"Frederick will be as old as you are in five years' time," Caroline couldn't help putting in.
Henry looked at her coldly. "As for you, you are only a baby still.”
"I'm ten years old which is only six years younger than you.”
"And you're a girl.”
"They marry before boys," Caroline reminded him cheekily while Frederick looked at her with amazement at her temerity. "After all," she went on, 'the Princess Charlotte is only seventeen and that's a year older than you are now.”
"That is not the point of the argument. The trouble with you, Caro, is that you don't think.”
"I'm thinking all the time.”
"What about?" challenged Henry.
"What I'm going to do when I grow up.”
"What's that?”
"Run wild," she told them.
Henry laughed. She had voiced his own sentiments. So even little Caroline Matilda was longing for freedom; it all came of what he called being cooped up. "It is Mamma who keeps us as we are," said Henry. "She's afraid we'll fee contaminated by wicked people if we aren't kept shut away like this.”
"George will be a good king," Caroline said, 'so then there won't be any wickedness, and when there's no danger we won't have to be shut away.”
"Poor George" said Henry knowledgeably. "He's not looking forward to his wedding.”
"Oh, but he loves the Princess Charlotte.”
"How do you know?”
"Well, he must because she is going to be his wife.”
"You don't know anything," Henry told her, 'and you would therefore be wise to keep your mouth shut. Our brother wanted Sarah Lennox not this Charlotte, and I repeat he is not going to be pleased with this wedding.”
"But ..." began Caroline and was warned by a quick look from Frederick.
The door opened suddenly and Augusta their eldest sister looked in. They were immediately silent. One always was when Augusta arrived. It was well known that she delighted in carrying tales to their mother whether to try to divert some of that affection which was lavished on George towards herself or because she liked telling tales and making trouble, no one was quite sure. But in any case her arrival was the signal to guard their tongues.
"What are you children chattering about?" she wanted to know.
Henry flushed at the term, which amused Augusta; she always knew what would hurt people most and contrived to do it.
"I'll swear it's the wedding," she went on. "And Henry is telling you all about it. You should remember though that Henry knows very little. And sit up straight, Frederick. All humped up like that! No wonder you're always tired. And you supposed to be working at your embroidery, Caroline?”
Caroline said: "I had only just laid it down for a moment.”
"Then pick it up and make up for that moment of idleness. I shall be forced to tell Mamma how I found you all wasting time and telling each other stories about the wedding.”
"Oh, but we weren't!" cried Caroline.
And Augusta looked at her in that way which implied she was lying because she, Augusta, had stood outside the door for fully five minutes before coming in. Even when you were not guilty, thought Caroline, Augusta made you feel you were.
Augusta laughed unpleasantly and said: "Well, if you want to know, that silly little Sarah Lennox is furious because she will not be Queen of England. I spoke to her yesterday at the drawing room.
I showed I understood how she must be feeling.
"Poor Lady Sarah," I said; and she tossed her silly head and pretended not to care. And something else I'll tell you. She is to be one of the bridesmaids. That will be fun, I promise you.”
Caroline Matilda contemplated what excitement existed in the outside world; and even while she listened avidly to what Augusta had to tell about the King's desire to marry Lady Sarah -which had been rightly thwarted it seemed, according to her sister's account, as much by her, Augusta, as anyone she was thinking of the story of Augusta's birth when their father and mother, then Prince and Princess of Wales, had fled from Hampton Court that their first child might be born at St.
James's; and how the King and Queen Caroline Matilda's grandfather and grandmother had been so angry; and there had been no sheets at St. James's and nothing ready, so that the baby Augusta had The royal family to be wrapped in a tablecloth. What drama surrounded their lives. All except mine, thought Caroline Matilda. I have to stay in the nursery, 'cooped up', while all the excitement goes on in the world outside.
And how her grandparents had quarrelled with her parents! They were always quarrelling, Henry told them. They were a quarrelling family. Well, she would have some fun one day. She would be free to run wild. In the meantime she listened to Augusta's account of the snubbing of silly Sarah Lennox who had believed mistakenly that she could be Queen of England.
**** And while the wedding was being discussed in the schoolroom, the Princess and Lord Bute were also talking of it. There was to be no delay. In spite of the death of the Grand Duchess, the plans would go on as previously arranged.
"She will be here soon," said the Princess Dowager of Wales, "I confess I shall not feel safe until she is.”
"Never fear," soothed Lord Bute. "All will be well.”
He fervently hoped so. He was about to climb to the top of the pinnacle towards which he had patiently striven ever since he had seen the way to favour through George who was now the King.
Prime Minister, he thought. I shall rule this land. There is no end to the power which will be mine.
Pitt will have to do as he is told ... or go. And Pitt would never be able to let go; he was too ambitious. I'll use Pitt, thought Bute. He's too good a man to lose. But he'll have to realize who is his master.
He smiled fondly at the Princess. They were in agreement. The sooner George was safely married the better. And the Princess Charlotte was ideal. Plain, so that she would not enslave George; daughter of a very minor dukedom, so that she should be forever grateful; and not speaking a word of English so that she could not wheedle with her tongue at any rate. All would be well and once the wedding was over they would feel safe.
George too was thinking of the wedding. Sarah, Hannah, Charlotte. He saw them all in turn. The two first so vividly the shadowy charm of Hannah, the vital beauty of Sarah; and he turned away from those two and saw a Princess whom he endowed with their grace and beauty.
Charlotte. He kept saying her name over and over again. And he longed for her coming because it would end the uncertainty, and he was sure that once he saw her, once he had taken his vows neither Sarah nor Hannah would torment him. They would be banished from his thoughts for ever, for no faithful husband gave a thought to other women.
"And I will be faithful," he assured himself. "I am impatient for her arrival and for the moment when she shall be joined to me ... forever, I hope. And I pray God that He will make her fruitful.”
And all through the hot August days the whole Court talked of the wedding. The Court of Mecklenburg might be in mourning but there was to be no delay in the marriage ceremony. This was the order of the Duke.
He sent for Charlotte, bewildered Charlotte, who had so recently lost her mother, but was to gain a husband. Poor Christina had nothing to gain, thought Charlotte, but at least she remains at a Court familiar to her.
The Duke regarded his sister with the increased affection which he had felt for her since the King of England desired her for his bride.
"My dear sister," he said, embracing her somewhat curtly, as a duty, thought Charlotte, and as an acknowledgement of her new importance, "I understand your grief for your mother. It is a grief I share. I have been thinking of the postponement of your marriage and I can see no good that can come from it.”
"A wedding so soon after a funeral..." began Charlotte.