More importantly, I could take advantage of the hot springs, pump room, steam baths and extensive bathing facilities. ‘I shall like it here. It has everything we need.’
I loved having Ban all to myself without the distractions of gentlemen’s clubs and gaming tables, or young ladies who could never resist flirting with such a handsome man. We would spend hours each day working contentedly together on his history of the campaigns, examining documents, letters, pamphlets and the like.
I had found a tutor for Maria, now ten, and she was happily learning languages. I supervised the rest of her education personally, setting her suitable books to read, and subjects to write about. She was a bright little girl and flourishing despite the difficulties of my circumstances, and my tendency at times to be a little short-tempered due to the pain I suffered. It was a perfect family time, and I wanted nothing to spoil it.
I made full use of the bathing facilities and drinking fountains as I sought a cure, or at least respite from my pain, making only one complaint. ‘I do find the water singularly disagreeable to drink.’
‘Why does it smell like bad eggs?’ my daughter asked, holding her nose.
I laughed. ‘The thermal springs contain sulphur, I believe.’
It was a most dreadful odour, despite the vapour baths being impregnated with aromatic herbs, and the waters scattered with rose leaves. I enjoyed regular massage and gentle, underwater exercise. The air was bracing and therefore healthy, but hot baths if continued for any length of time are considered enervating so these were followed by a cold one to stimulate circulation. I would gasp and cry out when plunged into one.
‘Oh, prepare me a little first, I pray, by at least sponging me down with a cool cloth.’
‘But then you would lose the benefit of the change in temperature, ma’am,’ I was told. I suffered the treatment with stoic endurance, desperately wanting to be well again.
‘I am far too young to spend the rest of my life as an invalid,’ I wept one night, after a day that had been anything but relaxing. ‘You will grow tired of me and my ailments.’ It was my chief concern that Ban might find a new love without the problems I presented.
‘Never,’ he assured me, and pulling me into his arms set about proving his love in the best possible way.
Thankfully, there was also time for socialising, and we would attend balls and concerts, and rural breakfasts. We made new friends in the Duke and Duchess of Chatelet, who were most kind to me. If I was in the grip of a rheumatic spasm, the dragon biting its teeth into my joints particularly badly, they’d devise strategies to relieve my sufferings, or at least distract me from them. The couple greatly cheered my spirits, as did my darling Ban. Then one day he came to me wearing a most gloomy expression.
‘I’m afraid I must leave you for a while, my love, and take a trip home,’
‘Why must you?’ I snapped. I readily admit that I was not in a particularly good mood when he made this announcement, due to the pain and the treatment I was forced to endure. But at the same time my heart trembled with fear. Was he saying that he’d had enough of waiting upon a cripple?
‘I must attend to my parlous financial affairs.’
‘Could you not do that by letter?’
‘No, my love, I could not. I also need to make enquiries about a possible future posting. We cannot stay here for ever. We must make proper provision for when we return home.’
‘I suspect you are simply bored.’
‘Oh, Mary, how could I ever be bored with you, are you not my soul mate? I would much prefer to remain here with you.’
‘Then it is this obsession with gambling that is in your blood. Swear to me you will never again roll a dice,’ I cried, furious tears rolling down my cheeks.
‘Dearest, I have no such desire.’
‘Swear it!’
‘Very well, I swear it. No more tossing of the dice. I will be gone but a short time, and back by your side before you have had time to miss me.’
That could never be the case, as well he knew, but no matter how much I railed and sobbed and sulked, he kept his word and returned to London, and no doubt to his family in Liverpool. Most of all I feared his family’s influence might lure him away from me for good in the end.
That was the first of several visits over the coming months, none of which I welcomed as I never could accept the necessity for these frequent absences. I would be contentedly settling to having him back in my arms, then quite out of the blue he would come to tell me he was leaving.
‘Why must you go so often? Are you gambling again? Can you not bear to be away from Brooks’s or The Cocoa Tree?’
‘Dearest Mary, please do not excite yourself. It does your health no good at all.’
‘Do not tell me what to do!’
He had the temerity to laugh. ‘I would not dream of doing so. It is your independent spirit that I most admire about you.’
‘That and my money, which you have spent on your gaming. Are you seeing other women?’
He let out a heavy sigh. ‘You know that I have no wish to hurt you, nor to quarrel with you.’
‘That does not answer my question. What whore are you bedding now?’
‘Dammit, Mary, you go too far. You offend my honour.’
‘You do not know the meaning of the word!’ I screamed, at which point we stared at each other in fury and horror, knowing there was no greater insult to a soldier. The next second he was upon me, ripping my nightgown from my naked body and we were making love with a passion that filled me with an exultant joy. Feeling his powerful thighs against my weakling limbs, the way he filled every part of me, making me his entirely, excited me more than words could describe.
Our relationship was ever volatile, but I consoled myself that he could not stay away from me too long, any more than I could tolerate his absences. We were as one, entirely besotted and dependent upon each other.
While Ban was away, Maria Elizabeth was a great support and comfort. When the pain kept me awake at nights she would sing to me, or ask a mandolin player to serenade me from beneath my window. I would lie awake long into the night listening to him, albeit with tears of pain in my eyes, and in my heart until my lover was back in my arms once again.
On his return Ban would be bursting with vitality and energy, and with news of the latest fashions, scandal and gossip, which was always welcome. Content as I was on the Continent and enjoyed the milder climate, a part of me still ached for the life I had left behind in London. He brought word of the prince’s affair with Maria Fitzherbert, a lady not only much older than he, which was unsurprising, but of the Catholic faith.
‘It has certainly set tongue’s wagging,’ Ban said. ‘The ton is agog over the scandal. There is even talk they have taken part in a clandestine marriage.’
‘Goodness gracious. Has the prince run mad?’ Naturally the rumours resulted in yet more caricatures in which I was depicted as the jilted lover.
‘But we parted years ago,’ I raged, tearing up the cartoons Ban had brought to show me. ‘Why will they persist in linking me with the prince?’
‘Because a royal lover is far more exciting than a mere colonel.’
I smiled. ‘Not in my eyes, my darling.’ And tossing the papers aside, gave myself up to my true love.
In December 1785, I learned that my father had died. He was over 60 years old and had apparently distinguished himself at the siege of Gibraltar, and saved Spanish sailors from drowning or dying in the burning ships. I was delighted to learn that he’d been commended by the Admiralty, then obtained a commission in St Petersburg when Catherine of Russia had called for British officers. Now, after two years in the Russian Imperial Service, he was gone from my life forever, without even the opportunity for me to say goodbye. As always, I put my thoughts into a poem.
Oh! my lov’d sire, farewell!
Though we are doom’d on earth to meet no more,
Still mem’ry lives, and still I must adore!
More startling
still, I read of my own death in the Morning Post of the fourteenth of July 1786. Enraged by the description of myself as ‘the natural daughter of a gentleman’, which implied I was illegitimate, and my mother as an innkeeper of all things, I at once wrote to object, demolishing these fantasies they had devised about me.
Sir, I have the satisfaction of informing you that so far from being dead, I am in the most perfect state of health, except a trifling lameness, of which, by the use of the baths at this place, I have every reason to hope I shall recover in a month or six weeks.
My timing was perhaps somewhat over-optimistic but the piece had annoyed me. Speaking of me in the past tense, it said, ‘She was genteel in her manners, delicate in her person, and beautiful in her features.’ Then caustically went on to say that I would have been an ornament to my sex had I not succumbed to flattery, folly and vice. They also published a mocking rhyming couplet, ‘Let coxcombs flatter and let fools adore. Here learn the lesson to be vain no more!’
Three weeks later the paper published my letter, but without any apology.
In the summer of 1787 we moved to St Amand des Eaux. The spa was smaller and less fashionable than Aix-La-Chapelle but known for specialising in the treatment of rheumatism. I decided to try the hot mud baths there and rented a delightful little cottage, long and low with five windows at the front and four set in the roof, with two awnings to pull down over the main windows to provide shade. The cottage boasted a small garden surrounded by a wooden fence where I loved to sit in the sun and write my poetry, located as it was in a most pretty spot on the edge of a forest.
Maria loved the little house so much that she drew a picture of it to pin up on my bedroom wall. What a gifted child she was, although at twelve rapidly turning into a young woman. She was growing taller by the day and had a dignity about her which was quite charming. Auburn haired like myself, her eyes a bewitching dark blue, with a healthy glow to her rosy cheeks which I loved to see. Above all else, I meant to keep my daughter healthy.
Ban was in London, attending parties and promoting the publication of his book: History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781 in the Southern Provinces of North America. ‘Most people seem to realise it was largely written by you, my love,’ he wrote in one of his many letters. ‘But it has been well received as it is being viewed as an historical record rather than a personal memoir. I doubt it will make my fortune, but my family has at least agreed to reinstate my allowance. Just as well since I remain on half-pay.’
I responded that I was pleased by this news, even though it always set my heart racing with fear whenever he appealed to his family for assistance. ‘But what of a future posting?’ I dared to ask.
‘Cornwallis has finally been posted as Commander-in-Chief to India, but did not offer to take me with him,’ came his reply, rippling with bitterness. ‘My campaign to be elected as a Whig MP has greatly offended Prime Minister Pitt and he refused to appoint a Whig to any command in India. I very much doubt Cornwallis tried very hard to change his mind, so I have switched my support to Clinton.’
I felt great sympathy for Ban, if considerable relief on my own account. I wanted him here with me, in France, not in faraway India.
I tried not to worry about the future as I wallowed in the loathsome black mud for hour upon hour. I would then be cleansed of the vile substance by being immersed and scrubbed in a hot bath. The baths were situated in a building rather like a greenhouse, separated from each other by wooden frames. Here I would be given massage and kneading, and the Aix Douche, which involved reclining on a wooden board while the spine was sprayed. The temperature was at first warm, going gradually cooler till needle sharp and cold. This was apparently most beneficial to chronic gout and rheumatism.
St Amand was also famous for its ditches where patients were treated with leeches. I resisted this for some time but was finally persuaded to give it a try. ‘It is the most distasteful experience imaginable to be sucked by those noisome reptiles,’ I complained to my ever-patient mother.
‘But the treatment must be working, dear, as you are so much better.’
‘You are right, and I should not complain.’
It was true that I was beginning to feel some improvement but sadly, pleasant and beneficial though my stay in St Amand was, I found no miracle cure.
‘Will we next return to Aix-la-Chapelle?’ Maria asked, having become quite accustomed to our wandering lifestyle.
‘No, dearest, we will stay here in our delightful cottage, and having finished Ban’s book, I shall concentrate once more upon my own.’
‘Oh, yes, Mama, and when your hands get tired, I shall write to your dictation.’
And that is what we did, a partnership that was to last to the end of my days. I wrote a comic opera set in Villefranche, and when my crabbed hands grew tired, my daughter would take the quill pen and continue at my dictation. In this fashion I also managed to complete several poems including ‘A Sonnet to the Evening’ into which I poured emotion I could not otherwise express.
Oft do I seek thy shade dear with’ring tree,
Sad emblem of my own disast’rous state;
Doom’d in the spring of life, alas! Like thee
To fade, and droop beneath the frowns of fate;
Writing is such a wonderful therapy for a troubled heart.
Ban again stood for Parliament in September but failed to win a seat and rejoined us in Paris later that autumn where we were staying at the Hôtel d’Angleterre. He was as lively and loving as ever, sweeping me into his arms to devour me with his kisses and love making.
Naturally I worried about what he had been doing all summer. Had he been dallying with any of my rivals in the Cyprian Corps, or found himself a rich heiress? I thought it highly unlikely that this gloriously handsome hero could remain faithful during such a long absence. What man ever was? When I had discovered Tommy’s betrayal my pride and dignity had been sorely injured. With Ban I knew in my heart that it would destroy me, as I loved him more than life itself. I burned with jealousy at the very thought of him with another woman. Keeping my emotions very firmly under control, I managed not to express these suspicions out loud.
Infidelity was not the only issue which tested my faith in him. The chief one, of course, was money! ‘I trust you have returned with the coffers refilled?’ I challenged him, once we had sated our neglected passion.
‘My love, did I not explain that well reviewed though it may be, the book has not sold sufficient copies to make any significant profit. Some even saw it as a sneak attack on Cornwallis’s reputation at a time when he was not present in the country to defend himself. It created some dispute but generally it is considered to be accurate.’
‘Of course it is accurate, since you at least are in possession of all the facts, which your detractors are not.’
‘Quite so,’ he snapped.
Since he was clearly sensitive on the book’s lack of success, I held my tongue and resisted broaching the subject again. We enjoyed a pleasant few weeks together, savouring the delights of Paris, dining in the finest hotels, attending balls and levees, and driving about in hired carriages. But as my finances once more slipped dangerously into debt, my discretion sank with it. Where was the money coming from to fund this high living? I could put the matter off no longer. I chose a moment when we were contentedly breakfasting in bed together, I sipping my chocolate while Ban tucked into toast and marmalade. It was still early but already we could hear the rattle of carriage wheels in the street, the cries of pedlars selling their wares.
I put my enquiry as gently as I could. ‘Dearest, forgive my curiosity, but if you are still on half pay, albeit with the addition of an allowance from your family, will that be sufficient for us to maintain the lifestyle we both enjoy so much? As you have already explained, the book will not make your fortune.’
‘I did not write it for profit. More to make my case and express my pride in a job well done in difficult circumstances. The good news is that I won a substa
ntial bet which will keep us in the financial black for some time.’
I felt my blood start to heat, as if I were in one of the hot springs again, and carefully setting down my cup of chocolate on the side table, asked him outright. ‘Then you have been gambling, even though you promised – nay, swore on your honour that you would not roll another dice.’
‘It was a card game,’ he flippantly responded.
‘It’s still gambling!’ I longed to leap from the bed and stride from the room in a rage, but my condition prevented me from any such dramatic gesture. Frustrated, I attacked him all the more. ‘Can you not be serious for once instead of carelessly drifting through life without a moment’s serious thought.’ I knew this to be an unfair criticism even as I spoke the words, yet couldn’t seem to prevent my jealous rage from bubbling over. How dare he carelessly use my money as stake for a bet, dally in London and revel in society life while I was stuck with mud baths and leeches?
‘You should be proud of me,’ he joked, happily spreading marmalade on a second slice of toast. ‘I prevented a duel between two of my friends who seemed hell-bent on self-destruction. And the royal brothers seem to have adopted me as something of a favourite. We’ve enjoyed many a game of cricket together, attend races and prize fights.’
I listened bemused as he spoke of my erstwhile royal lover being often insensible with drink, and of bets on whether a goose could run faster than a turkey.
‘You behave like naughty boys at school. They have duped you into living the same kind of debauched life as do they. What of your military career?’
‘That seems to be very much in the doldrums, I’m afraid.’ I watched in disbelief as he bit on his toast and began to chew, as if this matter were of no great importance.
‘So you recklessly abandon yourself to hedonism and gambling?’
‘While my luck holds, why would I not?’
‘Then if you are in funds again, you can repay what you have borrowed from me in the past. You used my money, remember, to finance your bets.’
Lady of Passion Page 24
