Chapter 5
Chapter Five
As the days plodded closer to January, Caroline’s isolation grew more tedious.
The shortening daylight and the unrelenting hush of her chambers pressed upon her nerves, turning each hour into an exercise in endurance.
She maintained her correspondence with Rebecca, but the festive season kept them apart—balls, dinners, and obligations claimed Rebecca’s time, while Caroline remained conspicuously absent from them all.
Prince George insisted his wife keep to her rooms to hide her ‘ghastly figure,’ and so she was denied company even when guests came to Carlton House.
The sounds of laughter and music drifted faintly through corridors she was forbidden to tread, reminding her that celebration existed just beyond her reach.
Her first pains began on Twelfth Night. At first they were mild, insistent rather than sharp, but unmistakable in their rhythm.
Her husband was in the public rooms entertaining, and Caroline sent Drew to inform him, though she doubted he would receive the news with anything approaching concern.
She also penned a note to Rebecca, begging her to come, her hand unsteady but determined.
If there was to be comfort in what lay ahead, it would come from her friend.
Caroline felt dismayed when they filed in—one by one, then in groups—until the chamber felt less a place of travail than a tribunal.
Physicians took their places with professional gravity; the midwife hovered with brisk competence; ladies of the bedchamber stood in rigid attendance, their expressions carefully schooled to neutrality.
Beyond them came the witnesses required by rank and law: members of the Privy Council, the Lord Chancellor, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, all present to attest that the child she labored to bring forth was born of her body and no other.
The air grew heavy with heat, breath, and ceremony, thick with the smell of candles and the rustle of silk.
Caroline felt herself reduced from woman to vessel, her pain rendered secondary to propriety, her dignity sacrificed upon the altar of legitimacy.
It was only later—mercifully later—when the worst was done and the room had thinned at last, that Rebecca arrived, breathless and pale with worry, her face breaking into unmistakable relief at the sight of Caroline alive and the child safely born.
In that moment, as exhaustion claimed her, and her daughter lay crying nearby, Caroline clung to the simple comfort of her friend’s presence, grateful beyond measure that at least one face in that crowded day had come for her, and not for the crown.
The arrival of England’s heir to the throne occurred around midday on January the seventh of the new year.
Caroline closed her eyes when she heard the child wail, the sound sharp and vigorous, unmistakably alive.
Relief washed through her in a great, trembling wave, leaving her weak and tearful in its wake.
“It is a girl.” There were disappointed grumbles around the room, murmured just loudly enough to be heard, though Caroline could feel nothing but pleasure. A daughter meant survival, meant continuity, meant love untainted—at least for now—by rivalry or ambition.
“A girl,” she whispered to Rebecca. “We can raise our daughters together.” The words were spoken with a fragile hope, as though saying them aloud might preserve what she feared losing.
Truly, Rebecca was her dearest friend. They were as close as sisters, bound not by blood but by shared endurance and hard-won trust.
The spectators left as they had arrived: one by one and in groups. The room felt suddenly cavernous, stripped of its earlier weight, the silence broken only by the soft sounds of the newborn and Caroline’s uneven breathing. Soon, Rebecca and Caroline remained, along with Drew and the prince.
“Charlotte Augusta,” he announced with little ceremony, his tone brisk and final. “The queen and I agreed on the name, should the child be a girl.”
Caroline was too tired to argue, though she protested having no say in her baby’s name, the words slipping out weakly, without conviction.
The fight had drained from her, leaving only weariness behind.
Thankfully, he turned and stalked out before another word was said, the door closing with decisive finality.
“She is lovely,” Rebecca said, bringing the child to her mother. “Look at the wispy hair upon her head. She is sure to have golden locks.”
Caroline studied her daughter with aching tenderness, memorizing the small mouth, the clenched fists, the faint down upon her head.
“Not at all like her mama, then.” Caroline’s hair was a rich brown that lightened during the summer, and she found unexpected comfort in the idea that her child might be spared even that small mark of difference.
The wet nurse appeared then, whisking the baby away to be fed, efficient and practiced, allowing Caroline only a brief, lingering look before duty intervened once more.
Rebecca remained a while longer, speaking softly, offering what reassurance she could, until at last she rose and bid her friend farewell, promising to return as soon as she was able before returning to her own home.
Left at last to the quiet of her chamber, Caroline closed her eyes once more.
The pain was fading now, replaced by an ache of a different sort—one born of love, loss, and fierce resolve.
Whatever else might be taken from her, she had brought a life into the world.
And that, she knew with sudden clarity, was something no one could entirely undo.
The next two weeks saw Caroline recovering from her confinement.
Her body remained weak, her movements careful and measured, but it was not physical pain that weighed upon her most heavily.
She spent her days with her child, closeted away in her chambers even during meals, the world reduced to the quiet rhythm of feeding, watching, memorizing.
She learned the particular sound of Charlotte’s cry, the way her small fingers curled instinctively around a waiting hand, the subtle changes of expression that passed over her face even in sleep.
Caroline knew her husband would rather not see her, and so she remained out of his sight, content—for now—to exist in this narrow, fiercely guarded sphere of motherhood.
Thus, it came as a surprise when Drew appeared one morning, footmen following with trunks.
The intrusion was abrupt, discordant, the scrape of wood against the floor jarring in its finality.
Caroline sat before the fire, cradling little Charlotte, her daughter’s warmth a comfort against the lingering chill that seemed to have settled permanently in her bones.
“Drew?” she questioned. “What goes on here?”
“The prince has ordered your return to Blackheath.” The maid would not meet her gaze, her hands twisting together in nervous sympathy.
“Are Charlotte’s things being prepared?” Caroline asked, already sensing the answer before it came.
Silence fell in the chamber. The fire popped softly. Drew seemed to muster courage before her reply came out in a whisper. “The princess is to remain.”
“What?” Caroline’s voice pitched up, sharp with disbelief. “No, she needs her mother.”
“It is the way of things.” Caroline turned to the doorway where her husband now stood, his appearance sudden and oppressive, his expression coldly resolved.
“The child will be raised here and at Windsor Castle, as is customary for a royal child. You will return to Blackheath. Having birthed an heir, there is now no need for us to live together as husband and wife.”
“But—” She was given no opportunity to reply as Prince George departed, already finished with the matter, the echo of his footsteps fading down the corridor like a sentence passed and executed without appeal.
A maid appeared and tried to take the baby. “No,” Caroline snapped, her voice cutting through the room with unexpected force. “I will hold my child until I must depart. Leave.” The maid curtsied hastily and backed away, her eyes wide with unease.
Caroline watched with a numb sort of detachment as her things were packed away in trunks.
Each folded gown felt like a small erasure, each closed lid a quiet theft.
She thought of the nursery at Blackheath, empty forever now, its carefully chosen fabrics and waiting cradle rendered cruelly irrelevant, and of the staff she had employed to help with her child—women who would never now know the sound of Charlotte’s voice or the weight of her in their arms.
I have not even been churched yet, she thought sadly, the ritual denied her as thoroughly as the child herself. Pain from the birth lingered, a dull ache that flared whenever she shifted. Has he no heart?
Scarcely an hour later, her trunks were removed from the bedchamber.
The maid appeared again, and this time Caroline was forced to relinquish her precious burden.
She bent her head over Charlotte, pressing her lips to her daughter’s soft hair, inhaling deeply as though she might imprint the child upon her very breath.
She did not protest aloud again; there was nothing left to be said that would alter the outcome.
She maintained an air of dignity as she went downstairs, out the front door, and boarded her carriage.
Servants lined the hall, their faces carefully blank, though more than one pair of eyes shone with restrained sympathy.
I will not cry, she swore, though her eyes burned with unshed tears and her chest felt hollowed out.
If this is to be my reality, I would rather die.
The carriage door closed. The wheels turned.