At Seagreens there was no sleep that night. Aunt Hanne sat with Mother who, very contrarily, wouldn’t take her usual refuge in bed but paced about. One minute she was desolate, lost without her beloved Ludwig, next minute she was angry, that he should have gone so thoughtlessly, without even saying goodbye.
Papi had been in Fulham, taking tea with Mrs Mayersbach and had fallen stone dead reaching for the cream jug. It was over without a moment of suffering, as quickly as the pinching out of a candle. He was fifty-five. Since the doctor’s death Papi had made it his business to console Mrs Mayersbach and assist her in matters like the selling of a house, though as Mother said, Sarah Mayersbach had grown children she could call upon for aid without burdening Papi. But Dr Mayersbach had been his friend, and ensuring his widow got the best price for her property was the least he could do. And if Mrs Mayersbach was still a handsome woman, if she bore her widowing with cheerfulness and served the best leaf tea and good seed cake, little wonder he’d been in no hurry to lay down the burden.
By the time I arrived Twyvil had found a local woman who laid out the dead and Papi was washed, dressed in a starched white shirt and laid in his casket in the second drawing room. Uncle Christoff and I kept the vigil.
He said, ‘I don’t know how your mother will manage without him, Nellie.’
My heart sank.
I said, ‘She must come to Seymour Street. We’ve room enough.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘time enough to decide what’s best. But she can’t stay here alone, that much is certain.’
It was strange to see Papi without his black coat. In life the only time he ever took it off was when he cooked oliebollen on New Year’s Day. He’d make the dough the night before and speckle it with currants then, next morning, he fashioned the dough into little balls and cooked them in melted lard so hot it seethed. Jack despised oliebollen because they were greasy and heavy and the powder sugar they were dipped in made them inelegant to eat. I loved them, and as I sat beside his coffin I wished I’d had Papi teach me how to make them. Too late.
A new plot was purchased, close to where my sister lay and with space in it for Mother when her time came, and Papi was buried on October 27th. A great crowd attended, of London tradesmen he’d done business with and Hammersmith neighbours, but Morphew returned from the graveyard in an ugly mood. The Prince of Wales, who had certainly been informed of Papi’s death, had sent neither a carriage nor an equerry.
I said, ‘I wouldn’t have expected it. Papi was a steward, not a friend, and when you’re done with Royalties you’re done. The book is closed.’
‘Don’t signify,’ he said. ‘He should of condoled. After all Mr Welche done for that perfumed pudding. Got him out of his muddles. Kept the bailiff’s men from his door.’
Jack didn’t stay for the funeral breakfast. He was in a hurry to get back to Oxford Street. Papi had been so careless as to die in the middle of a hectic season of balls and dinners.
I said, ‘There’s Mother to think of. I can’t leave her yet.’
‘She can live with us,’ he said. ‘Only don’t linger here. It’s bad enough you go running off any time the Royalties send for you. You’ll never catch for a child if you’re not at home. Bring her to Seymour Street. Not Twyvil though, Nellie. I’m not spending ten guineas a year for a cook I don’t need.’
But Twyvil knew which way the wind was blowing and had already made her plans.
She said, ‘I’ll be sixty come Christmas, Miss Nellie. I can’t do like I used to. I’m going to live at my sister’s house in Barking.’
Twyvil’s sister was the widow of a cod fisher, lost at sea. She was also a paralytic, so whatever price Twyvil paid for accepting the charity of a roof over her head was offset by the prospect of having dominion over a sister who couldn’t walk. It was a satisfactory arrangement. Mother wasn’t so easily settled.
All she would say was, ‘Vot doss it matter ver I liff ? Vizout Ludwig my life iss finish.’
The thought of returning to London and being able to see Miss Tod and Mrs Lavelle and Mrs Romilly every day if she wished wasn’t inducement enough. So it was agreed that Mother would give up Seagreens and move in with Uncle Christoff and Aunt Hanne to await death. Morphew drove me home.
He said, ‘I’ve been a-thinking, Miss Nellie. If you ask me, your dear father, God rest his soul, should of been gave a title. When he left Wales’s service. Sir Louis Welche. Should of been. If ever a man earned it.’
It was a diverting thought. Papi might have enjoyed a title, Mother certainly would have, and it was the usual way for Royalties to express their gratitude, as I soon had a reminder. Before the year ended, Sofy’s discreet Dr Milman was created Baronet Milman of Levaton.
I’d suggested to Sofy that I visit her at Kew in the spring and she’d agreed to the plan, but as Easter approached she wrote to warn me there might be an impediment to my visit:
March 19th 1801
My dearest Nellie,
I am very afraid you had best not come, at least not yet. His Majesty is unwell and must have complete quiet and the Queen cannot lodge close to him because his delirium distresses her, so we are in a perpetual state of moving house, depending on the recommendations of Dr Willis. We are presently in Dolly’s house on Kew Green but Dolly is expected home so we shall soon be shifting again.
The King’s difficulties are not as grave as we have seen them before. You will remember how we feared for his life. Thirteen years ago, Nellie! How ANCIENT we’re growing! This time there is a fever, intermittent, and some hurry in his speech, but he is often well enough to receive his ministers and signs papers. He knows the fate of Hanover hangs in the balance, and that a squadron has sailed for the Baltic. The anxieties of the war can only hinder his recovery, I’m sure.
I shall send word the very moment we are able to see our friends again. If the delay continues, please say you will come to Weymouth instead. You will understand I should like to call on Mr Sharland to see how his family does and I can hardly think of doing that without my dear Nellie at my side.
Yr Sofy
My visit to Kew was delayed and delayed, then it was full summer and time for the Royalties to take the Weymouth waters. The thought of Sofy visiting her child without an understanding soul at her side was more than I could bear. Each evening I planned to broach it with Jack, but the moment never seemed quite right. Then came the day. I’d kept my house in good order, I’d done my duty at the Pink Lemon and in my marriage bed. ‘What am I?’ I thought. ‘A slave? An infant?’
I said, ‘I think I must go to Weymouth, and I hope you won’t stand in my way.’
He said nothing.
‘Sofy needs my help. Just for a week or two. If you only knew.’
Then he turned to me.
He said, ‘I have heard talk.’
Of course he had. I don’t know how I’d ever imagined such a secret could be kept. The whispers had begun even before Sofy’s lying-in was finished.
I said, ‘You guessed then? When I was with her last summer?’
‘None of my affair,’ he said. ‘I’m not one for tittle-tattle.
You know that.’
‘It’s the cruellest thing, Jack. That baby boy. She can see him, but she can’t keep him and she can’t speak of him, not to her sisters at any rate.’
‘Load of nonsense,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t they just marry her off quick and be done? They wouldn’t be the first to cuckold the parson. Or is the fellow already wed? Is that it? What’s his name?’
