Виктория Холт - The Third George

Fanny was uneasy. It was no part of her ambition to become a royal servant. But having become acquainted with the King and Queen in such an intimate and friendly manner through Mrs.

Delany, it was very difficult to refuse. So she accepted and in a short time was installed in Charlotte's household.

Madame Schwellenburg quickly resented the newcomer who was clearly specially favoured by the Queen. Schwellenburg would grumble to herself about people who were sent in and who had no idea how to wait on a Queen. Fanny disliked the old woman and told herself that if she was sent away she did not greatly care, except that she was growing fond of the Queen and every day felt a great desire to serve her.

Charlotte sensed this and liked to have Fanny near her; she was considerate and made a point of not giving her any tasks that she might not be able to perform until she had watched others do them; and she made a point of dismissing Fanny when her hair was powdered in case Fanny's dress should be spoilt.

Fanny would stand waiting for her duties to be pointed out to her while the Queen read the papers.

This was usually during the crimping and craping of her hair. Being aware of Fanny and her literary tastes the Queen would read out a paragraph or two for her benefit. This Fanny found endearing; and although she had to admit that the Queen was not beautiful and did lack a certain grace and was inclined to be imperious in her own household and was mean almost to stinginess, she was kind and Fanny was soon adoring her.

She began to settle in happily apart from skirmishes with Schwellenburg who found fault with everything she did and, in fact, seemed to care for nothing but her position in the Queen's household and two horrible little frogs which she kept as pets. She was an inveterate card player and insisted on Fanny's playing with her, for she implied that one of the newcomer's duties was to amuse her. She despised novel-writing and told Fanny so in her unique English which always made Fanny laugh.

"You lauf Miss Berners," she said. "Very well. I will not to you talk. But I talk to selfs.”

Fanny enjoyed visiting Mrs. Delany and telling her of life at Court. It was the Princess Amelia's fourth birthday and Mrs. Delany had told Fanny that she was going to take advantage of the old custom of paying her respects and asked Fanny to accompany her.

As it was her birthday the little Princess was to parade on the castle terrace and there receive the homage of those who had called to give it. She looked very charming in a robe-coat which was covered with the finest muslin; she wore white gloves and carried a fan; on her golden head was a tightly fitting cap; she looked charmingly and incongruously grown up and was clearly delighted with herself. The King could not take his eyes from her. They were filled with tears as he watched the delightful creature parade between the spectators turning her head to smile and acknowledge the acclaim.

The Queen and the Princess were present, and when the little girl reached Mrs. Delany she stopped to smile at her and speak with her.

"You haven't brought your niece," she said. "I wish you had.”

Then she saw Fanny and looked up at her.

Fanny stooped to the child and said: "Your Royal Highness doesn't remember me.”

The Princess laughed and put out her lips, indicating that she wished to kiss Fanny. Receiving the kiss Fanny blushed, wondering whether this was a seemly thing to do in public. The Princess had seen her fan and took it. She examined it with interest. Then she gave it back to Fanny.

"Oh," she said, 'a brown fan!”

The King who had come up to see why his daughter was delaying told her to curtsey to Mrs.

Delany, which the child did with the utmost charm. George, watching her, told himself that this beloved child made up for everything. He could never be entirely unhappy while he had her.

Life changed abruptly at Windsor. It was April when Mrs. Delany became ill. She was eighty- eight years old and the outcome could not be unexpected.

Her death threw the King into a mood of melancholy which was not improved by the news that the Prince of Wales was heavily in debt and that he was losing thousands of pounds at the gaming tables; there was a great deal of talk about his marriage to Maria Fitzherbert and Fox had denied in the House of Commons that the marriage had taken place.

Another factor which disturbed him was that, some time befor,e when he was at St. James's, a woman had stepped out of the crowd and tried to stab him. She was proved to be a certain Margaret Nicholson who was mad; but George could not forget the incident; and soon after the death of Mrs. Delany he began to suffer from bilious attacks and the rash, which he had had once before on his chest, broke out again.

Charlotte noticed that his speech was becoming more and more rapid and was punctuated more liberally with ehs and whats, and now he did not wait for the answers. He was taking the most violent exercise, and when the Queen timidly suggested that perhaps he was driving himself too hard he cried out in some excitement: "Can't get fat. Abhor obesity. It's a family characteristic. It has to be avoided. Can't avoid it by overeating and taking no exercise, eh ?”

In June, Sir George Baker, his physician, suggested the King go for a month to Cheltenham.

"Your Majesty could take the waters which would be beneficial to your state. And another point, if you were absent from London, long audiences and other tedious ceremonies could be avoided.”

The King was loath to go. A sense of duty kept him in London until July and then as it was clear that his health was not improving he agreed to go to Cheltenham if the Queen and the Princesses went with him.

He stayed for a month and then, when it became clear that neither the waters nor the rest from state duties was improving his health, he decided to return. He shook his head sadly and said: "I have, all at once, become an old man.”

He felt a little better to be back at Kew. He was always happier there than anywhere else. He liked to walk in the gardens and look at the children's house and call in on them and play a few games with his darling Amelia.

In spite of his ill-health he insisted on taking exercise and his servants were greatly shocked when one day out walking he was caught in a heavy shower of rain and did not return immediately but went on walking. When he came back and took off his boots, the water poured out of them.

"Fresh air! Rain! Never hurt anyone, eh?" was his comment.

A few days later he was caught in the wet again and as he was due to go to St. James's to attend a levee he did not bother to change his boots and stockings. When he came back to Kew it was obvious that he had caught a chill. The Queen scolded him and told him she would herself prepare a cordial and when he had drunk it he should retire to bed immediately.

He wanted no cordial, he replied. He didn't believe in cordials. Vegetables, fruit, cold water. They were the best healers. He ate a pear and drank a glass of cold water. It was one o'clock in the morning when he was seized with cramp in the stomach. So agonizing was the pain that he awakened the Queen.

She was terrified, for she thought he was dying, and leaping out of bed ran into the corridor in her night shift to the acute embarrassment of the pages. But they immediately realized the urgency and, as the doctors were not at Kew, they called in a nearby apothecary. The King was having a fit, said the apothecary; and tried to administer a cordial.

The King had regained a little of his senses and refused the cordial, but the Queen begged the apothecary to administer it in some way in spite of the King's protests, and with the help of the pages the liquid was forced down George's throat.

In a short time the fit subsided and he lay quietly in his bed. There was no doubt now that the King was seriously ill and the malady had taken an alarming turn, for the King talked incessantly and at great speed, and at times it was not very clear what he meant; his mind seemed to dart from one subject to another and before saying what he wished to about one he would be on to the next.

A few days after the fit in the night, he went to church with the Queen and the Princesses and while the sermon was being delivered he suddenly rose in his seat and started to embrace the Queen and the Princesses.

"You know what it is to be nervous," he cried.

The Queen was terrified; in fact she was growing more and more alarmed every day. She did her best to calm him.

"Please, George we are in church ... church, do you understand?”

The helpless manner in which he looked about him made her want to weep; but he allowed her to take his hand and force him back into his seat. Thank God, she thought, that the wall of the pew was high enough to prevent their being seen by the rest of the congregation. They went quietly back to the Palace and she persuaded him to rest in his room. This could not go on. The doctors must decide what ailed the King, but deep in the Queen's heart was a fear which had been with her ever since his derangement all those years ago.

"He recovered from that," she told herself. "He will recover from this.”

A few days later the King went to a concert and when he returned he grasped the Queen's arm and said to her, "The music seemed to affect my head. I could scarcely hear it.”

"It is because you are not well. When you are well you will enjoy music as much as you ever did.”

He looked at her in a wild, almost unrecognizing manner.