The Duchess of Drury Lane (34 page)

The scandalmongers joined in the frolics, and were in full flow, discussing every personal detail of our lives. All my friends seemed to be bursting to disclose the latest tales they had heard, hoping I might enlighten them as to their veracity. How the Duke had pursued Miss Tylney-Long throughout that autumn while she was in Ramsgate taking the sea air; how he would call upon her every day, or ‘accidentally’ discover her walking with her mother and sister along the promenades and crescents, and eagerly join the ladies. Wellesley-Pole might be hovering nearby but the Duke would deliberately block him out, regaling his heart’s desire with his lively sea yarns, as he once had regaled me. He apparently even offered to have the fellow drummed out of town.

‘He is shameless, Mama,’ Sophy told me. ‘At a naval fête where all the ladies were dressed in red and white to honour his flag, Papa took advantage of his position to claim more than the two dances considered quite proper. However, Wellesley-Pole chose not to honour his precedence and laid claim to the dance himself. You should have seen Papa’s temper flare. “I will not give her up to any man,” he snapped, and danced on.’

‘I’m not sure you should be telling me all this,’ I protested, eagerly drinking in every detail, despite the pain it was causing me.

‘Why should you not know?’ And here Sophy adopted a pose. ‘Seconds later Catherine fell to limping. “Oh my, I fear I have hurt my foot with hopping and skipping,” she said. All a tale as she really does not care to dance with him, I can see it in her face. Papa is almost
fifty
, for goodness sake, and she in her early twenties! She begged to sit out the rest of the dance, but he refused to leave her side for the rest of the evening.’

I was on my feet in a second. ‘I have heard enough. No more, please.’

‘But there is a great deal more, Mama. People are sniggering and mocking him. It is so embarrassing! If you but knew the whole of it then you could do something to stop him making such a fool of himself, to save our family from destruction.’

‘What could I do?’ I felt helpless in the face of her optimism.

‘I don’t know. Tell him that you love him.’

‘He knows that already.’

‘Then perhaps you could stay home more.’

‘Dearest, life is not always quite so simple.’ How could I explain to this innocent child the complexities of a relationship, and the harsh realities of debt?

She grasped my hands and made me sit again. ‘Later that evening, when he escorted her to her carriage, I followed and heard him say that he intended to write to her guardian, Lady de Crespigny, to inform her of the strength of his feelings. “Would you like me to deliver any message?” he asked. And after the slightest hesitation, she said, “Give my aunt my best compliments.” Papa asked if he might say that she had enjoyed a pleasant evening, by which he meant by spending it almost entirely with him. “You may add to my aunt I have had an
agreeable
evening,” she said. It was not an answer that pleased him,’ Sophy said with some satisfaction. ‘I think she means to refuse him.’

And so it proved, after which followed much speculation on who the Duke might offer for next.

Ever tender to his needs, even to my own detriment, I had already warned him to proceed with caution for fear of disappointment. ‘All women are not to be taken by an open attack, and a premeditated one stands a worse chance than any other.’ Clearly he had not taken my advice, no doubt charging in with his usual boundless enthusiasm, like the royal Jack tar he is. Unfortunately, not every woman would find that aspect of the Duke’s character as endearing as do I.

More of the story came my way via Miss Sketchley: how he claimed to be ‘the first unmarried man in the land’, assuring the aunt that he had broken off all connection with me. He even enclosed a copy of the ‘generous’ settlement we were in the process of agreeing. ‘Which will I trust prove to your Ladyship I can justly value the conduct of a lady for twenty years . . .’

It did not seem to occur to him that his own conduct might be that in question.

As if all this were not bad enough, Cruikshank published several cartoons in the press which showed the Duke proposing to a pretty young lady, and myself standing by with the children clustered about me saying: ‘What, leave your faithful Peggy?’ At least Peter Pindar produced a poem in my support:

What! Leave a woman to her tears?

Your faithful friend for twenty years,

One who gave up her youthful charms,

The fond companion of your arms!

Brought you ten smiling girls and boys,

Sweet pledges of connubial joys;

As much your wife in honor’s eye,

As if fast bound in wedlock’s tie.

Return to Mistress J—’s arms,

Soothe her, and quiet her alarms;

Your present difference o’er,

Be wise, and play the fool no more.

I found all this hugely embarrassing. Worse, this kind of exposure meant that the other children had to be told: those old enough to understand, that is. The Duke left that task to me, playing the coward, avoiding telling the truth to George and Henry by saying only that he had a thousand places to go to and might not be home for Christmas. William did so hate anything difficult or unpleasant, as do all men. George was the first to comprehend what was happening, and I asked if he would break it gently to dear Henry, but it seemed his brother had already written to George in something of a state, asking if the rumours were true.

As for Sophy, since I declared myself unable to prevent this disaster falling about our ears, my darling daughter went back to St James’s in a huff and stopped answering my letters.

Fanny, of course, claimed she had never liked him, and when soft-hearted Dodee met the Duke in town one day, she burst into tears. What misery had been brought upon us all!

So distressed was I by all this, that I wrote to my old friend and confidant Boaden. ‘Money, money, my good friend, or the want of it, has, I am convinced, made him, at this moment, the most wretched of men. But having done wrong, he does not like to retract . . .’ But I refused to blame him, and said as much to Boaden. ‘Had he left me to starve, I never would have uttered a word to his disadvantage . . .’

While society whispered about me behind their hands I was in the midst of negotiating my settlement, a most unseemly business. Beset by lawyers on all sides I needed to protect myself, even though I had no one to advise me, save for Dalrymple, a loyal friend and neighbour.

In the end it was decided that I was to be granted £1,500 a year for the maintenance of my younger daughters and Tus, although he would soon turn seven and would then legally be in the care of his father, who would no doubt take full control of my little boy. For myself there was to be the same sum, and £600 for a horse and carriage. There were provisions too for my older girls, but there was also a proviso.

It was stipulated that in the event of my resuming my profession, the care of my younger children would revert to the Duke, together with the sum for their maintenance.

‘Why is this an issue?’ I asked Barton, the Duke’s man of business. ‘I thought he had agreed that I could continue with my profession so that I can settle my debts, and provide for my own pension.’

‘Your continuing to work would reflect badly upon His Highness. It would look as if he had not properly provided for you.’

I thought of how my debts had mounted largely because of the Duke and his inability to economize, of the interest he still owed me in addition to the large sums I had lent him out of love and a tender heart. But my career, it seemed, was over, whether I liked it or not, so I said nothing further. I still loved him, and if there was nothing I could do to become respectable in the eyes of society, then I could at least ensure that I did not lose my children. In the aftermath of this melancholy business they would have need of a mother around.

So it was that on the twenty-second of November, 1811, my fiftieth birthday, I wrote to the Duke, carefully addressing him as ‘my dear friend’, for surely he would ever be that, and accepted the terms of the settlement.

Soon after that I decided to move out of Bushy House, as the memories were far too painful, and asked March to find us a house in town. It was time, I thought, for a fresh start.

But then, quite out of the blue, William Adam, the Duke’s lawyer, called at Bushy and claimed not to be aware of any arrangement whereby my daughters could live with me. ‘I regret you have been misinformed. I saw the Duke only last Thursday and no mention was made of this.’

I was devastated, and, suspecting some royal plot to oust me completely from the Duke’s life and that of my children, I wrote at once to John McMahon, the Regent’s private secretary. ‘This is trifling most cruelly with my feelings and unfortunate situation . . .’

Oh, but I was angry. I had long ago learned to stand up for myself and resolved not to leave Bushy until the matter was settled to my satisfaction. All I wanted was to protect my family. I wrote also to the Duke, expressing my feelings on the arrangement
upon which we had agreed
. I addressed him as ‘Sir’, and signed it ‘Your Royal Highness’s dutiful servant’. All affection between us seemed to be dead.

Miss Sketchley informed me that my letter had greatly upset the Duke. ‘He sensed your anger in every word. In fact,’ she blithely continued, ‘he has let it be known that he wishes you to be left in peace, and the children too. He apparently said: “She has ever been the best of mothers and I see no reason why our younger daughters should not stay with her until they reach sixteen.” I am reliably informed, however, by McMahon, that the Prince Regent considers thirteen a more appropriate age.’

‘It is the royal advisers who have conspired to deny me my children and career, not the Duke?’

‘I fear His Grace has other matters on his mind now, madam. He is looking elsewhere for a bride, with no better luck. Most recently he offered for Mercer Elphinstone, daughter of Viscount Keith, not quite as rich as Miss Tylney-Long but young and good looking. To his chagrin she too refused him.’

‘Poor William, he must be feeling quite humiliated, perhaps wishing he’d never started on this quest.’ Not for a moment had he expected to experience any difficulty in securing himself a wife. He was a royal prince, third in line to the throne after the death of the King. Yet if he could find no rich heiress to marry, he would be obliged to consider foreign princesses, which wouldn’t please him.

I wondered if he ever thought longingly of me, of the joy and comfort we had found in each other’s arms, of how he had loved to see me in the cross-dressing roles, enjoyed my wit and mimicry, the warm, affectionate teasing between us. Did he, I wonder, ever regret having left me?

As if to confirm this might be so, Miss Sketchley went on to explain how he had instructed Barton to seek out any portraits of me which may be around. ‘He wishes to see them hung on the walls of Bushy. For the children, or so he claims. No doubt he is reluctant to admit his own need to see your lovely smiling face again.’

I turned away, for there was only pain in that face today.

‘He has now left the matter of the settlement in the hands of his men of business. But your allowance, they assure me, will be paid in full and on time.’

In view of the extent of the Duke’s debts, that would be asking a great deal. I could but hope for the best.

Twenty-Nine

‘. . . his liberality towards me has been noble and generous in the highest degree’

I spent weeks preparing Cadogan Place for the dear children, and almost began to despair that the Duke would ever allow them to come to me, my spirits quite agitated by the delay.

‘If it were not for the bustle of endeavouring to get the home ready for the dear little ones, I should be found hanging some morning in my garters,’ I wrote to George, my only confidant.

But at length William brought them in early February, delivering them to the back door of the house to carefully avoid meeting me. I did appreciate it would be hard for him to part with the children, but felt sad that our lives had sunk to this level. Miss Sketchley came too, for we had become close companions. I certainly needed her, as it was not easy coping with the children in a small town house when they were used to a place the size of Bushy.

Months had passed since the settlement had been agreed and money continued to be tight, as I still hadn’t received my allowance from the Duke. Neither was I permitted to work. Since I failed to get any response from Barton on the matter, in desperation I wrote to the Regent for help, and to the other royal brothers. The lawyers were not pleased, but later that month the first payment was at last made.

‘Now see what the rumour mill is accusing me of,’ I said to Miss Sketchley one day, shocked by what I had just read in the latest scandalous news sheet. ‘The Princess Charlotte is saying that I intend to publish the Duke’s letters. As if I would choose to offend him in such a way!’

‘They cannot understand how it is you continue to bear the Duke such fond regard, after the way he has treated you.’

‘To abuse his good name would be more than I am capable of.’

But the incident so distressed me that I instantly packed up all the letters from him, save for the last four, and dispatched them to McMahon with a brief note expressing my dismay at such a charge, concluding with, ‘Excuse this – for I am so ill I write from my pillow.’

What would those advisers do to me next?

I still had not heard from dear Sophy, but she was ever obstinate and I could only hope she would come around, given time. There was some good news at the end of the month when Dodee gave birth to a fine boy. But then one morning when Miss Sketchley brought breakfast to me in my room, she expressed concern over Fanny.

‘She is waiting in the drawing room, come again to beg for financial assistance, claiming she and Alsop are in a most shocking state.’

I sighed. ‘What is it this time? Does this young man imagine he married a bottomless pit of wealth with royal connections?’