Chapter 10

"Child, you know. Look at me."

And still she trembled.

"Beloved, adored!" he cried. "Think you I knew not 'twas death to you to tell the truth? Shall a man find a pearl in the dirt and not set it over his heart. I have loved you since first I saw your fair face, and now I honour you. Come to me and bless me; and when these fools cackle and gibber, I shall know how to protect my wife."

His arms went round her.

"I will do it," she said.

The minutes passed in an exquisite joy, plucked out of shame like a rose from a torrent. He left her and went to the door, and leaning over the balustrade, called down the stair:--

"Armitage!"

A young man, handsomely dressed and something of a fop after his valet-fashion, sprang up the stair--his Grace's gentleman. His master, very tranquil and haughty, was by the door--the fair Miss Gunning erect in her chair.

"Armitage, proceed at once to my house, and acquaint my chaplain, Mr MacDonald, that this lady and I are to be married immediately. Desire him to come hither with all that is necessary, and lose not a moment."

And seeing Armitage hesitate like a man wonderstruck, the Duke stamped his foot and set him flying down the way he came, calling after him:--

"Desire Mrs Abigail to come up this moment."

They heard the door shut violently, and Mrs Abigail came up, very demure and curtseying to the ground.

"Be seated, good woman. Your lady will excuse you. We wait the Reverend Mr MacDonald, with ring and licence, and you and Armitage shall serve for witnesses to the marriage. Now I think of it, call also the woman of the house."

He carried it masterfully, and Elizabeth, no more than any other woman, could be insensible to that charming tyranny. He stood behind her chair while the woman called for Mrs Mann--who came, mortally afraid of her company.

"Shall Mrs Abigail braid my hair?--it tumbles all about me," says Elizabeth, questioning her master timidly.

"'Tis so great a beauty I will not have it hid," he cries, standing behind her chair where the long locks lay on the ground.

Silence again, and the time passing.

At last, a sound as if Armitage propelled somewhat before him up the stair, and into the room walks his Grace's gentleman, and before him a stout personage in bands and cassock, so breathless from haste as to be incapable of any speech.

"Hath he the licence?"

"He hath, your Grace, but he declares that the occasion being so great, and the incumbent of Mayfair Chapel, Dr Keith, being at home and the chapel open, for the greater solemnity 'twere well to have the marriage solemnised there. 'Tis but ten minutes, and I have brought the chariot, if it please your Grace."

And now, puffing sore, the clergyman put in his plea,--not for delay, the Duke's face forbade that,--but that all be done with ceremony.

"If a word more be said, I send for the Archbishop!" swears his Grace, flushed and handsome. "My chariot's at the door. Bundle in all who can. Madam, allow me."

He drew the bride's hand to his, and preceded them down the stair, holding it high as in a minuet. The women followed without a word. Elizabeth went in a dream, half-enchantment, half-nightmare.

The chapel was dark and musty--no time to light the lamps; but Mr Armitage, the facile, the adroit, a perfect Mercury and old in experience, called in four linkmen waiting by their ladies' empty chairs in the street outside.

These grimy fellows stood upon the altar steps, two at a side, lighting the book the parson opened, his voice resounding through the silent place with startling loudness. Behind the bridal pair huddled the women.

"Dearly Beloved, we are met together--" and so to the close. But his voice was muffled beside the clear ring of James Hamilton's. His "I will" fell like a sword on the air. He was never a man to show his heart but to the one in whose hand it lay, and his tone disdained all but the woman who stood by him. He put his signet ring on her finger, and they turned from the altar man and wife.

"Give each of these men five guineas, and bid them light her Grace to her chariot, Armitage. Take you the women back to Mrs Gunning's lodging, where we follow. I thank you, Mr Keith, for the best service any man ever did me. It shall not go unrewarded."

He handed her into the chariot with the utmost ceremony; and when the door was closed, flung himself on his knees before her, clasping her waist.

"My dear--my girl, how shall I thank you? Think you I don't know what it hath cost you--and the proof you have given me that your heart is mine. My wife--my sweetheart!"

'Twas half after twelve when Mrs Gunning returned with Maria, being a prudent woman, and resolved that, if the criminal did not hang himself, it should not be for want of rope.

"The chariot's at the door and the light still in the parlour!" she whispered; "sure, he can't be there still? Heaven send he be not drunk and asleep. 'Twas mere folly to leave the wine!"

Not a sound. They approached as it were on tiptoe up the stair, and softly opened the door.

My Lord Duke, attended by Armitage, stood before them, splendid in his dark red velvet laced with silver, the blue ribbon crossing his breast. He held Elizabeth by the hand, she pale as ashes but perfectly composed.

Mrs Gunning gave a fine dramatic start, Maria advancing behind her, devoured with curiosity.

"What--what can this mean? Little did I expect to find your Grace here at this hour. Elizabeth, I fear you have been vastly imprudent. Your good name--" She might have said more but the Duke came forward, very magnificent.

"Madam, permit me to introduce a _stranger_," says he, with emphasis on the word, "Her Grace the Duchess of Hamilton."

"Lord! Then 'tis to be!" cries Mrs Gunning, all radiant, and mistaking his meaning. "O my sweet child, my Elizabeth--how have you took me by surprise! When shall it be, your Grace?"

"Madam, it is done. Miss Gunning became my bride in the Mayfair Chapel--was it twenty minutes since, Armitage?"

"Fifteen, your Grace."

"'Twas all in order--a clergyman?--'twas legal?" pants Mrs Gunning, her hand to her heart.

"Assuage your maternal fears, Madam." His lip was disdainful--he set her a world away. "All was as you could have wished. Permit the Duchess and myself to wish you farewell and good night--or rather good morning."

He led Elizabeth to the door, which Armitage held open. It closed behind them, and their steps were heard descending. The Duchess had not said a word.

There was silence until the chariot had rumbled away, when Mrs Gunning found her voice.

"I did not credit her with such skill. She hath played her cards well indeed. I would give the world to know what passed."

"That we shall never know," says Maria. "He's not the man to tell his secrets, nor she neither. Sure, they're a pair."

"Well, Heaven send you show the like skill with my Lord Coventry. You can't do better. Lord, how my heart beats for joy!"

"I shall not need, Madam," says Miss Maria coolly. "She has ensured my match with her own. The Duchess of Hamilton's sister won't go begging for a husband. 'Tis now but to choose my wedding silk. Come, let us to bed. These late hours hurt my bloom. Let us however drink a toast in this wine to old Mother Corrigan and the Golden Vanity. 'Tis the least we can do. Blow out the candles."

(_Elizabeth, later Duchess of Argyll, bore her honours with dignity and became a very great lady. Maria, Countess of Coventry, died aged twenty-seven, not untouched by scandal, and a victim to her own frivolity. Mrs Gunning received a valuable appointment as Housekeeper at one of the royal palaces. "The Luck of the Gunnings" became a proverb._

_It has been disputed which of the two famous actresses, Peg Woffington or George Anne Bellamy had the honour of setting the beauties forth in life. Mrs. Bellamy's claim has the better evidence, especially in view of the Countess of Coventry's distinguished impertinence to her a few years later._)

Maria Walpole _Countess of Waldegrave Duchess of Gloucester_ 17(?)-1807

Horace Walpole was convinced that even the Gunnings envied the beauty of Maria Walpole, his niece. "Yesterday," he writes, "t'other famous Gunning dined there. She has made a friendship with my charming niece, to disguise her jealousy." To the surprise of all London, Maria, daughter of Sir Edward Walpole and Maria Clements, married the Earl of Waldegrave, "for character and credit the first match in England." At her husband's death, she refused the Duke of Portland, but secretly married the Duke of Gloucester, brother to the King. Her admirers point out the romance of her fortunes--how she was daughter of a milliner, granddaughter of a great Prime Minister, widow of an Earl, wife of a Duke, sister-in-law to the King, mother of the three ladies Waldegrave, and, in her second marriage, mother of Prince William and the Princess Sophia.

Sir Joshua Reynolds made seven portraits of the lovely "Walpole Beauty." Years afterward, when he was at work on his famous painting of her three daughters, Walpole begged him to pose them "as the three Graces, adorning a bust of the Duchess as the Magna Mater." "But," adds the veteran of Strawberry Hill, with what resignation he can muster, "my ideas were not adopted."

V

The Walpole Beauty

[_From a packet of letters, written in the middle of the eighteenth century by Lady Fanny Armine to her cousin, Lady Desmond, in Ireland, I have strung together one of the strangest of true stories--the history of Maria Walpole, niece of the famous Horace Walpole and illegitimate daughter of his brother, Sir Edward Walpole. The letters are a potpourri of town and family gossip, and in gathering the references to Maria Walpole into coherence, I am compelled to omit much that is characteristic and interesting._]

_May, 1754._

Why, Kitty, my dear, what signifies your reproaches? I wish I may never be more guilty than I am this day. I laid out a part of your money in a made-up mantua and a petticoat of Rat de St. Maur, and for the hat,'twas the exact copy of the lovely Gunning's--Maria Coventry. And though I won't flatter you, child, by saying your bloom equals hers (for I can't tell what hers may be under the white lead she lays on so thick), yet I will say that your Irish eyes may ambuscade to the full as well beneath it, though they won't shoot an earl flying, like hers, because you have captured your baronet already!

But 'tis news you would have--news, says you, of all the gay doings of the town.

And how is her Gunning Grace of Hamilton, you ask, and do the folk still climb on chairs at Court to stare at her? Vastly in beauty, child. She was in a suit of fine blue satin at the last Birthnight, sprigged all over with white, and the petticoat robings broidered in the manner of a trimming wove in the satin. A hoop of the richest damask, trimmed with gold and silver. These cost fourteen guineas a hoop, my dear. Who shall say the ladies of the present age don't understand refinements? Her Grace had diamonds plastered on wherever they would stick, and all the people of quality run mad to have a stare at so much beauty, set off with as much glare as Vauxhall on a fête night, and she as demure as a cat after chickens.

But 'tis always the way with these sudden-come-ups, they never have the easy carriage that comes from breeding, and 'tis too much to expect she should be a topping courtier.

You must know Horry Walpole was there, in gray and silver brocade, as fine and finical a gentleman as ever, and most genteelly lean; and says I to him:--

"What think you, Mr Walpole, of our two coquet Irish beauties? Do they put out all the fire of our English charmers?"

So he drew himself up and took a pinch of rappee (can't you see him, Kitty, my girl?), and says he:--

"Madam, to a lady that is herself all beauty and need envy none, I may say we have a beauty to be produced shortly to the town that will flutter all the world, excepting only the lady I have the honour to address."

And, Lord! the bow he made me, with his hat to his heart!

"La, man," says I, "who is she? But sure I know. 'T is the Duchess of Queensberry reduced a good half in size and with a new complexion."

But Horry shook his ambrosial curls.

"No, Madam, 'pon honour! A little girl with the vivacity of sixteen and brown eyes, brown hair--in fact, a brown beauty."

And then it flashed on me and I says:--

"Good God!--Maria! But sure she can't be presented. 'Tis impossible!" And could have bit my silly tongue out when't was said.

He shrugged his shoulders like a Frenchman,--'tis the last grace he picked up in Paris,--and turned from me to the new lady errant, Miss Chester, who models herself on the famous Miss Chudleigh.

But nothing could equal the horrid indecency of Miss Chudleigh's habit at the Ranelagh Masquerade some five years back, when Mrs Montagu, observing her, said: "Here is Iphigenia for the sacrifice, but so naked the high priest may inspect the entrails of the victim without more ado." And says Horry: "Surely, 'tis Andromeda she means herself, and not Iphigenia!" I thought we should have died laughing. The Maids of Honour were then so offended not one of 'em would speak to her. They are not such prudes today, and Miss Chester has as much countenance as she looks for. Alas, it takes a wise woman, if not a good one, to know just where certainty should stop and imagination take its place!

But, Kitty child, who do you guess is the new beauty? I give you one, I give you two, I give you three! And if 'twas three hundred, you'd be never the wiser. Why, Maria Walpole, you little blockhead! Maria, the daughter of Sir Edward Walpole, Horry's brother. What think you of that? But Sir Edward never was married, says you. True for you, Kitty, but don't you know the story? No, to be sure. There's no scandal in Ireland, for St. Patrick banished it along with the snakes and their poison, because the island that has so many misfortunes would have died of another.

Well, take your sampler like a good little girl and hearken to the history of the lovely Maria that's to blow out the Gunning candles. Let me present to your la'ship Sir Edward Walpole, brother to the Baron of Strawberry Hill. A flourish and a sliding bow, and you know one another! Sir Edward, who resembles not Horry in his love for the twittle-twattle of the town, is a passable performer on the bass viol, and a hermit--the Hermit of Pall Mall. But the rules of that Hermitage are not too severe, child. 'Tis known there were relaxations. And notably one.

The Hermit some years since was lodged in Pall Mall; and in the lower floors was lodged a dealer in clothes, with prentices to fetch and carry.

Lord! says Kitty, what's this to the purpose? Attend, Madam. The curtain rises!

'Tis an old story: the virtuous prentice--and the unvirtuous. There was one of them--Dorothy Clement, a rustic beauty, straw hat tied under the roguish chin, little tucked-up gown of flowered stuff, handkerchief crossed over the bosom, ruffled elbows. 'Tis so pretty a dress, that I protest I marvel women of quality don't use it! However, this demure damsel looked up at Sir Edward under the hat, and he peeped under the brim, and when he left the house and returned to his own, what should happen but the trembling beauty runs to him, one fine day, for protection, swearing her family and master have all cast her off because 'twas noted the gentleman had an eye for a charming face.

Well, child, 'tis known hermits do not marry. 'Tis too much to ask of their Holinesses. But he set a chair at the foot of his table for the damsel, and bid her share his pulse and crusts; and so 'twas done, and whether in town or country, the Hermitess kept him company till she died. Sure the Walpoles are not too fastidious in their women, excepting only Horry of Strawberry Hill, who has all the finicals of the others rolled up in his lean body.

Well, Kitty, there were four children: a boy,--nothing to the purpose,--and Laura, Maria, and Charlotte. And the poor lasses, not having a rag of legitimacy to cover 'em, must needs fall back on good behaviour and good looks. I saw Laura, a pretty girl, in the garden at Englefield some years since, when I was airing in Lady Pomfret's coach; and as we looked, the little hoyden Maria comes running up in muslin and blue ribbons, all health and youth and blooming cheeks and brown curls and eyes--a perfect Hebe. And 'tis she--the milliner's brat--that's to borrow the Car of Love and set the world afire. But she can't be presented, Kitty; for our high and mighty Royals frown on vice, and not a single creature with the bar sinister can creep into Court, however many may creep out. And that's that!

And now I end with compliments and curtseys to your la'ship, and the glad tidings that one of the virgin choir of Twickenham, those Muses to which Mr Horace Walpole is Apollo, has writ an Ode so full of purling streams and warbling birds, that Apollo says he will provide a sidesaddle for Pegasus, and no male shall ever bestride him again.

_September, 1758._

O la, la, la! Was you ever at the Bath, child? Here am I just returned, where was great company, and all the wits and belles, and Miss Biddy Green, the great city fortune, run off with Harry Howe, and her father flourishing his gouty stick in the Pump Room and swearing a wicked aristocracy should have none of his honest guineas. But he'll soften when he sees her presented at Court, with feathers stuck in her poll and all the city dames green with spite. 'Tis the way of the world.

But to business. The town is talking with hundred-woman noise on the marriage that Laura,--by courtesy called Walpole,--the Hermit's eldest daughter, makes tomorrow. 'Twill astound you, Lady Desmond your Honour, as much as it did your humble servant. For Miss Laura honours the Church, no less, with her illegitimate hand, and no less a dignitary than a Canon of Windsor! Is not this to be a receiver of stolen goods? Does not his Reverence compound a felony in taking such a bride? What say you? 'Tis Canon Keppel, brother to Lord Albemarle; and mark you, Kitty--the Honourable Mrs Keppel has the right to be presented where Miss Laura might knock at the door in vain! We come up in the world, child; but the Walpoles had always that secret.

'Twill set the other charming daughters dreaming of bride-cake. All the world talks of Maria, a shining beauty indeed. Horry Walpole is enchanted at Miss Laura's match--sure, an illegitimate Walpole, if niece to the Baron of Strawberry, is worth a dozen of your Cavendishes and Somersets! I laughed like a rogue in my sleeve when says Horry to me at my drum:--

"Colonel Yorke is to be married to one or both of the Miss Crasteyns, great city fortunes--nieces to the rich grocer. They have two hundred and sixty thousand pounds apiece. Nothing comes amiss to the digestion of that family--a marchioness or a grocer."

Says I, flirting my fan:--

"'Tis gross feeding, sure, Mr Walpole. Now, had it been a royal illegitimate."

He looked daggers, and took a pinch of snuff with an air. Never was a man with more family pride, though he affects to scorn it.

What think you of this latest news of Lady Coventry? The people are not yet weary of gazing upon the Gunnings, and stared somewhat upon her last Sunday was se'night in the Park. Would you believe it, Kitty, that she complained to the King, and His Majesty, not to be outdone in wisdom, offers a guard for her ladyship's beauty. On this she ventures into the Park, and, pretending fright, desires the assistance of the officer, who orders twelve sergeants to march abreast before her and a sergeant and twelve men behind her; and in this pomp did the silly little fool walk all the evening, with more mob about her than ever, her blockhead husband on one side and my Lord Pembroke on the other! I'm sure I can't tell you anything to better this, so good night, dear cousin, with all affectionate esteem.

_April_, 1769.

Great news, your la'ship. I am but just returned from a royal progress to visit the Baron of Strawberry Hill. Strawberry was in prodigious beauty--spring flowers, cascades, grottoes, all displayed to advantage in a sunshine that equalled June. The company, her Gunning Grace of Hamilton, the Duchess of Richmond, Lady Aylesbury, and your humble servant.

Says Mr Horace, leaning on his amber-top cane and surveying us, as the three sat in the shell on the terrace and I stood by:--

"Strawberry Hill is grown a perfect Paphos. 'Tis the land of beauties, and if Paris himself stood where I do, he could never adjudge the golden apple."

He writ the same to George Montagu after, who showed the letter about town:--

"There never was so pretty a sight as to see the three sitting. A thousand years hence, when I begin to grow old, if that can ever be, I shall talk of that event and tell the young people how much handsomer the women of my time were than they are now."

There's a compliment like a fresh-plucked rose from the Lord of Strawberry. It reads pretty, don't it, child? Horry was in vast wit--'twas like the Northern Lights hurtling about us--made us blink! The Duchess of Richmond pretending she could not recall her marriage-day, says Horry:--

"Record it thus, Madam. This day thousand years I was married!"

'Twas not till a week later I discovered this to be a bon mot of Madame de Sevigne. His jewels are polished very fine, but 'tis not always in the Strawberry mine they are dug. But to our news--What will your Honour pay me for a penn'orth?

Tis of our beauty, Maria--ahem!--Walpole. The pretty angler has caught her fish--a big fish, a gold fish, even a golden-hearted fish, for't is Lord Waldegrave! A belted earl, a Knight of the Garter, no less, for the pretty milliner's daughter. You don't believe it, Kitty? Yet you must, for't is true, and sure. If beauty can shed a lustre over puddled blood, she has it. Lord Villiers, chief of the macaronis, said, yesterday was a week:--

"Of all the beauties Miss Walpole reigns supreme--if one could forget the little accident of birth! Her face, bloom, eyes, teeth, hair, and person are all perfection's self, and Nature broke the mould when she made this paragon, for I know none like her."

'Tis true, but 'tis so awkward with these folk that can't be presented nor can't meet this one nor that. Still, I have had her much to my routs and drums, where 'tis such an olla podrida that it matters not who comes. But Lady Waldegrave may go where she will; and certainly the bridegroom has nothing to object on the score of birth, for he comes from James the Second by the left hand, and for aught I know a left-hand milliner is as good these Republican days. Anyhow, 'tis so, and Horry, who would have all think him above such thoughts, is most demurely conceited that a Walpole--ahem!--should grace the British peerage. Remains now only Charlotte, and I dare swear she will carry her charms to no worse market than Maria, though not so great a Venus.