A Matter Of Delicacy

The Reunion

     The bedroom had the thick, hesitant silence of a graveyard, such an intense absence of noise that it rang in my ears. It felt as if the very curtains were holding their breath, the walls leaning in to catch the next sound, the carpet watching intently. It felt like somewhere with a sad past. Like somewhere mourning.
     And yet, here and there, clear signs of life. Through the shadows I could just make out a porcelain doll on an armchair, an ornate dollhouse on the sideboard, a rocking chair in the window, a pair of walking shoes in the corner, one on its side like it had been stepped out of and left in a hurry. The gentle glow of the fire in the grate made everything close-by look molten.
Caroline crept in, resting a nervous hand on the doorframe. She searched through the dark, eyes flitting around the room, drinking in any evidence of her daughter.
In the corner at the far end of the room was the dark blackness of a large bed. We edged towards it, and I held my hand out to stop the Princess before she jumped forward. She started, looking at me like she'd forgotten I was there.
     'Wait,' I breathed, stepping closer to the bed and peering down. On the far side, pressed tight against the wall, was a small mound of blankets curled into a ball. A little patch of pale hair poked out from the coverlets.
     I nodded and Caroline edged around me, reaching out to her daughter like a pilgrim to a well at the end of the journey. Her fingers shook in the dark.
     'Charlotte,' she whispered, voice soft and aching.
     The bundle gave way beneath her fingers and she gasped, pulling away the blankets to see a pile of cushions and a plump doll with golden hair wrapped in a lacy shawl. We stared at it for a split, hollow second, gaping at the empty bed in front of us.
     'Stay..... stay where you are!' A voice hissed behind us and we spun around. In a moment I was between Caroline and the voice, staring in horror with my knife thrust out as a ghostly figure rose in front of us. A spectre stood, long white robes sweeping to the floor in the shadows, standing at least seven-foot tall, ghastly shadows sweeping its face, arms brandishing a .... candlestick?
     'What in God's name...?' I stepped forward and the figure wobbled uncertainly, then clattered down off what turned out to be an ornate armchair draped in blankets. All three of us froze, heads perked to hear if the guards outside registered the noise and came to investigate. The moonlight coming through the window shone across the carpet and up to the figure's face, illuminating a shock of blonde hair and a round cheek the very image of the woman standing behind me.
     'Charlotte!' Caroline pushed past me and grabbed her daughter in a firm hug. The little girl, shrunk as she was now since abandoning her perch on the armchair, was now squashed into her mother's ample chest, the candlestick slipping from her fingers. I lurched forward and snatched it up before it crashed to the floorboards, tossing it onto the soft bed behind us.
     'Oh liebling, don't cry, it's me, it's Mama.' Caroline whispered into her daughter's hair, and the little shaking hands finally wrapped tight around her. 'What were you doing up there?'
     'I thought you were burglars, I heard you scraping at the door,' Charlotte mumbled into her mother's dress, scrunching the fabric.
     'My brave little girl.'
     So she'd thought to scare us, with that terrifying ghostly display on the chair, brandishing a weapon and ordering us not to move, like a demon from Hell. I smiled despite it all; she was a girl after my own heart.
     Caroline pulled away and stroked her daughter's face, 'are you alright, sweetheart?'
     'What are you doing here? They'll catch you!'
     Caroline took her daughter's hand and drew her closer to the banked-down fire, 'I missed you, so I thought to sneak in and see your face.' She sat down on the rug and pulled Charlotte with her, 'This is Miss Wentworth, she's looking after me.'
     'Looking after you from what?' Charlotte glanced at me warily and I could tell she was unconvinced.
     'Just looking after me. Not from anything in particular,' her mother took her little hands and kissed them. 'Are you well liebling?'
     'I'm alright, Miss Kingsley is teaching me Italian, and I'm doing well in my mathematics and my history.' She looked away, 'Papa hasn't visited in a while, and whenever I ask if I can come and see you they tell me you're too busy.'
     'I'll never be too busy to see you,' Caroline looked her daughter straight in the eye. 'Your father and I are having a disagreement, that's all. It'll be over soon but until then I'm being kept away. That's why Miss Wentworth here had the genius idea of playing at spies and sneaking in through the window.'
     Charlotte's eyebrows rose, 'through the window? What if someone had seen you?'
     'I would never have let that happen, Your Highness,' I smiled conspiratorially at her. 'But I can imagine any legitimate intruder would have been terrified by your haunting. That was ingenious.'
     She raised her chin a little, 'I've been reading ghost stories. Miss Kingsley doesn't approve but I like them. Where did you get that knife?'
     I glanced down and realised I was still holding my blade firmly, like any minute now something would jump out of the shadows and make short work of us. I realised with a sinking feeling where we were again, and how precarious the situation was. 'Your Highness, if I tell you something can you promise to keep it to yourself?'
     The little Princess shot a sceptical glance at her mother but nodded. I sheathed the knife and crouched down beside them, 'I am working as your mother's personal bodyguard, keeping her safe from some bad people. She wanted to come and see you, but no one must know we've been here, do you understand what I'm saying?'
     From her narrowed eyes and pursed lips I could tell some questions were coming, 'you're a bodyguard?'
     I nodded.
     'But you're a woman.'
     'I am. But I can still protect your mother as well as any man, better even. When no one expects anything from you it gives you more opportunity to surprise them.'
     'So you fight?'
     'Yes, whenever it's needed.'
     'Can you teach me?'
     'Charlotte!' Caroline laughed to herself and pressed her daughter's hand tighter. 'I pray to God you will never need to fight, my darling.'
     'But you need it,' Charlotte looked at her mother with a wisdom that hurt my heart. 'That's why you need her, yes? People are trying to hurt you.'
     Her mother looked as if she was trying to stroke away the years of pain, 'but no one will hurt you, I promise. You're safe here.'
     'But I won't be here forever, Mama. What happens when I'm Queen?' She spoke of her eventual rule with such a matter-of-fact tone it took me aback. How was this girl, this child, cut so eruditely through the madness of this evening to the very core of the issue? Her mother was being hunted, and as the heir apparent, and a woman herself, Charlotte recognised herself as under threat. She's eleven, I remembered. Where had I been at eleven? My mother had been ill, but not so ill that we could predict what would happen in a few short months. I had known Father worked in diplomacy, but still thought that his regular trips away were just 'business.' The garden had still just been my garden, and not yet my training ground.
     'When you're Queen you'll have your own bodyguards, and no one will ever try to hurt you.' Caroline pressed her daughter's hand to her lips, but I could see the shake in her fingers. 'Don't fret, sweetheart, I promise it will be alright.'
     Charlotte looked over her mother's head at me and held my gaze. Her eyes were a pale blue, not the washed-out brown of Caroline's but the same piercing stare as the Prince Regent's. It was both unnerving and yet very steadying. Here was a girl who knew exactly what was going on.
     'We should go, Your Highness,' I murmured.
     'No,' Caroline didn't look at me, just pressed her daughter's fingers tighter. 'Tell me, my darling, are you happy? Are they treating you well? Do you see the King often? What do you do with your time?'
     Charlotte hesitated a moment before finally settling down on the carpet and leaning into her mother's arms. 'Everyone is very nice, and I'm treated with every kindness. But there aren't many people my age, so I don't have many close friends.'
     'Does the Countess of Marlborough not send her daughter to learn with you?'
     'She comes sometimes, but she's not as interested in school, and the tutors don't make her stay. Apparently, it's not so important that she learns about history.'
     'It'll serve her right when she's embarrassed at a dinner party one day.'
     'George Keppel, Lady de Clifford's grandson, comes quite often. He's nice, and plays in the garden with me, but he's only eight, so they won't let him sit in my lessons with me.' She turned and held my eye, 'we play sword fighting and I beat him every time.'
     I smiled warmly at her, 'well then, you'll have no need of me when you're grown, will you? No one will dare to challenge the Warrior Queen of England.'
     She settled back into her mother but I caught a glimpse of a small smile.
     'And your piano? How are you getting on with that?'
     'I've started on some dance music, but I still prefer folk-songs. Miss Kingsley says - '
     We froze as footsteps sounded in the corridor outside and Caroline hunched her shoulders down over Charlotte's body. I grasped my knife again and we waited, stiff and silent, as they stopped outside the door. There was a cough from a guard, a quick mutter of voices, then a heavier set of boots strode away. The guard had changed, that was all.
     But it brought our situation swiftly back to reality. We had already been here too long. Every minute risked discovery.
     'Your Highness,' I murmured, desperately sad at having to part them.
     'Yes, I know, Miss Wentworth.' But Caroline did not look at me, just sat and stroked her daughter's hair, watching as the little girl fiddled with a tie on her maid's uniform.
     'Has Father said if you can come and see me again?'
     'No, liebling, but I will try again, I promise.' Caroline gazed into the fire, 'this won't be forever.'
     We sat in warm, content, silence for a few more minutes, the only sound the occasional crack of the fire and the rhythmic stroke of Caroline's hand through Charlotte's hair. But my heart was starting to pound, my head ache, my fingers itch to be going. We need to go, we need to go. Outside in the corridor, one of the guards muttered something to the other and there was a quick laugh, a snigger, then silence again. From outside a carriage clattered past the main gate and a fox screeched in the distance.
     I sighed. Enough was enough.
     'Princess, I'm afraid I must insist.' I got to my feet and checked my knife.
     Caroline dropped her head and pressed a kiss into her daughter's hair. 'I must go, dearest. If they catch me I'll be banished from seeing you forever.'
     Charlotte murmured into her skirts, 'I miss you.'
     'I miss you always. Every day, every moment.'
     I love you to the moon and back. That's what my mother had said to me. When she was in the final throes of her illness, when whatever had killed her had started its most brutal work on her bones. For ever and ever and ever, I will love you always. I looked away from the pair of them and started preparing for our departure. The cloned key was still hanging in the lock of the linen room door, the window still resting open. The clouds outside had shifted to a sheer haze, thin enough to give us light to move, but dark enough to soften the outline of our bodies on the stone walls. Even the wind had dropped. It was perfect.
     'Your Highness, please.'
     The Princess pulled Charlotte gently to her feet and gave her a long hug, kissing every inch of her face. Tears gleamed on her cheeks, but Charlotte only seemed mournful, resigned as ever to this separation she must only partly understand.
     'I will see you very soon, sweetheart. I promise.'
     Charlotte came with us to the window and watched in impressed silence as I pocketed the keys and clambered out onto the ledge outside. There was no one around.
     'Take care of my mother, Miss Wentworth.' Charlotte touched my hand as it rested on the window ledge. 'And maybe one day you can teach me how to climb up buildings like that?'
     I winked at her, 'it would be my honour, Your Highness.'
     She smiled and stepped back, giving her mother a last quick hug, 'I love you, Mama.'
     'I love you too, liebling.'
     Swiping tears away from her face, Caroline dropped a last kiss on Charlotte's head and turned towards me, resting her foot on the skirting board and bracing her shoulders to heave herself out.
     There was a gasp behind us.
     Caroline whirled around and Charlotte jumped, startled, to see a maid in the doorway, an armload of linen clutched to her chest and mouth agape.
     Shit.
     I heaved myself back onto the window ledge and moved to jump back into the room to... to what? Knock her out? Reason with her? Kill her? How did I save this situation? My heart hammered like battle drums.
     Until Caroline's cool hand pressed down on mine.
     I stopped in my frenzied climb and glanced quickly between her, the frightened Charlotte, and the equally terrified maid, who was still as a statue in the doorway. The light from the corridor fell around her, across the floor and climbed up to the window, illuminating our clandestine escape clear as day.
     'Everything alright Miss?' A gruff voice sounded from down the corridor. The guards.
     I stared in horror at Caroline, at her infuriating, unexplained, dangerous inaction.
     But the Princess remained still as a panther watching its prey. She stood, picturesque even in her ill-fitting maid's uniform. Shoulders back, chin raised, she stared the maid directly, boldly, in the eye... and raised her eyebrows.
     Try me, that look said. You go ahead and try me.
     The maid glanced quickly between the Princess and Charlotte, standing barefooted and terrified.
     'It's fine,' she called quietly to the guards. Her voice was surprisingly steady. Stepping one more pace into the room she set the pile of laundry down on a chair. 'Thought I saw a mouse is all, but it's nothing.' Returning to just inside the doorway, she turned back to us and ... almost reverently, dropped into a curtsey.
     I gaped at her.
     Caroline's face broke into a smile. How she managed to look more benevolent than blissfully relieved I'd never know. She simply smiled warmly at the maid and bowed her head.
Then she turned back to me, and we escaped into the night, leaving Charlotte and our unlikely accomplice watching after us.