That had them thinking. One little lad ventured, ‘The King’s boy?’

Annie said, ‘The King doesn’t have a son, nor a daughter. No, it will be Princess Victoria. When her uncle King William dies we shall have a queen.’

It was comical to listen to them chewing over that. The boys thought the King had better get himself a son and quickly, the girls thought a queen was an excellent idea. The procession, such as it was, left me feeling flat. I’m no lover of extravagance but I wished the Majesties had put on a little more show for those children. A fat old man in an admiral’s uniform, a lady in a plain white gown and grubby diamonds. Where was the majesty in that?

Sofy returned from Windsor scandalized at the size of Elizabeth.

‘Every bit as fat as Royal,’ she said. ‘She puffs and wheezes. How do they allow themselves to grow so big? She’s as sweet-natured as ever, but what do we have to say after all this time? Nothing at all. Augusta will soon find her too confining. You know how Gusta loves to go for vigorous walks and Elizabeth can’t take a step without her cane. I suppose we shall all be expected to take our turn at entertaining her. Well, let her go to Minny first. Perhaps by then she’ll be homesick for Homburg.’

But Elizabeth stayed on and on, into the spring of ’32. Then events in London made her long for the peace of her little German kingdom. The House of Lords rejected the Reform Bill yet again and there was rioting such as we hadn’t seen since the days of poor Queen Caroline. Many people closed up their town houses and went into the country and there was a week when the banks ran out of ready money. Ernie Cumberland was pelted with mud when he came to town to vote and Cumberlands made of straw and rags were burned on a few street fires too, or so I heard, and Wellington and any other Lord who opposed manhood suffrage. Annie, who attended meetings and read pamphlets put out by Mrs Wheeler, had become a very advanced thinker and believed that the Bill went nothing like far enough, that women should have the vote too. Her father used to laugh at her.

He’d say, ‘And dogs and horses. Why should they be left out? Then the kitchen cat’ll start agitating.’

Sally despaired of her. She said, ‘She’ll end an old maid. What man is going to want her, spouting off her silly ideas?’ But I never worried about Annie. For one thing, Robert Clearwell encouraged her in her thinking and he loved the ground she walked on, and for another, there are worse fates in life than being an old maid. Minny Gloucester could have attested to that, rattling back and forth between Bagshot and Piccadilly to make sure of always just missing her husband.

In June the Reform Bill was passed, by a squeak, and perhaps more out of the Lords’ fear of the alternative than of their being convinced of its rightness. So anyone in possession of a male member and property worth ten pounds had the vote and the country was pulled from the brink. The danger then was that women and other lowly beasts might commence agitating for the same. My Annie is convinced the day will come and though I shan’t live to see it, I hope she’s right. Women have run behind men with a bucket and broom long enough. It seems only fair they should have their turn at making a mess of the world.

39

As Sofy’s eyes grew cloudier and sewing became impossible she decided she would embark on a programme of intellectual improvement, and that I should join her. She had Mrs de la Motte come in twice a week to read to her from Marivaux but as I hadn’t a word of French I made it my business always to be occupied on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesdays Herr Krause was asked to come in to improve our German and I decided I would take up that challenge, though Sofy and I were starting from very different places. She knew a little of the Hochdeutsch her mother had spoken and her brothers had been obliged to learn; I remembered only my parents’ mix of Low Saxon and Brabant Dutch. Still, Herr Krause did the best he could with us, and what we lacked in grammatical correctness we made up for with merciless impersonations of my papi and the Illustrious Personage. Gus Sussex’s wife, Cissie, heard our laughter and said she had half a mind to join us, we seemed to have so much fun.

I went to Kensington one afternoon and found Herr Krause leaving, our lesson cancelled, and John Conroy barring my way.

‘Her Royal Highness,’ he said, ‘is with the eye doctor.’ Sofy had woken that morning completely blind in one eye.

I said I would wait. Conroy said in all likelihood the surgeon would couch the eye there and then and Sofy wouldn’t be well enough to receive anyone.

I said, ‘Nevertheless I shall wait. I’ve been with Princess Sofy through every infirmity since she was eleven years old. Every infirmity.’

He took my meaning well enough.

He said, ‘If you insist. Though I can’t be answerable for how long that wait may be.’

I said, ‘Of course. I understand your position perfectly, Major. What you are answerable for and what you are not. I wonder though, with your great influence, that you can’t ensure something is done for Captain Garth.’

‘I believe Herbert Taylor deals with that person,’ he said. ‘He does. Except nothing is ever done. The Captain’s situation is very bad. I’ve seen it for myself. A sum of money was agreed that has never been paid, and as you seem to hold the key to the coffers you must surely be answerable for that. Her Royal Highness tells me she’s out of funds and yet I can’t remember the last time she ordered a new gown. She did mention properties she thought of buying, but I think it was a passing fancy. She has no need of houses. She rarely stirs from this apartment. And anyway, I never saw her put her name to anything. Well, you would know. So I think she must certainly have sufficient to help Captain Garth in his distress. Unless some unscrupulous rogue has robbed her. But of course that could never be, when she has you guarding her affairs so carefully.’

There was nothing to be read in his face, though he had a ruddy Irish flush on his cheeks. I had made my point but we both knew I was powerless. He was in thick with Vicky Kent and Sofy, and Cissy Sussex was half in love with him too. Well, every dog has his day and John Conroy didn’t waste a moment of his.

Sofy’s eye wasn’t couched. The surgeon said it was a perilous procedure with a far from certain outcome and he couldn’t recommend it. He advised her only to preserve the sight in her remaining eye by leaving off all reading. The damage done to women’s health by novels, he said, was greatly underestimated. They overtaxed the eyes, aroused the appetites and wasted valuable time. He said he wouldn’t have them in his house. He had a wife and daughters to protect.

She said, ‘Pompous old humbug. I shall still be read to, Nellie. I rather like to have my appetites aroused and as for time, I have vast amounts of it to waste. I wish you would write me stories, like you used to when we were girls.’

But I was writing Tommy Garth’s story and I had no intention of sharing that with her.

Tommy gained some relief later that year. With a little help from me and from those few friends who pitied Lady Astley, he was able to pay the attorney and receive part of his inheritance from Old Garth. He discharged what he owed his London tailor and a horse veterinarian in Leicestershire, and was able to move out of the room where he’d chummed with two others and move into the Select. You might think it an extravagance that he should have used the extra shilling a week to reduce his debts, but I believe he made a wise choice. The same week that Tommy moved to the State House there was a death on the stinking staircase he had just quit: a case of cholera, and it wasn’t the last.

Sally had a terror of infection. She begged me to cease going to Southwark.

She said, ‘If you stop going Annie will stop too.’

I doubted that. Annie and Robert liked to look into all the worst stews and shambles and discuss what must be done about them. It was their pleasure, their Vauxhall Gardens.

Then there began to be talk of cholera in other parts of the city. They said it came in with men from the North Sea colliers, and by Christmas there were fever boats on the river at Wapping. Sal and I had words.

She said, ‘You must stop going to that dreadful place. What is it to you if that old man’s boy is in there? He brought it on himself, spending what he didn’t have.’

I said, ‘I know that, but the way he was raised is the cause of much of it. He was encouraged to have expectations, then nothing came of them. I go there because his guardian’s dead and gone, and it would break the old General’s heart to think Tommy had been forgotten.’

‘You and that old man,’ she said. ‘I swear you showed him more consideration than you ever did Jack.’

And of course the truth of that stung me so hard I hit back. I called her an ignorant, ungrateful wretch and told her Jack’s words, that if I wanted to bring her from the Foundling Hospital I must pay for her food and keep myself and not expect anything from him. That brought tears to her eyes, for she’d loved Jack and oftentimes called him pa, and he’d loved her in his funny, begrudging way. So we parted on bad terms and I had cause to regret it because the next day she took ill.

Annie came to Seymour Street, to find out why Sally and I had quarrelled.

I said, ‘It’s the prison visiting. Your mother thinks it’ll be the death of you and I’m to blame for putting the idea in your head.’

‘Mother forgets I’m a grown woman,’ she said. ‘But I hate you to quarrel, especially when she’s feeling so low. Go and see her, Grandma Nellie. Make your peace.’

Sal had a stiff neck, Annie said, and her throat was sore. I went to the Pink Lemon next morning and took her a bottle of Lucas’s Drops and a piece of red flannel for the stiffness. Henry was in a fine old mood. He had an order from Lady Haddon for candied chestnuts and a great sugar-work candelabra and he needed Sally to mind the shop.

He said, ‘I suppose we’ve you to thank for this. You’re the one who’s in and out of prisons. She was all right before she called on you.’

I said, ‘And how can I be to blame? I’m not sick. I’ll help in the shop till Sally’s right again.’

‘You will not,’ he said. ‘There’s no telling what pestilence you’re carrying.’

Sal’s throat was swollen. I went down to the ice pit and brought her chipped ice to suck on.

I said, ‘We shouldn’t fight.’

And though it pained her too much to talk she smiled. It was clear she was glad I was there. I sat with her till Annie came home from her work.

‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Peace has broken out. Good.’

It was Peter, Henry’s apprentice boy, who came to fetch me. The watch was crying three o’clock as we crossed Oxford Street, not a soul about and there was a fine rain falling.

The wind was gone out of Henry’s sails. He said, ‘She’s worse, Nellie. Her breathing’s very laboured.’

Robert Clearwell had gone to fetch a doctor. I said, ‘Why didn’t you send for him sooner?’ But I knew the reason. Money. Just like my Jack, Henry Topham wouldn’t spend it until he had no choice. They weren’t kin, but by God they could have been.

Annie said, ‘Father thinks it’s cholera. He’s worried word will get round.’

He said, ‘Don’t look at me like that, Nellie. I’ve a business to think of. Something like that could ruin a man.’

Well, any fool could have told him it wasn’t cholera, nothing like. With the cholera everything runs through you like water. I went in to Sally. She was red hot to the touch. Her breath was putrid and she struggled for every breath. I held her in my arms while Henry paced the floor and Annie waited on the doorstep, keeping watch for Robert. It was after four when he returned, with a surgeon he’d roused from his bed on Audley Street, a dithering old wreck who should have taken down his brass plate long since. He said it was as bad a case of quinsy as he had ever seen and while he fumbled about, preparing camphor vapour and laying out his lancets, my darling girl turned blue about the lips and expired.

I call her mine. She wasn’t mine by blood, and she had never called me ‘Mother’, only ‘Aunt Nellie’. But Jack and I were all the family she ever had and she’d never showed the least resentment of her lot, never wondered who her mother had been or why she had left her at the Foundlings. Whether I did for her all that a natural mother would I cannot say. I think I did well enough, but it seems the memory of that last silly quarrel will never leave me. Just when I think I’ve conquered it I turn a corner or open a door and it springs out at me: ‘You and that old man. I swear you showed him more consideration than you ever did Jack.’