by Jean Plaidy
‘He is suffering.’
‘If he is it is due to his folly.’
‘But that doesn’t make him any the less pitiable.’
Maria Fitzherbert thought: William is growing up. The crude sailor was disappearing; it was the effect of his life with Mrs Jordan, she supposed. Poor woman, how long did she think that would last? How long could Princes be expected to be faithful?
She said, ‘I heard you had another son.’
‘Henry. You should see Henry. And Master George is just a little jealous. He is at pains all the time to remind us that he is our firstborn.’
She smiled. The family man! And he was content. She sensed that in him.
Well, had not George been the same in the first years? These royal brothers had a certain charm – even William had – although he was not nearly as elegant, fastidious and civilized as George; but there was an unworldliness about William which was not unattractive. Perhaps he might settle into the life of domesticity which he had chosen to live with his actress. He would in any case not have to face the same temptation for he was, after all, not the Prince of Wales.
‘I am sure you are very proud of your little boys,’ she said; and she thought: If we had had children would it have made any difference? He was still the Prince of Wales and would have had to marry for State reasons.
‘You illuminated your house last night to celebrate the wedding,’ said William.
‘What did you expect me to do? Plunge into darkness so that all should say I had gone into mourning for the loss of a husband? Though in truth I had already lost him. He left me, you remember, for Lady Jersey.’
‘He is most unhappy. He talks of you continually.’
‘To the Princess Caroline? Or to Lady Jersey?’
‘He never talks to the Princess. He cannot bear to be near her and I am sure he would never discuss you with Lady Jersey.’
She turned to him. ‘My dear William, you have always been a good brother to me and I thank you for coming along to me today. You thought to comfort me, I know, but I have finished with him. He has gone from my life. I have started afresh and it is as though I had never known him.’
He looked at her disbelievingly. How could that ever be? Whenever romantic affairs of the Prince of Wales were discussed the name of Mrs Fitzherbert would always arise.
‘I could not tell him that now when he is in need of comfort.’
‘Dear William,’ she replied. ‘I will leave it to you to say what you will.’
When he took his leave he decided to write to his brother who was on honeymoon at Windsor – poor George, what a dreadful ordeal!
Maria Fitzherbert stood at her window watching his carriage drive away and Miss Pigot came into the room. This lady was no ordinary companion; she had been with Maria since the beginning of her relationship with the Prince of Wales and had suffered and rejoiced through all their vicissitudes. She loved them both and it was a great tragedy to her when they had parted.
‘So the Duke of Clarence came to see you. Did he bring a message?’
Maria turned round. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘It’s like him, don’t you think! He sends his brother after the ceremony to tell me that I am the only woman he ever loved.’
‘It’s true,’ said Miss Pigot.’
‘We have had such proof of it,’ put in Maria sarcastically.
‘Yes, we have.’
‘Lady Jersey for instance. And now this marriage?’
‘Now, Maria, be sensible. The marriage had to be for State reasons.’
‘And Lady Jersey?’
‘Well, he wouldn’t have left you for her. It was you who left him.’
‘Did you think I was going to remain to be… insulted.’
‘No, I didn’t. But he would have come back.’
‘I don’t wish to discuss him and his affairs. Let him go to Lady Jersey. Let him marry. I’m just sorry for this poor Princess. I wouldn’t be in her shoes for anything.’
‘Nor would I… from what I hear. And seeing that he’s in love with another woman.’
‘Romantic old Piggy,’ said Maria affectionately. ‘I wonder how long it will last for Mrs Jordan?’
‘He’s a nice boy – William.’
‘They’re all nice boys, but not faithful boys, you know. They have another son – did you hear?’
‘Yes, and living very quietly there at Petersham Lodge.’
‘And she acts now and then for large sums of money so perhaps she’ll keep him out of debt.’
‘They say that her money keeps the establishment going.’
‘He’ll get into debt, never fear. It’s a family habit. Frederick will be the next. They were brought up to grow wheat and do worsted work. Did you know that? George told me about it once. I think all that discipline decided them to run wild when they had a chance. Perhaps that should be blamed.’
‘Well, I hope the poor Prince is not too unhappy, and that William goes on being as contented as he is now.’
‘My dear Pig, you always hoped for the impossible, didn’t you!’
‘You’re crying, Maria.’
‘Oh, leave me. I didn’t want you to see. I could have burst into tears when William told me. Then I should have had him weeping too. Living with the Prince taught me, I always thought, to restrain my tears. He shed enough for both of us, but his could be turned on and off at will and they never meant anything. He always wept so effectively, didn’t he? Oh go away, there’s a good woman.’
Miss Pigot lifted her shoulders and left.
She’s still in love with him, she thought. And he with her. He’ll come back one day.
The Queen came into the King’s study unannounced. It was something she would not have done before his illness. He was aware of this but he did nothing to stem the change in their relationship. It was inevitable. That terrible experience five years ago had left a mark on him which would never be eradicated. He faced the fact that for a few months of his life he had been insane. It was not the first lapse; and he lived in constant fear that there would be others.
It was a fear which the Queen shared with him; and such an emotion shared must bring them together. It was not out of affection for him that she worried; it was a case of what would happen to her and who would seize power. He understood a little of what had happened when they had thought he would never recover. There had been the battle in Parliament over the Regency Bill and the conflict between the Queen and the Prince of Wales. Then he had recovered and there was a return to normality – at least a show of normality. But the King’s mind was not so impaired that he did not know that nothing would ever be the same again.
There she was, the mother of his fifteen children – two had died so only thirteen were left to them – a woman whom he had never loved but by whom he had done his duty. He often remembered their marriage, when he had been in love with the beautiful, mischievous and inconsequential Lady Sarah Lennox and could have married her, he supposed, had he insisted. After all he had been the King at the time. But he had been under the rule of his mother and her lover, Lord Bute, and they had pointed out the need for him to marry a Princess and had chosen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. He knew why now. It was because she was so plain, so unattractive that they believed she would never cast a spell on him and therefore would have no power to influence him; that she could not speak English was another point in her favour. They had been determined that he should not have Sarah, because in spite of being the most seductive creature for whom, as he wrote to Lord Bute, he ‘boiled’ she was related to the Foxes – that ambitious politically minded family who would have been ruling the country before long. Charles James Fox was her nephew – and the King was well aware of the mischief that fellow had done. He believed he had ruined the Prince of Wales, teaching him about drinking, gambling and women, and incidentally politics – Whig politics. So they had snatched Sarah from him and married him to this plain German Princess and meekly he had complied and they had lived together for more th
an thirty years, but he had never allowed her to have a say in anything; even in the nursery he had been the one to lay down the rules.
He had never really known her. He had thought her meek and content with her lot, bearing child after child; she had always seemed to be giving birth to a child or preparing to do so. But when he was indisposed, when he lost his reason, she had thrown aside her docility; the real woman had stepped out from behind the mask of meekness and disclosed an ambitious schemer. Pitt – the great Pitt himself – had been on her side, against Fox and the Prince; and she had shown herself formidable.
So now she did not wait to be summoned; she did not wait for her opinions to be asked: she volunteered them.
‘I’m hoping everything will go well with the bride and bride-groom,’ she said. ‘I thought he was going to refuse right up to the last.’
‘H’m,’ said the King. ‘Nearly did. Was on the point. At the altar. I had to act quickly. Otherwise… what would have happened. I don’t know. I don’t know.’
‘He had a shock when he saw her,’ said the Queen; her wide mouth turned up at the corners in a sardonic smile. ‘I could have told him. In fact I tried to. My niece would have been so much more suitable.’
‘Caroline seems quite a handsome young woman.’
The Queen looked at him as scathingly as she dared. Was he a little attracted by his daughter-in-law? He was attracted by women and had been all his life, in spite of his fidelity. She suspected that he confined his erotic adventures to the imagination. She had little to be grateful to him for. But they must of course stand together against the Prince of Wales, the Whigs and the King’s threatened instability.
‘Settle down perhaps,’ said the King. ‘See reason. I was afraid he was going to say No… right there at the altar. Dreadful moment. Think of the scandal.’
‘I do hope,’ said the Queen, ‘that now that he is married he will realize his responsibilities. We don’t want scandal.’
‘No,’ said the King. ‘Dangerous. Lot of trouble. People protesting. Low wages. High price of food. Thank God for Pitt. Good young man… but arrogant… very arrogant, eh?’
‘I think we should be grateful for Mr Pitt,’ said the Queen.
‘Keep George in order. Seems to have lost some of his love for Fox, eh?’
‘Yes. He upset George in the House over the Regency Bill.’
The King winced. He hated references to the period when he had been unable to govern.
‘Mustn’t have scandals,’ he said. ‘Very bad. Can’t help thinking of what happened in France. The King and the Queen… executed. I dream of it sometimes.’
‘I will tell the doctors to give you something to make you sleep.’
‘Can’t sleep… thinking of those boys. Ten sleepless nights in a row I’ve had worrying about them. Did you ever know such boys for getting themselves into trouble? It’s always women… and money. I can’t think why. Eh? I’ve brought them up strictly…’
‘Perhaps too strictly,’ said the Queen coldly, but the King did not hear her. His mind was wandering back to the past.
The Queen said suddenly: ‘I’ve been thinking about William and his actress.’
‘That Jordan woman. They have another child. It’s disgraceful. They are living like a married couple in Petersham and she is acting on the stage and they are beginning to raise a family. Shouldn’t you speak to William?’
‘What could I say to him?’
‘You could tell him that it must stop. Isn’t it time that he settled down with a wife… a Princess whom we should find for him.’
‘He seems to be living… respectably.’
‘Respectably! Unmarried! And with an actress who appears in male costume on the stage for everyone who has the price of a seat to watch!’
The King’s mind had gone off again. He could see a very young man riding out to a lonely house in which there lived a beautiful Quakeress. They had loved each other tenderly; she had borne his children; and he was a young Prince of Wales and later a King. He understood William’s position. He did not want to be too hard on him.
The Queen was saying: ‘George lived with Maria Fitzherbert and no one knew whether or not they were actually married. Then he had love-affairs with other women and now he is married to Caroline. But I fear they have not settled down. There is Frederick who won’t live with that wife of his who keeps a zoo at Oatlands; I believe he has a host of mistresses. And now there is William… Whichever way we turn we are knee-deep in scandal. George is at last married; Frederick is married. It is time William was married.’
‘There’s George and Frederick. One of them is bound to provide some heirs. Eh?’
‘Do you think so? George already hates his wife; Frederick will not live with his. Who is going to reign when we are all gone?’
‘Everything will depend on what happens between George and his wife.’
‘You mean that if they have sons… daughters will do… if they have children then you will leave William in peace with his actress?’
‘I don’t see why not.’
‘So then everything depends on George’s wife giving us an heir to the throne.’
‘A great deal depends on it,’ said the King.
‘I tell you this,’ said the Queen. ‘I shall never stand by and applaud an illicit union of a royal prince with an actress.’
‘What do you propose to do then, eh, what?’
‘I shall choose the moment to rescue William from that woman. Obviously he must marry.’
‘We’ll wait and see,’ said the King.
Very soon news reached them that the Princess of Wales was pregnant.
The Prince of Wales rejoiced and made it quite plain that he would have nothing more to do with his wife.
The King was pleased that his daughter-in-law had shown such early signs of being productive. He was still less inclined to interfere with his son William’s arrangements.
But the Queen kept her eyes on all her sons; and she had determined that she would not tolerate for ever even a third son’s liaison with a play-actress.
Perdita’s Nobody
DOROTHY WAS AMAZED to receive a letter signed by Mary Robinson, who requested the pleasure of a visit from her that they might discuss Mrs Robinson’s new play in which she hoped Mrs Jordan would play the principal part.
Dorothy was surprised and a little curious for she knew this lady to be none other than that Mrs Robinson who had been known as Perdita when she had enslaved the Prince of Wales, and about whom there had been a great scandal.
She decided she could not refuse to see the lady and went along to her house where she was ushered into her study by her daughter.
Mrs Robinson held out a hand to Dorothy and begged to be excused for not rising.
‘I have to be lifted from my chair because I am paralysed with rheumatism.’ She glanced upwards in a most pathetic manner as she said this and Dorothy immediately recognized the tragic actress.
‘It is so good of you to come,’ went on Perdita. ‘But I knew you would. I have heard of your kindness. Ah, it does not seem so very many years ago that I was in a position similar to yours. So similar. The people used to flock to see me as they now do to see you.’
‘I know,’ said Dorothy. ‘Who has not heard of Mrs Robinson?’
Perdita fluttered her lashes. She was carefully painted and her gown was made of satin and lace – delicately coloured and very feminine. She must have been a very pretty woman in her youth, Dorothy decided.
‘I was known as Perdita because it was in The Winter’s Tale that I scored my big success. He was there in the box… the balcony box, you know. I shall never forget it. The Prince of Wales, and he had eyes for no one but me. How good it is to speak to someone of the theatre! I think so often of those days. And now you see me here, crippled. Thank God I have my daughter to care for me. You have daughters, Mrs Jordan. What a blessing! When we are alone… deserted… there is no one who can comfort one like a daughter.’
/> Dorothy said: ‘You seem to be so well looked after. But you wished to speak to me about your play.’
‘I am going to give it to you to read. My writing is very important to me now. We live on what I earn… with my pension of course. And you see we are not uncomfortable.’
‘That is a blessing,’ said Dorothy.
Perdita gave one of her theatrical shrugs. ‘You know how it is with us theatre folk. We learn to be extravagant and then we find ourselves alone, in debt,’ She shivered. ‘I feel I can confide in you, Mrs Jordan… because I was once on the stage.’
‘You think there is a part for me in your play?’
‘Undoubtedly. It was written with you in mind… and Sarah Siddons and Elizabeth Farren. There’s a part for Mrs Pope and Bannister too, so everyone should be satisfied.’
‘Good parts for all?’ asked Dorothy.
‘Excellent. This is a play with a purpose. I want to call attention to the terrible habit of gambling and do my small part in helping to abolish this vice.’
‘Do you think the audiences will like that?’
‘They will have to learn to like it. It is a lesson in itself. You look doubtful, Mrs Jordan.’
‘It is merely that audiences come to be entertained, not to learn lessons. And it is the players and the playwrights who have to please them rather than expect them to learn to like what they are given.’
‘Ah, my dear Mrs Jordan, I have advanced ideas. I have written a play on gambling and Mr Sheridan must put it on for me. I am sending a copy to him too, but I wanted to see you… in person. I felt a great desire to see you.’
‘That was kind of you.’
‘Perhaps it was curiosity. I have read so much about you.’
It was Dorothy’s turn to grimace. ‘I hope you have not believed all you heard about me?’
‘Ha! ha!’ Perdita’s laughter was stage laughter, high-pitched and artificial as everything about her. Dorothy felt as though she were playing a scene with this woman – perhaps it was because they were two actresses together. ‘You can tell me nothing about the scandal sheets. My dear Mrs Jordan, no one… but no one… has been libelled and slandered so much as I. You would be too young to remember…’