‘Then she is dead,’ cried the Princess Royal. ‘Why is there all this talk if she is dead?’
‘Because, my dear, no one seems to know how she died. Some say one thing, some another. And there are some who doubt the motives of that strange woman, the Empress, that they say the Princess did not die at all but that she was kept a prisoner and still is in prison in Russia.’
‘I won’t believe it! I won’t believe it!’ cried the Princess Royal.
‘All the same,’ said the King, ‘it is a matter which must be cleared up to my satisfaction— and the Queen’s— before we can consent to this marriage.’
‘But my— my future husband is due to arrive here!’
‘Postponement, my dear. It is sometimes necessary. We have to be very sure.
We have to have proof. You understand that, eh, what? Can’t have our Princess Royal going off to a strange country unmarried, eh, what?’
The Princess Royal felt limp with misery. ‘I feared it was too good to be true,’
she sighed.
The King looked a little shocked. Did marriage mean so much to his daughter? After all this was not love for a man. How could it be when she had never seen him? It was merely the desire to be married, to escape from home.
He liked to think of his girls unsullied. He could never bear to contemplate them in the marriage bed, particularly Amelia. I shall never part with her, he thought. Nor any of the others. They are my girls— my pure girls. They shall never be sullied if I can help it. He thought of the life he had led— the good pure life with his Queen— plain, unattractive Charlotte whom he had had to accept when he burned for Sarah Lennox. But he had subdued all his desires in order to do his duty, and as a result he had had thirteen children— fifteen if Octavius and Alfred had lived. He had never been unfaithful to his wife in deed although he had often dreamed of beautiful women. Sometimes in his less lucid moments he thought he had mistresses— beautiful women like those favoured by his brothers and his sons who had lacked his sense of duty. He dreamed erotic dreams— but they were only dreams.
And he was anxious that his daughters should remain pure. He would keep them under his roof, growing older perhaps— but they would always be children to him.
So now, although he was sorry for his daughter’s tragic looks, in his heart he would be pleased if this marriage came to nothing.
The King visited Caroline at Blackheath. ‘You are happily settled here?’ he asked.
‘I could enjoy my stay, Your Majesty, but I miss my daughter.’
‘Ah, yes, the young rogue! I was with her yesterday. She grows apace and is into everything.’
The King smiled affectionately. He loved babies. Caroline smiled with him and gave him an account of young Charlotte’s amazingly clever conduct in the days when she was at Carlton House with her.
‘She misses her mother,’ said Caroline. ‘But not as much as her mother misses her.’
The King smiled. This was the sort of conversation he loved— happy domestic conversation. He discussed the food the Princess should be given and what rules should be made for her household.
Then he came to the real point of his visit.
‘As you know there is a betrothal between the Prince of Würtemberg and our Princess Royal.’
‘Yes, I had heard of this.’
‘You will have met the Prince?’
‘I met him when he came to Brunswick to marry my sister.’
‘And your sister, Caroline, what of her?’
‘I had never believed her to be dead. I have always felt that she was alive and there were rumours—’
‘And your father?’
‘My father believed her dead and so did Madame de Hertzfeldt and my mother. But perhaps that was what they wished.’
‘Do you remember what happened?’
‘Yes. There was a letter to say that my sister had died of a terrible disease which made it necessary for her to be buried without delay.’
‘And you did not believe this.’
Caroline shrugged her shoulders. ‘Perhaps I did not wish to believe it. I had been brought up with her. She was always so full of life. I could not imagine her — dead. Her maid came back to us. She said she had been dismissed by my sister and sent back home. She became my maid and she told me that my sister had fallen in love with one of the Empress’s lovers.’
The King shuddered; he could not bear hearing stories of other people’s profligate habits because when he was alone he could not stop thinking of them.
Caroline had no notion of this and went on, ‘This maid told me that my sister had a child by this man and that the Empress had her sent away and imprisoned her. Perhaps she had her murdered in prison.’
The King did not speak and Caroline went on: ‘One cannot believe these stories of someone with whom one has spent one’s childhood. When I think of all the games we played together and our tricks and jokes— and then I think of her being murdered— I can’t grasp it. Perhaps that is why I cannot believe she is dead.’
The King said: ‘We cannot allow the Princess Royal to marry a man who has a wife living.’
Caroline thought: No. But I was married to a man who, in the eyes of some, already had a wife. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that it is remarkable what strange adventures can fall to the lot of princesses.’
‘I shall need to have proof of your sister’s death before I can consent to this marriage.’
‘My father will give you a copy of the letter he received from the Empress and doubtless the Prince of Würtemburg will too. Your Majesty will consider that proof?’
‘There is no other proof I could hope for.’
‘And would that suffice?’
‘I am not sure.’
The Princess Royal was ill; her skin had turned yellow and her eyes were tinged with the same colour.
She lay listlessly on her bed. She had felt the sickness coming on her but she would not go to bed until she had finished her wedding gown. There it was hanging in her wardrobe— like a white satin ghost.
‘At least I had a wedding dress if I don’t get a husband,’ she said to her sister Elizabeth.
Her mother came to see her. She folded her arms and stood looking down at her daughter, her wide mouth grim. The girl was sick through anxiety, so much did she wish for marriage. Queen Charlotte thought of her own marriage— that astounding message which had come from England to say that she had been chosen for the future King of England. She would never forget it— and remembering it, she could have some sympathy for her daughter.
‘You understand,’ she said, ‘that we must make sure he is free to marry you.’
‘I understand, Mamma.’
‘And when we have satisfied ourselves, there is no reason why we should not go ahead with the marriage.’ She went to the cupboard and examined the wedding dress.
‘You have stitched it very fine,’ she said. ‘I am sure the reward for such diligence will be that you will wear it for what it was intended.’
The Queen came back to the bed and looked at her daughter. The Princess Royal was indeed sick— sick with fear that she might not get a husband.
The Queen would tell the King that it was essential that the Princess Royal married. There were enough daughters at home.
The King was uncertain. He had received letters from the Duke of Brunswick and the Prince of Würtemburg. They had no doubt that the Prince’s first wife was dead. ‘And yet,’ mused the King, ‘I don’t know.’
He did not in fact wish his daughter to have a husband at all; but the idea of giving her to a man who could not be her husband shocked him deeply.