“I see,” she said. “Well, in that case, it’s rather a problem. If His Majesty digs his toes in, you can’t do a thing.”
“Got it in one,” he answered. “So tell your friends, when they indulge in palace chit-chat, to read the rules and learn what Commanders in Chief are permitted to do. Your ignorance is abysmal, so is theirs.”
Quince tart had disappeared. On came the Stilton. Another button burst from the tight-stretched waistcoat, and he flicked it across the table without a word. She placed it with the first—in her bodice.
“Go on,” he said. “I like to hear my failings.”
What with the sweet Sauternes, on top of claret, hock—too much of it—with the sole bonne femme, and warm champagne at uncle Tom’s, followed by the rough-and-tumble in the carriage, her head was not as clear as it might have been. As a rule, when on business bent, she never drank, but tonight things had gone amiss from the very start. She leaned her chin on her hand and gazed at the candles. Reality merged to a dream, and nothing was concrete.
“I’m sure you’ve done right in Gibraltar, bringing Kent home. He was never the man for the job: why on earth did you send him? His frightful attention to detail… a martyr to his duty, and all his men loathe him, I really have that at first hand. I had naval friends at Gibraltar at the time of the mutiny who mixed with the wretched battalion that got all the blame… Who were they? The Royals? I’ve forgotten… It wouldn’t have happened if Kent had only possessed one ounce of reason. Naturally men get bored, stuck in a garrison with no fighting to do—there’s bound to be lighthearted mischief. And what does Kent do but put the whole town out of bounds, and close all the wineshops, and lock all the boys up in barracks! My God, I’d have raised merry hell, if I’d been a soldier. They all adore you, by the way, they think you’re a hero, though of course there have been times when… when things haven’t gone quite as you planned.”
She drew herself up and tried hard to focus the candles. What on earth was she saying, and was it amounting to treason?
“Such as when?”
“Well… surely in Holland?” She tried to remember. What was it she’d read in a pamphlet, or written herself, soon after Mary was born? The Dunkirk fiasco, or round about then, was the time. “I’m not doubting your courage,” she said. “You’re as bold as a tiger: but boldness can bitch a battle unless there’s a plan. And now I remember, wasn’t that when the critics got busy—you hadn’t a plan, and that’s why they whistled you home? Courage… Lord, yes! You’d stand up all day to be shot at. But wouldn’t you say it’s a tiny bit lacking in foresight, and asking for trouble, to expose your backside as a target? Lucky, in fact, you survived. But you did… and here’s to you.”
She drank the last drop of Sauternes, and when she had finished she flicked the glass over her shoulder. It splintered to pieces. A trick of the Four-in-Hand drivers, she’d been taught by an expert, and it always gave such satisfaction to feel the stem break.
Well… now she supposed she was for it. He’d summon the guard and bundle her off to serve a long sentence at Newgate. In a way it was worth it, and something to tell her descendants, a spill and a scramble on the Fulham Road, followed by dinner and two waistcoat buttons.
He stood up from the table and gave her his hand. She steadied herself and awaited the word of dismissal.
“I suggest early bed for us both,” he said, “but I’ll join you at breakfast. We shan’t be disturbed—we can spend the whole day on maneuvers. I admit I’m dull in the field, and I want to learn tactics. On Sunday I must go to Windsor, but I’ll be back to dinner, and on Monday I’ll have you fixed up in a house in Park Lane: I keep one fully furnished, for certain occasions. If we suit one another I’ll see about something larger. Tom says you have two or three children, and you may want ’em to stay. Now how about walking upstairs, or must you be carried?”
She took a long breath, and sank to the ground in a curtsey. If she never got up, at least the gesture was made. The Stuarts could all rot in their graves… This man was an angel.
“Your Royal Highness,” she said, “overwhelms me.” She couldn’t believe it. She wanted to laugh, she wanted to cry, she wanted to hang out the flags and shout “Brunswick forever!”
“Got both your buttons?” he asked her.
She showed him the place of concealment, and he helped her to rise.
“Goodnight, then. I’ll see you at seven, or maybe before. I’m on top of my form in the morning, so sleep while you can.”
“Goodnight, sir. And thank you.”
At seven… at dawn if he wanted. This treatment would guarantee service if anything did. Her rudeness forgiven, a house in Park Lane, something larger to follow. Ye gods! What a future.
She lay in the curtained bed and thought of Charley. They’d have the buttons mounted in a silver frame, with royal arms entwined and interlaced, and beneath them, in a circle, 1803.
Ogilvie was right. This meant goodbye to Burton, goodbye to Cripplegate, and goodbye to Bill. Fair shares for all? Not with a Prince for a lover. She’d play him fair and square, he needn’t worry.
“I’ve arrived,” she said to herself. “I’ve reached the top. I’ll be second in precedence now to Mrs. Fitz. The question is… how long can I hold the job? I can’t go easy. I can’t relax for a moment… It’ll take all the tricks I know to keep him hooked.”
One lesson to bear in mind when danger threatened. When faced with a doubtful decision… audacity first.
3
“Martha?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Martha, bring the slate, and let’s see about food. Bring the list of my engagements too—I left it in the drawing room.”
She reached for her shoulder wrap and heaped the pillows high behind her back, then balanced her breakfast tray upon her knees, with writing paper, notes and pen beside her to the left, on another pillow. This was the second breakfast, less hurried and less breathless than the first. The first was at seven thirty, a scrambled affair of tea and rolls before he left the house; he in and out of the room, half-dressed and talking, shouting to Ludovick his servant for boots, for belt, for some piece of equipment suddenly mislaid, while she poured out his tea and asked his plans.
“What time tonight?”
“I can’t make it before six. Perhaps six thirty. Don’t reckon to dine till then. I may be late. It’s going to be another day like yesterday, papers sky-high at the Horse Guards on my desk, besides the stuff that Clinton brings to sign. This recruiting business has set ’em all by the ears, every depot in the kingdom clamoring, and God only knows how many colonels on half pay wanting to raise levies.”
“That’s good, isn’t it? You need the men?”
“Of course we need the men. Given a free hand I’d take a leaf out of the Navy’s book, and press them into service. No, levies are the devil. It takes us three months or so to fix the terms, and then another six to find recruits, and meanwhile Boney’s laughing up his sleeve watching us from Calais. Ludovick!” He bawled to the dressing room.
“Your Royal Highness?”
“My second pair of boots, not these, I’ve got a bunion. Another cup of tea, darling, and sugar.”
She stretched out from the bed and took his cup, while he sat on the end and struggled with his braces.
“Might have to go to Hythe on Wednesday for three days. They’re scratching their heads over the Romney Marsh defenses, although they’ve got my prints in triplicate. I can’t spare the time, with all this rush in London, and then a political fracas on top of it all. Addison’ll have to resign and Pitt take over, we can’t go on like this, it’s too damned confusing.”
She watched him dress, her hands behind her head. This was the moment that she prized the highest, unguarded phrases slipping from his tongue, as soon forgotten as the tea he drank, while she remembered.
“How’s His Majesty?”
“Damned ill, between you and me and the bedpost there. The surgeon, Dundas, was down at Windsor
yesterday, and had a consultation with the physician Symonds. They want to get him back to Buck House soon, tomorrow or the next day, but the Queen’s against it. Says all this political excitement makes his disorder worse, and once in London he’ll want to interfere. Ludovick! My coat.”
“I have it here, Your Royal Highness.”
He stood fixing it before her mirror. From the half-open window came the sound of horses, as the waiting groom walked them up and down in Gloucester Place.
“No time for more than a cup of tea, my darling. I’ll breakfast in Portman Square, and then on to the Horse Guards. If I am late tonight it means I’ve gone to the Lords—I want to hear what St. Vincent’s got to say. I’m all for the Admiralty getting it in the neck, so that we at the War Office can be forgotten for once. It’s generally the other way round—the sailors have all the praise, and we the blame. Kneel up in bed and kiss me, I can’t bend down.”
She laughed and stretched upwards, brushing his chin with her hands.
“You work too hard,” she said. “Let me do some of it.”
“You’ve too many fingers in the pie already. Imagine Clinton’s face if I took you to the Horse Guards and dressed you up as A.M.S. Though it’s true, we might get through the day a little faster. What’s the time?”
“It’s just gone eight.”
“Go back to sleep, and dream it’s eleven tonight. Do you love me a little?”
“Sir… how you have the face…?”
“I haven’t, it’s merely a habit. A desire to leave the house with a high morale. Sweet dreams, my precious.”
A clanking down the stairs, the front door creaking, the horses trotting off to Portman Square. She lay back on the pillow and closed her eyes. Another hour to doze, then her day began. It was second nature now, this strange, disjointed life. The evenings were his, twelve hours, from seven to seven, but the rest of the time was hers to do as she pleased; and every moment was filled, did he but know it.
Dozing, she thought in retrospect how her life had been building up towards this moment, year in, year out, almost from alley days. That early training, as a cockney child, sharpened her wit and made her seize her chances: the schooling at Ham put on a pseudo-polish: marriage with Joseph got the worst over young—so much so, that nothing a man could do, now or in the future, would break her heart. As to the rest… all lovers made some mark. She knew how to absorb the benefit and pass it on, be grateful for the teaching. What she had learned from men, not only lovers, was to the purpose in a man-made world. Therefore, become their equal. Play their game, and add to the game the sense of intuition.
The six months in Park Lane, though heady, violent enough to turn her head and send caution flying, were only a time of trial, to prove her worth. It wasn’t enough to laugh and act the wanton. Dozens of others, in Bond Street, waited their turn and were ready to take her place at a moment’s notice, if all the Duke needed was a bed companion. But what went on in his mind, in his heart, in his belly? These were the things she set herself to discover. Never by questioning direct, never by probing, but by feeling her way, by looking, by hearing, absorbing.
His wife the Duchess? A foolish, scatterbrained woman, plain and barren, surrounded by masses of lapdogs. Therefore, unlike James Burton and others she knew, the Duke’s married life was empty, savorless, lonely. He wanted a home that smelt like a home, that was living. A place where children scampered on an upstairs floor, without fuss, ceremony, or crowd of flunkeys. A home where he could relax, could yawn—sprawl in. He needed a woman whom he could talk to, laugh with, eat with, love when the mood inclined him, bore, and sleep with. A woman who didn’t plague him with woman’s gossip, or chatter of frills and laces, gowns and bonnets. A woman who switched her mood to match his temper. A woman whose humor was broad as a barrack-room bruiser. A woman who, swept by anger, probably hit him. A woman who, when moved by passion, undoubtedly bit him. This was what he demanded, and had now discovered. The six months’ trial once over, she passed—with honors.
“I’ll give you a house in town,” he said, “and a place in the country. A thousand a year to run them on, paid monthly. If that isn’t enough, you must manage in some other fashion. No one will press you for payment, not when it’s known; and I’ll see that it is known by everyone, tradesmen included, that you’re living in future under my protection. With that tag to your name you’ll have all the credit in the world you want. Patronage brings favor, favor patronage. Work it all out for yourself and don’t bother me. I’m a fool where money’s concerned, and I don’t understand it.”
(This was said in Park Lane at the end of the summer. She thought to herself, “A thousand a year isn’t much. Not if he wants to live well.” But if she protested the sum was too small she might lose him.)
“Of course,” she replied, “I can manage. Where shall we live?”
“I have a house in Portman Square,” he told her, “five minutes away. There’s another in Gloucester Place; that shall be yours. I’ll come to you every evening, dine there and sleep there, and back to my place in the morning. Servants, and furniture, and fittings, I leave all to you.”
A thousand a year would about pay the servants’ wages and liveries… She thrust the thought aside and started to plan. Odd, that the men in her life were so feckless with money, but this time there was no question of pinching. The credit was there.
The tradesmen tumbled over themselves to serve her. The royal patronage was hers to give them. Birkett the silversmith, Parker the jeweler, the one with silver plate from the duc de Berri smuggled from France, to be paid for at her leisure, the other with diamonds. “A present, ma’am, to the Duke.”
Cards at the door, all from prospective tradesmen. “We should esteem it, ma’am, a favor, if…” etc., etc. Mortlock of Oxford Street, offering china and glass; Summer and Rose of Bond Street, sending grates; Oakleys of Bond Street, upholstery and curtains. “Mr. Taylor, ma’am, of number 9, suggested we called.”
Tom Taylor, too, produced the ready servants. “My dear, leave it all to me, I know the type. Long service in a house is what you require. These fellows all come to me when they’re after a job.”
“Why? Do you get commission on their wages?”
He brushed the suggestion aside and did not reply.
Pierson, the butler, ten years with Lord Chesterfield. McDowell, the footman, five years at Burlington House. The coachman, Parker, warmly recommended, seven years with Mrs. Fitzherbert and wanting a change. Housemaids, laundry maid, cook and kitchen maid… all found by uncle Tom with a whisk of the hand.
“I shall make my personal maid into housekeeper,” she insisted.
“Do you think she’s quite up to the job, dear?” he demurred.
“Martha knows everything. She is loyal and faithful. Besides, the children love her.” No more was said.
Two carriages. Six horses—sometimes eight. Grooms, a postilion (Sam Carter might do for that), a little girl to work with her needle in the morning, a charwoman to scrub at least twice a week.
Linen—how about linen? Tom Taylor obliged. Handmade, a firm in Ireland—personal friends.
“But uncle Tom, these people will have to be paid?”
“No hurry, my dear. It’s the patronage they want.”
If that was so, then banish every scruple, order the best and damn the consequences. No one would dare to sue a prince of the blood.
The word went round, “Under the Duke’s protection,” and the effect was magic on the world of trade. As to acquaintances, friends, and even lovers, expressions of delight came flowing in.
James Burton, who might have felt himself cold-shouldered, assured her that her mother could remain at Tavistock Place as long as the house still suited the family plans. “I hear you’ve found favor with the Duke of York. How splendid! Much the best of the Brunswicks, and the only one who doesn’t look German. By the way, put a word in for me and my regiment of artisans. If we have his approval and backing, my scheme can go through.” r />
Cripplegate wrote her from Ireland. “What’s this I hear? Rolling around in the hay with Frederick Augustus? Tallyho—whoops-a-lassie—get cracking, but keep the whip hand and don’t forget your old friends when they ask you a favor. Find out from York what’d I get if I raised some recruits.”
Bill Dowler was the only dissentient. Tight-lipped and withdrawn, he called to see her.
“Is it true that you are mistress to the Duke of York?”
“Oh, Bill, don’t be stiff, and why that word? I like to say I’m under his protection—it has a fatherly touch which I’ve never known. I told you when we met that I aimed high, didn’t I? And I rather think the arrow has found its mark. But I’ll need you in the background all the same.”
She took him to see the house in Gloucester Place. James Burton had vetted the drains and all the fixtures. So useful, an ex-lover who was also a builder. But Bill could choose the curtains and the carpets.
“You have got a proper agreement with the Duke?”
“Agreement? What do you mean? I’ve got this house.”
“The house is all very well. I mean money to run it. It will cost you three or four thousand a year, at the least.”
She thought how exactly like Bill it was to show caution, to move from room to room and shake his head, raising her doubts, damping her ardor.
“He’s promised to pay me money every month.”
“I see… Well, be sure you get that promise in writing soon. Or better still, an agreement with his bank.”
“I can’t do that. It would look so terribly grasping.”
“It’s best to have things straight with him from the first.”
Sour grapes, she thought. Poor Bill, he’s hurt, and jealous… Still hankering after that cottage at Chalfont St. Peter’s. What a far cry from there to Gloucester Place! Protected by the Duke, not Mr. Dowler.
Will Ogilvie gave advice of a different kind. Advice she did not dare repeat to Bill. “Go slow,” he said, “don’t rush things. Learn the business. I’ll let you get settled in, then I’ll show you the moves. Now that my office in Savile Row has closed down—they’ve proclaimed me a bankrupt—no one will connect me with Army agency matters. I’ll work on my own, as your agent, and take a percentage. I’ll pass the fellows to you who want promotion. You pass them to the Duke. And the thing is done. Cash from the fellows who see their names gazetted. The principal to you, the percentage to me. H.R.H. won’t ask you any questions. Try him with favors first, where no money’s concerned.”