Walking beside her father, Charlotte was happy. Brighton was the most beautiful place on earth on a hot August day with the sea sparkling and glittering before her and the wonderful Pavilion behind her and the dear people cheering them all – especially her, she thought; and she peeped slyly at her father, wondering how he felt about this. Oh, yes, there were more shouts of ‘Long live the little Princess’ than there were of ‘God save the Prince of Wales’.

This was her day, in spite of the fact it was the Prince’s birthday. She beamed and waved at the people – forgetting all instructions to be decorous. Why should she be, when the people liked her as she was? The band was playing; the sun was shining and the people cheering. What a happy day!

Then she thought of her mother who was not here. How strange that was. Her father’s birthday and her mother not here! The three of them should have been together. Wasn’t it a family occasion? But of course the Princess of Wales never went anywhere that the Prince might be.

On such a day one should not dwell on these controversies so she gave herself up to pleasure.

The picnic was delightful. The footmen served champagne to all the guests, who took it in their carriages which were all lined up in order of precedence. Mrs Fitzherbert should have been in the carriage next to the one Charlotte occupied with the Prince and her uncles. But she was not; instead there was the very cold – though she admitted elegant – Lady Hertford, looking remarkably pleased with herself.

The champagne made Charlotte feel lightheaded. What a glorious day! She trusted she was not displeasing her father by her rather loud laughter. Fortunately Lady de Clifford was not close enough to hear.

She did see Mrs Fitzherbert on that day; she was in her carriage with Minney, not far from Mrs Jordan’s carriage in which the lovely actress sat with several of the Fitzclarence children.

Mrs Fitzherbert inclined her head graciously but the Princess leaped into the carriage and kissed her.

‘My dearest Mrs Fitzherbert, I feared you were not here.’

‘Oh, yes, I still attend functions like this.’

She was obviously a little sad and Charlotte wondered how anyone could be on a day like this.

‘I hope,’ she said, ‘that soon this silly notion will be forgotten and we shall be visiting you again.’

‘God bless you,’ said Mrs Fitzherbert tenderly.

‘When I am old enough to please myself no one shall tell me where I may and may not go.’

‘I am sure that will be so,’ said Mrs Fitzherbert with a warm smile, and she added: ‘Minney has missed your visits, haven’t you, Minney?’

‘Very much,’ replied Minney. ‘Mamma and I were saying so only this morning.’

Charlotte was pleased that they had talked of her.

‘One day it will be different,’ she said; and because she noticed that she was attracting attention, she said goodbye and left them.

And after the picnic there followed the review which she witnessed from her father’s carriage. How proud he was of his own regiment, the 10th Hussars, and he seemed to grow more and more magnificent in his own splendid Hussar’s uniform as he took the salute.

When it was over they went to the Pavilion. What a magic palace it was, what an Aladdin’s cave! Although it was her father’s home it was unfamiliar to her. It was true she had once had a children’s ball here. She had stood in this vestibule with its odd but splendid decorations and received her guests. They had gathered in the ornate banqueting hall where now the Prince would entertain the chosen guests; and in the music room she had listened to an occasional concert.

She wished that she might live with her father and mother in this house which he so loved and for which he was always planning alterations; it was beginning to look like an oriental palace and everywhere was his love of Chinese art evident.

In those little paragraphs in the newspapers which gave her so much pleasure – partly because she knew that her grandmother would have given orders that they were to be kept from her if she was aware that she saw them – she heard a great deal about the Pavilion. Mrs Udney was constantly chuckling over the papers and Charlotte’s curiosity, which her grandmother would, she was sure, have called prying, made a bond between them. She did not dislike Mrs Udney half as much as she had once; and Mrs Udney’s way of calling attention to these paragraphs with a little chuckle or giggle or a clicking of the tongue was the sign for Charlotte to demand – imperiously so that Mrs Udney could not refuse – to see the paragraph.

There were references to Mrs Fitzherbert which she did not always understand but she did guess that Mrs Fitzherbert was not as happy as she had once been. Perhaps dear little Minney was not climbing on his knee so often. But quite a lot of the references concerned the Pavilion and since Charlotte had read of it she longed to see her father’s new bathroom. She slipped away from the throng of people – not easy for a princess, but Charlotte was nothing if not resourceful – and made her way to her father’s apartments.

This was his bedroom. His bed was as she would have expected it to be – elegant in the extreme. It had been made for him in France and was unexpectedly simple, but she could recognize the graceful lines. She climbed the bedsteps, sat on it and bounced up and down laughing, sticking out her legs and looking at her long lacetrimmed drawers. They were not quite as clean round the lace edges as they had been when they set out from Worthing.

All the furniture was beautiful and everywhere was the Chinese influence. She looked round, admiring the ormolu clock and the candelabra. Dismounting the bedsteps she took a closer look and saw the clock was in the form of a cupid driving in a beautiful chariot, which was drawn by butterflies. It was lovely, and Cupid was represented in the candelabra also.

My father is very much attached to Cupid, she thought. But I suppose he would be.

But she had come to see the bathroom and there it was; its walls were of white marble and its bath of which she had read was sixteen feet long, ten feet wide and six feet deep. It was a miracle of a bath because it could be supplied with sea water.

What an exciting man my father is! thought Charlotte. If only …

Then she remembered that she had read somewhere that one of the reasons why her father disliked her mother was because he loved bathing and she did not.

It is a very sad thing, she thought, that a girl has to learn all the important things about her parents from the newspapers.

She dared not linger for fear she would be missed; so she rejoined the guests and hoped no one had noticed her absence.

And after that memorable day Worthing seemed less desirable than ever.

Charlotte had a piece of good luck. The Queen had noticed that she had not maintained the good health she was enjoying when she arrived at Worthing and decided that the place did not agree with her as well as Bognor. She had made inquiries about the danger of living near a hospital for those suffering from ophthalmia and had learned that the disease was only contagious when people were in immediate contact and for instance slept on the same pillow. There was no evidence of anyone in Bognor having caught the disease.

The Queen summoned Lady de Clifford and said that in the circumstances she believed that the Princess Charlotte might go back to Bognor for the rest of the summer while she herself and the Princesses, her daughters, would return to Windsor.

What joy! Bognor again and freedom! No more lectures from the Begum! No more boring sessions with the Old Girls! Instead long rambles on the seashore and conversation with Mr Richardson while she munched his buns.

‘Now,’ said Lady de Clifford, ‘you must get plenty of fresh air. There is nothing like fresh air, Your Highness.’

‘Nothing like fresh Bognor air, my lady,’ cried Charlotte hilariously.

Her health began to improve and there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Bognor was the spot best suited to the Princess.

The days were full of interest for her. She liked to mingle with people, to talk to them, to discover how they lived. For this, she told Lady de Clifford, is the duty of one who is to be their Sovereign.

Lady de Clifford was always nervous of such talk. It was in any case bad taste and she was not sure that it was not treason. But Charlotte always laughed at her. Her familiarity with the ordinary people was alarming but her father could behave in the same way and like her father she could at a moment’s notice become imperious.

On one occasion she was driving her four greys along a country road with Lady de Clifford beside her when she saw a woman, poorly dressed, with nine children trailing behind her.

Charlotte pulled up with a jerk which almost sent Lady de Clifford out of her seat.

‘What a large family!’ cried Charlotte. ‘Are they all your own?’

‘Yes, sweet lady, they are all my own and a terrible task I have to try to feed them!’

‘So many!’ cried Charlotte.

‘But all the children of my own wedded husband,’ the woman assured her.

Charlotte studied the children and said: ‘How did you manage to have so many of an age? Now, come, I want the truth. I always want to hear the truth and I cannot abide lies. I will give you a shilling if you tell me the truth.’

Charlotte felt in her purse which she always carried with her in case she met any deserving poor person whom she thought she should help.

The woman looked at the shilling. ‘I have lied to you, my-lady. Two of these children are mine. One by my husband and the other by another man. The rest of them are borrowed.’