Those were happy days, my dearest child, when every thought of your innocent heart came rushing out without a wish to disguise it, when my eternal rummages were born with perfect composure without any previous precautions and no little drawers or portefeuille were reserved. . . . I see you on the edge of a thousand precipices, in danger of losing the confidence of those who are dearest to you. . . . I see you running with eagerness to those—must I miscall them friends?—Who tho’ their intentions may not be wrong, are by constantly talking to you on subjects which are always better avoided becoming imperceptibly your most hurtful enemies, all these and more keep me on the rack.28
Lady Spencer spent much of her time thinking up ways to get rid of her rival. She asked Georgiana and the Duke to visit them at Hotwells in Bristol, politely adding that Bess would not be welcome since Lord Spencer was “too ill to see a stranger with any comfort.”29 Bess was bitterly disappointed to be called a stranger after all her carefully composed postscripts. “Poor little Bess,” as she styled herself, went into hysterics at the thought of being left alone and whipped up the Devonshires into an equally distraught state. Georgiana hurriedly wrote to her mother, “Lady Eliz. comes with us, Dst Mama, and poor little soul, it is impossible it should be otherwise.” She tried to soften the blow by pointing to Bess’s obedient nature: “My father need not mind her in the least, she is the quietest little thing and will sit and draw in a corner of the room, or be sent out of the room, or do whatever you please.”30 She ended the letter with the only sentence that brought comfort to Lady Spencer: “I hope to see her set out for Nice within the month.”
The two weeks in Bristol were strained and awkward for everyone except Bess. If she was aware of the tensions around her, she gave no sign of it: her smile never dropped and her eagerness to oblige never flagged. Lady Spencer, however, noticed that she ate very little; it almost appeared as if she were deliberately starving herself. Nearly every morning the Duke and Bess left Georgiana with her to go riding together; they returned before supper and joined the group, playing cards or reading, without looking or glancing at each other again. Their behaviour was suspicious enough for anyone to question their relationship, but Georgiana chose to remain ignorant. In only a short space of time she had become so dependent on Bess that the possibility of losing her devotion was too painful to contemplate.
The Duke left for London after ten days and Bess remained in Bristol with Georgiana and Lady Spencer. His departure enabled Lady Spencer to examine Bess’s relationship with her daughter. When the Duke was not present she appeared to think of nothing but Georgiana’s comfort. She displayed a combination of servility and bossiness, taking a great delight in fussing round her. She hardly ever used “I,” Lady Spencer noticed; it was always “we.” Her voice, hair, and clothes were all arranged in a faithful, if not disconcerting, imitation of Georgiana’s—Lady Spencer was sure that most of her clothes had once belonged to her daughter. Yet Georgiana not only didn’t seem to mind Bess’s behaviour; she encouraged it. They used code words and nicknames for each other which made Lady Spencer feel excluded. The Duke was called Canis, which was obviously a reference to his fondness for dogs. But for reasons which have never been clear Georgiana was Mrs. Rat, and Bess, Racky. Lady Spencer feared that Harriet would also become infected by Bess’s charm. “I do beg you will comply with my earnest request of letting me know at the very first moment of anything that distresses, vexes, or ails you,” she wrote anxiously, “unless you think any body else has a sincerer affection for you and is from that more worthy of your confidence.”31
Shortly after their return to London Georgiana announced that she was pregnant again. She was healthier than she had been for many years, drinking less and eating properly without the destructive cycle of bingeing and starving. But her mental state seemed precarious: she was beset by “feels” which made her cry constantly and prevented her from sleeping. “I wrote you a letter in very bad spirits this morning,” Georgiana confessed to her mother on December 1. “It is but justice to tell you how much I am mended now and not all uncomfortable, the feels [are] abated and am not near so nervous.” But the spectre of Bess loomed: “Lady Eliz. desires me to express to you,” she added, “how much she is touch’d and flatter’d by your goodness to her . . . and how sensible she is of any interest you take in her.”32 Lady Spencer’s response to Bess’s overtures was curt: “I hope Lady Eliz does not lose sight of going abroad.”33
Georgiana’s emotional state disturbed Lady Spencer, who feared it might induce a miscarriage. She told Harriet she was sure the ones she herself had suffered as a young woman had been caused by an “agitation of spirits.”34 But she had neither the sensitivity nor the imagination to understand that Bess might be the cause of her daughter’s torment, and her advice to Georgiana was limited to the practical. Firstly she suggested that Georgiana should stay at home; otherwise she would be accused of loving parties “better than a child.”35 Secondly she recommended laudanum; “take a few drops (5 or 6) . . . if you feel any violent [attacks] or agitation. . . . be assured whatever may happen this time, your health is much improved in the main, that if you can but contrive by any means this winter, to keep your mind and body in a calm and quiet state, I have no doubt of your soon obtaining all you wish. . . . do not make yourself unhappy.”36 Finally, as usual, disturbed by Georgiana’s fear that she was too sinful to take the Sacrament, she urged her to put her trust in God. She enlisted Harriet’s help in persuading Georgiana that it was “not necessary to be too scrupulous about what is past—the merits of the Saviour are more than sufficient to atone for the blackest of crimes, of which she certainly has none to reproach herself with.”37
Bess was due to pack her bags and leave for France on December 25. The Devonshires had officially engaged her to be Charlotte Williams’s governess at £300 a year and she was to take her pupil abroad for the winter. The plan had a neatness to it which pleased everyone. It solved the problem of Charlotte, who had not thrived with her nurse Mrs. Gardner, offered hope for Bess’s health, and provided her with an income. The Duke was firmly convinced that only the warm conditions of the south of France would cure Bess’s terrible cough. There may have been other reasons for Bess going away.* She begged Georgiana and the Duke to keep her informed of “the stories you hear of me, pray communicate to me that at least I may be justified to you, and that you may know truth from falsehood.” The threat of some scandal would explain why she was sent abroad for so long when the friendship was in its early stages.
Georgiana was distraught at her departure. “I am to lose my dear little Bess and my dear Little Charlotte tomorrow,” she wrote. “It will do them so much good that I don’t allow myself to be much vex’d. But I shall miss them both very much.”38 Lady Spencer hoped, as much as Bess feared, that the separation would mean the end of her reign over the Devonshires. But neither reckoned on the strength of Georgiana’s attachment. “My dearest, dearest, dearest Bess, my lovely friend,” she wrote in a letter accompanying a box stuffed with gifts. “If I am mistaken and that you are grown “Ah te voilà ma petite” to your G. throw this into the sea. Mais non c’est impossible, pardonnez moi, mon ange, Je crois que je vous dis quelquefois des brutalités pour avoir le bonheur de m’entendre contredire.”*39 Bess’s mother, Lady Bristol, informed her daughter that Georgiana had written and visited several times just to talk to her. “You have done well, most certainly,” she congratulated, “to leave your interest in her hands.”40
CHAPTER 7
AN UNSTABLE COALITION
1783
Her Grace the Duchess of Devonshire has determined not to appear in public till after her lying-in; as she had long been leader of the fashion, we hope the ladies will follow her example, and get into the straw as fast as possible.
Morning Herald and Daily Advertiser, February 8, 1783
Once Bess had set sail on the packet to France, enriched with money, new clothes, and a letter of introduction to the Polignacs, Georgiana was free t
o resume her former activities. Her long absence from London during 1782 had reduced her to the role of spectator of most of the developments affecting the Whigs. Defying reports by the Morning Herald and other newspapers that she would withdraw from public life until the end of her pregnancy, Georgiana now re-established herself as Fox’s ally and political confidante. He frequently stopped by Devonshire House to discuss his worries. The strain he was under showed in his bloodshot eyes and in the weight he had put on since the previous summer. “He says ev‘ry body is grown fat even Mr Hare,” Georgiana replied to her mother’s enquiry; “and that the people who are said to be thin are only call’d so because they have not increas’d with the rest of the world.”1
The Rockingham-Shelburne Coalition had been in trouble from the beginning. George III would only talk to Lord Shelburne and pointedly ignored Lord Rockingham and all the Whigs’ requests for patronage. As early as June 1782 some Whigs were already condemning the coalition as unworkable. Then Lord Rockingham came down with the flu; within two weeks he was dead. He had been in office for just three months, after almost two decades in opposition. Shortly after Rockingham’s death, Fox became disillusioned with the coalition government and surrendered his seal of office. Several other Whigs followed suit.
The man who benefited most from Fox’s resignation was the twenty-three-year-osld William Pitt. Fox’s mother, Lady Caroline Holland, had met Pitt when he was a child and immediately saw that he possessed such vital qualities as patience and attention to detail which her own son lacked. “Not eight years old,” she wrote, “and really the cleverest child I ever saw and brought up so proper in his behaviour that, mark my words, that little boy will be a thorn in Charles’s side as long as he lives.” Pitt’s maiden speech in Parliament, in 1781, had indicated that his political sympathies on economical and parliamentary reform lay with the Whigs. Notwithstanding the fact that their fathers had been bitter enemies all their working lives, Fox hailed him as a rising new star.* He was generous enough to perceive the young man’s potential and within a month of Pitt taking his seat Fox had put him up for Brooks’s. Despite their contrasting physiques—Pitt was tall and slender with pointed features and an almost hairless face—they were both heavy drinkers and, for the first few months at least, seemed to have much in common. But Pitt was too proud and too sure of his own destiny to play the part of the eager young acolyte for long.
By 1782 Pitt had disentangled himself from Fox’s embrace and made it clear to all parties that, as the son of the former Prime Minister the Earl of Chatham, he expected to be treated seriously. When Fox’s resignation created three spaces in the cabinet, Shelburne, thinking the young man would be easy to manage, invited Pitt to take Lord John Cavendish’s place as Chancellor of the Exchequer. To Fox’s indignation his former protégé stepped into office over the heads of the departing Whigs. From that moment Fox and Pitt were implacable rivals.
The unpopular Shelburne found himself rapidly losing support as MPs gravitated to either Lord North or Fox. He had to form a coalition with one of them or he would find himself outvoted in the House of Commons. His difficulties were increased by William Pitt’s hatred of Lord North, whom he despised more than Fox. That left Shelburne with the only option of joining with Fox, which was not likely given the mutual antipathy between the two men.
Georgiana saw Fox during these negotiations when it was by no means clear whether any of the three parties would be able to stifle its dislike of the other two for long enough to make a pact.2 On February 11, 1783, Shelburne ordered Pitt to meet with Fox in private to see if they could reconcile their differences. In the course of the negotiations Pitt made contemptuous remarks about the Whig party, which Fox took personally and never forgave him.
Shelburne’s failure to woo Fox pushed the Whigs into an unlikely pairing with Lord North. The ex–Prime Minister had several cautious discussions with Fox and, despite their previously bitter encounters, they agreed to put their past enmity behind them. As soon as the Whigs and North’s supporters began voting together Shelburne was lost. “The political bustle still continues,” Georgiana wrote to Bess shortly before Shelburne accepted defeat. “Lord Shelburne is not yet out, but today’s question will probably do it—Ld Camden, the Duke of Grafton and Gl Conway have resigned. . . . Canis sends his love to you but he must go to the House of Commons and therefore has not time to write today.”3
On February 24 Shelburne resigned in the face of overwhelming numbers against him. Once again George III resisted the idea of allowing the Whigs back into office. He begged Pitt to form his own government, but the young politician declined, knowing he would have no support. Lord North refused to renege on his deal with Fox and come in on his own. The King approached every senior parliamentary figure, and a few minor ones, including a cousin of Pitt’s. “Get me Mr Thomas Pitt or Mr Thomas Anybody,” he cried. Seeing that no one was prepared to challenge Fox, the King contemplated leaving England. He even drafted his abdication speech. Finally, though, on April 1 North, Fox, and the Duke of Portland tripped up the stairs of St. James’s to receive the Great Seals of State, loudly congratulating themselves on their success. North became Prime Minister, Fox was once more Foreign Secretary, and Lord John Cavendish the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Georgiana kept Bess informed of political developments as they unfolded, although Bess was more concerned with her own affairs—chiefly with the behaviour of Mr. Foster. He had made some enquiries about Bess since learning of her friendship with the Devonshires, wanting to know who was giving her money, among other things. Georgiana and the Duke replied coldly to his letters but they gave Georgiana an idea. “Do you know the kind appearance in Mr Foster’s letter has set me wild about a scheme,” she told Bess. “As to your ever living with him again that your own Dr feelings must decide—But I think it plain that Mr Foster’s seeing that his bad or good conduct to you now will be known to more than your family, as he is a vain man, seems to actuate him to behave better. Therefore I would wish you to keep the good terms you are upon now on the same footing.”4 Georgiana advised her to hint that if he would allow his younger son to be educated at school in England, the Devonshires would act as godparents throughout his career. They would pay for his upkeep so there would be no pecuniary disadvantage to either her or Foster.
Georgiana’s favourite subject, after politics, was their relationship and how it would be when Bess returned. She managed to be explicit and yet circumspect at the same time:
I promised you my Dearest Dearest Love, a plan, of my ideas for your future life—here it is, but remember, that one word of yours as to any other intentions will be adopted by me, unless indeed they were such as would hurt your health or deprive me of the happiness of seeing you.
The summit of my wishes would be that whilst you remain abroad you would not only attend strictly to your dear health, but likewise to every amusement for your mind that would not be hurtful to it or imprudent, for it is certain that the line of conduct you have used in your present situation, young and beautiful as you are, is absolutely necessary. . . . Tho’ for fear of the agitation it would cause us both and of the hurt it would do your dear health, you must not come before I am brought to bed. . . . When you do return it will be to Devonshire House, for a month at least, and as your little pride, and perhaps circumstances, may make it as well that you should not absolutely live in the house always with your brother and sister, I will look out immediately for a house for you near us, on condition that you are less in it than here. The summers you shall pass at Chatsworth. . . . the autumns hunting with Canis and the winters in London. You shall have your children with you, or at least Augustus. You shall be on the best and most friendly terms with all your family and all your cousins, but independent of them, and your Brother and Sister—Canis and G—shall be the only ones whom you shall allow to share with you.5
Bess must never leave her, she insisted. One paragraph of hers was blacked out by a later hand: “Am I too presuming in making myself
and Canis the principal movers in the scheme of your future life? But remember . . .” are the tantalizing opening words of the inked-over passage. Hidden here, perhaps, are references to Bess’s previous liaison with Dorset. The passage may also have revealed something of the inner workings of Bess’s relationship with the Devonshires, and explained the sexual dynamics between them. It is clear, however, despite the erasures and the imprecise language, that Georgiana could not tolerate an affair between Bess and her husband. She did not say it outright, but her repeated references to the Duke as “your dear Brother” must have left Bess in no doubt about the kind of relationship she envisaged between them.
Georgiana’s feelings for Bess threatened to overcome her devotion to the party. She was horrified when the Duke of Portland suggested that her husband should become Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The third Duke of Devonshire had governed Ireland for eight years between 1737 and 1745, and, since the huge Cavendish estates over there generated a large part of the family wealth, the choice seemed extremely apposite. But Bess would not be able to accompany them because of Mr. Foster’s injunction that she stay out of Ireland. “Ah, Bess, I am half dead,” Georgiana wrote when she relayed the news on April 5. “I can only tell you I am afraid we are to go to Ireland. . . . I declare to God I am half mad.”6 On the one hand, she at last had an opportunity to play an official role in politics: she would have her own court at Dublin, her own duties, and the Duke would have to shake off his lethargy and behave like a statesman. On the other hand, she would be separated from Bess for months at a stretch. The dilemma tore her apart; she made up her mind to go but then instantly regretted doing so. “I found it so much the wish of the Duke of Portland and the whole country, that Canis should go, that I took a resolution and went and told him yesterday that I not only advised him but wished it. I am sure I did right—but I am half mad. Only, if I do go, I will make Mr Foster give me Augustus—Bess, Dearest Bess,” she wailed. A few hours later she scratched another note: “My fate is deciding. I find Canis gone out and the Duchess [of Port-land] is gone in to the Duke of Portland to know what has passed. Oh Bess, every sensation I feel but heightens my adoration of you.”7