"I beg you fifty thousand pardons," bawled Lord Petersham to me one
morning from his or some other person's gay barouche, as I stood at my
drawing-room balcony; "but, to save time, will you answer me one single
question from your window? I only want a yes or a no as I am sure I can
take your word."
My house being half in the country, I begged his lordship to make as
free as he pleased.
"Did you," asked his lordship, forcing a little, mean-looking man, who
was seated next to him, to stand up upon his two feet while I surveyed
him, "did you ever see this man in your born days?"
"Never, to my knowledge," was my reply.
"Then you can declare, at all events, that you never made his
acquaintance?" asked Petersham.
"Certainly, I can: and your friend will unhesitatingly confirm the truth
of what I assert."
"_Tout au contraire,_" said Petersham, "he has been amusing us with an
account of a former _petite affaire du coeur_ he had with you."
"He does me honour," I rejoined, "although he knows I was never so
completely blessed as to have been in his society."
"That's quite enough," said Petersham, giving me a significant little
wink with his left eye, kissing his hand, and driving off, all at the
same moment.
I must now return to Lord Worcester, or rather to my house in town, he
having left Portsmouth to join his incensed papa and mamma at Badminton.
"I have lost my parents," he wrote in one of his letters. "They refuse
to acknowledge me as their son, and yet they attempt to keep me shut up
here by force. This I should have resisted and have returned to you last
week, but that my mother declares herself ill, and my father asserts
that she is not likely ever to recover her late accouchement while her
mind is so dreadfully agitated. For my part I can neither eat nor sleep,
and both my father and uncle admit that they have tormented me till I am
seriously ill. I implore you then, my adored, beloved, darling Harriette
to come to me. I never close my eyes in sleep without awaking in the
greatest fright and agony, having dreamed that you were taken away from
me for ever."
He then went on to beg and entreat of me, if I had the least pity for
him, to disguise myself as a countrywoman, or a common servant, in a
coloured gown and checked apron, and go in the coach to a certain inn
at Oxford, where he would contrive, unknown to his father, who should
believe him in his bed, to await my arrival at past twelve o'clock at
night, which he said was the hour at which the afternoon-coach got into
Oxford. He then made me at least a thousand humble apologies for having
wanted me to disguise myself and take all this trouble, assuring me
that, if I went to Oxford in my usual style and character, some one or
other would probably meet me on the road, and he could not describe what
would be his parents' indignation and anger, in case my visit to Oxford
came to their knowledge.
* * * * *
Were I to give my readers these letters in Worcester's own expressions,
there would be no end to them, since every other word was angel, or
adored wife, or beautiful sweet Harriette, or darling sweetest, sweetest
darling, dearest dear, dear, dearest, &c., so perhaps they will prefer
taking all these sweets at once, that I may proceed quietly with these
most amusing and very interesting _Memoirs._
* * * * *
At about three o'clock on the day after I had received this letter
from Lord Worcester, as my sister Fanny was standing at her window,
pleasing herself with her pretty little daughter Louisa, a hackney-coach
stopped at her door, and out of it sprung a light-footed, spruce damsel,
clad in a neat, coloured gown, thick shoes, blue stockings, blue check
apron, coloured neck-handkerchief, cloth cap and bright cherry-coloured
ribbons. In the next minute this bold young woman had given both Fanny
and her daughter Louisa a hearty kiss!
"Good gracious, my good woman!" exclaimed Fanny, pushing me gently
aside, and, in the next instant, hearing a loud laugh in the room, for
I had not observed Julia and Sir John Boyd sitting at the other window,
till they joined in our merriment.
"Lord help the woman," said Julia, "what can have put it into her head
to appear this beautiful weather in such a costume?"
"It is a new style of travelling dress," said I, "and I am going
to introduce the fashion. What do you think of my cap? It cost
eighteen-pence. And my blue stockings? But I can't stay gossiping with
you fine ladies or I shall lose my place in the stage. However, do just
look at my nice, little, bran-new red cloak."
"You don't seriously and really mean to say you are going to travel that
figure, and in the broad face of day too?" said Fanny.
"I must! I must! Worcester says if I don't want to be beaten to a mummy
by papa Beaufort I must go to Oxford in disguise."
"Disguise, indeed!" said Julia.
"If Fred Bentinck meets a woman of my loose morals in this dress, _il
croira que c'est la belle Madeleine!_"
"But where is your bonnet?" asked Sir John Boyd.
"Oh! I cannot afford to buy a bonnet; that would be only half-and-half,
a mere vulgar, shabby-genteel, cockney kind of a maid-servant!"
"You will be found out by your tapering waist and large bosom."
"Why, what is the matter with it, Sir John? Is it not very decently
covered by this smart, coloured handkerchief?"
"Yes; but it's all too pretty, and your stays are too well made."
Julia's maid-servant, who had not recognised me as I flew past
her up the stairs, now entered the room, with a message from my
hackney-coachman, who was waiting at the door.
"The coachman, marm, desires me to tell the young woman that he shall
expect another sixpence if she does not come down directly."
"Oh laws a mighty! and here I hasn't a got a sixpence in the world more
than what's tied up here in this here bag, on purpose for to pay my fare
to Oxford," said I, holding up a small red bag.
Julia's maid-servant looked in my face, and seeing everybody ready to
laugh, found it impossible to resist joining them.
"Why, the Lord defend me! Miss Harriette, is it really you?" she asked,
opening her eyes as wide as possible.
"You see, Sir John, the delicacy of my shape has not stood the least in
my way with the coachman, who did not discover the air noble under this
costume! But I must be off directly."
"Good-bye! God bless you; mind you write to me directly, and tell me
everything that happens to you," said Fanny.
They all gave me a kiss round, for the form of kissing a woman in blue
stockings and a check-apron, and I was soon seated in the stage-coach,
which was being loaded at the door of the _Green Man and Still,_ or as
the Frenchman dated his letter, _Chez l'Homme Vert et Tranquil._
"You're not apt to be sick, are you, my dear?" inquired a fat-faced
merry-looking man, with a red handkerchief tied over his chin, who had
already, with a lady whom I fancied might be his wife, taken possession
of the two best seats.
I assured them that I was a very good traveller.
"Because, my dear, you see, many people can't ride backwards; and
there's Mrs. Hodson my wife as is one of them."
"Oh; the young woman is not particler, I dare say," said Mrs. Hodson,
with becoming reserve.
In short, not altogether liking the words "my dear," as they had been
applied to me by her husband, she thought it monstrous vulgar!
A lady, in a green habit, who was standing near the coach door, now
vowed and declared her travelling basket should be taken out of the boot
where it had been thrown by mistake, before she would take her seat.
The coachman in vain assured her it was perfectly safe.
"Don't tell me about its safety," cried the angry lady, "I know what
your care of parcels is before to-day."
"Come, come, my good lady," said Mr. Hodson, whom I recognised as a
London shoemaker of some celebrity, "come, come, ma'am, your thingumbobs
will be quite safe. Don t keep three inside passengers waiting, at a
nonplush, for these here trifles!"
"Trifles!" burst forth the exasperated lady; "are females always to be
imposed upon in this manner?"
"Monsieur le Clerc!" continued the lady, calling to a tall thin
Frenchman, in a light grey coat, holding under his arm an umbrella, a
book of drawings, an English dictionary and a microscope, "Monsieur le
Clerc, why don't you insist on the coachman's finding my travelling
basket?"
"Yes, to be sure, certainely," said the Frenchman, looking about for the
coachman. "_Allons, cocher, Madame demande son panier_. Madame ask for
one litel someting out of your boots directly."
"Did I not desire you to mention, Monsieur le Clerc, when you took my
place, that the basket was to go inside?" demanded the lady.
"Yes, _oui,_" answered the Frenchman eagerly. "I tell you, Mr. Cocher,
dis morning, six, seven, ninety-five times, madame must have her litel,
vat you call---over her knee."
"I'm sorry for the mistake, sir; but it would take a couple of hours to
unload that there boot, and I must be off this here instant."
"Come now, aisey there, aisey," bawled out a queer, poor Irishman, with
a small bundle in his hand, running towards the coach in breathless
haste. "Aisey! aisey! there, sure and I'm a match for you, this time,
anyhow in life," continued he, as he stepped into the coach, and then
took out his handkerchief to wipe the perspiration from his face. He was
so wretchedly clothed that Mrs. Hodson eyed him with looks of dismay,
while drawing her lavender-coloured silk dress close about her person,
that it might not be contaminated. I was, indeed, surprised that this
poor fellow could afford an inside place.
The lady and her French _beau_, seeing no remedy, ascended the steps of
the carriage in very ill humour, and they were immediately followed by
a man with much comic expression in his countenance. He wore a would-be
dashing, threadbare, green coat, with a velvet collar, and his shirt
collar was so fine, and so embroidered, and so fringed with rags,
that I think he must have purchased it out of the Marquis of Lorne's
cast wardrobe. His little Petersham-hat seemed to have been _remit de
nouveau_, for the third time, at least.
"Lord! Mr. Shuffle, how do you do? Who would a thort of our meeting you,
in the coach?" inquired Mr. and Mrs. Hodson, addressing him in a breath.
"Delighted to see you both," said Shuffle, shaking hands with them.
"And now pray, Mr. Shuffle, if I may be so bold, what might have
brought you up to London? What antics might you be up to, hey? Are you
stage-struck as usual, or struck mad by mere accident?"
"Thereby hangs a tale," said Shuffle.
"What! a pig-tail? I suppose you're thinking of the shop."
"Not I indeed," Shuffle observed; "I've done with wig-making these two
years; for really it is not in the nature of a man of parts to stick to
the same plodding trade all his life as you have done, Hodson."
Hodson replied that he knew his friend Shuffle had always been reckoned
a bit of a "genus," and, for his part, he always knode a "genus" half a
mile off, by his thread-bare coat, and his shoes worn down at the heels.
"Aprepo!" said Mrs. Hodson, "by-the-by, Mr. Shuffle, you forgot to
settle for that there pair of boots before you left Cheltenham six
months ago."
"Very true, my dear lady," answered Shuffle, "all very true: everything
shall be settled. I have two irons in the fire at this time, and very
great prospects, I assure you, only do pray cut the shop just now and
indulge me with a little genteel conversation."
"A genteel way of doing a man out of a pair of boots," muttered Hodson,
"but I'll tell you what, Mr. Shuffle, you must show me a more lasting
trade, of one with more sole in it, before you succeed in making me
ashamed of being a shoemaker."
"And pray," continued Hodson, "where's the perpetual motion you were
wriggling after so long? and then your rage for the stage, what's become
of that? Have you made any money by it?"
"How is it possible," answered Shuffle, "for a man to make money by
talents he is not permitted to exert!
"'Sir,' said I, to the manager of the Liverpool theatre, 'I have cut
my trade of wig-making dead, and beg to propose myself to you as a
first-rate performer.' 'Have you any recommendations?' inquired the
manager, eyeing me from head to foot. 'Yes sir,' I replied, 'plenty of
recommendations. In the first place, I have an excellent head.'"
"For a wig! a good block, I reckon," interrupted Hodson.
"'In the second place,' Shuffle continued, "'I have the strongest lungs
of any man in England.'"
"That is unfortunately the case of my good woman here," again
interrupted Hodson.
"'And, as for dyeing, sir,'" still continued Shuffle, "'I have been
practising it for these two years.'"
"Upon red and grey hair, I presume?" said the incorrigible Hodson.
"'Sir,' said the Liverpool prig," so Shuffle went on, "'Sir, our company
happens to be at this moment complete.' Fifty managers served me the
same. At last however I got a hearing, and, as I suspected would be
the case, was immediately engaged. The play-bills mentioned the part
of Romeo by a gentleman, his first appearance on the stage; but it was
a low company and beggarly audience, which accounts for my having been
pelted with oranges and hissed off the stage!"
Hodson here burst into a very loud fit of laughter, declaring this was
the best joke he ever heard in his life.
Shuffle, without at all joining in his friend's mirth, declared that he
had now resigned all thoughts of a profession, the success of which must
often depend on a set of ignorant blockheads, and turned his thoughts to
love and experimental philosophy.
"I say?" was Hodson's wise remark, looking very significantly at his
friend.
"Well sir; what have you to say?" Shuffle inquired.
"Blow me, Shuffle, if you ar'n't a little--" Hodson paused and touched
his forehead.
"Don't meddle with the head, friend, that's not your trade. Oh, by the
bye," Shuffle continued, "talking of heels, I want to consult you about
a new sort of elastic sole and heel, after my own invention: one that
shall enable a man to swim along the river like a goose, at the rate of
fifteen miles an hour! I have just discovered that the goose owes its
swiftness to the shape of its feet. Now, my water-shoe must be made to
spread itself open, when the foot is extended, and close as it advances."
"Well done, gentleman," interposed the poor Irish traveller, "this bates
the cork jacket anyhow in life!"
"Who the devil are you, sir?" asked Shuffle, "and what business have you
to crack jokes?"
"The only little objection that I see to your contrivance," continued
Pat, "is that the patent shoe will be just after turning into a clog as
soon as it gits under water, good luck to it."
"The devil take me if that warn't a capital joke! So well done, master
Pat," said Hodson.
"Is that an Irish wig you have got on your head, Pat?" Shuffle asked, by
way of being even with him.
"For God's sake sink the shop, Shuffle, and let's have a little genteel
conversation," said Hodson, imitating Shuffle's late affectation of
voice and manner.
"Pray what do you Irish know about wig-making?" asked Shuffle,
disregarding Hodson.
"And may be you would not approve nather, of their nate, compact little
fashion of breaking a head, perhaps?" inquired Pat very quietly.
"Come, come, my comical fellow," said Hodson, "don't be so hot. Mr.
Shuffle only meant to remark that it was a pity to wear a red wig over
your fine head of hair."
"Arrah, by my sowl! and is it under it you'd have me wear it?" asked the
Irishman.
"You're a funny chap! but I loves to see a man in good spirits," Hodson
remarked.
"Is it in good spirits then, you reckon me? Sure and you're out there
anyhow in life; for the devil a drop of spirits have I poured into me,
good, bad or indifferent since yesterday, worse luck to me!"
"What, are you out of employment then?" Mrs. Hodson inquired.
"No my dear lady, in regard to my being employed just now, looking out
for work."
Shuffle inquired how long he had left Ireland.
"Not more than a month, your honour; and four weeks out of that time
have I been wandering about the great, gawky village of London, up one
strate and down the tother, in search of a friend, and sorrow bit of the
smallest intelligence can I gain, anyhow in the world, of poor Kitty
O'Mara."
"And is that absolutely necessary?" I asked.
"And did I not promise Mistress Kitty, the mother of him, that I would
stick by her darling till the breath was clane out of his body? and
then, after our death, wasn't it by mutual agreement between Kitty and
me, that we should dig each other a nate, tight bit of a grave, and
bury each other, in a jontale, friendly manner? so that, what with
disappointment, fatigue, and the uncommon insults which have been put
upon me lately, sure and I'm completely bothered!"
"And pray, Pat, what takes you over to Oxford?" Hodson asked.
"Sure and I'm just going there, to come back again by the marrow-bone
stage."
"But what reason have you for making the journey?" said Shuffle.
"Is it what rasin had I? Havn't I paid for my place more than a week
ago, and havn't I lost a good sarvice in them parts, by missing the
coach by a trifle of half an hour's oversleeping myself? and did not the
proprietor of this same coach promise me the first vacant sate?"
"Well, but having lost your place, why trouble yourself to go down when
it is too late?" Hodson inquired.
"And you'd have me chated and diddled out on the fare as well as the
service? Bad luck to me!" added Pat, with comic gravity.
"Blow me, if you ain't a funny one," said Hodson, as the coach stopped
to set him down in a small village between London and Oxford; "and
since you've put me into spirits, I must put spirits into you, so
here's a shilling for you, Pat. In for a penny, as I says, in for a
pound. Good bye, Shuffle, and I shall thank you to call and settle for
that there pair of boots. Come, my good woman, give us your hand. Good
bye, my pretty lass," nodding to me, as he and his better half quitted
the coach.
Nothing of very great interest occurred during the remainder of our
journey, except that Shuffle seemed disposed to hire Pat as his servant.
The Frenchman found fault with everything at table, drank _eau sucrée,_
and studied in his dictionary. The lady in the green habit scorned to
address even a single syllable to a person in the humble garb I wore,
and I never once opened my lips till we arrived at Oxford, and I was set
down at a little inn nearly a mile distant from the one where Worcester
promised to wait for me. It was almost one o'clock in the morning, it
poured with rain, and there was not a star to enliven a poor traveller!
Though the discovery was too late, it was now very evident that I had
taken my place in the wrong coach. What was to be done? I inquired the
distance of the inn at which Worcester promised to expect me; but for
more than a quarter of an hour everybody seemed too busy looking after
the luggage and the passengers to attend to a poor girl in a coarse red
cloak. At last I contrived to speak to the landlady, who assured me that
I must be mad to think of wandering about the streets of Oxford at such
an hour and in such weather; that the passengers always used her house,
and that in the course of an hour the other passengers would be served,
and then the chamber-maid would see about providing me with a bed.
"Impossible," said I, "for I have a person waiting for me at the
Crown Inn, and I shall feel much obliged to you, madam, if you will
immediately furnish me with a guide to protect me."
"Protect a fiddlestick!" said my landlady. "I've got no time to procure
guides at this time of night, indeed;" and she waddled off after the
rest of the passengers.
I was left alone in the passage, to watch my travelling-bag, shivering
with cold, and wishing the vile red cloak and blue stockings at the
bottom of the Red Sea, since it was to them I was indebted that
everybody held me in such contempt. As a last resource, I addressed
myself to a man in a dirty smock-frock, whom I imagined to be the
hostler.
"My good man, where can I procure a safe guide and protector, to walk
with me to the Crown Inn?"
"You'd better wait here till to-morrow morning, my dear," answered the
man; "for you see it's quite at t'other end of the town, and a man don't
care to get wet for nothing."
"But I will give you half a crown, and thank you too, if you will only
come with me directly, and bring a lanthorn with you."
"Indeed!" exclaimed the man incredulously. "Pray how comed you to be so
rich, hey? Suppose you show us your half-crown?"
"Willingly," said I, taking one out of my little bag, at the sight of
which he begged me to wait outside the door, till he joined me from the
stable with his lanthorn.
"But you must step out foot, my dear, as I may get home before mistress
misses me, you see."
As we hurried on together, while the rain fell in torrents on our heads,
I felt half afraid of my strange guide; and asked him every two minutes
if he was quite sure he had not mistaken the road.
"No, child," said he, at last, "for here we be safe and sound. This be
the Crown Inn."
I was not long in doubt as to the truth of what he said; for, at the
door, stood Worcester as large as life, looking eagerly down the road
after the carriages. I put my half-crown into my guide's hand, and
hastily placed my arm under that of Worcester, who, so little dreamed
of seeing me arrive on foot in such a wet miserable condition, that he
pushed me rather roughly on one side.
"My dear Mr. Dobbins," said I, for that was the name we were to go by at
the Crown, where he believed he was not personally known; "Mr. Dobbins!
don't you recognise your dear Mrs. Dobbins?"
"Good God, my love! how came you alone this miserable night?" and
Worcester handed me upstairs, all joy and rapture and trembling anxiety
lest I should catch cold. In less than a quarter of an hour, thanks to
his good care, I was in a warm bed and an excellent supper was served by
the side of it, with good claret, fruit, coffee, and everything we could
possibly require.
We talked all night long; for we had much to say to each other.
Worcester declared that he looked forward to no hope nor rest until we
should be really married.
I entreated him to consider all the inconveniences of such a match.
"Your father never will forgive you remember!"
"That I shall deeply regret," answered his lordship; "but I must and
will choose my own partner for life. You and I have passed weeks,
months, years together, without having had a single quarrel. This is
proof positive, at least, that our tempers harmonise perfectly together,
and I conceive that harmony of temper between man and wife, is the first
and greatest blessing of the wedded state."
I was too frank to deny that I perfectly agreed with him in this
particular.
"I was never happy till I knew you," continued Worcester, "and I am
sure, as I am of my existence, that you are the only woman on earth to
whom I could ever be constant to the end of my life and not break my
oath. When all is over, my father must submit to necessity."
"It may not be," said I, mildly. "Nay, it shall not be. Your parents,
harsh as they are towards me and my faults, shall not have cause to
curse me, neither shall you."
Worcester was greatly agitated; and, when all else failed, tried to
laugh me out of my resolution. "We will go to Scotland together, in the
mail," said his lordship.
"And who shall be the father to give me away, and be a witness to prove
my marriage?" I asked, merely to make a joke of a subject I was tired of
treating seriously.
"You shall wear this pretty dress," said Worcester, "and my coachman,
Boniface, shall come down to the North with us to give you away. I dare
not trust Will Haught; he shall know nothing of our departure, till he
has missed us."
"Boniface, of course, must be gaily dressed," said I, "and wear a large
nosegay."
"True," proceeded Worcester, "and a white waistcoat."
"Shall the waistcoat be made with pockets and flaps, pray?"
"Why, perhaps, that might look handsomer."
"Very well," said I, "perhaps pockets and flaps, perhaps not. Let that
matter rest for the moment, and now, with regard to this long journey to
Gretna Green to look for a dirty blacksmith, I think that really will be
unnecessary."
"How can it be avoided till I am of age?" Worcester eagerly inquired.
"Why, I have spoken to that most reverend, pious, and learned divine,
Lord Frederick Beauclerc, on this important subject, and he declares
himself willing to officiate on this occasion, and marry us privately by
special licence, providing you agree to grant _les droits du seigneur._"
Worcester inquired what that meant.
"Simply, _les droits du mari_, for the first night."
Worcester, having by this time discovered that I was only laughing at
him, appeared deeply wounded and offended with me.
"My love, what is to be done?" I asked. "I, as your friend, your real
friend, wish you to be comfortably reconciled to your parents, and,
by making me your wife you lose them for ever, without doing me any
material good; for I have no ambition nor hankering after rank, and, I
confess, my conscience does not reproach me with any particular crime,
attached to my present, quiet mode of life, since I have no children;
else I should for their sake judge differently. Let us hope the best,
enjoy the present, and be merry, pray, or I might as well have remained
in town."
By degrees Worcester recovered his spirits, and, perhaps, there never
was an hour during our whole acquaintance in which he was so devoted
to me, so madly, passionately fond of me, as during my visit to the
Crown Inn, which proves how the passion of love is ever increased by
difficulties, till it, at last, acquires such a degree of enthusiastic
ardour, as persons in the full, easy possession of what they desire can
form not the least conception of.
Alas! how fleeting are our moments of happiness! Poor Worcester was
obliged to leave me by nine in the morning, after handing me into a
hack-chaise; because he could not bear the idea of my being again
addressed by any low man who might happen to be fellow traveller, when
my dress would induce them to mistake me for a servant.
Just as I had got about a mile from Oxford, one of Worcester's uncles
passed my chaise: if I recollect right it was Lord Edward. He stared at
me in my old costume as though I had been the ninth wonder of the world.
However, I hoped, since I had never in my life spoken to his lordship
and merely guessed him to be a Somerset, that he would have remained at
least in some little doubt as to my identity.
The next morning's post convinced me of my mistake. Worcester, in a
very long, dismal letter, acquainted me that I had been seen, in a very
odd, unladylike kind of dress close to Oxford. Worcester assured his
father that it was quite impossible, as I certainly should not have gone
to Oxford without acquainting him of the circumstance. The duke and
duchess condescended to laugh at him as a weak silly dupe to a vile and
profligate woman, asked him what good he fancied I could be doing by
travelling about in disguise; and why, if it had been good, I looked so
confused, and appeared so anxious to hide my face from his uncle, as to
have actually covered it with both my hands? His uncle further declared
that I was both deformed and ugly, which rendered his infatuation the
more absurd.
Worcester, in reply, declared his aunt so very ugly that the man who had
chosen her for his wife must for ever give up all pretensions to taste;
and then he asked them why they imagined two of the handsomest men of
this, and perhaps of any age, Lord Ponsonby and the Duke of Argyll--my
readers must excuse my placing Lord Ponsonby first--should have been so
much in love with deformity? And, if they were, it was of course a proof
that my mind must have been of that superior cast as made ample amends
for the defects of my person.
There were two young men at that time on a visit with Her Grace of
Beaufort, who is known to have always encouraged a very motherly
kindness of feeling towards young men, particularly when they were
well looking. Perhaps she wanted them for her daughters; and yet, that
beauty soon fades is the cry of most moral mammas. However that may
be (and I have not in the least presumed to entertain a doubt of Her
Grace's virtue, according to the English acceptation of that word),
the two young men I have just now mentioned, and who so vehemently
joined the hue and cry against me, were Montagu, the eldest son of a
lady in Portman Square, who used to give charitable dinners to the
poor chimney-sweepers once a year, and Mr. Meyler, a young Hampshire
gentleman, in the possession of very large West India property, of at
least five and twenty thousand a year.
This youth had lately become of age, and, as everybody informed me, was
very handsome. Worcester assured me that this young sugar-baker, as
Lord Alvanly was pleased to call him, expressed himself in such strong
terms of disgust in reference to me, that his lordship had been obliged
to desire him never to use my name in his presence again.
Meyler however _dédommaged_ himself with his favourite the Duchess
of Beaufort, to whom Worcester had presented him when they were both
at Christchurch together. He always agreed with that lady, as to the
subjugation of her noble son's superior parts; for, said Meyler, "it
would be impossible for any man, in his right senses, to be in love with
that woman called Harriette Wilson; she may have been better once; but
she is now in ill health, spoiled by flattery, and altogether the most
disgusting style of woman I know."
"Are you acquainted with her, then?" asked the duchess.
Meyler confessed he had never spoken to me; but added that he saw me
every night in my Opera box, and in the round-room afterwards; and,
in short, from having often conversed with my acquaintances, he knew
just as much about me as if he had been so unfortunate as to have been
personally acquainted with me.
This inveterate abuse from a stranger, whom I did not even know by
sight, somewhat excited my curiosity, nay more, my emulation perhaps;
_car j'avais quelquefois le diable au corps, comme aucune autre._
"If," said I one day to Fanny, "if all this abuse of me could be
reconciled to good taste in a gentleman, and this Meyler is really
so handsome, it would be worth while changing his dislike into love,
_seulement, pour lui apprendre à vivre_. At all events there is novelty
in being an object of disgust to any man, just when Worcester has so
cloyed me with sweets! Where can one get a sight of Meyler?"
"Sir John Boyd is a relation or particular friend of his," said Fanny;
and, on the first opportunity Sir John was consulted.
"No woman can do anything with Meyler in the way of love," said Sir
John; "for Meyler really don't know what sentiment means, and that is
why I cannot conceive what he is always doing with that fine strapping
woman, the Duchess of Beaufort, who appears never so happy nor so
comfortable, as when he is perched upon a high stool by her side.
Meyler is a mere animal, a very handsome one it is true, and there is
much natural shrewdness about him, besides that he is one of the most
gentlemanlike young men I know; but you may read his character in his
countenance."
"What is that like?" I asked.
"It is beautiful," said Sir John Boyd, "and so peculiarly voluptuous,
that, when he looks at women after dinner, although his manner is
perfectly respectful, they are often observed to blush deeply, and hang
down their heads, they really cannot tell why or wherefore."
"And whom does he love?" I inquired.
"His affections are, I believe, at this moment, divided between a Mrs.
Bang, a Mrs. Patten and a Mrs. Pancrass, all ladies of Covent Garden
notoriety. Meyler is a hard drinker, a very hard rider, and a good
tennis and a cricket player, prides himself on his Leicestershire stud
and his old English hospitality, and he is no fool though he hates
reading; and that is all I know about him, except that I don't believe
he would like to be constant for a single fortnight to the most lovely
or accomplished woman on earth. In short, he holds all women very cheap,
and considers them as mere instruments of pleasure, with the exception
of the Duchess of Beaufort, whom he calls a paragon."
"_En voilà assez,_" said I, "_de votre belle sauvage._ Perhaps you will
show him to me some day, not on Ludgate Hill, but at the Opera?"