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the villa. But this was in search of Annette.

An idea struck Pergami. He would dismiss Credé for seducing one of the

maids. It was an adequate reason; and then he would confiscate the keys and

would have no more need to alarm himself about them.

He summoned Credé.

‘I no longer have need of your services,’ he told him. ‘You are dismissed.’

‘But— why— what have I done?’

‘You are behaving in an improper manner with one of the maids. I cannot

accept such behaviour in this household.’

Credé was dumbfounded but Pergami went on, ‘I will take all your sets of

keys. I know that you have two.’

Alarmed, realizing that his affair with Annette might not be the true reason for

his dismissal, Credé handed them over meekly and Pergami was about to ask why

he had had the second set made, but he refrained from doing so. He would not in

any case believe Credé’s explanation.

Credé stammered: ‘Is this not rather harsh to dismiss me because—’

‘Because of immorality?’ Pergami raised his eyebrows and looked Credé full

in the face. ‘I do not think so. There is enough gossip about the Villa— all false tales. We have therefore to be particularly careful. I have no wish to discuss this matter further. You will leave immediately.’

With that he turned and left the bewildered Credé.

Dismissed from the Princess’s service, where could he find such opportunities

again? Credé turned over the matter in his mind and decided that it was certainly not merely because of Annette that he had been turned out. There was another

reason.

Could it be known that he had been working for d’Ompteda? If he made a

confession of this, if he explained everything to the Princess, if he told her that he wished to be faithful to her and it was for this reason that he was confessing to her, he might be taken back.

The most important thing in the world was for him to be taken back.

He had the answer. It was confession.

He would not tell Pergami because he had a notion that Pergami would not

listen so he wrote to the Chevalier Tomassia, one of the Princess’s equerries.

He was dismissed, he wrote, because of an intrigue with one of the Princess’s

waiting women and he was full of remorse and hoped that the Chevalier would

prevail upon the Princess to reinstate him. He deserved what had happened to him

because he had been seduced from his duties by Baron d’Ompteda who was

attempting to betray her. Baron d’Ompteda had asked him to procure keys which

would enable a spy to be secreted in the Princess’s bedroom. He had been

threatened by the Baron that if he did not obey he would be ruined and when the

Baron had offered him money for his services he had given way. He knew that he

had been wicked and he trusted that the
chevalier
would have pity on him and give him a chance to show his true repentance in his service to the Princess.

When Tomassio received this letter he took it immediately to Pergami.

So this was the answer,
thought Pergami. How right he had been to dismiss the man!

Pergami went at once to Caroline and showed her Credé’s letter.

‘So Your Highness now has clear proof that we are being spied on,’ said

Pergami.

‘d‘Ompteda!’ cried the Princess. ‘I should not have believed it of him. So

Mrs. Fitzherbert’s husband has appointed him spy-in-chief. This makes me

laugh.’

‘Perhaps Your Highness’s laughter should be tempered with caution.’

‘Dear, dear Bartolomeo, you are right as usual.’

The Baron d’Ompteda was asking for an audience with the Princess.

‘Tell the Baron,’ said Caroline to Pergami, ‘that I am having a reception to

celebrate my homecoming. I shall expect him to be my guest.’

Pergami looked unhappy.

‘My dear good friend, leave this to me,’ she soothed him. ‘You know how

outrageously I can behave when the need arises.’

So she had not learned the lesson, thought Pergami. She was going to receive

d’Ompteda. She was going to snap her fingers at all the intrigues. ‘Where will this lead us?’ he asked his sister, Countess Oldi.

‘She is too warm-hearted, too forgiving,’ sighed the Countess.

But Caroline was on this occasion determined on revenge.

When d’Ompteda arrived at the reception, she called for Pergami to bring her

a huge cardboard key and this she presented to him.

He looked bewildered. ‘My dear Baron,’ said Caroline, ‘knowing your love of

keys I give you this one. I hope it will satisfy you.’

Caroline turned to Pergami who was standing by.

‘Please give the Baron one cup of coffee, and tell him that he may leave and

that I do not wish to see him again.’

Publicly dismissed! Before all these people he was given the great key and a

cup of coffee. What humiliation! He understood that someone had betrayed him

and immediately thought of Credé. This was disaster, for he had failed in his

mission. What hope had he now of secreting himself in the Princess’s

bedchamber!

Captain Hownam sent a challenge to d’Ompteda. In view of certain facts

which had come to light concerning his behaviour, he challenged him to a duel.

D’Ompteda was to name the place and he would inform his seconds without

delay.

The wretched d’Ompteda did not reply; he had reported to Hanover and was

awaiting instructions. If ever a spy had made a hash of a mission he was that spy.

Caroline meanwhile had heard about the challenge. She did not wish dear

Captain Hownam to risk his life for that worthless creature, she declared, so she wrote to the governor of Naples telling him how her privacy had been invaded

while she was in Italy and begged him to intervene on her behalf.

D’Ompteda was ordered to leave the country; and this he did almost gratefully

and with the utmost speed.

THE Villa d’Este had lost all charm for her. Every time she went into her

bedroom she wondered whether anyone was spying on her. Her conduct became

even more suspicious. She could not help it. It was her nature to behave more

indecorously simply because she was suspected of immorality. She walked about

with scarcely any clothes on. She allowed Pergami to be in her bedroom when she

was there alone. It was some mischievous spirit in her which drove her to such

conduct. It was like that occasion when she had pretended to be in labour

knowing perfectly well that in the future it would be believed by many people that she actually had been.

She was misunderstood. She had always been misunderstood. She was not

promiscuous. She had dreamed of love and marriage and a family of children.

That was what she had wanted. If they had allowed her to marry Töbingen she

would have been a happy wife and mother. But they had separated her from him;

they had married her to a man who loathed her and made no secret of his loathing

and her brief experience with him had not made her long for more physical

relationships. But could she explain this to people when they so clearly believed the opposite?

She was affectionate towards those who served her; she was familiar; but she

did not seek the ultimate familiarity. No, she had no lover in the full sense of the word, but she liked to pretend she had. It amused her to pretend, also to deceive her husband in a topsy-turvy way. Deceive him into thinking she was an

unfaithful wife.

She laughed at the thought.
He provides enough infidelity for one family
, she told herself. What she enjoyed doing was shocking people, making them

speculate about the wild and immoral life she led; let them make up fantastic

stories about her and her lovers. They were now linking her name with that of

Pergami. Let them! She loved Pergami in her way. He was a good chamberlain

who managed her affairs with skill; he amused her; he was a very good friend.

But he was not her lover and there was no sexual relationship between them. Nor

would there be with any man.

There was something she kept from people. She did not want to think too

much about it herself, but there was a mysterious recurring pain in the region of her stomach which at times she found almost unendurable. Then it would pass

and she would attempt to forget it. She had mentioned it to her doctor but he

could not say what it was and, like her, hoped it would pass. She was fifty-two

years of age. When she removed her wig and the white lead and rouge she looked

like an old woman. Scarcely one to indulge in riotous behaviour with lovers of all classes.

Poor Caroline!
she would say to herself.
You dreamed of so much and you
realized so little.
The next best thing was to pretend to the world that one lived gaily, unconventionally and scandalously.

It amused her. So forget encroaching age, alarming symptoms of pain. Slap on

the rouge and the feathers, the pink tights and the white lead— and pretend. It was the next best thing.

She left the Villa d’Este and came to Pesaro where she took a villa

overlooking the Adriatic Sea.

————————

She missed the Villa d’Este because she had made it so beautiful. How dared

he send spies to attempt to trap her! But for that, she would still be there. He was not content with refusing to live with her, not content with humiliating her in

every way possible; he must make trouble among her friends and servants by

setting them to spy on her.

She was angry with him. But if he wanted scandal, he should have it. The

more outrageously she behaved the more amused she was.

‘He’ll hear of this,’ she cried gleefully. ‘Let him. I want him to. He’ll be

shocked and mortified. Let him be. Wasps leave their stings in the wounds they

inflict. And so do I.’

She was entertaining lavishly. She rode out in her shell-like chariot; she

would sit bowing, smiling, exposing her short fat legs in their pink tights. She

talked to all kinds of people and when the children ran after her carriage she threw money to them. People gathered along the roads to see her pass; she was the wild

Princess of Wales.

The Empress Marie Louise came to Parma and had taken a brief residence

there. She was in a similar position to Caroline, wandering the Continent looking for solace; and with her was her son who had been King of Rome, and as Caroline

rarely went anywhere without Willikin in attendance, the similarity was

increased.

Marie Louise was different from Caroline in one respect though; she was very

conscious of her royalty and loved to stand on ceremony, a trait which aroused

Caroline’s spirit of mischief. The more regal Marie Louise became, the more

ribald Caroline would grow.

The climax to their friendship came when the ex-Empress invited the Princess

to a dinner party at her mansion in Parma. It was a very ceremonial occasion.

Caroline had been rouged and leaded and appeared in multi-coloured feathers.

She was received by the ex-Empress and the guests were made to understand

that they should leave the two royal ladies to talk together before joining them in the banqueting hall. She and Caroline sat together before a fire on two ornate

chairs. Caroline’s short legs did not reach the floor; she was very bored with the Empress’s conversation which was mainly concerned with past grandeur and, as

she moved impatiently in her chair, tipped it back and falling with it, remained

convulsed with laughter while her legs waved wildly in the air.

The Empress shrieked; several of her suite came running to see what was

wrong; and the sight of the Princess of Wales toppled on the floor, her skirts

about her waist, her legs waving in the air, so dumbfounded them that they could

only stand and stare.

The Empress kept repeating again and again: ‘Madame, you alarm me.’

And Caroline unnecessarily prolonged the occasion by remaining in her

inelegant and ridiculous position.

She was at length helped to her feet, convulsed with laughter, her face scarlet

under her rouge, her wig awry.

She insisted on repeating the story at dinner, her accent thickening as she

explained the situation.

‘I fell mit meine legs in the air. I stay just like this and she—’ She nodded to

the Empress. ‘All she can say is:
Mon Dieu! Comme vous m’avez effrayé.
’

The incident was repeated. With anyone else it would have been unbelievable,

but not with Caroline.

————————

She thought often of her daughter. Dearest Charlotte would soon give birth to