A few days after his departure I was surprised by a visit from Sir
William Abdy, with whom I was but very slightly acquainted. I thought
it strange his paying any visits so immediately after the elopement
of his wife, who was a natural daughter of the Marquis Wellesley by a
Frenchwoman, who, as I am told, once used to walk in the Palais Royal at
Paris, but afterwards became Marchioness of Wellesley.
"I have called upon you, Miss Harriette," said Sir William, almost
in tears, "in the first place, because you are considered exactly
like my wife,"--my likeness to Lady Abdy had often been thought very
striking--"and, in the second, because I know you are a woman of
feeling!"
I opened my eyes in astonishment.
"Women," he continued, "have feeling, and that's more than men have."
I could not conceive what he would be at.
"You know, Miss Harriette, all about what has happened, and my crim.
con. business, don't you, miss?"
"Yes."
"Could you have thought it?"
"Oh yes!"
"And yet, I am sure, Charles Bentinck is worse than I am."
"In what way, pray?"
"Why, a worse head," said Sir William, touching his forehead, "and I
don't pretend to be clever myself."
"Is that all? But I would not be so very demonstrative as to touch my
forehead, if I were you."
"That Charles Bentinck," said he, half angry, "is the greatest fool in
the world; and in Paris we always used to laugh at him."
"But," said I, "why did you suffer his lordship to be eternally at your
house?"
"Why, dear me!" answered Abdy, peevishly, "I told him in a letter I did
not like it and I thought it wrong, and he told me it was no such thing."
"And therefore," I remarked, "you suffered him to continue his visits as
usual?"
"Why, good gracious, what could I do! Charles Bentinck told me, upon his
honour, he meant nothing wrong."
"This man is really too good!" thought I, and then I affected the
deepest commiseration of his mishap.
"Why did she run away from you?" said I. "Why not, at least, have
carried on the thing quietly?"
"That's what I say," said Abdy.
"Because," I continued, "had she remained with you sir, you would have
always looked forward with hope to that period when age and ugliness
should destroy all her power of making conquests."
"Oh," said Abdy, clasping his hands, "if any real friend like you had
heartened me up in this way at the time, I could have induced her to
have returned to me! But then, Miss Wilson, they all said I should be
laughed at and frightened me to death. It was very silly to be sure of
me to mind them; for it is much better to be laughed at, than to be so
dull and miserable as I am now."
"Shall I make you a cup of tea, Sir William?"
"Oh! Miss, you are so good! tea is very refreshing when one is in
trouble."
I hastened to my bell, to conceal the strong inclination I felt to laugh
in his face, and ordered tea.
"Green tea is the best, is it not, Miss?" said Sir William.
"Oh, yes," answered I, "as green as a willow leaf: and in extreme cases
like yours I am apt to recommend a little gunpowder."
"Just as you please, Miss."
I asked him, after he had swallowed three cups of tea, whether he did
not feel himself a little revived.
"Yes, Miss, I should soon get better here; but you know my house is such
a very dull house and in such a very dull street too! Hill-street is, I
think, the dullest street in all London, do you know, Miss Wilson."
"True, Sir William! would not you like to go to Margate?"
"Why I was thinking of travelling, for you know in Hill Street, there is
her sofa just as she left."
"Very nervous indeed," said I, interrupting him. "I would burn the sofa
at all events."
"And then there is her pianoforte."
"Lady Abdy was musical then?"
"Oh, very. She was always at it! I used to be tired to death of her
music and often wished she would leave off: but now she is gone Miss
Wilson, I would give the world to hear her play Foote's minuet!"
"Or, 'Off she goes,'" added I.
"What is that, pray, Miss?"
"A very lively dance," I answered.
"True, Miss, I recollect my wife used to play it."
"Dear me, Sir William, how could she be so foolish as to run away? I
dare say you never interfered with her, or entered her room without
knocking."
"Never, upon my honour."
"Well, I always heard you were a very kind, obliging, good-natured
husband."
"Yes, and sometimes, when I used to knock latterly, Lady Abdy would not
open the door!"
"That was wrong," said I, shaking my head, "very wrong."
"And how could that nasty, stupid fellow seduce her I cannot think!"
"There was good blood in her veins, you know, by the mother's side.
Besides, to tell you the truth, I don't think Charles Bentinck did
seduce Lady Abdy from you."
"Oh! dear, Miss Wilson, what do you mean?"
"Shall I speak frankly?"
"Oh, Lord a mercy! pray do! I am quite in a fright!"
"I think Fred Lamb was one of her seducers; but how many more may have
had a finger in the pie, I really cannot take upon myself to say."
"Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! Miss Wilson!" said Sir William, grasping my arm
with both his hands, "you do not say so? What makes you think so?"
"I have seen Fred Lamb daily and constantly riding past her door. I know
him to be a young man of strong passions, much fonder of enjoyment than
pursuit; and further, my sister Fanny, one of the most charitable of all
human beings, told me she had seen Fred Lamb in a private box at Drury
Lane with your wife, and her hand was clasped in his, which he held on
his knee!"
"Oh, la, Miss!"
"Come, do not take on so," said I, in imitation of Brummell's nonsense,
and striving to conceal a laugh, "leave your dull house in Hill Street,
and set off to-morrow morning, on some pleasant excursion. Be assured
that you will find fifty pretty girls, who will be so delighted with you
as soon to make you forget Lady Abdy."
"But then," said Sir William, "I cannot think how she came to be in the
family-way: for I am sure, Miss Wilson, that during all the years we
have lived together, I always----"
"Never mind," interrupted I, "go home now, and prepare for your journey,
and be sure to write to me, and tell me if your mind is easier."
"Thank you, Miss Wilson! you are all goodness. I'll be sure to write,
and I mean to set off to-morrow morning, and I'll never come back to
that nasty, dull, large house of mine again."
"Get the sofa removed," said I, "at all events."
"Yes, Miss, I will, thank you; and the pianoforte. So good-bye, Miss;"
and then returning, quite in a whisper, "perhaps, Miss Wilson, when you
and I become better acquainted, you'll give me a kiss!"
I only laughed, and bade him take care of himself, and so we parted.
All this nonsense was however very poor amusement to me, now that I had
lost Lord Ponsonby. I considered that, although I was by my hard fate
denied the pleasure of consoling his affliction, I might yet go into
the country and lead the same retired sort of life which he did; and
there endeavour by study to make myself rather more worthy of him. "I am
a very ignorant little fool," thought I, "but it does not, therefore,
follow, that I should remain a fool all my life, like Sir William Abdy."
My plan was settled and arranged in less than an hour, and my small
trunk packed, my carriage filled with books, and I and my _femme de
chambre_ on our road to Salt Hill.
I told the landlady of the Castle Inn, that I was come to take up my
residence with her for a fortnight, and that I should require a quiet
comfortable room to study in. The word study sounded very well, I
thought, as I pronounced it, and, after arranging my books in due order,
in the pretty rural room allotted to me by my civil landlady, I sat down
to consider which of them I should begin with, in order to become clever
and learned at the shortest notice, as that good lady provided people
with hot dinners.
"Ponsonby, being forty already," thought I, "will be downright out,
while I continue to bloom: therefore, when this idea makes him more
timid and humble, I should like to improve my powers of consoling him
and charming away all his cares. Let me see! What knowledge will be
likely to make me most agreeable to him? Oh! politics. What a pity that
he does not like something less dry and more lively! But, no matter!"
and I turned over the leaves of my History of England, for George
the Second and George the Third, and I began reading the Debates in
Parliament. "Let me consider!" continued I, pausing. "I am determined
to stick firm to the Opposition side, all my life; because Ponsonby
must know best: and yet it goes against the grain of all my late
aristocratical prejudices, which, by-the-bye, only furnish a proof how
wrong-headed young girls often are."
I began to read a long speech of Lord Ponsonby's late intimate friend,
Charles James Fox. "This man," thought I, when I had finished his
speech, "appears to have much reason on his side; but then all great
orators seem right, till they are contradicted by better reasoners; so,
if I read Pitt's answer to this speech, I shall become as aristocratical
as ever. I must begin with Pitt, and finish with Fox's answer and
objections to Pitt's plan." I tried this method of making a little Whig
of myself, _pour les beaux yeux de milord_ Ponsonby. "After all," said
I, pausing, "it will be no use, and very mean of me, to think one way
and profess to think another; and it still strikes me the better reason
and the sounder judgment is with Pitt, who seems to go further and
embrace a vaster and more solid plan than Fox. The latter finding all
that wit and brilliant exercise of humour necessary, makes his appear
to me the worse course; then there is too much method in these Whigs,
and their abuse of administration becomes pointless; because it seems as
though perpetually ready cut and dried; and so vulgar! and opposition is
such a losing game! and then I have a sneaking kindness for my king."
"_Quelle dommage!_ I cannot be a Whig, for the life of me!" said I,
throwing away the book, and quietly reclined my head on my hand, in deep
thought as to what next I should study, having determined at once, out
of respect to Lord Ponsonby to stand neuter in regard to politics, since
I could not make a Whig of myself.
My landlady came in to know what I would have for dinner.
"Oh, ma'am," I exclaimed, pushing aside my book, and walking towards
the window, "it is impossible for persons to study if they are to be
interrupted by such absurd questions."
The woman begged my pardon.
"Listen to me, madam," said I, with the utmost concentration of dignity;
"I have come into this retirement for the purpose of hard reading;
therefore, instead of asking me what I want for dinner every day, or
disturbing my books or papers, I shall thank you to bring up a tray with
a fowl, or anything you like, exactly at five, and, placing it upon that
little table, you must, if you please, go out of the room again without
saying a single word, and when I am hungry I will eat."
Mine hostess looked at me as if she would have laughed if she had dared,
and I felt somewhat of a sort of inclination to join her; however, I
contrived to preserve my consequence, and asked, while attempting to
assume a severe frown, how old she would guess me to be.
"About sixteen or seventeen, Miss."
"I am almost nineteen, madam," said I, elevating my head, with much
pride. "You must not laugh!" I added, seeing that her risible muscles
again exhibited symptoms of incipient activity, and well they might;
for I was the most tom-boy, childish-looking creature who ever sat
down by herself in a large room to study the merits of Pitt and Fox;
and, what was worse, one of the most perfectly uneducated young women
of my age that ever went to school; but then my school was only a
French convent, where there really was nothing which excited in me the
slightest curiosity after knowledge, and I never learned a single lesson
by heart in my life, nor I believe ever could. The abbess was in despair
about me. The confessor said, with Fred Bentinck, that I should come to
no good; and I played the old nuns so many tricks that they were all
frightened to death of me.
Being once more left to myself, I snatched up a volume of Shakespeare,
_pour me désennuyer un moment_, and opened it at this passage, in the
tragedy of _Antony and Cleopatra:_
The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver;
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar'd all description: she did lie
In her pavilion (cloth of gold of tissue),
O'erpicturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid, did.
"How beautiful!" said I, throwing down the book, "Can anything
be imagined more glowing or more animated than this description!
However I came here to study--and Shakespeare is too amusing to be
considered study. True I have heard people remark that many passages
of Shakespeare's writings are obscure; yet it seems to me that all the
beauties are clear and plain, and the little obscurities not worth
puzzling about:--therefore I'll study history; one must know something
of that. I'll begin with ancient Greece, never mind English history, we
can all get credit for that."
The Greeks employed me for two whole days, and the Romans six more: I
took down notes of what I thought most striking. I then read _Charles
the Twelfth_, by Voltaire, and liked it less than most people do;
and then Rousseau's _Confessions_; then Racine's _Tragedies_, and
afterwards, Boswell's _Life of Johnson_. I allowed myself only ten
minutes for my dinner. In short, what might I not have read, had not I
been barbarously interrupted by the whole family of the Pitchers, who,
having once taken a fancy to my society, I had no chance but returning
to town as fast as possible after a three weeks' residence at Salt Hill,
during which time I had constantly heard from Lord Ponsonby, who was in
Ireland; but hoped shortly to join me in town.
I was soon visited by my dear mother. She wished to consult me about
what was best to be done to put my young sister out of the way of
that most profligate nobleman, Lord Deerhurst, who was, she said,
continually watching her in the Park and streets whenever she went
out. I could hardly believe that anything wrong could be meant towards
a child scarcely thirteen years of age; but my mother assured me that
he had been clandestinely writing to her and sending her little paltry
presents of gilt chains, such as are sold by Jews in the streets; these
said trumpery articles being presented to my sister Sophia, in old
jewel-boxes of Love and Wirgman, in order to make it appear to the poor
child that they were valuable.
"I see no remedy," said my dear mother, "but sending Sophia to some
school at a distance; and I hope to obtain her father's consent for that
purpose as soon as possible. No time is to be lost, Sophia being so sly
about receiving these things that I only found it out by the greatest
accident. The last were delivered to her by a young friend of hers,
quite a child, to whom Lord Deerhurst addressed himself, not having been
able to meet with Sophia lately."
I was very much disgusted with this account, and quite agreed with my
mother that it would be the safest plan to send the child away.
Before she took her leave, she assured me that, if possible, Sophia
should depart immediately.
The next day I went to visit Fanny. Colonel Armstrong was with her. I
allude to the Duke of York's aide-de-camp. The Earl of Bective was also
there.
I inquired how Amy went on.
Sydenham was beginning to consider her evening parties rather a bore.
Julia, they said, was growing more gracious towards George Brummell than
Colonel Cotton liked.
Armstrong happening to be disengaged, which was seldom the case,
proposed our taking Amy, who was a great favourite of his, by surprise,
in the absence of Sydenham, who was at Brighton assisting Lord Wellesley
to take care of Moll Raffles.
"Do you propose dining with her?" said I.
"Why not?" inquired Colonel Armstrong.
"I hope she will treat you better than she does her own sisters when we
try her pot-luck."
"I am not at all particular," said Armstrong.
"I never saw but one man," retorted I, "among all Amy's train of
admirers, whom she did not contrive to cure of their temerity in
intruding themselves to dinner. The Baron Tuille's ardent love was, for
six months, proof against Amy's bill of fare. Amy used to sit and sit
till hunger would not permit her to fast any longer, and at last she
would say, 'Baron! I am going down to dinner: but I have nothing to
offer you but a black pudding!' 'Note!' the Dutchman always answered,
'Note! noting I like so vel!'"
"What," said Armstrong, "does she never have anything but black pudding?"
"Oh! yes," I replied, "sometimes toad-in-a-hole, or hard dumplings; but
black pudding takes the lead."
Fanny, with all her good nature, began to laugh as she related the
following little anecdote, which had occurred while I was at Salt
Hill, apropos to Amy's penchant for a black pudding. My little sister
Sophia had been permitted to go and dine with Amy one day, having been
particularly invited a week before. Nevertheless, when she arrived
Amy appeared to start as though surprised and said, "Oh! by-the-bye,
I forgot to order my dinner, and my maid and man are both out, with
letters and cards of invitations. However I can soon manage to get a
black pudding broiled. You will not mind running to South Audley-street
for a pound of black pudding? Shall you, my dear?"
"Oh, no!" replied Sophia, reddening up to the eyes at the vile proposal,
having lately become a coquette, from being told that she was an angel,
and being really a very ladylike girl at all times; and just now she
wore her smartest dress. However, she always said yes to whatever people
asked her, wanting courage or character to beg leave to differ from
anybody's opinion.
The said black pudding, then, was put into her hand by the vulgar,
unfeeling pork-butcher, enveloped only by a small bit of the dirty
_Times_ newspaper, just sufficiently large for her to take hold of it by
in the middle.
Sophia, being a remarkably shy, proud girl, felt herself ready to sink,
as she walked down South Audley-street at that very fashionable hour of
the day, with such a substitute for a reticule flourishing quite bare
in her hand, as a greasy black pudding! She tried hanging down her arm:
but rose it again in alarm, lest she should spoil her gay new frock.
Then a ray of good sense, which shot across her brain, her head I mean,
induced her with an effort of desperation to hold the thing naturally,
without attempting to conceal it; but, Oh, luckless fate! at the very
moment poor Sophia had obtained this victory over her feelings, whom
should she bolt against, all on a sudden in turning down South-street,
but the first flatterer and ardent admirer of her young graces, Viscount
Deerhurst!
The black pudding was now huddled up into the folds of her new frock:
then she rued the day when pocket-holes went out of fashion. Deerhurst
now, holding out his hand to her, her last desperate resource was to
throw down the vile black pudding as softly as possible behind her, and
she then shook hands with his lordship.
"Miss! Miss!" bawled out, at this instant, a comical-looking,
middle-aged Irish labourer, who happened to be close behind her, and had
picked up the delicate morsel, at the instant of its fall.
Thrusting forward the spectral lump, "Miss! Miss! how comed you then
dear, to let go o' this and never miss it? Be to laying hold of it at
this end, honey! It's quite clean, dear, and sure and you need not be
afear'd to handle it at that same end," added Pat, giving it a wipe,
with the sleeve of his dirty ragged jacket.
Deerhurst, who it must be allowed possesses a great deal of natural
humour, could stand this scene between Pat and Sophia no longer, and
burst into an immoderate fit of laughter, while poor Sophia, almost
black in the face with shame and rage, assured the man she had dropped
nothing of the sort, and did not know what he meant--and then she ran
away so fast that Deerhurst could not overtake her, and she got safe
home to her mother's, leaving Amy to watch at her window the arrival of
her favourite black pudding.
Colonel Armstrong was absolutely delighted with this account; but
said he should decline her pot-luck, as it is vulgarly called. He
nevertheless wished us, of all things, to accompany him to her house,
and which we agreed to.
We found Amy in the act of turning over the leaves of Mr. Nugent's music
book, and Mr. Nugent singing an Italian air to his own accompaniment,
ogling Amy to triple time.
The man commonly called King Allen, now Lord Allen, appeared to be only
waiting for a pause of harmony in order to take his leave.
"Ha! How do you do?" said Amy, and Nugent arose to welcome us with his
everlasting laugh.
"Well, Harriette," said Amy, "you are come back, are you! I have heard
that you went into the country with your whole library in your carriage,
like Dominie Sampson; and, let me see, who was it told me you were gone
mad?"
"Your new and interesting admirer, his Grace of Grafton, perhaps; for I
have heard that he is matter-of-fact enough for anything."
"It is a pity, my dear Harriette, that you continue to have such coarse
ideas!" retorted Amy, _en faisant la petite bouche_, with her usual look
of purity, just as if she had not been lately receiving the sly hackney
coach visits of the old beau.
Armstrong changed the conversation by telling Amy that he had some idea
of intruding upon her to dinner the next day.
"Oh, I really shall give you a very bad dinner, I am afraid," said Amy,
having recovered from her growing anger towards me, in real alarm.
"My dear Mrs. Sydenham," replied Colonel Armstrong, earnestly, "I
hate apologies, and indeed, am a little surprised that you should pay
yourself so poor a compliment as to imagine for a moment any man cared
for dinner; for vile, odious, vulgar dinner in your society. Now for my
part, I request that I may find nothing on your table to-morrow, but
fish, flesh, fowl, vegetables, pastry, fruit and good wine. If you get
anything more, I will never forgive you."
Amy's large, round eyes opened wider and wider, and so did her mouth,
as Armstrong proceeded; and, before he had got to the wine, she became
absolutely speechless with dismay. Armstrong, however, appeared quite
satisfied, remarking carelessly that he knew her hour and would not keep
her waiting.
"Is anybody here who can lend me two shillings to pay my hackney-coach?"
said Allen.
"No change," was the general answer; for everybody knew King Allen!
The beaux having left us, Amy opened her heart, and said we might
partake of her toad-in-a-hole, if we liked; but that she must leave us
the instant after dinner.
"What for?" Fanny inquired.
"Nothing wrong," answered Amy, of course.
"Very little good, I presume," said I, "if we may judge from his
appearance; however," taking up my bonnet, "I do not want to run foul of
the Duke of Grafton, since he votes me mad:" and I took my leave.
The next morning I received a letter from Lord Ponsonby to acquaint
me that I might expect him in town by eight o'clock on the following
evening. It is not, however, my intention to enter into many more minute
details relative to my former unfortunate passion for Lord Ponsonby.
This is not a complete confession, like Jean Jacques Rousseau's, but
merely a few anecdotes of my life, and some light sketches of the
characters of others, with little regard to dates or regularity, written
at odd times, in very ill health. The only thing I have particularly
attended to in this little work has been, not to put down one single
line at all calculated to prejudice any individual, in the opinion of
the world, which is not strictly correct; and though I have, in writing
of people as I have found them, only done as I would be done by, and as
I request my friends will do by me, who never wished yet to pass for
better than what I really am: yet my gratitude has not permitted me to
publish even the most trifling faults of the few who have acted kindly
towards me.
With regard to my sisters, I never had but one, and she has ceased to
exist, who evinced the least regard for me. I am naturally affectionate,
and my heart was disposed to love them all, till years of total neglect
have at last compelled me to consider them as strangers. Some of them
are my enemies. My sister Amy ever made it her particular study to wound
my feelings, and do me all the injury in her power; and having occasion,
in a moment of the deepest distress, to apply to Lady Berwick for a
little assistance, she refused me a single guinea, notwithstanding,
in promoting her marriage with Lord Berwick, and on various other
occasions, I certainly did my best, and had done many acts of friendship
towards her previous to that period. Neither does this want of feeling
for me proceed from any ill opinion they have formed of my heart or
character: for, during our dear mother's last illness, Lady Berwick
remained at her country house, in spite of all I could say to her in my
daily communications, as to the immediate danger of that dear parent,
and her excuse, which she has often expressed, for this heartless
conduct was that, since Harriette remained with her mother, she felt
sure that no care or attention would be wanting, that anybody could
afford her. However, it is necessary for the sake of justice to relate
the good with the bad: thus then, be it known, that if Lady Berwick
would not come up to town to attend the dreary couch of a most tender
parent; she wrote to me every day notes of inquiry, nay more, she sent
fine apples and baskets of grapes from her garden up to the hour of my
lamented mother's death.
These sketches, or memoirs, or whatever my publisher and editor may
think proper to designate them,--for my own part I think it quite
tiresome enough to write a book as fast as I can scribble it, without
composing either a preface or a name for it--were begun several years
ago, merely to amuse myself. I am now only alluding to a few pages of
it, for I soon grew tired of my occupation. However, the little I had
done pleased my own acquaintances so much that they all advised me to
continue.
The Hon. George Lamb, having been good enough to read a comedy which I
attempted, was so polite as to say, and I have his letter now before
me, that although it was too long, and deficient in stage-tact, there
was no lack of wit and native humour about it, and further, he thought
my talents well calculated for writing a light work in the form of
either novel or sketch-book. He also advised me to put my former name
of Harriette Wilson to the work, which he doubted not would the better
ensure its sale.
Thus, being almost flattered into something like a good opinion of
myself, I ventured one morning to wrap myself up in my large cloak, and
put my little unfinished manuscript into my reticule, for I determined
not to write another page till I had ascertained whether it was worth
publishing. Thus equipped, I ventured in much fear and trembling to
wait upon the great Mr. Murray, as Lord Byron always satirically called
him. "He," thought I, "being the friend and publisher of Lord Byron (as
Dr. Johnson has it, who slays fat oxen, must himself be fat), should
be wiser than George Lamb or anybody else, except Lord Byron alone:
therefore I will stand by his decree."
I told Murray that I had so little confidence in myself, that I really
could not be induced to go on with my work till I had obtained his
verdict on the few pages I ventured to offer for his inspection.
Murray looked on me with as much contempt as though Ass had been written
in my countenance. Now I know this is not the case. He said, with much
rudeness, that I might put the manuscript on his table and he would look
at it, certainly, if I desired it.
I asked when I should send for it.
"Whenever you please," was his answer; as though he had already recorded
his decision against me and made his mind up not to look at it.
I promised to send for it the next evening. I did so, and the manuscript
was returned without an observation. "No doubt," thought I, "it is all
nonsense. I only wish I was quite sure that he had read it! because
else it were really cruel thus to damp a beginner who might have done
something perhaps, with due encouragement. I am almost certain that it
is trash; but I will be still more assured, lest the mania of scribbling
should in some moment of poverty attack me again." However, beginning
now to feel as much contempt for my manuscript as the Vicar of Wakefield
did for his horse, or as I have since felt for the famed Bibliopolist of
Albemarle Street, notwithstanding his carriage was numbered with those
which followed in the funeral procession of the lamented Byron, I could
not present my lucubrations to another publisher as my own: my nerves
would not permit it, and I therefore offered it to Messrs. Allman, of
Princes Street, Hanover Square, as the first attempt of a young friend
of mine. I was received by one of those gentlemen with much politeness,
and was requested to allow them four days to send their answer. They
fixed their time, and I promised to send for my little manuscript on the
day they appointed. It was sealed up, and directed ready for my servant
when he called for it. The envelope enclosed a few lines from Messrs.
Allman, stating their readiness to publish the work, which they did not
consider libellous--sharing the expenses and the profits with me.
On the receipt of this note, which I have now in my possession, I got
into a rage with old purblind Murray. "I wish," thought I, "I wish I
could make rhymes! I would send him a copy of verses to thank him." The
worst of it was I had never made a single rhyme in my life, and, when
I had tried to make two lines jingle together, everybody said they had
the merit of being infinitely below par; but even that I considered very
much better than vile mediocrity in poetry. In short there was no rhyme
about them and very little reason. However, I thought that anything
would do for Murray, who had been so rude to me; therefore, in a few
minutes, I managed to compose and seal up the following state of the
case,--which said composition my reader cannot say I have encouraged him
to lose time in perusing.
THE MAIDEN EFFORT OF A VIRGIN MUSE.
I never thought of turning poet,
And all my friends about me know it,
Till t'other day. I'll tell you why.
Alas! the story makes me sigh!
I tried, in prose, a few light sketches,
Of characters--pats, players, and such wretches,
Which my own folks said were pretty:
In fact, I thought them downright witty;
And, for the good of future ages,
I sallied forth, with these few pages,
To a publisher's, in such a hurry,
As to arrive too soon for that beau-thing, Murray,
Who coolly kept the lady waiting.
An old beau must have time for prating.
At last he came. Oh, mercy! Oh, my stars!
What an appalling beau-costume he wears!
A powdered bob, spectacles, and black coat!
I wish to heaven I had never wrote!
Or ta'en my book, so not here, anywhere,
Sure this won't do! The man's a bore or bear!
My charms to him were nought: nor my oration:
But what care I for Murray's admiration!
If I had penned some _Quarterly_ cupidity,
He would have gladly borne with its stupidity.
"At length, Sir," cried I, in a fuming rage,
"Pray, just peruse, at least, a single page."
With a most supercilious kind of glance,
"Hum," drawled out Murray, "you've not the slightest
chance."
"Pray, Sir, must one come here in a bob-wig?"
Cried I, in my turn, striving to look big;
And then went home to mourn my waste of paper,
Pens, ink, time, and e'en my last wax taper.
Prosers, methought, require an education;
But poets gain, by birth, their own vocation.
I merely pin it into my manuscript because it is ready written, and
helps to fill up the book, which, I have undertaken for several
reasons: first, because I hope to get some money by it; secondly,
because a certain duke and his son, all! all! honourable men, and with
very honourable titles and ancient names, have taken such an unfair
advantage of my generous treatment of them, that I think they ought to
be exposed----
Else they will deceive more men.
But this is not all. My former errors are well known, and, since they
have told their story I must in justice to myself relate mine. To
proceed with it in form, I perhaps ought to relate at large all the
raptures of my meeting with Lord Ponsonby when he returned from Ireland,
how struck I was with the pale cast of thought, which enfeebled the
brightness of that sweet countenance, only to increase the interest he
previously inspired; how infinitely his deep mourning became him; how he
had loved me for the very thing cross Amy had laughed at me, and called
me Dominie Sampson for; how he sent me Voltaire's tragedy of _Zaire_,
and how delighted he was to find that I felt and understood all its
beauties; how he one day called me his angelic Harriette! and further
declared that, had he known me sooner he would never have married any
other woman! How I used to fancy I could feel his entrance into his
wife's private box at the opera, without seeing him, as though the air
suddenly should become purer; how I have astonished Fanny by guessing
the very instant of his approach, without looking towards his side of
the house: how he would watch and follow me in my walks; how he declared
that he had never in his whole life felt such tenderness of affection
for any woman on earth, combining all a father ought to feel, with the
wildest passion his first youth had been capable of, with many other
matters which it would be tedious to write now: but all this love is
gone by and, for the crime of attaching myself to a married man, I have
deeply suffered: and all my affections are now fixed on another, to
whom I am bound for life: and, being just about to keep a pig and a few
chickens, I really cannot mount up the ladder again: and, why should I
dwell too long on the wild romantic follies of my very youthful days?
During the three short years our intercourse lasted, our passion
continued undiminished--increase it could not. I do in truth believe,
though it was a wicked thing, no two people on earth ever loved each
other better, and the restraint and difficulties we laboured under
kept our passion alive as it began. Often, after passing the early part
of the evening together, finding it so difficult to separate, we drove
down in a hackney-coach to the House of Lords, and in that coach have
I waited half the night merely for one more kiss and the pleasure of
driving with Ponsonby to his own door.
These three happy years of my life produced very few anecdotes, which
I can recollect, worth relating; for I had neither eyes nor ears nor
thoughts but for Ponsonby. The old Scotch beggar woman in the park,
who had been the cause of my appearing advantageously to his lordship,
was my constant visitor, and I contributed to her comforts as far as I
could. She had once been in very easy circumstances, and was then in the
habit of receiving every possible attention from her kind country-woman
Lady Cottrell.
The old woman used to come to dine with me in a rich brocade silk gown,
which stood absolutely alone, and once caused my equally stiff, old,
powdered footman to laugh; but as it was I believe for the first time in
his life I forgave him.
Apropos of that same Mr. Will Halliday, who though always in print never
expected the honour of being published, everybody wished to know why I
kept such a clock-work, stiff, powdered, methodistical looking servant,
with a pig-tail; whom one might have taken for Wilberforce himself
instead of Will Halliday, and yet that piece of mechanism, with his
hair to match, used to steal my wine, as though he had forgotten all
about his commandments; and when I reproached him with it, he declared
that it was impossible; because, to use his own words, "I am the most
particlerst man as is"; and, because I preferred losing my wine to being
talked to, I submitted.
"Mr. Will," I used to say, "yes and no are all I want to hear from
any footman; if they will say more to me than this I shall wait upon
myself."
Will would console himself on these occasions with a young companion of
mine, while she remained with me, whenever he could find her disengaged
or she had the misfortune to be in the parlour while he was laying the
cloth.
"Miss Hawkes," he would begin, to her great annoyance, "Miss Hawkes,
now you see my missis don't like a sarvant to say nothing but yes and
no. Now sometimes, as I says, Miss Hawkes, yes or no won't do for
everything. Missis was very angry about my speaking yesterday; but, if
I haddunt a told her I was the most particlerst man as is she might a
thort I drinkt her wine, because I keeps the key of the cellar: and then
again, Miss Hawkes, respecting o' my great coat: I wants to tell missis,
as how it's a mile too wide in the back; for you see Miss, Missis don't
observe them ere things. Will you be so good, Miss, as to mention that I
wants to show her how my great coat sets behind?"
"I will go and tell her directly," said Miss Hawkes, delighted with an
excuse to get away.
"Well then," said I, in answer to what Miss Hawkes told me, "I will look
at the man's coat after dinner, only I am sure I shall laugh if he is to
walk about the room, sporting his beautiful shape."
Having thus, for once, given Will liberty of speech, I was in dread of
its consequences at dinner-time. As soon as he had withdrawn the cloth
and placed the dessert upon the table, he began to cough and place
himself in an attitude of preparation. "Now it is coming!" thought I,
and I saw Miss Hawkes striving to restrain her inclination to laugh out
loud, with all her might.
Will began sheepishly, with his eyes and his fingers fidgeting on the
back of a chair; but he grew in height, and in consequence, as he went
on. "I was a saying to Miss Hawkes, madam, that, respecting o' your
commands, that yes and no wont do for everything. Now ma'am respecting
o' my great coat----"
"You had better put it on, William," said I, holding down my head that
I might not look at Miss Hawkes.
"Yes, ma'am; sartanly ma'am," said Will, bustling out of the room, and
returning in an instant equipped in a drab great coat, so very large
behind, that it made him look deformed; but did not, in the least, alter
his usual way of strutting about the room, like a player,
Whose conceit
Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich,
To hear the wooden dialogue and sound,
'Twixt his stretch'd footing and the scaffoldage.
So, between my horror of making free with John Bull, and my wish to
laugh at my footman, I was in perfect misery.
"Take it off, William," said I, faintly, and without venturing to raise
my head, feeling that another glance at Will, eyeing his person all
over, with his sharp little, ferret-eyes, would have finished me. "Take
it off, and carry it to the tailor's."
But Will, having once received a _carte blanche_ for more than his usual
yes and no, was not so easily quieted.
"Thank you, ma'am, you are very good ma'am. I'll step down to-night,
with it; for the other evening, ma'am, when you sent me to carry back
that ere pheasant, my Lord Lowther's servant brought you I says, says
I, to Sally, 'as it is such a wet night Sally, I wont put on my laced
hat,' so I claps on an old plain one; and, when I comed to St. James's
Street, there was a bit of a row with some of they there nasty women at
the corner, and, you see, ma'am, this ere coat, sticking out, in this
ere kind of a way behind, and with that large cane of mine, there was a
man, says he, to me, 'Here, watchman! why dont you do your duty?'"
It was now all over with our dignities. Will, in finishing his pathetic
speech, appeared almost on the point of shedding tears. We both, in the
same instant, burst into an immoderate fit of loud laughter, when Will
had the good sense to leave us.
The next day Fanny, Miss Hawkes, and myself drove into Hyde Park. We
there met Sophia, with her eldest sister, looking very pretty, and above
all very modest. My carriage was soon surrounded by trotting beaux,
whom I could not listen to, because that adored, sly, beautiful face
of Ponsonby's was fixed on me, _à la distance_. With all my rudeness
and inattention I could not get rid of Lord Frederick Beauclerc. The
rest went round to Fanny's side. This was better than going over to
the enemy. Ponsonby knew me and himself too well to be jealous; but,
not daring to speak to me or hear what I said, he looked unhappy, as I
guessed, at his friend, Fred Beauclerc's persevering attention; and I
proposed to Fanny that we should take a drive down Pall Mall.
"Is that Mr. Frederick Lamb's ghost?" said Fanny.
"Where do you mean?" I inquired, and turning my head round, indeed saw
Fred Lamb, who had, I believe, just returned from abroad. He blushed
a little, and ordering my coachman to stop, told me that I looked
remarkably well and that he knew all about me.
"So you have cut poor Argyle, and are in love again with a man of my
acquaintance?" he continued.
"You are mistaken," said I, reddening.
"It may be so," rejoined Fred, "but I rather think I am right."
I shook hands with him, and hoped we were parting good friends.
* * * * *
"I say, Miss Hawkes," said Will Halliday, in the course of the evening,
after we got home, for he generally contrived to _dédommager_ himself,
for the silence I imposed on him, by forcing a few words on Miss Hawkes'
attention--"If we had a gone a little furder down Pall Mall to-day, we
should a seen that ere Prince Coburg."
"Really!"
"Yes, Miss: but, laws! Miss, do you know he was nothing in his own
country, and had nothing but a small principality."
About ten o'clock in the evening, when Miss Hawkes had retired to rest,
and I was sitting alone with my book, Fred Lamb was announced to me.
I desired William to say that it was rather too late, and that I was
shortly going to bed.
He returned to inform me that Mr. Lamb knew I never went to bed before
midnight, and therefore begged I would permit him to chat with me for
half an hour, so, feeling puzzled how to excuse myself, he was desired
to walk upstairs.
He talked to me for more than an hour, of Argyle, Lord Ponsonby, and his
own former affection for me. He then became a little more practical than
I liked, first taking hold of my hand, and next kissing me by force. I
resisted all his attempts with mild firmness. At last he grew desperate,
and proceeded to very rough, I may say, brutal violence, against my
fixed determination. I was never very strong; but love gave me almost
supernatural powers to repel him; and I contrived to pull his hair with
such violence, that some of it was really dragged out by the roots.
Fred Lamb was not of a mild or patient temper. In a moment of
disappointment and fury at the pain I must have inflicted on him, though
it was certainly done only in self-defence, he placed his hand on my
throat, saying, while he nearly stopped my breath, and occasioned me
almost the pangs of suffocation, that I should not hurt him another
instant. He spoke this in a smothered voice, and I did in truth believe
that my last moments had arrived. Another instant would have decided the
business; but he, thank God, relinquished his grasp at my throat. He
is however mistaken if he believes I have ever forgotten the agony of
that moment. He arose from the sofa. His rage, I fancy, being converted
into shame and fear of what I might tell the world, or, perhaps, he
was really shocked at the violence which he had been guilty of. It
may easily be imagined that once free from so frightful a grasper of
throats, I was not long in obtaining my room upstairs and double-locking
my door. Fred Lamb did not attempt to speak to, much less detain me, and
in a very few minutes afterwards I heard him leave the house.
"Thank God!" I ejaculated, from the very bottom of my heart; and I began
to breathe more freely although I was some time before I recovered my
fright.
Fred Lamb was a man of the world, and the next day he no doubt said to
himself "this is a bad story, both for my vanity and my character: for I
have been very brutal. The best way now will be for me to tell it first
to all her friends"; and he accordingly went about making light of the
story, as though he had not any reason to be ashamed.
"Do you know," said he, to several of my acquaintances, who afterwards
repeated it, "do you know that Harriette is so in love with John
Ponsonby, that she was cruel even to me last night! I tried force too;
but she resisted me like a little tiger, and pulled my hair!"
"Be it so," thought I, and I never told the story, till now. In fact,
I was a good deal afraid of Fred Lamb at that time, and could not but
feel provoked at the idea of a young man going about the world, always
laughing, and showing off the character of a fine, good-tempered,
open-hearted, easy, generous, sailor-like fellow, and who yet could take
me from a rich man, to leave me starving at Somers-town as he had done,
without once making me the offer of a single shilling, and then return
to me, as though all this selfishness had secured him a right over my
person, to persecute me with brutal force and lay hold of my throat, so
as to put me in fear of my life, because I was not his humble slave any
day in any week he happened to return from the Continent: and I am sure
Mr. Frederick Lamb cannot assert that, on the day I believed he meant to
have been my last, he had ever given me one single guinea or the value
of a guinea.
He is now an ambassador, and just as well off as ambassadors usually
are; yet, in my present poverty, I have vainly attempted to get a
hundred pounds out of him. He has occasionally indeed sent me ten or
five pounds; but not without much pressing, and he has not yet paid my
expenses to Hull and back.
So much for the high-spirited Fred Lamb! With his brother George I have
only a very slight acquaintance; but am much indebted for the very
polite, friendly and condescending interest that gentleman has been
pleased to take in my welfare.