Queen of Bedlam

by Laura Purcell

  They could not rely on the Queen any longer. The reins of control fell slack in her hands, now that the love of her life was entombed in an ill, confused man. Royal had compassion for her mother’s misery – but she also blamed her. Now was not the time to drop beneath the arrows of misfortune; it was the time to fight. The Queen only added to her children’s woe. Two ailing parents to care for: a King lost under a roiling fever and a Queen eclipsed by melancholy. Responsibility bore down heavily on Royal’s shoulders.

  Outside, rain fell thick and fast, lashing the trees. As a terrified little girl, Royal had run to her father for comfort whenever thunder cracked over the palaces. She could not lean on him now. This time, she had to face the storm alone.

  Royal slowed her pace as she saw her mother’s scrawny back. A blade of pity cut through her. The Queen had grown so thin that the bones of her spine stuck out. She hung around the corner, listening to the King scream. Why did she torture herself like this?

  The physicians were blistering his scalp and legs with mustard, applying leeches to his forehead to draw out . . . whatever it was. This strange, unspeakable illness that tore the core from her world.

  The Queen jumped when Royal placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘Oh, Mama.’ Suddenly she was nothing but a quivering girl. Fear and unshed tears sparkled in her enormous eyes. ‘Don’t listen,’ Royal urged her. ‘What good can it do?’

  The Queen looked away and tightened her grip on the wall. ‘I must be with him somehow. They won’t let me in. They say – they say I am too emotional, and I upset the King.’

  A low noise swooped down the hallway – eerie, chilling to the blood. It took Royal a moment to realise it was her father, howling like a dog. The sound struck her motionless.

  ‘He keeps slapping the pages,’ the Queen whispered, ‘then he begs them for forgiveness a hundred times.’

  Royal shook the image from her mind. She couldn’t let her mother drown her in a pool of horror. ‘It’s painful, being blistered,’ she explained. ‘The shock would make anyone lash out.’ She laid an arm around her mother’s shoulders. ‘You wouldn’t really want to be in there, watching him in pain, would you?’

  The Queen stared into her face, all guards down. Her features contorted as emotions chased across them. She was still for a moment, letting Royal see it. Then she burst into tears. A freezing torrent ran across Royal’s skin. Her mother never cried. The sight of a weeping queen sliced through the last mooring holding Royal to the shore of normality; she was speechless.

  ‘Oh, Royal!’ With a sudden, irritated motion, the Queen drew out a handkerchief and mopped up the traces of her tears. ‘How nervous I am! I am quite a fool! Do you not think so?’

  Royal thought she was like a wilted rose trodden on the ground; she thought her opinion had always been the King’s opinion and she didn’t know what to do now his judgement was clouded.

  A scream rang out and they winced. A voice called after it, as ghostly as tree branches groaning in a high wind. ‘Oh Amelia, little Amelia! Why won’t you save your father?’

  ‘He always asks for Amelia,’ breathed the Queen. ‘Never for me. It’s always Amelia.’ The corners of her mouth twitched down. Every word, every noise from the King drained more colour and life from her.

  ‘Go and sit with Miss Gouldsworthy,’ Royal suggested. ‘Papa has said he will take me for a drive later. I’m sure that will do him some good.’

  The Queen wrung her hands. ‘He is too ill. A drive indeed! Madness!’ She heaved a shuddering sigh. ‘But how can we stop him? You must be very careful. And come to me at once, as soon as you are out of the carriage.’

  ‘Of course I will.’ Royal reached for her mother’s hand and kissed it. Her palm was cold and light like a breeze passing through the castle.

  Royal could not bear to stay with the shell of her mother a moment longer. She turned on her heel and strode away, kicking out her skirts. The mingled sobs of her mother and her father throbbed against her ears.

  ‘I am not ill. I’m nervous. If you want to know what is the matter with me, I am nervous.’

  Royal shied back against the upholstery of the carriage, dodging a spray of spittle from the King’s lips. Cushioned doors barred all escape and brocade curtains half-shielded her from the outside world. She was hemmed in with him – and alone.

  Compassion and fear fought for dominance within her. Her handsome, kind Papa – reduced to this. Hunched in his seat, still crippled by the doctor’s blistering and bleeding. Fierce red skin crept around the edges of his wig. He infused the carriage with the vapours of his sickroom; hot, sticky scents of calomel and turpentine.

  Tears pricked Royal’s eyes as she admitted the bitter truth: he must be dying. Every day he slipped further away, dropped another inch from the pedestal she had kept him on. The realisation threatened to undo her but she couldn’t give way. She took his swollen hand. ‘You have been very nervous and suffered many painful treatments today. Do you think you are well enough for a drive? Or had you better rest?’ She gestured out of the window at the miserable November landscape.

  He shook his head vehemently. His wig slid to one side of his scalp, revealing bulbous, peeling blisters. ‘No, no, no, a drive is just the thing.’ He raised his voice and hammered his cane against the ceiling. ‘Go on there, you! Twice round and keep it slow for the princess.’

  It was not a voice Royal recognised; his words were so rapid that she wondered how he drew breath. Instinct urged her to revoke his command – stop the drivers at once and get him back to bed. But then there was a jerk beneath her and the carriage set off at a lively trot.

  ‘You mustn’t worry about me,’ the King said. ‘The Queen is my physician and no man needs a better.’

  Unable to reply, she concentrated on the trees gliding past her window, holding tightly onto the leather strap. The moments passed in silence.

  ‘Do you suppose we’ll pass by Lady Pembroke’s house?’

  The change of subject disorientated her. She cleared her dry throat and sought for words. ‘I thought her house was at Richmond?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I forgot. Lovely lady, Eliza Pembroke. You should’ve seen her at court in my youth! A queen of hearts, that’s what we called her. For God’s sake, what’s wrong with these coachmen?’ Another hammer at the ceiling. ‘Speed up there you! Don’t dilly dally!’

  The carriage lurched forward. Royal clenched the strap, racking her brain for a normal, grounding subject – something to bring him back to the here and now. ‘Will Fred and George join us for dinner?’

  He looked at her as if he understood, but his reply was at a complete variance. ‘I know, I know you want to travel. What are you now, twenty-two? Ah, it comes around so fast. I have been lax in getting you a husband. I know you want a husband, but I haven’t been able to part with you and that is the truth. My poor sisters! I wish I’d never married them off! But enough, enough – you must have a husband, of course you must. You, me, the Queen and Augusta, we’ll go to Hanover this summer and make our court gay. I will invite all the German princes – all of them! And you may have whichever you like best. How’s that for you?’

  Royal had the sensation of being outside her body, looking on at the scene. She had waited so long for her parents to plan her marriage, but now the prospect didn’t make her happy. ‘It would be . . . wonderful. But we mustn’t think of it until you are better.’

  He pulled his hand from Royal’s and stuck his head out of the window. ‘I didn’t tell you to go this way! What is the matter with you today? Stop, stop!’

  The horses pulled up sharply, sliding Royal forward on her seat. For an instant, she took her attention off the King.

  A bolt slid and a blast of cool wind whipped across her face. She looked up to see the door swinging open and her father gone. Oh God, no! She leapt up and flew after him, hopping as she landed with one foot tangled in her skirts. ‘Papa!’

  His blue Windsor coat retreated into the distance as he hobbled across the gras
s. She felt sick with horror.

  ‘Papa!’ she screeched.

  He slowed at the sound of her voice. Royal tottered forward a few more steps, everything in her willing him to stop.

  ‘Papa?’

  He halted; a thin, shrivelled silhouette against the darkening sky. For a moment he stood still, staring out across the park. Then he dropped his shoulders, let out a breath and trudged back. Relief washed Royal’s tension away, weakening her limbs. She struggled to remain upright. He returned, flushed from running, dragging in breath. Mud and grass stains splattered up his stockings.

  ‘I thought I saw . . .’He closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose. ‘There is this floating mist before my eyes, you know? I worry I’m going blind.’ His wig hung on his ear and several strands of it had come loose from the ribbon tie. This was the father Royal had idolised. This was the man all England had to rely upon. Gently, she put an arm around his shoulders and guided him toward the carriage. ‘Come on Papa. Let’s go home.’

  The gong boomed. Royal’s nerves vibrated to the deep, metallic sound. She needed to give the Queen an account of the outing before she went up to dress for dinner, but she didn’t know if she could face her. How could she speak truthfully without breaking what was left of her mother’s heart? It was painfully complex, like performing a step in a cotillion – and Royal had never been a good dancer.

  The Queen sat in her closet, huddled together with Miss Burney. Her fingers worried at the embroidery on her chair. ‘How was he?’ she asked at once. Her hungry eyes searched Royal’s face. ‘None of that . . . unpleasantness we had on the way from Kew?’

  Royal longed to unburden herself and confess what she had been through. She wanted to kneel at the Queen’s feet, throw her head into her lap and sob. But she saw her mother’s haunted face and the way her hands trembled and realised she could never tell the truth.

  ‘He’s . . . lively.’ She heard how false and hollow the words sounded on her lips. ‘The blisters do not seem to have hurt him. He is still a little – confused. But he is looking forward to the future. He talks of going to Hanover in the summer.’

  Royal feared the Queen would spot her lies with those sharp, boring eyes. But she straightened in her chair and looked pleased.

  ‘Hanover? He often promised to take me there and then travel up to see my family.’

  ‘That is probably why he thought of it.’ Although it was cruel, although it was false, Royal yearned to give her mother some comfort. ‘He wants to thank you. He is full of praise for you and your care of him.’ Royal’s mouth tingled at the dishonesty.

  The Queen narrowed her eyes and bit her lip. ‘Did he . . . did he talk to you of Lady Pembroke?’

  Royal shuddered; she could almost taste the Queen’s bitterness. ‘A little. Something about her house at Richmond.’

  All the light in her mother’s face blinked out. Her expression soured. ‘I see. Well. You had better go and dress for dinner.’

  The clock ticked on the marble mantelpiece as they waited for the King without saying a word. He had never been late for a meal before in his life. Royal sat opposite George and next to Frederick. She focused on the plate before her, tracing its markings over and over again to hold her mind steady.

  ‘The King!’

  They stood as one body. The sound of chair legs scraping across flagstones made Royal wince.

  He came in leaning on a stick, clicking across the floor. The eyes within his purple face were inflamed and bloodshot. Royal’s heart lurched. She yearned to look away from the pitiful sight, but her eyes were like trained dogs, following him around the room. He limped straight over to Prince George and – astonishingly – embraced him.

  ‘You have made me so happy in coming to see me. I knew you had a heart. I always said you did. You’ve been a vexatious son, I won’t pretend otherwise. But I love you and I forgive you. Dear boy. Dear, dear boy.’

  George gaped at him. ‘I love you too, Papa. How are you today?’

  The King kicked his feet together. ‘They would make me believe I have the gout. But if it was gout, how could I kick the part without any pain? You see me all at once, my boy, an old man.’

  ‘Surely not, Papa,’ George said smoothly. Royal felt a surge of grateful love toward her brother, the consummate performer, full of easy charm. ‘Science improves every day. Do none of your treatments help?’

  ‘Mmm, perhaps, perhaps.’ The King’s attention wandered and he ambled away from his chair at the head of the table. It took him some time to realise he was going in the wrong direction. With painful slowness, he halted beside the Queen, looped round her, and started down the other side of the table. Royal’s side.

  Her every sense stretched to hear the tick of his walking cane, the wet rasp of his breath. He passed behind her like a cold draught. The crucial moment came – and went. He was near the head of the table, she had escaped his notice. She let out her breath between pursed lips.

  But then, catching sight of Frederick, the King made a sudden dive and threw his arms about his favourite son. Royal jumped and knocked her soup bowl against a glass.

  ‘Yes, Frederick is my friend! Oh, my boy!’ he croaked.

  He hid his head upon the prince’s shoulder and wept bitterly. Stiff and awkward, Fred put his arms around the King, looking alternately to George and Royal for help they could not give.

  ‘There, there, Papa. There’s no reason to cry!’

  The King raised a wet face to Fred’s ear. In a voice so low Royal could just make it out, he said, ‘I wish to God I may die, for I am going to be mad.’

  The ground tilted beneath Royal. She put out a hand to steady herself against the table as black spots skipped across her vision and threatened to take over. She should have known Papa would have the courage to say the forbidden words; put a name to the fears that leapt and danced inside each one of them. But to hear it out loud, at last, sapped every hope from her breast.

  With difficulty, Fred coerced the King into his chair. ‘Have a bit of roast beef. That’ll set you up for anything. A bit of barley water too – you’ll feel a new man.’

  The King sat down, looking wary. ‘I’ve always been prone to fatness. Like George.’

  ‘You’re thin enough at the moment, Papa, that you could eat a whole cattle herd with no ill effect. It will give you strength.’ Fred nodded encouragement and returned to his place.

  The farce of a family dinner began. The soup came out, cold and skinned. Royal pushed it around her bowl, trying to ignore the ceaseless flow of her father’s words. He spoke until he was out of breath, took another gasp and began again. There was no sense or meaning in it; his voice was a dull babble, pierced only by the scrape of knives and forks against china. The old, caged feeling pressed around Royal. She set her teeth against the welling panic and drank deeply from her wine glass. She wanted her head to swim on the oblivious seas of alcohol, but it didn’t happen, no matter how many sips she took.

  Her brothers kept up a show of conversation – whether it had any pertinence to what the King said, they could not possibly know. George turned the topic to the morning papers. A ghoulish Old Bailey trial had caught his attention: a mother accused of smothering her own child. Royal felt queasy. Didn’t they have enough horror around them without invoking the spirits of dead infants?

  ‘Well, I don’t care what this Garrow says,’ George told Fred. ‘If she murdered her baby, she should hang for it.’ Without warning, the King leapt to his feet. Royal’s head snapped up at the sudden clatter of plates. Augusta dropped her cutlery. Quick as a bullet, the King flew to George’s side. The prince widened his eyes and leant back in his chair, away from the steady, menacing gaze. He stuttered words, but the King didn’t stop to listen; he seized his eldest son by the beautiful lapels of his coat and flung him across the room like a rag doll. There was a nauseating crack as George’s head collided with the wall. As he slumped to the floor, a mirror fell and shattered over him. The Queen screamed.


  Everyone swarmed away from the table but Royal could only watch, pinned to her chair in disbelief. Augusta and Elizabeth dashed over to George, propped his head in their laps and dabbed his bruised temples with Hungary water. The Queen stood, shoving her chair to the floor with a bang. Her wide mouth hung open, her lips as pale as ivory. Royal understood the look on that raw, broken face. The worst was done. Some thread in her parents’ marriage had been irrevocably snapped by this violent assault on their eldest child. Her family was shattered, like the shards of glass littering the floor.

  The Queen hovered a moment, looking from her son to her husband. She lurched, and Royal thought she would faint, but instead she picked up her skirts and dashed from the room. As soon as his wife fled, the King gave chase. With a cry, Frederick darted after him. Only Royal sat at the dinner table, viewing the devastation.

  Nothing would be the same again: this was the one clear thought in her churning mind. Everything had changed the instant George hit the ground. Restraining her tears, she plucked the napkin off her lap and threw it on her plate. Much as she wanted to scream, sob and grieve, there was no time. The Queen needed her. Slowly, she pulled herself up. Her legs wobbled beneath her. George still howled inconsolably, but her sisters would take care of him. The Queen would be all alone.

  Royal took a few tentative steps, heaved in a deep, steadying breath and forced her legs to propel her. She ran, half-tumbling down the stone passages, falling helplessly on after the commotion that rang out through the halls. Nothing looked familiar – low light-distorted shapes and shadows crept across the walls. Reaching a fork, Royal turned on instinct and came up against a group of people crowding outside the Queen’s dressing room.

  The first person she saw was her mother’s Keeper of the Robes, Madame Schwellenberg, hands planted on her immense hips. She was a formidable woman who barely flinched as she blocked the raving King from passing her again and again.