‘Is that someone at the door, Maria? He’s come. I knew he would come at the last.’
Maria shook her head, but Perdita was already seeing him – not as he was now but as a charming prince, eager and loving.
‘Maria love, give me the paper heart … “Unalterable to my Perdita through life”. He meant it then … He will remember …’
‘No, Mamma,’ whispered Maria gently.
But she did not hear.
She was quoting to herself the poem she had written and which Maria had always known referred to the Prince of Wales.
Thou art no more my bosom friend,
Here must the sweet delusion end,
That charmed my senses many a year
Through smiling summers, winters drear.
Ah, yes, thought Maria, here must the delusion end. The Prince of Wales, deeply immersed in his own tempestuous life, could scarcely be expected to be aware of the passing of one who had amused him briefly twenty years before.
Perdita was smiling. Perhaps, thought Maria, she believes he has come to her. Perhaps the sweet delusion is still with her.
Maria put her arms about her mother and Perdita lay in them, smiling as life passed away.
Bibliography
George IV Shane Leslie
George IV Roger Fulford
George, Prince and Regent Philip W. Sergeant
The First Gentleman Grace E. Thompson
Portrait of the Prince Regent Dorothy Margaret Stuart
Memoirs of George IV Robert Huish
Life and Times of George IV The Rev George Croly
The Diary and Letters of Madame d’Arblay
The Great Corinthian Doris Leslie
The Good Queen Charlotte Percy Fitzgerald
Life of George IV Percy Fitzgerald
George III J. C. Long
The Four Georges W. M. Thackeray
The First Gentleman of Europe Lewis Melville
Memoirs of Mary Robinson Edited by J. F. Molloy
Life and letters of Lady Sarah Lennox Edited by the Countess of Ilchester and Lord Stavordale
Loves of Florizal Philip Lindsay
Memoirs and Portraits Horace Walpole
Memoirs of the Reign of George III Horace Walpole
George III, Monarch and Statesman Beckles Wilson
George III, His Court and Family Henry Colburn
In the Days of the Georges William B. Boulton
The Four Georges Sir Charles Petrie
The House of Hanover Alvin Redman
The Dictionary of National Biography Edited by Sir Leslie
Stephen and Sir Sidney Lee
British History John Wade
National and Domestic History of England William Hickman
Smith Aubrey