* * *

In his closed carriage the Prince set out for Tottenham. It was some weeks since he had seen Hannah, but she would understand. Matters of state were increasingly taking more and more of his time and she had agreed that this would become more and more inevitable as time went on.

He reached the house. He was going to tell her how glad he was that their union was at last sanctified. He would discuss with her the advisability of making the matter known… first, he thought, to Lord Bute, who had always been his friend and never showed any impatience. He reminded himself even when his father was alive – much as he had loved him – it was Lord Bute to whom he had taken his troubles.

The carriage turned in at the private drive. He alighted and looked with tenderness up at the window where she invariably watched for him. He believed that she was listening all the time for the sound of his carriage, for she always seemed to be there when he arrived. She would lift her hand in greeting as he alighted, and then run down to greet him.

On this day he stood looking up at the window. The curtains remained still. He had caught her today! She had not heard him.

He took out his key and let himself in by the door which he always used. She was not waiting for him, and he was suddenly aware of the silence of the house. It was strange. He had never noticed that before. Of course he had not, because she would be running down to meet him.

He went to the hall and called her name. He looked up the stairs.

‘Hannah? Where are you, Hannah?’

Now it was really strange, for she did not appear on the stairs.

She was ill. Something had happened. He took the stairs two at a time, calling her name. Where were the servants? Why did they not come out to receive him?

A sudden panic came to him. He was alone… alone in this house.

‘Hannah! Hannah!’ He scarcely recognized his own voice. Where could she be! There was nowhere for her to hide. He went into the room with the tall windows in which Reynolds had painted her picture. She was not there. He looked at the wall and stared, for where the picture had hung there was an empty space.

‘Oh God,’ he whispered. ‘What does it mean?’

He ran to the nursery. The little beds were there… neat and empty. The children were gone.

‘Hannah! Hannah!’ he called.

There was a cold sweat on his brow; his mind felt sluggish, unable to supply the answer he was demanding of it.

‘Hannah, where are you? Come out… if you are hiding. If this is a joke… Enough… Enough…’ He whispered her name; he shouted her name; but there was no answer. Only his own voice echoing through the empty house.

He ran through the rooms; there was no sign of her, no sign of the children, no sign of life. He would not believe it. They could not have gone.

‘Where to?’ he demanded of the emptiness.

The children? She could not have gone back to St James’s Market and taken the children with her… his children? How would that have been possible?

But she had disappeared. She had been spirited away.

He would not leave the house; he went from top to bottom, searching, calling her name, through the empty rooms which he already knew were empty because he had examined them before.

He stood in the hall looking about him.

But she was gone.

He had lost her and he could not understand how.

Dazed, bewildered, he returned to the carriage and gave orders to be driven back to Kew.


* * *

Lord Bute was waiting for him when he returned to the Palace.

‘Some business to discuss with Your Highness… Good God! what has happened? Your Highness… looks… Your Highness has had a shock?’

‘I want to talk to you. I must talk to you without delay.’

‘Come into my private apartments. We shall be quite alone there.’

Lord Bute shut the door and looked at the Prince earnestly. He was taking it badly. Well, it was to be expected.

‘Tell me what has happened to upset you.’

‘I do not know what has happened. It’s a mystery… a terrible mystery. I do not understand what it means.’

‘Pray tell me everything.’

So the Prince told – of his life with Hannah, of the children.

Lord Bute listened nodding gravely; but when the Prince came to the marriage he opened his eyes wide and exclaimed with horror.

‘I had to do it. It meant so much to her. She feared death… and the sin…’

‘Ah, I understand,’ said Lord Bute. ‘And you decided that at all costs to yourself you must relieve her of that.’

‘I knew you would understand.’

‘Certainly… certainly. There will be difficulties. Your mother had decided on a German Princess for you.’

‘What I have discovered today is what has reduced me to this state. She has gone.’

‘Gone… Gone where?’

‘That I do not know. I went to visit her and I found the house empty… I found her disappeared. Everything is gone… The children… herself… There is nothing there. It is an empty house. Yet… how could they have gone without telling me.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I went through the house… every room… the nursery, the kitchen… everywhere. There is no one there at all. And the picture has gone.’

‘Picture?’

‘Reynolds painted it. I wanted a picture of her.’

‘So you sent Reynolds to… er… this… er… house to paint her?’

The Prince nodded. So there is another in the secret, thought Bute uneasily.

‘You… told him who she was?’

‘No, no. I merely arranged that he should be commissioned to paint a picture of Mrs Axford.’

‘I see.’

‘But what can I do. Where is she? Can you explain?’

‘There is an explanation, obviously.’

‘But what? I can think of none.’

‘Nor I just at present. But if Your Highness will give me every detail of this affair I will do my best to find it.’

‘Oh, please do. I shall not rest until Hannah is safe.’

‘You said she was ill, did you not? That was the reason for the marriage?’

‘Yes, there was a change in her. After the birth of our boy she was not so well and before the second boy was born she grew very frail. It was then…’

‘Ah yes, Your Highness told me. Now you will give me leave to set about this matter in the way I think fit?’

‘Oh yes, please do.’

‘First Your Highness must tell me everything… everything remember. And then I will see what can be done.’


* * *

In a few days time Lord Bute solemnly presented himself to the Prince of Wales.

‘Your Highness should prepare himself for a shock.’

The Prince grew pale, his lips sagged and his blue eyes looked as though they would fall out of his head.

‘It is very sad. Your fair Quakeress is dead.’

‘It cannot be.’

‘Alas, it is so. You know that she was ill… it was for this reason that you married.’

‘Yes, she had a premonition… but I thought she recovered a little after the birth of the child.’

‘Perhaps knowing how anxious you were she kept the truth from you. She allowed you to marry her which perhaps had she not known she was going to die, she would not have done.’

‘Why? Why?’ George beat his fist on the table and his blue eyes were full of tears.

‘Because she loved you and she knew how difficult marriage with her would make your life. She knew you would be King of England soon and she knew that she could have no place in public life. She knew she would always have to live in the shadows as she had been doing all these years. Do you think that if she had not known she was going to die she would have allowed you to marry her?’

‘She was so happy when we were married. She said she knew how Christian felt when his burden of sin fell from his shoulders. She seemed so happy.’

‘That was because you had done the right thing by her… and she by you.’

George covered his face with his hands – and Bute allowed him a few minutes of silence.

Then George said: ‘The children… ?’

‘I have discovered where they are. They are being well cared for.’

‘But who… who has done this?’

‘She had an uncle. Did she never speak to you of him?’

‘Was it someone named Pearne?’

‘Why yes… I believe it was.’

‘I had heard her mention an uncle. He left her a little money some years ago. Forty pounds a year it was…’

‘It must be a member of his family.’

‘You have seen him?’

‘No, but I have seen a man whom I can trust. A priest – a chaplain to the King at one time: Zachary Brooke.’

‘Zachary Brooke. I do not know him.’

‘He has a living at Islington. Apparently his help was called and he was present at Hannah’s death. He has buried her in his churchyard.’

‘But why…’

‘He cannot tell me details, he says. He has been sworn to secrecy. Presumably the lady’s relations made these arrangements.’

‘And the children? What of the children?’

‘They are safe in the household of a very worthy gentleman in Surrey. John and Sarah MacKelcan will take good care of them and bring them up as their own. Your Highness can visit them whenever you wish. You can watch over them in the future. The only thing, of course, is that they will be known as MacKelcan, and it will be wise, of course, if they remain so.’

‘Everything seems to have been so efficiently taken care of,’ stammered George.

‘I doubt not this is due to that relative of the lady’s. This uncle must have had her good at heart to leave her this money.’