The Captive of Kensington Palace by Jean Plaidy Page A

was so tall and thin that he looked like a shadow. When she thought of Uncle King with his bulky body – like a feather bed she had thought it when she had sat on his knee – and his kind face with all the pouches and hanging chins, she had to admit that although he was King and therefore very important he did not frighten her in the least. But Uncle Cumberland … he was the wicked magician whom the good fairies had to be fighting all the time.
    She had met George Cumberland and she had liked him very much. She was delighted to have cousins; and she was growing very fond of George Cambridge who was living with Aunt Adelaide now that he had come to England to be educated. He liked to tell her about his Mamma and Papa in Hanover and how he missed them and how they missed him. He was certain of this because his Mamma, the Duchess of Cambridge, was constantly writing and telling him so. He would be very unhappy, he assured Victoria, but for the fact that he had his Aunt Adelaide whom he loved so much that it really made up for being without his mother.
    Victoria listened eagerly; she too loved Aunt Adelaide and, although she would not admit this to anyone, secretly thought what a pleasant Mamma she would make and how strange it was that she should not have children of her own.
    So George Cumberland was quite different from his father; and she wished that she could ask her cousins what it was that people were whispering about. Bui Aunt Adelaide was at Bushy and she was not allowed to go to Bushy. There was some reason why she must not and she knew too that Uncle William was not very pleased about this.
    What a lot she discovered; and yet she could not quite understand what it was that made so much shocking.
    Suddenly she discovered this matter not only concerned Uncle Cumberland but also Aunt Sophia.

    The Princess Sophia kept to her apartments in the Palace. She wished to see no one. It was all so distressing.
    Her sister Augusta called on her. Augusta was nine years older than Sophia and she was beginning to look her age, which was sixty.
    She embraced Sophia compassionately. She did not blame her for this new scandal which was now being whispered in all the Clubs and in fact throughout the Court and the City of London. Augusta knew it was not true. ‘My dear Sophia!’
    Augusta had become more reconciled to her position than her sisters. It had always been so. She had her music and this had absorbed her; her compositions were delightful and gave a great deal of pleasure to herself as well as others. Being a musician Augusta had not minded so much being kept in captivity as the others had. Nor did she seem to care that they were the only two who had not – however late in life – found husbands.
    ‘This is terrible for you, my dear,’ she said.
    ‘I am afraid to look at the papers,’ Sophia admitted. ‘And yet if I do not I imagine the worst.’
    ‘It is dreadful … dreadful.’
    ‘How could such a rumour have been spread?’
    ‘I believe it was whispered long ago. George’s wife started it, I’ve heard.’
    ‘What could Caroline have known about it?’
    ‘It wasn’t what she knew. It was what she made up.’
    ‘But she’s been dead nearly ten years.’
    ‘Rumours sometimes don’t die entirely and this is directed more against Cumberland than against you. He did himself a great deal of harm when he set loose stories of Victoria’s infirmity. Her mother soon proved them false and people began to ask why he should have done such a thing. To plot against an innocent child was a wicked thing to do. That’s why people think he is capable of anything.’
    ‘Even … incest,’ said Sophia.
    ‘Even incest.’
    ‘It’s so … stupid. General Garth is the boy’s father. You know it, Augusta.’
    ‘I know it. But many want to believe that Cumberland is his father.’
    ‘My own brother … the father of my child.’
    ‘That’s the story.’
    ‘It must be denied.’
    ‘How? Are you going to come forward