by Jean Plaidy
He rose to greet Mrs Armistead.
She looked very elegant. There was no sign now of the lady’s maid.
‘My dear Lizzie,’ said Fox, taking her hand and kissing it.
‘I hope I have not called at an inconvenient time?’
‘It is in fact most convenient. Had you called a few days later that would have been another matter. Then I might not have had a chair to offer you.’
‘Ah, yes, this election. You have to fight it.’
He nodded. ‘And to provide the means I shall sell all my possessions.’
‘And then?’
‘I shall win.’
‘Of a certainty, but I was thinking of your home.’
Fox shrugged his shoulders.
‘You will need somewhere to live.’
‘I have friends.’
‘Devonshire House?’ she asked. ‘But your stay there would be temporary. You must have a home, Mr Fox. There is one waiting for you at Chertsey.’
He rose and took her by the shoulders. He was visibly moved, which was touching in a man such as he was.
She looked at him steadily. ‘I think,’ she said slowly, ‘that when I bought my home, when I accumulated my little fortune, I had something like this in mind. You are a brilliant man, Mr Fox, but a somewhat feckless one.’
He raised those bushy eyebrows which added to his unkempt appearance and said: ‘My dear dear Lizzie, are you sure that you are not at this moment being guilty of the one feckless action of a hitherto sensible career?’
‘I am quite sure, Mr Fox, because if you decide to come to Chertsey the purpose of my sensible career will have been achieved.’
He was silent for a moment and then he said: ‘I cannot understand why this good fortune should be mine, for even if I lost the Westminster election I should still be one of the most fortunate men on earth.’
‘But you will not lose, Mr Fox.’
‘No, I shall win the Westminster election – and I hope I shall be worthy of my electorate … and my sweet Liz.’
*
There had never been such excitement. The whole of Westminster seemed to be in the streets and taking sides over the election. Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, canvassed for Fox wearing a cape of fox fur and carrying a fox muff, giving kisses in exchange for promised votes. The Prince of Wales toured the streets dressed in a blue frock coat and a buff waistcoat – dull for him but an exact replica of the clothes Fox wore for the House of Commons; and great was the excitement when Fox was returned.
The Prince determined to celebrate. It was to be a special occasion in Carlton House. Six hundred guests were invited – all Foxites. Nine marquees were erected in the grounds and four bands played constantly.
The Prince himself was a brilliant figure in pearl grey silk decorated with silver, and crowds gathered in the Mall to listen to the sounds of joy.
*
The King rode down the Mall on his way to open Parliament.
‘What’s the fuss at Carlton House?’ he wanted to know.
‘It is the Prince, Your Majesty. He is celebrating the victory of Mr Fox at Westminster.’
The young dog! The traitor to his father!
‘He never loses a chance to plague me,’ muttered the King. ‘And Fox is still in the House. Thank God for good Mr Pitt. He’ll be a match for him, eh, what? But why did I have a son like this? Who would have thought he would turn out to plague me.’ The people scarcely glanced at him. They were all for the Prince. They liked the rip-roaring, hard-drinking, gambling lecher. They could not appreciate a good man. These people were a feckless crowd. ‘I don’t belong here,’ thought the King. ‘We ought never to have come.’
He fell to wondering what life would have been like if the English had never driven the Catholic Stuart away, or if they had decided to take him and send the Germans back to Germany. It could have happened in 1715 or more likely in 1745. But the Germans had won and they had stayed … and as a result he was the King of England and one day that reckless young fool, that gambling, that deep-in-debt pursuer of women would be their king.
‘Serve them right,’ said the King aloud. ‘By God, serve them right.’
And the sounds of revelry from Carlton House kept echoing in his ears as he rode on to Parliament.
Epilogue
In the year 1800 Perdita Robinson lay in her bed and because she knew she was soon to leave it for ever, thought over the events which had made up her life.
Crippled after rheumatic fever, she had yet made a place for herself in society with her poems and novels and for a time had reigned over that salon in which she received distinguished guests who came attracted by her fame.
But this was the end; and she was not sorry. She was forty-two years old and still beautiful; but she felt she had lived long enough and she could never endure the prospect of old age.
Sometimes she thought of those days of glory when she had appeared in the Pantheon or the Rotunda in some fantastic concoction of ribbons and feathers for all to gaze at. The Prince’s beloved mistress, the famous Perdita.
It was so long ago and she had ceased to regret, ceased to reproach. There had been a time when she had railed against a lover who had so quickly tired of her and gone to other women, who had given her but a mere pittance (for £500 a year seemed a pittance when her carriage alone had cost £200 to maintain). But all that was over.
Banastre Tarleton had been a good friend and had remained faithful all these years. It was for his sake that she had gone to France in winter and suffered so acutely from the dreadful cold at sea that she had contracted rheumatic fever which had left her paralysed.
Since then she had never walked again. Oddly enough – and this surprised her – she had borne her misfortune with fortitude. Looking back she wondered how she had endeavoured to be so calm, so philosophical. When she remembered all the men who had sought her favours she would tell herself she was a most remarkable woman.
Malden – dear Malden – who had loved her from the first; Cumberland who longed to add her to his retinue of mistresses; Mr Fox, to whom she had surrendered and, she would confess it, been a little piqued at the short duration of a relationship from which she had hoped for much; the Duc d’Orléans had sought her, had implored her to become his mistress; and she had refused him. Queen Marie Antoinette had sent her a purse which she herself had netted because she had refused Orléans. And that was long ago. The revolution had come to France and Marie Antoinette had gone to the guillotine and Orléans had become known as Philippe Egalité … That was long ago.
She had seen a great deal happen about her, but now she remembered most the personal incidents. She had been fortunate. Maria, her daughter, had come to live with her when Mrs Darby had died and bore no resentment to her mother for deserting her when she was a child.
They had grown closer with the years and it was to Maria whom she read her verses and the chapters of her novels as they were written; and Maria herself had displayed a talent for literature.
As Tabitha Bramble, called by some the English Sappho, Perdita had had her salon; she had received her guests; and she had felt no bitterness – not even when she heard that Mr Fox had married Mrs Armistead and that they lived together afterwards as before in harmony.
Sometimes she wondered whether the Prince ever thought of her. She liked to imagine his recalling that gilded nest in Cork Street, those meetings on Eel Pie Island.
She would let herself dream that he came to her salon and knelt before her.
‘I have come back, Perdita,’ she imagined his saying. ‘There has never been anyone to compare with you.’
And she found pleasure in acting scenes of reconciliation which she knew would never take place.
But there was Maria, dear Maria, who was happy to wait on her and she herself was not strong. Maria would not live long after her she was sure, and she was glad that she would get her £250 a year which had been a part of the settlement Mr Fox had arranged for her.
Mr Fox, dearest Banas
tre, they had been good friends to her. The Prince too.
Ah, the Prince! He was never far from the surface of her mind. How could he be? She constantly heard news of him. It was inevitable. His exploits were on everyone’s lips. He must soon be the King of England.
She wished that she had been able to keep those letters he had written her. How she would have enjoyed reading them again! But they had been sold for the pension she now enjoyed and which would continue after her death to be paid to Maria. At least she need not worry about Maria – her dear daughter who had nursed her and loved her over the years of her affliction.
And to think that Maria had come from her union with the hated Mr Robinson who had long since through death ceased to trouble them.
Such, she thought, was life.
*
But it was death which was now her concern.
She called Maria to her, for she knew there was not much time left.
‘Maria, my dearest daughter,’ she said, ‘I should like to be buried in the churchyard at old Windsor … close to the river. I have always loved the river.’
‘Do not speak of death, Mamma,’ begged Maria.
‘My dearest, we cannot ignore it. It is coming soon, I know.’
She could not bear to see Maria’s tears yet she could not prevent herself playing the part of the dying woman. It was natural for her to act. She knew this was so and wanted to explain to Maria. Her mind was wandering a little. She talked of Mr Garrick who had been so brusque but who had promised to teach her; she talked of Mr Fox and the Prince.
‘Is that someone at the door, Maria? He’s come. I knew he would come at the last.’
Maria shook her head, but Perdita was already seeing him – not as he was now but as a charming prince, eager and loving.
‘Maria love, give me the paper heart … “Unalterable to my Perdita through life”. He meant it then … He will remember …’
‘No, Mamma,’ whispered Maria gently.
But she did not hear.
She was quoting to herself the poem she had written and which Maria had always known referred to the Prince of Wales.
Thou art no more my bosom friend,
Here must the sweet delusion end,
That charmed my senses many a year
Through smiling summers, winters drear.
Ah, yes, thought Maria, here must the delusion end. The Prince of Wales, deeply immersed in his own tempestuous life, could scarcely be expected to be aware of the passing of one who had amused him briefly twenty years before.
Perdita was smiling. Perhaps, thought Maria, she believes he has come to her. Perhaps the sweet delusion is still with her.
Maria put her arms about her mother and Perdita lay in them, smiling as life passed away.
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First published 1969 by Robert Hale and Company
© Jean Plaidy 1969
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