So it was agreed that Morphew would drive us to Chelsea where we were to spend our wedding night at The Man in the Moon. Then he would continue on to Oxford Street and we would make our own way next day by hackney.
‘Just think,’ Jack said, ‘he can light the stove for us. We can go home to a warm house.’
Which was more than they kept at The Man in the Moon. The wind blew so hard that bed was the warmest place to be, and there we burrowed from ten that night till nine the next morning, the longest time I ever knew Jack to keep his head on a pillow.
He said, ‘I’m no good at speeches, Nellie, but I do love you.’
I said, ‘I know it.’
I couldn’t fault him as a lover. He was neat and quiet, just as he was at his work, and when he was done he seemed contented. If there was still a small part of my heart I couldn’t let him have he didn’t know it so no harm was done.
I said, ‘We should send a letter to your people. Tell them we’re married.’
Jack was from Croxton Kerrial in Leicestershire. He was the middle child of nine, with four girls either side of him. His father had worked in the kitchens at Belvoir Castle and his father before him, and Jack and all his sisters had found work there too, except for the one called Beatie who had a harelip and so had made away with herself, only twelve years old.
‘She walked to Knipton,’ he told me, ‘to find water deep enough to drown in. Here you see all sorts but Croxton Kerrial’s not London, Nellie. And Beatie hadn’t the strength for bearing such a cross. She wasn’t like you.’
I said, ‘Is that why you were kind to me? For Beatie’s sake?’
‘No, you daft woman,’ he said. ‘I did it to get my hands on your money.’
We laughed, but the tears still stood in his eyes from telling me about Beatie.
‘We’ll send a letter to your family tomorrow. I’ll write it and you can sign it.’
‘If you like,’ he said. ‘You’re the scribbler. Only don’t make it too high blown. They’re not big readers.’
We were well set up in our new home. Jack went to an inch-of-candle sale at Garroway’s auction house and bid for a bedstead with a good hair mattress and chairs, two carvers and two ladies, all with hide seats. The trestle table was his too, and four cane rout chairs, also a number of skillets and tinned stewpans, a service of creamware plates, an eight-day clock and a brass fender. I brought with me a mahogany bookcase, a secretary, two silver-plated candlesticks, three pairs of sheets stitched by my sister, a cotton counterpane, four goose-feather pillows, a Wilton carpet, a japanned tea kitchen with a spirit stove, six bone-handled knives, a pewter standish with writing quills, raven and goose, and four quire of cut foolscap paper.
On the matter of the box room, Morphew and Ambrose couldn’t agree. Each hoped the other would take it. Morphew said he abhorred an attic room for it suffocated him. Ambrose said he’d count it an honour to continue sleeping in the dry store, to guard the sugar from mice, and so they rearranged such space as there was in there and lodged together peaceably, with Morphew snoring like an old bear and Ambrose falling into such a dead sleep every night he heard nothing.
Some weeks after we were married a small package was delivered to the shop. It was addressed to Mrs John Buzzard and the carriage was paid by Lieutenant-Colonel T. Garth, but the card inside was signed Milady. I didn’t show it to Jack till evening, till I could trust myself to pass it off as nothing of consequence.
‘One of the King’s equerries,’ I told Jack. ‘He’s an old gentleman, and he has the very same mark on his face that I have. Milady’s his parrot. He means to leave her to me.’
He looked at the bracelet.
‘Pretty,’ he said. ‘Lieutenant-Colonel, eh? Best keep in with him. He might leave you more than a parrot.’
It was a delicate thing, of garnets and seed pearls with a gold clasp. I kept it in my treasure box and often took it out to look at it but I never wore it, not as long as Jack lived.
The Princess Royal and Duke Fritz were married in May. I had it all from Sofy:
June 6th 1797
The deed is done, Royal is married. When Fritz arrived she was almost DEAD with fear and had to run three times to the close-stool before she could go in to meet him. Fritz was all composure but I suppose the import of it was different for him, having already had a wife (Minny is whispering for me to write ‘a wife that he had k…d!’) He is the largest man I ever saw. I would swear his girth is the same as his height and he is exceedingly tall. Royal looked very well on her wedding day.
That was what she wrote, but when I eventually saw her she told it differently. Royal had gone to her fate looking like a boiled suet pudding:
Elizabeth says the Queen spoke to Royal privately about WHAT A WIFE MUST EXPECT but as Fritz left for Württemburg immediately after the ceremony, to prepare for Royal’s arrival, I suppose nothing has been EXPECTED of her yet. Then we had to endure the torture of packing her trunks and this week we have had to part with her altogether. The King steeled himself not to weep but at the last he could not help himself. Only the Illustrious Personage remained dry-eyed. She said Royal was doing no more THAN SHE HERSELF HAD DONE AND AT A MORE TENDER AGE. The Prince of Wales promised to come to the leave-taking but did not. Royal pretended not to mind but I’m sure she did and I minded very much. Sometimes I think he considers no one but himself. Well, now he has missed his chance and who knows when we will ever see poor Royal again.
Dolly is to meet her at Hamburg and escort her to Württemburg and Fritz’s embrace. Minny says that with Fritz’s circumference and Royal’s embonpoint they had better both grow longer arms.
Say you will visit us at Weymouth, Nellie, even though you are now a married woman. I must have you here as there are two delightful people you must meet. Our niece, Charlotte Augusta, who is the most delicious, dimpled angel and VERY advanced for her age, and Miss Fanny Garth who is appointed as her under-governess. Miss Garth is the niece of the hobgoblin and a sweet creature. We like her very much but she doesn’t write stories so you are still required to entertain a new generation and can never be allowed to retire. Please tell your husband he must spare you. Her Royal Highness COMMANDS!!!
I did not go. I didn’t even broach it with Jack. The Pink Lemon was quite the fashion for its ices that summer and he needed whatever help I could give him. There was Ambrose to think of too. He read well enough though it seemed to give him little pleasure, but with figures he was quick and he liked seeing how the accounting was done. I tried to teach him a little every day, when Jack could spare him and when I wasn’t indisposed. Before that year was over I had conceived twice and lost both babies before they had even quickened.
Mother said, ‘You are young, Herzchen. You heff plenty time.’
But Mother didn’t know about my commerce with Mrs Dacey in Hosier Street and the fever which had been added to the bill of sale. Only Miss Tod looked at me searchingly each time we met as though to say, ‘Will it all come right?’
I told Sofy nothing of my losses, nor of Tom Garth’s bracelet.
Windsor, May 18th 1798
My dear Nellie,
I hope this finds you well. I shall continue your faithful friend and write to you though you have apparently ABANDONED me. Did you hear the sad news that Royal lost her child? It was a girl, stillborn. Royal was fearfully ill after the birth and Fritz kept the news from her till she was strong enough to bear it, but the King received reports almost every day so I suppose we knew the child was dead before poor Royal did.
The Prince of Wales is unwell too. He has had a stoppage of his b…l and is UTTERLY MISERABLE. He begs the King to release him from P. Caroline and I’m sure she would welcome it (she is gone into the country and keeps a very merry house at Blackheath) but the King will not oblige them. He cannot understand their difficulty. After all, it’s not unusual for a husband to tire of the marriage bed and there’s no need at all for scandal and disruption. The custom is well enough established that he should look for discreet consolation elsewhere.
I am not in good spirits. My spasms have returned and my joints are so stiff I feel obliged to go to Weymouth to be dipped. We shall be VERY DULL there without your sotto voce sketches of the company at Stacie’s Rooms. Does Jack Buzzard keep you PRISONER? Are you locked in a tower?
Will you at least attend me on my birthday, PLEASE, PRETTY PLEASE?
Sofy
I did go to Windsor, in time for an ox-roast and fireworks in the Great Park. After weeks of rumour, one minute optimistic, the next gloomy, it had been confirmed that our Navy had won a great battle, far away at the mouth of the River Nile and the architect of the victory was Horatio Nelson, Rear Admiral of the Blue. He was promoted Rear Admiral of the Red and raised to the peerage. Everyone wanted to see him. People dredged up faint recollections of him and burnished them up into close acquaintance and the longer he stayed away, nursing a head wound and too weak to travel, the more he was adored.
I stayed for Sofy’s birthday and the victory celebrations infected even Lower Lodge. Princess Minny and I performed a new Morphew and Twyvil skit I had written, in which Morphew prepared Twyvil for a French invasion using such kitchen implements as came to hand. Jack kindly sent Sofy a pyramid cake set about with marchpane camels. By the time the confection reached Windsor most of them had lost their legs but we pretended they were kneeling, as camels often do, and they were soon enough eaten anyway. We were gay and happy and for once I was truly sorry to leave and go back to my shop counter.
What a difference a year can make. By Sofy’s next birthday the old oppressive atmosphere had returned. Amelia was recovering from a severe inflammation of the knee and could barely walk. The King wasn’t speaking to Wales because he was rumoured to be dining every night with Mr Fox and planning, like as not, to bring down the government, and Wales wasn’t speaking to Fred York who had been kicked upstairs and made Commander-in-Chief of the Army. I’m sure the Prince of Wales had no desire to risk a bullet in his heart nor to go campaigning and sleep in an army cot so I can only think he was envious of York’s splendid uniform. Prince Ernie certainly was, even though he’d been created Duke of Cumberland. As for Sofy, she was just plain peevish.
She said, ‘I suppose these few days are as much as I can expect now you have your own establishment. I suppose I had better get used to solitude.’
‘You have five sisters, and four of them you see every day.
I have none.’
‘You have a husband.’
‘So will you some day. And what about Miss Garth? I thought she had become your great friend.’
‘Ah,’ she said. ‘So that’s the reason you stay away. You’re jealous of Fanny Garth.’
That was the kind of silly mischief empty hours worked on her mind. I went for a walk and resolved to send word next morning that Morphew should come for me as soon as possible. Better that I should make my excuses and leave before more hurtful words were said. I went as far as the stable yard of Upper Lodge and there I came upon an extraordinary sight. The King was trotting about with Princess Charlotte Augusta balanced on his shoulders and the dedicated Miss Garth running anxiously beside him.
He stopped when he saw me and the child pounded his head with her fat little hands, squealing for him to continue. She was three, nearly four, not the pink and gold angel her aunts made her out to be but a solid girl and slightly scarred, for she’d taken quite badly after her inoculation. She was our future queen though, which was something to contemplate, unless a brother was born and under the circumstances of the Waleses’ marriage that seemed unlikely.
