Anecdotes of the Conde de San Lorenzo.--Visit to Mrs.
Guildermeester.--Toads active, and toads passive.--The old Consul
and his tray of jewels.
The principal personages who had so piously distinguished themselves
yesterday dined with me this blessed afternoon. Old San Lorenzo has a
prodigious memory and a warm imagination, rendered still more glowing by
a slight touch of madness. He appears perfectly well acquainted with the
general politics of Europe, and though never beyond the limits of
Portugal, gave so circumstantial and plausible a detail of what
occurred, and of the part he himself acted at the congress of
Aix-la-Chapelle, that I was completely his dupe, and believed, until I
was let into the secret, that he had actually witnessed what he only
dreamt of. Notwithstanding the high favour he enjoyed with the infante
Don Pedro, Pombal cast him into a dungeon with the other victims of the
Aveiro conspiracy, and for eighteen most melancholy years was his active
mind reduced to prey upon itself for sustenance.
Upon the present queen’s accession he was released, and found his
intimate friend the Infante sharing the throne; but thinking himself
somewhat coolly received and shabbily neglected, he threw the key of
chamberlain which was sent him into a place of less dignity than
convenience, and retired to the convent of the Necessidades. No means, I
have been assured, were left untried by the king to soothe and flatter
him; but they all proved fruitless. Since this period, though he quitted
the convent, he has never appeared at court, and has refused all
employment. Devotion now absorbs his entire soul. Except when the chord
of imprisonment and Pombal is touched upon, he is calm and reasonable. I
found him extremely so to-day, and full of the most instructive and
amusing anecdote.
Coffee over, my company having stretched themselves out at full-length
most comfortably, some on the mat, and some on the sofas, to recruit
their spirits I suppose, after the pious toils and enthusiastic
procession of the day before, I prevailed upon Marialva to escort me to
Mrs. Guildermeester’s, whom we found in a vast but dingy saloon, her
toads squatting around her. She gave us some excellent tea, and a plain
sensible loaf of brown bread, accompanied by delicious butter, just
fresh from a genuine Dutch dairy, conducted upon the most immaculate
Dutch principles. Donna Genuefa, the toad-passive in waiting, is a
little jossish old woman, with a head as round as a humming-top, and a
large placid lip, very smiling and good-natured. Miss Coster, the
toad-active, has been rather pretty a few years ago, makes tea with
decorum, shuts doors and opens windows with judgment, and has a good
deal to say for herself when allowed to sit still on her chair.
We had scarcely begun complimenting the mistress of the house upon the
complete success of her cow-establishment, when the old consul her
spouse entered, with many bows and salutations, bearing a huge japan
tray, upon which was spread out in glittering profusion an ample
treasure, both of rough and well-lapidated brilliants, the fruits of his
famous and most lucrative contract in the days of Pombal. Some of the
largest diamonds, in superb though heavy Dutch or German settings, he
eagerly desired Marialva would recommend to the attention of the queen,
and whispered in my ear that he hoped I also would speak a good word for
him. I remained as deaf as an adder, and the Marquis as blind as a
beetle, to the splendour of the display; so he returned once more to his
interior cabinet, with all his hopes out of blossom, and we moved off.
Evening was drawing on, and a drizzling mist overspreading the crags of
Cintra. It did not, however, prevent us from going to Mr. Horne’s. We
passed under arching elms and chesnuts, whose moistened foliage exhaled
a fresh woody odour. High above the vapours, which were rolling away
just as we emerged from the shady avenue, appeared the turret of the
convent of the Penha, faintly tinted by the last rays of the sun, and
looking down, like the ark on Mount Ararat, on a sea of undulating
clouds.
At Horne’s, Aguilar, Bezerra, and the usual set were assembled. The
Marquis, as soon as he had made his condescending bows to the right and
left, retired to his villa, and I took Horne in my chaise to Mrs.
Staits, a little slender-waisted, wild-eyed woman, by no means
unpleasing or flinty-hearted. It was her birthday, and she had
congregated most of the English at Cintra, in a damp garden about
seventy feet long by thirty-two, illuminated by thirty or forty
lanterns. Mrs. Guildermeester was there, covered with diamonds, and
sparkling like a star in the midst of this murky atmosphere. We had a
cold funereal supper, under a low tent in imitation of a grotto.
Mrs. Staits’ well-disposed, easy-tempered husband placed me next Mrs.
Guildermeester, who amused herself tolerably well at the expense of the
entertainment. The dingy, subterraneous appearance of the booth, the wan
light of the lanterns sparingly scattered along it, and the fragrance of
a dish of rather mature prawns placed under my nose, seized me with the
idea of being dead and buried. “Alas!” said I to my fair neighbour, “it
is all over with us now, and this our first banquet in the infernal
regions; we are all equal and jumbled together. There sits the pious
presbyterian Mrs. Fussock, with that bridling miss her daughter, and
close to them those adulterous doves, Mr. ---- and his sultana. Here am
I, miserable sinner, right opposite your righteous and much enduring
spouse; a little lower our kind host, that pattern of conjugal meekness
and resignation. Hark! don’t you hear a lumbering noise? They are
letting down a cargo of heavy bodies into a neighbouring tomb.”
In this strain did we continue till the subject was exhausted, and it
was time to take our departure.