The next morning, I received a very long letter from Lord Worcester.
He abused his uncle, Lord Charles Somerset, for his malice in having written to His Grace of Beaufort on the subject of our connection, in a way to alarm him excessively. Worcester, in consequence, received very severe letters both from his father and mother, insisting on his immediately leaving me unprovided for and without the smallest ceremony. These harsh unfeeling letters excited in Worcester a spirit of defiance, such as mild remonstrance never could have produced. He repeated his solemn assurances to me that no power on earth, not even my inconstancy, could destroy his everlasting attachment, or induce him, however it must destroy his repose, to leave me. He deeply regretted his not being of age, that he might immediately make me his wife, and then naught could separate us save death. He reminded me that the period of his becoming of age was not very far distant, and in the meantime if they pressed him our marriage was not impossible. He begged his most affectionate regards to his sisters, Fanny and Sophia, and implored me, unless I would for ever destroy his happiness on earth to promise to become his wife, and remain with him for ever, &c.
I immediately answered Lord Worcester, begging him not to irritate his parents unnecessarily. I did not touch on the subject of our marriage; but desired him to rest satisfied with my faith, and that I would never willingly cause him a moment's pain, while I had reason to believe in his affection.
In conclusion, I informed him that he might expect me at Brighton without fail, in three days from the date of my letter.
Amelia was now living very near my house in town, and, as I really wanted to see the handsome young Campbell, I availed myself of her invitation to a small party before I left town. I ventured to return home from her house at about eleven o'clock at night, alone, because the distance was very trifling; but the moment I had left my sister's door I observed a tall, dark, and somewhat, as I thought, wild-looking young man following me. I felt unusually alarmed, and trusting to the lightness of my heels I began to run as fast as I possibly could. The man kept up to me, by running also. I had not felt so frightened for some years, and dared not look back till, absolutely breathless and ready to sink on the steps, I knocked loudly at my own door.
The man who was close behind me had never once opened his lips. His dress was respectable, and his features were rather handsome. He had an immense quantity of curly, wild, black hair, which fell remarkably low about his eyes and throat. His countenance was very dark and as pale as death. It was impossible to observe the expressive singularity of his eyes without terror: they seemed to look straight forwards at something beyond what others could see. It struck me that he possessed supernatural quickness of sight, while, at the same time, he appeared blind to the objects immediately surrounding him. When I first observed him he stood beneath a bright lamp, and I shall never forget the impression his countenance made on me. I had no man-servant in town: my femme de chambre was the only human being I had left in the house.
No sooner was the door opened, than I was closely followed by this horrible man, who closed it after him without having spoken a single word. I apprehended that he might be a robber, who proposed cutting my throat on my very first attempt to give alarm or call for assistance.
I am a notorious coward while looking forward to any danger; but I will do myself this justice, that, whenever it is, or appears, actually before me, and past all remedy except such as I have to hope from my own exertions or presence of mind, I then become armed with such a decided character of courage as would not disgrace my friend Wellington himself.
When my dumb tormentor had forced himself into my house and banged-to the street-door, my nerves became all braced by desperation, and my ideas were clear and collected. "If I am to die, God forgive all my faults," said I mentally; "but I will live on if I can:" and I fixed my eyes for an instant on the man of terror, to try to read his designs. The odd, quick, black eye, fixed on nothing but air, however, left me doubtful. One thing only I had decided upon from the very first moment, that to accomplish an intrigue was not his object in following me. He did not attempt to pass upstairs without me, but stood waiting my decision, with his back leaning against my street-door. "He is either a maniac escaped from confinement, or a robber," thought I, "and, in either character, I take it for granted he conceals a sharp knife or dagger about him. If a robber, he will stab me, if I make a noise, or desire my maid to call for help. Madmen, on the other hand, are generally cowards to those who act with firm courage.
"Now to decide," thought I, fixing my eyes on the man once more. "It must end in a guess after all." This glance took in the man's whole person as well as his face. The latter appeared to be of wonderful muscular strength; but his bones were well covered with fat, which methought did not look much as though he had been leading the vagabond life of a house-breaker. His clothes were good, and seemed to have been fairly worn. From his person I once more raised my eyes to his face. The cunning fearful expression of those wild black orbs decided me—he is a madman, and about to strangle me: and my only chance is in affecting to be one of his keepers.
"Follow me, Sir!" said I, fiercely.
The man followed slowly and meekly into the drawing-room, where he stationed himself near the fire-place with an air of indecision, nor once attempted to approach me.
"The gentlemen who are here to attend on you will be downstairs in half a second," said I, seating myself quietly near him, and taking up a book, as if, God help me, I could distinguish a line of it.
Then I addressed him in a whisper, "They are coming; you have perhaps yet time if you wish to escape them; the street-door is unbarred; but you have not a second to lose; they are going to put on the chain." The man, without having uttered a single word, darted furiously downstairs and, when I heard the street door slammed with violence after him, joy, or I know not what, overcame me, and I fainted.
This adventure hastened my departure for Brighton, where I arrived a day sooner than the one on which I had led Lord Worcester to expect me. Worlds could not have tempted either me, or my femme de chambre, to have passed another night alone in that house. Lord Worcester was overjoyed beyond description at my unexpected return. He would not enter into my idea as to the man who had frightened me away from London being mad.
"Why then, was he so awfully dumb?" I asked, "and why did he not approach me?"
Worcester declared if he could once find him he would make him speak, and holloa too; but this, from the muscular strength of the stranger, I much doubted. However there was little probability of his lordship's discovering who or what the man was; and in a few days the subject was not spoken of, though for years I remembered it with feelings of horror.
The next day, as we were riding together over the Downs, I saw a deserter taken; and was so affected with the poor wretch's look of distress as to have burst into tears; at which Worcester and Fitzgerald laughed heartily.
This however did not prevent my writing a laboured letter, which had cost me three copies, to try to melt Colonel Quintin's heart in his favour. I could not help fancying, as the man was led past us handcuffed, that the expression of his countenance might be interpreted thus, when he fixed his eyes on my face:
"Lord Worcester will sit on the court-martial which will decide my fate. You can do much with him; so have pity on me."
I saw a tear in the corner of the poor youth's eye. He could not brush it off with his hands poor fellow, they being pinioned. It was a fine clear day; and the sun shone brightly on the sorrowful captive's face, as though in mockery of his distress: and I am to be pampered, and indulged in every wanton luxury of life, while my miserable fellow creature, merely for having sought that liberty so dear to all, is to be bound and lashed till he faints under the cruel torture; and Worcester, the tender, soft, luxurious Worcester, shall have a voice against him!
Worcester appeared to indulge me, in what he evidently considered my excess of weakness, merely because he was passionately in love with me, though he did not in the least sympathise in my feelings: and yet he had seen no war to harden his heart against the sufferings of his fellow creatures! I remembered to have heard told in the regiment, of the young cornet, whom everybody had cut, having nearly fainted the first time he saw a man flogged, yet nobody ever accused this youth of want of spirit or mettle. I had never liked Worcester so little as on that day. Not being personally acquainted with Colonel Quintin, and knowing that he was rather unfavourably disposed towards me from an idea that I prevented Worcester from attending to his military duties, the letters I addressed to him were anonymous. I of course entertained few hopes from an anonymous epistle; but it was the best I could do for the deserter, I never acquainted Lord Worcester with the circumstance of my having addressed Colonel Quintin on this subject.
As soon as I had secretly despatched my letter, it was time to go to the barracks, where I had received a particular invitation from Colonel Roberts to dine, Palmer being absent. It was on a Sunday, and as we passed through the hall we saw Will Haught, dressed up in his usual sabbath-costume, with a yellow handkerchief bound tight round his head, à l'ordinaire, whenever he read the Bible.
"Good heavens," said I to Worcester, "what a fright the man makes of himself! Why I should think God would like him better in his pretty silver-laced hat." This was very wicked perhaps; but, as the sin of such a harmless little remark does not strike me, I am not ashamed of repeating it.
Cornet Eversfield looked exactly as usual: the only difference I observed in him was that he had left off whistling, and for a very simple reason I imagine, that of having discovered amusing companions in men who had previously thrown him entirely on his own resources, pour passer le temps.
The next morning, Monday, Worcester was obliged to attend the court-martial, which sat to try the poor deserter. I absolutely refused to leave my bed on that morning.
Lord Worcester informed me that he, the Duc de Guiche, and——but, as I am not certain, I will not name the third, had sentenced the man to receive five hundred lashes!
"And what says Colonel Quintin?" I asked eagerly.
"I have just seen the colonel," answered Worcester, "and acquainted him with the sentence."
"Well," I exclaimed in much anxiety.
"Why, Colonel Quintin has astonished us all, by declaring that he should not inflict one quarter of the sentence pronounced by the court-martial against the young soldier."
"What reason did he give?"
"Merely," answered Worcester, "that the man was young in the first place, and, in the second, that he hated the system of flogging altogether, believing it to be a punishment most of all calculated to harden the men."
"I will forgive Colonel Quintin his dislike of me for that one sentiment," said I.
In order to quiet the anxiety of the Duke of Beaufort, I absolutely insisted on Lord Worcester going occasionally into society; but, when he did comply with my earnest desire to this effect, he always left me with the reluctance of a school-boy, on setting off to his dull, dry, daily school.
One day, when Worcester dined with Lord Charles Somerset, he said that several carriages would be passing my door on their way from his uncle's, so that he should not require any equipage of his own to return in. It was a rainy, wretched night, and I was greatly surprised when Worcester, in his full dress regimentals, without a cloak or a great coat, came home on foot absolutely wet to the skin!
"Lady Aldborough offered me a seat in her barouche," said Worcester, "and we were altogether six, just about to drive from the door, when that widow, Lady Emily ——, I forget her other name, who, everybody says, is dying for a husband, begged that we would make room for her too, and she got into the coach without waiting for an answer. 'I must not crowd you all,' said her ladyship; 'indeed I prefer sitting on Lord Worcester's knee, to putting the ladies to the least inconvenience.'"
Worcester's virtue having taken the alarm, he insisted on its being quite impossible for him to intrude an instant longer, and rather than submit to such contamination as to consent that a fine woman should sit on his knee, he preferred submitting his best and gayest uniform to the pelting storm; for which want of gallantry he was rated by Lady Aldborough for the next fortnight.
We continued some time longer at Brighton. The duke appeared somewhat appeased at learning that Worcester went a little more into Society; perhaps, from an idea that he was growing tired of me, or, may be, he had discovered that mild measures had most effect on his son.
In spite of all I could say or do to prevent it Lord Worcester got horridly in debt. He was naturally extravagant, and everybody cheated him. As for myself, I might have been welcome to have brought away, in his lordship's name at any time, as many diamonds as either Wirgman or any other jeweller would have given him credit for; and yet, I can say with truth, that I never accepted a single trinket from him in my life, except a small chain and a pair of pink topaz ear-rings, the price of which was altogether under thirty guineas. I even did my best to prevent his buying these, which were brought to me, as the man said, by the desire of Lord Worcester, merely to inquire if I liked them. His lordship being from home, the man said he would call for them when he returned.
When I saw Worcester, believing it was not too late to return the trinkets, and knowing him to be very poor, I told him that I never wore such things, and should esteem it a favour if he would not buy them. His lordship assured me that it was now too late to return these; but I never suffered him to buy any more.
With regard to our house-expenses, I could have regulated them for, at least, half the cost; but Worcester absolutely refused to allow me to trouble my head about them. Once I did venture to remark when he was about to borrow a thousand or two at enormous interest, that, since the pious Will Haught always carried out of our house daily provision, not only for himself, but his wife, and put down, in his pious accounts, more porter than any man could drink in his sober senses, I did not exactly perceive the fun or amusement of paying him very high weekly board-wages; but Worcester having slightly hinted this circumstance to the holy man, he cried and blubbered till he was almost in hysterics, and I declared myself quite unable to contend with a footman of such fine nerves. Still it provoked me to see the man to whom I was bound by gratitude, for his apparent devotions to me, teased and dunned to death, when I knew everything might have been all square by proper economy, but it is really incredible how young, careless noblemen are used between their tradespeople and their servants.
When the Duke of Beaufort discovered at what interest Lord Worcester was borrowing money, he threatened the money-lender with prosecution for fraud on a minor, if he did not sign a receipt in full for the bare sum lent; and these terms were accepted.
All this might be very pretty and very fair; still my own opinion is that a bargain is a bargain. A man tells Worcester that he may have a thousand or two on certain terms, or he may apply elsewhere, or go without it, whichever he pleases. Lord Worcester, who was nearly of age, and of very mature manners, obtained the sum, to take up a bill, on which, as he declared to me, his father's credit depended. We cannot take upon ourselves to say that the lender did not put himself both to trouble and inconvenience, in order, at a very short notice, to put the desired amount into Lord Worcester's hands; then, when His Grace of Beaufort's credit has been preserved by his son's punctuality, His most honourable Grace takes advantage of the mere accident of his son wanting a few months to be of age, to make him break his solemn word of honour, pledged to one who had relied on that honour. Yet the Duke of Beaufort passes for a very honourable man!
Now, as we are upon honour, I cannot avoid mentioning the very dead set which was made upon Lord Worcester about this time by the Honourable Martin Hawke, to induce him to play. As well might he have endeavoured to move rocks and mountains and make them dance quadrilles at Almack's! Which proves to us that, where one passion is strong enough in the breast of a man or a woman to occupy his whole soul, he becomes dead of course to every other.
The opera-season had begun six weeks before, and I had engaged a very desirable opera-box; but nobody cares for the opera the first six weeks of the season, and we, who are very fine, generally lend our boxes to our creditors, or our femmes de chambre, till about March or April. We were however tired to death of Brighton and old Quintin, and Worcester was waiting and watching for a good opportunity to address Quintin on the subject of leave of absence, having predetermined to cut the army altogether in case he was a second time refused.
"I never meant to make the army my profession," said Worcester to me one day, "neither did my father desire it; but he conceives that every young man is the better for having seen a year or two of service. I had no decided objection to a little active service, as I hope, sooner or later, to prove, with your permission: for again and again I swear to be governed by that only, for ever and ever, so help me God! &c. My object, in teasing and hurrying my father as I did, to purchase a commission, I frankly tell you was, because, since my figure is better than my face I hoped the becoming uniform of the Tenth would render me a little, though a very little, more to your taste!"
"There!" said Worcester, one morning to me, as we were riding past the barracks, "look at that young soldier: if you pleaded for him and shed tears at the idea of his being flogged, jealous and mad as I should have been, I must have applauded your taste."
I assured Lord Worcester that his sarcasms could not wound me on a subject where my heart so entirely and decidedly acquitted me: and I set about my examination of the man, whose beauty was to wash away all the sins any of our frail sex might be inclined to commit with him. He wore the dress of a private of the Tenth Hussars; his age might be three or four-and-twenty; his height full six feet; and he was just as slight as it was possible to be without injury to his strength, or the perfect manliness of his whole appearance. His person appeared to me, at the first glance, what Lord Worcester afterwards assured me it was generally allowed to be by the whole regiment—faultless, and moulded in the most exact symmetry. It reminded one of strength, activity, and lightness, all at once. His feet and hands were peculiarly small, taper, and beautiful. In short, persons, at first sight, were generally too much struck with this young man's person to pay any particular attention to the beauty of his countenance, taking it, I suppose, for granted, that nature had not been so peculiarly lavish of her kind favours as to have awarded such a head to such a body. The man was so much accustomed to see people stop and look at him, that he merely smiled, not affectedly, but with an appearance of good-nature, joined to some little degree of archness.
Worcester called the man to his side, that I might judge of this celebrated model who had even attracted the admiration of majesty. His Royal Highness the commander having taken much notice of him, and Colonel Quintin being really proud of having such a magnificent-looking being in his regiment, always made him come forward alone, before the troops, that he might be the more conspicuous. The soldier, by his deep blushes, I fancy, rather guessed Lord Worcester's motive in speaking to him.
Nature, determined, for once in her life, to show the world what a man ought to be, had given the soldier the finest, full rich, soft tone of voice which could well be imagined. He could neither read nor write, yet, either this man was naturally a gentleman, or his perfect beauty made one fancy so; for it was impossible to think him vulgar. His hair, which absolutely grew in full ringlets, was of the very finest silken quality. It was not quite black, for there was a rich glow of dark reddish brown on it; then for his eyes—it was almost impossible to ascertain their exact trait, they were so bright and staglike. I pronounced them decidedly purple, and was laughed at for my pains; but there was nothing equivocal about the colour of his teeth—two even rows of pearls, not too small. His mouth, around which many a dimple played, was large enough to add to that manliness of expression, for which he was so celebrated. There was a peculiar character about the upper lip; one might have imagined that it quivered with the ardour of some warlike command, just delivered; but then the under lip was so brightly red and pouting, it ought to have been a woman's. His skin, of the very finest and most delicate texture, was pale, clear and olive coloured; but he was always blushing. His moustachios, of which he was not a little proud, were like the hair of his head. There was much about the face of this young man, which reminded one of Lord Byron: and yet, beautiful as he was, like his lordship, supposing him to have been of the same rank in life, he would never have inspired me with passion. This however, was very far from being the case, generally speaking. Many stories of his prowess and of his conquests were in circulation.
The Duc de Guiche mentioned to us one day at dinner having met the handsome Hussar, unusually smart and much perfumed, just as he was stepping into a post-chaise. His dukeship insisted on knowing where he was going. The man hesitated, and appeared in much confusion; but the duke was peremptory.
"My lord,—a lady—" said the soldier, at last, deeply blushing.
"If that is the case," said De Guiche, "remember to bring back some positive proof of the lady's approbation; the honour of the regiment is concerned, mind."
The man on his return produced a twenty-pound note!
This Hussar spared no pains to set off his beauty. He had often been accused of curling his moustachios, but he steadily denied it, and referred his accusers to the persons most likely to have discovered the secrets of his toilette. Rouge he certainly did not wear, for he was always pale, save when he blushed. He was an idle fellow, and often neglected his business in the stable. Once, the officer of his troop threatened him with a court-martial; but, when Colonel Quintin heard of what was in agitation, he lifted up his hands and eyes, as he said,—"Oh, mine Got! How voud it be in possibility to flock such fine fellow as dat? and such goot-tempert fellow too!"
One morning, about a week after our meeting with the handsome soldier, I was a good deal affected by witnessing from my window the simple procession which was passing.
The atmosphere was dense and heavy, while the rain fell in torrents on the heads of the mourners, and the wind whistled mournfully among the trees.
"There goes a poor soldier to his last home," said my maid, who happened to be sitting in the room with me.
"He hears it not, poor fellow!" said I, "nor wind nor weather can disturb him more!"
As they passed on slowly by my window, I observed that the funeral was attended by one of the officers of the Tenth Hussars, to which regiment the dead soldier had been attached. I looked again. It was the Marquis of Worcester, and then I recollected his having mentioned something to me, in the morning, about having a soldier's funeral to attend. His lordship looked unusually melancholy, and for my part, though I always considered this a mournful sight, I had never been so affected by a soldier's funeral until now.
"It is the dull weather which disorders our nerves," said I, brushing away a tear. "What is all this to me? Men must die, and worms will eat them."
I was going from the window, when my attention was arrested by the sight of a wild, beautiful, young female, who rushed on towards the coffin. Her hair was dishevelled, and her eyes so swollen with tears, that one could but guess at what might, perhaps, be their natural lustre.
Will Haught at this moment brought in my breakfast.
"Do you know anything about this funeral, or that poor young female who has just followed it?" said I to him.
"It is the beautiful young soldier, who died two days ago of a brain fever, madam. That girl's name is Mary Keats. She was his sweetheart, and he loved her better than any of them great ladies as used to make so much fuss of him."
This man had stood before me, with all his god-like beauty but a few days past! Methought I yet saw that mantling blush, and the fine expressive curve of that quivering lip!
Feeling the tears again rushing to my eyes, I ran out of the room.
When I returned to the drawing-room, Lord Worcester was sitting in a very melancholy attitude, leaning on his hand.
"What are you thinking about?" I asked.
"Why, I was considering, suppose it were my next turn to be cut off thus suddenly in the flower of my youth, that I should not like it!"
There was something so very comical and natural about what Worcester said that, melancholy as I was, and little as his speech seems of the risible kind, it certainly much amused me for an instant.
His lordship looked at me in surprise, and declared that he was astonished at my want of feeling.
I assured him, with truth, that I had been most particularly shocked by Will Haught's account of the young soldier's death.
The man, as I learned from Worcester, while in the stable two days after we had seen him, complained of a pain in his head, and applied for leave to go immediately to the hospital. From his unusual paleness he was admitted at once. Worcester visited him on the following evening, and found him raging under the influence of a brain fever. The muscles and veins of his finely turned throat were all swollen, every nerve was agitated, and his heart and pulse were beating so violently, that the former was visible at a distance. The man, one might have fancied, was endued with a double portion of life, energy, and animal strength. His late pale cheek was now flushed with a bright crimson glow, and the disorder of his fine, dark, auburn ringlets seemed but to increase that beauty which could not easily be disfigured. As the poor young maniac struggled and wrestled in the arms of the men, who vainly endeavoured to confine him by means of a strait waistcoat, he offered some of the finest models for the statuary's art which could well be conceived. His beauty, as I have been told by several who witnessed this poor youth in his last moments, acquired a character of more sublimity from the disorder of his brain; and all that supernatural, glowing ardour, that immense bodily strength,—the youthful fire of that sweet countenance—the eye which flashed such wild indignation on his tormentors—that frame, like quicksilver, sensitive in every nerve and fibre—the boiling blood rushing through those veins—all this was to become a mass of cold senseless clay before the next revolving sun!
In a few days after this event we were on our road to London, where I soon learned all the most minute particulars of my sister Sophia's marriage with Lord Berwick from Fanny, who, with Colonel Parker, was still in town. Sophia, I am sure, never had it really in her contemplation to refuse so excellent a match; yet she had for several weeks delayed the ceremony, merely as I imagine for the honour and glory of having it said of her afterwards that Lord Berwick had obtained her fair hand not without difficulty. The thing had struck Fanny in the same light; and therefore, in view of hastening what certainly was a desirable event, she one day remarked to Sophia that she had observed a degree of coolness in his lordship's manner for several days past, and that she really fancied he was considering how he should get off the marriage honourably.
Sophia reddened in evident alarm.
Fanny affected not to have remarked her sister's anxiety. "It is lucky, my dear Sophia," she went on, "that you do not wish to be Lady Berwick, otherwise this change in my lord's sentiments might have caused you the greatest misery."
"Oh, no; not at all; not in the least, I assure you," hastily answered Sophia.
"My dear," continued Fanny, "why do you take such pains to convince me of what you know I have never had cause to doubt? On the contrary, since I have now such good reason to believe that the match has become equally disagreeable to both parties, I propose, in order to spare your pride the slightest wound, that you commission me to declare off for you in the most decidedly unequivocal terms, declaring in your name, that you will leave him for ever, on the very first moment that he renews the disagreeable subject."
"Why no,—I think—you had better—better say nothing about it," said Sophia, with ill-disguised anxiety and evident confusion.
"Why, pray?" inquired Fanny, affecting surprise.
"Why—why—the fact is, it would seem——"
"What would it seem?"
"Seem—seem—so very ungrateful."
"Ingratitude is to be sure a heinous sin," said Fanny shaking her head, and laughing incredulously.
The next day, Lord Berwick received Sophia's permission to write to her father, stating his wish to become his son-in-law, and further begging my father to be present at the ceremony which, with his permission, was to take place on the following day, for the purpose of giving his daughter away, that fair lady being under age.
My father was a proud Swiss, rather unpopular, and a deep mathematician. We were never in our youth either allowed to address him or speak in his presence, except in low whispers, for fear of driving a problem out of his head. He valued his sons according to the progress they made in that science. For the girls, he felt all the contempt due to those who voted plus x minus y a dead bore.
He was remarkably handsome, with white teeth, expressive eyes, and eyebrows which used to frighten us half out of our senses.
Lord Berwick, as well as many more, has often declared himself to have been much struck with that noble air for which my father was particularly distinguished.
The good gentleman was of course flattered on his own account, and probably thought, with the man in Bluebeard, that,—
'Tis a very fine thing to be father-in-law
To a rich, and magnificent, three-tailed Bashaw.
But I do not mean to say he did not rejoice in his daughter's welfare for his daughter's sake too, as that would be to decide harshly of any father, much less of my own. We will therefore take it for granted, that, on this day at least monsieur mon papa se trouvait d'une forte belle humeur; nay, my little sisters have since informed me that, when one of them, having had the misfortune to upset a box full of playthings, which made a violent noise in the room where he was, as usual, puzzling over a problem, just as they expected little short of broken heads, and were all running into the most remote corners of the room, until of the opposite wall they seemed a part, he surprised them to the greatest possible degree, by saying, "n'importe, petites imbéciles, viennes m'embrasser!"
Sophia was to be married at St. George's church.
My father had a neighbour, who once insulted him with remarks about the profligacy of his daughters, and, though the man had made very humble apologies, and my father had shaken hands with him, yet he never forgot it. This neighbour was a tradesman in a large way of business, who lived in a very respectable style of comfort. He had several daughters, the ugliest perhaps that could possibly come of one father. There was no such thing as getting these off anyhow, by hook or by crook, by the straight paths of virtue, or the intricate road of vice. Not that I mean to say the latter had been attempted; but of this I am certain, if it had been, it must have been ineffectual.
On the eve of Sophia's marriage, as soon as my father had received Lord Berwick's polite invitation, he went to pay his good neighbour a visit.
"How do you find yourself this evening, my very excellent neighbour?"
"Purely, purely, thank you."
"And your amiable daughters? Any of them married yet? Any of them thinking of it, hey?"
G—— shook his head. "Husbands, as you well know, are not so easily procured for girls of no fortune."
"Indeed, sir, I am not aware of any particular difficulty. You know my daughter Paragon has long been respectably married to a gentleman of family; and, as for my daughter Sophia, I shall, please God I live, witness her wedding to-morrow morning before my dinner."
"Who is she to marry, pray?" asked G—— with eager curiosity; and which, my father answered, by putting Lord Berwick's letter into his hands, to his utmost astonishment; and, before he had at all recovered from his fit of envy and surprise, my father took his leave, saying that he had many preparations to make for the approaching marriage.
Next morning, as my father was stepping into the carriage which was to convey him to Lord Berwick's house in Grosvenor Square, well-dressed and in high spirits, he was gratified by the sight of his neighbour, who happened to pass his door at that very moment.
This man, naturally envious, and having hitherto looked down with pity on my father's misfortunes in having such handsome daughters, or, at least, he affected to do so, although, in his heart perhaps he had not despised his children the more, supposing it had been the will of heaven to have bestowed on them countenances less forbiddingly ugly, this man, I say, could not, under the pressure of existing circumstances, help giving some vent to his spleen, exclaimed, "Don't hurry! don't break your neck!" and then passed on, ashamed as well he might be at the littleness of his envy.
Just before Sophia's marriage, Lord Berwick spoke to her, to this effect:
"My beloved Sophia, you are about to become an innocent, virtuous woman, and therefore you must pass your word to cut your sisters dead for ever and at once. I allude particularly to Fanny and Harriette."
"Yes—certainly—very well;" was Sophia's warm-hearted answer.
"And you will oblige me by neither writing to them nor receiving any letters from them."
"Very well; then I will give them up altogether," said Sophia, with much placidity; and yet we had never been, in the slightest degree, deficient in sisterly affection towards her; and Lord Berwick expected to inspire with affection this heartless thing, who, for a mere title, conferred on her by a stranger she disliked, could at once forget the ties of nature, and forsake for ever without an effort or a tear her earliest friends and nearest relations; and not because she was more virtuous than they were, since, on the contrary, she had begun her career before other girls even dream of such things. She had intruded herself on a cobbler at thirteen, thrown herself into the arms of the most disgusting profligate in England at fourteen, with her eyes open, knowing what he was; then offered herself for sale at a price to Colonel Berkeley, and, when her terms were refused with scorn and contempt by the handsome and young, she throws herself into the arms of age and ugliness for a yearly stipend, and at length, by good luck, without one atom of virtue, became a wife.
This from me may appear to strangers like personal pique, but all who know me will acquit me of having ever, in my life, coveted the society of fools. I certainly, being naturally affectionate, should never have been induced to forsake my own sisters while they were kindly disposed towards me: and in short, had a man to whom I was to be married requested anything so unnatural of me, I should have disliked him ever afterwards for the wish, so far from complying with it. Yet I do feel irritated against Lady Berwick I confess it: but it is for her slights, or what I fancy was her neglect of my dear departed mother. As for her having forgotten me, our indifference being mutual, I am no longer at all disposed to find fault with it. I should in like manner have ceased to love my mother, had she but felt it in her power, or had it for an instant been in her contemplation to forsake me for ever.
Nothing particular occurred on the day of Sophia's marriage, which passed off very quietly, and Sophia ate a hearty dinner after it, which was what usually happened to that interesting young lady every day of her life at about six o'clock.
Sophia, having the command of more guineas than ever she had expected to have had pence, did nothing from morning till night but throw them away. She would go into a shop and ask for two or three Brussels veils—send a beggar's family to an expensive tailor to be clothed—build a little island on a pond—buy a dressing-box of fifteen hundred pounds price, and all within a week. Lord Berwick was often reminded that this silly girl would ruin him without comfort or benefit to herself; but his answer was, that he could not endure to scold the innocent creature, but must trust to her common sense for shortly finding out that all this extravagance could not last, even if he possessed four times as large an estate.
Sophia, finding that money was poured into her lap just as fast as she could ask for it, and seeing no end to it, thought that nothing could be more easy to practise than generosity. She was however nearly four months in the habit of throwing away money by wholesale before she made an attempt to be of the least service to her mother, though she knew well how harassed that dear parent was with her very large family. At last she amused herself at her country-house by sending her mother cart-loads of dishes, plates and saucepans, proposing to furnish her a house.
Lord Berwick's agent having sold Sophia's house in Montagu Square for two thousand pounds, and presenting it to her when she really knew not well what to do with it, Sophia sent it to her mother. I mention this circumstance merely as a matter of justice to a little, uninteresting being, whom I rather dislike than otherwise, and will repeat it as often as I have an opportunity to do so.
Lord Berwick, in less than twelve months after his marriage, was so involved, as to be under the necessity of making over the whole of his property to his creditors, for I do not know how many years.
Our young sister Charlotte, then about seven years of age, was a sweet, lovely little creature, and promised to be one of the finest dancers of the age. She had been some time a pupil of Monsieur Boigera of the Opera House.
It was not the profession my mother would have preferred, but Charlotte promised to do wonders in it, and, with her striking beauty, there could have been little doubt of her marrying well from the stage; and a mother, who has fifteen children to provide for, cannot do as she pleases.
Charlotte had already made her début as Cupid, and delighted everybody who saw her, when Lord and Lady Berwick, seized with a fit of pride which they nicknamed virtue, begged leave to snatch the child from such a shocking profession, and they undertook to bring her up and provide for her under their own eyes. My poor mother joyfully closed with this apparently kind offer, and immediately made Charlotte forsake the profession, which, with her talents, must have made her fortune, with or without marriage, to go and live with Sophia.
The child, when at her country seat, became a great favourite with the wife of Lord Berwick's brother, Mrs. Hill, and all went on charmingly, till Charlotte began to look like a woman, and one of such uncommon loveliness, as to attract the attention of all the elegant young men in the neighbourhood. Sophia could not endure this. Even at the Opera, many a man has preferred offering his arm to Charlotte; nay, it was said, a country gentleman of very large property was expected to make Charlotte an honourable proposal. This was too much. Poor Charlotte, after having forsaken the profession in which she must have succeeded, to be bred up in luxury among nobility, who looked on her as half an angel, was bundled off to a country school, there to earn her daily bread by birching young, vulgar misses, and teaching them their French and English grammar, and there has poor Charlotte been forced to bloom unseen, wasting her sweetness on the desert air ever since.
Patronage is a fine thing!
I should like to know what Charlotte says about it as she sits darning her cotton stockings on a Saturday night.
My time in London passed on pleasantly enough at this period, as I went wherever I pleased. The only drawback to my comfort was that the Duke of Beaufort did nothing but write and torment Lord Worcester to leave me, while Worcester's love seemed to increase on the receipt of every scolding letter. He daily swore to make me his wife, and professed to be wretched, whenever I desired him not to think of marriage.
Her Grace of Beaufort's letters to her son, which I always had the honour of perusing, were extremely eloquent on my subject. The duchess, unlike Lord Frederick Bentinck, was fond of hard words. "This absurd attachment of yours for this vile profligate woman, does but prove," wrote this noble personage, "the total subjugation of your understanding."
In answer to this nervous paragraph, one of Her Grace's epistles, I beg leave to correct the word subjugation. Not that there is any harm in it, on the contrary it is a very learned kind of a full sounding expression and looks handsome in a letter, but then it is too learned to be so ignorantly misapplied. Her Grace, in her zeal to be fine, must have mistaken it for something else, since I can offer an unanswerable reason why her hopeful son, Worcester, could not have his understanding subjugated even by the wonderful charms of Harriette Wilson, and that in four simple words:—He never possessed any.
Her Grace, in her infinite condescension, then goes on to state that the said Harriette Wilson is the lowest and most profligate creature alive. In short, so very bad, that she once sent for her own immaculate brother!—alluding to my having ordered up that worthy man to Marylebone Fields, one morning before breakfast. After continuing this most ladylike style of abuse in detail, enlarging on my former little sins and peccadillos, she writes, in a postscript: "Of course, Worcester, your own sense"—she forgot that it was subjugated—"will teach you to conceal this letter from the person of whom I have spoken so freely."
"It is very hard upon me!" said I one day to Lord Worcester, after reading one of Her Grace's flattering letters, "I was well disposed towards you, and towards your family for your sake. I have constantly refused to accept expensive presents from you, and I have saved you from gambling, and various other vices and misfortunes to which you would otherwise have been, shall I say, in humble imitation of Her Grace, subjugated? I have refused to become Marchioness of Worcester over and over again, believing that such a marriage would distress your family, and, in return, your duchess-mother, with the usual charity of all ladies who either are or pass for being chaste, insists on my being at once turned adrift into the streets and entirely unprovided for."
At last there came another very severe letter from the Duke of Beaufort, insisting on Lord Worcester immediately joining him at his seat near Oxford.
Worcester declared that he would not go, while I insisted that he should not disobey his father.
"Do not irritate His Grace," said I; "but, on the contrary, strive to set his mind at rest, by assuring him that I wish you too well to marry you. True, the duchess is very abusive, rather vulgarly so perhaps, all things considered; but I have no wish to deserve harsh language from your mother, in order that I may think of it with calm indifference."
Worcester spoke very handsomely on this subject. "I love my father and mother," said he, "and it would go to my heart to disobey them, if I saw them inclined to act with justice and humanity towards you. As it is, I could not resign them for ever without the deepest regret: at the same time, I solemnly declare to you, upon my honour and soul, if it were necessary to make a choice, and I must lose for ever either you, to whom I conceive myself bound quite as sacredly as though we were really married, or my whole family, I would not hesitate one instant, not even if they could cut me off with a shilling. I should prefer, ten thousand times over, driving a mail coach for our daily support, and living with you in a garret to any magnificence that could be offered me without you."
His lordship was miserably agitated, when he found that I seriously insisted on his leaving me to join his father, and perhaps he had, for this once, ventured to disobey me, had not his uncle, Lord William Somerset, at the Duke of Beaufort's request, called on us, and insisted on not leaving the house till he had seen Worcester safe off in the Oxford mail.
I forgot to mention a little circumstance which happened on the day previous to Lord Worcester's departure for Badminton, which is the name of his father's country-seat. We were sitting near one of the windows together, when a man on the opposite side of the way attracted my notice. Surely methought, I must have seen that man before. He was standing quite still, and for several minutes I could not for the life of me catch a second glimpse of his face, which had been turned towards us for an instant. At last he seemed as though he were making for my door.
"That is the man!" I abruptly exclaimed; "that is the madman!"
I spoke from the sudden impulse of the moment, and regretted no less instantaneously, but nothing I could say or do had power to detain Lord Worcester, who immediately darted across the street, and inquired of the man what his business had been with me, and why he had presumed to enter my house?
The man answered, that he had no business with me, and had never dreamed of entering my house.
Worcester called him a d——d liar, and throwing his card at him, at the same time, asked him who he was, and where he came from?
The man refused to satisfy this inquiry and fixed his eyes on Worcester with a vacant gaze.
"You won't tell me your name then?"
"No," said the man, at last, adding that he did not choose to have his name handed about in such company.
Worcester remarked that he rather fancied no one would ever hear his name as a fighter; but, if he was ashamed of his name, and felt conscious that his rank was too low in life for him to meet in a duel, without disgracing himself as a gentleman, he was ready to turn into the next field with him, and set to work with their fists, in the way most suitable to a blackguard like him!
The man declared that he was not a bruiser, and refused to stir.
Worcester struck him with his stick, when the man put himself into an attitude of defence; but not at all scientifically.
The fight lasted full twenty minutes. It took place in a public street in the broad face of day.
I did not see the end of the contest, but Worcester, on his return, informed me that he had been victorious, and then retired to wash the blood from his hands and nose.
The Honourable Berkeley Craven, who at all times can smell out a fight as often as such a thing occurs within ten miles of him, was present, I presume, at this mighty encounter, since he afterwards mentioned the circumstance to me, declaring that he knew Worcester's antagonist to be a young man of good family, who had twice made his escape from a mad-house.
Poor fellow! however he appeared to be of such muscular strength, that I do not think Worcester could have done him any material injury; notwithstanding his lordship was a pupil of Jackson.
Worcester shed tears in abundance at parting with me. His uncle, Lord William Somerset, placed himself in an easy chair, swearing he would not stir without his nephew.
Worcester declared to his uncle, that he was a d—m—n bore, and ought to be sensible how desirous he naturally must be to pass an hour or two alone with me, previous to his departure for Badminton.
Lord William Somerset remained firm as a rock, and took Worcester out of the house at half-past seven in the evening; which happened to be just in time to secure his place in the Oxford mail.
Now what am I next to amuse my readers with? No, that's vanity. I meant to ask what I should try to amuse them with? Worcester is gone to his papa's, at Badminton; and I, being sworn to constancy, have no other beaux to write about.
Let us inquire what my sister Fanny is doing? She looked very serious when I called upon her, as she sat nursing Parker's pretty little daughter and kissing it.
"Colonel Parker is going to Spain," said Fanny to me, the moment I entered her room, and I saw a tear trembling in her bright eye.
"So must half the fine young men in England," was my reply.
"Parker is the only man on earth who has ever treated me with true respect and kindness," continued Fanny, "and my attachment to him is very strong; more so perhaps than you think for."
I told her that I could not doubt her love for the father of her infant.
"I am not romantic," Fanny went on to say, while sitting in a musing sort of attitude and seeming quite inattentive to my last wise speech. "It is not in my nature to be in the least romantic or sentimental, yet when Parker forsakes me I shall die of it!"
"Fiddlestick," I answered, "you are always talking about dying, merely because your nerves are weak, and, in the meantime, I never saw you look better in my life. When does Colonel Parker set off?"
"To-morrow night," she replied.
"He will write, of course?"
"He has promised to do so by every post."
I had seldom seen Fanny so serious. I begged her to come to me as soon as Parker had left her, and promised to do everything in my power to enliven her.
She told me that Julia wished her of all things to board with her again as soon as Parker went to Spain, and, continued Fanny, "I feel so melancholy that I think I shall avail myself of her invitation, provided she will permit me to furnish a spare, empty room she has in her house, and keep it entirely to myself. Do you know," continued Fanny, "I, who used to abhor solitude even for a single morning, am now become very fond of it? I love to think and to read; and, the more serious the work the better it suits the present tone of my mind. I have lately been copying the passages which have most struck me, and, when you look them over, you will be astonished at my change of sentiments and taste."
I asked her if her late studies had been religious.
"No," said Fanny; "but the books I like now are such as I consider most calculated to teach us fortitude to endure the ills, miseries, and disappointments of this life. I shall yet, I know, suffer much in mind, as well as in body; and the end of it all will be death! Do not I require fortitude?"
"We shall all die," was my answer; "but the time and the manner of our deaths is unknown to us. No doubt, too, we all have our portion of sorrow and trouble to look forward to; but those sorrows are seldom without some alleviation, or mixture of happiness, neither are the comforts we are permitted to enjoy on earth by any means confined to those of youthful age alone. If, in a more advanced period we feel not wild rapture, yet are we infinitely more calm, and our pleasures are more real and certain, since they depend on the present. In advanced life we enjoy, while girls and boys pursue shadows and live on hope."
"There is no doubt that every age has its portion of enjoyments as well as cares," rejoined Fanny, "but, for myself, I am not I confess sanguine. I feel a weight about the region of my heart."
I interrupted her, and insisted on taking her directly to Julia's, where I left her, promising to see her early on the following day.
Worcester sent me about six sheets of foolscap, scribbled all over in every corner, once a day, and on Sunday he rode nine miles to overtake the coach with a volume! He had, he said, been accused by the duke his father of wishing to make me his wife, and he had found it impossible to deny that such was, in fact, his first hope. His father used very harsh words, and Worcester's courage and firmness had consequently increased. Suddenly, the duke had changed this high tone, and taking his son by the hand addressed him with much apparent feeling. This, as I afterwards learned from His Grace's brother, was a mere cold-blooded plan, settled between these two hopeful gentlemen, who had agreed that their best chance was to touch up the young marquis with a little bit of sentiment. Nay, in their zeal, they agreed to carry the farce to such lengths as even to speak of me, their night-mare, the person on earth which they most abhorred, and whose influence they most dreaded, with an appearance of feeling and respect, praying inwardly that either an earthquake might swallow me up, or that I might be seized with sudden death.
"My dear, dear boy," said Beaufort, "you must forgive me if the extreme anxiety you have for such a long time occasioned myself and your poor mother, has, for a season, made me lose my temper. I see that your feeling for Harriette is real, and beyond your power to overcome at present. Indeed, if she is good to you, I desire that every care and attention should be paid her, and you should return to her, and be teased no more on the subject: only pass your word and honour to me, as a son, and as a gentleman, that you will never marry her, and you shall hear no more from either of us on the subject."
Worcester, in his letter to me, where he described this scene, professed to have been deeply affected by it, and to have passed the following night and day in tears, yet he firmly refused to comply with his father's request. Et tout fut consternation dans le plus beau et le plus agréable château, qu'on puisse imaginer!
All those letters from Lord Worcester having been since returned to the Duke of Beaufort, that honourable nobleman with his son may be pleased to deny that such letters were written. However, after referring my readers to the celebrated Henry Brougham, M.P., of Lincoln's Inn, and another highly respectable counsellor of the same place, named Treslove, who have both read the whole of Lord Worcester's correspondence (why they did so shall be told hereafter), I will leave them to form their own conclusion as to the truth or falsehood of what I have written, or shall write, on the subject of those worthy wiseacres, the Beauforts!
Worcester concluded this letter by declaring he could not and would not remain any longer absent from me, and that I was all the consolation which was left him on earth, since his father was about to turn his back on him for ever.
I answered this letter immediately, to this effect.
"If, my dear Worcester, you do not immediately write, to give me your honour that you have set your father's mind at rest by having complied with his late reasonable request, you lose me now at once and for ever. For I shall go where you will not find me. What happiness, think you, could we enjoy, at the expense of making your parents miserable? They have good reason for what they request, and to save the time it would take you to contradict this last assertion of mine, I declare to you that I never will be your wife.
"Au reste, my dear Worcester, what is there in a ceremony and what do I care for a title? I swear, so help me God, I have ever been faithful to you since the first hour in which I placed myself under your protection, and in all and everything that was in my power, I have acted, and ever will act in a way to deserve your esteem as well as that of your family, in order that the abuse of Her Grace of Beaufort may sit light on my heart and mind. What gratification think you, could I enjoy at the idea of having merely inspired you with a strong passion for me, while I felt that, by my selfish conduct and the advantage I was ready to take of such an accidental circumstance, I had forfeited all right and title to your respect or future friendship?
"I have said enough I am sure, to convince any man worthy the name, and therefore you will have made friends with your father, and be on your road to join me very shortly after the receipt of this letter. So till then God bless you; but remember I can be firm and keep my word."
In three days after I had despatched the above letter, Worcester returned to me, having made the Duke of Beaufort the promise he had required. We now enjoyed something like quietness during the remainder of our stay in London.
Although Worcester appeared to have suffered much during his visit to his father's, for he was much paler and thinner, I really thought him consumptive. It was ever his lordship's pride and delight to drive me about the streets or the park, and to accompany me wherever I went. He but seldom went into society, and when he did, he always refused to dance much as he used to like it. In short, his passion for me, which from the very first seemed so ardent that I knew not it was in human nature that it could be susceptible of increase, became stronger with the difficulty of indulging it.
"My brother is a fool," said Lord William Somerset one day to us. "I would have cured you both in less than a month, and made Worcester hate you most cordially."
"How pray?" I inquired.
"Why," continued Lord William, "merely by shutting you up in one of my country houses together, making it my request that you never left each other an instant, to the end of your lives."
Worcester called God to witness that he was as sure as of his existence, that he could never love anything in the shape of a woman but myself: and, "were Harriette ever to leave me," he continued, "I should become a mere, cold-blooded, unfeeling profligate; for all the good about me is practised by her advice and example, or for her sake, that I may be somewhat more deserving of her."
Lord William laughed at his romance, and, I remember, took advantage of his absence to try to make love to me himself! But at this I only laughed in my turn, and, in spite of that common English mistake, which he fell into, in supposing that all unmarried females must be either maids or bad women, he was, take him altogether, I rather think about the best of the whole set; and I am almost sorry I called him Lord Berwick's Tiger. But what is an extravagant fellow to do, with high rank and little or no money? And who was to drive old, stupid Tweed, c'est à dire mon très aimable beau-frère, up and down, without borrowing a trifle, or not a trifle, of his ready cash? Some short time after my sister Sophia's marriage she received from Lord Deerhurst, half a year of the annuity he had made her. My eldest brother was requested to call upon his lordship, for the purpose of restoring the amount into his own hand, which commission my brother executed without, I believe, exchanging a single syllable with that most disgusting nobleman, who ever has been a disgrace to the peerage.
Fanny, in due time, received very kind letters from Colonel Parker, although they were certainly less warm than some of those he had formerly addressed to her. Napier's love for Julia seemed to grow with what it fed on, and this fair lady had been twelve times with child, and was actually turned forty, or as the French say, elle avait quarante ans, bien sommés.
Little Kitty, the lady of Colonel Armstrong, went on very modestly and quietly with her dear Tommy, although he now steadfastly adhered to his former resolution, not to risk any increase in his family.
Amy continued very steady, and constant in her love for—variety!
We were all regular at the Opera House both on Saturdays and Tuesdays, and, when the performance had concluded, we always remained late in the rooms, amusing ourselves with the absurdities of George Brummell, Tom Raikes and various others, some better, none worse! Not that Tom Raikes ever did anything bad enough, or what is worse, anything good enough to deserve the honour of a place in these my invaluable Memoirs; but, since I have named him, be it further known that Tom Raikes is a merchant who went to Paris and picked up French; and he is something of a mimic too; and he can take off Brummell very tolerably, as well as the manners of the vieille cour-France beaux; but I never discovered that he could do anything else. His tricks, like those of the man at Calais who entertains travellers while they dine, by imitating singing birds, cuckoos and castanets, are very well on the first representation; but it is indeed heavy work to be thrown into the society of Mr. Thomas Raikes more than twice in one's life. Brummell often dined with him, and therefore I take it for granted that Tom Raikes lent Brummell money. If he did, it was even for the éclat of the thing, and to have it to say that Brummell had dined with him, and that Brummell, his friend Brummell, was an excellent fellow. Tom Raikes happens to be one of the meanest men in England, at least so I have heard from several of his soi-disant male friends.
However, he was fortunate in having had a father who lived before him; as that father was no less fortunate in having met with such a friend as Richard Muilman Trench Chiswell, M.P., to whom the family owes its not undeserved rise. To this Tommy we may apply the epigram written on another Tommy:
What can little Tommy do?
Drive a phaeton and two.
Can little Tommy do no more?
Yes—drive a phaeton and four.
Sophia looked very splendid in her Opera-box since her marriage, particularly when she wore all the late Lady Berwick's diamonds and her own to boot. Lord Deerhurst, I observed, for several successive nights made it a point to sit in a box by himself next to Sophia, and fix his eyes on her the whole of the evening. Not that he regretted or cared for her, but merely because, in his infinite vulgarity and littleness of soul, he gloried in insulting Lord Berwick's feelings, and conceived it high fun to ogle at Sophia's box, and then wink at his companions in the pit: but Lord Berwick was wise for once in his life, for he ever treated Deerhurst's low impertinence with the profound contempt it merited, nor condescended once to make a remark on it, even to his wife, although neither of them could have been blind to what was so very pointed.
To revert to the Beaufort story, mais c'est perdrix, perdrix, toujours perdrix!
The Beaufort story may be fort beau; and yet my readers may happen to require a little variety: at all events, if they do not, I do, for there is nothing on earth I think more abominable than to be hammering always at the same thing.