Jean Plaidy - The Regent’s Daughter

Minney, planning for her ball, believed now that they were all going to live happily ever after. The bogey had been removed, for wicked Aunt Waldegrave had been defeated by the all-powerful Prince.

Prinney had said her birthday should be celebrated at the Pavilion – that exciting Palace which never failed to enchant her. She was to make up her lists of young guests and she would receive them in the gallery among the dragons and pagodas and the lanterns. It was like a fantastic dream of fairyland. Mamma would dress her in her first ball gown of blue silk with a wide white sash; and then she would go through the secret passage – always a delight – from Mamma’s house on the Steyne to the Pavilion.

When her guests were assembled she would take them into the banqueting hall – the most elaborate of all the rooms. She had always been fascinated by the banqueting hall since she first remembered seeing it, when she had gazed up in amazement at the great palm tree painted on the ceiling and the fear-some dragon from whose claws appeared to swing the massive chandelier.

Minney loved Brighton especially in the summer when the streets were crowded with fashionable people strolling for the benefit of the sea air, or riding in their carriages. She liked to sit on Mamma’s balcony and look over the Steyne; and it was pleasant when they rode together in the carriage. There was always gaiety round the Pavilion. The Prince’s band played in the mornings in the gardens there and people came just to listen to it – perhaps hoping to get a glimpse of the Prince and Mamma, and herself too, because since the case she had become quite notorious.

It was a great treat – although a frequent one – to visit the Pavilion and to sit on the lawns and watch Prinney playing cricket which he liked to do; and when he scored she always applauded more loudly than for anyone else which made Mamma laugh. There were musical evenings which were held in the music room which was dominated by those fascinating gold and green dragons, for Prinney loved music, but of course Minney did not attend these. She supposed she would when she was a little older.

And now she was to have her first birthday ball and this was an indication that she was growing up.

In the gallery she received her guests – all the young people of Mamma’s circle whose parents had been very eager to get them invitations.

Minney had become an important little person since the Prince treated her as though she were his daughter.

Gravely she received her guests as she had seen Maria do and the party was a great success. George Keppel and George Fitzclarence were at her side all the time, both determined to look after her. Everyone, thought Minney, wants to look after me. I’m different from Charlotte, who always seems to be so capable of looking after herself.

Then she sighed and said: ‘I wish Charlotte could have been here.’

‘She’s at Windsor,’ said George Keppel. He shuddered. ‘I hate Windsor. London’s more fun.’

‘Poor Charlotte!’ sighed Minney. ‘I don’t suppose she likes it there at all.’

George Fitzclarence who was the eldest son of the Duke of Clarence – Charlotte’s Uncle William – and the actress Dorothy Jordan, said that Charlotte would have to stay there he believed for a long time, because it was hardly likely that they would let her see her mother.

Minney’s expression clouded. She had forgotten that although her troubles were over, those of others might persist.

‘Poor Charlotte,’ she repeated.

The two Georges laughed.

‘She wouldn’t like to hear you call her that.’

Minney joined in the laughter. ‘No. She would pinch my ear … hard.’

And thinking of Charlotte in a bellicose mood made it impossible to be sorry for her. So they gave themselves up to enjoying Minney’s party.

‘NOBODY EVER HAD a stranger set of relations than I,’ Charlotte told Louisa Lewis and Mrs Gagarin. ‘Really, they do the oddest things. Do you think they are all a little mad? Grandpapa is, I know. Pray don’t look so shocked, dear Louisa, because you know it to be so. Did he not have to live in retirement not so long ago? My father was then hoping for the Regency but the old Begum put a stop to that. Oh, you poor dears, I am in a mood to shock you today.’

The two women exchanged glances which Charlotte intercepted. ‘Pray don’t make secret signs,’ she cried imperiously. ‘I know you talk about them when I’m not there. Don’t deny it. I don’t blame you. Everybody talks and why should they not? Conversation is one of the most amusing pastimes I know. And who could help talking about such a family as ours? There is my father with his affairs; there is Uncle Augustus who once made such a fuss about marrying his Goosey and now has left her. There is Uncle William who lives with that actress Dorothy Jordan as though she is his wife and there are all those little Fitzclarences to prove it. George Fitz is rather fond of Minney Seymour. I do declare everyone is fond of Minney Seymour. She is such a good little girl … not like wicked Princess Charlotte.’

‘My dear Princess, you should not say such things. There are many who are fond of you.’

She turned to them and gave them each one of her rough embraces.

‘You two, of course,’ she said. ‘But you are rather f … foolish to think so highly of me. I’m not a very pleasant character sometimes, I fear. Although I am not bad at others. I have my moments. Oh dear, and I have to attend my grandmother’s Drawing Room. I think I shall go for a walk instead and then when it is time I shall not be found and Grandmamma will say what an ill-mannered creature I am – just like my mother, and she will think up some new and exquisite torture for me.’

‘You know Her Majesty would never dream of torturing you.’

‘But sometimes I think she would like to. She watches me with that big mouth of hers shut so tightly …’ Charlotte had transformed herself into the Queen; she seemed to grow small and malevolent.

‘Oh, do give over, dear Princess Charlotte, do,’ said Mrs Gagarin.

‘I shall go for a walk first and then I shall come back and be prepared in good time to present myself to the Begum and the Old Girls.’

She grinned with delight to see the shocked horror these names always aroused when she used them. Perhaps that was why she did. It was a sort of revenge.

She snatched up her cloak and ran out. She heard Louisa calling her but she paid no heed. She was not supposed to walk out unaccompanied. What nonsense! Anyone would think she was as fragile as Minney Seymour. ‘And I’m not …’ she said. ‘Nor as precious.’

She was saddened for a while. He was kinder now, so Mrs Fitzherbert had spoken to him. She sensed that he was trying to make an effort, but there was always a barrier between them. It was her mother, of course. And what was happening about her mother? What was the Delicate Investigation going to reveal?

She knew now more than they thought. They were trying to prove her mother immoral; they were trying to show that that frightful infant Willie Austin was her mother’s own baby and that her mother had performed an act of treason, for if Willie were indeed her mother’s child and her mother insisted that the Prince was his father …

Impossible, for then she, Princess Charlotte, would not long be an heiress to the throne. At least she would have to take a step backwards.

Willie Austin – that horrid, vulgar little brat! She had always hated him – in common with everyone else except her mother. Perhaps she had been a little jealous to see her mother petting him, kissing him, making the great fuss of him she always did.

Indeed she had a very strange family.

The castle loomed before her. Why did she hate living at Windsor when it was such a wonderful place? So much had happened here in the past – the home of her ancestors.

When I am queen, she thought, there shall be feasting here. It will be quite different then. I shall give balls and there will be fun and laughter. It will not be the grim old place Grandpapa and the Begum have made it.

The terraces had been built by Queen Elizabeth and the gallery was called Queen Elizabeth’s Gallery. My favourite part of the castle, thought Charlotte. I suppose because she made it.

It was not surprising that she thought so often of Elizabeth. There was so much here to remind her and at Hampton, Greenwich and Richmond. How thrilling to have been so often in fear of her life when she was young – and what triumph for her when at last she was proclaimed Queen of England. And those men who danced attendance on her and whom she would not accept as her lovers!

Charlotte laughed aloud. I will be like her, I think, if I am ever queen.

If! Why should she say that? She would be queen one day for her father and mother would never have a son – and no one could ever believe that that horrible child her mother doted on at Montague House could possibly have been sired by the Prince of Wales. So why should she say If? Because she had made a will recently? Because there was something eerie about the castle and the great forest? Because strange things happened to members of her family?

‘I shall be queen,’ she said aloud. And then looked about her almost defiantly. It was rather a wicked thing to have said because not only Grandpapa but her father would have to die first.

No one had heard. There was no one near. She looked towards the forest and thought of Herne the Hunter. He would not be abroad by day – if he ever was. She did not believe in such legends … not by day at any rate.