I said, ‘You’re going to marry Garth after all.’
‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘Why do you harp on that so? No, this concerns you. It concerns your admirer. He’s not in Garth’s service any more. He volunteered for a trooper in the Light Dragoons.’
I said, ‘Good. Then he did the right thing.’
‘They were sent to Egypt,’ she said. ‘And Mrs Chaffey’s nephew—you remember Garth’s housekeeper Mrs Chaffey?—he went too and when he came back he told Garth that his groom had been killed in a skirmish and wouldn’t be resuming his position. So he’s gone, do you see? I’m sorry.’
‘He was never anything to me. It was you who made a romance of it, but there was none. It was all of your imagining. How did Garth happen to speak of it?’
‘It came out quite naturally,’ she said. ‘He’d remarked you were very cool with him today so I told him how you hadn’t wanted to go to Piddletown, because of my silly meddling. Did I do wrong?’
‘It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.’
‘And you’re not heartbroken about the groom?’
‘No. I’m sorry for him and for all those other young men who won’t come home. They’re each of them someone’s son, someone’s sister. But I’m certainly not heartbroken.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Then you’ll come with me to Ryal’s. I want to buy a drum and fife for my darling little soldier.’
Gradually the King’s delirium abated. He slept more, talked less, and took a little gruel. His doctors believed he’d soon be well enough to shift to Windsor, and on the day I left to return to London a train of wagons was being loaded with trunks and coffers. The royal household moved like an elderly tortoise.
Sofy said, ‘I hate to let you go. I hope I may see you before our next Weymouth season.’
But I was done with Weymouth seasons, though I didn’t realize it at the time. It was a crystal-clear morning. There were two frigates at anchor in the bay and ships under sail in the offing—to my eye large enough to be third or second raters though I was no great student of the Navy—and on the Esplanade a picket of infantrymen stood guard. That was my last view of Weymouth.
21
Coming home from the royal hen house was always a shock. At Seymour Street I was the only female. The laundress came three times in a month and we shared a housemaid with the Cutlers who lived next door. Esther lived with them but she came in to us every morning at 5.30 to light the fires and bring Jack’s shaving water. I did my own cooking and Morphew and Henry Topham did everything else, running between the house and the shop.
I told Jack my plan. I wanted to take in a foundling girl, the way he had taken in Ambrose.
He said, ‘What for? If it’s for the sewing get a day woman, or put it out to Miss Tod.’
I said, ‘I don’t mean a girl to be a servant. It would be someone to help me, but only in the way a daughter would.’
He didn’t like that.
He said, ‘She’ll be no daughter of mine. Some gin-souse’s bastard.’
I said, ‘But we won’t get a child of our own now, Jack. Nearly eight years married. You know it’s not going to happen.’
‘You give up too easy.’
‘How have I given up? Don’t I lie with you whenever you ask it?’
It was the truth but Jack had grown bitter.
‘When you’re not off on your royal jaunts, he said. ‘Well if you’re set on doing it nothing I say’ll stop you. I don’t know why you pretend to consult me, Nellie, you always please yourself. But you must do it on your own account. Don’t look to me for money. I’m finished with raising ingrates.’
So Sally Blacklock came to live with us. She was fourteen years old. Sally had been left at the Foundling Hospital, just as Ambrose had, but unlike Ambrose there had been nothing pinned to her nightshirt, no name, no message, nothing to suggest that her mother might some day claim her back. So they had named her for her thick black curls. She could read tolerably well, had a cheerful, open way about her and was a good seamstress. When you added her smiles to the excellent repairs she made to Jack’s shirts he couldn’t resent her for long. He agreed she was a welcome addition to our household. Morphew adored her. ‘Whoever could of gave away a treasure like that?’ he’d say, and he used to sing to her:
When she is by, I leave my work,
I love her so sincerely.
My master comes like any Turk
And bangs me most severely.
But let him bang his bellyful,
I’ll bear it all for Sally.
She is the darling of my heart
And she lives in our alley.
Jack said, ‘Only don’t ruin her, Nellie. You must keep her active. I don’t want to see her with her head in a book, nor scribbling.’
But Sally wasn’t interested in books. She liked to sew and put up pickles and hear my stories about the Royalties. At least, those I dared tell.
The King’s health settled into a fragile calm. There were only occasional eruptions into mania. At Windsor he ordered Upper Lodge to be closed up and the Majesties moved into the castle, but in separate ranges of rooms. And as the Queen claimed Augusta and Elizabeth as her companions, so His Majesty claimed Sofy and Minny and Amelia for himself. Talk of the need for a regency had subsided again, not least because the Prince of Wales was indisposed himself. Nevertheless Sofy was uneasy:
Windsor, April 4th 1805
My dearest Nellie,
I must begin with sad news. Our darling Mrs Che has passed away. Whatever shall we do without her? I feel I have lost a mother.
