‘Oh yes?’ he said. ‘Well I hope you live to see it.’

He didn’t even trouble to look at me. I suppose to a bookseller writers are like waves on the sea. They rise up all roar and bubble, but before you know it there’s nothing to see but a patch of wet sand, and it doesn’t matter because there’ll be ten more along directly.

We had hot mutton, a shilling a slice, and glasses of porter, and I took Annie to ride on a merry-go-round, which is as close to being on a horse’s back as I ever wished to be. It was a splendid, sparkling day.

‘All right for some,’ Jack said, but he was happy enough. He had a full order book. We’d defeated Old Boney at Leipzig and we had him on the run. People were in the mood to give dinners.

By dusk the sky was full of snow again and it fell without a pause until the next morning. In Hammersmith, while Uncle Christoff slept Aunt Hanne walked out into the drifts. She wasn’t found until the thaw came in March.

Uncle Christoff said, ‘She couldn’t rest, you see? She was always on the move. It was the brain fever caused it. She didn’t know what she was doing, Nellie.’

I’ve often wondered. My aunt had gradually slipped into a world of ghosts, searching for my mother, mistaking Uncle Christoff for her own father, but occasionally she would return to the land of the living. I’d seen her take my uncle’s poor, tired face in her hands and kiss it with such tenderness. So perhaps that last walk in the snow was intended, to spare him any more heartache. We’ll never know. What was clear was that Uncle Christoff couldn’t remain alone in that big house. Jack told him he must move and live with us at Seymour Street and he gave us no argument. With Aunt Hanne gone he shrunk and withered like a pricked pig’s bladder and Morphew, who had always made a mystery of his age but could surely have given my uncle ten years, made it his business to push him out every day in a wheeled chair, whatever the weather.

All through that year the Prince Regent and his wife tussled over the future of Princess Charlotte. He wanted her to marry Dutch William. Caroline opposed him. She said William was insipid and would not do. Minny had seen him with her own eyes and said that apart from his rabbit teeth and spindly legs he was a fine figure. Charlotte had grown quite florid and she had sturdy Brunswick legs so it seemed to me a passable child might have come out of the mix, but no one asked for my opinion. Anyway, Caroline’s real objection was that the marriage would remove Charlotte from England. The English people would forget they loved her, Wales would force a divorce and try to get a son by some new wife and Charlotte’s importance to the succession would be reduced. It was the bark Caroline clung to, that whatever was said against her, however much she was investigated and deplored, some day her daughter would be queen. Then people would treat her with more respect.

In any event William of Orange was suddenly in a crowded field of suitors. With Napoleon confined to his little empire on Elba, London began to fill up with foreign Royalties eager to travel and see old friends. We had Bourbons and Hohenzollerns and Saxe-Coburgs and Romanovs. Royal’s Württemburg stepsons were in town too, staggering from one drunken rout to the next. All summer there were levees and balls. Princess Caroline was quite excluded from every occasion at court, and though she had her loyal clique she must have known that nothing she did in Blackheath could compare with the splendour of Carlton House. In August she flounced off to Italy and took her wards, Edwardine and Willy, with her.

Minny said, ‘Good riddance. I hope her ship goes to the bottom.’

Sofy said, ‘She shouldn’t have gone away. Charlotte needs her.’

But Charlotte managed very well without her mother. Her eye had been caught by Prince Leopold, a Saxe-Coburg and a major-general in the Russian cavalry. Sofy approved and, far more importantly, so did the Queen.

‘A rare thing indeed,’ Sofy whispered to me, ‘for me to agree with our Illustrious Personage, but if Leopold is amenable I truly think Charlotte should be allowed to marry him.’

Prince Leopold was amenable but the Prince Regent, reluctant to give up his own preference for William of Orange, took such an age pondering and dithering that Leopold gave up hope and went back to his regiment.

‘No matter,’ Sofy said. ‘They’re both young. Better they wait than rush into something that turns to misery. I’m sure we’ve seen enough of that in our family.’

Those summer celebrations of Bonaparte’s abdication turned out to be premature. In Vienna they were drawing a new map of Europe, but the war had been long and the grievances and claims were many. Every little duke and princeling wanted his slice of the cake, and every new dispute gave Boney fresh hope that his old enemies were far from united and that France would welcome him back. He escaped from Elba. Slipped away at night, they said.

‘Slipped away, my foot,’ Jack said. ‘He was let go.’

And Jack wasn’t the only one of that opinion. Miss Tod believed Napoleon had diabolical powers and had escaped in the form of a cat. Uncle Christoff said it was clear enough he’d been allowed to escape so we’d have a sound reason to put him away for ever, in a deep dungeon at the ends of the earth.

Morphew had another theory: that with Louis XVIII as the alternative, Bonaparte seemed like a better choice. ‘Old Bumblehead on the throne?’ he said. ‘The Frenchies don’t want it and no more do we. That’s why the powers as be let Boney get away. Where was his guards? And how did he happen to get a brig all at the ready to sail away? No, Miss Nellie, that was a put-up job and you heard it here.’

We had had nine months of peace. Now we were at war again.

It had rained all day so when the sky cleared in the evening Morphew took my uncle out for a late airing. They came home very excited. They had been crossing Grosvenor Square when a chaise and four passed them at great speed and stopped outside Lord Bathurst’s house. It was the Duke of Wellington’s adjutant, they’d learned, and he was looking for the War Minister to give him news of a great victory in Flanders.

Morphew said, ‘He was a sight, weren’t he, Master Christoff? Covered in mud. You couldn’t make out his rank nor his regiment, but he bounded up them steps so lively. Well, that’s old Boney beat and I’ll quote you why. We’ve got his flags. The coachman told us. He said that soldier was Major Percy, come directly from the battlefield without sleeping, and he had Boney’s standards rolled up under his arm, one for the Minister and one for the King—well, for the Regent. He’ll be on his way to Carlton House with it now. And all I can say is, Boney brung it on hisself. He bit off more than he could chew.’

That was how we heard of Waterloo. The news spread and the church bells started up and by the next morning there was quite a crowd gathered outside Major Percy’s house, just around the corner from us on Portman Square. People wanted to see the man who had brought the news of victory. There was dancing in the streets and two nights running there were firecrackers let off in the park. But I’ll tell you something else I remember: within a week there wasn’t a yard of black crêpe to be had. This really was the end, they said. This time we really would have peace. But how many widows had it taken to pay for it? How many mothers’ sons?

None of our royal dukes fought at Waterloo though, as the years passed, the Prince Regent managed to convince himself that he had been there. He always did love a good story and drink and the befuddlement of age did the rest. Ernie Cumberland would have fought; Sofy said he had begged for a command. But if he won no battle honours, he at least brought home a wife. In spite of the bride’s hectic marriage history and the complete disapproval of the Queen, he married Frederica in Mecklenburg and sent word that they would be in London before the end of the summer.

Sofy talked more of Ernie’s marriage than she did of Waterloo.

‘I’m glad for him, Nellie,’ she said. ‘I truly, truly am.’ I said, ‘Of course. Why would you not be?’

‘People think so ill of him. I know you did. That much was clear when his valet was found dead. I remember the faults you found in Ernie’s account of what had happened, but you don’t know him as I do.’

I assured her I was glad to hear of any happy marriage. Even better, I thought to myself, if Ernie decided to settle in Germany and spare us all his swaggering.

I said, ‘And perhaps his duchess will make a more satisfactory sister-in-law. You haven’t had much luck so far.’

‘If the Illustrious One ever allows us to meet her,’ she said, ‘which I very much doubt.’

She was right. Frederica arrived and the Queen refused to receive her. For the Prince of Wales it was a different matter. The regency had loosened the Queen’s hold on him. He came back to London in the middle of his Brighton season and opened up Carlton House to make a wedding for the Cumberlands. They were married according to the rites of the Church of England on August 29th 1815. Fred York was present, and Billy Clarence and Eddie Kent, back from long years overseas. The Archbishop of Canterbury officiated.

Sofy was quite resigned to not meeting Frederica. She said, ‘At least we have dear Ernie back where he belongs, and you know, the Queen may relent with time. Perhaps when she sees it’s a good marriage. Billy Clarence says he never saw such a devoted pair.’

Then Princess Minny said a very odd thing.

‘That may be so,’ she said, ‘but I still won’t be left alone with Ernie. Not for one minute.’

Sofy’s aches and pains never left her entirely and she’d been advised to try the Brighton waters again, but in the event she went to Weymouth instead and Sir Henry Halford, quite unaware that he was the cause of his patient’s racing heart, agreed to attend her there.

She said, ‘I don’t care for Brighton, Nellie. The Prince Regent keeps his rooms far too hot. And anyway I must go to Dorset. I should like to see Tommy before he goes away.’

Tommy Garth was fifteen. He’d left Harrow School and was going to Paris to improve his French.

‘Then to Hanover, for his German,’ Sofy told me. ‘And then he’ll return to England. Garth has purchased him a cornetcy in the Dragoons. Isn’t it splendid? My son a cavalry man, just like his father!’

26

I had wondered if the flood of dukes and princes into London after the peace might carry with it a suitable husband or two for the Royal Highnesses. Many of those who came were of mature years, and some too flawed even for the most desperate spinster, but some were widowers who might have been acceptable—perhaps the Princesses’ last hope of settling. Augusta was forty-eight and far too old for any man who needed an heir, but she never seemed unhappy about her situation. She was gay whenever General Spencer was in her vicinity, and when he wasn’t she filled her days with worthy activities and dutiful attendance on the Queen.

Sofy said, ‘Gusta is our draught horse. She hauls us all behind her. She walks and gardens and plays faro until she’s too exhausted to feel cross.’

Elizabeth and Minny clung to their dreams of marriage though, and if Sofy had none for herself I still hoped she’d find a husband willing to overlook one unfortunate piece of history. Compared to her brothers she seemed to me to have lived a blameless life.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ll never be a bride now. But I do the best I can as an aunt, and I hope I may be a great-aunt too. And don’t forget, Nellie, I have the consolation of a son. I doubt my sisters will ever have that.’

In fact there were two weddings that year. First Princess Charlotte. She knew her mind and had worn her father down. His hopes of despatching her to the Netherlands were extinguished anyway, for Dutch William had tired of waiting and married a Russian Grand Duchess instead. So Charlotte won her father’s blessing to marry Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. I had it, chapter and verse, from Sofy, and other news too:

Windsor, May 10th 1816

My dearest Nellie,

Charlotte and Leopold were married at Carlton House last Thursday week and now they are in Surrey making their honeymoon at Fred York’s house. Heaven knows why they chose Oatlands when they might have gone to any number of more agreeable houses. Minny was there last summer and she said the furniture is crusted with bird lime and everything smells of wet dogs.

The wedding went off very well though no amount of schooling succeeded in getting Charlotte to lighten her tread. She’s not an elegant girl, as you know, and the floor quite shook when she came in. The marrying was done in the red state room because an altar was still set up there from Ernie’s wedding, a reminder that did NOT please Her Majesty, as you may imagine. Charlotte was in silver and white, quite glowing with happiness. Leopold wore his regimentals. I like him VERY much. I think she has chosen well. What a sad thing though for her not to have her mama there.

They are to live in Esher when they’re not in town and plan to have a nursery full of babies. How old it makes me feel, Nellie. My little niece is now a married woman! My other news will make you smile. Minny is to be married too. Silly Billy Gloucester made her an offer and she accepted him. Can you believe it? He has no looks—did you ever see him? No chin and his eyes positively BULGE—and no wits either. Our dear Prince Regent hates him with a passion but he’s too fond of Minny to prevent the marriage if it’s what she wants. There’s also the delicate matter of Gloucester’s background, of course, but we don’t speak of it, to spare the Queen. She’ll be inconvenienced enough by Minny’s selfishly abandoning her without rubbing more salt on the wound.

Do come to Kew in August. I LONG to see you and have a great number of questions to ask about The Outcast, which I have read and passed around and bragged of my acquaintance with the author.