Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sankar Viswanathan, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
[Illustration: _Lola Montez, Countess of Landsfeld_
(_From a lithograph by Prosper Guillaume Dartiguenave_)]
THE
MAGNIFICENT
MONTEZ
_From Courtesan to Convert_
_By_
HORACE WYNDHAM
"When you met Lola Montez, her reputation
made you automatically think of bedrooms."
--ALDOUS HUXLEY.
HILLMAN-CURL, INC.
_Publishers_
NEW YORK
* * * * *
FOREWORD
Sweep a drag-net across the pages of contemporary drama, and it is
unquestionable that in her heyday no name on the list stood out, in
respect of adventure and romance, with greater prominence than did
that of Lola Montez. Everything she did (or was credited with doing)
filled columns upon columns in the press of Europe and America; and,
from first to last, she was as much "news" as any Hollywood heroine of
our own time. Yet, although she made history in two hemispheres, it
has proved extremely difficult to discover and unravel the real facts
of her glamorous career. This is because round few (if any) women has
been built up such a honeycomb of fable and fantasy and imagination as
has been built up round this one.
Even where the basic points are concerned there is disagreement. Thus,
according to various chroniclers, the Sultan of Turkey, an "Indian
Rajah" (unspecified), Lord Byron, the King of the Cannibal Islands,
and a "wealthy merchant," each figure as her father, with a "beautiful
Creole," a "Scotch washerwoman," and a "Dublin actress" for her
mother; and Calcutta, Geneva, Limerick, Montrose, and Seville--and a
dozen other cities scattered about the world--for her birthplace. This
sort of thing is--to say the least of it--confusing.
But Lola Montez was something of an anachronism, and had as lofty a
disregard for convention as had the ladies thronging the Court of
Merlin. Nor, it must be admitted, was she herself any pronounced
stickler for exactitude. Thus, she lopped half a dozen years off her
age, allotted her father (whom she dubbed a "Spanish officer of
distinction") a couple of brevet steps in rank, and insisted on an
ancestry to which she was never entitled.
Still, if Lola Montez deceived the public about herself, others have
deceived the public about Lola Montez. Thus, in one of his books,
George Augustus Sala solemnly announced that she was a sister of Adah
Isaacs Menken; and a more modern writer, unable to distinguish between
Ludwig I and his grandson Ludwig II, tells us that she was "intimate
with the mad King of Bavaria." To anybody (and there still are such
people) who accepts the printed word as gospel, slips of this sort
destroy faith.
As a fount of information on the subject, the _Autobiography_
(alleged) of Lola Montez, first published in 1859, is worthless. The
bulk of it was written for her by a clerical "ghost" in America, the
Rev. Chauncey Burr, and merely serves up a tissue of picturesque and
easily disproved falsehoods. A number of these, by the way, together
with some additional embroideries, are set out at greater length in
other volumes by Ferdinand Bac (who confounds Ludwig I with Maximilian
II) and the equally unreliable Eugène de Mirecourt and Auguste Papon.
German writers, on the other hand, have, if apt to be long-winded, at
least avoided the more obvious pitfalls. Among the books and pamphlets
(many of them anonymous) of Teutonic origin, the following will repay
research: _Die Gräfin Landsfeld_ (Gustav Bernhard); _Lola Montez,
Gräfin von Landsfeld_ (Johann Deschler); _Lola Montez und andere
Novellen_ (Rudolf Ziegler); _Lola Montez und die Jesuiten_ (Dr. Paul
Erdmann); _Die spanische Tänzerin und die deutsche Freiheit_ (J.
Beneden); _Die Deutsche Revolution, 1848-1849_ (Hans Blum); _Ein
vormarzliches Tanzidyll_ (Eduard Fuchs); _Abenteur der beruhmten
Tänzerin_; _Anfang und Ende der Lola Montez in Bayern_; _Die Munchener
Vergange_; _Unter den vier ersten Königen Bayerns_ (Luise von Kobell);
and, in particular, the monumental _Histeriche_ of Heinrich von
Treitschke. But one has to milk a hundred cows to get even a pint of
Lola Montez cream.
With a view to gathering at first hand reliable and hitherto
unrecorded details, visits have recently been made by myself to
Berlin, Brussels, Dresden, Leningrad, Munich, Paris, and Warsaw, etc.,
in each of which capitals some portion of colourful drama of Lola
Montez was unfolded. In a number of directions, however, the result of
such investigations proved disappointing.
"Lola Montez--h'm--what sort of man was he?" was the response of a
prominent actor, recommended to me as a "leading authority on anything
to do with the stage"; and the secretary of a theatrical club, anxious
to be of help, wrote: "Sorry, but none of our members have any
personal reminiscences of the lady." As she had then been in her grave
for more than seventy years, it did not occur to me that even the
senior _jeune premier_ among them would have retained any very vivid
recollections of her. Still, many of them were quite old enough to
have heard something of her from their predecessors.
But valuable assistance in eliciting the real facts connected with the
career of this remarkable woman, and disentangling them from the
network of lies and fables in which they have long been enmeshed, has
come from other sources. Among those to whom a special debt must be
acknowledged are Edmund d'Auvergne (author of a carefully documented
study), _Lola Montez_ (_an Adventuress of the 'Forties_); Gertrude
Aretz (author of _The Elegant Woman_); Bernard Falk (author of _The
Naked Lady_); Arthur Hornblow (author of _A History of the Theatre in
America_); Harry Price (Hon. Sec. University of London Council for
Psychical Investigation); Philip Richardson (editor of _The Dancing
Times_); and Constance Rourke (author of _Troupers of the Gold
Coast_); and further information has been forthcoming from Mrs.
Charles Baker (Ruislip), and John Wade (Acton).
Much help in supplying me with important letters and documents and
hitherto unpublished particulars relating to the trail blazed by Lola
Montez in America has been furnished by the following: Miss Mabel R.
Gillis (State Librarian, Californian State Library, Sacramento); Mrs.
Lillian Hall (Curator, Harvard Theatre Collection); Miss Ida M. Mellen
(New York); Mrs. Helen Putnam van Sicklen (Library of the Society of
Californian Pioneers); Mrs. Annette Tyree (New York); Mr. John
Stapleton Cowley-Brown (New York); Mr. Lewis Chase (Hendersonville);
Professor Kenneth L. Daughrity (Delta State Teachers' College,
Cleveland); Mr. Frank Fenton (Stanford University, California); Mr.
Harold E. Gillingham (Librarian, Historical Society of Pennsylvania);
Mr. W. Sprague Holden (Associate-Editor, Argonaut Publishing Company,
San Francisco); and Mr. Milton Lord (Director, Public Library,
Boston).
In addition to these experts, I am also indebted to Monsieur Pierre
Tugal (Conservateur, Archives de la Danse, Paris); and to the
directors and staffs of the Bibliothèque d'Arsenal, Paris, and of the
Theatrical Museum, Munich, who have generously placed their records at
my disposal.
Unlike his American and Continental colleagues, a public librarian in
England said (on a postcard) that he was "too busy to answer
questions."
H. W.
* * * * *
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
CHAPTER
I. PRELUDE TO ADVENTURE
II. "MARRIED IN HASTE"
III. THE CONSISTORY COURT
IV. FLARE OF THE FOOTLIGHTS
V. A PASSIONATE PILGRIMAGE
VI. AN "AFFAIR OF HONOUR"
VII. "HOOKING A PRINCE"
VIII. LUDWIG THE LOVER
IX. "MAÎTRESSE DU ROI"
X. BURSTING OF THE STORM
XI. A FALLEN STAR
XII. A "LEFT-HANDED" MARRIAGE
XIII. ODYSSEY
XIV. THE "GOLDEN WEST"
XV. "DOWN UNDER"
XVI. FAREWELL TO THE FOOTLIGHTS
XVII. THE CURTAIN FALLS
APPENDIX I. "ARTS OF BEAUTY"
APPENDIX II. "LOLA MONTEZ' LECTURES"
INDEX
* * * * *
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
LOLA MONTEZ, COUNTESS OF LANDSFELD _Frontispiece_
"JOHN COMPANY" TROOPS ON THE MARCH IN INDIA
HER MAJESTY'S THEATRE, HAYMARKET, WHERE LOLA MONTEZ MADE HER DÉBUT
BENJAMIN LUMLEY, LESSEE OF HER MAJESTY'S THEATRE
LOLA MONTEZ, "SPANISH DANCER." DÉBUT AT HER MAJESTY'S THEATRE
VISCOUNT RANELAGH, WHO ORGANISED A CABAL AGAINST LOLA MONTEZ
ABBÉ LISZT, MUSICIAN AND LOVER
FANNY ELSSLER, PREDECESSOR OF LOLA MONTEZ IN PARIS
PORTE ST. MARTIN THEATRE, PARIS, WHERE LOLA WAS A "FLOP"
SUPPER-PARTY AT LES FRÈRES PROVENÇAUX. FIRST ACT IN A TRAGEDY
RESIDENZ PALACE, MUNICH, IN 1848. RESIDENCE OF LUDWIG I.
"COMMAND" PORTRAIT. IN THE "GALLERY OF BEAUTIES," MUNICH
KING OF BAVARIA. "LUDWIG THE LOVER"
LOLA MONTEZ IN CARICATURE. "LOLA ON THE ALLEMANNEN HOUND"
BERRYMEAD PRIORY, ACTON, WHERE LOLA MONTEZ LIVED WITH CORNET HEALD
LOLA MONTEZ IN LONDON. AGED THIRTY
A "BELLE OF THE BOULEVARDS." LOLA MONTEZ IN PARIS
THE "SPIDER DANCE." CAUSE OF MUCH CRITICISM
LOLA MONTEZ IN "LOLA IN BAVARIA." A "PLAY WITH A PURPOSE"
LOLA AS A LECTURER. FROM STAGE TO PLATFORM
LOLA MONTEZ IN MIDDLE LIFE. A CHARACTERISTIC POSE
"LECTURES AND LIFE." FROM STAGE TO PLATFORM
COUNTESS OF LANDSFELD. A FAVOURITE PORTRAIT
GRAVE OF LOLA MONTEZ, IN GREEN-WOOD CEMETERY, NEW YORK
* * * * *
THE MAGNIFICENT MONTEZ
CHAPTER I
PRELUDE TO ADVENTURE
I
In a tearful column, headed "Necrology of the Year," a mid-Victorian
obituarist wrote thus of a woman figuring therein:
This was one who, notwithstanding her evil ways, had a share
in some public transactions too remarkable to allow her name
to be omitted from the list of celebrated persons deceased
in the year 1861.
Born of an English or Irish family of respectable rank, at a
very early age the unhappy girl was found to be possessed of
the fatal gift of beauty. She appeared for a short time on
the stage as a dancer (for which degradation her sorrowing
relatives put on mourning, and issued undertakers' cards to
signify that she was now dead to them) and then blazed forth
as the most notorious Paphian in Europe.
Were this all, these columns would not have included her
name. But she exhibited some very remarkable qualities. The
natural powers of her mind were considerable. She had a
strong will, and a certain grasp of circumstances. Her
disposition was generous, and her sympathies very large.
These qualities raised the courtesan to a singular position.
She became a political influence; and exercised a
fascination over sovereigns and ministers more widely
extended than has perhaps been possessed by any other member
of the _demi-monde_. She ruled a kingdom; and ruled it,
moreover, with dignity and wisdom and ability. The political
Hypatia, however, was sacrificed to the rabble. Her power
was gone, and she could hope no more from the flattery of
statesmen. She became an adventuress of an inferior class.
Her intrigues, her duels, and her horse-whippings made her
for a time a notoriety in London, Paris, and America.
Like other celebrated favourites who, with all her personal
charms, but without her glimpses of a better human nature,
have sacrificed the dignity of womanhood to a profligate
ambition, this one upbraided herself in her last moments on
her wasted life; and then, when all her ambition and vanity
had turned to ashes, she understood what it was to have been
the toy of men and the scorn of women.
Altogether a somewhat guarded suggestion of disapproval about the
subject of this particular memoir.
II
Three years after the thunderous echoes of Waterloo had died away, and
"Boney," behind a fringe of British bayonets, was safely interned on
the island of St. Helena, there was born in barracks at Limerick a
little girl. On the same day, in distant Bavaria, a sovereign was
celebrating his thirty-fifth birthday. Twenty-seven years later the
two were to meet; and from that meeting much history was to be
written.
The little girl who first came on the scene at Limerick was the
daughter of one Ensign Edward Gilbert, a young officer of good Irish
family who had married a Señorita Oliverres de Montalva, "of Castle
Oliver, Madrid." At any rate, she claimed to be such, and also that
she was directly descended from Francisco Montez, a famous toreador of
Seville. There is a strong presumption, however, that here she was
drawing on her imagination; and, as for the "Castle Oliver" in Sunny
Spain, well, that country has never lacked "castles."
The Oliver family, as pointed out by E. B. d'Auvergne in his carefully
documented _Adventuresses and Adventurous Ladies_, was really of Irish
extraction, and had been settled in Limerick since the year 1645. "The
family pedigree," he says, "reveals no trace of Spanish or Moorish
blood." Further, by the beginning of the last century, the main line
had, so far as the union of its members was blessed by the Church,
expired, and no legitimate offspring were left. Gilbert's spouse,
accordingly, must, if a genuine Oliverres, have come into the world
with a considerable blot on her 'scutcheon.
Still, if there were no hidalgos perched on her family tree, Mrs.
Gilbert probably had some good blood in her veins. As a matter of
fact, there is some evidence adduced by a distant relative, Miss D. M.
Hodgson, that she was really an illegitimate daughter of an Irishman,
Charles Oliver, of Castle Oliver (now Cloghnafoy), Co. Limerick, and a
peasant girl on his estate. This is possible enough, for the period
was one when squires exercised "seigneurial rights," and when colleens
were complacent. If they were not, they had very short shrift.
Mrs. Gilbert's wedding had been a hasty one. Still, not a bit too
hasty, since the doctor and monthly nurse had to be summoned almost
before the ink was dry on the register. As a matter of fact, Mrs.
Gilbert must have gone to church in the condition of ladies who love
their lords, for this "pledge of mutual affection" was born in
Limerick barracks while the honeymoon was still in full swing, and
within a couple of months of the nuptial knot being tied. She was
christened Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna, but was at first called by the
second of these names. This, however, being a bit of a mouthful for a
small child, she herself soon clipped it to the diminutive Lola. The
name suited her, and it stuck.
While these facts are supported by documentary evidence, they have not
been "romantic" enough to fit in with the views of certain foreign
biographers. Accordingly, they have given the child's birthplace as
in, among other cities, Madrid, Lucerne, Constantinople, and Calcutta;
and one of them has even been sufficiently daring to make her a
daughter of Lord Byron. Larousse, too, not to be behindhand, says that
she was "born in Seville, of a Spanish father"; and, alternatively,
"in Scotland, of an English father." Both accounts, however, are
emphatic that her mother was "a young Creole of astonishing
loveliness, who had married two officers, a Spaniard and an
Englishman."
It was to Edward Gilbert's credit that he had not joined the Army with
the King's commission in his pocket, but in a more humble capacity,
that of a private soldier. Gallant service in the field had won him
advancement; and in 1817 he was selected for an ensigncy in the 25th
Foot, thus exchanging his musket and knapsack for the sword and sash
of an officer. From the 25th Foot he was, five years later,
transferred to the 44th Foot, commanded by Colonel Morrison. In 1822,
its turn coming round for a spell of foreign service, the regiment
moved from Dublin to Chatham and embarked for India. Sailing with his
wife and child, the young officer, after a voyage that lasted the best
(or worst) part of six months, landed at Calcutta and went into
barracks at Fort William. On arrival there, "the newcomers," says an
account that has been preserved, "were entertained with lavish
hospitality and in a fashion to be compared only with the festivities
pictured in the novels of Charles Lever." But all ranks had strong
heads, and were none the worse for it.
During the ensuing summer the regiment got "the route," and was
ordered up country to Dinapore, a cantonment near Patna, on the
Ganges, that had been founded by Warren Hastings. It was an unhealthy
station, especially for youngsters fresh from England. A burning sun
by day; hot stifling nights; and no breath of wind sweeping across the
parched ghats. Within a few weeks the dreaded cholera made its
appearance; the melancholy roll of muffled drums was heard every
evening at sunset; and Ensign Gilbert was one of the first victims.
[Illustration: "John Company" troops on the march in India]
The widow, it is recorded, was "left to the care and protection of
Mrs. General Brown," the wife of the brigadier. But events were
already marching to their appointed end; and, as a result, this
charitable lady was soon relieved of her charge.
Left a young widow (not yet twenty-five) with a child of five to bring
up, and very little money on which to do it (for her husband had only
drawn 108 rupees a month), the position in which Mrs. Gilbert found
herself was a difficult one. "You can," wrote Lola, years afterwards,
"have but a faint conception of the responsibility." Warm hearts,
however, were at hand to befriend her. The warmest among them was that
of a brother officer of her late husband, Lieutenant Patrick Craigie,
of the 38th Native Infantry, then quartered at Dacca. A bachelor and
possessed of considerable private means, he invited her to share his
bungalow. The invitation was accepted. As a result, there was a
certain amount of gossip. This, however, was promptly silenced by a
second invitation, also accepted, to share his name; and, in August,
1824, Mrs. Gilbert, renouncing her mourning and her widowhood,
blossomed afresh as Mrs. Craigie. It is said that the ceremony was
performed by Bishop Heber, Metropolitan of Calcutta, who happened to
be visiting Dacca at the time. Very soon afterwards the benedict
received a staff appointment as deputy-adjutant-general at Simla,
combined with that of deputy-postmaster at Headquarters. This sent him
a step up the ladder to the rank of captain and brought a welcome
addition to his pay. In the opinion of the station "gup," some of it
not too charitable, the widow "had done well for herself."
Captain Craigie, who appears to have been a somewhat Dobbin-like
individual, proved an affectionate husband and step-father. The
little girl's prettiness and precocity appealed to him strongly. He
could not do enough for her; and he spoiled her by refusing to check
her wayward disposition and encouraging her mischievous pranks. It was
not a good upbringing; and, as dress and "society" filled the thoughts
of her mother, the "Miss Baba" was left very much to the care of the
swarms of native servants attached to the bungalow. She was petted by
all with whom she came into contact, from the gilded staff of
Government House down to the humblest sepoy and bearer. Lord Hastings,
the Commander-in-Chief--a rigid disciplinarian who had reintroduced
the "cat" when Lord Minto, his predecessor in office, had abolished
it--smiled affably on her. She sat on the laps of be-medalled
generals, veterans of Assaye and Bhurtpore, and pulled their whiskers
unchecked; and she ran wild in the compounds of the civilian big-wigs
and mercantile nabobs who, as was the custom in the days of "John
Company," had shaken the pagoda tree to their own considerable profit.
After all, as they said, when any protest filtered through to
Leadenhall Street, what were the natives for, except to be exploited;
and busybodies who took them to task were talking nonsense. Worse,
they were "disloyal."
As, however, there were adequate reasons why children could not stop
in the country indefinitely, Lola's step-father, after much anxious
consideration, decided that, since she was running wild and getting
into mischief, the best thing to do with her would be to have her
brought up by his relatives in Scotland. A suitable escort having been
found and a passage engaged, in the autumn of 1826 she was sent to
Montrose, where his own father, a "venerable man occupying the
position of provost, and sisters were living."
From India to Scotland was a considerable change. Not a change for the
better, in the opinion of the new arrival there. The Montrose
household, ruled by Captain Craigie's elderly sisters, was a dour and
strict one, informed by an atmosphere of bleak and chill Calvinism.
All enjoyment was frowned upon; pleasure was "worldly" and had to be
severely suppressed. No more petting and spoiling for the little girl.
Instead, a regime of porridge and prayers and unending lessons. As a
result the child was so wretched that, convinced her mother would
prove unsympathetic, she wrote to her step-father, begging to be sent
back to him. This, of course, was impossible. Still, when the letter,
blotted with tears, reached him in Calcutta, Captain Craigie's heart
was touched. If she was unhappy among his kinsfolk at Montrose, he
would send her somewhere else. But where? That was the question.
As luck would have it, by the same mail a second letter, offering a
solution of the problem, arrived from an Anglo-Indian friend. This was
Sir Jasper Nicolls, K.C.B., a veteran of Assaye and Bhurtpore, who had
settled down in England and wanted a young girl as companion for, and
to be brought up with, his own motherless daughter. The two got into
correspondence; and, the necessary arrangements having been completed,
little Lola Gilbert, beside herself with delight, was in the summer of
1830 packed off to Sir Jasper's house at Bath.
"Are you sorry to leave us?" enquired the eldest Miss Craigie.
"Not a bit," was the candid response.
"Mark my words, Miss, you'll come to a bad ending," predicted the
other sourly.
III
But if Bath was to be a "bad ending," it was certainly to be a good
beginning. There, instead of bleakness and constant reproof, Lola
found herself wrapped in an atmosphere of warmth and friendliness. Sir
Jasper was kindness itself; and his daughter Fanny made the newcomer
welcome. The two girls took to one another from the first, sharing
each other's pleasures as they shared each other's studies. Thus, they
blushed and gushed when required; sewed samplers and copied texts;
learned a little French and drawing; grappled with Miss Mangnall's
_Questions for the Use of Young People_; practised duets and ballads;
touched the strings of the harp; wept over the poems of "L.E.L."; read
Byron surreptitiously, and the newly published _Sketches by Boz_
openly; admired the "Books of Beauty" and sumptuously bound "Keepsake
Annuals," edited by the Countess of Blessington and the Hon. Mrs.
Norton; laughed demurely at the antics of that elderly figure-of-fun,
"Romeo" Coates, when he took the air in the Quadrant; wondered why
that distinguished veteran, Sir Charles Napier, made a point of
cutting Sir Jasper Nicolls; curtsied to the little Princess Victoria,
then staying at the York Hotel, and turned discreetly aside when the
Duchess de Berri happened to pass; and (since they were not entirely
cloistered) attended, under the watchful eye of a governess, "select"
concerts in the Assembly Rooms (with Catalini and Garsia in the
programmes) and an occasional play at the Theatre Royal, where from
time to time they had a glimpse of Fanny Kemble and Kean and Macready;
and, in short, followed the approved curriculum of young ladies of
their position in the far off-days when William IV was King.
Although Sir Jasper had a hearty and John Bullish contempt for
foreigners--and especially for the "Froggies" he had helped to drub at
Waterloo--he felt that they, none the less, had their points; and that
they were born on the wrong side of the Channel was their misfortune,
rather than their fault. Accordingly, there was an interval in Paris,
where the two girls were sent to learn French. There, in addition to a
knowledge of the language, Lola acquired a technique that was
afterwards to prove valuable amid other and very different
surroundings. If de Mirecourt (a far from reliable authority) is to be
believed, she was also, during this period, presented to King Charles
X by the British Ambassador. On the evidence of dates, however, this
could not have been the case, for Charles had relinquished his sceptre
and fled to England long before Lola arrived in the country.
After an interval, Sir Jasper felt that he ought to slip across to
Paris himself, if only to make sure that his daughter and ward were
"not getting into mischief, or having their heads filled with ideas."
No sooner said than done and, posting to Dover, he took the packet.
Having relieved his mind as to the welfare of the two girls, he turned
his attention to other matters. As he had anticipated, a number of his
old comrades who had settled in Paris gave him a warm welcome and
readily undertook to "show him round." He enjoyed the experience. Life
was pleasant there, and the theatres and cafés were attractive and a
change from the austerities of Bath. The ladies, too, whom he
encountered when he smoked his cheroot in the Palais Royal gardens,
smiled affably on the "English Milord." Some of them, with very little
encouragement, did more. "No nonsense about waiting for
introductions."
But, despite its amenities, Paris in the early 'thirties was not
altogether a suitable resort for British visitors. The political
atmosphere was distinctly ruffled. Revolution was in the air. Sir
Jasper sniffed the coming changes; and was tactician enough to avoid
being engulfed in the threatened maelstrom by slipping back to England
with his young charges in the nick of time. Others of his compatriots,
not so fortunate or so discreet, found themselves clapped into French
prisons.
Returning to the tranquillity of Bath, things resumed their normal
course. Sir Jasper nursed his gout (changing his opinion of French
cooking, to which he attributed a fresh attack) and the girls picked
up the threads they had temporarily dropped.
Always responsive to her environment, Lola expanded quickly in the
sympathetic atmosphere of the Nicolls household. Before long,
Montrose, with its "blue Scotch Calvinism," was but a memory. Instead
of being snubbed and scolded, she was petted and encouraged. As a
result, she grew cheerful and vivacious, full of high spirits and
laughter. Perhaps because of her mother's Spanish blood, she matured
early. At sixteen she was a woman. A remarkably attractive one, too,
giving--with her raven tresses, long-lashed violet eyes, and graceful
figure--promise of the ripe beauty for which she was afterwards to be
distinguished throughout two hemispheres. Of a romantic disposition,
she, naturally enough, had her _affaires_. Several of them, as it
happened. One of them was with an usher, who had slipped amorous
missives into her prayer-book. Greatly daring, he followed this up by
bearding Sir Jasper in his den and asking permission to "pay his
addresses" to his ward. The warrior's response was unconciliatory.
Still, he could not be angry when, on being challenged, the girl
laughed at him.
"Egad!" he declared. "But, before long, Miss, you'll be setting all
the men by the ears."
Prophetic words.
IV
During the interval that elapsed since they last met, Mrs. Craigie had
troubled herself very little about the child she had sent to England.
When, however, she received her portrait from Sir Jasper, together
with a glowing description of her attractiveness and charm, the
situation assumed a fresh aspect. Lola, she felt, had become an asset,
instead of an anxiety; and, as such, must make a "good" marriage. Bath
swarmed with detrimentals, and there was a risk of a pretty girl,
bereft of a mother's watchful care, being snapped up by one of them.
Possibly, a younger son, without a penny with which to bless himself.
A shuddering prospect for an ambitious mother. Obviously, therefore,
the thing to do was to get her daughter out to India and marry her off
to a rich husband. The richer, the better.
Mrs. Craigie went to work in business-like fashion, and cast a
maternal eye over the "eligibles" she met at Government House. The one
among them she ultimately selected as a really desirable son-in-law
was a Calcutta judge, Sir Abraham Lumley. It was true he was more than
old enough to be the girl's father, and was distinctly liverish. But
this, she felt, was beside the point, since he had accumulated a vast
number of rupees, and would, before long, retire on a snug pension.
Sir Abraham was accordingly sounded. Hardened bachelor as he was, a
single glance at Lola's portrait was enough to send his blood-pressure
up to fever heat. In positive rapture at the idea of such fresh young
loveliness becoming his, he declared himself ready to change his
condition, and discussed handsome settlements.
With everything thus cut and dried, as she considered, Mrs. Craigie
took the next step in her programme. This was to leave India for
England, during the autumn of 1836, and tell Lola of the "good news"
in store for her. She was then to bring her back to Calcutta and the
expectant arms of Sir Abraham.
Honest Captain Craigie looked a little dubious when he was consulted.
"Perhaps she won't care about him," he suggested.
"Fiddlesticks!" retorted his wife. "Any girl would jump at the chance
of being Lady Lumley. Think of the position."
"I'm thinking of Lola," he said.