Chapter 6

Well, I have done with such fragments of a heart as I had, and wish it may never trouble me more. I am sick of the cant of sentiment and duties and suchlike, which is the mask men use to cover what will not bear considering. Let me write of it no more. The open wickedness of the world we live in is preferable to hypocrisy and cringing. I will rather laugh with others than be a laughing-stock. I sicken at this complication of folly and falsity. I go to the Bath shortly, and look for change and pleasure there, though Mr Wortley speaks of passing through on his way to Bristol, I know not for what. Lord Hervey is resolved to come there, though I fear it will not please his lady, who seems resolved to keep so general a blessing to herself, which is more than she or any can hope. She takes it, however, with easy good sense, and wisely, for there's nothing on earth, I protest, worth a tear.

The rage for cards runs higher than ever, and let me conclude my romance and this long paper with a pretty parable of them that is making the round of the town. Will your Ladyship guess the author? 'T is called "The Goddesses of Chance."

"There was long since in the Moon four Goddesses. One was the Queen of Riches, the second the Queen of Love, the third the Queen of Power, and of the fourth you'll hear anon. 'Tis to be supposed the fourth received the most homage; for a thing known loses its value, as when a man despises his own wife and thinks Lord M.'s a descended Venus, when, was the case reversed, his own would be his object.

"On a certain day these ladies, being, after all, women, disputed between themselves on a point of precedence.

"Says the Goddess of Riches, jingling her diamonds:--

"'I come first with all. I am worshipt in every polite country, and even the blacks fight over the shells that are their coinage. I give not only gold but all it can buy, inclusive of such bagatelles as love and honour, and all the other little nothings men cry up when they have a mind to be droll. I need give no examples though I might cite the late marriage of my Lady M. E. at the age of fifteen to a wealthy lord of seventy-five that shall be nameless. Undoubtedly I am Queen of all.'

"'Not by any means,' says the Goddess of Hearts, adjusting her crown with a simper. ''Tis I am supreme. 'Tis known a young rake will sell his last estate to win a smile from Miss Sally Salisbury and other worthy ladies. And hath not the Countess of H----t lately run off with her footman? I lead statesmen and kings by the nose. Many such moral examples could I give if needful.'

"The Goddess of Power, brandishing her club with a brawny arm, then replied:--

"'I beg your Ladyships would cease twattling when 'tis in my power with a crack of my club to silence you all. I leave you to judge whether anything in life is so powerful as what can end it. What's love when a crack on the sconce can kill it, or riches when a blow can turn it over to the grimacing heir-at-law? No, no, ladies. Strength comes first, and this was seen when the Strong Man was at Bartholomew Fair and half the beauties ran after him and poured their gold in a perfect Pactolus at his feet. Show your good sense, therefore, by a discreet silence.'

"But still they disputed, and at last the fourth said:--

"'Sisters, let us descend to earth, that we may settle the question which I see not how else to conclude.'

"'But how shall we go?' says the three at once.

"'We will go as the Queens of Chance, and men may sport with us, play with us, revile us, men and women alike. And they shall sell us their honour, love, and whatever else they have marketable, and on the day of Judgment we four will see whose bag is fullest of their commodities. 'Tis the only way to settle the dispute. And in the end all shall come to me.'

"And the three said: 'And who are you, Madam?'

"And says she: 'With my black spade I dig the earth where all shall lie. 'Tis I will be the Black Hag of the Pack, and you shall strip them and I will dig their graves. Be it known to you that I am Destiny herself.'

"So they came to earth, and are the Queens of Diamonds, Hearts, and Clubs. But if the Queen of Spades be in your hand, say the gambler's prayer backward, for she is the chance you can't reckon in the game, or in life or death."

I think it neatly turned, whoever did it, and I declare this little writing hath so affrighted the fine ladies, that Mrs Murray swooned away at the Duchess of Manchester's, finding the Queen of Spades in her hand at commerce, and was forced to be revived with strong waters. His Grace of Wharton, known to you and me as "Sophia," hath given up cards altogether, though whether it be the parable, I know not. And the viper of Twicknam is so jealous that he did not himself write this piece, that he spews his venom in all directions, in hope some will settle on the author. His pleasure to scourge alike the follies and virtues of mankind is, for aught I know, the liveliest this world affords. The follies are, at least, inexhaustible, and none need be at a loss for amusement that can taste them, whether in themselves or others.

The Queen, who I can't undertake to commiserate for bad health, so hard a life as she leads, hath had the unspeakable blessing to see her lord return from Hanover, after a storm which induced his faithful subjects to believe they had lost him. Will your Ladyship credit that the wits affixed a paper to the walls of St. James's Palace with, writ on it, this following:--

"Lost or strayed out of this house, a man who has left a wife and six children on the parish. Whoever will give tidings of him to the churchwardens of St. James's Palace, so as he may be got again, shall receive four shillings and sixpence reward.--N.B. This reward will not be increased, nobody judging him to be worth a crown."

Impudence indeed! But I hear from Lord Hervey that she is counselled by Sir Robert Walpole to invite Madame Walmoden hither from Hanover, to amuse his leisure. 'Tis done as you might throw a bone to a dog, while Her Majesty and the Walpole pursue the business of governing. I have no sort of liking for either, but own, had that woman been a man, she had been a great one, so entirely does she subdue her heart and all the femininities in her to what her reason demands. When she dies, and it can't be long first, from what I hear, the fool she leaves will drift like a stick in a stream.

Well, I sicken of England and of the town and the wits and all else. My mind is made up to quit this country ere long, and seek peace abroad, where I found it when I was younger than I am now. Folly! I tell myself so, and yet I will do it, when one or two businesses I must attend on are finished. 'Tis not that I am a lamenter over that I have told you. I care not what happens to my prodigal, and had sooner be out of hearing of his doings. When a cup is broke, throw it from you and think of it no more. But whether 'tis the spleen or the vapours, I have a mind to cross the water and seek a new earth, if not a new heaven. Here I am in neither, but in purgatory. Quelle vie!--'Tis what I say daily.

Adieu, my dearest Madam--may it not be long before we meet.

Inviolably yours,

M. W. M.

_(The son of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was the misery of her life, and it is the historic truth that he made much such a marriage as I have described. It is said he turned Mohammedan after the death of his parents. A portrait of him in a most aggressive turban is in existence. The reason for Lady Mary's leaving England in 1739, and returning only to die in 1762, has never been known.)_

Maria Gunning _Countess of Coventry_ 1733-1760

Elizabeth Gunning _Duchess of Hamilton and of Argyll_ 1734-1790

"'Tis a warm day," remarks George Selwyn in a letter to Lord Carlisle, "and someone proposes a stroll to Betty's front shop; suddenly the cry is raised, 'The Gunnings are coming,' and we all tumble out to gaze and to criticize."

The two lovely sisters from Roscommon in Ireland, introduced by their beauty, were the sensation of fashionable England in 1751. Maria, a year the elder, was the more dashing and at first the more conspicuous of the two. She became Countess of Coventry, and died at twenty-seven. Elizabeth married the Duke of Hamilton, after his death, refused the Duke of Bridgewater, but later married the Duke of Argyll. Four of her children were Dukes, two of Hamilton and two of Argyll.

So much Irish luck and beauty kept the Gunnings constantly in the centre of court affairs. A poem celebrating their conquests was entitled, "The Grand Contest between the Fair Hibernians and the English Toasts."

The Queen of the Bluestockings said of them, when she saw them together, "Indeed very handsome; nonpareille, for the sisters are just alike take them together, and there is nothing like them."

IV

The Golden Vanity

A Story of the First Irish Beauties The Gunnings

It was the year of grace 1750, and old Mother Corrigan sat outside her door in Slattern Alley, smoking her short black pipe with a relish; and't was a good day with her, for she had told his fortune that morning for Squire Tyrconnel, on his way to fight a duel in the Phcenix Park with Lawyer Daly; and when it was finished, says she to him:--

"Let you count the buttons on his body-coat, your Honour, and fix the third from the top in your eye. And when you stand up to him, say a prayer and pink him with your swordeen in that very spot, and the Lord grant him a bed in heaven, the old villain, for he'll never be asking one on earth again."

And as she said, so it was, and old Daly turned up his toes and never spoke more, when the Squire got him in the third button. And an hour after, Squire Tyrconnel sent his purse with five golden guineas in it, and a pound of the best rappee to be found in the Four Courts, and all for Mother Corrigan, and she was a proud woman that day. Her house was stuffed as full of money as an egg of meat; but no one would think it to look at her; for she had it all hid away like an old fairy, so that no one would give a thought to it.

She was sitting at her door at the top of Slattern Alley where it turns into Britain Street, and she in the best of good tempers, when a lady came by with two young daughters beside her--a tall woman, with a fine blossoming colour in her face and an air like a peacock spreading his tail and her eyes as clear as spring water. It would be hard to see a finer woman of her age in a day's walk, and all the gentlemen going to and from the Castle must turn to have another look at the three of them. Her dress might be handsome at first sight; but, closer, you could see she had it held up with pins and stitches, and a bit of good lace fell over it to hide the wear in the front. Also, she drew her feet under her hoop, that they might not be noticed, though they were as small as a young child's. And so she minced along with steps like mice, for fear of showing the burst in her shoe.

But for all that she held up her head like the deer in the Lord Lieutenant's park, and her pride was enough for a queen, and too much for a poor lady walking the Dublin streets and holding her skirt up out of the mud.

But it was the two she had with her that any lady might be proud of. There were never two such out of heaven; and sure it may be believed, for the world has said it often enough since that day, and will say it to the end of time. For the elder was a sweet rogue, with hair like red gold clean out of the fire, and eyes like a blue June morning, and cheeks like May flowers that a rose has kissed, and lips that better than a rose would kneel to kiss one day; and her smile lit up the street, and she tripped along as light as a spring breeze.

But the younger--sure the Lord was well pleased the day he made her face, for't was perfection's self, Her hair was a dark brown veined with gold, and her eyes like purple violets with the rain on them; and when she closed her long lashes 'twas like a cloud over the stars; and her mouth, and the soft smile, and the dimple that dipped when she laughed--a man would stand all day to watch her and not think long. 'Tis a strange thing that one girl will be like that, all beauty and shining sweetness, and another, perhaps as good,--for better she could not be in her heart,--will be a poor sorrowful little victim that a cat would not look at in the dark!

And old Mother Corrigan saw them coming, and she took her pipe out from between her teeth, and says she:--

"Halt here, my ladies, the three of you, and hear the fortune that's waiting you--the way you'll be ready when it comes."

"Fortune!" says the lady, stopping, a girl in each hand; "'Tis the black fortune and the sad fortune that befell me since the day the gold ring was on my finger. And I don't want to hear any more, so I don't; for if I had more to bear than I have this minute I wouldn't face the morn's morrow."

But Mother Corrigan rose up as nimbly as a woman to a dance, and she looked the lady in the eyes as if she was as tall as herself, and, "Come in," says she, "for though 'tis a poor place, the beauty of the three of you will light it like candles, and 'tis here your luck begins."

So they went in, and the lady said she had not so much as a silver bit to cross her hand with, and indeed would have pulled her daughters back; but the old woman would not have it.

"Leave it so," says Mother Corrigan, "what matters an empty hand today when you'll fill the two hands of me with gold when the luck comes that's coming? Give me your word, my lady, and I'll take it for as good as five guineas."

So she gave her word to fill Mother Corrigan's hand with golden guineas; and the two young girls were standing by, their cheeks like burning roses for fear and hope, as the old witch caught the lady's hand, and gabbled something that was not a prayer, and the words came from her like a person talking in their sleep.

"High blood and poverty. Sure, your father had a crown on his head and no gold to gild it with."

But the lady pulled her hand away angrily.

"Then you know who I am. What's the good of play-acting? I guessed this would be the way of it!"

"I don't know and I don't care," says the old woman with a grin. "I'm telling you what I see, and till this minute I never laid eye on you or yours. Don't you be speaking again, for there's no sense in that; but harken!"

So she told her her father was poor and proud, an Irish lord with a castle in a bog and an old coach with the cloth hanging off it in flitters and the plough-horses to draw it; and that he never gave her a penny since she married, for he had it not to give. And she told her her husband was no better, but running after the cards and dice all day, so that all the world cried folly on her for taking up with him.

"But no matter!" says Mother Corrigan, "for you did a good deed for yourself that day you stood up with him in the church."

"A good deed!" says the lady, very angry. "Don't you be a foolish old woman, and you so near your end. For I got nothing out of it but care and crying and pinching poverty and five children that I don't know how to put the bread in their mouths; and this minute I'm as lonesome as a widow, for my husband is off and away in the country, and here am I in Dublin; and if I know how to get bit or sup for them it's as much as I do know."

But the old woman shook her head till her teeth rattled.

"Let you be easy and take what's coming. I see you sitting in a king's house, and the walls all gilded gold, and the carpets like moss that your foot would sink into, and riches and grandeur, and everyone bowing down to the mother of the beauties."

"Well, if the half of it's true," says the lady, "the first news should come to me is that I'm a widow; for 'tis impossible it should happen as you say with a husband that hasn't one penny-piece to rattle on a tombstone."

"You'll not be a widow for many a day, and 'tis your husband's name brings the luck."

"You don't know what his name is. You couldn't If you'll tell me his name, I'll engage to believe any mortal thing you tell me."

So the three looked at the old woman; but she took another look at the hand as she might be reading a book, and:--

"Good-day to you, Mrs Gunning, and good-day to his Lordship's daughter,--my Lord Mayo,--and good-day to the mother of the two beauties that'll sweep the world."

And she clucked and chuckled to herself, highly diverted with their astonishment. How did she know it? What that old woman did not know would make but a short story. 'T was said she had informants over the whole countryside, like a Minister of the Crown.

They stared, for they were new come to Dublin, running from their debts in Roscommon and taking the chance to pick up husbands in the city, and there was not one there who knew them.

So she took the youngest girl's hand in hers and says she:--

"You'll marry the highest man, bar one or two, in England. And you'll not be content with that; for when you bury him, you'll marry the highest man in Scotland; and if I sat here till tomorrow, I couldn't tell you the half of the riches and glory that's waiting for you. You'll have to crawl through the black mud to get the first; but after that 'tis a clear course, and the mud won't stick to a duchess's gown, young Miss Elizabeth Gunning!"

A duchess! Elizabeth's eyes were like winter stars, they so sparkled--they would put out the light of diamonds. She held herself like a young poplar and says she:--

"And if you're right, old woman, or anything like it, I'll come and see you when I get promotion, and my Lord Duke shall fill your pockets with gold."

But Mother Corrigan grinned like a dog.

"I haven't a pocket, my Lady's Honour. My hand's good enough; but I'll not be here when you come riding back to poor old Dublin in yer coach and six--and now for the fairy of the world!"--And she took the hand of the eldest, who was shaking like a leaf and expecting to hear of a prince and his blue ribbon at the least, and her eyes fixed on the old witch like two blue lakes with the stars dipping in them.

But she shook her head.

"A great man, but not so big a man as your sister's." (The girl looked jealous daggers at Elizabeth.) "A fine man, and the gold lace on him, and velvet and silk stockings, and gold buckles shining in the shoes of him, and a big house to live in, and fine clothes for your back, and--"

She stopped dead, like a horse pulled up on his haunches; but the young Maria twitched her by the raggedy sleeve.

"Go on. What is it? I want to hear."

"Don't ask me, and you so beautiful!"

"I do ask, and I'll have it out of you. I suppose you mean I'll get old and ugly like yourself."

"You'll never be old and ugly. Them that remembers you will remember the loveliest thing God ever made when he took clay in his two hands."

"I don't know what she means," says Maria fretfully. "But sure some women are handsome till they die. Tell us when will the luck come, and how?"

"With the Golden Vanity and a woman with a man's name. And now leave me, my three queens, and I'll have a drop to warm me old bones and a whiff of the pipe to put the life in me. But don't forget the old woman when the great lords is kneeling before you and pouring the diamonds out of baskets before ye--and send the golden guineas, and--"

So she went on mumbling and muttering, and that was the first and last time the old hag told a fortune for love and not for money. She had not long to tell any, for she died next May, and not a soul to cry for her.

* * * * *

They stepped out into the sunshine, their heads high, and scarce a word to say to each other; for all three were thinking of the promises as light and glittering as soap bubbles. And Maria would not spare a word to Elizabeth, for not a woman but must walk after the heels of a duchess, and she was all for leading.

"The Golden Vanity!" says Elizabeth. "Mama, what should that be? When I'm a duchess--"

"I don't know, and most likely 'tis not worth knowing." Mrs. Gunning was angry. Her fine brows were drawn together. "Leave talking of duchesses, you silly fools, and go get the herrings for tea. I have left the children too long as it is."

So she marched down Britain Street like a queen, for all her burst shoe,--a shabby street it was for such ladies,--and the two walked off to Fishmonger's Alley, and not a head but turned to look at them.

"Faith, they're goddesses and no mistake!" says gay Mr Councillor Egan, on the way from the Law Courts, with his mulberry face and his mulberry velvet coat. 'Twas to Lawyer Curran he said it, and in a small city like Dublin the name held, and the two were called the Goddesses from that time.

Old Corrigan's words gave them courage for a while; but what can hold up against a diet of herrings day in and day out? And that was all the poor lady could give her family. What was she to do? Mr Gunning had took himself off to Castle Coote, his beggarly place in the country, where he could dice and drink in peace with the neighboring squireens, and live off claret and the skinny fowls that pecked about the avenue; and she had the weight of the children on her spare shoulders.

'Twas about this time that young Harry Lepel, the first man they met, in a way of speaking, fell in love with Elizabeth, the younger. The way it happened was this. She was walking down Mount Street with Maria, and she let fall her purse, and nothing in it but a pocket-piece to save her gentility. Harry was strolling off to my Lord Cappoquin's, from mounting guard at the Castle (for at that time his Lordship lived in Merrion Square); and indeed Mr Lepel was as fine a figure of a young man as a girl could wish to see, in his regimentals all laced with gold and his handsome head above them--a brown man with dark eyes. And seeing a young madam drop her purse, he stooped for it and, coming up behind them, saluted very stiff and offered it, and the two turned and looked him in the face.

'Tis certain a man might come up a thousand times behind a woman's back and not be startled as Harry Lepel was when he saw them; for there never was, nor will be, two such sisters. 'Twas like a battery suddenly unmasked; and what chance had the poor devil that was marching up to it like an innocent? The only thing he could do was to surrender at discretion--but to which lady? That was the trouble. Elizabeth Gunning settled it for him.

"I thank you, Sir," says she, with a smile that had ruined St. Anthony, for she was one that smiled with her eyes as well as her mouth--a golden sunshine that the heart opened to naturally.

He was stuttering and stammering. "Madam, I thank you for the happiness of touching anything your hand hath blessed."

'Twas sudden, I allow; but then, so too was her beauty. At all events, he dared no more, not having the courage, though all the will, to linger, and was turning off when a queer thing happened. But 'twas to be.

A drunken poltroon of a bargeman was coming up from Liffey-side, lurching and yawing like a Dutch hooker in a gale; and seeing them in a little bunch on the cobblestones, he took an anger at them in his wooden head, and, whether purposely or not I know not, but he elbowed up against Miss Maria and drove her into the dirty kennel; and she gave a faint scream, for her shoes were destroyed with the mud, and it was the only pair she had to her name. So what does Mr Lepel do but let drive straight from the shoulder at the offender, and in a minute the shoes and the lady were out of the kennel and the bargeman lying there as snug as snug, and the oaths he let out of him blackening the air like a flight of crows. So Mr Lepel, smiling with set lips like a picture, says to the girls:--