‘So you share the opinion of the Duke and Duchess of Hanover?’

‘I am convinced, Your Highness, that this proposed marriage would be the greatest advantage that has ever come to Celle.’

They both watched George William covertly; his eyes were moving towards the communicating door.

‘It is for Your Highness to decide… . Your Highness alone,’ insisted Bernstorff.

‘That,’ said Sophia, ‘is why I know we shall succeed.’

‘Yes,’ said George William, turning to face them so that he could no longer see that door. ‘It is for me alone. And I have made up my mind.’

‘Yes?’

‘There shall be this match with Hanover.’

Sophia drew a deep breath; a faint colour had started to show beneath her pale skin, and her eyes were brilliant.

‘The Duke has spoken,’ said Bernstorff.

‘And we know that he is a man who will keep his word,’ added Sophia. ‘Oh, this is a happy day for me, and for Ernest Augustus.’

George William was frowning a little. ‘The young people …’ he began.

‘Oh, the young people! They will learn to fall in love. After all, it is what we all have to do. They will thank us for arranging such a marriage in the years to come.’

‘Yes, it will go well … in time,’ said George William.

Was he already regretting? wondered Sophia. But he had given his word. Bernstorff was a witness to it. He could not in honour retract now.

‘Now,’ said Sophia, ‘I could rest happily for a while. It is early yet.’

‘An apartment is ready for you,’ said George William. You must refresh yourself and rest a while. Allow me to conduct you there.’

Sophia put her hand in his.

‘Come,’ he said; and without a glance at the door behind which Eléonore must be waiting with the utmost trepidation, he led the Duchess Sophia from his dressing room.

Having seen the Duchess Sophia to her apartment where she would rest a while before joining George William for breakfast, the latter returned to his apartment where he found Eléonore, now dressed, waiting for him.

‘What has happened?’ she cried. ‘What has the Duchess Sophia been saying to you?’

George William’s elation faded because it gave him pain to hurt his wife, but he had thoroughly convinced himself now that he had been subservient to her wishes too long, and much as he loved her was determined to have his way.

‘She came with a proposition,’ he told her, ‘to which I have agreed. Sophia Dorothea is to marry George Lewis.’

Eléonore stared at him in shocked disbelief.

‘Yes,’ he went on, ‘it’s true. I have always been in favour of such a match and what could be better than an alliance with Hanover?’

‘George Lewis!’ whispered Eléonore as though she were dreaming. ‘That … monster!’

‘Oh come, my dearest. He is but a young man.’

‘Yet we have all heard of his profligacy and his stable manners.’

‘Exaggeration! What would you expect of Ernest Augustus’s son?’

‘Some culture!’ she said. ‘Some courtesy!’

‘It is there all right. He is at the time enjoying a young man’s freedom. He likes women. He’ll grow out of it.’

‘I can’t believe you have promised our child to him. Tell me it is not true.’

‘It is true.’

‘But without consulting me!’

‘My darling, you are wise as I have learned, but where our daughter is concerned you are a little besotted. You treat her still as though she is a baby. She will look after herself.’

‘She will need to if ever she goes to that … that …’

‘Pray calm yourself.’ She had never heard him speak to her sternly and with something like cool dislike. What had happened on this September morning, she asked herself, to ruin everything that was dearest to her?

She thought: I must be dreaming. This could never happen to me … to us.

‘Calm!’ she cried. ‘I am calm. It is you I think who are verging on madness.’

‘My dear Eléonore, prepare to make the Duchess Sophia welcome. Shortly she will be rested enough to take breakfast with us. Then she will be ready, I am sure, to talk to you of this match.’

‘What use of talking if it is already made.’

‘I thought you would wish to hear what advantages would come to our daughter when she is the wife of George Lewis.’

‘I see nothing but tragedy.’

‘You are talking like a fool.’

‘You are the fool … the heartless fool. How can we face our daughter?’

‘She will have to learn to accept what her parents have chosen for her as many of us have had to do before her.’

‘Not both parents!’ she said. ‘Only one of them. And I believe that parent was determined to marry where he wished.’ She looked at him appealingly. Had he forgotten the passionate courtship, the years of love? How could he do this to the fruit of that love – the daughter whom he loved, if less passionately, less exclusively than she did? Exclusively! When she looked at him she felt that she could hate him if what he had promised should really come to pass. Their beautiful cultured daughter in those crude coarse hands!

George William would not be tempted. He was afraid. He must stand firm, he told himself, particularly now. If he did not he would be a laughing-stock throughout Hanover. He had given his word. He had to keep it – yet, witnessing the distress he had caused his wife how ready he was to waver! Knowing his own weakness he could only fight it with anger.

He said: ‘You have ruled too long in Celle, my dear. It is my turn to show you who is in command here.’

‘George William … I can’t believe this is you… .’

‘I have long been aware that you believed you could lead me by the nose.’

‘What is happening to you … to us?’ she asked, and the tears in her voice so unnerved him that he turned sharply away from her and stared from the window.

Why had he done this? He had been led into it by the eloquence of the Duchess Sophia, by her condescension in riding through the night; he knew of the advantages of a match with Hanover; every point Sophia had brought forward was true … but if it caused his wife such distress he wished wholeheartedly that he had never agreed to it.

But he must show everyone that he was not led by his wife, that he had a will of his own, that when he wished to show that he was master everyone – even Eléonore – must accept this.

He said coldly: ‘You should go to your daughter. You should tell her of my arrangements for her future. She will have to be prepared to meet her uncle and cousin immediately.’

There was a stricken silence. He believed that she was weeping for their daughter. He said her name so quietly that it was strangled in his throat. Then he turned but she was no longer there.

Sophia Dorothea, awake early on her birthday morning, lay in bed listening to the sounds of the castle. They were different from usual which indicated that this morning was different from others. The great day of the year; the birthday of the spoiled and petted Princess of Celle. That was what Eléonore von Knesebeck had called her. ‘It’s true,’ said the Knesebeck. ‘There was never a princess so doted on in all history.’

‘Well,’ Sophia Dorothea had retorted, ‘am I not worthy of such adulation?’

She would dance before her mirror, bowing and curtseying, admiring. She was very pretty – more than pretty, beautiful; she was told so, not only in words. She had seen the looks in the eyes of Augustus William who was soon to be her husband.

She was going to enjoy all the ceremonies of the wedding. Augustus William would be her willing slave and her mother had assured her that she would not be separated from her. The spoilt and petted Princess of Celle would be the same of Wolfenbüttel. Dearest Uncle Anton Ulrich declared he envied his son; he would be ready enough to do the spoiling.

‘And we shall not be far from Celle,’ she had told Eléonore von Knesebeck. ‘We shall visit frequently.’ She had smiled, thinking of the celebrations there would be on such visits. ‘And you will be with me.’

Such a marriage would not be an ordeal – just a change; and as a married woman she would have a freedom which even in her beloved Celle she lacked.

And here was the sixteenth birthday; she smiled at the four cupids and remembered other birthdays. The ritual had always been the same. Her parents came in with her gifts and they sat on the bed and opened them together, and the church bells rang out and the whole town of Celle rejoiced; and when later she rode in the carriage with her parents through those decorated streets, everyone would cheer their Princess; and the townsfolk would dance for her and sing for her and show her their devotion in a hundred ways.

The door opened; she sat up in bed.

‘Maman …’

Her mother’s arms were empty; she looked as Sophia Dorothea had never seen her look before – as though she were ill, as though she walked in her sleep. It could mean only one thing: Some terrible tragedy had come to Celle and as thoughts rushed into her mind she was certain that her father was dead, for only the greatest calamity in the world could make her mother look like that.

‘My darling!’

She was in her mother’s arms. Eléonore was holding her as though all the Furies were after her. She kissed her again and again, suffocating her with the intensity of her emotion.

‘Maman … Maman … is it my father?’

Eléonore’s body was shaking with her sobs. She nodded.

‘He is dead… . We have lost him?’

‘No … no… .’

‘Then it is not so bad.’

Eléonore released her and taking her by the shoulders looked into her face; then she said: ‘My dearest, your father has agreed that you shall be married … to … your cousin George Lewis of Hanover.’