Now she listened with interest to the state of the King’s health.
‘It grows worse, I hear,’ she said. Her eyes glinted. ‘It could mean that he cannot live much longer.’
A king! she thought. Power! The Tory party triumphant! That was a consideration. But while King George III was alive it was a mere dream and Lady Hertford was not a dreamer; she liked cold reality.
She would not talk of the King’s death. That was unwise; and she was a shrewd woman.
‘It could mean a regency,’ she temporized.
‘If I became regent,’ he said, ‘there is nothing I would not do that you asked.
You would be at my right hand. How fortunate to have the most beautiful woman in England for my chief minister.’
And the Fitzherbert? wondered Lady Hertford. A Catholic. Inwardly she shuddered. She did not believe in the emancipation of Catholics, which of course the Prince did at the moment. It was not only the Fitzherbert influence but he was a man of tolerance— weakness she called it.
But if he even came to power— through the Crown or the Regency— she would certainly feel more friendly towards him.
The Prince realized how interested Lady Hertford was in the possibility of a Regency; and he wanted her to understand that this possibility was by no means remote.
‘I heard that my father remarked on his way to open Parliament that he was going to begin his speech by My Lords and Peacocks. I believe they were in a state of apprehension expecting him to carry out his threat.’
‘But he did not,’ said Lady Hertford. ‘If he had that would have been the end.’
‘He has deteriorated terribly in the last weeks. These scandals about Fred and Ernest —’
Lady Hertford pursed her lips. She did not like scandal. The Prince had been about to tell her of an incident which had been reported to him of how when the King had inspected the royal yacht, his eyes had fallen on an exceptionally pretty woman whom he had approached and regarded in manner which was alien to what was expected of him.
‘My word,’ he had exclaimed, very audibly, ‘what a pretty bottom! I’d like to slap that bottom.’ Those watching had choked with laughter and the King had sought to embrace the young woman who had quickly extricated herself, made a quick curtsey and run off.
Such incidents in public meant that he must be near breaking point.
Poor father, thought the Prince with compassion. But he did have to retire, it would mean the Regency.
And if the Regency were his, he believed, then so would be Lady Hertford.
Lady Hertford to satisfy his need for romance— always so strong in him; and Maria to go home to like a nice warm featherbed— always his great comfort in life, his wife, his soul— but to whom he had grown accustomed so that he must seek romance elsewhere.
When Caroline heard of the Prince’s penchant for Lady Hertford she shrieked with laughter.
‘He’s a fool, of course,’ she told Lady Charlotte. ‘He’d be wise to keep to Maria. He doesn’t realize when he’s got a treasure. They say he sits and looks at Madam Hertford with tears in his eyes and longing in his expression. And that Maria Fitzherbert is very angry with him. They quarrel, and she has a temper, our paragon. Not that I can’t understand that— married to that trying man. But it makes me laugh— oh, it does make me laugh, Lady Charlotte my dear, to think of these fat middle-aged people behaving like young people in love.’
She wanted to hear how the romance of Mrs. Fitzherbert’s husband progressed. And she asked everyone who came to see her to tell her what they knew.
They could not keep the news from the King any longer. Amelia was very ill.
With the coming of the autumn she contracted what was known as St. Anthony’s Fire.
The fact that the King’s jubilee was being celebrated made this even more tragic to him. Fifty years since he had ascended the throne— fifty years of anxieties and fears which had grown greater as years passed. Looking back he could not remember everything that had happened; but two things stood out in his memory; the loss of the American Colonies, and the scandals of his family. He had failed somewhere. All his efforts to be a good man and a good king had not brought him success. He had become a tragic old fellow.
‘More dead than alive sometimes,’ he mumbled. ‘And oh, God, I wish I were dead for I am afraid I am going mad.’ He was half-blind, tormented by desires for women which he had never fulfilled in his youth because he was so determined to be a good husband to a wife whom he had never wanted, worried by his children, and now he faced the greatest tragedy of alclass="underline" his darling Amelia was dying.
Yes, he must face it. She was going. She could not live.
Everyone knew it although they were trying to keep it from him. They had said: ‘Amelia can do more for him than anyone else. Amelia can soothe him, comfort him.’ And so she had with her frail delicate beauty and her soothing voice and her love for him which had made all his sufferings worthwhile.
He sent for her physicians.
‘Tell me the truth,’ he cried. ‘Don’t try to delude me. You understand, eh, what? I want to know the truth. Is my daughter better? Is she, eh, what?’
‘She is as well as can be expected, Your Majesty.’
‘I expect her to be well. Is she as well as that? Tell me. Save her life. Is it too much to ask, eh, what? Go back to her. What are you doing here? You should be with her. Go to her— Tell her— Tell her—’
And he covered his face with his hands.
The physicians looked at each other. He needed their services as much as his daughter.
The Princess Mary came to him, her face blotched with tears. It was Mary who had loved Amelia best of all his daughters and who had scarcely left the sick room. That made him love Mary.
‘What is it?’ he cried as he stumbled towards her.
‘Papa, she would like to see you— now.’
He went to her room. She smiled at him. Poor Papa, who looked so wild with his jutting white brows and his red face. But he was her good kind father who had also doted on her and been charmed by her and whom it had been her duty always to soothe and comfort.
‘Dearest Papa, I am going to leave you.’
He nodded and the tears began to fall down his cheeks.
‘You must not grieve for me, Papa. I have had a great deal of suffering and shall be past all pain.’
‘My darling!’
‘And I know you love me well enough to be glad of that. Dearest Papa, I have had a ring made for you. I have it here. See it is a lock of my hair under crystal and set round with diamonds. Give me your, finger, Papa. Will you always wear it and remember me?’
She put it on his finger. He stared at it through his tears, holding it close to his eyes that he might see it clearly.
‘My darling child— my best loved—’ he began.
But he could say no more. He was remembering the day twenty-seven years ago when she had been born and all the joy she had brought into his life.
‘No,’ he cried, ‘not this— I cannot lose you. Anything— anything but this.’
And he kissed the mourning ring and watching him, smiling, she sank back on her pillows.
The Princess Amelia was buried at Windsor with great pageantry.
In his apartments the King gave way to his grief. He had lost his love, his darling, and with her his sanity.
No Place for Mrs. Fitzherbert
THE Prince of Wales had decided to celebrate his inauguration as Regent with the most dazzling of spectacles. This was to be held at Carlton House. Many members of the French Royal family, who were in England at this time, were to be guests; and there was talk of nothing else but this extremely grand occasion.
Maria, melancholy in the house in Tilney Street, wondered whether she would receive an invitation. Miss Pigot watched her anxiously.