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?’
It was the Conroy Effect. Vicky Kent’s steward was in and out of their apartments constantly. Sofy could depend on seeing him several times a day, or rather not seeing him, for she always snatched her spectacles off her nose the instant she heard his voice. She never hid the pleasure his company gave her.
She said, ‘I know you think I’m silly, but what harm does it do? I think I’m allowed a little fancy in my old age. Remember, I never had a husband.’
I said, ‘You may yet. Princess Elizabeth was older than you when she married.’
‘True,’ she said, ‘but look what she settled for. You don’t suppose Humbug ever causes her any raptures?’
I said, ‘If it’s raptures you want you’ll do just as well without a husband. Husbands are for a different kind of comfort.’ She was silent for a while. Then she said, ‘But Nellie, perhaps that’s why you never caught properly for a baby, if Jack gave you no pleasure, for you know I’m convinced it was my rapture that brought on Tommy.’
I remember smiling at her imperfect understanding of things, great woman of the world that I was.
I said, ‘Sofy, it wasn’t your rapture that caused Tommy. It was Garth’s.’
She spilled her tea. ‘Garth’s?’ she said. ‘Garth’s? What is he to do with anything?’
I wasn’t smiling then. My first thought was to retract, but I couldn’t. The ground for retreat was cut away the instant I’d said Garth’s name.
I said, ‘Garth is Tommy’s father. You told me so.’
