The Regent's Daughter: (Georgian Series) (22 page)

Seventeen years they had been together and they still hated to be apart; when he was sick she nursed him; and when for health reasons he returned to England to take the waters of Bath she came with him.

He had to admit that his brothers, led by the Prince of Wales, rallied round him when he and Julie set up house in Knightsbridge, and Maria Fitzherbert became a particular friend of Julie’s; and when Maria wanted to sell her house, Castle Hill in Ealing, Edward bought it and it became their home. Julie was the Duchess of Kent in all but name.

But of course he could not remain idle. He was a soldier and Frederick, Commander-in-Chief, had wanted to do something for him. Discipline on the rock of Gibraltar was bad and Edward was noted for his discipline. The Commander-in-Chief had talked to his brother – very jocular, very friendly, explaining to him the need to deal tactfully with the situation and reminding him of his unpopularity previously on the Rock.

He then began to scorn Frederick, who was in his opinion no true soldier; but he had believed he could reinstate himself in the eyes of the Army and the family and had accepted the challenge.

And the result was disaster.

He had quickly discovered that the reason for the trouble was drink. The soldiers spent half their time in the liquor shops and he found many drunk on duty. These he ordered to be severely flogged. He closed half the wine shops and forbade any but commissioned officers to go into those which remained open. His unpopularity soared. He did not realize how dangerously.

The soldiers hated him for depriving them of drink; the shopkeepers were furious because he took away their trade. Who was this man? they asked each other. The son of a king. They did not want to be commanded by kings’ sons; they wanted to be commanded by soldiers. Where had he learned his army drill? In Germany. This was not Germany and they would not tolerate German ways.

The revolt was staged for Christmas Eve but it was ill-planned and the Duke, if stern, was competent. He had soon captured the ringleaders and without hesitation stood them up before a firing squad. The sound of those shots sobered the
mutineers as he had guessed they would.

But within a month he was recalled to England.

‘By God, Edward,’ said Fred – jolly, good-humoured Fred – ‘things are damned awkward at Gib. Worse than they were before you went. Better if you’d stayed at home, perhaps.’

This from Frederick – a careless pleasure-loving Fred – who cared more for his numerous mistresses than he did for the Army. It was an insult; it was a deep wound; it was an open sore. For whichever way he looked at it he had once again been recalled from Gibraltar in disgrace.

The King received him with much shaking of the head. ‘Discipline … very good, but it has to be
reasonable
discipline, eh, what? You’ve got to have tact, eh, judgement, eh what?’ He glared at his son as he spoke, and those protuberant eyes were wild beneath the bushy white brows. He was half mad, thought Edward, but that did not heal the wound. He had done his best. He could have kept order in Gibraltar; he could have restored discipline; but they had recalled him after he had stifled the revolt because they said he was too severe; when he remembered the disgrace of it, he was furious. And there was Fred – unfit for command if ever anyone was – Commander-in-Chief of the Army!

The incompetence of Fred therefore became an obsession; he had to occupy his mind with something, cut off as he was from the career he loved.

Then one day a certain Colonel Wardle came to him with a startling story.

‘Your Highness,’ said the Colonel, ‘there is a matter which causes me great uneasiness and puts me in a very delicate position, but I have come to the conclusion that it is my duty to bring it to your notice. It concerns certain practices which are being carried out to the detriment of the army which we both serve.’

‘Certainly tell me,’ said Edward.

The Colonel coughed. ‘It is a little embarrassing, Your Highness. This concerns the conduct of the Duke of York.’

Edward tried to suppress his excitement. ‘I trust it is nothing … discreditable.’ His very expression denied the sentiment, showing clearly that he hoped it was.

‘So discreditable, Your Highness, that I think perhaps I should not talk of it.’

‘You have made an accusation against my brother. I must insist.’

‘Not against the Duke, Your Highness. It is a certain woman who was once his mistress.’

Edward licked his lips. ‘I command you to proceed, Colonel.’

‘I know for a fact that a certain Mary Anne Clarke has been selling commissions in the Army. Her position as mistress of the Commander-in-Chief has put her into a position to do this.’

‘Selling commissions? It is monstrous!’

‘So I thought, Your Highness.’

‘And how long has this been going on?’

‘Doubtless it is no longer happening, because His Highness pensioned off the woman some time ago. But it did happen. I have irrefutable evidence of this.’

‘It is something which must not be allowed to pass. It is trickery of the worst kind. Where is this woman now?’

Colonel Wardle-twirled his moustaches. ‘Passing from one man to another in the process of her profession, Your High ness.’

‘And my brother?’

‘They parted good friends. He gave her a pension of four hundred a year but she is in debt. I fear he instilled in her a taste for extravagance.’

‘Coupled with a taste for trickery,’ said Edward, his eyes protruding and his face growing so red that he looked remarkably like his father.

‘You know where to find this woman?’ he asked.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘She should be asked … bribed if need be … to tell the truth.’

‘I will try her out, Your Highness. I think I know how to make her talk.’

‘It is deplorable, highly regrettable, but even though my own brother and a royal Duke is involved I do not see how I can allow this to pass.’

We are in for an exciting scandal, thought Colonel Wardle, and went off to set it in motion.

Mary Anne Clarke, vivacious, extremely pretty and, according to the men of her acquaintance, infinitely desirable though now nearer forty than thirty, was finding it difficult to satisfy
her creditors. It was true that though she came from the establishment of a stonemason – her husband – in Snow Hill, that was long ago and she had grown accustomed to living with a duke – and a royal one at that. She had four children – the stonemason’s – to whom she was devoted and she was determined to have the best for them. She would like nice respectable marriages for the three girls and a good career for the boy. If Frederick had stayed with her this could have been achieved but Frederick had left. They had been together for three years – which was a long time for Frederick – and she had always been well aware of his penchant for variety. He had been an easygoing, pleasant lover, not very intelligent, but one must not expect too much; he had royalty to offer and that meant prestige even if there had not been all the money she would have liked. Poor Fred, like his brother the Prince of Wales he was constantly in debt, and although he had promised his dear Mary Anne a good income, it was rarely paid.

‘Simply haven’t the money, my angel,’ he would tell her blithely; and she knew it was true.

But she had insisted on her pension of four hundred pounds a year on which she delicately called her retirement from his service. It had all been arranged legally; she had been determined on that.

Sometimes she read through his letters. They made her laugh, for writing was not one of his accomplishments. They were crude and ill-spelt, but one thing they did show was his devotion, for Fred had been a very devoted lover, while it lasted.

The letters she kept carefully tied up with ribbon and in a locked box. The ribbon was for sentiment and the locked box for prudence. Remembering Perdita Robinson who had dealt very profitably with the letters of the Prince of Wales, she did not see why Mary Anne Clarke might not fare equally so with the letters of Frederick Duke of York. Well, perhaps not equally but should she say adequately – for she must not lose sight of the fact that a Duke of York was not quite a Prince of Wales.

And a woman in her position had to consider her assets. Her looking-glass told her that they were still considerable. Her cheeky nose, her full sensuous lips, her big blue eyes and her fair unblemished skin were more than charming; they were inviting; and her thick fair curly hair was youthful still. No one would guess that she was nearly forty. But she was … and that
was why it was comforting to think of those letters with their pretty pink ribbon and their strong box.

She had very little money and extravagant tastes. Having lived in an establishment with twenty servants to wait on her, it was hard to wait on herself. But even at the height of her extravagance and when Frederick was at his most adoring she had been short of money because she had entertained him so lavishly and so many people had flocked to her house. The wild Barry Brothers were constant visitors although she never penetrated the sedate Maria Fitzherbert set. And who wanted to? was Mary Anne’s comment. What Mary Anne wanted was fun … and money to enjoy it.

The royal brothers had an unpractical attitude to money. For them it was almost an abstract quality. They ordered what they wanted as a privilege of royalty and forgot that it had to be paid for.

‘My darling shall have an allowance,’ Frederick had declared; but it never seemed to occur to him that an allowance was an amount of money which had to be paid regularly.

When she asked him for it, he was bewildered. He hadn’t got it.

Mary Ann sighed, but she was experienced enough to know that constantly to demand money was the quickest way to kill sentiment. Therefore she found her own means of supplying her purse.

Through Frederick she learned a little of Army matters. He told her that his staff sold commissions and that there were regular rates for these. The money was collected and used to help orphans and widows of soldiers who had lost their lives in the Service.

What did soldiers pay for those commissions? Mary Anne wanted to know.

‘Well, for a Major it would be somewhere in the neighbourhood of £2,500, for a Captain half that … well, say £1,500.’

‘And less for lesser ranks naturally,’ said Mary Anne. ‘What a lot of money must be coming in to your fund.’

‘It trickles in, I believe,’ said the Duke. ‘I know nothing about it.’

Mary Anne went on thinking about that money. She was in the service of the Army in a way since she delightfully charmed the leisure hours of the Commander-in-Chief, so she did not
see why she should not benefit from some of this money which was coming in.

The more she thought of it, the more it appealed to her. Suppose she cut the price as an inducement? That should be tempting. As adored mistress of the Commander-in-Chief she could make sure that the commissions were supplied. She could make it clear to those whose duties it was to look after these matters that if they did not work with her she would find some reason to complain against them to the Commander-in-Chief. It was so easy to whisper a word into the royal ear during tender interludes, when he would be ready to promise her anything she asked for.

It was a brilliant idea and Mary Anne lost no time in putting it into practice.

In a short time she had found a friend to help her, and so great was the flow of business that she took an office and employed a clerk or two. Business flourished and she would have been enabled to pay her debts, but the more money that came in the more extravagant she became.

Still, it was a prosperous concern. In addition to commissions, she sold transfers from one regiment to another; and she began to look for fresh loopholes in the system which would enable her to add to her activities.

All was going well when Frederick’s great passion for his Mary Anne came to an end, and once that happened Mary Anne’s creditors were at her door. What could she do? Her lucrative business had come to an end; she was heavily in debt; and what security had she to offer now? She could see no answer but in flight.

The Duke with unexpected shrewdness had called in his financial adviser to arrange for her pension; and this was to be paid to her, subject to her good conduct. Rather unfair, she thought; and not in the original bargain; but she did not underestimate her awkward position. She went to Devonshire, but Mary Anne was not meant for the country life and very soon, stifled with boredom, she was back in London. She had her children’s future to think of – always a great concern – so she went to live with her mother in Bloomsbury. Mrs Thompson took lodgers and one of her lodgers was a friend of Colonel Wardle.

Calling at Mrs Thompson’s house Colonel Wardle met Mary
Anne whom he had known in the days of her glory and he expressed his concern to see her so reduced in circumstances. She was comforted to talk of her sorrows.

‘But for my creditors,’ she declared, ‘you would not find me skulking here. I should be out in the world.’

‘So you would and so you should be.’ Colonel Wardle implied that he was not unaffected by her charm. It was a sin, he said, that such beauty had to remain hidden. She had not been exactly generously treated by the Duke of York.

‘Poor Fred,’ she said with a smile. ‘He was always short of money himself.’

‘A man has his obligations. The royal Duke whom I serve would honour his commitments.’

‘Your royal Duke?’

‘Edward, Duke of Kent.’

‘So he is your friend.’

Colonel Wardle retorted airily: ‘Oh, yes, we are on terms of friendship. He is not very pleased with his brother. I have it from Major Dodd – you must meet the Major who is in close attendance on the Duke – I have it from him that His Highness of Kent would very much like the position held by His Highness of York and feels himself much more capable of fulfilling it.’

‘Fred is very popular with the men.’

‘His brother thinks discipline is very lax in the Army. What they need is a strong man at the head.’

Mary Anne shrugged her shoulders. ‘Where do I come into this?’

‘It may be that you have certain information. Major Dodd, through a higher authority, would be very willing to pay you for it.’