His wife, Molly, was away on the Continent with some friends and she would be there for some months. Well, if she knew that he were entertaining the little Vane she would only shrug her shoulders and laugh. She had never expected fidelity from him. She was faithful, but not out of love for her husband; simply because love-making—marital or extra-marital—had no charm for her.

He couldn’t have made a more successful marriage.

And here was his mistress, be-cloaked and be-hatted, to hide herself so that no one would see the Prince’s mistress entering the lodgings of that scandalous fellow, Lord Hervey.

‘My dear Anne! ‘

‘My dear lord, I thought I should never get here.’ ‘Don’t tell me His Royal Highness made difficulties?’

‘He stayed longer than I believed he would, and so delayed me.’

‘He is coming back tonight?’

‘No. I have the evening free.’

‘Then let us make the most of the time at our disposal. I have had a little supper prepared before I dismissed my servants.’

‘Supper for two?’ she asked. ‘I hope so, for although you eat like a bird, I eat like an ox.’

‘I prefer the lion and the lamb because they lie down together.’

Anne laughed and said she hoped he didn’t say such things to the Queen ... or the Princess Caroline.

‘You would be surprised if you heard what I said to them.’

‘Everyone is surprised.’

They sat down at the table and he told her that his wife would not be back for several months and as there was no danger of her coming here he did not see why they should not make his lodgings their meeting place.

‘It’s comfortable ... as far as I can see,’ she said. ‘Well, let us sup.’

‘I’m ready.’

Over supper they talked of the latest development in the estrangement between the Prince and Bubb Dodington.

‘Of course, when he bought Carlton House with money borrowed from Bubb he told his dear friend that he wanted it because it was next to his house in Pall Mall and he gave Bubb a key to the door in the wall which separated their gardens. “Call any time you like, dear Bubb. Don’t stand on ceremony in the house you have bought! “ For bought it he had. Bubb will never see his money, you can be sure. In fact Fred boasts of it and laughs every time he comes into the house. But those days are over. No more free and easy for Mr Bubb! Do you know what Fred has done?’

‘I can’t wait to hear.’

‘He’s had the door bricked up. Not secretly. He had more workmen than he needed hammering away there. He didn’t want anyone to have any doubt what it was all about. Poor Mrs Behan . . . really Mrs Bubb, you know.’

‘Interesting situation,’ commented Hervey. ‘The wife parading as the mistress. Now the other way round ...’

‘Oh, there’s some other woman in it who’d get money from him if she knew he was married to someone else.’

‘So he is a romantic after all, our poor Bubb. And two women love him! ‘

‘Love his money you mean.’

‘Well, they are only following the royal example. But the Prince is not even faithful to poor Bubb’s money!’

‘Bubb has Mrs B. She’ll look after him. He’ll never face Court after this. I think she’ll make him retire to the country.’

‘The best place for him. There is a great deal to be said for the country.’

‘There are some who think that’ll soon be my lot.’

‘What’s this?’ There was real alarm in Hervey’s voice.

‘Several of my friends are pointing out to me that Fred is seen very often in the company of Lady Archibald Hamilton.’

‘That woman! She’s all of five and thirty. She’s been married for years! Imagine it! Years of lying beside a man old enough to be her father! ‘

‘But not too old to give her ten children ‘

‘And you are afraid of a mother of ten—five and thirty years old at that! ‘

‘It’s not I who am afraid. It’s my friends who are afraid for me.’

‘Hamilton,’ mused Hervey. ‘He’s so quiet I can hardly remember what he looks like. He’s a Lord of the Admiralty, I believe.’

‘That’s so. Lord Archibald Hamilton, Scottish and complacent.’

‘Would he be complaisant too?’

‘No one ever seems to have seen him put out.’

‘A born cuckold. Beware. Some men choose their mistresses for their husbands.’

‘Not my Fred. He’d never be wise enough.’

So they chatted over the meal, and when they had finished, retired to the bedroom.

They made love and as they lay talking Anne suddenly cried out in pain.

Hervey sat up in alarm. ‘What ails you?’

‘The colic,’ she said. ‘I’ve been having it more frequently lately. I’ll be all right in a moment.’

‘Lie still,’ he said, and she lay back and closed her eyes.

She looked very ill and was suddenly seized with convulsions. Hervey remembered what she had told him of these fits to which she was subject, but he had never seen her in one before. She had once said that a physician had told her that she could die during one of her fits.

‘Anne,’ cried Hervey, ‘for God’s sake ... tell me what I can get you?’

She did not answer and he stood by the bed in dismay, looking down at her writhing body.

She is going to die, he thought. Here in my bed she is going to die. What can I do? The Prince’s mistress found dead in my bed! This will be the end of everything. Even the Queen and the Princess Caroline could not get me out of this trouble.

‘Anne! ‘ he cried frantically. ‘Anne.’

But she did not hear him. Fortunately a hypochondriac such as he was had plenty of pills and cordials to hand; and as the collecting of medicine was a hobby of his, and the discussion of varied diseases one he found extremely fascinating, he was not at so much of a loss as most men would have been in the circumstances.

He hurried to his medicine chest and brought out gold powder which he forced down her throat. But she continued in convulsions. He then took a bottle of cordial and gave her some of that, without effect.

She was moaning softly and he was growing more and more terrified every moment.

He went back to his medicine. What can save her? he asked himself frantically. And was it wise after having given her the gold powder and the cordials, to give her more?

‘Tell me what I can do?’ he cried. ‘Tell me what you want?’

Her writhing ceased and she was suddenly very still.

In terror he took her wrist. Her pulse was feeble but he could feel it. Thank God she was still alive!

He called her name again and again, but she was in a deep faint.

What could he do? He daren’t call a doctor who might recognize her. It was so widely known that she was the Prince’s mistress. The story would be all over the town by morning.

He bent over her. ‘Anne,’ he cried urgently. ‘You must rouse yourself. I must get you out of here.’

But still she did not answer.

He sat on the bed watching her. He saw the pleasant position he had made for himself at Court lost for ever. What would the Queen say when she heard? It was not that she would be shocked, but how could she keep close to her a man who had been involved in such a scandal?

‘Anne!’ His voice rose on a note of shrill joy, for she had opened her eyes. ‘Oh, Anne ... thank God you’re alive.’

‘I ... feel so weak,’ she said.

‘I know ... I know ... but we must get you out of here.’

‘Get a hot napkin and put it on my stomach. I’m shivering.’

It was true. He could hear her teeth chattering.

He hurried away and found napkins which he warmed; he brought them to her but she started to twitch again and he called out in his agony of fear.

‘What do you need?’ he cried. ‘What can I get?’ Have you gold powder?’

He brought it and she swallowed it.

‘That’s ... a little better,’ she said.

‘You must get up. You must get dressed. We must somehow get you back to your house.’

But she shook her head and closed her eyes.

‘Come, Anne,’ he said. ‘You must try to rouse yourself. You must not be found here. It will be the end of you ... the end of us both ... if you are.’

But she did not seem to take in what he said.

He managed to lift her out of the bed; he sat her in a chair and began to dress her. She was limp and unable to help him, but after a great deal of fumbling he had her dressed. She swayed as he made her stand, but he was feeling better now. He managed to get her out of the house and half carry her some little distance away.

Good luck was with him, for he found a Sedan and setting her in it paid the chairmen handsomely to take her back to her house.

‘The lady had been taken ill,’ he said.

The chairmen replied that they would see that she arrived safely.

Hervey went back to his bedroom, threw himself on the bed, and discovered that he himself was on the verge of collapse.


* * *

The King’s birthday, the 10th November, must be celebrated at St James’s and a round of festivities began.

Caroline, whose health had been growing steadily worse over the last months, felt the strain badly, yet she dared not complain to the King.

Hervey was constantly at her side. He had quickly recovered from the shock of what had happened in his apartments when he saw Anne Vane going about her everyday concerns as though nothing had happened. They never spoke to each other publicly, keeping up the pretence that they were enemies all of which added to the piquancy of their affair. She came again to his lodgings and told him that she had had such attacks before—colics, she called them. She recovered, and after a day’s rest was perfectly well.