The Prince and the Quakeress - Plaidy Jean - Страница 8

‘Vere is the Prince of Vales?’

And George must stand before him for scrutiny. ‘Don’t be a frightened young puppy. Prince of Vales now...How old are you, eh? Thirteen...Remember now you are the Prince of Vales.’

But there were tears in his eyes, for he was a sentimental old man for all his high temper; he saw that Augusta was genuinely grieved and tried to comfort her. The woman was a fool. Caroline had said so...his own dear wife, Caroline (and there was no woman fit to unbuckle her shoes) had said so. But fool as she was, she had been fond of Fred and any woman who could have been fond of that villain (mustn’t speak ill of the dead) of that...puppy, must be a meek woman. She’d need help in looking after the children and he’d see she got it. By God, she should do as she was ordered in that respect. But in the meantime she was a woman grieving for her husband and he knew what it meant to lose a spouse.

‘Do not cry, my dear,’ he said. ‘Try not to grieve. I know how you suffer. I lost my own vife. Your mother-in-law...the best voman in the vorld. Ven I lose her I lose heart...’

Augusta thought: Yes, you old hypocrite, and all the time you were mourning for her you were thinking of how you could bring Madame Walmoden to England, and all the time you were pretending to be so fond of her you were deceiving her with other women. As Fred was...but Fred was kinder...and Fred was dead.

The King patted her knee comfortingly, and beckoned to his grandsons.

‘Come here, young fellows. Be brave boys now. Obey your mother and remember you are the grandsons of a King.’

Augusta said quickly: ‘Your Majesty will, I know, out of your goodness of heart not take my children from me. I have lost my husband...to lose my children would be unendurable.’

She was on the verge of tears and the King’s eyes were swimming too. Augusta was alert in spite of her grief. Now was the time to get this important matter settled, she was well aware, while he was in a sentimental mood. Once he had gone away and remembered that Fred was a villain whom he had hated, that she had always been her husband’s ardent supporter, he would set some plan in motion to take her children from her. Now was the moment then, while he was in a sentimental mood and could not in all decency deny such a request to a grieving widow.

‘Your Majesty, who understands my loss as few others can, will grant me this. Your Majesty, you will leave me guardian of my children. It is the only thing which can console me now.’

The King nodded.

‘So it shall be,’ he said.

Augusta sighed with relief and was aware of triumph. Fred was dead, no longer there to overshadow her. Now was the time for the true Augusta to emerge.

• • •

Augusta sent for her eldest son. She was seated at her table and there were papers before her; when she saw George she rose and held out her arms.

He ran into them and she embraced him crying: ‘My poor fatherless boy.’

George wept with her and as he did so thought of his father lying dead in his coffin and the pain he must have suffered before his death. He wept bitterly for the loss of that kind man and the fact that his passing had made him Prince of Wales. There was a difference in being Prince of Wales and the son of the Prince of Wales. He had sensed it immediately. He was expecting a summons hourly to appear before his terrifying grandfather.

Augusta dried her tears. She had lost dear Fred, but there were compensations. There was power and there was Lord Bute.

‘Your dear kind Papa left a paper which he would have given to you on your eighteenth birthday had he lived. But now that he has...gone...he would wish you to have it at once, for, my son, you will have to grow up quickly. You will have to learn to be a King. You understand full well what your father’s death means to you...what changes it has brought ill your position.’

‘Yes, Mamma,’ said George mournfully.

‘Then we will read this paper together, shall we? We will see what instructions dear kind Papa has left you ‘

‘Yes, Mamma.’

She opened the papers and spread them on the table, and together they read:

‘Instructions for my son George drawn up by myself for his good, that of my family and for that of his people, according to the ideas of my grandfather and best friend, George I.’

Augusta looked at her son significantly. ‘You see, he did not trust his father, our present King, your grandfather. Ah, his grandfather was always a good friend to him. How different it would have been if he had been his father...’

‘It was a pity they had to quarrel,’ George said.

‘Anyone would quarrel with the King,’ replied Augusta fiercely. ‘We shall have to be very careful to avoid trouble now we no longer have your dear Papa to care for us.’

George read what his father had written:

‘As always I have had the tenderest paternal affection for you, and I cannot give you stronger proof of it than in leasing this paper in your mother’s hands, who will read it to you from time to time and will give it to you when you come of age or when you get the crown. I know you will always have the greatest respect for your mother...’

‘I hope it too,’ said Augusta. He took her hand and kissed it.

‘You know it, Mamma.’

‘Bless you, my son.’ She glanced down at the paper with him. ‘Your father was always a man of peace,’ she said. It was only when the need arose that he would take to arms. He was very different from his younger brother, the Butcher Cumberland.’

‘If you can be without war let not your ambition draw you into it. A good deal of the National Debt must be paid off before England enters into a war. At the same time never give up your honour nor that of the nation. A wise and brave Prince may oftentimes without armies put a stop to the confusion, which ambitious neighbours endeavour to create.’

Reading these instructions George began to have a deep sense of responsibility. Before he had always believed that there was plenty of time for him to learn. He had never before seriously thought of being King of England. It was something for the very distant future. His father had been a comparatively young man with at least twenty years to live, and twenty years in the opinion of a thirteen-year-old boy was a lifetime. And now here he was with an ageing grandfather, given to choleric rages, who could die at any moment—the only barrier between young George and the throne. It was an alarming prospect.

He must learn all he could as quickly as possible. He must study these papers. He read feverishly; he must balance the country’s finances; he must understand business; he must seek true friends who would not flatter him but tell him the truth. He must separate the thrones of Hanover and England and never attempt to sacrifice the latter for the former as both his grandfather and his great grandfather had done. Uppermost in his mind must be the desire to convince Englishmen that he was an Englishman himself, born in England, bred in England, and an Englishman not only through these matters but by inclination. Never let the people of England believe for a moment that he saw himself as a German whose loyalties were first for Germany.

Frederick finished his injunctions by recommending his mother to his care and also the rest of the family, his brothers and sisters.

‘I shall have no regret never to have worn the crown if you do but fill it worthily,’ he ended.

George lifted eyes swimming with tears to his mother’s face.

‘But, Mamma, it is almost as though he knew he were going to die.’

‘Sometimes these revelations come to us,’ she answered. ‘You see how he loved you, how he loved us all. You will want to do all that he wished, I know.’

‘Yes, Mamma,’ answered George fervently.

‘He would have wanted me to guide you, my son, for he had more faith in me than in anyone.’