Oh, Perdita, why waste time in love scenes on a stage!
And here was Malden. He strode to him holding out his hand.
‘Her letter! Her letter! Where is it?’
‘She did not write, Your Highness.’
‘Did not write! But you took my letter to her?’
‘Yes, Your Highness.’
‘And what said she? What said she?’
‘She was a little inclined to disbelieve.’
‘Disbelieve?’
‘That Your Highness had written it.’
‘But you told her …’
‘I told her, but as it was signed Florizel she said she could not be sure.’
‘Florizel to Perdita. You assured her?’
‘Yes, Your Highness, to the best of my power.’
‘And she did not answer the letter?’
‘She is no ordinary actress, Your Highness, to come quickly when beckoned.’ The Prince’s face had grown scarlet and Malden hurried on: ‘I think she would wish to be wooed. She is modest, Your Highness, and could not believe she was so honoured. She thought it was some gallant playing a trick.’
‘So she wrote no answer.’
‘She would not do so.’
The Prince was baffled. Malden said: ‘I think if Your Highness wrote again … wooed the lady a little, assured her that it was indeed yourself …’
‘So you think then …’
Malden was silent.
He himself had had hopes of the lady, being half in love with her himself. It was a little hard to have to plead another man’s cause, even if that man were the Prince of Wales.
Malden went on: ‘I think, Your Highness, that Mrs Robinson wishes to imply that she is a lady of high moral character and does not indulge lightly in love affairs.’
The Prince was momentarily exasperated. He had had enough virtue from Mary Hamilton. But almost immediately he was laughing. Why of course. He would not have wished her to give in immediately. She wanted to be wooed. Well, he was capable of doing the wooing. She had had his letter; she had expressed herself honoured … if the letter had in truth come from him.
Very well, he would begin the pursuit, and in time she would be his.
He was smiling, thinking of future bliss.
Oh, Mrs Robinson!
The King had come to Kew for a little respite. How much simpler life seemed at Kew. He woke early, looked at the clock and, getting out of bed, lit the fire which had been laid the night before by his servants.
How cold it was! ‘Good for the health,’ he muttered, for he talked to himself when he was alone. ‘Nothing like fresh air, eh?’
He lit the fire and went back to bed to watch it blaze. Soon the room would be warm enough for him to sit in … comfortably.
Lying in bed he started to worry. Even at Kew he worried. Yet when he was with his ministers he felt capable of controlling them and the affairs of the country; sometimes when he was in the council chamber at St James’s he would hear his mother’s voice admonishing him: ‘George, be a king.’
Yes, he would be a king. He would control them all. Nobody was going to forget who was ruling this country. He would like to see that man Fox banished from the House. There he was … popping up … always ready to make trouble. His father had been a sly one and so was his son. Sarah’s nephew, he thought. And there was Sarah mocking him, laughing at him, as clear in his mind’s eye as she had been that summer’s morning when he had seen her making hay in the gardens of Holland House as he rode by.
His mind went to Charlotte, perpetually pregnant Charlotte. He would lecture her about her health. Not that she needed the lecture, but he wanted her to know that he was concerned for her. And Octavius, the baby; he was fretful. His nurses said that he cried in the night and wouldn’t take his food. He would have to work out a new routine for Octavius.
It was more pleasant thinking of the nursery than state affairs, even though all was not well there. There will always be worries with children, eh, what?
But he must remember that he was the King and he was the last man to shirk his responsibilities. This American affair. If only it could be satisfactorily ended. North wanted to resign, but he would not let North resign. If the Government would stand firm he was sure their troubles would be over. But when had a government made up of ambitious men ever been in unison? Men like Fox … ‘I hate Fox,’ he said aloud. He imagined the fellow – apart from all his political fireworks – was remembering the King’s folly over his aunt Sarah. Perhaps Sarah had confided in the fellow. After all, although she was his aunt there was not so much difference in their ages and Sarah had lived at Holland House with her sister, who was Fox’s mother. Fox was there … to put his mischievous finger in every pie; to laugh and sneer and scatter his wit about so that all wanted to know what Fox’s latest quip was.
He remembered Fox at the time of the Royal Marriage Bill which he had felt it urgent to bring in after the disastrous marriages of his brothers Gloucester and Cumberland. Fox had been one of those who had opposed it. ‘The Bill to propagate immorality in the descendants of George I,’ they had called it. Fox had resigned because of it. ‘Good riddance, eh, what?’ As if the Bill was not necessary – with the Prince of Wales and young Frederick showing themselves as a couple of young fools with their minds always on women. There’d be disaster from that direction if steps weren’t taken. Why even he … as a young man …
There was Hannah coming out of the past to regard him with mournful and reproachful eyes. But Hannah had never been reproachful. She had been too fond of him. Mournful, yes. She blamed herself. He was but a child, she said, when he had first seen her sitting in the window of her uncle’s linen-draper’s shop. The follies of youth! And yet at the time they seemed inevitable. But he had lived respectably with Hannah … as respectably as an irregular union could be. And then for her sake and for the sake of his conscience he had committed that act which had haunted him for the rest of his life. The marriage ceremony … that was no true ceremony of course … and yet …
This was dangerous thinking; this could set the voices chattering in his head even more insistently than thoughts of rebellious colonists, the slyness of Mr Fox, the pleading of Lord North to be released from office.
He guided his thoughts to North – a safer subject. He had always been fond of him; they had played together in the nursery when they were both young children, acted in plays together – for George’s father, Frederick, Prince of Wales, had been fond of amateur theatricals – and he and North had been so much alike that his father had remarked to North’s father that one of their wives must have deceived them and either he or Lord North must be the father of both of them. Now of course they were not so much alike – or George hoped not; North was fat as the King knew he himself would be – for it was a family failing – if he did not take exercise and watch his diet; North had bulging short-sighted eyes which he appeared to be unable to control so that they rolled about aimlessly; he had a tiny nose, but a mouth too small for his tongue, and when he spoke his speech was slurred and he spat unbecomingly. His appearance was almost ridiculous, yet he was a likeable man and because they had been friends for so long the King was fond of him. Poor North, he was extravagant and could never live within his means. As Prime Minister, of course, he had great expenses, and it had been necessary for the King to help him out of financial difficulties now and then. North on the other hand would come to the King’s assistance when he needed money and would prod the Treasury into supplying it. That unfortunate matter of the Grosvenor case … Thirteen thousand pounds for those letters Cumberland had written to the woman … And now there he was sporting with a different one; the woman with the eyelashes. Mr Fox, who had raged against the Royal Marriage Act; Hannah and Sarah; Elizabeth Pembroke, who did not belong to the past but who was at Court now; she was a woman to whom his attention kept straying; American Colonies; little Octavius who wasn’t strong; the Prince of Wales. All these subjects raced round and round in the King’s mind like trapped animals in a cage.