I recounted my unhappy day. I said, ‘I thought I was going on quite well but now it seems I was mistaken. Well, better if they find someone else.’
She said she understood how difficult it was to judge distance with the Royalties, that their lives were fixed and narrow in ways we couldn’t begin to imagine, but whatever Mrs Chevely might say, Sofy had as much need of a friend as of a humble companion.
I said, ‘I don’t see why. I’ve never had a friend. I don’t even have a sister any more and Sofy has five.’
She said, ‘But you have an inner life that she does not. And if you knew what occurred this afternoon you would feel nothing but compassion for her.’
And I said, ‘But I don’t know. So how can I?’
Miss Burney had a long nose and a trembling watchfulness, like a little woodland creature. In later years, when I learned what became of her, I concluded that it must have been living with the Royalties that made her seem so timid because after she left the Queen’s service she lived her life with the courage of a lion.
She thought for a while, considering how much to tell me. Then she related the afternoon’s events in a very low voice. First, she said, the King, who was a stickler for punctuality, had come very late to the dinner table and in a state of great agitation. He wouldn’t sit or eat or drink but wanted only to pace about and talk and talk and would not be calmed by anyone, even when his voice began to fail. Later I heard it whispered between housemaids that his breeches had been unbuttoned too and spittle had foamed from his mouth, but Miss Burney omitted that. She spoke only of his agitation. He had kissed the Prince of Wales and clasped him to his bosom, then, in the space of five minutes, thrown him roughly across the room and called him an idler and a glutton. The Queen had wept, the Prince of Wales had wept, then Fred York had joined in. It had taken the best efforts of Royal and Augusta to persuade the King to retire. Sir George Baker, the physician, had been sent for, and the King was to be blistered if he would only stand still long enough for the mustard plaster to be applied to his head.
I asked her what they called the King’s affliction and she said it didn’t have or need a name because it was not to be spoken of. And then I did feel for Sofy. Since my sister’s death I understood what it was to live with sadness walled up.
An Assistant Keeper of the Robes only merited a tiny fire in her grate but I’d have sat by it happily for hours. Nellie Welche in conversation with Miss Fanny Burney.
She said, ‘We must pray tomorrow brings happier news. And you know, there’s a silver lining to the cloud. This evening you and I are both excused our duties. We should put our time to good use. Do you have a candle? Do you have paper? I can give you paper.’
It was her gentle way of getting rid of me before I took up any more of her precious free time. She insisted she must see me back to Lower Lodge but we hadn’t taken two steps before we saw the flicker of storm lanterns and heard faint voices calling ‘Nellie’ over the roar of the gale. I had been missed, and two outdoorsmen had been sent out to bring back Sofy’s humble companion, dead or alive.
4
Next morning the wind still howled along the passages and blew wet leaves against the window panes. This meant I was spared, yet again, the threat of being made to ride a horse. All the princesses rode, though neither Minny nor Elizabeth cared for the activity and gave it up at the first opportunity. Sofy was a great enthusiast though, and hoped to make one of me, but it had been left too late. I had seen enough of our own Beast and heard enough of broken necks to know that I could never trust a horse.
Lower Lodge was a comfortless house. The schoolroom chimney smoked, the windows let in draughts and the coals gave off no heat. Sofy had me read aloud to them again from the book I had written for her birthday. It concerned a quagga kept by a queen who thought it a very boring creature until she discovered, quite by chance, that it had the gift of speech. Being a well-bred quagga it knew that in the presence of a majesty it must speak only when spoken to. When the Queen realized how special her quagga was she wouldn’t be parted from it, demanding that it entertain her night and day and only allowing it to sleep when she did. But quaggas require a great deal of sleep, in deep litter made from thistledown. They are not at all suited to chintz coverlets, and being prodded awake by a jewelled sceptre makes them very cross.
Eventually the Queen’s quagga was so desperate for relief it told an untruth: that in its homeland of Muscadonia diamonds lay on the streets, as common as pebbles. The Queen, who was always eager for more diamonds, insisted on the quagga taking her there immediately. They travelled through the centre of the earth, which the quagga knew to be the fastest route, but when they popped up in Muscadonia the Queen discovered that the diamonds the quagga had spoken of were playing-card diamonds. Worse still, the only thing to eat in Muscadonia was liquorice, which was the Queen’s least favourite thing. So she hurried home vowing that no quagga should ever set hoof in her kingdom again and the quagga was reunited with her brothers and sisters and slept for a year.
I read it in the voices I had imagined, wondering if I’d be accused again of mocking Her Majesty, but Sofy and Amelia seemed not to recognize anything treasonable in my sketching of a whimsical queen. Minny caught it, I’m sure, but she was preoccupied. The topic of the previous day’s events hung in the air but no one spoke of it. Miss Gouly came in and had us name countries she pointed to on a globe, and when Miss Gomm, the other under-governess, came to the door to beg a quick word, she greeted her with forced cheerfulness. They whispered in the corridor.
Royal and Augusta, we heard, were with the Queen. Elizabeth came and went between Upper Lodge and the schoolroom. At eleven o’clock the word was that Thursday’s Drawing Room at St James’s Palace would not take place. But at noon the King was sufficiently restored to say he would like to go for an airing in the park and Princess Augusta might accompany him. Then Augusta was sent away because the King had changed his mind. It was the Princess Royal he most particularly wished to speak to.
This intelligence acted like a spark on dry tinder. If the King had something to say to Royal it must concern a prospective husband. Names were brought out, weighed and found wanting. Oldenburg was too ancient, Friedrich of Prussia looked like a bloodhound. Amelia said it had better not be the Duke of Bedford because she had chosen him for herself, which provoked the first laughter of the day, and the last. Soon after that we were drawn to the window by the sound of raised voices.
The Princess Royal was seated in the King’s chaise but the King wouldn’t keep his seat beside her. He walked about and conversed with the postillion, or perhaps he was talking to himself, for his gaze was directed always at the ground. He climbed into the carriage again and immediately climbed out. The Vice-Chamberlain came running with two pages, and then the physician, as fast as his spindly old legs would carry him, and they ushered the King back to Upper Lodge in a most unkingly fashion. His agitation of the brain had returned.
Hours passed without news. The little we did learn was told us by Miss Gouly and only after whispered consultations with Lady Finch, the arbiter of what was fit for our ears. Another physician had been sent for and a surgeon and the King was to be bled to reduce his racing pulse. At Upper Lodge all music and loud voices were forbidden and the celebrations for Princess Augusta’s birthday next day were postponed. Straw was brought out to muffle the noise of carriage wheels in the street but then, on Royal’s orders, it was taken away without being put down. She had stepped forward, quite out of her usual character, and ruled that it was enough for the house to be kept silent and that there was no need to draw the townspeople’s attention to the King’s indisposition. It was a private matter.
But a king is never a private matter. Whatever the King did, and even then I understood there was more to it than sitting on a throne with a crown on his head, clearly he could not do it if his mind was deranged. There were ministers to see and papers to be signed. The Queen couldn’t take his place because the King would not wish it, and she was anyway greatly indisposed herself. This we had from Mrs Chevely who had it from Miss Planta, the senior governess, who had it from Mrs Schwellenberg, the Queen’s Dresser. Her Majesty remained in her dressing room with her Ladies, and a guard at her door to prevent the King from entering because the sight of him distressed her. Furthermore, not even the senior princesses were to be admitted because the Queen’s nerves could not endure any girlish fussing. Minny, Sofy and Amelia were to stay quietly in their own apartments. It was no deprivation for them to be kept from the Queen. It was their poor sick father they cried for.
The Prince of Wales was recalled from Brighton and in his wake came more physicians. Mrs Che said the Queen mistrusted anyone recommended by the Prince but as Sir George and old Dr Heberden were at a loss and the King’s life was believed to be in danger something new had to be tried. At Lower Lodge we were in a state of frozen ignorance. We knew that across the park something terrible was happening but we were not to speak of it, except to God. We had Lady Finch’s permission for that.
I did pray, of course, for the King’s recovery but I prayed harder to be rescued from Windsor. It was Sofy’s prison but I saw no reason why it should be mine. At home I could go about in the world. I could talk to the boys from Dr Barrow’s academy or walk to Bond Street to buy a new accompt book—in fact I was expected to do it—but Sofy and her sisters lived in a high-walled maze, bustling aimlessly, bumping into each other and getting nowhere. On November 20th my prayer was answered. Amelia was looking out of the schoolroom window and suddenly cried out, ‘Sofy, Nellie, come and see. Here’s a man with a bird’s nest on his head.’
There beneath us was Morphew’s yellow thatch, and then I saw Papi. His breath hung in the cold air as he puffed and panted and eased himself out of the carriage.
Papi said he regretted any inconvenience to Her Royal Highness but he must take me back to London where my mother was unwell and could no longer spare me. Sofy clung to my arm and made Papi promise that as soon as Mother’s health was restored I should be allowed to visit her again for she really didn’t know what she’d do without me. Then I felt badly about wishing to escape. It’s so much easier to feel sympathy for other prisoners after the turnkey has opened one’s own cell door. I was careful not to smile too much until I’d kissed Sofy goodbye and Morphew had set the carriage for the Brentford road and home.
Papi had told a little untruth. Mother was no more indisposed than usual. He had only said it to rescue me from the gloom of Windsor. For all his calculating and scheming my father had a soft heart.
‘Sree veeks, Nellie,’ he said. ‘Iss long enough. No?’
I said, ‘Did you know the King is very sick?’
‘All der vurld knows it,’ he said. ‘In London zey hat him dead already.’
I said, ‘He has a great many doctors. Five at least.’
And Papi said heaven help them, they had better put their heads together and cure him, because now he was half dead everyone realized they loved him and wanted nothing so much as to be ruled by him for many a long year.
He said, ‘Zey should send for Mayersbach.’
Dr Mayersbach was a water-caster and one of Papi’s greatest friends. He could divine the cause of any ailment by looking at the patient’s water. He had begun in Middlesex, living there very plain, and had treated Papi for kidney gravel with some success. It was on Papi’s advice that he had moved his consulting rooms to Red Lion Yard, for as any fool knows, a doctor with an address in town must be vastly superior to one in Harrow. Thanks to Papi, Dr Mayersbach’s list had grown long and grand, so Papi had felt able to recommend him for the King’s case and the Prince of Wales had promised to keep the name in mind if the interpreter of pulses and the analyst of stools already attending His Majesty failed to hit upon a cure.
It had seemed to me that if the King couldn’t reign and the Queen wouldn’t reign the Prince of Wales must be called upon. Papi said I was right, but it wasn’t a simple thing that could be agreed over their breakfast eggs. A Bill of Regency must be presented, an Act of Parliament must be passed and then the King must give it his Royal Assent. But how could he give his assent when he was too unhinged even to dress himself ? It was a puzzle. And as Papi said, one that the Prince of Wales might be in no great hurry to have solved for, if he was declared Regent, his days of strolling on Brighton’s Steine would be over. He would have to get up in the morning and listen to his ministers. He would be pestered by friends looking for preferments. The Queen would watch him like a hawk. And then, what if the King came back to his senses and discovered the furniture had, so to speak, been moved? To be Regent sounded like a thankless, dangerous profession.
From Windsor to Soho cannot be more than thirty miles but it was another world, to be back where people were cheerful and food was served hot. I was the feather in Mother’s bonnet too, for many days after my return, displayed before her friends like one of Sir Joseph Banks’s rare botanical specimens. For hadn’t I personally witnessed the King’s condition? Wasn’t I the bosom companion of the Princesses? Didn’t I know the names of the physicians, the comings and goings of the Royal Princes and the innermost thoughts of the Queen? To hear my mother, I was only one step from being a member of the Privy Council. No one was impressed that I had met Miss Burney. Mrs Lavelle agreed with Mother that her stories had too vexing a number of characters and Mrs Romilly declared Cecilia had given her a three-day headache.
Snow fell on St Nicholas’ Day. It was the start of a long, hard winter. I received a letter from Sofy to say that they were all removed from Windsor to Kew, quite out of their usual order of things but in the hope that the seclusion of country life would aid the King’s recovery. She wrote:
We are in different apartments. The Prince of Wales has managed everything very well. He has had parts of the King’s House closed up, for His Majesty’s greater peace and privacy, so Kew Palace is needed for those who have been put out of their usual quarters. Minny and Amelia and I are lodged in a dear little house on the green but it is FEARFULLY COLD. I have chilblains on both feet and Amelia says she doesn’t see how she can be expected to write her lessons when she is obliged to keep her hands inside her muff.
At Soho Square we had German stoves in every room and were quite comfortable. I asked Mother if I might send Sofy some woollen stockings and an eiderdown quilt but Mother said the Royalties had money enough to buy their own quilts. Sofy also wrote that the King got along quite well and the doctors were confident of a full recovery, but that wasn’t what we heard from Miss Tod, who read all the news sheets and came every day to give us her digest of events. According to Miss Tod the King went from bad to worse and had been put on a lungeing rein, to be broken like a horse. According to Miss Tod, the Duke of York had been seen in Brooks’s Club howling like a dog in imitation of the King, and the Prince of Wales was giving gay dinners and making promises of high office to all his friends in expectation of soon becoming Regent.
It was certainly true that dinners were being given. We hardly saw Papi through the month of December. Also, Miss Tod said, Mr Sheridan was determined to be Chancellor of the Exchequer and Lord Sandwich to be First Lord of the Admiralty but the Duke of Portland said he wouldn’t sit down with either of them and, to add to the uproar, something that had formerly been hinted at was now being trumpeted everywhere: that the Prince of Wales was married to Mrs Fitzherbert.
There I had the advantage of Miss Tod and my mother because I had seen Mrs Fitzherbert with my own eyes. She had smiled at me as I was crossing the stable yard in Brighton. She was just a neighbour, a stout, lonely widow the Prince kindly invited to his house. I didn’t see how the news sheets could publish such a preposterous story.
Papi returned home at last on Christmas Eve, released to enjoy the comforts of his own hearth while the Prince of Wales did his duty and attended the King and Queen at Kew. Uncle Christoff came, all the way from Hammersmith, wrapped up against the cold, to deliver our Christmas goose and a spruce bough from his garden. It had always been Eliza’s job to hang the bough with gilded nuts and lye pretzels and now, without anyone saying a word, it became mine. It was Morphew’s privilege to stand guard with a pail of water and a sponge on a stick after Papi had lit the little candles.
However much we ate and chattered and pretended not to notice Eliza’s empty seat, it was a hollow Christmas. Papi was also distracted by a matter of business. The Prince had asked him if he would very kindly buy a troublesome news sheet called the Morning Post and take it in hand, to silence its jibes about Mrs Fitzherbert. Mother thought this was beyond his call of duty and it did seem a strange commission for a victualler and quartermaster, but Papi said he didn’t mind obliging the Prince because now he’d looked into it he could see there were easy profits to be made. The secret, he said, was to squeeze up the news which a person could anyway just as well hear in a coffee house and make more space for advertisements. When he and Uncle Christoff had had their pastry shop they had never felt the need to advertise—their gingerbread and their meat pies recommended themselves by their smell and their reputation—but plenty of traders were willing to pay to advertise their wares and Papi had no objection to taking their money. All things considered, he said, he was looking forward to this new line of business.
I saw my opening.
I said, ‘Papi, why does the Morning Post tell lies about the Prince being married to Mrs Fitzherbert?’
Mother passed the cabbage unasked and took the opportunity to bang the dish on the table and give Papi a warning look.
‘Ven you are older, Herzchen’, was all he would say.
It was the first time in my life I could remember being denied something on account of my age. I was shocked, but I took the blow meekly. My parents had no idea what pleasure it would give me to ferret out for myself whatever it was I was too young to know.
We were interrupted by a commotion below stairs. There were shouts and cries of alarm, followed by a smell of burning and then the appearance of Twyvil at the dining-room door. It was practically unheard of for Twyvil to come upstairs. When I was a very little girl I believed that our kitchen must have been built around her for she seemed too wide ever to get through its door.
Mother said, ‘Vass? Iss der plom puttink?’
Twyvil said the plum pudding was quite unharmed but Morphew’s wig had caught fire and in his haste to extinguish it he had hurled it into the pan of spiced wine which was consequently ruined. She regretted the inconvenience and deplored the stupidity of men who play the giddy goat next to a naked flame, but she believed the wig might be saved.
