There was Maria, comforting and motherly—his Dear Love waiting to give him her devotion. There was his Marine Pavilion, always a joy, and he delighted in planning new alterations to it; there were his friends. The Sheridans were there and the Barry family ready to amuse him with the wildest pranks. The Lades came to greet him and talk of horses; he was surrounded by his old friends; the only one who was absent was Charles James Fox. He was indisposed, he wrote to the Prince, and was living quietly for a while at Chertsey.
The King had gone to Weymouth, there to recuperate and enjoy a little sea bathing, taking with him the Queen and the three elder princesses.
Weymouth! thought the Prince with a sneer. How different from fashionable Brighton.
Brighton was wonderful. The sun seemed to shine endlessly; every morning there was old Smoker waiting to superintend the Prince's bathing, always with a wry remark to amuse him; and then there were balls and banquets, the strolling along by the sea and the races. Always the races. He enjoyed driving out of Brighton with Maria in his carriage drawn by four grey ponies and when they reached Lewes there he would be received by the High Sheriff of the County; he gambled recklessly; he was constantly in the company of the Lades; he was seen more and more often with the reckless Barrys; he seemed determined to enjoy every minute of that summer.
"Hellgate', the eldest of the Barry brothers, was constantly thinking up the wildest diversions to amuse the Prince. He often behaved like a madman and liked to drive through the streets cracking his whip and lashing out at the houses as he passed; a favourite "joke' of his was to ride from London to Brighton with his brothers and shout as they went "Murder!"
"Rape!" in such high pitched voices that they would give the impression that a female was being abducted. If anyone stopped them in order to rescue the woman they imagined was being abducted, the brothers amused themselves by thrashing the would-be rescuer. Their idea of fun almost always included physical violence in which the Prince had no wish to partake; but the wildness of the brothers amused him, and although he did not share their cruel adventures, he liked to hear of them.
Not so Maria. She wished to be gay and enjoy those summer months, but as she told the Prince, she could find no pleasure in Hellgate's kind of fun.
Instead she had arranged that the Old Theatre in Duke Street should be used by amateur actors who believed they could do well on the stage if given a chance. Let them act their plays, she said, and London managers could come down and watch them and perhaps discover their talent. The people of Brighton would provide them with the audiences they needed. And since it was her idea that this should be done, they must, she told the Prince, support the theatre.
Often she and the Prince could be seen together in their box and the antics of the actors so delighted them, unpractised as they were, that they often laughed until the tears rolled down their cheeks.
A much better way of enjoying life, commented Maria, than the sort of dangerous horseplay indulged in by Hellgate Barrymore.
That summer the refugees were arriving from France, for that country was now groaning under the onslaught of fearsome revolution.
The Prince and Mrs. Fitzherbert received them warmly and the influence of French aristocracy was obvious in Brighton.
Those were happy days for Maria and she felt a determination to enjoy them to the full. She sensed change. She was thirty-four—no longer young, and she was growing fat. So was the Prince; but the six years between them seemed more marked now than they had before. Perhaps it was because he so enjoyed the company of people like the Barrys and the Lades, and those who wished to please the Prince must enjoy his pleasures. It was no use urging him to spend less recklessly; she herself had her money difficulties, for she had added her resources to his and received an income from him. This he often forgot to pay and her expenses were prodigious. This worried her, for she was the sort of woman who left to herself would have lived within her means, for the thought of owing money was abhorrent to her; and yet since she must maintain her royal style how could she do anything but fall into debt?
But for one glorious summer at Brighton she must forget such things. She must try to keep up with the pace set by her spectacular husband. She must dance, ride, laugh and be merry; and she must be there to comfort him when he needed her. Because that was what he expected of her.
She became more and more aware of the clouds... distant so far, but nevertheless showing themselves on the horizon. He was not faithful. Maria heard whispers of his amours. But he always came back to her, and although he never mentioned his infidelities she sensed his contrition. She was his Dear Love, as he constantly addressed her. She was there to receive him back into the home after his adventures. Maria must know that however many women there were in his life she would always be the first and the most important of them all—his Dear Love—the woman whom he had defied the law to marry, the woman for whom he had once been ready to resign his crown.
It was her dream that she would lure him away from the friends who were of no use to him—the profligate Barry brothers, the eccentric Major Hanger, the coarse Letty Lade and her husband. Fox would have been a better friend. As for Sheridan, he had become as wild as the Barrys and the Lades, following the Prince into many a foolish adventure, drinking, gambling ... and she supposed amusing themselves with women.
Sometimes he would be unconscious when they brought him home. How she hated his drinking! It was humiliating to have to share in his horseplay and she avoided it whenever possible. When she heard him coming in with his friends in a merry mood after an evening's drinking she would hide herself perhaps under a sofa or in the heavy curtains at the windows hoping that, finding the room empty, they would go away. It was no use. The Prince would cry: "Where is my Maria? Where is my Dear Love. Come out, Maria, if you are in hiding." And then they would search the room, pushing their swords and canes behind curtains, under sofas until they found her and drew her out—when with shouts of triumph they would expect her to indulge in whatever sort of maudlin fun they fancied.
There was undoubtedly change.
She was anxious, too, about his position with his family. He had always been in conflict with his father, but it was particularly disconcerting that now his mother should be his enemy. She had heard that the Queen hated her son so much that she was ready to do anything to bring about his downfall. There was a rumour that she, Maria Fitzherbert, was to be accused of praemunire for violating the Royal Marriage Act by going through a form of marriage with the Prince of Wales.
She reminded herself that she had known that if she became involved with the Prince of Wales she was going to be very vulnerable to attacks from all directions.
"Why did I?" she asked herself.
The answer was that she loved him.
Yes, she did. She must face the fact. Perhaps it would have been easier if she had not. Perhaps she would have been wiser in her conduct towards him. Perhaps when she heard of those infidelities she would have left him.
But how could she? She considered herself married to him; she had sworn to love, honour and obey him; and she was a woman who kept her vows.
And fundamentally—she loved him. Even sensible women did not stop loving a man who they knew was not worthy of that love.
He could charm her with his gaiety, with his gallantries, with his gracious manners, with his protestations of devotion. They were insincere, but she made herself believe them because she wanted to. She had heard a remark Sheridan had made of him which had wounded her deeply, the more so because she knew it to be true.
"The Prince is too much every lady's man to be the man of any lady."