Royal(18)
“What are you going to call her?” her mother-in-law asked her with a gentle smile as she kissed Charlotte’s cheek when she awoke. She had been so brave. A nurse the doctor had brought with him was holding the baby, who had been cleaned and swaddled by then, and was staring at them with wide-open blue eyes, while Charlotte gazed at her with unbridled love, wishing Henry could see her. Seeing her baby now made all the agony worthwhile.
“Anne Louise, after my mother, and one of my great-great-aunts. One of my German relatives,” Charlotte said, in barely more than a whisper. The doctor was observing her closely, relieved that both mother and child had survived, which he had begun to doubt in the last few hours of the delivery. Charlotte was very weak now, and spoke in a whisper as she glanced at her daughter. “She’s so beautiful, isn’t she?” She drifted off to sleep again then from the drops the doctor had given her. He left an hour later, after checking her pulse several times. It was thready and weak, but it didn’t surprise him after all she’d been through. He told the countess to let her sleep, and said he would be back to check on her in a few hours, and the nurse would check on her from time to time. She took the baby to the room they had set up as a nursery, next to the bedroom Charlotte was occupying, down the hall from her mother-in-law. The countess went to her room to rest too. It had been a frightening night, and like the doctor, the countess had feared that neither Charlotte nor the baby would survive, but was grateful that they had.
The countess lay down on her bed without getting undressed, and fell asleep instantly. She woke up two hours later, and decided to check on Charlotte, to make sure that she was doing well, and not in pain. She opened the door to her room, careful not to waken her, wishing that Henry were alive to see his daughter, and as soon as she entered the room, she saw that Charlotte was ghostly pale, even more than she had been during the birth. Her lips were blue, she was peacefully asleep, but ghostly white, and as Glorianna approached her bed, she could see no sign of Charlotte’s breathing. She reached for her wrist to find a pulse and could find none and saw no sign of movement at all. She pulled back the bed covers instinctively, and saw that Charlotte was lying in a pool of blood. She had bled to death after the delivery, while the nurse was with the baby. Her skin was already cold to the touch. She was dead at seventeen, from a childbirth that her parents knew nothing about. Her mother-in-law’s heart was pounding as she looked at her. What was she going to tell them? Their precious child was dead. She had died giving birth to a baby they didn’t know existed. She called the doctor with trembling hands, and he returned immediately. She had told no one what had happened, and couldn’t believe it herself. First Henry, then her husband, and now this, poor Charlotte, and the poor little girl with no mother now, orphaned at birth.
The doctor confirmed that Charlotte had died of a severe hemorrhage from trauma during the delivery. It couldn’t have been predicted, although she’d still been bleeding when he left, which he said was to be expected. And he said hemorrhages like that happened very quickly. It had struck Charlotte even before the nurse could return to the room to check her again. All Glorianna could think of now was how to protect Charlotte’s memory, and Henry’s, and to spare her parents further grief, until they knew about the baby later.
She looked pointedly at the doctor with an idea. “Would it be possible to list the cause of death on the certificate as pneumonia or influenza, perhaps with the complication of asthma, which she suffered from before? Her parents don’t know about the baby,” she said in a whisper. “I will tell them about her later of course. But for now, this seems like the least painful course for them, without adding the shock of a child to the death of their daughter.” The doctor hesitated only for a moment and then nodded. What difference did it make now? The poor girl was dead, and he assumed the baby had been illegitimate if her own parents didn’t know about it. Perhaps it was why she had come to Yorkshire, to conceal an illegitimate birth. The countess wanted to protect them from the truth, and the girl’s reputation. And why cause her parents further grief to have lost their daughter to a child born out of wedlock? It never dawned on him that Charlotte might have been married, and the countess didn’t say it, since the marriage was a secret too because of who Charlotte was. And despite being a princess, she was just a child herself and now she was dead. Yet another tragedy after too many recently.
“Of course, your ladyship, whatever I can do to help in the circumstances. This is most unfortunate.” He looked deeply troubled about it too, and wished he hadn’t left, but she’d appeared to be doing well enough when he did. And she might have died even with a cesarean with such a large baby.
“Her parents will be heartbroken.” Glorianna knew only too well how they would feel, having lost her son too.
“At least they’ll have the infant to console them, once you tell them—if they’re willing to accept her,” the doctor said kindly. It was clear to him now that the baby was illegitimate, and the countess said nothing to correct him. It didn’t matter what he thought, only that the press didn’t get hold of the story before she could tell the king and queen face-to-face about the baby, and that Charlotte and Henry had been married. Other than the vicar, she was the only one who knew now. And the vicar knew nothing of Charlotte’s true identity. Only Glorianna did. To everyone else, she was Charlotte White. The doctor had guessed that the baby’s father was the countess’s son, and now the baby was an orphan, with both its parents dead.