Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill: (Georgian Series)

by Jean Plaidy

  ‘She didn’t hold out long enough. Perdita was a fool.’

  ‘Well, Maria Fitzherbert is not. And the fact that she really means what she says enslaves him more than ever. He senses her inherent virtue, Charles. It confirms his belief that she is the only woman with whom he can be happy. You know the Prince. Gambling, jokes, racing, prizefighting … he enjoys them all; but his dominating passion is for women.’

  Charles nodded gloomily. ‘What about a marriage … a marriage that was not really a marriage. Some sort of ceremony to soothe the lady’s scruples.’

  ‘A mock marriage?’ murmured Georgiana.

  ‘You could call it that.’ Charles began to laugh. ‘My God,’ he cried, ‘this is demanding as much of our time as the Declaration of Independence.’

  ‘I’m sure the Prince feels it to be a matter of far greater importance.’

  Charles shrugged his shoulders. ‘Let us lose the North American Colonies. Let France and Spain come against us. Let the throne tremble and let the Whigs go to hell. What matters it as long as George, Prince of Wales, goes to bed with Maria Fitzherbert.’

  ‘I am sure, Charles,’ said the Duchess, ‘that you are voicing His Highness’s own sentiments.’

  ‘I think I will go and see some of the Gentlemen of His Household. Something could be arranged perhaps. Who are they? Southampton, Bouverie and …’

  ‘There is also Onslow. You could rely on him.’

  ‘I will have a talk with them. I have a faint idea beginning to form. It seems wild but perhaps it will fit the situation. I will keep you in the picture.’

  Maria was ready to leave her house in Park Street. In a few hours’ time she would be making her way down to the coast; her bags were already packed. She had been rather surprised to receive letters from her Uncle Henry and her brothers Walter and John and while they did not actually advise her to give way to the Prince they managed to hint that they thought there was nothing dishonourable in doing so. How could they be so deluded, so blinded by the dazzle of royalty! The boys were young, of course, and they had missed a father’s steadying influence, but Uncle Henry should have known better. Dear Uncle Henry had always been kind to her but she had always known him for a worldly man.

  It was a good plan to go to France. There she would be able to confide in her dear nuns and to talk frankly of her feelings. The more she saw of the Prince the stronger her feelings grew, and she was realizing how painful it was for her to leave him. It would be so easy to love him – far easier than it had been in the case of Edward and Thomas – although she had believed herself to be happily married to both of them. It was as well that she was leaving, not only to elude the Prince but so that she might not become the victim of her own feelings. She must face the truth. She would be very sad without him. But she had made up her mind. In less than an hour she would leave.

  She heard the sound of carriage wheels in the street below. It was early yet. She went to the window. The royal carriage was pulling up outside the house. She drew back, shielding herself by the curtains. It was not the Prince who alighted but four members of his household. She knew three of them by sight; they were Lord Southampton, Lord Onslow and Mr Bouverie; she did not recognize the fourth man.

  She heard their voices addressing her footman.

  ‘Pray conduct us to your mistress without delay. The matter is of the utmost urgency.’

  She faced them resolutely. ‘I am just about to leave …’

  ‘Madam, the life of the Prince of Wales is in the greatest danger.’

  ‘Danger …?’

  ‘He has attempted suicide. He is asking for you.’

  She looked at them suspiciously and Lord Southampton said: ‘This is Mr Keate, His Highness’s surgeon. He will tell you that the Prince is on the point of death. He is calling for you, Madam. We fear the consequences if you do not go at once to him at Carlton House.’

  Maria was alarmed, but a hideous suspicion had come to her. What plan was this? She was to be taken to Carlton House. What would happen when she arrived there? Was it a trick? How could she be sure? And what if he really had attempted to take his life?

  She stammered: ‘I cannot come alone. I must have a … a lady whom I could trust to accompany me. If you will call at Lady Sefton’s house I am sure she will agree to come with me.’

  Southampton and Onslow exchanged glances.

  ‘I feel the Duchess of Devonshire would come. She is a great friend of the Prince and of you too, Madam. Would you agree to come if she was with you?’

  ‘Why … yes,’ said Maria.

  ‘Then we beg of you to lose no time. The Prince’s condition is serious.’

  The Duchess hastily joined Maria in the coach, her face grave.

  ‘But my dear Maria, this is terrible. What can have happened?’

  ‘I know very little. They tell me that he has attempted to take his life.’

  ‘How fearful! How dreadful! It can’t be true.’

  ‘It is true,’ said Southampton. ‘The Prince in desperation has stabbed himself.’

  ‘Then he is …’

  ‘His physicians are with him. Mr Keate came along to urge the importance of bringing Mrs Fitzherbert to his bedside.’

  ‘Are you telling us that he is … dying?’ gasped the Duchess.

  ‘Your Grace,’ said Keate, ‘we may yet be in time.’

  When they reached Carlton House the women were hurried into the Prince’s apartments on the ground floor where he was lying on a couch, his face very pale and his clothes bloodstained.

  ‘Maria!’ he cried when he saw her; and she ran to him and knelt by his side. She took his hand which he grasped with fervour; and then he lay back, his eyes closed.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ whispered Maria, ‘what have you done?’

  ‘Maria …’

  ‘Yes … yes …’

  ‘Come closer.’ He spoke in a whisper, his breath laboured.

  ‘Please do not exert yourself.’

  ‘I … am better … now you are here.’

  Maria looked helplessly at the doctors.

  ‘Comfort him, Madam,’ said Keate. ‘He is in a very low state.’

  Maria put her lips to his forehead and a slow smile touched his lips. She heard him murmuring her name once more.

  The Duchess of Devonshire said: ‘He … will live?’

  The Prince heard her for he murmured: ‘Of what use to live … without Maria?’

  ‘Please do not talk in that way,’ said Maria, deeply agitated.

  ‘How else can I talk when you … reject me.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said to the doctors, ‘I disturb him. Perhaps it would be better if I went.’

  The grip on her hand tightened and the doctors shook their heads gravely.

  ‘I wish to die,’ murmured the Prince.

  ‘You see,’ whispered Keate to the Duchess. ‘He has no will to live.

  ‘There is only one thing that would make me want to live …’ went on the Prince. ‘Maria … Maria …’

  ‘I am here,’ said Maria.

  ‘But you go away …’

  ‘I am here beside you.’

  ‘Nothing will induce me to live unless you promise to be my wife.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘No, it is useless. Goodbye, Maria. There is no reason for living … no hope …’

  ‘Maria cannot refuse Your Highness,’ said the Duchess, coming to the couch. ‘Whatever she says I can see how deeply disturbed she is. Your Highness must get well. Maria, you will marry the Prince.’

  ‘I will pledge my word with a ring … and she shall pledge hers to me,’ said the Prince.

  The Duchess took a ring from her finger and pressed it into the Prince’s hand. She nodded to Maria. ‘You cannot refuse a dying man.’

  Maria thought: How he loves me! He has done this because he cannot live without me. Such passion was something she had never discovered in either of her husbands before. Lying back on the couch, so pale, he looked very handsom
e. It would be cruel to refuse to allow a dying man to put a ring on her finger.

  ‘You will promise, Maria …’

  She bowed her head and held out her hand, and the Prince slipped the Duchess’s ring on her finger.

  ‘Now,’ said Keate, ‘His Highness should rest. He has lost a great deal of blood but I believe that he is at peace.’

  The Prince nodded but kept Maria’s hand in his.

  ‘Maria,’ he murmured. ‘You are my wife, Maria.’

  Once more Maria bent over and kissed his forehead and a smile of triumph curved his lips.

  As she was leaving Carlton House with the Duchess, Southampton came hurrying after them. ‘His Highness demands to see a deposition drawn up and signed by Onslow, Bouverie, Keate and myself.’

  ‘What deposition?’ asked Maria.

  ‘What has happened is tantamount to a marriage ceremony. It must be recorded and signed by witnesses. It is the only thing that will satisfy him. We daren’t cross him and he is demanding it.’

  ‘Let us go to Devonshire House,’ said the Duchess, ‘and there we will draw up a document and all sign it. That should satisfy him. You will do this, I know, Maria, for we have seen what a state His Highness is in. We must give him every opportunity to recover.’

  So with the four men and the Duchess, Maria returned to Devonshire House where the deposition was drawn up and signed.

  It was then taken to the Prince at Carlton House while Maria went back to Park Street.

  When his friends returned with the deposition the Prince had discarded his bloodstained clothes and was drinking a whiskey and soda.

  ‘You have it?’ he cried.

  ‘Here, Your Highness.’

  ‘Let me see. Let me see. Ah … yes. She will not go back on her word. We have it here in writing.’

  ‘Your Highness, if I may say so, played the part to perfection.’

  ‘I should have done well on the boards, Keate, if I had been born into a different station. My dear Maria, she was deeply distressed.’

  ‘And small wonder!’ said Southampton. ‘The idea of a Prince’s falling on his sword because she had rejected him must have been alarming.’

  ‘I would have done it,’ said the Prince. ‘Yes. I would have done it for Maria. So it is not really a great deception.’

  He smiled complacently. The ceremony would satisfy Maria, and in no way inconvenience him. Not that he would not have gone through a true marriage ceremony with her if that had been possible. Most willingly would he have given up everything for her; but since it could be done this way and Charles thought so – and Charles was invariably right – how much more satisfactory it was than making the great upheaval through the country which an ordinary marriage would have done.

  He was madly in love with her, enough to fall on his sword. He had brandished his pistols and declared he would shoot himself. And when he had been blooded because the doctors said the violence of his passions could give him a stroke and there had been so much rich red blood and he had splashed it all over his beautiful coat … he had really felt as though he had – in a sudden access of despair – fallen on his sword.

  And the effect had been to bring her to his bedside, chastened, loving, tender, ready to give way as she had never been before.

  Maria would soon be his.

  Back in Park Street Maria considered the strange events of the last hours and the more she thought of them the stranger they appeared.

  The Duchess of Devonshire had been waiting in Devonshire House when they called. Well, she might easily have been at home at that hour. She had handed over the ring as though she had brought it with her for the purpose. Maria twisted it round and round on her finger. It was a symbol. It meant she had promised to be the Prince’s wife. But how could she be the Prince’s wife? It was not possible. Their marriage, even if it were valid, would be forbidden. It was simply not possible for the heir to the throne to marry a commoner; and even if she were a Princess the marriage would not be allowed because of her religion. Sovereigns of Britain were simply not allowed to marry anyone of the Catholic Faith.

  Why had she been so foolish as to sign the deposition?

  Because one could not oppose the wish of a dying man.

  A dying man. He had been very prompt with his answers.

  And the deposition? She had been too agitated to read it properly, but it was, she realized now, a document which declared that she was the wife of George, Prince of Wales. But how could there be a marriage without a priest? The whole thing was a mockery.

  She did not blame the Prince. He had declared many times that he would willingly forgo everything to marry her. No, he genuinely loved her and she loved him – the more because of what he had done today. He had tried to kill himself for love of her. It was a gesture that she would remember with tenderness all her life. If he were free to marry her … if there were no obstacles between them willingly would she give her promise to love and cherish him for the rest of her life.

  But she would not accept a mock marriage.

  Her bags were packed. She could leave the next day, for if she left the country she would make it clear that she was determined not to be trapped into dishonour by any mock ceremony.

  She wrote a note to Lord Southampton telling him that she realized she had been the victim of a trap and that she blamed him and his friends. They had prevailed on her to sign a document which had no meaning. She therefore did not consider herself to be in any way committed, and she had decided to carry out her original intention and leave the country.

  Early next morning she set out on her journey.

  The Prince’s Dilemma

  THE LOSS OF blood sustained by the Prince together with all the excitement he had undergone had weakened him considerably and Keate said that a few days rest were needed. Moreover, Maria would not expect him to recover too quickly.

  ‘A few days in the country, sir,’ said Keate, ‘and you will be completely recovered.’

  And then, thought the Prince, Maria.

  Southampton said: ‘Would Your Highness care to come down to my place in the country for those few days?’

  ‘I would indeed, Southampton,’ replied the Prince.

  ‘We can promise Your Highness fresh air and good nursing. And then in a few days time …’

  ‘Maria,’ whispered the Prince.

  Pale and certainly a little feeble, the Prince set off for the country in the company of Southampton and Onslow and a few others of his suite. Jogging along in the carriage he made plans. As soon as he was feeling completely well – and that would be in a few days time, for with his youth and good health he was very resilient and had really only suffered from his too violent passions and rather more blood-letting than that to which he was accustomed – he would be with Maria.

  She should come to Carlton House. It would be no little love nest such as that he had provided for Perdita in Cork Street. Maria and he would live together openly. And if the King raised objections – to hell with the King.

  In a few days time they would be together. How affected she had been when she had seen him lying there on the couch! He could have no doubt of her feelings then.

  At last he was happy. Maria could not hide her love for him. The most happy time of his life was about to begin.

  When they arrived at Southampton’s place a messenger from London was there.

  He had come, he said, with a letter for Lord Southampton and had been instructed by Mrs Fitzherbert to put it into no hands but his lordship’s.

  The Prince smiled happily. He thought: She is writing to Southampton to thank him for the part he played in our little ceremony. My dearest Maria is as happy as I am.

  ‘Read it now, Southampton. Read it now,’ he said, smiling blandly.

  As Southampton read he turned pale; as he opened his mouth as though to speak, and yet said nothing, a sudden fear touched the Prince. ‘What is it? What is it?’

  ‘Sir, she has left the country. She reproaches me f
or … for taking advantage of the situation …’

  The Prince snatched the letter. Maria’s handwriting danced before his eyes. She had been the victim of a hoax, she had written, but she had not been deceived. She did not admire Lord Southampton for attempting to delude her, nor for imagining she was such a fool that she could be deluded. She was therefore reverting to her original decision to leave the country, and by the time he received this letter she would be on her way.

  The letter dropped to the ground. The Prince’s face had grown scarlet with anguish; he stalked into the house, past the members of the household who, having been warned of his coming, were waiting to give him an appropriate welcome.

  He paced round the hall not seeing anyone. In vain did Southampton try to comfort him. He shouted; he wept.

  ‘Pray remember your weak state, sir …’ murmured Southampton.

  But the Prince could only think of one thing: He had believed she was about to be his and she had gone – he did not even know where.

  The King in his bedroom at Kew Palace awakened at five in the morning as was his custom and got out of bed to light the fire which his attendants had laid overnight. Then he returned to bed to allow the room to warm up before he rose and attended to the State papers which were on a table awaiting his attention.

  Since young Mr Pitt had taken office he had consoled himself that the Government was in good hands. Mr Pitt was like his father had been, a trifle arrogant but courteous in his conduct to the King, yet somehow conveying the fact that while he was Prime Minister he intended to manage the country’s affairs without royal interference. He might ask for the King’s approval, but this was a formality and the King realized it. How different from Lord North was Mr Pitt! But then if he had been like Lord North the country’s affairs could not have been so skilfully managed.

  The American Colonies … The King groaned at the thought of that major disaster. Rarely had Britain suffered such a humiliating setback. It would be remembered against him and North for ever. Any good he had done for his country – and he had given it a lifetime of service – would be weighted against that tragedy.