Indiscretions of the Queen

Tragedy in England

THE Villa d’Este had lost all charm for her. Every time she went into her bedroom she wondered whether anyone was spying on her. Her conduct became even more suspicious. She could not help it. It was her nature to behave more indecorously simply because she was suspected of immorality. She walked about with scarcely any clothes on. She allowed Pergami to be in her bedroom when she was there alone. It was some mischievous spirit in her which drove her to such conduct. It was like that occasion when she had pretended to be in labour knowing perfectly well that in the future it would be believed by many people that she actually had been.

She was misunderstood. She had always been misunderstood. She was not promiscuous. She had dreamed of love and marriage and a family of children.

That was what she had wanted. If they had allowed her to marry Töbingen she would have been a happy wife and mother. But they had separated her from him; they had married her to a man who loathed her and made no secret of his loathing and her brief experience with him had not made her long for more physical relationships. But could she explain this to people when they so clearly believed the opposite?

She was affectionate towards those who served her; she was familiar; but she did not seek the ultimate familiarity. No, she had no lover in the full sense of the word, but she liked to pretend she had. It amused her to pretend, also to deceive her husband in a topsy-turvy way. Deceive him into thinking she was an unfaithful wife.

She laughed at the thought. He provides enough infidelity for one family, she told herself. What she enjoyed doing was shocking people, making them speculate about the wild and immoral life she led; let them make up fantastic stories about her and her lovers. They were now linking her name with that of Pergami. Let them! She loved Pergami in her way. He was a good chamberlain who managed her affairs with skill; he amused her; he was a very good friend.

But he was not her lover and there was no sexual relationship between them. Nor would there be with any man.

There was something she kept from people. She did not want to think too much about it herself, but there was a mysterious recurring pain in the region of her stomach which at times she found almost unendurable. Then it would pass and she would attempt to forget it. She had mentioned it to her doctor but he could not say what it was and, like her, hoped it would pass. She was fifty-two years of age. When she removed her wig and the white lead and rouge she looked like an old woman. Scarcely one to indulge in riotous behaviour with lovers of all classes.

Poor Caroline! she would say to herself. You dreamed of so much and you realized so little. The next best thing was to pretend to the world that one lived gaily, unconventionally and scandalously.

It amused her. So forget encroaching age, alarming symptoms of pain. Slap on the rouge and the feathers, the pink tights and the white lead— and pretend. It was the next best thing.

She left the Villa d’Este and came to Pesaro where she took a villa overlooking the Adriatic Sea.

She missed the Villa d’Este because she had made it so beautiful. How dared he send spies to attempt to trap her! But for that, she would still be there. He was not content with refusing to live with her, not content with humiliating her in every way possible; he must make trouble among her friends and servants by setting them to spy on her.

She was angry with him. But if he wanted scandal, he should have it. The more outrageously she behaved the more amused she was.

‘He’ll hear of this,’ she cried gleefully. ‘Let him. I want him to. He’ll be shocked and mortified. Let him be. Wasps leave their stings in the wounds they inflict. And so do I.’

She was entertaining lavishly. She rode out in her shell-like chariot; she would sit bowing, smiling, exposing her short fat legs in their pink tights. She talked to all kinds of people and when the children ran after her carriage she threw money to them. People gathered along the roads to see her pass; she was the wild Princess of Wales.

The Empress Marie Louise came to Parma and had taken a brief residence there. She was in a similar position to Caroline, wandering the Continent looking for solace; and with her was her son who had been King of Rome, and as Caroline rarely went anywhere without Willikin in attendance, the similarity was increased.

Marie Louise was different from Caroline in one respect though; she was very conscious of her royalty and loved to stand on ceremony, a trait which aroused Caroline’s spirit of mischief. The more regal Marie Louise became, the more ribald Caroline would grow.

The climax to their friendship came when the ex-Empress invited the Princess to a dinner party at her mansion in Parma. It was a very ceremonial occasion.

Caroline had been rouged and leaded and appeared in multi-coloured feathers.

She was received by the ex-Empress and the guests were made to understand that they should leave the two royal ladies to talk together before joining them in the banqueting hall. She and Caroline sat together before a fire on two ornate chairs. Caroline’s short legs did not reach the floor; she was very bored with the Empress’s conversation which was mainly concerned with past grandeur and, as she moved impatiently in her chair, tipped it back and falling with it, remained convulsed with laughter while her legs waved wildly in the air.

The Empress shrieked; several of her suite came running to see what was wrong; and the sight of the Princess of Wales toppled on the floor, her skirts about her waist, her legs waving in the air, so dumbfounded them that they could only stand and stare.

The Empress kept repeating again and again: ‘Madame, you alarm me.’

And Caroline unnecessarily prolonged the occasion by remaining in her inelegant and ridiculous position.

She was at length helped to her feet, convulsed with laughter, her face scarlet under her rouge, her wig awry.

She insisted on repeating the story at dinner, her accent thickening as she explained the situation.

‘I fell mit meine legs in the air. I stay just like this and she—’ She nodded to the Empress. ‘All she can say is: Mon Dieu! Comme vous m’avez effrayé. ‘

The incident was repeated. With anyone else it would have been unbelievable, but not with Caroline.

She thought often of her daughter. Dearest Charlotte would soon give birth to a child. She longed for news of her. Charlotte wrote to her now and then and she was always the affectionate daughter. Caroline was melancholy sometimes thinking of her.

She would repeat again and again to Pergami the story how Charlotte had left her father to run away to her mother.

‘She loved me, my, little Charlotte. There was no doubt, that. Nothing he could do could alter it.’

Dear headstrong creature, she had jilted the Prince of Orange and married a Prince whom she loved— Leopold Saxe-Coburg.

Charlotte had written to her of her joy in the marriage. Leopold was handsome and good, he was her choice and she was the happiest of Princesses.

Happy indeed, thought Caroline and rejoiced.

She would talk of her daughter to the Countess Oldi with whom she had become very friendly during her eastern travels.

‘I’m so happy because my dearest daughter will know the joy that has been denied to me. She loves her husband and he her, and I think that must be the greatest blessing in the world I missed it, dear Oldi, and I am so happy that she has found it. How can I be sure? Oh, I know my Charlotte. She would never pretend. Her letters overflow with happiness it makes me laugh aloud just to read them— real laughter this time, Oldi— the laughter that means you are happy.’

The married pair, she learned, had acquired Claremont as their country house and there they were spending the happy months of waiting. For Charlotte had written the glad news; she was going to have a child.

Dearest Charlotte, mused Caroline. To think of my baby with a little baby. This is all she needs to make her happiness complete. I hope this child will be the first of many. I can imagine the excitement in England about the birth. You see, this child could be a King or Queen of England. The bells will ring; the guns will boom; and there’ll be bonfires In the streets. The people loved my Charlotte. And her father— oh, he’ll be pleased too and so will the old Begum though she disapproved of darling Charlotte— because she was my daughter, I suppose. And Charlotte disapproved of her. But she’ll be glad. And the King— poor mad King. I don’t supposed he will even know. I could weep to think of him. He was the only one in the whole family who showed me kindness., Oh, it makes me wish I was there. For the first time, Oldi, I wish I were back in England. Each day when she rose she would sit at the window overlooking the sea.

‘I wonder how Charlotte is,’ she would say. ‘Her time must be near. She will write to me and tell me all about her little baby. Poor darling, I hope it is not a difficult labour.’

When any messengers came the first thing she thought of was letters from England.

‘Any day now,’ she said to the Countess. ‘It must be soon. Unless of course she miscalculated. How like Charlotte. But over this, I should not have thought so. She has become more serious since her marriage— I sense it in her letters.

Fancy! It is three years since I saw my daughter. There’ll be news soon. She’ll write. I shall hear all the news about the most wonderful baby in the world.’

And still she waited to hear.

She would never forget that morning.

She liked to glance through the English newspapers and had them brought to her. They lay on her table for some time before she picked them up and then she settled idly to skim through them.

She opened one and stared at the page. No! She was dreaming.

This could not be true.

‘On November 5th after a long labour the Princess Charlotte was delivered of a fine large dead boy. She died shortly afterwards.’