Queen in Waiting - Plaidy Jean. Страница 37

She was incredulous. He nurse her! He could not do it. He would be of no use whatever in a sick room. Yet he was determined to share her danger. What a fool... but a brave fool! If he could not show his valour on the battle fields of Flanders he would in his wife's sick room.

"George Augustus," she said weakly. "You must not stay here. It is folly."

He leaned over her, unnecessarily close. "Did you think I should desert you at such a time?"

"You have convinced me of your devotion. I am touched by it. But please ... please don't stay here."

"Rest assured that I shall never leave you."

"For my sake go, George Augustus. I am so anxious for you."

He leaned over the bed and kissed her.

For her sake. No, for his own, she thought in weary exasperation. He wanted the whole court to be talking about the brave devotion of its little Prince.

Through her illness—and she was very ill—she was aware of him. She heard his voice through her delirium; she heard the sound of breaking china; she was aware of the shape of him close to the bed, the touch of his hands.

Go away, George Augustus, she thought.

She heard his voice. "She is in the critical stage, I know. Tell me ... tell me the worst. It will break my heart but I can bear it."

She was too ill to care whether he went or stayed. And throughout Hanover they were saying: "The Electoral Princess is dying."

There came a day when the crisis passed and she found herself still alive.

George Augustus was sitting by her bed, holding her hand.

You ... fool, she thought.

She heard his voice, high pitched with self-satisfaction. "You're better, Caroline. I've been with you the whole of the time. I never stirred from your bed except in the evening. Then I took a horse and rode for miles. I had to take some exercise, and I thought that would keep me well after staying the whole day at your bedside. I nursed you, Caroline. They are saying in the palace that no Princess ever had a more devoted husband."

"Thank you, George Augustus."

"That shows you, doesn't it? That shows you! "

Contrition for infidelity, she thought; although all the time he was with his mistress he was telling himself it was his right.

She murmured faintly: "You are very good, George Augustus."

"Oh yes, they told me I was running a terrible risk. They told me I should catch the pox. You've been very ill, Caroline. We didn't think you'd live. And I was there all the time ... even at the most contagious time. They begged me not to stay but I wouldn't go. I said: Caroline is my wife. No one can nurse her as I can."

Nurse her? How had he nursed her? She pictured him, fussing round the bed, getting in the way of doctors and nurses, talking too much not about her needs, but his own courage.

Oh go away, go away, she thought wearily. Leave me in peace.

But she said: "Thank you."

And his voice went on telling her a little of how ill she had been and a great deal about how brave he had been.

Caroline sent for a mirror. It was brought with some reluctance. This was the moment which all sufferers from the smallpox had to face. It could be terrifying.

Caroline held it up and caught her breath. There was change, and although she was not disfigured, the pox had not left her unscathed. When did it ever do that? But she was not badly marked although her delicately coloured complexion had gone.

She sighed. It was sad for a woman, who needed all her weapons to fight for and hold her place in the world, to find one of her valued assets though not entirely lost, blunted.

It was inevitable, said everyone, that George Augustus should have caught the smallpox after his attendance in his wife's sick room. Very soon the news was brought to Caroline that he could not visit her because he was sick.

She was relieved because she could not visit him, but as she lay thinking of him she felt a new tenderness for him. She knew him well enough to understand his need always to call attention to himself; she knew that his devotion to her—in fact every action in his life—was directed by this motive; and yet he had braved this dreaded disease; he had shown his devotion to her.

Lying there, thinking of George Augustus, she came to new terms with her life. She would try to understand him, to help him conquer that feeling of inferiority which being smaller than most men had given him and which manifested itself in arrogance and apparent conceit.

Their destiny lay together. There should be no discord between them.

She must remember that in future. She must curb her impatience; she must try to give him the confidence he needed and perhaps she could do this by letting him know she valued him.

She would try to make him understand this when ... if he recovered.

If he recovered? She shivered at the possibility of his not doing so. And it was not only because of the uncertainty his death would place on her, for after all she was now the mother of little Fritzchen who was one of the heirs to Hanover and

possibly the crown of England. No. It was not that. Could it be that she really had some affection for tlie little man?

The Prince's attack was a slight one and he soon came to Caroline's apartment in good spirits.

The need to go to war was temporarily forgotten; he had won his laurels for bravery in the sick room.

Caroline was still very weak having suffered a more severe attack and George Augustus was delighted to prove his great resistance to the disease, having taken it after and recovered sooner than his wife.

The Electress Sophia came to see them as soon as there was no danger in doing so.

She embraced them both and was delighted she said to see them well again.

"It has been a very anxious time," she told them. "The whole Court was plunged in melancholy, so fearful were they. The English were very disturbed. They think very highly of you both."

She looked at them proudly as though it were more commendable to please the English than to recover from an attack of the smallpox.

She was thinking that poor Caroline looked very wan. She will never again have that bright young beauty, that freshness, she thought. Although she has come through better than I expected; but the change is there.

As though reading her thoughts Caroline said: "You are thinking I have changed."

"Very little," answered the Electress. "And you have to get really well yet. You have had a very bad attack, remember."

"And do you think / have changed?" demanded George Augustus.

"You don't look as if you've had the pox at all," replied his grandmother. "The people might wonder whether some fleas had bitten your face."

George Augustus was examining his face at a mirror.

People would look at him and say: Have some fleas bitten his face? And the answer would be: No, he caught the small-

pox, you know. He could have avoided it, but he would nurse his wife. He saved her life. Brave. I should say so! How many men or women would risk their lives like that!

His grandmother and wife watched him, understanding his thoughts.

They smiled.

Sophia said: "I am pleased to see you two so happy together."

George Augustus came and taking his wife's hand kissed it.

"I'd do the same again," he said.

It was a happy convalescence.

George Augustus was more contented than he had ever been.

He had a son; he had nursed his wife through the smallpox, had caught it himself, had recovered, and was training to go into the army.

He was a very loving husband.