Виктория Холт - The Captive of Kensington Palace

She might have been the Queen of England, for his ageing Majesty had been very partial. So much so that the Duchess had been apprehensive. It was a great compliment to darling Feodora, of course, but such a match would spoil Victoria’s chances if it were fruitful. The Duchess would be the mother of the Queen Consort which was very different from being the mother of the reigning Queen. She was certain that Victoria would be Queen of England and that was what she wanted more than anything in the world.

So she had whisked Feodora from the King’s circle, with the willing assistance of Lady Conyngham who had no desire to see her ageing lover divert his attention from her to a young and beautiful wife, and poor George, weighed down with his physical afflictions, so that he was often more dead than alive, had ceased to think of her; and her mother – aided by Sir John – had arranged that the dear girl should pay a visit to her Grandmamma, Augusta, Duchess of Saxe-Coburg, who had with Teutonic efficiency set about finding a suitable husband for her.

Grandmamma’s choice had fallen on Prince Ernest of Hohenlohe-Langenburg who had just succeeded his father to the sovereignty of his little Principality. He was a sober-living man, a phenomenon in these days, and turned thirty which was not a bad thing; and in fact the Duchess of Kent agreed with her mother that this was an ideal match; and the sooner it was completed the better.

It was for this reason that Prince Ernest was on his way to England to stay first as the guest of the Clarences until the marriage could be arranged, and then enjoy a brief honeymoon at the Duchess’s brother Leopold’s house, Claremont, before he took Feodora to her new home.

The Duchess leaned forward and lightly laid a hand on Sir John’s arm.

This little matter had been so satisfactorily concluded.

In another part of the palace the Princess Sophia sat over her fire making a net purse. She could not see very well for her eyesight was failing. How terrible if she were to be unable to work at her embroidery and net her purses and do her knotting! What else was there to do nowadays?

What else, she asked herself, had there ever been to do?

She was not bitter; she had accepted her fate years ago when they had known that Papa would not allow them to marry if he could help it and Mamma was a tyrant and jailer at the same time. Once one of them had said: ‘I’d rather be a watercress seller down by the river or go round the streets crying sweet lavender than be a Princess of England.’ But Sophia had reminded them that if they had depended on watercress and lavender for their bread and butter they might soon have been wishing they were back in their completely boring, utterly monotonous captivity.

And now they had all escaped. Death had brought about their release. The death of Mamma, Queen Charlotte, that was, for Papa living his crazy life behind the grim walls of Windsor had ceased to be of any significance to them when he had been put away because of his madness.

George had become King … dearest of brothers, adored by all his sisters without exception; and he had given them freedom – but it had come too late.

Click-click went the steel needles – a comforting and familiar sound.

‘I wonder if dear Sir John will call on me today,’ murmured Sophia. She touched her wispy hair and sighed. Too late, she thought … everything is too late.

She closed her eyes to rest them a while. Here she lived in these rather secluded apartments in Kensington Palace and her near neighbours were Edward’s wife, the Duchess of Kent, with her dear little daughter Victoria and that pretty girl Feodora for whom they were now arranging a match. And close by in the Palace too was brother Augustus, the Duke of Sussex, with the hundreds of clocks which he tended as though they were children, his rare books and bibles and his pretty flower garden which was a source of great delight. And with him – alas for decorum – was that very merry plump little widow Cecilia Buggin. What a dreadful name – although she had not been born with it and had acquired it through marriage with a certain Sir George of Norfolk and was in fact a daughter of the Earl of Arran. Augustus was devoted to the lady and she to him, but of course he could not marry her since he considered himself married already, although the State did not recognise the marriage.

‘Oh dear,’ sighed Sophia. ‘What a mess our lives are in and all on account of our not being able to live naturally like other people. Papa’s Marriage Act has been responsible for so much discord in the family.’

But for that she supposed dearest George might be married to Maria Fitzherbert and how much happier he would have been if that union could have been recognised! It was sad now to see that dearest of brothers reduced to his present state and with that harpy Lady Conyngham perpetually at his side.

Sad indeed! A long way they had come from that time when George had been Prince of Wales, then Regent and so concerned with Mr Brummel about the cut of his coats. And how exquisite he had looked and how proud they had been of him! No woman could have loved him more than his sisters did. If George had been in power earlier how different their lives would have been! He would not have made prisoners of them; he would have helped them to marry, not prevented them from doing so.

But the girls were settled now and only she and Augusta had remained unmarried. Charlotte the eldest had married long ago and become Queen of Württemberg; Elizabeth had married the Prince of Hesse-Homburg (and how the people had jeered at her and her husband – the ageing bride and the husband who had to be bribed to take a bath); Mary had married her cousin, the Duke of Gloucester (‘Silly Billy’ in the family, although he had become a tyrant since his marriage. Mary, though, preferred a domineering husband to a demanding parent); dear Amelia – so beloved of their father – had died at the age of twenty-seven, which sorrow, some said, had sent poor Papa completely mad; that left Augusta and herself, the old maids.

‘I could not exactly call myself that,’ she said aloud. ‘And I don’t care. At least I have something to look back on.’

She looked back frequently on the great adventure of her life, on that occasion when her affairs had been talked of in hushed whispers among her sisters and how they had planned and plotted to keep her secret from Mamma.

Colonel Garth, Papa’s equerry, was not exactly a handsome man. Far from it. But it had been wonderful to be loved; and she had been really happy for the first time. She should have been more careful. But how could she be? Adventure had come to Kew and while she sat with her sisters working on her embroidery, filling her mother’s snuff-box, making sure that the dogs were walked at the appropriate times, she had dreamed of Colonel Garth and romance; and she had slipped away whenever possible, to his apartments – or he came to hers. Life had become filled with intrigue.

And the inevitable consequence!

Augusta had anxiously enquired: ‘Sophia, are you ill?’

And Mary: ‘What is wrong?’

And Augusta: ‘You had better tell.’

And there in the prim drawing-room at Kew she had whispered her secret: ‘I am going to have a child.’

‘It’s impossible,’ Augusta had said. How could an unmarried daughter of the King be pregnant? How could it possibly happen? ‘In the usual way,’ she had said defiantly, not caring very much. ‘It will send Papa mad,’ Mary had said. Anything that was alarming was always reputed to be likely to send Papa mad. ‘Mamma will be furious.’

Knowing this was true she had merely looked helplessly at them while in her heart she did not greatly care for anything but the fact that she was going to have a child.