Queen of Bedlam

by Laura Purcell

  She took a breath of thick air – it was metallic with the scent of blood, tinged with sharp bursts of body odour. A wave of nausea hit her just as a fresh pulse of bloody discharge streamed out between her legs. Royal writhed and creased the bedclothes, her legs kicking out.

  ‘Help me!’ Her body heaved in a great spasm as something heavy fell away and rushed out of her. As it went, it took her last drop of energy with it. She tried, tried so hard to stay awake and hear her baby cry, but the swirling darkness reached out and claimed her.

  Royal awoke on a bed of coals. Pain rose swift to greet her, beating inside like a pulse.

  My baby. She knew it was no longer tied to her, but she could not hear or see it. The severance was unbearable. She struggled to raise her head from the pillow but it wouldn’t obey. Movement flickered in the corner of her eye. My baby. Bring me my baby. She tried to call out but her voice no longer worked – she only slurred out an unintelligible stream of noise.

  ‘There now, take this.’ The voice echoed from far away.

  Warm liquor trickled down her throat. It scalded and made her cough with its bitter taste. What was wrong with her? She was meant to be a proud new mother by now, cradling a bundle of pink, peeling skin in her tired arms. Instead she was paralysed. Her skin felt hot, but she shivered. She wanted her baby.

  Strong as her desire was, she couldn’t hold onto the thought. Once more, she drifted into the seas of unconsciousness.

  Royal jolted awake. Her own voice echoed back at her from the walls. She winced and wished she hadn’t sat up so fast. Every inch of her hurt, as if she had been caught under the hooves of a cavalry charge. But the pain was unimportant; there was something else, something . . .

  Everything lay still around her. Early morning light bleached the objects in her bedroom of their usual colours, leaving her in a strange shadow world. She blinked at them. Was that Fritz? Yes, his large form sat slumped in a chair beside her, his chin upon his chest and a snore fluttering his cravat. Why wasn’t he beside her in the bed? She thought she knew the answer, but every time she caught at a thread of memory it slipped from her grasp.

  The baby. Of course! Where was the baby? She put her hand to her stomach and found it strangely deflated, tender and lumpy to the touch. Royal shivered and pulled up her quilt. A doleful wind sighed down the chimney as she sat, alone, waiting.

  She didn’t like to wake Fritz; it didn’t seem right. She wasn’t even sure if he was really there. She began to wonder, as she stared into the surreal half-light, if this was a dream and she was really in another bed, fast asleep, still pregnant. Somewhere close-by a clock ticked, whispering the time. Royal let the minutes pass in agonising uncertainty.

  By and by there were footsteps. She clutched the covers. The door edged open and a servant girl peeped in, checking on the threshold as she saw Royal sitting up and awake. For a moment she disappeared, and then came back bearing a tray.

  ‘Good morning, Your Grace.’

  The glorious scent of tea wafted into the room. Royal watched the girl set a cup down beside her bed. She didn’t feel equal to drinking it – not yet – but she let the delicious fumes wash over and revive her.

  Fritz did not stir.

  The girl moved to the fireplace and scrambled about in the grate. Royal watched her dispassionately, trying to decide if she was an apparition.

  No. The noises, the scents and feelings were real. As flames kindled, the comforting smell of woodsmoke infused the foetid air.

  ‘Will that be all, Your Grace?’ The servant turned from her task and rose to her feet. Orange light from the fire played on her young face and Royal started.

  Tragedy was etched upon the maid’s features. She stood, awaiting orders, her big brown eyes swimming with tears.

  What is it? Oh God, what’s wrong? Royal formed the words with her mouth, but her vocal chords were taut. No sound escaped her.

  Taking her silence as permission to leave, the servant wiped her hands on her apron and hurried through the door. Royal thought she heard a muffled sob as the latch clicked behind her.

  With wobbling arms, Royal took her cup of tea and held the warm china in her hands. A thick gruel of dread stirred in her stomach. Nothing made sense. She thought she was dying, but she wasn’t dead, and the baby was nowhere to be seen, and the maid . . .

  Fritz snorted in his sleep.

  She sipped her tea, trying to calm her nerves. Anything could have caused the maid’s distress. She might have received a scolding from the housekeeper or quarrelled with a sweetheart. It did not mean the baby was ill or deformed. Wasn’t Fritz there, sleeping calmly by Royal’s side? Would he be doing that if everything wasn’t perfectly well? Of course not.

  At last, rays of sunlight broke through the curtains and tickled at Fritz’s face. He tried to brush them off and grumbled before opening his eyes.

  It felt an age since she had seen him, heard his dear voice. When he finally looked up, his flabby features animated once more, the sight was so sweet that Royal wept. Discarding the tea, she held out her arms to him.

  ‘Hush, my dear, hush. Stay down.’ He put a hand on her clammy forehead and stroked away the curls plastered there.

  Relief washed over her. No need to be brave now, no need to face anything alone. She had another human, an anchor to hold onto. ‘It hurt so much.’

  ‘I know.’ He paused as she clung to his hand and laid her cheek against it. ‘It is over now, Liebchen. Your ordeal is over.’

  Yes. A ferocious battle, a long race . . . But where was her reward? The idea of a baby thrust itself into her consciousness again, wailing and screaming. She had almost forgotten in her delight at being held by Fritz.

  ‘My love . . . the baby. What did I have?’

  He cleared his throat. ‘A girl. A big, beautiful girl.’

  Royal’s spirit soared. A girl. A daughter, a real daughter, not a counterfeit like Amelia or Trinette. They were the words she had longed to hear all her life. She couldn’t believe they were really in her ears. If someone had told her, five years before, that she would escape England, marry and bear her own daughter, she would have thought them as mad as her father. But she had achieved the impossible. Suddenly all the pain, all the hours of torment were erased.

  ‘Just like we wanted!’ she cried. ‘Now we have two boys and two girls . . .’

  ‘My darling, she was born dead.’

  Dead. It struck Royal like a blow about the face. Her weak faculties wrestled with his sentence, appalled.

  ‘Dead?’ she repeated.

  A tear fell down Fritz’s vast face. ‘We thought you were going to die too. Thank God you were restored to us!’

  Born dead. It didn’t make sense to Royal, still weak and confused. Born and dead – those words meant opposite things. Was he talking about her baby? Surely not, surely he meant something else. Born dead?

  ‘The people were so worried,’ Fritz said. ‘They are throwing a gala for your recovery.’

  She didn’t hear him. On some level, she understood the great tragedy that had befallen her, but it was too enormous to absorb. Numbness shielded her from the grief, letting it howl and scream at a distance, as if locked in a separate room.

  ‘The people have never shown such concern for a duchess before! They truly love you!’

  What did the people matter? She only cared about her baby, but her limbs had never moved, her eyes had never opened. The whole dream of her life evaporated. How could she just disappear, drift away like smoke from a musket? A cold, hard part of her brain answered her question with biting clarity: you should have rested. They told you to rest.

  Fritz saw her staring away, eyes glazed over. ‘My dear, shall I leave you?’

  Royal nodded dumbly. She wished she had died instead.

  Fritz stroked her hand. ‘We can have more children,’ he soothed. ‘You are not past the age yet.’

  Royal glared at him. He didn’t understand. How could he? To him the dead daughter was just a chil
d he had never met. But she was the intimate sharer of Royal’s body, exchanging a constant internal communion; she was part of Royal. A part that had been amputated without opiates.

  ‘Just remember the subjects and the children we have. Remember how much you are treasured.’ He kissed Royal’s wet cheek. ‘I know it does not feel like it now, but we have much to be grateful for.’ Fritz plumped up the pillows, tucked his wife back into the bed and left her to sleep.

  Royal watched him all the way to the door, where his face changed. Unaware of her scrutiny, his pudgy features collapsed into pure agony. As she saw her own roiling emotions on his face, the truth thumped across her dull brain. She had caused all this misery; she would not rest. She would not rest and now her daughter was dead. Fritz shut the door softly and tears tumbled from her eyes.

  Royal curled into a foetal position, hugging her knees to her heaving chest. It still hurt to move, but nothing was more painful than her grief. What had she done? How would she ever, ever atone? Her firstborn, her daughter, the little thing upon which she had built so much hope was dead. And it was her fault.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Weymouth

  1799

  A cloud of gunsmoke blocked the sun, its sharp scent lacing the wind as it whipped the sails into full swell.

  Charlotte struggled to balance on the damp boards swaying beneath her feet. Salutes to the royal yacht had never made her dizzy with fright before. She ran a hand over her brow, smoothing the tight skin that clung around her eyes and stretched across her forehead.

  ‘Did they really say it was English spies?’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes. English spies in the Assembly of France.’ The King nodded a little longer than necessary. ‘They used the excuse to dissolve the Directory at gunpoint.’

  The ocean winked at Charlotte, as dark and cold as her frightened soul. If only she understood. She couldn’t ask the King more questions – he had an indecent air of excitement about him. But if the French had overthrown their Directory, brought to power through the revolution, surely it was a good thing?

  She chose her words carefully. ‘And these men who mean to lead as consuls . . .’

  ‘Cannot be trusted,’ George confirmed. He sounded enthusiastic, as if he was telling her about his favourite play. ‘Especially this General Buonaparte. He stormed the meeting – against their own laws – spouting his nonsense!’

  ‘He didn’t do it because he hates the revolution?’ she asked hopefully. ‘To end the bloodshed?’

  George snorted. ‘Oh no!’ The thought seemed to please him. ‘A man who takes power with six thousand troops isn’t interested in peace.’

  Another political development to keep her short of breath and stretched tight as a cello string. It was she who felt the strain of this country – not the King at all.

  Amelia reclined in the special cot Prince George had sent over from Brighton. Her knee had improved, but she still kept it raised from the ground. She looked thin and pale in her cherry-coloured dress and hat.

  Bunching her skirt in one hand, Charlotte picked her way around the puddles on deck and staggered toward her daughter. The planks rolled and groaned beneath her shoes. ‘Are you well? Does the movement hurt you?’

  ‘Only a little.’ Amelia rearranged the folds of her red skirts over her knee. ‘I am more troubled by Royal’s news.’

  A cavern opened inside Charlotte. Her poor girl, so far away, in the worst pain imaginable. She could do nothing to help. What words, what empty messages of condolence could fill such a hole? Charlotte knew only too well that the spectre of this dead baby would haunt Royal all her life, taunt her with images of what could never be. ‘Royal will conquer this,’ she lied. ‘She is brave and sensible. You do not remember, but she had to cope with losing two infant brothers before you were born. She will rally.’

  Amelia offered a wan, angelic smile. ‘I do hope so, Mama. I will write to her again.’

  Wearily, Charlotte slouched to the side of the boat. She peered over the edge, where the sea, pierced by raindrops, tossed and swelled in distress. She stood there, watching it, for a long time.

  Teinach

  Everywhere Royal looked, the Black Forest rose up, dark and wistful, like her thoughts. The thermal baths, the lulling sounds of streams and waterfalls, did nothing to ease her misery.

  It was as if she was stuck in a bowl of molasses – her movements, even her thoughts, were laboured and slow. For the first time in her life, she was well and truly beaten. No future glimmered above her dark cloud, no hope slipped in beneath her shroud of mourning. She had been insolent to think she could be a great leader and a model parent. Even the Queen, for all her faults as a mother, had brought every baby into the world alive. Royal couldn’t even do that.

  Fritz had behaved like an angel. When she was well enough to sit outside, he built her a flower garden, and now she could move about, he had sent her to the valleys of Teinach spa to revive her health. She knew she should be grateful, thankful that at least that she had a kind husband. But she wasn’t. She did not want to recover her spirits. She certainly didn’t want to move on.

  Her family wrote awkward notes of condolence. Royal replied with as much bravery as she could muster, carving out false words with a small and shaky hand. Even in her despair, she knew she had to reassure the King and convince him that she was resigned to her loss. It was easy enough to persuade him – but she could not fool herself.

  It was dismal, but true: this was a storm she couldn’t weather. She knew the raw, screaming pain of her grief would not heal; she would just learn to conceal it. Perhaps it would turn into a form of self-denial.

  She paddled the lukewarm liquid of the pool with her fingertips. Ripples distorted the image of her flabby body, sitting motionless beneath the water in a brown bathing dress. An empty cocoon. Only a few months ago, the curve of her belly had filled her with joy. Now it was a repulsive husk.

  ‘We should go for a walk,’ she said. She flinched at the sudden memory of herself, looking at a snowy landscape, saying the same thing while the baby squirmed in her belly.

  The water sloshed as Madame de Spiegel turned to face her. ‘You need to relax.’

  Tears crushed against the back of Royal’s eyes, hot and spiky. Why didn’t they realise she needed to move? Only activity, ceaseless activity, could pull her away from dark thoughts and banish the picture of her daughter’s sweet, lifeless face.

  ‘No, I need to walk. I am fat.’

  Royal’s attendant gave a weak, consoling smile. ‘It is just the pregnancy. It will wear off on its own.’

  ‘In England, I was the princess with the best figure.’

  Madame de Spiegel placed a wet, wrinkled hand on her arm. ‘You will be again. Then, you will grow plump once more, with another child.’

  Another child. Royal pulled her arm away. They all spoke as if one human being could simply substitute for another. It was not as if she had spoiled a favourite gown and they could make up a new one. Royal didn’t want another child; she wanted her child. She wanted her dead child to be alive. ‘How close are the French?’ she asked.

  Madame de Spiegel started at the change of subject. ‘To here?’

  ‘No. To Ludwigsburg.’

  Madame de Spiegel looked anxious. ‘I do not know. But the duke speaks of sending you and the children somewhere safe.’

  Royal bit her lip, calculating the days before she could reasonably expect to be shot by the enemy. It was too long.

  Despair squeezed its icy fingers against her heart. Why had she not died in child-bed? She deserved to. It would be kind of a Frenchman to put a bullet through her head.

  ‘My dear duchess,’ Madam de Spiegel moved closer, her voice tender. ‘These are no times for children. The little one . . . she is safe from the miseries of this life and far happier with God than she could ever be on earth.’

  Royal bowed her head and let her tears drip into the pool. The water made a gentle, trickling noise and a breez
e set the trees whispering. Just as soft as the sound of a tiny soul, taking flight before it even drew breath.

  ‘Amen,’ Royal said. ‘May He keep her safe until we meet again.’

  She hoped against hope that it would be soon.

  Frogmore, Windsor

  Sophia ran beneath the long shadows of the plane trees, twisting and turning along the canal. Banks of kind foliage shielded her from the house and its many windows. She flitted across a stone bridge and vanished behind another wall of trees. A team of ducks waddled along by the water and she smiled at them, raising a finger to her lips. Only they knew her secret: she wasn’t really ill today.

  After all the misery it had caused, her weak health was turning out to be a blessing. Without it, she wouldn’t be able to disappear with Garth, to have hours of delirious love while the world thought her tucked up safe in bed. For the other times, Ernest served as her alibi. She told him she was sneaking out to see Caroline and he agreed to cover for her.

  Yes, of course, it was wrong. It was deceitful. It was playing on her family’s honest, loving sympathy. Self-reproach squeezed her like whalebone stays and she had the same desperate highs and lows as an opium addict. Tonight, the remembrance of these hours would make her feel dirty. But now, so close to the man she loved, all the guilt sank beneath a deluge of champagne-like joy bubbling through her head.

  There was no choice, really. She had to be with him.

  The wobbling turrets of the Gothic ruin peeked out at her between waving green branches. It was the perfect scene for a romantic interlude. Mock crumbling arches, climbing ivy – just like a scene from one of Mrs Radcliffe’s novels. Sophia ran inside, her stomach seething with anticipation. Garth was already there. At the sound of her step, he turned and took her into his arms.

  Heaven. She never tired of the slide of his tongue against the inside of her cheek, or the soft, erotic whisper of his lips on hers. His kisses obliterated the outside world. Princess Sophia disintegrated, passing away into a cloud of fairy dust. As Garth pulled her closer, she tasted longing in his mouth. How could she, little Sophia, inspire such love? More importantly, how had she lived a day without it? He let her go, gently, but she clung to him. This was her only chance to love someone with all her heart and she was going to relish every minute.