Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill: (Georgian Series) (26 page)

He gave a curt bow and walked briskly from the room.

The Queen stared after him, her heart heavy; her eyes blank with misery.

She thought of William’s raging against his family in Plymouth, of the Prince of Wales in his glittering drawing room at Carlton House, doubtless making fun of his parents; and the King growing more and more melancholy, talking to himself, addressing everyone with that repetitive rapidity which frightened her.

There was Frederick in Germany. Frederick had always been of a sunny nature. He had been devoted to the Prince of Wales in their childhood, of course, and the two of them had always been together … loyal to each other, helping each other out of mischief.

He would be nearly twenty-three now.

Perhaps if Frederick came home there would be one son to comfort them. And it might well be that Frederick would be the future King of England, for would people accept a King who refused to marry – for this marriage with Mrs Fitzherbert was no marriage in the eyes of the State, and when it came to State affairs it was the State that mattered – and had gone through a morganatic marriage with a Catholic.

Perhaps she could hint to the King at some time when he was in the right mood that perhaps it was time Frederick came home.

After the interview with the Queen nothing would satisfy the Prince than that Maria should be received in every drawing room in London – and not only received but treated as though she were the Princess of Wales. Any hostess who did not immediately acknowledge her as such was ignored by the Prince and, as to be cut by the Prince of Wales was social suicide, the desired homage was paid to Maria.

She had seen that it was useless to protest against the extravagance of the young lover. He would come to her all excitement
because he had a surprise for her. The surprise would be a ‘trinket’. A trinket indeed – a brooch, a necklace, a locket … set with diamonds, sapphires or emeralds of which she would alarmingly calculate the cost as she expressed the delight which he expected. How could one tell a Prince of Wales that he must try to live within his means? He had no idea of money. He saw an ornament. It was beautiful. Then his Maria must have it.

She was alarmed by the extravagance of the entertainments she was obliged to give at Uxbridge House. It was not that she was in the least incapable of playing hostess. Entertaining as she had at Swynnerton with Mr Fitzherbert had given her all the experience she required in that field; and she had a natural dignity and regality which was denied to people such as the Duchess of Cumberland.

When the Duke and Duchess of Cumberland returned from abroad they immediately were aware of the situation and the Duchess hastened to welcome Maria as her ‘dearest niece’. The Duke was equally effusive. Not only was this necessary to retain the friendship of the Prince of Wales but it also offered a good opportunity of flouting the King – and therefore it was quite irresistible.

So Maria entertained as the Prince wished while she counted the cost and confided in her companion, Miss Pigot, an old friend whom she had brought with her as chaperone and companion when she set up in Uxbridge House, her anxieties concerning the cost of it all.

‘Dear Pigot,’ she said, ‘the Prince cannot understand how much happier I should be in Park Street … or if he does not like me to be in that house since I inherited it from Mr Fitzherbert, some smaller establishment.’

‘The dear Prince is so anxious that every honour shall be yours,’ replied Miss Pigot.

And Maria had to agree with him. How could she spoil his pleasure? He was such a boy – not yet twenty-four, and in his enthusiasms young for his age. She would be thirty in July. Six years. It was quite a difference at their ages. So she must remember his youth, and his enthusiasms were so enchanting, especially when they were all directed at giving her pleasure.

With the coming of the spring he said they must go down to
Brighton. He wanted Maria to enjoy the place as much as he did. With him went the most brilliant section of London society and the inhabitants of the once obscure little fishing village came out to gape at the nobility. But most of all they gaped at the glittering Prince of Wales.

Nothing, said the people of Brighton, will ever be the same again.

The Prince took up residence in Grove House. This was the third year he had rented it; and Mrs Fitzherbert took a house behind the Castle Inn – which was as close to Grove House as could be.

There were balls and banquets and the people would stand outside Grove House and the Assembly Rooms to watch the people through the windows. Ladies and gentlemen took to strolling through the streets in the warm evenings and the Prince would be there always with the same fair plump lady on his arm. They were a magnificent pair. Like a king and a queen, said the people of Brighton.

Every morning the Prince took his dip in the sea superintended by Smoker Miles, a strapping old sailor, who was more at home in the water than on land. He was the autocrat of the bathing machines, and if he said no swimming that day there was no swimming. One morning the Prince of Wales came down as usual but old Smoker looked at him and shook his head.

‘No, Mr Prince,’ he said, ‘no bathing for you this morning.’

‘But I have decided to bathe this morning, Smoker,’ said the Prince.’

‘Oh, no you don’t,’ retorted Smoker.

The Prince, amazed that anyone should so address him, attempted to brush the man aside, but Smoker set his great bulk between the Prince and the bathing machine and said:

‘No. You’ll not bathe this morning, Mr Prince.’

‘And who gives this order?’

‘I do, Mr Prince, and no matter what princes say I give orders here.’

The Prince attempted to mount the steps into the machine, but Smoker caught him by the arm.

‘I’ll be damned if you do,’ shouted Smoker. ‘What do you think your father would say to me if you were drowned, eh?
He’d say: “This is all your fault, Smoker,” he’d say. “If you’d taken proper care of him, poor George would be alive today.”’ The thought of the King so addressing Smoker made the Prince roar with laughter. Smoker looked hurt.

‘It’s true what I say,’ he said. ‘And I’m not having the King of England tell me I don’t know my duty. This sea don’t behave for anyone … not even the Prince of Wales.

‘Not even for the King of Brighton?’ asked the Prince.

‘You mean me, Mr Prince. Ho, that’s good that is. The King of Brighton.’

Smoker clearly liked the title and the Prince bowed to him ironically. ‘I am merely a prince and irksome as it is princes often have to obey the will of kings.’

Smoker repeated the story often and was soon known as the King of Brighton; and more and more people came down to the sea to be dipped or watched over by King Smoker.

Maria bathed on the ladies’ side of the Steyne under the care of old Martha Gunn, the big strong woman who was the female counterpart of Smoker.

Those were happy days in Brighton.

The Prince said to Maria as they strolled along by the sea in the cool of the evening: ‘Grove House is a poor sort of place and I should like to build a house for myself here. Don’t you agree, my dearest, that that would be a very excellent idea?’

Maria, who had by this time realized the futility of trying to curb his extravagance, agreed.

Then a most unprecedented incident occurred.

Returning to Carlton House from Brighton he found strangers seated in his hall and his servants bewildered and uncertain how to explain to him. It was the strangers themselves who had to do that.

‘Your Highness’s pardon, sir, but if you will settle this little matter of £600 we’ll go quiet as lambs. No disrespect to Your Highness, sir. It’s just orders, sir … all in the matter of business.’

The Prince was aghast.

The bailiffs had come to Carlton House.

The Prince immediately went to see his friend, Sheridan. It
was true since his marriage he had neglected his friends, but he knew that he could trust Sheridan to help him. Charles too, but he hesitated to go to him since Maria had driven a wedge between them.

Sheridan received the Prince in his house at Bruton Street with expressions of pleasure.

‘Sherry, I am in the most extraordinary and humiliating dilemma.’

‘Your Highness?’

‘The bailiffs are in Carlton House. And all for a paltry £600. Sherry, what am I to do?’

‘But Your Highness, who will deny you £600 should you ask for it? I can think of a thousand people who would willingly give it.’

‘You, my dear friend?’

‘Your Highness knows that all I have is at your service but I doubt whether I could lay my hands on £600. I myself am expecting a visit from your intruders on any day now. But Your Highness should have no difficulty. Why, there is your uncle, Cumberland, who would be only too honoured.’

‘He calls me Taffy. And I don’t greatly care to be under an obligation to him.’

‘But what of Georgiana? Or the Duke of Bedford? There are a score of them.’

The Prince agreed. ‘But it is undoubtedly humiliating when one must borrow from one’s friends, Sherry.’

Sherry agreed, but he also pointed out that the bailiffs must be ejected as soon as possible.

He was right. There were many eager to lend the Prince of Wales £600 for the purpose; but when the matter was settled and Sheridan returned with the Prince of Wales to Carlton House and they sat drinking together, Sheridan said: ‘Your Highness’s debts should be settled. This situation may well occur again; and as Your Highness pointed out it is a humiliating position for a Prince of Wales to find himself in.’

The Prince nodded and looked expectantly at Sheridan. He was very fond of Sherry, who was so charming and handsome, although beginning to look a little jaded. When he had first met him, only a few years ago at the time he was involved with Perdita, Sheridan had not been the politician he was
today – merely manager of Drury Lane. But he had had an enviable reputation, having made his name with
The Rivals
and
The School for Scandal
. They had been a trio – he, Fox and Sheridan; and Burke was a friend of theirs too. How he had valued those friendships! And how he had delighted in their wit and erudition! They had stood together for the Whigs. Those were good old days, but the coming of Maria had changed them. For one thing he was too devoted to Maria to have as much time as he had had in the past for his old friends, and Maria’s definite antagonism to Fox had affected the Prince’s feelings.

But now Sheridan was an influential politician and such a close associate of Fox that the Prince’s diminishing affection for the latter seemed to touch Sheridan too.

Yet on this day when he had gone to Sheridan for help, he felt as affectionate towards him as he ever had.

Sheridan looked into his glass and said: ‘It must be ended … with all speed.’

‘How so?’

‘Does Your Highness know the extent of your debts?’

‘I have no idea, Sherry, and the calculation of them would so depress me that I have put off making it.’

‘Parliament should settle them.’

‘Is it possible?’

‘It would not be the first time.’

‘No, and I am really kept very short.’

‘I think it should be talked over with Fox.’

The Prince nodded gloomily. It seemed now as always that he could not manage without Fox’s help.

When Maria heard that the bailiffs had been to Carlton House she was aghast.

‘My darling, what are you going to do?’ she demanded.

‘Oh, it will be settled, never fear.’

‘But, dearest, we will have to consider in future. You spend far too much on me.’

‘I could never spend too much on you.’

‘I should be most unhappy to be an encumbrance.’

‘The most delightful encumbrance in the world,’ he assured her.

‘But, my dearest, what are you going to do?’

‘Fox is coming to see me. You can trust that wily old fellow to come up with the answer.’

‘Fox.’ Her long aquiline nose wrinkled in disgust.

‘Dearest, I know you don’t like him but he’ll know what should be done.’

‘May I be there when you speak to him?’

The Prince hesitated, but she looked so appealing that he agreed.

Thus when Fox came with Sheridan to discuss the Prince’s debts he found Maria present.

‘Maria is fully aware of the situation,’ explained the Prince.

Fox bowed and Maria returned his greeting coolly. Sheridan she accepted more graciously. She thought he was a bad influence for the Prince because he was a drinker and a gambler and had numerous affairs with women, but he was at least clean and so more tolerable.

‘Maria thinks the debts must be paid at once,’ said the Prince, looking at her fondly. ‘She has been lecturing me on my extravagance and says that at the earliest possible moment my creditors must be paid and economies made.’

‘A view,’ said Fox, ‘with which I am in entire agreement.’

The Prince smiled from one to the other rather wistfully. He would have liked them to be good friends – these two whom he loved more than any other human beings.

‘The question,’ put in Sherian, ‘is how?’

‘Has Your Highness a rough estimate of the amount?’ asked Fox.

The Prince thought that somewhere in the neighbourhood of £250,000 might see him through.

Fox was taken aback. It was a very large sum.

‘There are two alternatives,’ he said. ‘Your Highness can either approach the King or the Parliament.’

‘Neither appeals,’ replied the Prince. ‘The Parliament means Pitt – and he has never been a friend of mine. And the idea of going to my father and asking him for money is completely repulsive to me.’

‘It may be the only answer,’ warned Fox.

‘He’ll crow. He’ll jeer. Eh, what? What? You’ve no idea what an old fool he has become in the heart of his family. I
would do a great deal to avoid going to him and begging for his help.

‘That leaves Parliament.’

‘And Mr Pitt.’

‘It’s worth a try,’ said Sheridan.

And so it was agreed.

When Pitt received the request to settle the Prince’s debts, he decided that he would do nothing about it.