existed in the outside world; and even while she listened avidly to what Augusta had to tell about the King’s desire to marry Lady Sarah – which had been rightly thwarted it seemed, according to her sister’s account, as much by her, Augusta, as anyone – she was thinking of the story of Augusta’s birth when their father and mother, then Prince and Princess of Wales, had fled from Hampton Court that their first child might be born at St James’s; and how the King and Queen – Caroline Matilda’s grandfather and grandmother – had been so angry; and there had been no sheets at St James’s and nothing ready, so that the baby Augusta had
to be wrapped in a tablecloth. What drama surrounded their lives. All except mine, thought Caroline Matilda. I have to stay in the nursery, ‘cooped up’, while all the excitement goes on in the world outside.

And how her grandparents had quarrelled with her parents! They were always quarrelling, Henry told them. They were a quarrelling family.

Well, she would have some fun one day. She would be free to run wild.

In the meantime she listened to Augusta’s account of the snubbing of silly Sarah Lennox who had believed mistakenly that she could be Queen of England.

*

And while the wedding was being discussed in the schoolroom, the Princess and Lord Bute were also talking of it.

There was to be no delay. In spite of the death of the Grand Duchess, the plans would go on as previously arranged.

‘She will be here soon,’ said the Princess Dowager of Wales. ‘I confess I shall not feel safe until she is.’

‘Never fear,’ soothed Lord Bute. ‘All will be well.’

He fervently hoped so. He was about to climb to the top of the pinnacle towards which he had patiently striven ever since he had seen the way to favour through George who was now the King.