‘Call at Mr Brougham’s house,’ she shouted, ‘and after that at Mr Whitbread’s.’
She was laughing softly as she lay back against the upholstery.
Mercer was the first to arrive at Connaught House. When Charlotte saw her she went to her and embraced her.
‘My dearest Mercer, I knew you’d come. I won’t go back. I am going to live with my mother from now on. I should have done it years ago. She loves me. She wants me. He never did.’
‘The Bishop is downstairs,’ said Mercer. ‘We came together. It was not very wise of you to run out like that.’
‘It was the only thing I could think to do. I feared that if I stayed it would be too late. He was there … with the old Bishop ready to carry me off to prison. I would never have been allowed to come to my mother.’
‘Where is your mother?’
‘She had left for Blackheath. She will soon be with me for she was not very far on the road and I sent a groom galloping after her. I am sure she will be here soon.’
‘She may feel embarrassed because you have run to her.’
Charlotte laughed a little hysterically. ‘My mother never feels embarrassed.’
‘We must wait and see what she has to say … when she comes … if she comes,’ said Mercer.
‘If she comes! Of course she will come. She would never desert me. I can’t think why I didn’t see it before. I should have run away long ago.’
Mercer looked dubious and for once Charlotte did not believe her friend was entirely with her.
‘You saw my father?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘And he is very angry. Mercer, you are not on his side?’
‘Sides?’ said Mercer. ‘Why should it be a matter of taking sides? While I think you were right to refuse Orange, I do not think you should have run away.’
Charlotte was crestfallen. Could it possibly be that Mercer was afraid of offending the Regent?
There was the sound of carriage wheels below. Charlotte had run to her window. The guttural penetrating tones of the Princess of Wales could be heard below.
Charlotte turned to Mercer triumphantly. ‘She’s come. She turned back immediately. I knew she would.’
She ran to the door. The Princess of Wales was coming up the stairs.
‘Where is Charlotte? Where is my daughter?’
‘Here, Mamma.’
The Princess Caroline opened her arms with a dramatic gesture and Charlotte threw herself into them.
‘So my angel came to her Mamma! Bless you, my precious daughter. And what is he going to do about this, eh?’
The embrace was suffocating; but it was what Charlotte needed. Reassurance. Security. At last she had come home.
‘Travelling makes me hungry. It’s dinner time. We’d better eat, my love. I’ve an idea we may have company tonight. Now, Lindsay, love, give the orders. Tell them that I’m back … if they don’t know it. Tell them that I’ve got a very important guest and I can’t let her starve.’
Charlotte began to laugh. ‘Oh, Mamma, it is so good to be with you.’
All this time, she thought, I have tried to love him when she was waiting to love me. It had had to be a matter of taking sides and now she had taken hers.
Dinner was served in the dining room. Caroline was in good spirits; she kept bursting into laughter, imagining the scenes that must be going on around the Regent.
She laughed hilariously and Charlotte, in a state of near hysteria, joined in. Mercer was cool and seemed remote. She was not so happy with the situation as Charlotte was.
When they were half way through dinner the carriages began to arrive. The Duke of Sussex was the first to come. He had not seen Caroline since the Delicate Investigation in which he had played a part, but they greeted each other affectionately. Charlotte was immediately aware of his dismay.
‘You shouldn’t have run away,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t wise.’
‘Should I have stayed to be a prisoner?’
‘You should have stayed,’ he told her.
‘I hope,’ said Charlotte, ‘that some of you are going to be on my side.’
‘We are on your side,’ he assured her.
‘Yes,’ she said bluntly, ‘and on my father’s at the same time.’
But there was her mother. She could rely on her.
Lord Eldon arrived. That coal heaver! thought Charlotte. Trust him to come. He would do all in his power to humiliate her.
Dinner was over and no one seemed to be quite so merry as they had before. People kept arriving and each one whispered to Charlotte that he wanted to help her but he feared she had acted rashly. The best thing was to return to Carlton House and then try to come to some agreement with her father.
To all this she replied: ‘No. I shall stay with my mother.’
Caroline whispered to her: ‘Brougham and Whitbread will be here soon. I called at their houses on my way but they weren’t at home. I left messages for them to come at once. They’ll be here soon.’
She was right. They arrived in due course and they both looked grave. Surely they were not going to tell her that she ought not to have come!
Miss Knight arrived – unlike herself and tearful. What had happened to Cornelia? Charlotte had thought she would be calm and precise in any circumstances, but it seemed that the Regent had the power to change people; he had certainly changed Cornelia.
‘I have brought Louisa Lewis with Your Highness’s night things,’ she said.
The Duke of York, who had since arrived, not very pleased to have been called from his card party, but kind and gentle with his niece as always, retorted: ‘Night things! Charlotte cannot stay here. My dear niece, you must not spend a night other than under your own roof or that of your father.’
‘I am happy to be under that of my mother,’ retorted Charlotte.
So many people had now come to Connaught House that it was like the gathering before a conference. It was growing late, being past midnight, and they went on talking together and coming to her one by one and telling her that she must either go back to Warwick House or to Carlton House.
‘Mercer,’ she whispered, ‘you understand.’
‘Yes,’ said Mercer, ‘I understand, but they are right. You should never have come.’
‘Why not? My mother wants me. Why should a daughter not be with her mother? Because he hates her that does not mean that I must. Where is Brougham? He is the only one who is not afraid of my father.’
Hearing his name he was at her side.
‘Mr Brougham,’ she said, ‘tell these people that I must stay here.’
He shook his head. Even he! She wanted to burst into tears.
‘Your Highness should not spend a night anywhere but under your own roof.’
‘But this is my mother’s house.’
‘You should not stay here.’
‘So you are against me, too?’
‘It is precisely because I am for you that I say this.’
‘Please, listen to me.’ She began to cry weakly. She was tired; she was frightened, too. At dinner it had seemed so different; with her mother laughing beside her she had believed that she had escaped and that they were going to be together from then on. But her mother was not beside her now. She was yawning in a corner, her wig awry, her paint beginning to run.
Charlotte felt frightened and alone but she clung to her resolution. ‘I won’t go. I will stay here. My place is with my mother.’
Brougham said: ‘Come to the window. It’s nearly two o’clock. It’ll be dawn soon.’
‘And this fearful night will be over.’
‘Your Highness, soon the streets and the Park will be full of people. They will learn that you are here, that you have run away from your father to come to your mother.’
‘Do you think they will be surprised? And why shouldn’t they know the truth?’