The victory might have been ours at Trafalgar but on dry land Boney carried all before him. In Württemburg he put Royal’s compliant husband on the throne, so Royal was now a Queen. Amelia said, ‘But only because Fritz bowed his knee to the French. What a coward!’

‘Actually,’ Sofy said, ‘I don’t suppose he really bowed his knee, for if he did how would he ever get upright again? But you know Nellie, Royal is getting quite above herself. In her letters she now addresses the Queen as “Sister”. Our Illustrious Personage regards it as a huge impertinence.’

Royal’s sudden loftiness gave them something to smile about in the midst of a gathering storm. It concerned the Princess of Wales. That she was unruly, that she omitted to wear her stays, told coarse jokes and received men in private, all this was regretted—but accepted as being beyond correction. As long as she lived in the country a pretence could be made not to notice her. But the story that Edwardine and Willy were her own natural children and not foundlings at all had changed from a wisp of smoke to a raging fire. Lady Douglas was one of those fanning the flames. The Douglases were neighbours of the Princess at Blackheath and had been her greatest friends, in and out of each others’ houses every day until they had quarrelled. Then the sweet gush of affection turned to a drip of poison. Lady Douglas said the Princess of Wales had lovers, and children born the wrong side of the blanket.

Information was brought to the Prince of Wales. He took it to the Prime Minister who advised that it must be laid before the King, for if the Princess of Wales lived so promiscuously how certain was the succession? The whole world knew that Wales had lain with his wife very rarely and that under duress. What if he were not even Princess Charlotte’s true father? Well, I could have settled that for them. All they had to do was use their eyes. Charlotte was Wales to her fingertips. But I wasn’t consulted. A Commission of Enquiry was set up to investigate.

Testimony was heard from a great many people. Loyal friends and lost friends, servants and former servants. A person’s story was one thing when it was bandied about and different when it was examined under oath. Sofy was very uneasy.

She said, ‘I’m sure I’ve always tried to be Caroline’s friend, but now she begins to say that if the commission goes against her she’ll broadcast secrets about our family and you know what I fear, Nellie. I don’t think she means to be vicious but she’s silly enough to say harmful things without a care for the consequences. What if Dr Milman is questioned?’

I said, ‘I imagine that baronetcy sealed Milman’s lips. But if there’s any doubt about him I’m sure being raised to viscount would make him forgetful.’

‘Don’t jest, Nellie,’ she said. ‘Then there’s the Sharlands. What if they talk? Dear Che has gone where she can’t be quizzed, that’s a comfort. Not that she would ever have been disloyal. But there was an apothecary. Do you remember his name? What if he’s hunted out?’

It didn’t occur to Sofy that it was common knowledge she’d had a child and, furthermore, that no one cared about ancient scandals when they could enjoy fresh ones.

The investigation was completed and the evidence against the Princess of Wales was found to be ambiguous, but she had survived by a whisker. The King ruled that in future she had better keep her distance from his daughters, wear her necklines higher and her hemlines lower, and leave off politicking against her husband.

My Aunt Hanne, who was the enemy of anyone who tried to bring down the Prince of Wales, said it was a pity Brunswick had fallen to the French, otherwise we might have sent her back where she came from and good riddance. But the Princess of Wales had no desire to leave England. Banishment from court was no hardship to her when she could find a hundred enjoyable ways to be a thorn in her husband’s side.

Princess Charlotte was lodged at Warwick House, to be kept away from her mother and under the closer supervision of her father. Riding was her great enthusiasm and Sofy and Augusta loved to keep her company. They doted on her and so began to come much more often to town. There was little else for them, except to play cards with the Queen. The Royal Highnesses were old maids, more or less. Augusta was forty, Elizabeth was thirty-eight. Amelia was the only one who still had any claim to youth but she seemed to damn herself to spinsterhood too, believing that she was engaged to Lord Fitzroy despite the stubborn existence of his wife and four children.

Sofy still hoped to see Princess Elizabeth married, to clear the way, as she saw it, to Minny getting a husband too:

Augusta is quite content with her riding and her gardening. I don’t know that she ever wished very much for a husband. I, of course, have NO PROSPECTS and Amelia is a hopeless case. She half believes herself already married to Fitzroy. But Minny would love to have a child and she really should be allowed to marry while she still has her looks, if only Elizabeth could be settled. Louis-Philippe Orleans did offer and I believe she would have had him but he refused to give up his Church. She is also rather smitten with Alleyne St Helens (did you ever see him, I wonder? He was Lord of the Bedchamber to the King). She spoke to the Prince of Wales to see if he could further her cause with the Majesties but he said he couldn’t recommend the match because St Helens enjoys shockingly poor health and anyway is not the marrying kind. What can he mean? Surely men only remain bachelors when fate denies them a suitable wife and here sits Elizabeth, plump and pink and ready to be asked.

Yr Sofy

In fact Elizabeth had a long wait yet for a husband, and Minny too. Amelia still talked fancifully of eloping. She grew thinner every time I saw her and she had never had the heavy build of the Hanovers. I took it to be a bad case of lovesickness, but then she became so weak she couldn’t ride and if she didn’t ride she practically never saw her beloved Lord Fitzroy. That was when I realized how ill she was. She began to cough. She had pains in her side which calomel did nothing to ease. Minny went with her to Weymouth but the waters did nothing for her either. The Majesties seemed unconcerned.

The King did visit Amelia, but his poor sight prevented his seeing how frail she’d become. The Queen was more exercised over the Duke of York’s personal difficulties. Absent the embrace of a loving wife he found consolation wherever he could, and two of his lady friends were discovered to be trafficking in army preferments, £300 for a captaincy, £700 for a major. One of them, a Mrs Carey, had actually set up shop in Threadneedle Street until she was threatened with prosecution. Another, Mrs Clarke, who conducted business from her sofa, was questioned in Parliament. Well, she said, what else was she supposed to do? The annuity York had settled on her wasn’t enough to live on and keep an establishment suitable for entertaining a Royal Highness. Everyone does it, she said. Everything is for sale. Why pick on me? However much the news sheets painted her as a greedy trollop she emerged from the affair looking better than Fred York. He’d have done better to make do with a thruppenny upright when the urge came upon him and then go home to his duchess.

In April Uncle Christoff wrote to say I had better go to Hammersmith. Mother’s dropsy grew worse by the day and her physician said she could not survive long. In fact she lived another three months, struggling for every breath. She was lifted out of bed and put in a chair, which seemed to me only to prolong her agony, but Aunt Hanne insisted on it. Tapping did little to relieve her.

‘Help me, Nellie,’ she used to gasp, when Aunt Hanne had left the room. ‘Bitte, bitte, put pillow on my face.’

And I did think of it. Perhaps if it hadn’t been in my uncle’s house. Every morning I thought ‘Well, if the end doesn’t come today …’ I wouldn’t have allowed a cat to suffer as my mother did. In the final hours she mistook me for my sister, Eliza, and hers wasn’t the only confusion. My aunt began to call her Ursel but Mother’s name was Margret. Ursel was Aunt Hanne’s own long-dead mother.

Uncle Christoff said, ‘A slip of the tongue. It’s the lack of sleep.’

But it wasn’t. It was the first sign that Aunt Hanne was turning planet-struck.

Mother died at the beginning of July. She was buried in the same grave as Papi, reunited with him after six years of dogged grieving. It had never occurred to her to turn back to life, to visit her friends, to ask after anyone else’s health and happiness. No one ever squeezed the pips of widowhood harder than my mother.

23

On the last day of May, 1810, Jack brought home a late edition of The Times.

‘This’ll be of interest to you,’ he said.

An attempt had been made on the life of Ernie Cumberland.

He had been asleep, at St James’s Palace. A man had appeared at his bedside and attacked him with his own regimental sword. Ernie had fought him off and the assailant had fled. The alarm was raised, the outer gates were locked to prevent escape, and then Ernie’s valet was found with his throat cut from ear to ear. It was clear enough what had happened. A deranged servant had tried to assassinate his royal master, failed in the attempt and had then chosen to end his own life. The case was no sooner opened that it was closed.

The next day people began applying to view the scene of the crime. The valet’s body still lay there in a great quantity of congealed blood so it was reckoned well worth a visit. Miss Tod was very eager to go.

She said, ‘Come with me, Nellie. They’ll certainly let us in with your connections.’

But I had no wish to see a man with his throat cut nor to go anywhere near Ernie Cumberland’s apartments. Then it was circulated that the dead man, Joseph Sellis, was to be buried at the three-went way at Charing Cross with a stake through his heart so she went to see that instead. Sally wanted to go with her but I wouldn’t allow it. She was a good girl, Sally. I’d never had trouble with her, but she sulked and stamped her foot over that. She was going on twenty but she still lived under my roof and I put it to her that it wasn’t right to gloat over a man’s burying, whoever he was, whatever he’d done. God would judge him, and the rest of us should spare a thought for his poor wife and children.

So Miss Tod went with Mrs Romilly and Mrs Lavelle for company. There was quite a crowd, she said, very jolly, and hawkers came selling pork scratchings and hot pippin pies. They had waited a good few hours but nothing happened so they went home, thwarted but still as merry as if they’d been to a carnival. Mr Sellis was buried at dead of night, behind Scotland Yard, and his wife and children were put out of St James’s and thrown upon the parish. Then the whispering started up. That Sellis was the gentlest, most loyal servant that ever was, with fourteen years of faultless service to his name. That he had unmasked another valet, Cornelius Neale, as a cheat and a thief and had made a mortal enemy of him. Also, that the Duke of Cumberland, far from being gravely wounded, had been seen walking quite spry in the grounds of Carlton House, and what good fortune for him that he’d been attacked by an assailant so half-hearted that he’d done no more than scratch his sleeping victim. With a sabre! And in a room where a night lamp was kept burning!

Sofy saw things differently:

I visit Ernie every day. Augusta and Minnie and Elizabeth remain at Windsor to sit with Amelia. He is such a rock and bears up very bravely, even with my scolding for you know he is a LITTLE to blame for what happened. He should never have employed the man. A SARDINIAN, Nellie! It’s well known they are all BRIGANDS. Ernie was far too trusting. But I thank God he is safe.

Amelia slowly slipped away. Her ailment consumed her with pains and coughing and then, as though she hadn’t suffered enough, with an attack of the Holy Fire.

She couldn’t bear to be touched, nor to have noise. Brandy, laudanum, drainings, cauteries … Nothing helped her except to see Fitzroy one last time. This was arranged very kindly and discreetly by Augusta. I was at Windsor. After a tormented night Amelia was reported to be sleeping peacefully. Minny and Augusta were sitting with her, Sofy was attending the Queen and I was writing my journal. I heard a maid crying, then another:

November 2nd 1810

P. Amelia died an hour ago. Her suffering is over. She was twenty-seven but she remains fixed for me as the golden, silly child I first saw at Kew. P. Minny hardly left her side these past two days and is close to collapse. Sofy is too stunned to move or speak. She had convinced herself that it was just an episode and Amelia would recover. Augusta and Elizabeth are all practicalities. The Queen is closeted with her ladies. The King has been told but is too deranged to understand. Wales has just arrived with Fred York and Billy Clarence. Ernie Cumberland and Dolly Cambridge are expected soon. Another dreadful anniversary to blight Sofy’s birthday.

I stayed until after the funeral. The day had been cold and misty and after dark the fog thickened and deadened the tolling of the chapel bell.

‘Just as well,’ Sofy said. ‘It would be a dangerous thing if the King heard it and came to a realization that they’re taking his angel to the vault.’

All we could make out through the window were the torches of the linkmen as the casket was carried in to St George’s.

Sofy said, ‘No more birthdays for me, Nellie. They’re nothing but a curse. I’m thirty-three, blind as a mole and spoiled for any suitable husband. Bring a blunderbuss next time you visit and put me out of my misery.’

There was news awaiting me at home. Henry Topham had proposed marriage to Sally and she had accepted him. Jack was dead against it.

He said, ‘They’ve lived like brother and sister.’ I said, ‘But they’re not brother and sister.’

He said, ‘It’s still unnatural.’

I had my reservations too, but for a different reason. Henry was such a dry stick. He could bore a cat out of a tree. Sal was a livelier spark. She loved company.

I said, ‘You’ll never see him. He’ll never take you to the Pleasure Gardens. He’ll be in those kitchens from dawn till night and when he comes home he’ll be fit for nothing but sleep.’

But she wouldn’t be dissuaded. She’d spent her first fourteen years belonging to nobody and all she wanted was a husband who’d never leave her, never let her down. And as they were determined to marry, blessing or no, as soon as Sally was twenty-one, Jack said they had better do it at his convenience, in the January lull. They were married at Hanover Square on January 10th 1811. Morphew gave Sal away and blew his nose through all the vows and Jack stood up for Henry, and after we’d had ham and eggs they caught the Piccadilly Flier to Brighton, to see the sea and discover if they had anything to say to each other.

The marriage even had royal approval. Sofy sent Sally a good dress-length of grey silk tabby:

I know she is as dear to you as a daughter, she wrote, and though I have never met her I think of her as a kind of niece. I also disagree with Mr Buzzard’s objection. As you rightly say, they are NOT brother and sister, and frankly Nellie, what if they were? I have never understood the prohibition. Much is made of knowing a person before marriage, of avoiding the discovery of unpleasant histories after the contract is sealed, so what could be more sensible than marrying a man one has known all one’s life? I’m sure I’d have been happy to marry ANY of my brothers. Well, perhaps not Billy Clarence!