Queen in Waiting - Plaidy Jean. Страница 60

"She can hardly dismiss the granddaughter of Grandpapa Prince Rupert ... even though there is a slight blot on the family escutcheon."

"You are a frivolous creature and you'll come to a bad end one day."

"Well I shall have lots of fun on the way there, you can be sure. Oh how I wish I were rich! How I wish I had a nice kind friend who would pay all my bills so that I need not be bothered to hide them."

"That's what we should all like," said Mary, coming out of her day dream. "When I think of all I owe, I shudder."

"Goot day to you, ladies!" The door had been opened and the Prince of Wales, accompanied by the Duke of Argyll, with his brother Lord Islay, and a few of his gentlemen came into the room.

The three girls immediately curtsied and the Prince smiled benignly on them all, but his eyes rested on Mary Bellenden.

"And very pretty you look," he commented.

"Your Royal Highness is gracious," answered Margaret Meadows.

"Always ready to be gracious to pretty young ladies."

His eyes were almost pleading but Mary refused to look at him.

He rocked on his heels and put his hands into his pockets. He brought out some coins which he jingled in his hands.

"Alvays ready to be gracious," he went on; and this time Mary could not avoid his eye. "Very ready," he added.

She bowed her head.

"Your Highness would wish us to acquaint the Princess of your presence?" she asked boldly.

"The Princess, yes. Ve are come to accompany her to the theatre. You like the theatre?"

"Very much. Your Highness."

"It is goot."

Little eyes, alight with desire, implied that, like John Camp-

bell, he thought Mary Bellenden the prettiest girl at Court; and it was fitting, surely, that the Prince should choose the prettiest to be his mistress.

"We must not detain Your Highnesses," said Mary.

And she hurried from the ante chamber to the Princess's apartment.

Caroline enjoyed riding through the streets to Drury Lane. Since the rebellion she had become so popular—more so, she believed, than her husband; and she was secretly pleased that this should be so.

When the Prince became the King she would be Queen and she had no intention of being a background figure, she meant to choose the ministers who would serve them; and she was determined that everyone should realize the importance of the Queen, for, she often wondered, when George Augustus betrayed some foolish vanity, what would become of royalty if she did not take the lead. George Augustus was a fool; he must be to grow angry when he remembered how short he was, and keep a mistress like Henrietta Howard for whom he had no great fancy, merely because he wanted it to be known that he had a mistress. George Augustus was a fool; but his wife was a wise woman.

Therefore it was a pleasure to know that she was becoming known to these people and that they liked what they heard.

She was not only wiser than the Prince but than the King also, for George I cared nothing for his unpopularity which showed he was a fool. He clearly betrayed his preference for Hanover—and that was almost as great an offence in the eyes of the English as his refusal to speak their language. The Prince, though not unpopular like the King, missed opportunities—and the scribblers saw through him and did not hesitate to make their vitriolic pen portraits of him.

Caroline learned that the English enjoyed treating their rulers with derision, and decided she would give them no opportunity to treat her so if she could help it.

"Long live the Princess! Long live the Prince! "

She gazed at him uneasily. Did he notice that the cheers for

the Princess were a little more prolonged than those for the Prince? She hoped not, or he would be angry with her. How well she was beginning to know this little husband of hers! That was all to the good. The more she understood, the easier it would be to handle him.

"They like us veil," he murmured; and he bowed graciously, his hand on his heart, to a young woman in the crowd.

*'It gives me pleasure," said Caroline, "to see how you they like more than your father."

"Ah, they hate that old devil. And I love them for it."

George Augustus laughed happily and those watching said that the Prince and Princess were on the best possible terms, and they gave an extra cheer for the Princess, reminding each other how good she had been during the winter, which had been a hard one.

There was a special cheer from the boatmen who earned their living by ferrying along the river. They had much to be grateful for to the Princess of Wales who had helped them when they were starving.

They would remember the season just passed as that terrible winter when the Thames had been frozen over, when it had been possible to drive a horse and cart from bank to bank and roast an ox on the ice.

That would in future be known as The Winter of the Great Freeze and the Great Hardship, when it had not been possible to ply a waterman's trade. The Princess had concerned herself with their sufferings, had raised money for them. So there was many a poor waterman who would give a cheer for the good Princess every time her carriage rolled by.

There were others who remembered how she had pleaded for leniency towards those poor devils who had been caught up in the '15 rebellion. Not that her pleading had had much effect on sour old George. He didn't seem to want his English crown but he was pitiless enough with those who had tried to deprive him of it. They had seen the executions of Lord Derwentwater and Lord Kenmure. They had heard how the Countess of Nithsdale had implored the King for leniency towards her husband and of George's brutal rejection of that distracted lady.

They were still talking of Lord Nithsdale's miraculous escape from the Tower which was romantic and exciting enough to win the sympathy of even the staunchest Hanoverian. Nithsdale had been in the Tower, doomed to die, and his wife was unable to move the King with her entreaties. She was not only a brave woman but a determined one; she had taken a companion with her to the Tower, and while she had worn two cloaks her companion had worn two gowns; and in the condemned prisoner's cell they had hastily dressed Lord Nithsdale in the extra gown and cloak, had painted his face, drawn the hood over his head, and Lady Nithsdale and her husband had left the prison while the companion had remained behind.

Such a romantic story caught the imagination of all. The Nithsdales escaped to the Continent; even George realized that he could not punish the lady who had helped in the deception, for the mood of the people was not strong enough in his favour; and even though James had retreated to France that did not mean that the people loved George.

But while the Prince and Princess rode through the streets on their way to Drury Lane it was remembered that the Princess had pleaded with the King for leniency towards the prisoners of the '15, among them Lord Nithsdale; so the Princess's name was linked with the nobleman's escape, and the people liked her for it.

As for the Prince, he was not unpleasant. And his father hated him, which was in his favour.

So, decided the crowd, a special cheer for the Prince and Princess of Wales.

To Caroline the streets of London were always an exhilarating spectacle. The noise and colour w^ere so different from anything she had known before coming to London. The shouting of the street vendors who pushed their way between the carriages of the great and the occasional Sedan chair, never failed to fascinate her. She could only be amused when some grinning pieman would catch her eye and shout: "Good hot pies. They warm the cockles of your heart." Her smile would be gracious, appreciating the joke; and the pieman would add his cheers to the rest. She had learned the art of being affable