And when he returned to St James’s it was to hear that the Princess Amelia when she had heard that he had been shot at had fallen into a fit and could not be comforted until she saw for herself that her dear father was safe.
He went to her at once. He embraced her – his darling, the best loved of them all.
‘I’m safe,’ he said. ‘No need to fret. I’m back. All went well. Mrs Jordan is a delightful woman. Plump and pretty. Acts well, sings even better. And even that villain Sheridan composed a very nice addition to the national anthem and they all sang it most loyally. Nothing to fret about, eh, what?’
So in spite of what might have been tragedy the night the King saw Dorothy in She Would and She Would Not was a great success for all except poor John Hadfield.
After that incident the relations between the King and his sons improved. They had all called at Buckingham House the following morning to take breakfast with their parents and to congratulate them on their lucky escape.
‘We don’t see enough of you, William,’ said his mother. ‘You must not forget your position entirely, you know.’
William thanked her for her kindness. He wanted to say that it was difficult for him to appear as much as he would wish when the lady whom he considered his wife could not be received at court as such.
The Queen understood perfectly and was implying that he should come without her.
The Prince of Wales was also affable to his father and the King to him, but the Queen could not help wondering what her son’s real feelings were. She had a notion that his fingers were itching to take the crown. And the poor King’s mental state was not improved by incidents like that of last night, however bravely he might stand up to them.
William was thoughtful as he left Buckingham House. He would go to some functions; he owed it to his parents and to his position. As long as it did not interfere too much with life at Bushy. George was happily reunited with Mrs Fitzherbert and was enjoying one of those honeymoon periods during which he was promising himself that they would never be parted again.
He was not very good company at such times.
William left his brothers and went down to the House of Lords where Lord Auckland’s bill on divorce was being discussed. He made one of the long boring speeches for which he was becoming notorious, full of allusions and quotations which made him feel he was indeed a statesman.
He spoke against divorce and everyone listened to him in amazement for they knew that when he left the House of Lords he would drive down to Bushy to live in comfortable domesticity with the kind of woman to whom he referred in his speech as ‘lapsed’.
It was scarcely likely that this would pass unnoticed. His speech on that day gave rise to a fresh spate of lampoons which once more called attention to his irregular union and the affairs of all the brothers, so that the popularity which had risen through the incidents in Hyde Park and Drury Lane was forgotten.
The royal family was making itself ridiculous again.
On the road to Canterbury
DOROTHY WAS WORRIED about Fanny, and William was a little irritated because of her preoccupation over the girl.
‘I declare,’ he said petulantly, ‘that in your eyes Madam Fanny is more important than the rest of us put together.’
She assured him that it was not true. But he was often sullen about Fanny.
She had to think of Fanny’s dowry and when he needed money she became, as he said, almost a usurer, making a bond with him, so that she might be sure that the money was paid back by him when Fanny would need her dowry.
‘It’s simply that I feel I must do the best for poor Fanny,’ she said.
‘Poor Fanny!’ grumbled William. ‘I’d call her rich Fanny.’
How could she make him see that Fanny had always been the outsider? Richard Ford had loved his two little girls – not enough to marry their mother but still he had cared for them. As for the FitzClarence family they were petted by everyone. Their father concerned himself with them; their uncles came to see them; and the Prince of Wales himself was particularly fond of young George, his namesake. The point was, she tried to make William understand, Fanny did not get the attention that the rest of them did.
‘I always feel I have to make it up to poor Fanny.’
Fanny had taken a great fancy to Gyfford Lodge, a house on Twickenham Common, which stood in pleasant gardens surrounded by a high wall. It had belonged to the Marchioness of Tweedale before her death and it was now empty and to let. The rent was fifty pounds a year. Not a large sum. And how pleasant for Fanny to have a house which she could call her own!
She should choose her own decorations and they would select the furniture by degrees. It should be Fanny’s own house and she should live there with a servant or two; Dorothy guessed that she would want to invite her sisters to stay with her now and then, but the invitation would come from her.
Fanny was enchanted with the idea and for a while she was happy with Gyfford Lodge.
William did not like it, though.
‘Damned unnecessary expense,’ he said, and a quarrel flared up before Dorothy realized it.
‘It happens to be my money.’
William was angry because he had lapsed with the allowance he had pledged himself to pay her.
She was talking like some low scribbler, he said. He’d be damned if he’d ever ask her to lend him another penny, even though he was prepared to pay back anything he had from her. Did she ever consider what she’d had from him? What he’d given up for her? Why he was cut off in a way from his own family. He ought to be going to court; he ought to be serving with the Navy. Why did she think he was denied a place in the Navy? Because he was out of favour with his father. And why? Because he had upset them all by living with an actress who displayed herself on a stage in breeches for anyone who had the price of a ticket to gloat over.
This was too much for Dorothy.
‘Did I want to go on acting? I should have been happy to give it all up. Why do I have to go on? Because we’d be in debt… more than we are already… if I didn’t. You may be a royal Prince but you still need money… my money!’
It was too much. The Duke walked out to the stables, took his horse and rode off in a rage, while Dorothy sat down and wept. Her head was aching, her eyes ablaze with anger. And when she saw her reflection in the mirror, she said: ‘I’m growing old and fat. He no longer cares for me.’
She lay on her bed and wept until he came in and found her.
He saw the traces of tears on her cheeks; she saw those on his. Like all the brothers he shed tears when disturbed, though not as readily – nor as elegantly – as the Prince of Wales.
She rose from the bed and went to stand close to him. He put his arms round her.
‘We must not quarrel, Dora,’ he said.
‘It was my Irish temper.’
‘It was my arrogance.’
‘Oh, my love. What is there for me without you and the little ones?’
‘And for me? There would be nothing in my life without you.’
‘You are a King’s son. You could be at court. There could be a great future for you.’
‘My future is here. You are a successful actress. Without us you could be rich, feted. You need not work so hard.’
‘I would throw it all away – all the success and applause – if I might live here in peace for the rest of my life.’
They laughed and clung to each other.
‘I could not believe that we were really quarrelling. It was like the end of the world.’
‘It would be the end of my world if we could not mend our quarrels.’
‘What was it all about? Something silly… something of no importance.’