‘To arouse pity, I daresay,’ said the Princess severely. ‘I was going to give you a guinea if you had told me the truth at first. But you lied and although you have told a plausible tale now which I accept as truth, you only told it because I offered you a shilling. You shall have two shillings because I believe at last you told me the truth.’

The woman accepted the two shillings with many thanks, but her lips were trembling and Charlotte knew she was thinking of the lost guinea.

She drove on and after a while she stopped.

‘Poor woman,’ she said. ‘I suppose when one must beg for a living it is easy to lie.’

She waited until the woman came up.

‘Here,’ she said, ‘Here is your guinea. But remember that you will prosper more by telling the truth than lies.’

She did not wait to hear the woman’s thanks but whipped up the greys.

‘I do not think it proper for Your Highness to bandy words with these people,’ admonished Lady de Clifford.

‘Bandy words! I was advising her always to tell the truth. Is that not a good thing? My lord Bish-Up tells me it is.’

‘I do not think it wise to hold these conversations with beggars.’

‘Jesus did. So why not the Princess Charlotte?’

‘You blaspheme.’

‘I don’t see it. My lady, I don’t indeed. According to you, it is at some times good to follow Jesus … at others not. No, I think that was just how He would have behaved to that poor woman.’

Lady de Clifford put her hands over her ears. Sometimes she wondered with great trepidation what the Princess would do and say next.

What she did on this occasion was to whip up the greys and they galloped along at great speed while Lady de Clifford clutched the side of the carriage in terror and exclaimed in dismay as they turned into a field.

‘Where are you going? This is Sir Thomas Troubridge’s field.’

‘I don’t deny it.’

‘I pray you, turn back.’

‘Too late, my lady, too late. Hold tight. That was a good one!’

The carriage went bouncing over the ruts.

‘Heaven save us,’ cried Lady de Clifford.

‘Nothing like exercise, my lady,’ Charlotte told her. ‘Nothing like exercise!’

The shells on Bognor beach were numerous and of the most exquisite colours; the seaweed was of a kind Charlotte had never seen before; it had extraordinary, hard black berries. She decided to add to the excitement of her rambles by collecting them and when she took them back to Mr Wilson’s mansion she made them into necklaces and painted some of them.

Mrs Gagarin and Louisa declared they were lovely and that she was a true artist.

She made necklaces for both of them and one for herself, and promised that she would make one for Lady de Clifford. One day when searching for seaweed along the beach she found in one of the banks a layer of what looked like gold in its raw state. It had formed itself into strange patterns and while she was examining it three young ladies came along with their governess and excitedly she called to them to come and see what she had found. They all thought it was a great discovery and she told the girls and their governess that she was going to send two labourers along to get the metal out of the rock so that she might have it tested to see if it were gold.

‘I will let you know the result,’ she told them.

Meanwhile some of her attendants had come up and she excitedly explained to them.

She turned to the girls. ‘You must come and see me tomorrow and I will tell you then the result of this discovery.’ She nodded at the governess. ‘Pray bring them at three of the afternoon. We might play some games together. Do you like games?’

The girls said they did and listened attentively while she told them of the games she had played in Tilney Street with George Keppel, George Fitzclarence and Minney Seymour.

‘So … tomorrow,’ she cried as she went off.

Her attendants looked on with disapproval but she snapped her fingers at them and returning to the town she insisted on going to the house of a labourer whose wife she had talked with. The woman was heavily pregnant and Charlotte had been very interested in her condition, so she visited her often. The result of this visit was that the woman’s husband should find a fellow worker and they would go down to the shore to see what it was the Princess had discovered.

Charlotte, pleased with the afternoon’s work, returned to the house.

When Lady de Clifford heard what she had done she clicked and clucked and said it would not do.

‘You forget your dignity.’

‘Not entirely,’ argued Charlotte. ‘Now and then perhaps I throw it aside but I make sure it is never out of reach so that I can bring it back at a moment’s notice if the need should arise.’

‘I do not know what Her Majesty the Queen would say if she were to hear of this.’

‘Nor shall you ever, my lady, for she will never know, because neither of us would dare tell her.’ Charlotte laughed aloud at her own cleverness and Lady de Clifford thought anxiously: Is she growing more like her mother every day?

‘I gather that you have asked these girls to visit you. Who are they? You do not know. How can we be sure whom you are inviting into the house?’

‘Their governess is very stern. I am sure you would not object to her.’

‘I must point out that you condescended too much to them by all accounts. You were too familiar. You must never forget your station. I hope that when they come you will be careful.’

‘I promise you, dear Cliffy,’ said Charlotte demurely.

The metal she had discovered turned out not to be precious gold, but the pieces the labourers had hewn out of the rock were very pretty and she would keep them as ornaments. She wished the labourers to be brought to her so that she could give them two guineas for their work.

This was not the manner in which royal persons conducted themselves, Lady de Clifford pointed out. A royal person gave orders that money was to be paid to workmen. She did not summon them and go through the sordid business of handing them their pay.

‘Very well,’ conceded Charlotte. ‘Let the money be paid to them and tell them how pleased I am with my ornaments.’

She was at the pianoforte when the young ladies were brought to her. Lady de Clifford had arranged to be present, to make sure, thought Charlotte, laughing inwardly, that I do not become too familiar. Very well, my lady! You shall see.

She continued to play.

‘Your Highness,’ said Lady de Clifford, ‘the young ladies are here.’

Charlotte went on playing and neither Lady de Clifford nor the young ladies knew what to do. They could only stand bewildered by the antics of royalty. Then turning, Charlotte inclined her head haughtily at the girls and went on playing.

‘Your Highness!’ whispered Lady de Clifford.

Charlotte spun round on the stool and burst out laughing.

‘My dear friends,’ she said to the girls, ‘I hope I have given you enough royal dignity. It is necessary I am told for me to use it now and then. But I’m heartily sick of it and so must you be, so now that it’s done, I will be myself and we’ll play one of the games I used to play with a very dear friend. It tests your wits.’

The young ladies looked alarmed at first at the prospect of having their wits tested by a princess, but very soon she had put them at their ease and Lady de Clifford looked on with some admiration and a great deal of dismay while the Princess took charge of the situation.

When the wife of the labourer who had worked for her was brought to bed Charlotte insisted that clothes for the baby should be taken to her cottage with bed linen and anything that she might like and need in the circumstances.

The woman was overcome with gratitude and when Charlotte called to see the newborn child she thanked her and said she had always known that Her Royal Highness was the most generous of ladies and had never believed for one moment she was not.

‘Why should you have been expected to doubt it?’ demanded Charlotte.

‘Because my husband and his friend received no payment for the work they did for Your Highness. But this, Madam, is payment enough. Your goodness came to us at a time when we most needed it.’

‘No payment!’ cried Charlotte, a little colour coming into her pale cheeks. ‘Why, I paid them two guineas for the work they did.’

‘Two guineas, Your Highness? Why, they never set eyes on it.’

Charlotte was in a rage. She went straight back to the house and demanded an inquiry, and it was not long before she discovered the page who had pocketed the two guineas.

‘You wicked dishonest boy!’ she cried. ‘You are no longer my servant. You … you shall be beaten. Take him away. I n … never want to see him again. And send two guineas to those men at once.’

Her fury was intense; but in a short while it had subsided and she began to wonder what had made the page do it. He was young but it was a wicked thing to do. She would not have him beaten, however; he should simply be dismissed.

But the affair made her very unhappy.

‘In future,’ she declared to Mrs Udney, ‘I shall see that these debts are paid myself. Even if it does mean a little familiarity with those my lady does not think fit to mix with me.’

Mrs Udney told Lady de Clifford what she had said and Lady de Clifford sighed and remarked that Charlotte was a wild creature and it was no use anyone’s thinking they could instil discipline into such a girl.

‘But her heart is good,’ said Lady de Clifford, ‘that is one thing which keeps me from despair.’

‘My word,’ said Mrs Udney. ‘Wait till the time comes to get her mated. Then the sparks will fly.’