She might not have seen King George in his crown but she’d seen a parade of elephants dressed up in pink and gold and she’d seen a hot-air balloon that carried two men in its basket high over the rooftops.

Jack was asleep in a chair when we got back to Seymour Street, worn out from a day of sugar-boiling, and Morphew was in the summer kitchen giving Uncle Christoff a report of the day’s events.

‘What a day, Miss Nellie,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen things today I never would of thought.’ He had managed to get as close to the abbey as Broad Sanctuary, and what he hadn’t seen with his own eyes he had heard passed through the crowd and improved on with each telling.

Queen Caroline had arrived in a coach and six, and with Willy Austin at her side.

Morphew said, ‘She had a lady attending on her of course, a long drink of water she was, and then that lad the Queen keeps, all tricked out, waving and carrying on like a Prince of the Blood. Ask me, he isn’t hooly right in the head.’

It occurred to me then that Caroline had had just one aim that day: to make a spectacle, whatever the cost to her own dignity. If she couldn’t be crowned she could at least steal the show from the King. She had gone first to the west entrance, then to the north, but both doors were barred. At the last she had left her coach and walked round to the eastern cloister but there too the guards wouldn’t let her in. Morphew had witnessed her retreat.

He said, ‘We could hear folk a-shouting. They said she beat on every door. “Let in your queen,” she cried, but they gave her the same answer everywhere she knocked. No ticket, no entry. Then they reckoned somebody took pity on her and gave her a ticket that was meant for their own selves but she wouldn’t take it. She wouldn’t go on in without her suite, see, and the ticket said Admit One. Well, fair dues, a queen don’t go anywhere on her own. So then back they all come in the landau and I seen her myself. She held her head high but you could see she was shooken up and I’ll quote you why. There was more laughing at her than there was cheering and she hadn’t bargained for that. I felt sorry for her, Miss Nellie, and that’s the truth. I harn’t got a lot of time for Royalties but I don’t care to see a lady made a mockery. Then off she went and soon as she was gone out they come, like rats at midnight. All the Highnesses, in a procession. I suppose somebody told them the coast was clear. York come waddling along, looked like he’d tip over if you gave him a nudge, he’s got such a belly on him. Clarence isn’t much better. And the scar-faced one was there too. Cumberland. And the King … well, I’ll tell you something and I don’t care who hears it. I can’t ever think of that great wobbling lummox as king. Know what he looked like? He looked like one of Mr Jack’s almond flummeries, been left out in the sun.’

The news sheets said the coronation had provided a welcome lift to trade. For the banquet, three hundred and fifty bottles of sherry wine and a hundred dozen of hock. One thousand yards of best damask table covering. The embroidery of the King’s velvet train alone had given employment to a dozen needlewomen, and its ermine trim was estimated at a worth of eight hundred pounds. Then there was the new diadem commissioned by the King, said to be decorated with twelve thousand diamonds, but the diamonds were rented and, as Jack said, bottles of hock and new crowns are only good for trade if they’re paid for. He’d lived in dread of being asked to furnish ices for the banquet. An honour like that could ruin a man.

Sofy said, ‘I suffered all day, Nellie. My heart pounded and my insides griped. I felt certain something bad would happen, and I was right. It was altogether badly done. Minny said the King nearly fainted with anxiety of what Caroline might do, and then the heat and the weight of his robes. Twice he had to be given vinegar. And then did you hear what happened at the end? Dear Ernie came in to see me in the evening and told me such a terrifying story. A coach overturned in St Margaret’s and two horses had to be shot and dragged away, so the procession was quite blocked. They had to take another route, through the most terrible, dangerous streets.’

It had been a grimy end after the splendour of the day. The King’s procession had been forced to drive through Devil’s Acre. His Majesty will have been glad of his perfumed handkerchief.

I said, ‘But I think it very fitting for a new-crowned King to show himself to the people of Pye Street. They’re all his subjects, after all.’

‘Oh no, Nellie,’ she said. ‘If they hadn’t had an escort of guards I’m sure they might all have been set upon and killed. Ernie said the King was so frightened he had to be lifted down from the coach when they reached Carlton House. His legs wouldn’t support him.’

The Queen had driven back to Hammersmith and shut herself away. It was predicted she’d soon be gone, back to Brunswick or to Italy, where no one would find fault with the way she carried on. I know Sofy would have liked to visit her but she didn’t quite dare.

‘Poor dear,’ she said, every time I saw her. ‘I wonder if she sees anyone. I wonder if I should write to her?’

After a week of dithering she sent a letter and heard by return that Caroline was unwell. ‘Mine Dear Sister,’ Caroline wrote, ‘I thank you for your Kind Missage. I am very bad with Stomick Colicks since my Ordeal. Dr Rollins have give me magnesia. Dr Woodford have give me calomel and Purges of salt water but still I am costiff. I try to bear up cheerful for sakes off My People. Yr Queen and Sister, Caroline.’

On August 3rd Sofy asked me to have a box of Jack’s chocolate-dipped figs sent to Hammersmith. That was Friday. On the Monday Lady Anne, one of the Bedchamber Ladies, wrote to convey the Queen’s gratitude. The figs were much appreciated and she was feeling a little better. On Wednesday morning Jack woke me before it was light.

He said, ‘Something’s up, Nell. The abbey bells are ringing. I reckon the King must have passed.’

But it was Caroline who was dead. She was fifty-three. Some said a contortion of the bowels had killed her, some said poison. Lady Anne told Sofy she had suffered two days of agony but the last hour had been peaceful. There was to be no viewing. The Queen had expressly forbidden it.

Sofy said, ‘And do you know what her words were? “Those who cared for me came to see me while I lived.” Oh Nellie, now I feel so badly that I didn’t go to visit her at Hammersmith.’

She had the least reason to reproach herself. Minny Gloucester could have paid a call, or Augusta. Men may act pigheaded but women should know better how to treat a sister.

The King was on his way to Ireland and heard the news when his ship put in at Holyhead. He made a face of being sorry and then gave orders she was to be put in her coffin and dispatched to Brunswick as soon as possible. I thought it the meanest thing. She was the mother of his child and she’d done him the greatest favour, dying and leaving him to reign unencumbered. He could at least have been civil to her in death, but no. He commanded that her casket be brought quietly, with a small escort, from Hammersmith to Kensington, then taken north and east to reach the Romford turnpike and avoid the heart of the city and any troublesome crowds that might gather. This took no account of what the people expected. They’d laughed to see her humiliated on Coronation Day, and now she was dead they wanted their money’s worth of weeping. His Majesty should have understood that. He was fond of theatricals himself.

It was a filthy day, mild and wet, with a lowering sky, but people were still out on the streets and there was a plan afoot. When the procession reached the Kensington gravel pits the way north was blocked by wagons. For an hour everything came to a halt and as the crowd was growing bigger and uglier it was decided to take the coffin along Kensington Gore and then turn north along Park Lane. But at Cumberland Gate the crowd tried to force the procession to turn onto Oxford Street and a great fight broke out. Brick ends were thrown, shots were fired and two men were killed.

Jack had opened for business but when he heard what was coming his way he closed the shutters and stayed inside, with his cudgel at the ready, long after the military had prevailed and the hearse had crawled on along the Edgware Road. It wasn’t the unremarked departure the King had hoped for and the battle still wasn’t over. When the procession reached Tottenham Court Road the people had their way again, forcing it south. Francis Street had been dug up and carts blocked Great Russell Street to prevent any further detour from the route the people wanted: along the Strand to Temple Bar and through the heart of the City. The escort of foot guards grew tired of being pelted with mud and threw in their lot with the crowd. London had its procession for dead Caroline after all.

Sofy said, ‘Everything of Caroline’s goes to the boy Willy, you know, when he reaches his majority. Well, I suppose she had no one else. I just hope he’ll have someone to advise him. Money can easily go to a young man’s head.’

She pretended concern for Willy Austin but it was her own Tommy she had in mind. He was only a half-pay captain but he kept ten hunters at livery in Leicestershire.

I said, ‘How does he manage it?’

‘Very badly. But he’ll have more funds now he’s of age.’

‘From Garth?’

‘Of course not from Garth,’ she said. ‘I imagine Garth has very little to spare. No, from me. I made Tommy an allowance. Caroline died on his birthday, did you realize? Is a thousand a year too much, Nellie? Or too little?’

What did I know? It was a handsome amount but Sofy could afford it. One thousand pounds a year though was the only commerce between her and her son. Her banker must have understood the nature of the arrangement and all of Weymouth had long guessed whose child it was the Sharlands had taken in. Tommy was a grown man, quite capable of discretion and consideration, yet I never knew him to visit her. That was my only sad observation.

31

My Jack was never sick. He was never a lie-a-bed. If he took a head cold he’d still be at his work, croaking orders to Henry. It all started with one of his eye teeth, which should have been pulled but he wouldn’t spend the money. He sent Sally to borrow pincers from the farrier in Park Street and told Henry to do the deed but Henry didn’t have the stomach for it and I didn’t have the strength. So the job fell to Morphew who had been itching to do it anyway. He went at it like a terrier clamped on a rat and the tooth was so rotted it soon came away but its root was left behind.

Morphew said, ‘That won’t harm you. Do you take a good swig of brandy you’ll be as right as rain.’

Which Jack did and was back at work within the hour, making a sugar beehive and gum-paste bees for Mrs Garr-Lonsdale’s midsummer ball. He was feverish that night though, turning and tossing and talking nonsense. He wanted the window open because he couldn’t breathe, then he wanted the window closed because he swore the street was full of bees. I got up at six, when I heard Esther come in with the milk, but Jack didn’t move.

He said, ‘Nellie, are you there? Light the lamp.’

But the sun was up and the room was bright. Only Jack was in darkness. His eyes bulged out like coddled eggs and they saw nothing. I sent Esther to fetch Dr Jebb as fast as she could and Morphew to fetch Henry and while we waited I sat with Jack and told him some things I’d neglected to say in twenty-five years of marriage.

I said, ‘You’ve been a good husband, Jack.’

He laughed. ‘Been? What, am I finished? Light the lamp, Nellie. It’s time I was up.’

He didn’t move though.

‘Where’s Henry?’ he asked. ‘We need alum bringing in, and gum dragon.’

I told him to rest, not to fret about business. He touched my hair.

He said, ‘No need for doctors. When did I ever need a doctor? All these folks crowding in on me. I’ve got to get up, get shaved and dressed.’

Dr Jebb said it was a brain fever, caused by the piece of cotton and oil of cloves and recommended Keeley’s Bromide and poppy tea until the sight was restored. Five minutes after he had left Jack said, ‘Well I’ll be jiggered, now here’s our Beatie come to see me,’ which was his sister, long dead, and he sank into a deep sleep.

He lay two days without waking and then expired.

What can I say? I had never much wanted him for a husband and there had been many times I’d thought him narrow and unfeeling, but as soon as he was gone I wished him back. If we’d chafed each other it had done me no harm. In fact I believe it made me all the more determined to find quiet ways of doing as I pleased. I’d held out on him, keeping my secrets, and secrets can be powerful things. And when all was said and done, he was the only man who’d ever taken me in his arms and told me I was bonny enough for him. I slept in a fireside chair, after he first passed, for to lie in bed and hear the silence beside me always brought me to tears.

Sally felt the loss too. Jack had argued against my taking her in but he’d been a father to her, in spite of himself, and he’d loved young Annie like she was his very own. Morphew was undone.

He said, ‘That ain’t right, Miss Nellie. He’s gone and I’m still here. And now what’s to become of the shop?’

The Pink Lemon was the least of my problems. It had been Jack’s intention that Henry should have it some day and that day had come. Sal knew how to run the shop and people liked her. She had an open manner the ladies liked, respectful but willing to appear interested in what people should serve at their tables. She was more of an asset to the place than I had ever been. All Henry had to do was find a suitable boy to learn the sugar craft. My difficulty was myself. I’d longed to be my own mistress and now I was I yawed about like a ship whose rudder doesn’t answer.

Sofy was a true friend to me in those grey days. Every day I walked through the park to Kensington Palace and she’d ring for tea and listen while I talked in circles. She said it was a matter of time and I must be patient, that when the old King died and she was free to leave Windsor she had fallen into a terrible melancholy and not been able to decide the simplest thing.

‘And look at me now,’ she’d say. ‘Did you ever see such a gay old trout?’