Queen in Waiting: (Georgian Series) Page 16

  Therefore the rift between the Electress and herself was slowly being bridged.

  Sophia was also delighted by Caroline’s pregnancy.

  She hoped with her that the child would be a boy.

  Everyone was waiting for the birth of the heir of Hanover. The child should be due by November, it was said, and the court was preparing to celebrate; even the Elector realized that the birth of a grandson should be heralded by a little extravagance.

  But November passed, and although the Electoral Princess continued to look as though she were in the last stages of pregnancy, still the birth did not take place.

  The Electress Sophia was worried. At last here was something to turn her attention from the English throne.

  She talked to Caroline as they walked in the gardens together.

  ‘You are feeling well?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, as well as can be expected in the circumstances.’

  ‘But… shouldn’t your time be at hand?’

  ‘Doubtless I miscalculated.’

  A week or two, yes, thought Sophia. But December was upon them, and the child was very much overdue.

  She talked to some of the doctors.

  It sometimes happened, she was told, that when a woman ardently wished for a child she had all the outward symptoms of pregnancy, but there was no child. This seemed hardly likely in the case of the Princess Caroline. She was not a nervous type; she seemed so serene, so certain. But it was strange that the child did not arrive. It might be that she was not pregnant after all.

  George Augustus was having his uniform made. He was certain that he would soon be going into battle. One thing in the favour of his father was that he kept his word.

  All through the December they waited and still there was no birth.

  Christmas passed, and the New Year Carnival was celebrated throughout Hanover in accordance with the old custom. There were fancy dress balls in the Palace and the Town Hall; for the New Year was brought in with revelry among the high and the low.

  In the Opera House, of which George Lewis was justly proud, operas were performed – the one divertissement that George Lewis could tolerate.

  Caroline appeared at the revels, obviously pregnant; but everyone was saying now that there would be no child. Only Caroline was certain that she would soon bear a child; and George Augustus, dressed as a General at the fancy dress ball, was certain he would soon be at the wars.

  On a cold January night Caroline went to bed and during the night her pains started.

  The next day the long-awaited child was born.

  It was a boy.

  Exhausted and triumphant, Caroline lay back on her pillows. She had succeeded when all the court had thought she would never give birth to a child at all but was the victim of some strange disease.

  But there he was, a strong, healthy child, bawling with a good pair of lungs to let the world know that he had at last arrived.

  George Augustus came to show her his uniform and to admire the baby at the same time. He looked with fond admiration at his wife. Clever Caroline! She had produced a son and given him his heart’s desire; he was overcome with love for her; he knelt by the bed and covered her hands with kisses.

  The Electress came to see the baby.

  ‘It’s to be hoped,’ she said, ‘that he will have more sense than his father.’

  The child was christened Frederick Louis and was known as Fritz; Caroline called him Fritzchen.

  So he had his son; now he could go to war.

  He must first fit himself for the task, said George Lewis; but he could now study military tactics and be ready perhaps to leave Hanover with the next expedition which would not be for some months.

  To argue with George Lewis might mean some fresh embargo, so George Augustus curbed his impatience and set about learning how to become a soldier. He enjoyed the life; he was certain it was the one for him; meanwhile he was attentive to his wife and liked to watch the progress of little Fritzchen.

  When the baby was six months old, Caroline thought she had caught a chill and kept to her bed for a day, but as she grew worse the doctors were sent for.

  Her blood had become overheated, she was told. It happened sometimes after childbirth.

  She said she would rest in her apartments for a few days and asked that Fritzchen be brought to her.

  Frizchen was sleeping, she was told.

  ‘Then as soon as he is awake,’ she said, ‘bring him to me.’

  But the child was not brought and it suddenly dawned on Caroline that the doctors had not told her the truth. She sent for them and demanded to know it.

  The doctors exchanged glances; she would have to know sooner or later.

  ‘Your Highness, we fear the smallpox.’

  The smallpox! That dreaded scourge which either killed or ravaged. And it had come to her!

  Someone was at her bedside.

  ‘Who is there?’ she whispered.

  ‘It is your husband.’

  ‘George Augustus. What are you doing here? Don’t you understand…?’

  ‘I understand,’ he replied dramatically.

  ‘But you are running a risk.’

  ‘Who but I should nurse you at such a time?’

  She was incredulous. He nurse her? He could not do it. He would be of no use whatever in a sick room. Yet he was determined to share her danger. What a fool… but a brave fool! If he could not show his valour on the battlefields of Flanders he would in his wife’s sick room.

  ‘George Augustus,’ she said weakly. ‘You must not stay here. It is folly.’

  He leaned over her, unnecessarily close. ‘Did you think I should desert you at such a time?’

  ‘You have convinced me of your devotion. I am touched by it. But please… please don’t stay here.’

  ‘Rest assured that I shall never leave you.’

  ‘For my sake go, George Augustus. I am so anxious for you.’

  He leaned over the bed and kissed her.

  For her sake. No, for his own, she thought in weary exasperation. He wanted the whole court to be talking about the brave devotion of its little Prince.

  Through her illness – and she was very ill – she was aware of him. She heard his voice through her delirium; she heard the sound of breaking china; she was aware of the shape of him close to the bed, the touch of his hands.

  Go away, George Augustus, she thought.

  She heard his voice. ‘She is in the critical stage, I know. Tell me… tell me the worst. It will break my heart but I can bear it.’

  She was too ill to care whether he went or stayed. And, throughout Hanover they were saying: ‘The Electoral Princess is dying.’

  There came a day when the crisis passed and she found herself still alive.

  George Augustus was sitting by her bed, holding her hand.

  You… fool, she thought.

  She heard his voice, high-pitched with self-satisfaction. ‘You’re better, Caroline. I’ve been with you the whole of the time. I never stirred from your bed except in the evening. Then I took a horse and rode for miles. I had to take some exercise, and I thought that would keep me well after staying the whole day at your bedside. I nursed you, Caroline. They are saying in the palace that no Princess ever had a more devoted husband.”

  ‘Thank you, George Augustus.’

  ‘That shows you, doesn’t it? That shows you!’

  Contrition for infidelity, she thought; although all the time he was with his mistress he was telling himself it was his right.

  She murmured faintly: ‘You are very good, George Augustus.’

  ‘Oh yes, they told me I was running a terrible risk. They told me I should catch the pox. You’ve been very ill, Caroline. We didn’t think you’d live. And I was there all the time… even at the most contagious time. They begged me not to stay but I wouldn’t go. I said: Caroline is my wife. No one can nurse her as I can.’

  Nurse her? How had he nursed her? She pictured him, fussing round the bed, get
ting in the way of doctors and nurses, talking too much – not about her needs, but his own courage.

  Oh go away, go away, she thought wearily. Leave me in peace.

  But she said: ‘Thank you.’

  And his voice went on telling her a little of how ill she had been and a great deal about how brave he had been.

  Caroline sent for a mirror. It was brought with some reluctance. This was the moment which all sufferers from the smallpox had to face. It could be terrifying.

  Caroline held it up and caught her breath. There was change, and although she was not disfigured, the pox had not left her unscathed. When did it ever do that? But she was not badly marked, although her delicately coloured complexion had gone.

  She sighed. It was sad for a woman, who needed all her weapons to fight for and hold her place in the world, to find one of her valued assets, though not entirely lost, blunted.

  It was inevitable, said everyone, that George Augustus should have caught the smallpox after his attendance in his wife’s sick room. Very soon the news was brought to Caroline that he could not visit her because he was sick.

  She was relieved because she could not visit him, but as she lay thinking of him she felt a new tenderness for him. She knew him well enough to understand his need always to call attention to himself; she knew that his devotion to her – in fact every action in his life – was directed by this motive; and yet he had braved this dreaded disease; he had shown his devotion to her.

  Lying there, thinking of George Augustus, she came to new terms with her life. She would try to understand him, to help him conquer that feeling of inferiority which being smaller than most men had given him and which manifested itself in arrogance and apparent conceit.

  Their destiny lay together. There should be no discord between them.

  She must remember that in future. She must curb her impatience; she must try to give him the confidence he needed and perhaps she could do this by letting him know she valued him.

  She would try to make him understand this when… if he recovered.

  If he recovered? She shivered at the possibility of his not doing so. And it was not only because of the uncertainty his death would place on her, for after all she was now the mother of little Fritzchen who was one of the heirs to Hanover and possibly the crown of England. No. It was not that. Could it be that she really had some affection for the little man?

  The Prince’s attack was a slight one and he soon came to Caroline’s apartment in good spirits.

  The need to go to war was temporarily forgotten; he had won his laurels for bravery in the sick room.

  Caroline was still very weak, having suffered a more severe attack, and George Augustus was delighted to prove his great resistance to the disease, having taken it after and recovered sooner than his wife.

  The Electress Sophia came to see them as soon as there was no danger in doing so.

  She embraced them both and was delighted, she said, to see them well again.

  ‘It has been a very anxious time,’ she told them. ‘The whole court was plunged in melancholy, so fearful were they. The English were very disturbed. They think very highly of you both.’

  She looked at them proudly as though it were more commendable to please the English than to recover from an attack of the smallpox.

  She was thinking that poor Caroline looked very wan. She will never again have that bright young beauty, that freshness, she thought. She has come through better than I expected; but the change is there.

  As though reading her thoughts, Caroline said: ‘You are thinking I have changed.’

  ‘Very little,’ answered the Electress. ‘And you have to get really well yet. You have had a very bad attack, remember.’

  ‘And do you think I have changed?’ demanded George Augustus.

  ‘You don’t look as if you’ve had the pox at all,’ replied his grandmother. ‘The people might wonder whether some fleas had bitten your face.’

  George Augustus was examining his face at a mirror.

  People would look at him and say: Have some fleas bitten his face? And the answer would be: No, he caught the smallpox, you know. He could have avoided it, but he would nurse his wife. He saved her life. Brave. I should say so! How many men or women would risk their lives like that!

  His grandmother and wife watched him, understanding his thoughts.

  They smiled.

  Sophia said: ‘I am pleased to see you two so happy together.’

  George Augustus came and, taking his wife’s hand, kissed it.

  ‘I’d do the same again,’ he said.

  It was a happy convalescence.

  George Augustus was more contented than he had ever been.

  He had a son; he had nursed his wife through the smallpox, had caught it himself, had recovered, and was training to go into the army.

  He was a very loving husband.

  Caroline became pregnant again and to George Augustus’s great joy he was allowed to join Marlborough’s army in Belgium.

  George Lewis spoke to him before he left telling him that he was fortunate to be with the greatest captain in the world; and for the first time in their lives father and son seemed almost fond of each other.

  With George Augustus away, Caroline was able to spend a great deal of her time with the Electress Sophia and in the gardens of Herrenhausen they talked with Leibniz and other visitors to Hanover. It was almost like being in Lützenburg again, for the little coldness which had sprung up between the old Electress and Caroline was over. There were so many English in Hanover now that it was known as Little England, and Sophia secretly called herself the Princess of Wales and longed for news from England that Queen Anne was no more.

  They were happy days, for Caroline believed that his war experiences would give George Augustus maturity and that she might eventually learn to make a good life with him.

  Fritzchen caused a little anxiety by not being able to walk; he was a pretty child, but small for his age and backward. When it was discovered, however, that he had rickets, special care was taken of him and he began to show improvement.

  As with Fritzchen, Caroline had miscalculated and when the time came for her child to be born nothing happened; but she remained calmly waiting. So pleasant it was to wander in the gardens of Herrenhausen; to stroll through the orangery while music was played for them and Leibniz talked to them; with George Augustus away and no one to reprimand her for talking like a scholar rather than a Princess, she was happier than she had been since the death of Sophia Charlotte.

  Together they discussed the religious controversy which was taking place in France at the time between the Jesuits and the Jansenists and Caroline was in her element in the centre of discussion, surprising them all with her knowledge, for she had always possessed an extraordinarily retentive memory and remembered everything she read.

  Those were happy days.

  There came news from the battle front. Oudenarde had been won under Marlborough’s command and George Augustus had distinguished himself by his bravery. At the head of the Hanoverian Dragoons he had led them to victory, and although his horse had been shot under him, he had plunged into the thick of the fighting and to the admiration of all had proved himself as fine a soldier as his father.

  The English at Hanover were talking about his bravery and Marlborough had written to the Elector congratulating him on the Prince’s action. He had played his part in the great victory, said Marlborough.

  Even George Lewis was pleased with his son… for a time; then he realized that his success on the battlefield had made him a hero in the eyes of the English and as those at Hanover had already reported back to London that the Electoral Prince was more favourable to the English than the Elector, the old antagonism was as fierce as ever. Was his son trying to ingratiate himself with the English? wondered George Lewis. Was he hoping that they would want to pass over the father and take the son?

  George Lewis had no great desire to accept the crown of England; but
on the death of Anne and Sophia it would be his… not his son’s. George Augustus could only have it on his death.

  George Augustus returned to Hanover flushed with triumph, ready to receive a hero’s welcome. There were many ready to give it and he was content. For his father’s grim disapproval he cared nothing; in fact he was glad of it. He had no wish for the hatred between them to be diminished. He revelled in his new popularity. The people of Hanover, he liked to believe, as well as the English, loved him better than his father.

  There was his devoted wife, large with child. There was little Fritzchen shouting with glee at the sight of his brave Papa.

  George Augustus had never been so happy in his life.

  And on a dark November day Caroline’s second child was born – a healthy girl.

  ‘We will christen her Anne,’ said the Electress, ‘in compliment to the Queen of England.’

  Caroline agreed that this was an excellent idea, and Anne of England graciously consented to be godmother to baby Anne of Hanover.

  George Augustus, who had to leave before the birth, wrote of his joy in the event and in his wife who had given him so much happiness.

  ‘This token of your love attaches me to you more deeply than ever. The peace of my life depends on knowing you are in good health and upon the conviction of your continued affection towards me. I shall endeavour to attract it by all imaginable love and passion and I shall never omit any way of showing you that no one could be more wholly yours, dear Caroline, than your George Augustus.’

  When she read that letter, holding her newly born child in her arms with little Fritzchen beside her, she told herself that she had passed through the dangerous years of marriage. She would know how to find happiness in the life that lay ahead.

  The Prince improves his English

  THE WAGON TRUNDLED into the main square of Hanover and came to a stop before the inn. Among the passengers who alighted were a man and woman who were obviously foreigners, but in the last years there had been so many foreigners in Hanover – and particularly English – that little notice was paid to these two.