Victoria in the Wings: (Georgian Series)

by Jean Plaidy

  ‘I don’t want to shut my eyes to the truth, Mamma.’

  The Duchess clicked her tongue; but she was not displeased. That unfortunate matter had been comfortably settled and the FitzClarences moved to South Audley Street. A victory, she decided; and it showed that the Queen was ready to treat Adelaide with due respect even if William were not.

  ‘It is time to go,’ said the Duchess, studying her daughter intently to make sure that all was well.

  ‘I am ready,’ said Adelaide.

  In the drawing-room members of the royal family were assembling. The Cambridges were already there – Augusta looking very beautiful – and Mary with ‘Slice’. The Duke of York arrived, without the Duchess, who was ill and unable to attend. Though they had not lived together for years they were good friends and the Duke was melancholy on his wife’s account. None of the other brothers and sisters were present and the Duchess Eleanor, noting this, thought how strange it was. There seemed to be so many rifts in this family. She knew that the Cumberlands had been dismissed from the country and the Duchess was not received at Court. The rumours she had heard over the years of the quarrels of the family were certainly based on fact.

  But that did not matter. Her daughter’s wedding was about to take place.

  Adelaide looked composed and quite lovely; the Duchess of Kent, Eleanor decided, was too flamboyant in her gold tissue. How buxom she was, how healthy! Adelaide looked frail beside her. But Adelaide had more grace. She might not be beautiful but she managed to look elegant – far more so than Victoria. But Victoria did look as though she were bursting with vitality and very fit to bear children – which was, after all, what this ceremony was about.

  But Eleanor refused to think of that, for the Regent was leading in the Queen, who looked very old and very ill, and the Archbishop of Canterbury was ready to preside with the Bishop of London, the Prime Minister and the Hanoverian ambassador as witnesses.

  Leaflets were distributed among the company on which the service was printed in German and English. Victoria had found it very difficult to learn English and knew scarcely anything of the language; Adelaide had progressed much better; but it was comforting to have the German translation.

  The Regent took his place at the altar which had been set up in the drawing-room and the ceremonies began.

  Thus were the Dukes of Clarence and Kent married to their Duchesses in the presence of the Queen and Regent.

  The ceremony over, the Queen looked as though she were about to faint and the Regent insisted on conducting her to her bed.

  ‘I insist,’ he told her playfully. ‘Dearest Madre, if you had one of your attacks on such a day we should all be plunged into melancholy.’

  ‘I know that as long as you are there everything will be conducted in the most fitting manner.’

  The Regent inclined his head in acknowledgement of this; and having handed her over to her attendants and telling her that he would come back to make sure she was comfortable before he left Kew, he returned to his guests.

  The company then adjourned to the dining-room where a banquet awaited them. The Regent at the head of the table, a bride on either side of him, conversed with grace and wit while he consumed large quantities of the most excellent turtle soup, delicious fish garnished with highly flavoured sauces and venison.

  Victoria, who had a good appetite, did justice to the food and the Regent talked to her in some German and chiefly French (which he found a more graceful language admirably suited to his musical voice). He did not forget Adelaide whose quiet charm appealed to him. As he commented afterwards to Lady Hertford, she was a pleasant creature if one did not look on her face.

  Clarence was at first a little sullen because he believed that the FitzClarence children should have been at the wedding and the Queen had firmly refused to allow this.

  She’s got to accept her stepchildren some time, he was grumbling to himself.

  But grievances never disturbed him for long and he was at last married … a state he had never achieved before, although he had made many attempts.

  And Adelaide – she was growing on him. He thought: I’d rather have her than Victoria. There is something about her … gentle and kind. The Regent likes her – and he knows a great deal about women. I fancy he is more taken with her than with Victoria who talks too much and is too sure of herself.

  His eyes met Adelaide’s and he smiled almost shyly.

  She thought: He is young at heart. I believe he will be kind. It is not so bad. I really believe I am rather lucky.

  The banquet was over and the company went back to the drawing-room from which the altar had now been removed. The Regent walked about among the guests and talked to them in his charming affable way.

  Then Leopold’s carriage which he had put at the disposal of his sister and her husband arrived to take them to Claremont for the honeymoon.

  The Regent took a farewell of the Duke and Duchess; and the company went out to see them ride away for the first stage of their honeymoon in that house which so recently had been the scene of so much happiness and so much tragedy.

  The Regent then led the company on a tour of the gardens which were such a feature of Kew.

  He had taken Adelaide’s arm and told her how he remembered these gardens so well from his youth. Here he used to make assignations with delightful young ladies. Happy, romantic days.

  He sighed, thinking of occasions when he had crept out of his apartments to meet Perdita Robinson, the heroine of his first big romance. What joy that had brought in the beginning and what humiliation in the end when she had threatened to publish his letters. But he would not think of the end of that affair, only the beginning when they had met in the glades of Kew and later on Eel Pie Island.

  So long ago and yet with this young bride beside him they seemed like yesterday. He looked at her with affection. Suppose he were the bridegroom instead of William. He would be content. If he were rid of that woman. Oh God, why had fate been so cruel as to burden him with Caroline of Brunswick!

  And here he was back to an ever-recurring theme. His bondage with that woman; his desire to escape.

  ‘I grow melancholy,’ he said to Adelaide. ‘You see, I am envious of William.’

  At the Queen’s cottage beside the Pagoda they stopped for a dish of tea; and afterwards they returned to the palace and as they came across the gardens it began to rain.

  The Duke’s carriage had now arrived. It was time to leave; the ceremonies were over.

  William had been hoping that Duchess Eleanor would have been invited to stay at Kew, but the Queen had not mentioned this. It was typical of William’s affairs that he should find himself on his wedding night to be in a quandary about his mother-in-law.

  He looked hopefully towards the Regent, but his brother was saying his farewells in that manner which was slightly ceremonious and could clearly not be broached on such a matter at such a time.

  He had been hoping too that someone might have offered him a house for the honeymoon as Leopold had offered Claremont to the Kents.

  But William had always been treated less royally than his brothers; it was an attitude he seemed to attract.

  And here was his carriage – new for the occasion – with his coat of arms glistening on it – very fine, he commented; but where could he take his bride? If it were to Bushy, how easy it would have been; but everyone had set their minds against Bushy. He was beginning to think they were right; there would have been too many memories of Dorothy Jordan there; there might even be some of her possessions about the place.

  The only place was his apartments in Stable Court at St James’s. They were not large nor particularly grand, but they had been his headquarters when he was at Court – and in any case it was all he could think of.

  And the Duchess Eleanor must accompany them!

  So through the rain they drove to St James’s and when they arrived there it was to find a little crowd of people assembled to see the bride.

  There was
a little laughter to see the mother-in-law as well, but they could trust Clarence to get himself into ridiculous situations.

  Adelaide, however, appealed to them; she bowed and smiled and if she was not as beautiful as the Duchesses of Cambridge and Kent, she was more affable; so they cheered her.

  The people still waited when they went into the Palace and Adelaide came out and stood on the balcony. That she should do this in the rain, won their hearts still further and it was some time before they would let her go in.

  William had given orders for the Duchess to be conducted to a bedchamber – and then he and Adelaide were alone.

  He waved his hand at the furnishings. ‘They should have been renewed,’ he said. ‘I thought we should go to Bushy.’

  ‘I know,’ she said in her halting English.

  The bed was rather grand; William looked at it and laughed.

  ‘It was put here for the King of Prussia not long ago when he paid a visit. He used these apartments then. They were somewhat shabby so this bed was put in for him.’

  Adelaide touched the deep pink silk bedcurtains and in some embarrassment traced with her finger the fluting on the pillars of the magnificent four-poster.

  He smiled at her; then he took her hands; and as she lifted her face to his she thought gratefully: I need not fear him.

  Royal Death and Royal Birth

  THE DUCHESS ELEANOR, having seen her daughter safely married, decided that her presence was no longer needed in England.

  She therefore prepared to make her departure. Her quarters in Stable Yard, St James’s were cramped and dingy, and she did not consider them suitable for her rank and her position as the mother of the Duchess of Clarence and the sooner she was home in Saxe-Meiningen where her son would most certainly be in need of her advice, the better.

  Adelaide and William gave a dinner party for her the day after their wedding to which members of the royal family came to bid her farewell. The Queen was too ill to attend, so Eleanor drove out to Kew to say farewell.

  The next day she left.

  Her departure, Adelaide realized, was not without its advantages for a situation arose the day after she left which would have caused her great concern and would no doubt have made a rift between herself and her daughter.

  Adelaide had made up her mind that if it were possible she was going to make her marriage a happy one.

  She did not expect William to fall in love with her. I am not, she told herself, the sort of woman with whom men fall in love. But one thing she had discovered was his devotion to his children, and while some might deplore this, she admired him for it and she believed it showed an admirable trait in his character. She was not going to refuse to meet the FitzClarence children; in fact in the short time since her wedding day she had asked all sorts of questions about them, and he had delighted to talk of them. He was proud of the bravery of his sons in battle. Young as they were they had distinguished themselves; he was delighted with the beauty and charm of his daughters. And he was grateful to Adelaide for wanting to hear about them.

  So they had made a start towards understanding – which, Adelaide had to admit, her mother would have done her best to ruin.

  It was on the second day of her honeymoon that one of the attendants told her that the Duke had left Stable Court in a state of great agitation. She had difficulty in understanding but it seemed that there had been an accident and Major FitzClarence was in a dangerous condition. The Duke had rushed out immediately the news had been brought to him and had not even stopped to explain what had happened to his newly-married bride.

  Adelaide passed an uneasy morning and finally the Duke arrived in a special carriage. From this was taken a stretcher on which lay the young man whom William had sent to greet her at Grillon’s Hotel on her arrival in England.

  ‘It’s George,’ shouted William. ‘He’s had an accident.’ Then he was giving orders. ‘Lift it carefully. He’s broken his leg. Now! Got it? Be careful not to jolt it.’

  Adelaide said: ‘I should put him on the bed … our bed. It will be more comfortable.’

  So Major George FitzClarence was laid on the bed which had been made for the King of Prussia. Pale and shaken he looked apologetically at Adelaide.

  ‘I was driving my carriage,’ he said, ‘when the horse took fright and bolted.’

  ‘You will soon be well,’ she told him. ‘You will stay here and I will nurse you.’

  ‘You! That’s impossible.’

  ‘What do you mean? Do I understand? Not possible? My mother has been ill often. I always nurse her.’

  She was happy suddenly. Now she would show William that she intended to be not only a good wife but also a mother to his family. It was true the young man on the bed was about her own age, but that did not matter.

  ‘You will nurse him?’ said William.

  ‘Why are you surprised? I am a good nurse. You will see.’

  And they did see.

  ‘It’s a strange way to spend a honeymoon,’ said William.

  ‘But it is not such a bad way,’ she told him.

  He was beginning to be quite fond of her.

  It was a strange honeymoon. Everyone was saying how typical it was of the Duke of Clarence to take his son by Dorothy Jordan to his wife so that she might spend her honeymoon nursing him.

  ‘Let them talk,’ said Adelaide. ‘It is, after all, our affair.’

  The Queen thought it a ridiculous situation and quite undignified. She would have protested but she felt too ill. Now that all her sons were married she had done all she could and it was up to them. This acceptance seemed to have its effect on her. It was as though she were gradually relinquishing her hold on life.

  She sent for Adelaide meaning to remonstrate with her but when her daughter-in-law arrived she was feeling so ill that she merely commanded her to sit by her bed and tell her how she was liking England.

  ‘I did hear young George FitzClarence is with you.’

  Adelaide told her in fluent German how he had had his accident and that he was progressing. The Duke had been very anxious about him and she was not surprised, for George was a son of whom anyone would be proud.

  ‘And you are content to spend your honeymoon nursing him?’

  ‘I am content,’ said Adelaide.

  ‘You are a strange young woman,’ the Queen told her bluntly.

  ‘Do you find me so?’

  ‘I find you … unusual, shall we say,’ said the Queen; and she was silent, thinking back to the days when she had arrived in England. Would she have been prepared to nurse a son her husband had had by another woman? She was not sure. But she had come to the conclusion that there was a strength of purpose about this quiet young woman which was admirable.

  She said suddenly: ‘I think you may do a great deal for William.’

  Adelaide waited but the Queen said no more.

  She had fallen into a doze and lay so still that Adelaide wondered whether she should leave. She rose quietly but the Queen opened her eyes and said: ‘Don’t go. Sit there. You comfort me.’

  So she sat while Charlotte dozed and, half asleep, thought of the past and all its trials and the anxieties her children had brought to her and the King.

  A Queen’s life could be a hard one. Would she have been happier if she had stayed at home in Mecklenburg-Strelitz and remained unmarried? Would this young woman have been happier if she had not married?

  But I became Queen Charlotte, she thought. Perhaps in time she will become Queen Adelaide. And if she has a child that child could rule England.

  What are we – any of us – but links in the chain?

  At the end of three weeks George FitzClarence and Adelaide had become the best of friends and George could not say enough in praise of his stepmother. William would sit listening while they talked together in German – and at Adelaide’s attempts at English – with a smile about his lips. His marriage was going to be a success; he was sure of it. He had forgotten Miss Wykeham already; she would neve
r have nursed young George as Adelaide had done.

  But they could not stay in England, for in spite of the extra money his marriage had brought him, his creditors were pressing and a stay abroad was a necessity. Besides, it had been arranged that he and Adelaide should join the Cambridges in Hanover, where young Adolphus was acting as Governor-General.

  Adelaide did not look forward to another sea crossing but she did not protest and as the time drew near for their departure she went to see the Queen at Kew to say goodbye to her.

  She felt melancholy as the carriage carried her through Hammersmith; and the reason was that she was going to say her last farewells to her mother-in-law. It was a strange feeling, for the Queen had shown her very little warmth and yet there had been something between them – a certain rapport which Adelaide instinctively knew Charlotte felt with very few.

  If we were together for a long time we might become friends, thought Adelaide.

  When she arrived at Kew the Queen received her in her bedroom where she was resting. Adelaide found Charlotte lying in bed, and she knelt and kissed her hand.

  ‘Sit down, my child,’ said Charlotte gruffly. ‘So you are shortly leaving for Hanover. I am sorry … but it is best. William is surrounded by his family here. It is better for you to be away. There you will get to know him.’ She smiled crookedly. ‘You will find him a little … ridiculous. But perhaps you will teach him …’

  Adelaide did not answer.

  ‘It is sad,’ went on the Queen. ‘Sad … for princesses. I remember …’

  But she did not say what she remembered.

  Adelaide believed that she would never forget these moments – the dark bedroom, the curtains drawn to shut out the sun which worried the Queen, the faint musty smell of illness – and she thought: This is the last time I shall see the Queen.

  ‘You nursed that boy,’ said the Queen suddenly.

  Adelaide replied: ‘The Duke was anxious for him. He is, after all, his son. He could not be turned away. I think the Duke is pleased that we have become friends.’

  ‘Ten children,’ said the Queen. ‘An actress’s bastards! The scandal! It was all scandals.’