Queen of Bedlam

by Laura Purcell

  QUEEN OF BEDLAM

  QUEEN OF BEDLAM

  Laura Purcell

  MYRMIDON

  Myrmidon

  Rotterdam House

  116 Quayside

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  NE1 3DY

  www.myrmidonbooks.com

  Published by Myrmidon 2014

  Copyright © Laura Purcell 2014

  Laura Purcell has asserted her right under the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified

  as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-910183-02-1

  Set in Requiem by Ellipsis Digital Limited, Glasgow

  Printed in the UK by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CRO 4YY

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the publishers.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  EPILOGUE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ABOUT LAURA PURCELL

  LAURA PURCELL’S Mistress of the Court

  For Anna

  FAMILY OF GEORGE III (SIMPLIFIED)

  PROLOGUE

  Windsor Castle

  1812

  This would be the last time; Charlotte had made her decision. Now she just had to go through with it. All her life, she had been able to force herself into unpleasant tasks. But this was different. A visit always disturbed the cold composure she worked so hard to preserve. This had to be the last time.

  She walked with a step much steadier than her heartbeat. The regular click of her heels gave her a feeling of comfort, of order. The wind whipped violently around the courtyards of Windsor Castle and it took all her strength to remain on course, sailing like a great ship in her gown with its plentiful train.

  With her attendants, she wound her way to where he was kept under lock and key like an animal. Would he be violent today? She added her sigh to the greater groan of the wind. She was growing too old to bear these trials.

  At last they reached the dreaded apartments, haunted rooms that Charles I had occupied on his way to trial and execution. Now they housed the culmination of Charlotte’s nightmares.

  Doctor Willis met her at the door. She loathed the very sight of him now – his forced expressions of calm and competence.

  ‘How is he today?’ she asked.

  ‘Getting on very well, Your Majesty,’ the doctor told her. ‘Nice and quiet.’ His tone was overly sympathetic – a false, hushed voice that made Charlotte feel like a child.

  ‘No talk of sinking you into hell?’ she enquired. ‘Or raising people from the dead?’

  Doctor Willis flashed a smile that seemed alien in the surroundings. ‘No, madam. He talks only of Hanover. He believes all his loved ones have gone to Hanover, where they will never age.’

  Why should he have that comfort, when she did not?

  The doctor led her into the room and she walked as if in a dream, following the ghostly glow of his candle. Slabs of grey brick surrounded her, decorated with threadbare tapestries. A spider scuttled across the wall into a corner of drifting cobwebs.

  The patient sat by a stuttering fire. While the top of his head was bald and shining, hair grew from behind his ears in long tendrils that flowed into a silver beard. He stared at Charlotte with glazed eyes, his pupils dilating uselessly. Once, the sight would have made her weep. But all her tears were spent.

  She sat down opposite him. In the dark well of his rolling pupils, she saw reflected her own grey hair and lined face. Her mind struggled to comprehend that this was them, aged. It was like waking up in an unfamiliar room.

  Where was the handsome King of old, with his drooping eyelids and sensuous smile? Where was the bright little wife who inspired his devotion?

  If she had been there, that other Charlotte, things would have been different. She would have made his dry, cracked lips break into a grin and cast a sparkle in his dull eyes. She would have known what to do. She would have saved him.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Upper Lodge, Windsor

  1783

  ‘Keep your eyes closed!’ She giggled as she slapped him playfully on the hand. It was all in place, all perfect. Everything was just as she imagined.

  ‘I can’t see a thing, I swear!’ He was lying. Although she had blindfolded him with a blue sash, there were gaps at the bottom where he could peep out.

  They reached a marble staircase that swept upwards into darkness. No one else was there; all was silent and still.

  ‘Come, there are steps.’ She clutched the warmth of her husband in one hand and a tapered candle in the other. With no attendant to hold her train, she stumbled and tripped up the steps, screeching with laughter.

  ‘Good God, what are you up to?’ George groped helplessly with his free arm for a banister. ‘I’ll have to keep you in order, madam.’

  The candle swung around, its circle of light illuminating a gilded frame, a chandelier, a damask wall.

  As they reached the landing, he took another step into thin air. She caught him as he plunged. Another peal of laughter rang from her lips and her husband echoed it with his own.

  ‘Through here,’ she led him on, not really needing the light of the candle; she had learnt this route by heart.

  The door opened softly on its hinges. Charlotte peered into the room, focusing on the window at the far end. Colour slivered between the gaps in the shutters. It was ready.

  ‘Where are we?’

  Hastily, Charlotte laid her candle on the nearest table and unbolted the shutters with a clang.

  ‘It had better be pretty spectacular, after this,’ George warned her.

  With one deft movement, she pulled off his blindfold. ‘Don’t you worry – it is.’

  The night sky burst open with the light of fireworks. A terrace, perfectly manicured lawns and a long canal shimmered. Lantern flames rippling off the water and sparkling on every sp
ot of glass. Below them, a violin sprang into song. The familiar tune built and swelled, playing in canon with the pop of fireworks. The sound of George’s favourite composer, Handel, reverberated around the park.

  ‘Happy birthday!’

  George put out a hand and caressed her cheek, making her skin tingle as if she were a girl again. All the planning, all the preparation was worth it for the look on his face. ‘Every hour I spend with you convinces me: I have a treasure.’

  Suddenly embarrassed, Charlotte turned him around. ‘Never mind that, you’re missing it. Look!’

  Boats glided down the river, each ablaze with colour and light. Reflected in the swirling dark water, their lamps stretched into the heavens, outshining the stars. Charlotte wheeled George around again.

  ‘Look here!’ A crocodile of small creatures wound its way out of the gardens onto the terrace. They came two by two, like animals in the Ark, with the tallest at the front and the smallest at the back.

  ‘Why, it is the children!’ he cried.

  Their fourteen offspring were dressed in elaborate costumes as cupids, sultans, warriors and concubines. From the eldest George, the Prince of Wales, to the youngest, little Alfred in the arms of his nurse, they shone in dazzling jewels and fabrics.

  ‘Oh! Let’s go to them!’ George grabbed Charlotte’s hand and set off at a run.

  Her feet barely touched the ground. The stairs, portraits and flagstone floors blurred before her eyes. All at once they spilled out into the cool of the evening, surrounded by the heady scent of flowers.

  Their children swarmed about them. At the forefront, baby Alfred held out his stubby arms to Charlotte with a look of pure ecstasy. She seized him impulsively and clamped him to her chest, brushing her lips against his soft clean skin. He tensed. What was wrong? Perhaps he wanted the nurse back. Charlotte looked up for the attendant but then realised her baby was not struggling to get away; he was trying to cling on. Terror stretched his cheeks and his eyes were enormous, swelling with tears.

  ‘Alfred!’

  His warm body slipped from her grasp. Something with an inhuman strength was dragging him from her. Her fingers trembled – she knew their grip would not last for long. Gritting her teeth, Charlotte held on with every ounce of strength. Her baby wailed.

  ‘Alfred!’

  Against Charlotte’s will, her fingers fell slack. With a sudden jolt, the boy flew from her grasp and she was falling, falling . . .

  Charlotte awoke with a jump, her heart beating wildly. She let out a breath. It was only Windsor after all.

  Her boudoir materialised around her with its fine paper hangings and gilt frames. The party she saw in her dream was a long time ago. And Alfred was dead. She clenched her muscles and leant forwards on the sofa as a deep vibration quivered inside her. Of course, it was the child in her belly that woke her; it kicked strongly now. She picked up some needlework, hoping concentration would banish the images of her dead son. It was futile. Wherever she looked, Alfred’s chubby face rose before her, fresh from her dream. Her baby, her boy. Blond hair, a shining, wet mouth.

  The memories drifted through her mind like a dark mist. Alfred inoculated against the smallpox on her command, blisters erupting on his tiny eyelids. The carriage taking him away to Deal for sea air. His strength failing, his tender frame shrinking. Then little Octavius, just six months later . . .

  Thumps upstairs startled her from her reverie. Her husband’s furious voice came muffled through the floorboards. She knew what his shouting meant: Britain’s precious colonies in America were slipping through his hands. It was America that drove George to her bed; he came seeking comfort, not another child.

  The stranger inside Charlotte’s womb flinched. She was seized by an emotion so violent that she wanted to ball up her sewing and shriek. But she had always scorned weak, hysterical women and so instead she laid down her tambour frame and rose to her feet, ready, like any good Queen, to repress her feelings. She needed to bury them as deep as her poor little boys.

  Her attendants, Lady Harcourt and Lady Pembroke, stood up but she waved them back down. She waddled across the floor, adjusting her belly. Again, her husband shouted above her head and for a moment her fear rose up to mirror his. What hope was there for this child, conceived at a time of rebellion and grief?

  She stopped beside the royal cradle. Her worn face looked back at her in the gleaming wood: the long countenance that had never been beautiful, a sharp nose and a wide mouth. She had put some gorgeous children into this crib – seven surviving heirs and five blooming daughters. But this one felt cursed.

  Charlotte laid a jewelled hand upon her swollen belly. Live. Please, please live.

  A door slammed and shook the floorboards. Charlotte buried her face in the cradle’s satin curtains, despising her own weakness. With the cool material pressed against her skin and her eyes firmly shut, she tried, tried with all her strength, to forget. But in another minute she dropped to her knees with a pain she recognised all too well.

  Upper Lodge, Windsor

  Royal gathered her four sisters together: Augusta, Elizabeth, Mary and the tiny six-year-old Sophia. She made sure their gowns hung straight and the powder in their hair stayed away from their faces. She knew if one tiny thing was out of place, her mother would blame her.

  ‘Come on! Make haste!’

  Royal turned to her father. Praise God, he was happy once more! Colour tinctured his cheeks and he walked with a bounce in his step. She had watched him anxiously over the past weeks as he jabbed pins into maps and shouted at his ministers. The calamitous events in America had taken their toll. But now he was calm, with a sleek wig on his head.

  ‘We are ready, Papa.’

  Royal followed him along the corridors, her little sisters trailing behind her like ducklings. Time to see yet another new baby.

  Yet something was different. The King moved quickly, almost desperately. He had visited the baby twice a day, more often than any of Royal’s young siblings. Jealousy whispered in her ear but she pushed it aside. She would always be his favourite daughter.

  Guards threw open the double doors. ‘The King, the King!’

  It was a tall, gilded room flooded with light. The Queen’s state bed glowed from the centre, its golden curtains catching every ray of August sun. Embroidered flowers ran along the tester, their pattern echoed on two chairs at the foot of the bed.

  In a honeyed pool beside the chairs stood the cradle; mahogany and swaths of silk. Silver rocking threads hung from each corner. Royal’s mother toyed with one as she watched the baby. At the sound of their footsteps she turned, dropping her thread, and curtseyed to the King. Despite her recent confinement, she was impeccably elegant in a taffeta gown of dove grey. Profusions of lace flowed from her halfsleeves like miniature waterfalls. A choker of pearls stretched taut around her neck, bobbing when she swallowed.

  A cold feeling of inadequacy crept up Royal’s torso as she bent her knees and returned the curtsey. Seventeen years had been insufficient to calm her nerves in her mother’s presence – she was unlikely to conquer them now.

  ‘Girls.’ Her mother’s soft, foreign tones. ‘Come and meet your sister.’

  They walked as they had been taught: eyes on the floor, their steps small and delicate. Little Mary’s face quivered as if she wanted to sneeze. Royal felt a throb of horror but then, somehow, Mary managed to hold it in.

  Her mother twitched a curtain aside. ‘Look. This is Amelia.’

  Royal peered cautiously over the silk coverlets, careful not to knock the crib with her hoop. Her lips parted in surprise. Her mother had presented a string of new siblings to her, but never one as beautiful as this. Amelia was a doll, all ivory skin and wispy curls of blonde hair. A terrible emptiness tugged at Royal’s breast and belly – it was high time she had a child of her own. Royal put out a finger to touch the soft, baby skin and Amelia grabbed it, holding it tight above the coverlet in her dimpled fist.

  ‘She looks like Octavius.’ />
  Royal wished the words back at once. Her throat grew hot and thick with fear. How could she forget herself like that? They did not speak of these things. It was not dignified to show emotion.

  The Queen glared, a muscle twitching in her jaw. Silence pressed on them painfully.

  The King bustled forward. ‘Yes, very like, very like. There is no resisting her.’

  Royal let out her suspended breath.

  The smallest princess, Sophia, edged forward and pushed past Royal’s skirts. She was so short for her age she could barely see over the cradle.

  ‘Papa,’ she said innocently, ‘this baby won’t die too, will it?’

  Royal’s stomach plummeted. The Queen would pull her up for this indiscretion later. But her father remained cool and bent down to Sophia’s level, the tails of his blue coat trailing on the floor.

  ‘No, my darling. Of course not.’

  Royal did not listen to him; she looked into her mother’s pale face and realised she was not so sure.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The White House, Kew

  March 1784

  Heat from the warming pan crept up Charlotte’s legs into her aching back. At thirty-nine, her body was slow to recover from childbirth. Still, it was blissful to be out of confinement and back in George’s bed.

  She gave a dreamy, contented smile and turned over to face her husband. She was heavy with sleep, but not ready to surrender to it yet. This was precious time. Here, in the hush of night, with only candle flames lighting their faces, they could be alone at last.

  ‘You are quiet tonight, my love,’ he said. ‘You haven’t touched your gruel.’

  Charlotte rolled over reluctantly and picked up her bowl. Of course she had been quiet. A secret gnawed at her conscience – one she didn’t want to share with him.

  ‘I’ve been thinking.’

  He stirred the mess of oats in his bowl. ‘Oh? And what is my Charlotte thinking about, eh?’