In the leaden silence Derby spoke. 'Did you ever hear of Lord Thomond's Irish feeder?'
'Is this a joke?' snapped Sheridan.
'A fable, rather. The feeder was entrusted with some cocks that were to be matched with another lord's for a considerable purse. Thinking that Lord Thomond's birds were all on the same side and so wouldn't disagree, the feeder shut them up together in one shed. The next morning...' He looked at Fox for the punch line.
The leader didn't smile. 'All dead.'
'Quite so. We must drop these petty feuds, we can't afford them,' said Derby, sweeping his eyes over the whole group. 'The readiness is all.'
'Well said, quite so,' murmured Portland.
'More tea, gentlemen?' asked Mrs Armistead.
Fox's eyes were pained. 'Excuse me, m'bowels,' he said, lurching towards the door, his stockings sagging like an old man's skin.
And it occurred to Derby for the first time:
We're going to lose him.
C
HRISTMAS AT
Goodwood was as elegant as ever, with the addition of a candlelit fir tree, a fashion that Queen Charlotte had imported from her German principality. The topic of the nation's parlous state was banned. Despite his fatigue and toothache, Richmond took his many guests hunting. Anne always hung back from the kill; she knew it was absurd, but she preferred it when the fox got away. In the saloon she stood absorbed in an early Stubbs of the Duke riding to hounds; really, no painter had ever made dogs look more alive than Stubbs, though she had no rivals in sculpture.
Walpole arrived from Strawberry Hill enveloped in furs; 'quite the Canadian trapper,' he said with a giggle. To everyone's relief he had left Tonton at home. Ensconced in the seat closest to the fire in the gallery, he murmured politics to Anne. 'Inasmuch as George III is the despotic monarch who waged war on America—and incidentally, threw your dear father out of office for standing up to him back in '65, or was it '64?—I loathe and execrate him. But inasmuch as His Majesty's a feeble and feeble-minded man in his declining years, subjected to brutal treatments in the name of medicine, whose wastrel of a son is openly plotting against him—how can I but pity him and wish him a swift recovery?'
'Do you really think there's any chance of that?' she asked uneasily.
Walpole tapped his bulging nose. 'I have my sources at Kew.'
Anne discounted all such rumours as Pittite lies.
There was a great celebration for the sixteenth birthday of Henriette Le Clerc, an orphan ward of the Richmonds" who was generally assumed to be the product of the Duke's liaison with some French lady. Lady Mary, who had no children of her own, called her
our darling fosterling.
Either her sister was a singularly tolerant wife, Anne thought, or a consummate actress. And if one acted a role for the length of one's days, in all company, who could say the role was untrue?
The girl was a sweet thing, if rather spoiled; she sang often (somewhat out of tune) and chattered constantly in her French way. Lady Mary was teaching Henriette the embroidery stitches she'd learned from her own mother. 'My sister Anne's never had any skill with the needle,' she said, laughing; 'I suspect she despises it, as the pastime of ordinary women.'
'That's not true,' Anne protested, 'it's just that my hands are more accustomed to hammers and chisels.'
Walpole piped up from the fireside, 'Mrs Damer was no older than you are now, Henriette, when she discovered her vocation.'
'Oh, not that old story—'
'Old men must be let tell their old stories,' he informed her, 'for what else is left to us? It happened like this. Conway had for his secretary a wise Scot of the name of Hume; Philosopher Hume, many called him. This chit of a girl was tagging along with him on a walk through the woods of Park Place when they met an Italian urchin.'
'He was selling little manikins he'd made out of mud,' Anne supplied and Henriette made a face. 'Hume bought one as an act of charity and I'm sorry to admit that I sneered at the beggar's work. So Hume dared me to do better.'
Walpole broke in gleefully, 'She took some wax, locked herself up in her room for a week—'
Anne shook her head at his exaggeration.
'—and came out with the most charming little
ébauche
of her cat!'
'I wasn't cured of my arrogance, I'm afraid.'
'But at least now it was grounded on skill and effort, rather than sheer snobbery.'
'I'd like to be an artist, or maybe an actress,' Henriette said suddenly.
Lady Mary blinked at her. 'Oh, I don't think so, not an actress.'
Anne looked away. Really, the prejudice against Eliza's profession was ineradicable.
'You won't need to be anything, darling,' said Lady Mary, 'because you'll be some lucky man's wife and have dozens of little Henriettes to look after.'
Anne's mind was still on the past. 'Hume was a shocking sceptic, poor fellow; he wouldn't believe anything without the evidence of his eyes. He once said to me, "The sun may not rise tomorrow.'"
'Whatever did he mean?' asked Lady Mary.
'That we'd no firm reason to believe it would rise, it was just an assumption. Whin the next day I saw him and pointed out that the sun had indeed risen, he smiled gloomily and said, "Ah, but what about tomorrow?'"
Henriette whooped with laughter.
In the Duchess's room later that day, Anne was looking through some family jewels her sister wanted to give her—a thick choker of pearls on black velvet and a ruby parure. She took the opportunity of their being alone and murmured, 'Don't you mind at all about Henriette?'
'Mind?' Lady Mary stared at her. 'I dote on the girl. If the Duke's ever under the influence of the blue devils I send in Henriette. He lets her sit beside him while he's working and he helps her with her spelling; she's made quite the nurse of him.'
'Not so much her, then, as Richmond's ... straying.' She held her breath.
Lady Mary was smiling oddly. 'How does it threaten my position? He's always genteel and discreet about it, for I couldn't abide scenes. Oh, and the party must be of good birth; I wouldn't like it if he entangled himself with anyone vulgar.'
Anne shrugged in bemusement. 'If I had a husband—a husband I loved,' she corrected herself—'I think I'd be just as hurt whether it was a kitchen maid or an empress who made me feel I wasn't ... the dearest object of his heart.'
The Duchess's handsome throat caught the light. 'That should be a speech in a play. You're such a creature of sensibility, Anne; I think I inherited all our mother's sense. I
am
the dearest object; Richmond treasures me, consults me on everything, from Pitt's orders to the enclosure of a field. Since I hold his prime affection, why should I mind his lifting his spirits with little flirtings and the occasional scrape?'
The morning after Christmas Anne was in the library, reading Sophocles, only two tables away from the Duke of Richmond. Her eyes rested on his shiny, smooth head.
A woman's role in life was often to play go-between. Tact, suggestion, encouragement, delving—Anne was not ignorant of these feminine arts. But this was politics, where women had to tread carefully.
Damn Derby for asking this.
This was harder than chanting slogans on a hustings; this was private, tricky, embarrassing. She was being used. No, she was being useful to Fox and to the cause of Reform, and a bright future for Britain. She cleared her throat.
Richmond looked up from a volume of parliamentary precedents, owlish.
All Anne's prepared lines fled away and she spoke simply. 'What's going to happen to us?'
'Our family?'
She smiled; what a paterfamilias he was, for a man with no acknowledged heirs. 'No. Our nation.'
'Ah.' Richmond let out a long breath. 'I suppose you mean, will the greatest rake in the kingdom become regent, and your friend Fox and his motley crew shoo us out of Cabinet?'
She winced. 'You were once in the vanguard of the Whigs, the champion of Reform,' she reminded him.
'Reform's a dead duck,' he said flatly. 'And besides, it's not the issue at stake now. Your precious Foxites are behaving with a shocking hurry and lust for power; they're even trying to poach some of our key men.'
This at least raised the topic for Anne. 'Perhaps Fox is trying to extend the olive branch—form a coalition of talents, you know, for the good of the nation.'
Richmond snorted. 'Form a ladder of bodies, you mean, and climb up it.'
'Are there no possible circumstances under which you'd join in the new government?' she asked, trembling at her own nerve.
Her brother-in-law looked at her hard. 'Don't meddle, Anne.'
A blush began to rise from her throat. She looked down and pretended to be engrossed in her Sophocles.
J
ANUARY
1789
When Derby turned up at Fox's lodgings in South Street at half past one the table was awash with papers. He bowed to the Prince, who was curled up on the sofa in an uncharacteristically sober brown coat, then shook Fox's hand. His friend looked pale and sweaty, but no longer dying. 'I came as soon as I received your note.'
'Thank God somebody knows the meaning of punctuality!'
Derby's eyebrows went up. Fox wasn't known for this virtue himself. 'What's the matter?'
Fox was a hungry bear woken out of hibernation. 'Pitt's been good enough to supply the Prince with a list of the proposed
restrictions
on the regent's power and Sheridan's got it. He promised me he'd bring it over at nine this morning.' Fox stabbed his finger at a note propped against the mirrored mantelpiece.
'Pitt's to wait on me at Carlton House at three,' said Prinny, 'and the devil of the thing is I can't remember more than one or two points.'
'Didn't you think to read it before you gave it to Sherry?' barked Fox.
'Oh, I did, I protest, I skimmed it through, but now the details have gone clear out of my mind. The cheek of Pitt, to draw up any such nasty list! What sort of a noodle will he think me?' he wailed, punching the upholstery.
Just don't threaten to slit your throat again
, thought Derby, watching his future king. 'Well, gentlemen,' he said, sitting down without being asked, 'why don't we pass the time profitably by reviewing our Cabinet?'
Fox brightened and rummaged through his notes. 'Portland for PM, myself for Secretary of State. Loughborough for Lord Chancellor—'
'Since when?' asked Derby.
A frown. 'It turns out Thurlow won't switch sides after all; he believes these nonsensical reports of an improvement in the patient's health.'
Prinny stroked his chin unhappily.
'I've persuaded Grey to accept a Lordship of the Treasury for now,' Fox went on.
They were building a government out of the air, a castle in the sky, thought Derby. They played with the names like a frantic game of chess.
'Oh, I offered Lord Sandwich the Admiralty,' remarked Prinny.
'You did what?' asked Derby.
'It seemed, you know, it seemed the thing; persuasive.'
Fox was biting both his lips in a clear effort not to howl. 'That's a plum job, Your Royal Highness. If you don't discuss these things with us, your advisers—'
'But I'm sure I mentioned it to Sherry.'
'Speaking of the devil, greetings.' Sheridan strolled into the room, pulling off a new fur-lined coat. A gift from the Prince, wondered Derby? 'It's bitter out there.'
Fox snatched the note from the mirror and brandished it. 'Where in all the hells have you been? I have here your
word
that you'd bring me the list at nine. Do you just happen to be five hours late, I wonder, or could you be deliberately trying to leave me out of the most crucial stage of negotiations?'
Derby swallowed painfully. How had it come to this? A stranger would think these two men hated each other.
'Pooh, pooh,' said Sheridan, 'be as cross as you will.'
Fox's eyes bulged and Derby looked at the wall for the nearest bell-pull; was their leader going to fall into an apoplexy? Fox opened his mouth and Derby stiffened. But what came out was a roar of laughter.
Sheridan smirked.
Fox's face was wet with mirth. 'Damn your eyes, Sherry,' he said, whacking him on the back. 'Is that all you can say to me?
Pooh, pooh,
like a schoolboy? Where's the famed silver tongue now?'
Sheridan stuck it out.
'Ha ha,' the Prince joined in a little nervously. 'Very good, ha ha ha.'
Sheridan really should have been an actor, like his father; he had a remarkable ability to charm his audience at moments of crisis. 'Derby, cast your eyes over Pitt's restrictions with us/ said Sheridan, sitting down.
It was worse than they'd thought. The regent wasn't to be allowed to grant remunerative offices or pensions, create new peers, dispose of the King's property, or interfere in any way with the care of the King or the royal household, which was to be in the Queen's sole control. Prinny would be like a swaddled child, propped up on the throne.
'Now, old Fox,' Sheridan began soothingly, 'I've drafted an answer for Prinny to give Pitt, but of course it's subject to your approval. What delayed me today, in fact, was that I had to find my wife to copy it out, her hand's so much clearer than mine. I realise you're opposed on principle to a restricted regency, but I beg you to be pragmatic; consider that, once in power, we could—'
'I've changed my mind, I give it up,' Fox interrupted, tossing the list back on the table.
They all stared at him. 'I say, I protest,' said Prinny.
Fox kept his eyes on Sheridan. 'Oh, I'll move amendments and fight these restrictions all the way, but I expect the vote to go against us. You might as well knuckle down, Prinny,' he threw over his shoulder, 'the Virgin Boy can't stop you choosing your own ministers at least. But if this circus drags on much longer I fear the Queen may seize the regency herself.'
The Prince blanched.
Sheridan's eyes were narrowed. 'So ... we're in agreement?'
'Amazingly so,' murmured Derby. He should have been glad, but all he could feel was a grudging bewilderment.
F
EBRUARY
1789