If you dine with all the world at seven, you have, still an hour or more
for Hyde Park, and “Rotten Row;” this half mile between Oxford street
and Piccadilly, to which the fashion of London confines itself as if the
remainder of the bright green Park were forbidden ground, is now fuller
than ever. There is the advantage of this _condensed_ drive, that you
are sure to see your friends here, earlier or later, in every day—(for
wherever you are to go with the horses, the conclusion of the order to
the coachman is, “home by the Park”)—and then if there is anything new
in the way of an arrival, a pretty foreigner, or a fresh face from the
country, some dandy’s tiger leaves his master at the gate, and brings
him at his Club, over his coffee, all possible particulars of her name,
residence, condition, and whatever other circumstances fall in his way.
By dropping in at Lady ——’s _soirée_ in the evening, if you were
interested in the face, you may inform yourself of more than you would
have drawn in a year’s acquaintance from the subject of your curiosity.
_Malapropos_ to my remark, here comes a turn-out, concerning which and
its occupant I have made many inquiries in vain—the pale-colored
chariot, with a pair of grays, dashing toward us from the Seymour gate.
As it comes by you will see, sitting quite in the corner, and in a very
languid and elegant attitude, a slight woman of perhaps twenty-four,
dressed in the simplest white cottage-bonnet that could be made, and,
with her head down, looking up through heavy black eyelashes, as if she
but waited till she had passed a particular object, to resume some
engrossing revery. Her features are Italian, and her attitude, always
the same indolent one, has also a redolence of that land of repose; but
there has been an English taste, and no ordinary one, in the arrangement
of that equipage and its dependants; and by the expressions, never
mistaken in London, of the well-appointed menials, you may be certain
that both master and mistress (if master there be,) exact no common
deference. She is always alone, and not often seen in the Park; and
whenever I have enquired of those likely to know, I found that she had
been observed, but could get no satisfactory information. She disappears
by the side toward the Regent’s park, and when once out of the gate, her
horses are let off at a speed that distances all pursuit that would not
attract observation. There is a look of “Who the deuce can it be?” in
the faces of all the mounted dandies, wherever she passes, for it is a
face which once seen is not easily thought of with indifference, or
forgotten. Immense as London is, a woman of anything like extraordinary
beauty would find it difficult to live there, incognito, a week; and how
this fair incomprehensible has contrived to elude the curiosity of
Hyde-park admiration, for nearly two years, is rather a marvel. There
she goes, however, and without danger of being arrested for a flying
highwayman, you could scarcely follow.
It is getting late, and, as we turn down toward the Clubs, we shall meet
the last and most fashionable comers to the Park. Here is a horseman,[4]
surrounded with half a dozen of the first young noblemen of England. He
rides a light bay horse with dark legs, whose delicate veins are like
the tracery of silken threads beneath the gloss of his limbs, and whose
small, animated head seems to express the very essence of speed and
fire. He is the most beautiful Park horse in England; and behind follows
a high-bred milk-white pony, ridden by a small, faultlessly-dressed
groom, who sits the spirited and fretting creature as if he anticipated
every movement before the fine hoof rose from the ground. He rides
admirably, but his master is more of a study. A luxuriance of black
curls escapes from the broad rim of a peculiar hat, and forms a relief
to the small and sculpture-like profile of a face as perfect, by every
rule of beauty, as the Greek Antinous. It would be too feminine but for
the muscular neck and broad chest from which the head rises, and the
indications of great personal strength in the Herculean shoulders. His
loose coat would disguise the proportions of a less admirable figure;
but, _au reste_, his dress is without fold or wrinkle and no _figurante_
of the ballet ever showed finer or more skilfully developed limbs. He is
one of the most daring in this country of bold riders; but modifies the
stiff English school of equestrianism, with the ease and grace of that
of his own country. His manner, though he is rather _Anglomane_, is in
striking contrast to the grave and quiet air of his companions; and
between his recognitions, right and left, to the passing promenaders, he
laughs and amuses himself with the joyous and thoughtless gayety of a
child. Acknowledged by all his acquaintances to possess splendid
talents, this “observed of all observers” is a singular instance of a
modern Sybarite—content to sacrifice time, opportunity, and the highest
advantages of mind and body, to the pleasure of the moment. He seems
exempt from all the usual penalties of such a career. Nothing seems to
do its usual work on him—care, nor exhaustion, nor recklessness, nor
the disapprobation of the heavy-handed opinion of the world. Always gay,
always brilliant, ready to embark at any moment, or at any hazard, in
anything that will amuse an hour, one wonders how and where such an
unwonted meteor will disappear.
But here comes a carriage without hammercloth or liveries—one of those
shabby-genteel conveyances, hired by the week, containing three or four
persons in the highest spirits, all talking and gesticulating at once.
As the carriage passes the “beau-knot,” (as ——, and his inseparable
group are sometimes called) one or two of the dandies spur up, and
resting their hands on the windows, offer the compliments of the day to
the old lady within, with the most earnest looks of admiration. The
gentlemen in her company become silent, and answer to the slight bows of
the cavaliers with foreign monosyllables, and presently the coachman
whips up once more, the horsemen drop off, and the excessive gayety of
the party resumes its tone. You must have been struck, as the carriage
passed, with the brilliant whiteness and regularity of the lady’s teeth,
and still more with the remarkable play of her lips, which move as if
the blood in them were imprisoned lightning. (The figure is strong, but
nothing else conveys to my own mind what I am trying to describe.)
Energy, grace, fire, rapidity, and a capability of utter abandonment to
passion and expression, live visibly on those lips. Her eyes are
magnificent. Her nose is regular, with nostrils rimmed round with an
expansive nerve, that gives them constantly the kind of animation
visible in the head of a fiery Arab. Her complexion is one of those
which, dark and wanting in brilliance by day, light up at night with an
alabaster fairness; and when the glossy black hair, which is now put
away so plainly under her simple bonnet, falls over her shoulders in
heavy masses, the contrast is radiant. The gentlemen in that carriage
are Rubini, Lablache, and a gentleman who passes for the lady’s uncle;
and the lady is _Julia Grisi_.
The smoke over the heart of the city begins to thicken into darkness,
the gas lamps are shooting up, bright and star-like, along the
Kensington road, and the last promenaders disappear. And now the world
of London, the rich and gay portions of it at least, enjoy that which
compensates them for the absence of the bright nights and skies of
Italy—a climate within doors, of comfort and luxury, unknown under
brighter heavens.
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[4] Count D’Orsay.