‘But,’ sighed Charlotte, ‘it is not the same.’
‘I saved most of the animals,’ replied the Duchess. ‘How frightened the darlings were!’
And Charlotte smiled, knowing that on that terrible night her first thought would have been not for her jewels, nor her servants, but for all the dogs and cats and monkeys.
It was a pleasant household and a friendship quickly grew up between them. The Duchess liked to live by routine which was comforting because one always knew where she would be at a certain time. The greater part of the day was spent looking after the animals but she liked needlework too and would sit out of doors when the weather was suitable and give orders to her servants while she sewed. She was greatly concerned about the poor of the district; and the care of them, with her needlework and animals, made up her life.
She told Charlotte that one of the main duties in life was to look after the poor. It was all very well to pray for them and this must be done, but practical assistance was sometimes of greater help and Charlotte should give part of her money to the poor and make sure that she never heard of a deserving case without doing what she could for the sufferers.
The Duchess had had cottages built on the estate and here she housed certain people who took care of the puppies which were constantly being born.
Charlotte would sit with her and lure her to talk of her life for she always enjoyed hearing of the fate of princesses. The most terrible thing in the world she had always thought was to be taken from one’s home and not only married to a strange man but sent to a new country.
‘I am fortunate,’ she remarked. ‘I shall always live in England because I am to be the Queen. And because I am the Queen I shall choose my own husband.’
‘Fortunate indeed,’ agreed Frederica in her odd German accent, which might have been difficult to understand if Charlotte had not grown accustomed to it during her conversations with her own mother. And Grandmamma had a slight German accent too.
‘Ah, I remember the day I heard I was to marry the Duke of York.’
‘Were you disappointed because it was not the Prince of Wales?’
‘Naturally as the daughter of the King of Prussia I wished to marry a king, or a prince who would one day be a king.’
‘Uncle Fred is very nice.’
Frederica looked sad, and no wonder, thought Charlotte. He was not a very good husband – but a little better than her father was to her mother.
Charlotte studied her aunt. She was not very beautiful. She was far too small; she had the blue eyes and fair hair of the German royal houses, but her skin was pitted with smallpox and her teeth were bad.
She started to speak in rapid French and Charlotte had to concentrate to follow her – but it was no worse than her atrocious English. She told how she had married the Duke and set out for England with him.
‘It was the year 1791 and you know what was happening in France at that time. Ah, the terrible things those people did to their king and queen! The mob can be terrifying.’
Charlotte nodded, thinking of those people surrounding her carriage and shouting ‘No popery!’ And because of them she had been forbidden friendship with Mrs Fitzherbert!
‘They gathered about our carriage and I thought they would murder us. But the Duke was not afraid. He stood there and faced them and assured them that although we were royal we were not French. His courage disarmed them and they let us go on our way, but I thought for a time that my end was at hand. The Duke himself drove our carriage to show them that he was not behaving like a royal person.’
‘And then when you came to England what did you think of it?’
She smiled. ‘Things are never what one imagines them to be, my dear. The King’s Levee. Shall I ever forget it! My hair was dressed high … high … up here, and decorated with crépe and feathers which were a great burden. I was in white and silver and my satin sleeves were edged with diamonds. Oh, it was so hot and heavy. I was all white and silver and there were diamonds on my stomacher. I thought I should faint with the heat of it.’
‘Poor Aunt Frederica! But you liked it, did you not?’
‘It is freer here than in Prussia. But there were troubles.’
‘You met my father.’
‘Oh, yes …’
‘And …’
But she did not wish to speak of the encounter. She had refused to accept Maria Fitzherbert as Princess of Wales and so had offended the Prince. She had been hurt and unhappy because of her husband’s infidelities; he had hated her animals; she had hated his mistresses. It was soon clear that she was not going to give him the heirs for which he had married. Oh, no, she had not been happy in those early years in England.
And then – because he was Commander-in-Chief of the Army he had gone to Flanders, and Oatlands had been burned and rebuilt and he had bought the manors of Brooklands and Byfleet to enlarge the property and she had decided that this should be her home. Here she would reign – some way from the Court; her animals would give her all the affection and excitement she needed; and she did not care what her husband did.
She had wanted children, but when she found that she was to be barren she turned more and more to her animals. As for Frederick, as the years passed, her animosity towards the man who had so bitterly disappointed her began to fade. He no longer expressed his disdain for her animals and his annoyance because she filled the place with them; she never uttered a complaint about his numerous love affairs. Sometimes he came to Oatlands to see her and they talked amicably together.
They had become friends.
She knew that the dear kind half-crazy King deplored the situation. The marriage was as much a failure as that of the Prince of Wales – perhaps more so because in spite of all the scandal attaching itself to that union, at least it had been fruitful. This pleasant eager young girl was the result of it. At least they had provided the heir; so that the family could breathe a sigh of relief and with a good conscience go on living their own lives as they wanted to.
And that was what Frederica and Frederick were doing, and it was proving not unsatisfactory.
So the days passed for Charlotte and her friendship with odd Aunt Frederica helped to soothe her for the loss of Mrs Fitzherbert, which was strange, for there could not have been women more unlike.
One day Lady de Clifford told her that news had come from Her Majesty that they were to return to Carlton House and there make preparations to visit Bognor, where they would stay for the summer months. The Queen thought that sea breezes would be good for the Princess.
‘I should have liked to go to Brighton,’ sighed Charlotte; and thought of her father in his magnificent Pavilion perhaps giving a ball to welcome his daughter.
‘Her Majesty suggests Bognor.’
Charlotte grimaced and went out into the park, there to walk round and say goodbye to all that had become so familiar in the last weeks.
She picked some flowers from the garden and took them to that plot shut in by yews which was the cemetery. She walked between the grey tombstones and laid the flowers on the grave of Rex – one of Aunt Frederica’s favourite fox hounds. Not that she ever hunted; she loathed any such activities. She could never understand people who made much of some animals and were cruel to others. Her love extended to the whole of the animal kingdom. And when her darlings died, they were brought here and ceremoniously buried and prayers were said over them. Aunt Frederica believed they all went to heaven because animals were not like human beings and did no wrong; they only acted according to instincts. Charlotte had replied that heaven must be overcrowded with animals and sparsely inhabited by human beings – a statement with which Aunt Frederica agreed. And that, I suppose, thought Charlotte, was why she was eager to go there.