Caroline was in despair. She had not believed that it could be quite like this. Although she had not expected her husband to fall passionately in love with her on sight, she had allowed herself to imagine that in time they would come to an understanding. But how could they, when he loathed her and made no secret of the effect she had on him.
I would have tried, she reminded herself. But, by God, if he is going to humiliate me then I shall show him that I care nothing for him? Lady Jersey! That woman was always close to her. And he had placed her there. She would not have blamed him for having a mistress; but surely he should have had the good taste, the good manners, to keep his liaison from his wife. The First Gentleman indeed! Then God help women if he was the finest example of his sex, ‘I hate him!’ she cried in the privacy of her apartments, But that was in private. No one was going to know how hurt she was She wondered how best to hurt him. She found a way. She had seen Maria Fitzherbert, the woman who had once so enslaved him that he had committed the utmost folly of going through a form of marriage with her.
So that was Maria! She seemed an old woman to Caroline. She must be well past forty. And what airs! One would have thought she were indeed Princess of Wales Handsome in a way, but with a beak of nose. Lovely hair. Better than mine? Caroline asked herself . I don’t think so. A good skin it was true, but fat and unmistakably middle-aged. She told him when next she saw him. ‘I met Widow Fitzherbert. What a Madam, eh? Mrs. Fitzherbert, they told me, I thought she was visiting Royalty— or at least a Duchess. Then I hear she’s plain Mrs. Fair-fat-and forty!’
He had turned scarlet with anger. How dare she attack his goddess. He gave her a look of the utmost contempt and she knew that he was comparing them and that he saw the middle-aged widow as eternally beautiful and herself eternally repulsive. He revealed something else. In his way he was still in love with the woman— more so than with Lady Jersey.
It was hurtful but gratifying in a way. It might well be that Madame Jersey would not always be at hand to torment her.
Caroline went about with a defiant air. She had given up trying to please him; instead she did her best to make him aware that she had no love for him. And yet she longed to win his affection. She had heard much about his elegance, so she tried to be elegant too, but she only succeeded in looking more vulgar in his eyes.
She could never compete with the exquisite ladies of his circle; and the more she tried to, the more dismally she failed. Knowing how he admired wit, she tried to be witty; her clumsy efforts to amuse were even more pathetic than her attempts to dress with taste.
Everything she did made him despise her the more.
God damn him! she cried. Why did they bring me here? I wish they had kept their Prince of Wales. Then she would think of Major von Täbingen, yearn for him and dream of the happy life they might have had together. She wished then that she had died when they took him from her— which she believed she almost had.
And then in the midst of her despair she made a discovery. She forgot her miseries; she even forgot the lost joy she might have had with Major von Töbingen. She forgot everything but what the future was promising her now.
That sad and sordid union was to bear fruit.
She was going to have a child.
They would go to Brighton, said the Prince. The air would be good for her condition.
She had hoped that now he would show a little interest. It was true that he was delighted He had done his distasteful duty and got the woman with child. Now he was entitled to leave her alone. His spirits rose, although he was angry about the manner in which Parliament had decided his creditors should be appeased. He always enjoyed being at Brighton; the people were so different from the Londoners, they did not criticize him— at least not openly. Perhaps they would always be grateful to him for bringing prosperity to their town.
So to Brighton where the inhabitants turned out in their thousands to welcome them and to shout their loyal greetings, not only to the Prince but also to his Princess. It was fitting that he should bring her down to Brighton. His chief residence might be Carlton House but Brighton was his home, and the Princess was pregnant so what better for her than the sunshine and the sea breezes?
It was rather a damp arrival, for the rain poured down on the Prince and his wife, but Caroline cared little for that; she smiled and waved to the people in her free manner, and consequently, to the Prince’s chagrin, won their hearts.
But she was soon to discover that life could be as humiliating at Brighton as at Kempshott and Carlton House. The Prince had no intention of spending any time with her; he left her alone and devoted himself to his Brighton friends who thought up all kinds of lavish entertainments for his pleasure.
Lady Jersey was constantly with the Prince and by an unfortunate irony was also pregnant. This caused a great deal of amusement and even the loyal inhabitants of Brighton— could not resist fabricating jokes and cartoons about the Prince’s virility. Lady Jersey was more unbearable than ever. She constantly took the place of honour and Caroline, often feeling sick and ill, spent a great deal of time alone in her apartments, sometimes going for walks with only Mrs. Harcourt and a manservant in attendance.
Her greatest relaxation was writing home. She found that thus she could relieve her feelings. If she told her mother how right she had been, how Queen Charlotte was an ugly little woman who was determined to spoil her daughter-in- law’s chances of living happily in England, she felt better. She would write cruel little descriptions of her new family; she could describe the foppish ways of her husband; the spitefulness of the Queen and the aloofness of her brood of silly daughters.
And doing this and walking now and then and dreaming of the following year when she would have her baby, she felt life was tolerable.
The Prince had left her in Brighton and gone to Carlton House. Lady Jersey accompanied him and during her stay in London was summoned to audience with the Queen, who wished for a detailed account of Caroline’s behaviour in Brighton.
‘So she is with child,’ said the Queen. ‘It has not taken long, and I believe that the Prince has not been the most devoted of husbands.’
Lady Jersey smiled sycophantically. It was clear that she herself was pregnant, and doubtless through the Prince. But Lady Jersey was a discreet woman, and Lord Jersey would accept paternity, so there was no need for propriety to be outraged.
‘I congratulate you on your own condition,’ went on the Queen.
Lady Jersey thanked Her Majesty and said she welcomed this addition to her family.
‘I trust it will not mean too long an absence from your duties.’
‘I can assure Your Majesty that my desire to serve will not allow me to absent myself for longer than is necessary.’
The Queen nodded. ‘And how does the Princess spend her time?’
‘She walks a little rides, and writes a great many letters home.’
‘Ah. Letters.’
‘Your Majesty, I am told that she sometimes laughs herself almost into hysteria when writing letters to her family.’
The Queen s eyes narrowed. ‘It would doubtless be interesting to know what those letters contain.’
Lady Jersey’s eyes sparkled with mischief. ‘If it were in my power to inform Your Majesty of that, I should believe myself to have done my duty.’
It was a dangerous subject— one which should only referred to in the most oblique terms.
But it was clear to Lady Jersey that this was a command from the Queen.
It was Mrs Harcourt who called Caroline’s attention to the fact that Dr.