A FORTNIGHT later, Catherine Duchess of Queensbury—a very imperious and
beautiful lady, was seated in her own library, and her companion was his
Grace of Bolton. But a few words must needs be said of this celebrated
person, Mr. Gay’s patroness and (it must needs also be said) instigator
in his attacks upon the court. Never was a lady more favoured by
fortune. Born of the great Hyde family that had given two Queens to
England—their Majesties Mary the Second and Queen Anne, she married as
greatly as her birth demanded, becoming Duchess of Queensbury and Dover
in her twentieth year, and paling all the beauties of her own rank by
her radiant face. A wit, a termagant, with a tongue like a dagger, and
the most wilful of her sex, she queened it right royally, and if the
majestic Queen Caroline could daunt her Grace ’twas as much as she
could, and that by no means always. Certainly no other person made the
attempt. For Prior’s “Kitty beautiful and young,”—who by the way seemed
but to grow in beauty as in years, considered herself the first lady in
Europe by right divine, and for those who failed to bow before her
sceptre ’twas apt to become a rod, and descend upon their backs with a
resounding thwack. But sweet as a summer breeze to those who were
fortunate enough to please her Divinity! Of these Mr. Gay had the
happiness to be one of the chief, and at the present time his knife and
fork was laid daily at her Grace’s table and a room kept at his
disposal, his Grace the Duke, her husband, approving all that his
consort decreed. It came as a consequence that Madam followed every
event in the production of “The Beggar’s Opera” with as much interest as
its author, hoping to launch it with all its sting at her deadly enemy
Sir Robert Walpole, the famous minister.
Behold then the fair Kitty—whom her enemies described as a cat—in the
full bloom of her charms, more lovely at twenty-eight than when she
stole the car of love and set the world afire (to quote again her
adorer, Prior) in her teens. A noble looking creature with large lucent
eyes and long throat to set off her diamonds, and brown hair shot with
gold dressed so as to add to her fine height. She might have been an
Empress. Yet, will it be believed that this woman who moved and spoke a
goddess confessed, could descend so far as to snatch off her brocaded
apron in a fury when those dainty ornaments were forbid at Court, and
fling it in the face of the Lord Chamberlain who strove to hinder her
Grace’s invasion in the contraband garment? Not only did she so, but
considered herself the aggrieved party and swept on into the Presence,
darting such awful glances at him as must have withered the unfortunate
but for the supporting anger of royalty on his side.
Such then was the lady with whom Bolton sat closeted now. They had
played together as children and between them subsisted a strong and
faithful friendship that admitted of truth on both sides with an
unalterable kindness beneath, whatever little whiffs might disturb the
surface.
She sat at her tambour frame stitching the flowers of a silken garden,
and while she stuck her needle in and out she discoursed of ‘The
Beggar’s Opera.’ ’Twas truly in her mind night and day, owing to the
malicious pleasure she took in the hope of wounding Sir Robert Walpole
with the innuendoes her Grace and Mr. Gay had prepared.
“Gay tells me all goes as well as even he could wish,” says she. “’Twas
Heaven’s own blessing sent us a Polly he can approve, for like all the
tribe of authors he’s so thin-skinned that unless all’s perfection he
expects the sky to fall and crush his hopes. He describes her the
prettiest wench he ever set eyes on—a black beauty but with eyes like
violets.”
“Beauty is not all in a player,” says the Duke, caressing her silky
lap-dog on his knees. “’Tis manner—a something seductive, I know not
how to word it, but a something that makes the whole world desire to
embrace the lady.”
The Duchess gave one of her big hearty laughs.
“And doubtless they do so—more or less!” says she. His Grace still
stroked the dog’s silken ears.
“Why, not in this case, Madam, it appears. ’Tis a case of the chaste
Diana, and——”
“What? On the stage? I won’t believe it.”
“But you must believe it. For one whole fortnight—fourteen days, no
less, this damsel hath stood fire and hath not lowered her flag, no, not
by an inch. ’Tis reported that her Macheath is so in love with her that
he can scarce play the character of the gay libertine that shines on all
the ladies alike, and is in public, as in his private character of Mr.
Walker, so lovesick that he can’t say ‘How happy could I be with
either,’ without conveying by every sign and token that he has no eye at
all for the unhappy Lucy Lockit, and that his whole soul is Polly’s. Mr.
Rich hath scolded, argued, reasoned, and all in vain.”
“And Polly?”
“Polly will have none of him, she turns up the most exquisite nose in
Christendom, barring your Grace’s, and when she must sidle up to him
does it with a Don’t-touch-me! air that she must certainly amend or
incur Mr. Gay’s severest reproof.”
“Then you’ve seen her, Sir, I conclude?”
“Certainly, Madam, what would my character for fashion be worth had I
not seen the new, the famous, the adorable Polly? I was presented to her
in the green-room, but could scarce form a judgment of her face so
resolutely did she keep her eyes on the ground and tilt her hat brim
over her eyes. There was that in her air that said ‘A man’s an animal I
distrust most liberally. Not a man shall come within the circumference
of my hoop but I’ll freeze him into awe. Keep your distance, Sir!’
Accordingly I kept it. I know not what she is like.”
“Then there’s a lover behind the scenes,” says her Grace, sticking a
jonquil and laughing.
“Why be so cruel in your judgment, Madam? Hasn’t Mrs. Bracegirdle
carried her reputation unspotted through the world and she a famous
player? Don’t your Grace recall Congreve’s verse?”
And in a very mellow and manly tenor the Duke sang _sotta voce_:
“Pious Celinda goes to prayers
Whene’er I ask a favour,
And yet the tender fool’s in tears
When she believes I’ll leave her.
Would I were free from this constraint,
Or else had power to win her:
Would she could make of me a saint,
Or I of her a sinner.”
“But he couldn’t—he never did!” concluded his Grace. “Not though he was
seven years younger than the lady, and wrote all his plays about her
charms! Then why not a chaste—a disdainful Polly also!”
“One swallow doesn’t make a summer! But after all, since we expect
nothing from these women we’re the less disappointed. Has my Lord
Baltimore essayed his enchantments?”
“Fie, Madam, fie! Would you have me a traitor? The American Prince
revolves on his own princely orbit. I’m but—Benedick, the married man.
How should I know what his Brilliance does? I do but look through the
window of my prison.”
He spoke half melancholy, half bitter. Indeed there were times when his
fetters galled him unbearably, and the mystery of his miserable married
life was heavy on his spirits. His intimates knew that cloud on his brow
and respected it. The Duchess stretched a fair hand weighted with great
emeralds and laid it on his, but said nothing save with her eyes,
softened and kind, for the nonce. A moment past and she spoke under her
breath;
“A long punishment for a moment’s madness, my friend!”
“And not even my own madness! I have not so much as that poor
consolation to aid me in bearing my punishment. A boy of eighteen and—
But I have sworn no word shall pass my lips. What use hath the world for
us if we growl and whine? No, Madam, help me to laugh. What were we
discussing?”
“Polly,” says she, with a sadness in her eyes that became her very well.
“But, Bolton, before we quit the subject, tell me this—that am your
friend. Is there never a woman in London that you could make your
mistress?”
“Thousands!” says he with a harsh laugh.
“No—no. I meant not so. But a good woman, beautiful and kind, who might
mend the sore place in your heart and give you at least some sort of a
home? You’re thirty-two now—Four years older than me,—and even I don’t
always feel young whatever way my looks may lie. You need a home. ’Tis a
thing often done, Bolton. Yourself knows that I could run off a list
this minute of half a hundred men that have done this and who thinks the
worse?”
“I’ll ruin no woman’s life!” says he, with his dark sad eyes upon the
ground.
“There’s many would think it promotion, not ruin.”
“What! To live with a soured disappointed man, fettered hand and foot,
sick of life at times, distrustful of all women except his friend—the
lovely Kitty? Unable to love any woman however he may amuse himself in
passing. No Madam! What has any poor fool done that I should expose her
to a life like this? I can be cheated with good humour, but I will not
cheat. Say no more. I have my amusements like other men and I value them
as little as the cards and horses and other follies that make our days
and nights. You have a soul above them—I also. See, I’ll tell you a
secret, I have a dream—a vision——”
“Of the inexpressible She?” cries Kitty, suspending her needle in air.
“Yes and no, Madam. An inexpressible She indeed—but one of the Muses. I
think to write a book. I have a story in my head, and as yet no words to
tell it, but some day——”
He paused, and again said bitterly:
“But what use? The town would laugh itself sick over the foolish
nobleman who aspired to author. Rank, Madam, is a fetter as well as
marriage. It galls me sometimes. What if I run off one day to
Baltimore’s American colony, and renounce all this glitter for my cousin
the heir? ’Twill be his indeed, for heir of my own I shall never have.”
“Never is a long day!” says her Grace, re-threading her needle. “’Tis my
eternal aversion to hear you despond. ’Tis true your wife pinches you
execrably. But ’tis true also that she may run off with her physician as
Lady Selby did but last week.”
“We won’t jest about my wife, Madam, if it please you. After all, she’s
my wife and I respect the position if I don’t respect her. Hallo—who
comes here? Mr. Gay, your servant!”
For the door opened and Mr. Gay the ever-welcome, appeared unannounced,
bowing low to her Grace and her companion. She flung her tambour frame
aside and sprang lightly to her feet.
“Hallo also! How goes it Gay? Gayly? Do they speak the lines with point,
with malice? Are the pretty chickabiddies all learning to flutter about
their Macheath? Why this anxious brow, man?”
“Because, Madam, I’m harassed about Polly.”
“Not bolted—not flown? Trust a prude!” cries the Duchess.
“Nothing less, your Grace. But she was lodging with Scawen, Rich’s old
factotum that does all his odd jobs and’s a kind of remembrancer to him.
Well—the poor old trot has catcht the small-pox, God knows how, and
poor Polly is homeless and Rich distraught. She can’t go home, for her
mother’s husband would fain use her for a pretty decoy-duck in his
coffee house (which between ourselves deserves a worse name), and Rich
knows of no decent lodging for her high or low. You are aware, Madam,
that his acquaintance is not the most straight-laced. ’Tis a droll
quandary, but troublesome. The girl is so pretty she needs a guardian.”
“Lord save us!” says the Duke. “Won’t your own character constitute you
a duenna, Mr. Gay? I don’t imagine either a tongue or a sword would wag
if you safeguarded the lady’s morals. But is she in truth such a Dian?”
“I beg you won’t jest, your Grace!” cries Mr. Gay, pushing his peruke
off his brow in his perplexity. “I am aware that a young woman’s virtue
is a subject for mockery to all the fops in town, but, notwithstanding,
this untoward circumstance may put an end to our hopes. The girl knows
not where to go nor what to do. She sits in tears, and her mother
declares she shall go to an aunt in Sussex tomorrow, for she don’t give
a fig for the play. Would sooner the girl didn’t play at all!”
“Lord save us!” says the Duchess. “But isn’t there any among the
player-women can give her house-room?”
“Why, Madam, Mrs. Bishop—Well, not to be indelicate, we all know Mrs.
Bishop is not the duenna one should choose for a virgin, and the
rest—well, there’s objections to them all.”
“Lord bless me!” repeats the Duchess. “Little did I think our Polly to
be so fragile a porcelain;—who in the world is this icicle, Mr. Gay?”
Mr. Gay looked about him cautiously:
“Why, I’m under bond to Rich not to reveal the particulars, but with
your Grace I know ’twill go no further. The young lady’s name’s not
Fenton, as will appear in the bills, but Beswick. Diana Beswick. But her
mother and she insist it be not known, she being a gentlewoman.”
“Diana!” says the Duke, laughing, “’Tis certainly appropriate.”
“Beswick!” cries the Duchess, “Why there was a Mr. Beswick in the King’s
naval service. ’Twas in command of the Diana sloop that he saved Mr.
Francis Hyde, my cousin from a watery grave. Ask Lady Louisa else! They
presented the gentleman with a gold watch and a hundred guineas, and
later he went off to the American colonies and they heard no more.”
“Damme, if it isn’t the very man! Why, Rich told me of the American
business no later than last night. Depend on’t, he called his girl after
his ship,” says Mr. Gay.
The three stood looking upon one another like persons amazed. The
Duchess collected herself first.
“Why, then, Mr. Gay, the girl’s a gentlewoman. Mrs. Boscawen asserts Mr.
Beswick was the son of persons of condition in Sussex. The poor
unfortunate!— And is she sunk to this! Then I’ll tell you what—if you
can assure me she’ll not corrupt my woman’s morals, (and God knows I
think ’tis more like to be the other way about,) I’ll give her bed and
board here. ’Tis a thing I would not have chose, for I am spoke about
enough already in connection with your play; but I won’t have it
hindered, so I won’t! And if the girl’s honest it shan’t be my doing if
she don’t remain so. Fetch her hither, Mr. Gay, and instruct her to keep
a quiet tongue in her head about the playhouse, and if the world talks
why here’s one can stand it!”
Both gentlemen stared at her Grace amazed. To take a poor player into
her ducal house.— Lord, what a freak! But ’tis to be remembered her
Grace of Queensbury was all freaks and snapt her fingers in the Devil’s
face as soon as look at him. What gave Mr. Gay pause was not so much
this as that his play was assuming a political complexion in public
minds from the allusions and double meanings it contained, and he might
doubt how far ’twas politic to pin it to the Duchess’s petticoat tail.
Nevertheless he was in a sad quandary and here was his way out. He dropt
on one knee like a courtier and kissed the fair hand, so loaded with
jewels.
“_O Dea certe!_” he cried. “You come indeed a divine being to the
rescue. I’ll away this moment and bring the chaste Diana to your feet.
Indeed ’tis a modest girl, Madam, and I think you’ll not regret your
kindness. Moreover, so many flies are after the honey pot that ’twill be
an ease to my mind lest we have an affair like Bracegirdle’s with my
Lord Mohun, of which there have been examples both before and since.”
He alluded to the infamous Lord Mohun’s attempt to abduct the beauteous
Mrs. Bracegirdle. A circumstance very notorious in its day and known to
both their Graces.
“Lord! You make me shudder, man!” says the Duchess, “No, but we won’t
lose our Polly! I suppose you fear my Lord Baltimore. I heard from a
sure hand he was buzzing about her. So, off, Mr. Gay, off! Lose not a
moment. Sound my whistle, Bolton. I’ll give directions.”
Mr. Gay was off in a trice, and the Duke caught up the little gold
whistle on the Buhl table and whistled softly till a small black page
ran in,—the latest fancy of modish ladies, a droll little figure in
turban and gold coat and girdle, grinning and saluting with head and
hands.
“Call Mrs. Francis, Pompey,” says her Grace, and the imp bows to the
ground and runs off helter-skelter.
Directions given, the lady turns to his Grace.
“Wait and see the arrival! I protest I’m vastly curious to see the fair
cause of so much pother. ’Twas a prodigious strange circumstance I
should hear of her father. And stranger still I should commence
duenna—I that never heeded a prude in my life nor ever will! What say
you to me in my new _rôle_, Sir?”
She pulled down the corners of her lovely mouth and rolled up her eyes
sanctimoniously and made a face so droll, that he must laugh whether he
would or no, and until Mr. Gay returned with his prize her Grace amused
herself by preaching over the back of her chair an extreme outspoken
sermon on the perils of the town and the best means to avoid them. ’Twas
in the manner of the Right Reverend the Bishop of London and none the
less droll for that. She was but at her Amen when the door opened and
Mr. Gay re-entered followed by a shy figure in cloak and hood, the groom
of the chambers preceding them scornful-eyed.
“Mr. Gay, your Grace, and Mrs. Lavinia Fenton.”
The Duchess curtseyed imperceptibly, ’tis so difficult to divest the
mind of the prejudices of rank, and then came forward smiling to the
shrinking girl—too terrified almost to remember her manners.
“You’ll pardon me Mrs. Beswick (Diana started back), and the liberty I
take when I say I have the good fortune to know some matters relating to
your respectable father and his gallantry that saved Mr. Francis Hyde’s
life. His daughter hath not forgot that circumstance, I dare swear!”
’Twas kindly and graciously said, and Diana lifted an April face and
curtseyed lower.
“Indeed, your Grace, I have not. I have the watch now. Is the gentleman
of your Grace’s family?”
“So much so that I take it as a debt to be repaid to your father’s
daughter, Madam. And I am now to request that in this unforeseen
difficulty just arisen you’ll favour me with your company here for as
long as is convenient to yourself.”
“But, Madam—Your Grace—The playhouse hours, the rehearsals! I’m
overwhelmed with your goodness but know myself a very inconvenient
guest.”
“That shall be my care, not yours, Mrs. Diana,” says the Duchess,
laughing her charmingest. She laughed with a gusto, this lady, that
carried all with her, and Diana looked at her, amazed and comforted by
the condescension and obligingness of so great a person. She was
bewildered indeed. To be rescued from all her perplexities and griefs,
and carried off thus suddenly into what appeared to be a heaven of
gentle voices and kind looks and beauty, was more like a dream than any
waking occurrence in her short and somewhat sad life.
“I have no words—no none—with which to thank you, Madam, but indeed I
vow that my conduct shall be answerable to my gratitude and that your
Grace shall have no cause to regret your condescension.”
“Child, I look in your fair eyes and have no fear. I see in them the
mirror of a candid soul!” cries the Duchess, too beautiful herself to
disparage the beauty of others. This lady had the frankness of a man
rather than the finesse of a woman and spoke her thoughts with a candour
sometimes charming, sometimes embarrassing in a high degree, but always
her own. She added now:
“And indeed your looks are such that you need a shepherdess to keep so
pretty a lamb in the right pasture. There are wolves about, child, and
some of them in sheep’s clothing. Doubtless you know this already?”
“Unfortunately, too well, Madam!” She said no more but there was a
trouble in her face that spoke volumes as she stood patient by the
table, waiting the Duchess’s pleasure. It was then for the first time
that she became aware of a tall gentleman standing silent by the
fireplace. A very splendid gentleman in brown and gold, and with a dark
and melancholy face like the Stuart portraits at Hampton Court. It was
not without the hidden sanction of the blood that his Grace resembled a
fine Vandyke of that unfortunate family. Clothe him in armour and a
falling lace collar, and his connection needed not trumpeting, but spoke
for itself in long dark eyes and lips full of sensibility and
tenderness. But that’s an old scandal.
Diana knew nothing of this, but as she looked upon him a strange
romantic interest that surrounded him like a vapour, not to be expressed
but visible, was perceptible to even her young untutored mind. Worded,
it was nothing but this:
“Who may be this great gentleman who looks so proud and sad?”
Thought, it was a hundred things more and all inexpressible. He moved
slightly forward, and the Duchess revolved majestic in her hoop.
“This is his Grace the Duke of Bolton, Mrs. Beswick. A great devotee to
your charming profession. Rely on’t the secret of your name shall go no
further than his Grace. He and I are sworn friends, and wherever ’tis
possible to advance your interests he’ll second me.”
“I had the happiness to be presented to Mrs. Fenton in the green-room at
Portugal Street, but sure she can’t remember one stranger among so
many.”
She looked full at him. Certainly he could not complain that he saw not
her face now. He thought it one of incomparable sweetness, lovely in
feature and colour, but how should any man think otherwise? He drew a
little nearer as if he would have willingly had her speak with him.
And at that moment two footmen flung the wings of the great door wide
open, and the groom of the chambers announced:
“My Lady Fanny Armine. My Lord Baltimore.”