Jack said, ‘Better to have babies while you’re young though. And two or three’s enough. I won’t see you worn down like my mam. We’ll have a girl first, then the boys. Boys are steadier if they have a sister’s example.’

That was how he was. Everything according to a plan. When he was making a confection he had each thing laid out in order on the table top: white of eggs, powder sugar, almonds, wafer paper. I suppose that’s why he took things so hard if his plans went awry. Jack thought in ounces and gills and degrees of heat. He had no notion of luck or whimsy.

The pink lemons were my idea. We wrapped them in muslin and steeped them in cochineal syrup until they’d taken the colour, then we put them in the window, piled high on a looking glass. Everyone who passed came in to ask what they were and no one left without buying something. Then an enquiry was made from Lady Dummer’s residence for a grand dessert, sufficient for twenty guests and appropriate for an Easter luncheon. Jack was on his way.

He made candied jonquils and marzipan cakes pressed with the Dummer heraldic device, and cornucopia wafers to hold the ices which were a sorbet of violets and a cream ice of coffee, all to be set around a crystal bowl of sherry trifle on ratafia biscuits. While he worked I was left to mind the shop. I told him he had better think of getting an apprentice for I couldn’t always be there, but he didn’t answer me. When Jack was in his kitchen the house could have fallen down around him.

Three days before Easter he came to Miss Tod’s house, hammering on the door well after ten o’clock. Miss Tod had just gone to bed but she came down in her nightgown, I think more to know Jack’s business than to watch over my virtue.

He said, ‘I’ve had an idea. Two ideas.’

He brought out two sugar-paste eggs, white, about the size of a plover’s, and gave one to me and one to Miss Tod.

I said, ‘They’d look prettier if they were mottled. Blue and green.’

‘They will be. Spinach water and indigo stone. Leave me to know my business. But crack them open.’

They were hollow, and inside each one there was a piece of paper, rolled up.

I said, ‘It’s blank.’

‘That’s where you come in. You reckon to be the writer, Nellie. I’ll need twenty mottoes, Saturday morning at the latest.’

Miss Tod said she loved a motto and between us we’d think them up in no time. But I knew I’d have them done before I slept that night.

I said, ‘What was the second idea?’

‘I was thinking,’ he said. ‘Seeing how things have turned out, instead of the Green Pineapple we should be called At the Sign of the Pink Lemon.’

And as the sign-writer still hadn’t deigned to appear, that’s what we did.

Morphew came to Meard Street to drive me to Windsor in time for the summer exodus to Weymouth. The Royalties were to call first at Portsmouth, for a review to mark the Battle of the First of June. Our army in Flanders seemed to make little progress so a victory at sea was a great cause for celebration.

Morphew was in a morose mood. Though he was born a country boy he had left Norfolk when he was twelve years old and lived ever since in the city. Hammersmith didn’t suit him.

‘I can’t sleep, Miss Nellie,’ he said. ‘And I’ll quote you the reason. Unhooly noises. Foxes screeching. And howls hooting. Then there’s another thing. Sarah Twyvil. She’s getting above herself.’

His life had changed greatly since the move. Papi had retired from his daily attendance at the Prince of Wales’s household so Morphew had less driving to do and more duties indoors. But Twyvil treated indoors as her own kingdom. She had even insisted on his getting a new wig for she said the old one was so full of animal life she could make stock from it and Mother, ever fearful of losing her cook, had a short tie wig brought in for him. But Twyvil’s victory was illusory because Morphew kept his old yellow coiffure in the coach house and the very moment he was out of sight of Seagreens he’d put it on.

I said, ‘I think Twyvil is fond of you.’ He chuckled.

I said, ‘I think nagging is her way of showing it. Did you ever think of marrying her?’

‘I did not,’ he said. ‘She’s been too long without a saddle on her, that one. But I believe you’re right, Miss Nellie. I believe she do carry a torch for me. I think Sarah Twyvil has had her disappointments.’

He was a disappointed man himself. The Revolution hadn’t come, though he still kept a liberty cap and a cockade in the inside pocket of his greatcoat, just in case. But no gentlemen had been hanged from lamp posts in St James’s and the Prince of Wales, who was every week predicted to be ruined, just grew fatter than ever.

Portsmouth was in full fig for the returning fleet. Admiral Howe had engaged a convoy guarding grain ships bound for France. The French had lost seven ships of the line in the battle but, as we learned later, the grain ships had still reached France, so both sides claimed to have won the day. But the King understood that his Navy would like to see him, no matter how diluted the victory. He was their father and they were his lads that had braved the deep Atlantic.

June 27th 1794

The Majesties and the Princess Royal went aboard Admiral Howe’s flagship, the Queen Charlotte. Then we all processed to church for a service of thanksgiving. Rolfe and Bulstrode are the equerries, both too ancient to see anything of this war. Sofy mistook my enquiry about Garth for interest in his stable-groom.

The Portsmouth review was a trying occasion and I thought the strain of it showed on the King’s face, for though he was cheered loudly wherever he walked there was no escaping the sight of maimed men. Some were regular serving sailors, some were soldiers who’d been drafted to the marine, but many of them were pressed men, farm hands and labourers who had never in their lives thought of going to sea, still less of leaving a leg or an arm at the bottom of it.

Amelia said, ‘Don’t look at them, if it offends you.’

I said, ‘It doesn’t offend me. I know what it is for people to look away. But what will become of those poor men?’

Sofy said, ‘I expect provision is made for them. I’m sure places are found for them.’

But what places? What work could a man do if he had no limbs?

I said, ‘I wish you would ask the King, Sofy. I should like to know what’s done for them.’

‘Oh, but I couldn’t,’ she said. ‘The King is not at all well, Nellie. He’s not to be troubled. We hope the sea bathing will set him up.’

And Minny said, ‘Yes, if we can only get through tomorrow without a squall.’

By which she meant, that the Prince of Wales should come to Spithead at the appointed hour, launch the ship that was being named for him and go away again without disturbing the Majesties’ peace. And so it transpired. He arrived only half an hour late, with a companion who had brought to bear his own soldierly insistence on punctuality.

The King and Queen and Royal and Augusta had lodged overnight at the Governor’s House but we were in Portsmouth town with the rest of the suite, in whatever rooms could be found for us. Elizabeth and Minny and Amelia had been watching all morning for the Prince of Wales’s carriage. There was a commotion in the street and Minny said, ‘He’s here. So far so good.’

Then Amelia said, ‘Who’s that with him?’

Sofy and I joined them at the window. The Prince looked up at once and waved. His face was pink and shiny, as though it had been polished, and he seemed so squeezed into his blue coat I wondered he could breathe. The man beside him was taller and much leaner. He had a patch over his left eye and a scarlet dolman coat slung around his shoulders because his arm was in a sling.

Elizabeth cried, ‘It’s Ernie! Ernie is home!’

And that was the first time I ever saw Prince Ernest.

13

Prince Ernie had been winged by a cannon ball at the Battle of Tourcoing but was expected to recover the use of his arm. It was, as Minny said, just the right kind of injury: not life-threatening, but visible enough to allow the Royalties their own little bit of glory. His eye, well, that depended on who you asked. Ernest said it was a sabre wound, sustained in close combat, but Mrs Chevely said he had always had a bad eye as long as she could remember.

Whatever the truth, he was quite the war hero, with his sisters falling over themselves to minister to him. He came on with us to Weymouth and the King seemed to relish his company. They rode together every morning after the sea bathing, and in the evenings Ernie would sit with him and listen to Mr Handel’s music. The Princesses were grateful for that. Every day he stayed was one recital less for them to endure and when there was a ball he always accompanied us to the Assembly Rooms and danced with every one of them. He was the perfect partner. A lightly wounded soldier with a pedigree the Majesties couldn’t possibly object to.

His hair was tawny, his face was gaunt and his bearing very military, with his chest puffed out. He made me think of a bird I’d seen in a picture book, a golden eagle presiding over his eyrie of sisterly chicks. I disliked him from the first. He was sharp with the servants and made me nervous that I might receive the same treatment from him, but he chose to ignore me instead. I’d have enjoyed Weymouth a deal better without him in the party but I was glad enough to be out of the heat of London and the confines of Jack’s shop. As people left the city to spend the summer in their country houses there was little trade but Jack would never think to close his door. Work was all he knew.

We made many excursions from Weymouth that summer. We went to Durdle Door, and to Sandsfoot to see the ruins of the castle, and to Chesil Beach to collect pretty pebbles. Then one day, at Ernest’s instigation, it was proposed to drive out to Ilsington House.

Minny said, ‘But surely Old Garth is away from home?’

‘Makes no difference,’ he said. ‘They’ll put on a good luncheon for us anyway, I dare say.’

Sofy said, ‘Oh yes, do let’s go, then Nellie may see her ardent admirer. The Major’s groom was very taken with her last year.’

‘Nellie?’ he said. ‘An admirer?’