The Third George: (Georgian Series) by Jean Plaidy

cooped up.
    ‘It is Mamma who keeps us as we are,’ said Henry. ‘She’s afraid we’ll be contaminated by wicked people if we aren’t kept shut away like this.’
    ‘George will be a good king,’ Caroline said, ‘so then there won’t be any wickedness, and when there’s no danger we won’t have to be shut away.’
    ‘Poor George!’ said Henry knowledgeably. ‘He’s not looking forward to his wedding.’
    ‘Oh, but he loves the Princess Charlotte.’
    ‘How do you know?’
    ‘Well, he must because she is going to be his wife.’
    ‘You don’t know anything,’ Henry told her, ‘and you would therefore be wise to keep your mouth shut. Our brother wanted Sarah Lennox not this Charlotte, and I repeat he is not going to be pleased with this wedding.’
    ‘But …’ began Caroline and was warned by a quick look from Frederick.
    The door opened suddenly and Augusta their eldest sister looked in. They were immediately silent. One always was when Augusta arrived. It was well known that she delighted in carrying tales to their mother – whether to try to divert some of that affection which was lavished on George towards herself or because she liked telling tales and making trouble, no one was quitesure. But in any case her arrival was the signal to guard their tongues.
    ‘What are you children chattering about?’ she wanted to know.
    Henry flushed at the term, which amused Augusta; she always knew what would hurt people most and contrived to do it.
    ‘I’ll swear it’s the wedding,’ she went on. ‘And Henry is telling you all about it. You should remember though that Henry knows very little. And sit up straight, Frederick. All humped up like that! No wonder you’re always tired. And you supposed to be working at your embroidery, Caroline?’
    Caroline said: ‘I had only just laid it down for a moment.’
    ‘Then pick it up and make up for that moment of idleness. I shall be forced to tell Mamma how I found you all wasting time and telling each other stories about the wedding.’
    ‘Oh, but we weren’t!’ cried Caroline.
    And Augusta looked at her in that way which implied she was lying because she, Augusta, had stood outside the door for fully five minutes before coming in.
    Even when you were not guilty, thought Caroline, Augusta made you feel you were.
    Augusta laughed unpleasantly and said: ‘Well, if you want to know, that silly little Sarah Lennox is furious because she will not be Queen of England. I spoke to her yesterday at the drawing room. I showed I understood how she must be feeling. “Poor Lady Sarah,” I said; and she tossed her silly head and pretended not to care. And something else I’ll tell you. She is to be one of the bridesmaids. That will be fun, I promise you.’
    Caroline Matilda contemplated what excitement existed in the outside world; and even while she listened avidly to what Augusta had to tell about the King’s desire to marry Lady Sarah – which had been rightly thwarted it seemed, according to her sister’s account, as much by her, Augusta, as anyone – she was thinking of the story of Augusta’s birth when their father and mother, then Prince and Princess of Wales, had fled from Hampton Court that their first child might be born at St James’s; and how the King and Queen – Caroline Matilda’s grandfather and grandmother – had been so angry; and there had been no sheets at St James’s and nothing ready, so that the baby Augusta hadto be wrapped in a tablecloth. What drama surrounded their lives. All except mine, thought Caroline Matilda. I have to stay in the nursery, ‘cooped up’, while all the excitement goes on in the world outside.
    And how her grandparents had quarrelled with her parents! They were always quarrelling, Henry told them. They were a quarrelling family.
    Well, she would have some fun one day. She would be free to run wild.
    In the meantime she listened to Augusta’s account of the snubbing of silly Sarah Lennox who had believed