'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.
FEBRUARY 1789
The Great Frost had broken at last. Was it a sign, Eliza wondered superstitiously, that their hopes were about to come to fruition? Still, it was a damp thaw. She shuddered slightly and pulled her cloak round her more tightly as she left Anne's workshop, where she'd had the curious experience of watching the sculptor slice off the back of Eliza's clay head and scoop out the insides, so it wouldn't crack while baking. Her cloak was buff satin with blue-dyed fur trim; Georgiana wouldn't let Whig ladies be seen in any other colours at the moment; it was as if she meant to usher in the new regime by sheer chic.
Eliza wished she didn't have to play in All in the Wrong at Drury Lane tonight; the Regency Bill was receiving its third and final reading in the Lords and she couldn't think of anything else. In a matter of days Pitt was going to fall; change was so close, she could taste it on the air like a cut lemon. In the dressing room her mother fussed around her, putting her paint on too thick; Eliza wiped half of it off as soon as she was alone. The bell rang and she made her way through the corridors to the wings. When the orchestra played the last note of the overture she glided on stage to begin her comic prologue.
She heard an indistinct roar from the pit, then other voices took it up. 'God save the King!'
She nodded at the sentiment and gave a flat smile—well, she had to—and curtsied again.
'God save the King!'
She narrowed her eyes to see past the glaring oil lamps. All the voices were from the same part of the pit; a sure sign of a government clique who'd planned this, or been hired to cause trouble. Kemble stepped on from the Prompt Side. In his fastidious diction he pronounced, 'God save the King, indeed.' She knew he just wanted the play to go on.
But it wasn't enough for the crowd. 'Play it,' roared a Scottish voice.
'Play it!'
And an apple soared into the orchestra, hitting a cello player in the back of the head. He let out a bark of annoyance. A long 00 of excitement went up.
'Play it!'
'God Save the King!'
The fervour was spreading through the theatre; this wasn't just a small knot of men now. How these things caught like fire. They're all so keyed up, the whole city's wound tight like a watch. Eliza, observing from behind her painted-on smile, thought there might very well be a riot. She'd never lived through a riot herself; there hadn't been any at Drury Lane since '76, two years before her début. Her nearest exit was behind the back flat that showed a view of St Paul's.
Kemble raised his hand for a moment's silence, as Julius Caesar might have done. 'Gentlemen, ladies,' he called, 'as it so pleases you, the orchestra wall now play "God Save the King".'
'Huzza!'
This was most irregular; Eliza had never heard this anthem played unless the monarch was attending a performance. Her face tightened. When the orchestra launched into the opening notes the crowd's hysterical delight almost drowned out the words. People in the audience started roaring along.
Send him victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us...
Eliza's eyes swivelled over to Kemble; he appeared to be joining in and his dark eyes caught hers. She opened her mouth and mimed along prettily, but her throat refused to make any noise. What, God save that slobbering lunatic who'd kept a stranglehold on the forces of freedom for so long? Save Fox's nemesis and Pitt's puppeteer, that old tyrant who'd never given a fig for the bony paupers outside his golden gates?
When the verse reached the line about Scatter his enemies there were shrieks and war cries.
...and make them fall.
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On him our hopes are fixed,
O save us all!
After she'd rushed through her Prologue Eliza stood in the empty dressing room and stripped off her faux-pearl ear clips with shaking hands. To be dictated to by a bunch of footmen parroting their Tory lords—to have to mouth sentiments she didn't feel:— well, of course, she did that every night when she played a role, but this was different, this turned her stomach. Was half the country in a delirium with its King? The sooner Old George was in his coffin the better. It was time for the coming generation and for Reform.
A soft knock at the door, probably Kemble. He was always scrupulous about the possibility of walking in on a half-naked actress. 'Come in,' she called.
It was Derby.
Eliza blinked at him, disconcerted. 'My mother's fetching me some soup' was all she could think to say.
'I do beg your pardon for bursting in like this.' He hovered on the threshold.
'Come in, have a seat.' She beckoned, suddenly impatient with herself for being afraid to be in a room alone with this man she'd known for so many years. 'I didn't see you in your box.'
'What?' He advanced a few steps and put his hand on the back of a chair, his face taut with some hidden emotion. 'Oh, no, I haven't been—I only just arrived from the Lords. I wanted to be the first to tell you.'
Her shoulders eased as if a burden had fallen away; her face began to light up. 'What, the vote passed so early?'
The door swung open and Mrs Farren, two hands clutching a dish with a tin lid, walked into the Earl's back. 'Oh, My Lord!'
Derby jumped out of the way, but there was a dribble of brown down his pale-blue silk coat.
'Oh, sir, Your Lordship, I could chop off my clumsy hands!' Mrs Farren was rubbing at the soup mark with her apron, spreading the stain.
'Leave it, Mother,' said Eliza. 'Lord Derby's only just come, with great news from the Lords,' she added defensively.
'No,' he said, 'you mistook me. It's the worst.'
Eliza stared at him. His face was grey, now he was nearer the lamp; how could she not have noticed? Her mother knotted her hands in her apron.
'Before the debate could begin,' said Derby, 'Chancellor Thurlow stood up and said—I doubt I'll ever forget the words—I wish to inform my honourable peers that His Majesty King George III has made a full and perfect recovery.'
'No.' Eliza's voice came out as gruff as a man's.
'Thurlow read detailed reports from Doctor Willis. Today the King was allowed to shave himself and he made a good job of it.'
She turned her head away, she couldn't bear it. She caught her eye in the mirror. Had the last five months been an almighty waste of time, a gruelling and chaotic rehearsal for a performance that would never take place?
'You must despise us,' Derby said suddenly. He threw up his hands, then let them fall; it was a curiously schoolboyish gesture. 'At Park Place, last summer, Mrs Damer asked me what chance we had of toppling Pitt, remember? Well, we got our chance at last—and let it slip.'
'Oh, Derby,' said Eliza, as if to a child. 'It was in the hands of the gods.'
'They help those who help themselves, don't they?' He was almost snarling. 'If we'd worked as one and not wasted time bickering, we could have swept into power before Christmas.'
'But the King would have got better and thrown you Foxites out again,' she reminded him gently.
'Perhaps,' he said, very low. 'Or perhaps Prinny could have held on to the throne, once he had it. It might have been too late to turn back history's clock and Old Satan would have crawled off to retirement in Hanover.'
She felt the urge to take his hand, but of course it was impossible. Not just because her mother was sitting there, but because it was one of her own rules. Apart from kissing her hand as a greeting, Eliza allowed him no other favours; it was the least she could do, to be consistent.
MARCH 1789
London was lit up at night: at least six candles in every window, little oil lamps forming the shape of a crown or Rejoice, or GR, for the King who'd never been so popular in all his long reign. People drove around in coaches for no reason but merriment, throwing squibs and crackers out of the windows. Queen Charlotte, whose hair had gone snow-white during the crisis, pointedly cut the Foxites at a thanksgiving ceremony in St Paul's and handed out fans that said Health Restored to One, and Happiness to Millions. To slight Drury Lane, the King made his first appearance at Covent Garden, in a long coat to hide his emaciated legs. Addresses of gratitude to the Prime Minister for safeguarding the nation flowed in from towns across the country. Shops came up with the most satirical window decorations; several included very dead-looking stuffed foxes.
Derby felt strange, these days, as shaky as a convalescent. First thing in the morning, an immense lassitude seemed to press him back against his pillows. What was the point of meetings and strategies now? Old Satan and his Eunuch—whose standing in Parliament had never been higher—would rule for ever.
After seeing the King up close at a meeting of the Privy Council—a spare, calm man of fifty—it struck Derby that it was as if the whole thing had never happened. A phantasmagoria. Was it the Foxites who'd been mad, caught in coils of self-deception, a straitjacket of ambition? If they hadn't been able to behave like a band of brothers when faced with the greatest opportunity they'd ever had, what chance had they of holding together in hard times? Was Derby staking his whole career on a bad card, a lost cause?
AT NEWMARKET Derby stood by a huge grave in the rainy dusk. Bunbury's hand lay heavy on his shoulder. 'He was one of a kind,' said the Baronet.
'He was.'
'Good to see such a big turnout. I think half London's come down for the funeral.'
There was no coffin, obviously, but the deceased was draped in his master's colours, for which he'd won so much glory. With enormous strain, twenty men lowered him into the hole. When Derby's turn came, he accepted the shovel and heaved a clod of wet earth into the grave.
Afterwards they all packed into the biggest tavern and still it couldn't hold them; Derby estimated there were 200 gentlemen of the turf there. 'Eclipse,' said Bunbury solemnly, glass in the air.
'Eclipse.'
'Eclipse!'
'Eighteen wins in a row.'
They drank.
There were boasts of the number of mares Eclipse had covered in his splendid quarter-century of life, how he never needed prodding but always went to it with a will. His name would never be forgotten; King of the Turf someone called him and the tide caused a quiver to go through the crowd.
'Long live King George,' someone shouted automatically and others took up the cheer, but not everyone.
Derby found Sheridan in a corner and slumped into a chair beside him. 'How's Prinny these days?'
Sheridan's smile was dark. 'He's staying in a perpetual state of blind drunkenness, the better to feign delight. He's shitting his breeches with fear that Papa might cut him out of the line of succession and make the Duke of York his heir. He went to throw himself at the royal feet and beg forgiveness, but the Queen wouldn't let him in the door.'
'Is it true he tried to run down a mob last night?'
Sheridan shrugged wearily. 'The street was crowded, so his coach got stuck. The people recognised the crest and started shouting King and Pitt for ever! So what does Prinny do? He lets down his window and shouts, Fox for ever!'
'Did he really?' asked Fox, joining them. 'How sweet.'
'A fellow pulls the door open, Prinny slaps him across the head—and the crowd might very well have torn the heir apparent asunder if the coachman hadn't had the sense to drive off at top speed, with the door flapping like an orange skin.'
'I'm sure they wouldn't have done any real harm,' said Fox uneasily.
'Oh, but wouldn't they!'
'Not Englishmen, Sherry. Not their Prince. I'm sure they only meant a bit of sport.'
Derby put an arm round his friend. 'My dear Fox, for a Man of the People you're terribly sentimental about them.'
'I
suppose I am.'
'How's your health?' asked Sheridan.
'Recovered, I suppose,' said Fox grimly, 'my bowels at least. But I feel fat, foolish and a failure. I'm cut or laughed at whenever I appear in company and I find it hard to take an interest in anything but good brandy.'
Sheridan handed over his bottle.
'What I want to know is'—Derby spoke quietly but didn't whisper—'the question I put to providence is a simple one: why couldn't the horse have lived and the King have died?'
AFTER THE funeral Derby wanted to drive home to bed, but Sheridan insisted on dragging him off to a masked ball the Duke of York was throwing as an irreverent celebration of the royal recovery. The company was select: the two Princes, their best friends of the buff and blue, together with twenty of London's loveliest women of no character.
'The Venetians go masked almost all year,' remarked Sheridan as he and Derby walked down a long corridor. His voice echoed oddly from behind the china. 'Doesn't it feel marvellous to take a break from our much-caricatured faces?'
'It does, rather,' said Derby, adjusting his black domino and cloak.
In the saloon they found a tight huddle of veiled women, costumed as in a Turkish harem, entirely swaddled round with gauzes. In front of them a card on a silver music stand. Derby went close enough to read it through the slits in his mask.
Gentlemen, we've 'guised us all the same—
We are mysterious females of the East—
You'll never tell our persons at a glance!
He who can rightly guess a lady's name,
Shall win the right to lead her to the feast—
She'll sweetly be his partner in the dance.
Derby could imagine what was meant by partner in the dance.
Prinny, masked but obvious in pink stripes, let out a howl of laughter as he seized a woman by the shoulder. 'You must be Mrs James. You simply must be!'
The woman shook her head.
'I believe I have Mrs James over here,' his brother called.