Wasted breath.

Sofy’s first thought, as with everything, was to put the matter entirely in John Conroy’s hands. Then Minny Gloucester intervened. She spoke to the King and the King said Sir Herbert Taylor was the man to deal with it. Sir Herbert had been Fred York’s adjutant, then the old King’s secretary and after that Queen Charlotte’s treasurer. There was no man more loyal to the Hanovers and I was relieved to think Sofy had him to protect her feelings and her bank deposits.

Garth knew Sir Herbert and was worried about the appointment.

He said, ‘Now Tommy has met his match. He had better go very carefully. Taylor may seem anodyne but he’s a clever man and he’ll use every trick he knows to protect Her Royal Highness.’

Poor Garth. His instinct was to protect any lady, even one who sometimes forgot the gratitude she owed him, but he loved Tommy too, like a true father. As for Ernie Cumberland, he was everywhere and nowhere in all this, living untroubled—or so I believed—in Hanover, and a picture of married contentment.

That summer, while Sir Herbert calculated and Tommy ran up still more debts, Sofy had a distraction. Royal came to visit, hoping to find a cure for her dropsy. It was the first time she had returned to England since her marriage. Augusta had visited her in Württemberg and so had Elizabeth, but Minny and Sofy had not seen her in thirty years. Augusta went to Greenwich to meet her and took her first to St James’s to see the King and then on to Frogmore, which is where I saw her when I accompanied Sofy to Windsor.

Royal, Dowager Queen of Württemburg, was enormous: a vast bombazine-wrapped egg of a woman, without a neck or waist or ankles. She couldn’t walk and could only sit if her back was well supported. That she had made the journey at all was a miracle. And what changes she must have observed. The old Queen’s House, now renamed Buckingham Palace, doubled in size and left in a mess of stone and timber while the next stage of its renovations was agreed. Upper Lodge demolished, our new King bloated and tearful, Augusta gouty and walking with a cane, and Sofy, bent and half-blind.

But Royal held court, pink and smiling, doling out gifts and talking endlessly of the rising generation of Württemburgs. There were a great number of Fritz’s grandchildren for her to run through.

Sofy said, ‘Why does she go on so about them? Why should we care? I’m sure I was in complete muddle with all their names.’

Tedious as it had been to hear about someone else’s faraway relatives, I believe it was something else that had put Sofy out of sorts: Royal’s talk of nearer relatives, Dolly Cambridge’s children whom she saw quite often and—more particularly—the Cumberlands’ son, George.

‘Such a darling,’ Royal said. ‘Ernie is besotted with him. But he has that same weakness in his eyes that Ernie had. I do pray something can be done for him.’

I watched Sofy as Royal talked of the Cumberlands. She showed nothing of what she must surely have felt, hearing of Ernie’s happy circumstances, of his devoted duchess and his angelic son. What had happened between them had cost Sofy everything and Ernie nothing. I noticed a difference too in the way Royal condescended to Augusta and Sofy. She had had a husband and a throne while they remained spinsters. Towards Minny, who had married, she was far more respectful.

At the beginning of October Royal began her slow homeward journey. Augusta and Sussex saw her off. The King, who had promised to say goodbye, stayed away at the last minute, indisposed again.

Sofy said, ‘Gusta is in such a fury. She says her gout is every bit as bad as his, he just makes heavier weather of it. And you know, I quite agree with her. He should have said farewell to Royal. After all, none of us shall ever see her again.’

I said, ‘That’s a sad thought.’

‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘She’s grown insufferably smug. If I had heard another word on the glories of Ludwigsburg I should have screamed.’

As the days shortened Garth and I left off our walks in the park and stayed by his fireside. He seemed aged suddenly. What self-discipline and a sober life had kept at bay had been undone by Tommy’s reckless goings-on. Creditors left unsatisfied, Sofy’s name mentioned in caricatures, and Georgiana Astley consigned to limbo, for her husband had been refused the divorce he’d sought and her lover couldn’t afford to keep her.

Sir Herbert Taylor had prepared an offer. Tommy might have twelve hundred pounds a year, for life, if he signed a pledge never again to apply to Sofy for funds, never to communicate with her and never to speak to others of their connection.

‘Too harsh,’ Sofy said. ‘A boy can’t be asked to cut himself off from his mother or starve.’

But John Conroy’s advice prevailed and for once I agreed with him. Tommy was no poor, motherless boy. He was a grown man who would stop at nothing to have his own way. ‘Besides,’ I said to Sofy, ‘when does he ever visit you, except when his pockets are empty?’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘he is so often in Leicestershire, Nellie, and that’s a great distance away, you know.’

Such nonsense. Anyway, Tommy put his signature to the document without agonizing too long over the sacrifice. Then, almost immediately, he thought better of it. He said Sir Herbert had placed him under unfair pressure to sign at once or the offer would be void. Day after day he wrote, arguing his case and seeking another interview with Sir Herbert. He received no reply.

I saw the toll this took on Garth.

He said, ‘I must see him settled. I can’t be long for this world and I must know Tommy is provided for. This house will be his when I’m gone, but there’ll be little else.’

I said, ‘Perhaps he should work for his bread instead of begging it? How does he think others live?’

He looked at me, perplexed. It was a reminder of what different worlds we came from.

I said, ‘He could go to India. I’ve heard that’s one way young men solve their difficulties.’

‘But Nellie,’ he said, ‘he does have a claim, as you well know. And then, there’s Lady Astley. She may have acted rashly, leaving her home, but a lady cannot be blamed for being seduced. We must think of her. What if a child were to be conceived?’

It was the closest I ever came to quarrelling with Garth. Wearing himself to a shadow over that thankless rip. I had little sympathy for Tommy and I raged against Ernie Cumberland who came out of it all too lightly. I raged on behalf of Sofy who could not condemn him and Garth who would not.

One afternoon when I arrived at Grosvenor Place I found Garth in a kind of fever.

He said, ‘I’ve made a decision, Nellie. I’ve sent for Tommy.’

He had papers, bundled on his table and tied with a string. Over the next hour we sorted through them and put them in some kind of order. Singly they were just letters, jottings, a few receipts, but together they told a story: that Tommy’s father was the Duke of Cumberland. When Tommy came the next day Garth put the papers in his hands. He believed they would help bring Sir Herbert to heel and persuade him to tear up the promise Tommy had signed in haste.

He said, ‘I should have done it sooner, Nellie. Those papers have hung about me like a millstone. I’m relieved to be rid of them.’

I said, ‘But what about Sofy? Tommy doesn’t have your niceness. If he allows everything to be generally known it will be terrible for her.’

He said, ‘I wish Her Royal Highness no ill, but she has ever protected Cumberland’s name. So let them sink or swim together. Herbert Taylor’s a cunning fellow, though. If he settles reasonably it need never come out. Tommy can use those papers to secure his future. Indeed I hope he writes to Taylor this very evening. The sooner this is tidied away the sounder we’ll all sleep.’

But Tommy didn’t apply directly to Sir Herbert. He went instead to Mr Westmacott, the proprietor, editor and chief gossip merchant of Miss Tod’s Sunday extravagance, a news sheet called The Age. And upon hearing this Sir Herbert Taylor became suddenly available to meet Tommy or his counsel and to reconsider the bargain that had been struck.

35

From April until September I hardly saw Sofy. Ernie Cumberland was in town and a frequent caller at Kensington Palace. I had no wish to be in his company. The reason put about for his return to England after so long an absence was the Catholic question. Ireland was boiling with rebellion and it was said Catholics must have the vote or there would be war but the King, who had seemed sympathetic to the idea, began to waver. The Duke of Cumberland had come to put some spine into him, to warn him that if the Catholics were indulged the shade of old King George would surely rise from its Windsor vault to haunt him. So Ernie divided his time between Windsor, where he urged the King to grind Ireland under his heel and save us all from Popery, and St James’s, where he could keep a discreet eye on the case of Tommy Garth.

Sir Herbert put a fresh offer to Tommy: his debts cleared and three thousand pounds a year for life in exchange for surrendering the documents Garth had given him. An agreement was reached but before the capital fund was set up Sir Herbert insisted that the papers be sealed and lodged in a safe place. Garth suggested the chambers of Tommy’s counsel in Lincoln’s Inn but Tommy, put too much at his ease by the thought that his money troubles would soon be over, preferred to deposit them at Mr Westmacott’s bank. He was given no receipt.

Through the summer of ’28 I was Garth’s daily companion. ‘Nellie!’ he’d call, when he heard me at the door. ‘Come in and divert an old fool.’

To be with him was as easy as slipping into a pair of old shoes. But I could see that his anxiety over Tommy was robbing him of his health. First, Tommy was called out by Lady Astley’s aggrieved husband. When Garth heard about it he reported the challenge, hoping to have Tommy arrested before a shot was fired, but by the time the meeting place was discovered and the constables had arrived Tommy and Sir Jacob had kept their appointment, shot wide and managed not to kill each other, and had both left the scene. There was worse to come. Sir Herbert Taylor seized on a providential opportunity.

The Age was known to be solid in its opposition to the Catholic vote. So was Ernie Cumberland. This was important common ground between adversaries, and when a matter of great national importance is at stake the influence of a royal duke is far more important than passing loyalty to a royal bastard. Charlie Westmacott, owner of The Age and custodian of Tommy’s vital papers, was bought.

The King and Parliament battled all through that year. Whenever the Catholic question was raised he’d threaten to leave England to the priests and go to Hanover, but it was an idle threat. He could never have travelled so far. There were many days when he didn’t leave his couch. Breathlessness deprived him of the pleasure of racing at Brighton, kidney pain kept him from watching the chases at Goodwood, and when Vicky Kent’s daughter, Feodora, was married at Kensington Palace dyspepsia prevented him from leading her in, as he had promised to do.

Feodora’s husband was Prince Ernst, a Hohenlohe relative of Billy Clarence’s wife, Adelaide. It was reckoned to be a good match. Prince Ernst was apparently free of the worst vices and his estates were in Langenburg, which removed Feo from the English stage. She was a very pretty girl and there had been a growing concern that she would out-dazzle Victoria. I couldn’t see the difficulty, myself. Victoria had other qualities, far more useful in a future queen. She was strong and healthy and she had just the right endowment of wit; enough to deal with politicians but not so much that she’d find court life unendurable. In any event Feodora was apparently happy to marry Prince Ernst and Victoria’s champions were relieved to see her go. She was to be a neighbour of Royal, though not for long. Royal died in October, drowned by her own dropsical waters. She was buried in the vault at Ludwigsburg.

As Sofy said, ‘And then there were four. Royal and Amelia.

Our bookends are gone, Nellie.’

She didn’t mourn. Actually, she seemed quite gay, for she believed Sir Herbert had tidied away the problem of Tommy, and John Conroy could be depended on to find diverting new projects for whatever was left of her money. Rather I was the one touched by death. I came home from Kensington one afternoon and found Miss Tod, composed but lifeless in a fireside chair. She was a very great age, for she had remembered the old King’s grandfather, who was George II.

Sally said, ‘Now you must come to us. This house is too big for one.’

I said, ‘Then you move in with me.’

‘Henry won’t,’ she said. ‘He likes to be over the shop and Annie’s closer to her work. It’s easier for one to move than three.