Lady of Passion

by Freda Lightfoot

  I hurried to meet the prince in all eagerness, quite certain this marked a renewal of our former friendship and affection, and as my darling Florizel gathered me in his arms, it was as if we had never been estranged. ‘You can be assured, sire, of my undying devotion and complete loyalty.’ At which declaration he kissed me gently upon the mouth.

  ‘Believe me, dear Perdita, I do not believe the calumnies perpetrated against you.’

  ‘Nor those against Malden, I trust, who is your loyal servant and friend? I swear there has been no intimacy between us.’

  ‘Yet he does admit to loving you.’

  ‘That is no fault of mine, nor his either. Please believe me that we are innocent of all charges. He is not, and never shall be, my lover. I beg you to give us justice.’

  He smoothed his hands over my shoulders which I’d left daringly bare, my milk-white breasts blossoming provocatively above the low neckline of my gown as I’d hoped to entice him in just such a manner. ‘I accept there have been falsehoods printed against you,’ he murmured, his greedy gaze devouring me. ‘How silky your skin is, dear Perdita. I had forgotten how very beautiful you are.’

  This time when he kissed me it was with a greater fervour, very like the passion we had enjoyed in those delightful months together. I encouraged him to slip a hand inside my bodice to caress my breasts, which he was more than eager to do.

  My darling Florizel wasted no time in stripping off my gown, and within moments we were lying on the bed, my legs sprawled wide while he pounded inside me. What utter bliss, what triumph and joy to make him mine once more.

  ‘Never for one moment have I ceased to love you,’ he murmured when, sated, we afterwards lay breathless in each other’s arms.

  ‘Why then did you forsake me?

  He let out a small sigh. ‘The truth is that the king loathes the bad publicity, not least the embarrassing business with your husband and that harlot in the box. He was so anxious for me to end the affair that His Majesty offered me an apartment of my own in Buckingham Palace.’

  ‘Oh, my darling, how wonderful!’ What else could I say? My lover had abandoned me for the sake of his new-found independence. Who better than I to understand such an appeal?

  ‘There were other conditions, of course,’ he continued, settling my head upon his chest where he could stroke my soft auburn curls. ‘I am allowed to invite friends to dine only twice a week. I may visit a playhouse provided I give due notice to the king and am accompanied by my regular attendants. I must attend church every Sunday, the Drawing Room at St James’s Palace when the king is present, and that of the queen. Naturally there must be no attendance at masquerades, no gambling or drunken behaviour. Last, but by no means least, no private assemblies.’

  I lifted my head to look at him in startled dismay. ‘You mean no more visits to my house in Cork Street?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, dear Perdita. I am to keep away from anything the least improper.’ His smile was rueful.

  I wondered in what way visiting Mrs Armistead might be considered proper, when visiting me was not. But even I dare not ask such a question. ‘Then we must reinstate our clandestine meetings at Kew.’

  ‘What a joy those were,’ he chortled.

  We passed a blissfully happy afternoon together, in the most friendly and delightful fashion, our love and passion for each other as strong as ever. I flattered myself that all our differences were behind us.

  What words can express my chagrin when, on meeting His Royal Highness the very next day in Hyde Park, he quickly turned his head away to avoid seeing me, affecting not even to know me!

  I felt as if I had been physically struck! Yet again I was totally ignorant of any just cause for so sudden a change. Overwhelmed at being so cruelly cut by the man I adored, my distress knew no bounds. Let heaven be my witness, I blamed not the prince. I did then, and ever shall, consider his mind to be both noble and honourable. Nor could I convince myself that his heart, the seat of so many virtues, could possibly be cold or unjust.

  But in my heart I knew that I had lost him and felt utterly alone, cast adrift in a dark and vengeful world.

  My estrangement from Florizel soon became the subject of public speculation, the news-sheets again hurling their brickbats upon my defenceless head. Tommy was at my side the moment he heard.

  ‘How I regret ever having lost you, Mary. You know that I still hold you in deep affection. Could we not reunite and try again?’

  ‘No, Tommy, we could not. Though I remain very fond of you, your predilection for prostitutes is even worse than that of the prince. You offended me most publicly, despite my having shared my good fortune with you as best I may. Because of your constant demands upon my purse, and my efforts to present myself well for His Highness, my own debts now amount to almost seven thousand pounds. What am I to do? With no allowance or income from the theatre, my creditors are circling with increasing impatience, pressing to be paid in cash or kind.’

  My husband, of course, had no solution, and melted away, no doubt to build up yet more debts, and leaving me cooling my heels in frustration.

  Time hung heavy on my hands, the empty hours stretching before me with nothing to fill my days, and little prospect of improvement. I joylessly circled Ranelagh, Vauxhall and the Pantheon, struggling to remember happier times but recalling only the bad, such as Lyttelton’s attempted abduction. And being winter, even the gardens were too bare and frost-laden to cheer me. My mind was even blank of the verses I once so artlessly created.

  So it was with some relief that a few short weeks after the prince wrote ending our affair, I agreed to sit for a portrait for George Romney. The artist’s normal charge was twenty guineas for a half-length portrait, less than Sir Joshua Reynolds or Gainsborough but still expensive. However, he offered to paint me for no charge at all, as he claimed my beauty would win him new custom among aristocratic circles.

  ‘I very much doubt it. I am no longer in favour with the aristocratic ladies, Mr Romney. None wish to imitate me now. They consider me to be a fallen woman.’

  He smiled at that. ‘They will ever admire and wish to emulate your beauty, Mrs Robinson, albeit if it is tainted with envy. I could make engravings and prints of such a portrait to advertise my skills. It would be to our mutual benefit.’

  ‘Then I thank you and accept, kind sir.’ Privately, I hoped that the prince would see the portrait and fall in love with me all over again.

  We agreed that for this picture I would wear a demure, Quaker-like gown and cap, no daring décolletage, my hands tucked neatly inside a fur muff. But as I patiently sat for hour upon hour, I began to seriously consider my future. Much as I might castigate poor Tommy for his failings, I couldn’t help contemplating the recklessness in disposing of both husband and career, losing both reputation and income in one fell swoop.

  ‘I dare say you have heard news of my new rival, the Armistead?’ I said to the duchess as we sipped coffee together one morning. Maria Elizabeth, now quite the young miss of six was being pandered to with a selection of dolls to keep her amused while we quietly talked.

  ‘Yes, Mary, I have. I learned of it through my brother-in-law, George Cavendish, whose mistress she still was at the time. He discovered her betrayal when he called upon her one night, only to find the Prince of Wales skulking behind her bedroom door.’

  I saw the all too evident amusement in her eyes even as I put a hand to my mouth in shock. ‘What on earth did his lordship do?’

  ‘He made a low bow and retreated. The prince clearly had precedence.’ Even I was laughing by this time, although I quickly sobered. ‘My situation grows ever more precarious, so I am considering a return to my profession.’

  Georgiana frowned as she handed me a macaroon. ‘And what do your former colleagues think of the idea?’

  I sighed. ‘Those whom I consulted warned me that the public would never tolerate my return to the stage. But Sophia Baddeley made a successful comeback, so why shouldn’t I?’

  �
��Sadly, dear Mary, I’m afraid I must agree with your friends’ assessment. You are a better woman than Mrs Baddeley, it is true, but no matter how you might proclaim your innocence, it is generally believed that you and Malden were engaged in an affair. I even believed it myself at one time,’ she added with a chuckle. A response which hurt me deeply.

  ‘How then am I to provide an ample and honourable income for myself and my child, if I do not return to the stage?’

  ‘Sadly, you must find some other way. The public would never accept you back in such a prominent and public position. You are, I’m afraid, a ruined woman.’

  I winced at such a description, my throat closing, quite unable to swallow the dry crumbs of the biscuit. ‘How so?’

  ‘There is no doubt you would continue to be pilloried in the press, the subject of yet more ridicule,’ she gently warned me. ‘It is most inopportune that you lost the prince just as he has been formerly acknowledged as heir to the throne. In some respects that leaves him with less control over his life, at least until he turns twenty-one. Therefore, I would suggest a life of penitent retirement for some considerable time. I see no other option, Mary, if you are not to avoid complete notoriety.’

  Much as I might object to the duchess’s analysis of my situation, this time I vowed to listen to her advice.

  I went into rural retreat, hiring a cottage not far from the palace at Kew, perhaps secretly hoping an opportunity might present itself for me to speak to the prince. If nothing else I could remind him that I still possessed his letters.

  Sadly, in the few short weeks I quietly festered there, I saw no sign of him. Soon growing bored I returned to town, my future still unresolved. In a show of defiance, the very first day following my arrival I attended a masquerade dressed in a most becoming military costume in scarlet and apple green. Escorted by Malden and Lord Cholmondeley, I was immediately brought up to date with the latest news and scandals.

  ‘Would you believe the prince has now stolen my mistress, Grace Dalrymple Eliot?’ Cholmondeley informed me in injured tones. ‘I once rescued her from a French convent when her brother ensconced her there, and she has been under my protection ever since. This is how she repays me.’

  ‘You mean Dally the Tall?’ I asked, using her more common name. ‘Are you saying that Florizel has betrayed us both, My Lord?’

  ‘He has indeed. I have lost a most pleasant companion, and you, Mary, now have two rivals.’

  ‘Why would he sink so low?’ I asked Malden, ever my source of information on the prince.

  ‘Because His Highness is desperate for the return of his letters, but deeply fearful that retrieving them might cost him a deal of money. And the Armistead might well prove to be another such drain upon his purse. He imagines that spreading his favours wide is less dangerous. George is also embroiling himself more and more with his libertine uncle the Duke of Cumberland, as he misses his brother Frederick who’s still in Germany.’

  Filled with furious rebellion I treated myself to a new phaeton, together with four chestnut ponies. I would add it to the account being charged against my former lover. Dressed in a blue coat prettily trimmed with silver, a plumed feather atop a most dashing hat, I drove about Hyde Park at a reckless pace determined to make heads turn.

  It was Malden now who issued a warning. ‘Take care, Mary, the news-sheets are revelling in this rivalry between yourself and the Armistead.’

  I laughed. ‘It seems to me the papers are fighting a war against each other almost as fiercely as that between ourselves. The Morning Post continues with its hostility towards me, while the Morning Herald, whose owner is a friend of mine, is hostile to my rival.’

  ‘They are describing it as a cat fight, claiming the pair of you are exchanging looks of “fiery indignation”, and using “repeated broadsides of grinnings and spittings to the no small entertainment of the neighbourhood” as you drive about in your yellow equipages!’

  ‘It is a most fashionable colour,’ I quipped. ‘But I have resolved to ignore their venom. Nevertheless, it hurts more than I can say to see the Armistead seated opposite the prince at the theatre while I must keep my distance.’

  It all came to a head one night in February when the Armistead drew off a glove, seeming to flourish it at me before tossing it down as if it were a gauntlet.

  I shuddered at my own humiliation, knowing I was beaten. My rival had triumphed. I would never win my Florizel back now. He was forever lost to me.

  My prospects were becoming ever more dire with each passing hour, but I had no intention of going quietly. I still had the prince’s letters, and the bond. If they were the only protection I possessed, then I would use them to my best advantage.

  In March I learned the prince was unwell. ‘Some say the illness is being put down to his debauched life with the Duke of Cumberland,’ Malden informed me. ‘Although he may simply be hiding away in fear from the possible publication of his letters.’

  ‘I have as yet made no decision about them,’ I demurred.

  ‘Yet you are considering it? I should warn you, Mary, that such a ploy may not work. It might well have the opposite affect and scupper any chance you have of the prince settling your debts.’

  I turned away, choosing not to answer.

  I soon learned to my cost the power of such documents. A piece entitled ‘Letters from Perdita to a Certain Israelite’ suddenly appeared in the press, quite out of the blue, the author hiding behind anonymity. But I guessed these were the letters I had written to ‘Jew’ King, the implication being that we’d engaged in a flirtatious affair whereas my sole purpose had been to sweeten him for the sake of gaining further loans for my debt-ridden husband. My efforts to help Tommy had come back to haunt me.

  Worse, the article was filled with lies and slander, claiming that Tommy was a swindler, that I had revelled in a string of affairs including one when barely a girl with a captain whom I had declined to marry, and with Lord Lyttelton. The proposal I received at thirteen had certainly been real enough, to my great amusement at the time, but talk of an affair between us was utterly ludicrous. As for Lyttelton, I would have slit my own throat rather than bed that man. Added to such fantasies came an account of our months in the Fleet. Only the latter was undeniably true, the rest being pure make-believe, or a twisted version of the truth. Was this King’s revenge upon Tommy, for my husband not repaying all the money he owed? Or for my rejection of his advances?

  Having besmirched my name the money lender then had the temerity to call at my house. The maid showed him into the drawing room where he sprawled in a chair, looking around as if he owned the place. I sat facing him, perched on the edge of mine, making no offer of refreshment.

  ‘Let us come straight to the point, shall we, to spare further embarrassment. I am willing to return the letters to you, Mrs Robinson, as I’m sure you would wish me to do. The cost of such a transaction would be £400.’

  I barely managed to stifle a gasp. ‘If you imagine I can put my hands on such a sum you are even more of a fantasist than those letters imply.’

  He laughed. ‘There is no requirement for me to prove their veracity.’

  An icy chill gripped me. This man could spread whatever lies he chose, and I could do nothing to prove my innocence. Nevertheless, I had no intention of allowing him to think he had beaten me. ‘I will refute every word, sue for libel if needs be.’

  ‘Those were but a few samples,’ he continued. ‘I am compiling the entire collection into a book, which my publisher expects will sell at least 10,000 copies. I shall ask him to send you a copy when it is out, shall I?’

  I was on my feet in a second, tugging on the bell pull to summon the maid. ‘I would be obliged, Mr King, if you would leave my house this instant.’

  He did not move a muscle. ‘Did I say £400? I fear I misled you. The sum, in fact, would be £2,000. Were you to refuse to pay I would find myself obliged to inform your lover, Lord Malden, of your infidelity and plant more vicious tales about you i
n the press.’

  I almost laughed out loud at this mistaken assumption. Fortunately, even I was not so recklessly foolish. ‘You may do your worst, blackmail will not move me.’

  ‘That remains to be seen,’ he chortled. ‘It all depends upon what further scandals your letters reveal, does it not?’

  Fortunately, a footman appeared at that moment in answer to my call, or I might well have done something I would afterwards regret. I had never felt more like punching the loathsome little man upon the chin.

  His blackmail plan did not work. I still had some friends in the press, it seemed, and the letters were largely dismissed as forgeries, which is indeed what they were. King’s book sold barely one hundred copies.

  And yet I was seriously considering a form of blackmail of my own.

  That spring I took a post as fashion correspondent for the Lady’s Magazine, which I hoped would assist me in building a new career. My writing, I thought, could yet be my salvation, as Mrs Baddeley had suggested. But it would not be easy as my muse seemed to have deserted me. I hoped writing about fashion would be less taxing than creating a poem out of nothing, and I’d be paid well for it. I began by announcing ‘The Perdita’, a chip hat with a bow tied under the chin and pink ribbons puffed around the crown. It proved to be most popular. This gave a much needed boost to my fragile confidence as my situation grew ever more desperate.

  I rarely saw Tommy, as he was by then living in Stafford Street in Saint Mary le Bow near Cheapside. At least my husband asked for no further favours, perhaps realizing he’d bled me dry.

  I had sacrificed everything for the prince so naturally felt I deserved some recompense for having abandoned a profitable and independent career. I wrote yet another letter to him, requesting His Highness not only settle my debts but grant me an annuity. Surely all ladies living under a gentleman’s protection were so entitled. I wished His Highness to appreciate that I was acting in good faith and had every wish to return his letters, if only for his own peace of mind.

  The Morning Post, still my arch enemy, then accused me of having an affair with the Earl of Derby in order to seduce him away from my rival on stage, Elizabeth Farren, ‘in a fit of envy and vexation’. As a consequence of this liaison, I was apparently pregnant, as also was my daughter. They clearly did not appreciate that Maria was only six.