A FORTNIGHT later, Catherine Duchess of Queensbury—a very imperious and beautiful lady, was seated in her own library, and her companion was his Grace of Bolton. But a few words must needs be said of this celebrated person, Mr. Gay’s patroness and (it must needs also be said) instigator in his attacks upon the court. Never was a lady more favoured by fortune. Born of the great Hyde family that had given two Queens to England—their Majesties Mary the Second and Queen Anne, she married as greatly as her birth demanded, becoming Duchess of Queensbury and Dover in her twentieth year, and paling all the beauties of her own rank by her radiant face. A wit, a termagant, with a tongue like a dagger, and the most wilful of her sex, she queened it right royally, and if the majestic Queen Caroline could daunt her Grace ’twas as much as she could, and that by no means always. Certainly no other person made the attempt. For Prior’s “Kitty beautiful and young,”—who by the way seemed but to grow in beauty as in years, considered herself the first lady in Europe by right divine, and for those who failed to bow before her sceptre ’twas apt to become a rod, and descend upon their backs with a resounding thwack. But sweet as a summer breeze to those who were fortunate enough to please her Divinity! Of these Mr. Gay had the happiness to be one of the chief, and at the present time his knife and fork was laid daily at her Grace’s table and a room kept at his disposal, his Grace the Duke, her husband, approving all that his consort decreed. It came as a consequence that Madam followed every event in the production of “The Beggar’s Opera” with as much interest as its author, hoping to launch it with all its sting at her deadly enemy Sir Robert Walpole, the famous minister.
Behold then the fair Kitty—whom her enemies described as a cat—in the full bloom of her charms, more lovely at twenty-eight than when she stole the car of love and set the world afire (to quote again her adorer, Prior) in her teens. A noble looking creature with large lucent eyes and long throat to set off her diamonds, and brown hair shot with gold dressed so as to add to her fine height. She might have been an Empress. Yet, will it be believed that this woman who moved and spoke a goddess confessed, could descend so far as to snatch off her brocaded apron in a fury when those dainty ornaments were forbid at Court, and fling it in the face of the Lord Chamberlain who strove to hinder her Grace’s invasion in the contraband garment? Not only did she so, but considered herself the aggrieved party and swept on into the Presence, darting such awful glances at him as must have withered the unfortunate but for the supporting anger of royalty on his side.
Such then was the lady with whom Bolton sat closeted now. They had played together as children and between them subsisted a strong and faithful friendship that admitted of truth on both sides with an unalterable kindness beneath, whatever little whiffs might disturb the surface.
She sat at her tambour frame stitching the flowers of a silken garden, and while she stuck her needle in and out she discoursed of ‘The Beggar’s Opera.’ ’Twas truly in her mind night and day, owing to the malicious pleasure she took in the hope of wounding Sir Robert Walpole with the innuendoes her Grace and Mr. Gay had prepared.
“Gay tells me all goes as well as even he could wish,” says she. “ ’Twas Heaven’s own blessing sent us a Polly he can approve, for like all the tribe of authors he’s so thin-skinned that unless all’s perfection he expects the sky to fall and crush his hopes. He describes her the prettiest wench he ever set eyes on—a black beauty but with eyes like violets.”
“Beauty is not all in a player,” says the Duke, caressing her silky lap-dog on his knees. “ ’Tis manner—a something seductive, I know not how to word it, but a something that makes the whole world desire to embrace the lady.”
The Duchess gave one of her big hearty laughs.
“And doubtless they do so—more or less!” says she. His Grace still stroked the dog’s silken ears.
“Why, not in this case, Madam, it appears. ’Tis a case of the chaste Diana, and——”
“What? On the stage? I won’t believe it.”
“But you must believe it. For one whole fortnight—fourteen days, no less, this damsel hath stood fire and hath not lowered her flag, no, not by an inch. ’Tis reported that her Macheath is so in love with her that he can scarce play the character of the gay libertine that shines on all the ladies alike, and is in public, as in his private character of Mr. Walker, so lovesick that he can’t say ‘How happy could I be with either,’ without conveying by every sign and token that he has no eye at all for the unhappy Lucy Lockit, and that his whole soul is Polly’s. Mr. Rich hath scolded, argued, reasoned, and all in vain.”
“And Polly?”
“Polly will have none of him, she turns up the most exquisite nose in Christendom, barring your Grace’s, and when she must sidle up to him does it with a Don’t-touch-me! air that she must certainly amend or incur Mr. Gay’s severest reproof.”
“Then you’ve seen her, Sir, I conclude?”
“Certainly, Madam, what would my character for fashion be worth had I not seen the new, the famous, the adorable Polly? I was presented to her in the green-room, but could scarce form a judgment of her face so resolutely did she keep her eyes on the ground and tilt her hat brim over her eyes. There was that in her air that said ‘A man’s an animal I distrust most liberally. Not a man shall come within the circumference of my hoop but I’ll freeze him into awe. Keep your distance, Sir!’ Accordingly I kept it. I know not what she is like.”
“Then there’s a lover behind the scenes,” says her Grace, sticking a jonquil and laughing.
“Why be so cruel in your judgment, Madam? Hasn’t Mrs. Bracegirdle carried her reputation unspotted through the world and she a famous player? Don’t your Grace recall Congreve’s verse?”
And in a very mellow and manly tenor the Duke sang sotta voce:
“Pious Celinda goes to prayers
Whene’er I ask a favour,
And yet the tender fool’s in tears
When she believes I’ll leave her.
Would I were free from this constraint,
Or else had power to win her:
Would she could make of me a saint,
Or I of her a sinner.”
“But he couldn’t—he never did!” concluded his Grace. “Not though he was seven years younger than the lady, and wrote all his plays about her charms! Then why not a chaste—a disdainful Polly also!”
“One swallow doesn’t make a summer! But after all, since we expect nothing from these women we’re the less disappointed. Has my Lord Baltimore essayed his enchantments?”
“Fie, Madam, fie! Would you have me a traitor? The American Prince revolves on his own princely orbit. I’m but—Benedick, the married man. How should I know what his Brilliance does? I do but look through the window of my prison.”
He spoke half melancholy, half bitter. Indeed there were times when his fetters galled him unbearably, and the mystery of his miserable married life was heavy on his spirits. His intimates knew that cloud on his brow and respected it. The Duchess stretched a fair hand weighted with great emeralds and laid it on his, but said nothing save with her eyes, softened and kind, for the nonce. A moment past and she spoke under her breath;
“A long punishment for a moment’s madness, my friend!”
“And not even my own madness! I have not so much as that poor consolation to aid me in bearing my punishment. A boy of eighteen and— But I have sworn no word shall pass my lips. What use hath the world for us if we growl and whine? No, Madam, help me to laugh. What were we discussing?”
“Polly,” says she, with a sadness in her eyes that became her very well. “But, Bolton, before we quit the subject, tell me this—that am your friend. Is there never a woman in London that you could make your mistress?”
“Thousands!” says he with a harsh laugh.
“No—no. I meant not so. But a good woman, beautiful and kind, who might mend the sore place in your heart and give you at least some sort of a home? You’re thirty-two now—Four years older than me,—and even I don’t always feel young whatever way my looks may lie. You need a home. ’Tis a thing often done, Bolton. Yourself knows that I could run off a list this minute of half a hundred men that have done this and who thinks the worse?”
“I’ll ruin no woman’s life!” says he, with his dark sad eyes upon the ground.
“There’s many would think it promotion, not ruin.”
“What! To live with a soured disappointed man, fettered hand and foot, sick of life at times, distrustful of all women except his friend—the lovely Kitty? Unable to love any woman however he may amuse himself in passing. No Madam! What has any poor fool done that I should expose her to a life like this? I can be cheated with good humour, but I will not cheat. Say no more. I have my amusements like other men and I value them as little as the cards and horses and other follies that make our days and nights. You have a soul above them—I also. See, I’ll tell you a secret, I have a dream—a vision——”
“Of the inexpressible She?” cries Kitty, suspending her needle in air.
“Yes and no, Madam. An inexpressible She indeed—but one of the Muses. I think to write a book. I have a story in my head, and as yet no words to tell it, but some day——”
He paused, and again said bitterly:
“But what use? The town would laugh itself sick over the foolish nobleman who aspired to author. Rank, Madam, is a fetter as well as marriage. It galls me sometimes. What if I run off one day to Baltimore’s American colony, and renounce all this glitter for my cousin the heir? ’Twill be his indeed, for heir of my own I shall never have.”
“Never is a long day!” says her Grace, re-threading her needle. “ ’Tis my eternal aversion to hear you despond. ’Tis true your wife pinches you execrably. But ’tis true also that she may run off with her physician as Lady Selby did but last week.”
“We won’t jest about my wife, Madam, if it please you. After all, she’s my wife and I respect the position if I don’t respect her. Hallo—who comes here? Mr. Gay, your servant!”
For the door opened and Mr. Gay the ever-welcome, appeared unannounced, bowing low to her Grace and her companion. She flung her tambour frame aside and sprang lightly to her feet.
“Hallo also! How goes it Gay? Gayly? Do they speak the lines with point, with malice? Are the pretty chickabiddies all learning to flutter about their Macheath? Why this anxious brow, man?”
“Because, Madam, I’m harassed about Polly.”
“Not bolted—not flown? Trust a prude!” cries the Duchess.
“Nothing less, your Grace. But she was lodging with Scawen, Rich’s old factotum that does all his odd jobs and’s a kind of remembrancer to him. Well—the poor old trot has catcht the small-pox, God knows how, and poor Polly is homeless and Rich distraught. She can’t go home, for her mother’s husband would fain use her for a pretty decoy-duck in his coffee house (which between ourselves deserves a worse name), and Rich knows of no decent lodging for her high or low. You are aware, Madam, that his acquaintance is not the most straight-laced. ’Tis a droll quandary, but troublesome. The girl is so pretty she needs a guardian.”
“Lord save us!” says the Duke. “Won’t your own character constitute you a duenna, Mr. Gay? I don’t imagine either a tongue or a sword would wag if you safeguarded the lady’s morals. But is she in truth such a Dian?”
“I beg you won’t jest, your Grace!” cries Mr. Gay, pushing his peruke off his brow in his perplexity. “I am aware that a young woman’s virtue is a subject for mockery to all the fops in town, but, notwithstanding, this untoward circumstance may put an end to our hopes. The girl knows not where to go nor what to do. She sits in tears, and her mother declares she shall go to an aunt in Sussex tomorrow, for she don’t give a fig for the play. Would sooner the girl didn’t play at all!”
“Lord save us!” says the Duchess. “But isn’t there any among the player-women can give her house-room?”
“Why, Madam, Mrs. Bishop—Well, not to be indelicate, we all know Mrs. Bishop is not the duenna one should choose for a virgin, and the rest—well, there’s objections to them all.”
“Lord bless me!” repeats the Duchess. “Little did I think our Polly to be so fragile a porcelain;—who in the world is this icicle, Mr. Gay?”
Mr. Gay looked about him cautiously:
“Why, I’m under bond to Rich not to reveal the particulars, but with your Grace I know ’twill go no further. The young lady’s name’s not Fenton, as will appear in the bills, but Beswick. Diana Beswick. But her mother and she insist it be not known, she being a gentlewoman.”
“Diana!” says the Duke, laughing, “ ’Tis certainly appropriate.”
“Beswick!” cries the Duchess, “Why there was a Mr. Beswick in the King’s naval service. ’Twas in command of the Diana sloop that he saved Mr. Francis Hyde, my cousin from a watery grave. Ask Lady Louisa else! They presented the gentleman with a gold watch and a hundred guineas, and later he went off to the American colonies and they heard no more.”
“Damme, if it isn’t the very man! Why, Rich told me of the American business no later than last night. Depend on’t, he called his girl after his ship,” says Mr. Gay.
The three stood looking upon one another like persons amazed. The Duchess collected herself first.
“Why, then, Mr. Gay, the girl’s a gentlewoman. Mrs. Boscawen asserts Mr. Beswick was the son of persons of condition in Sussex. The poor unfortunate!— And is she sunk to this! Then I’ll tell you what—if you can assure me she’ll not corrupt my woman’s morals, (and God knows I think ’tis more like to be the other way about,) I’ll give her bed and board here. ’Tis a thing I would not have chose, for I am spoke about enough already in connection with your play; but I won’t have it hindered, so I won’t! And if the girl’s honest it shan’t be my doing if she don’t remain so. Fetch her hither, Mr. Gay, and instruct her to keep a quiet tongue in her head about the playhouse, and if the world talks why here’s one can stand it!”
Both gentlemen stared at her Grace amazed. To take a poor player into her ducal house.— Lord, what a freak! But ’tis to be remembered her Grace of Queensbury was all freaks and snapt her fingers in the Devil’s face as soon as look at him. What gave Mr. Gay pause was not so much this as that his play was assuming a political complexion in public minds from the allusions and double meanings it contained, and he might doubt how far ’twas politic to pin it to the Duchess’s petticoat tail. Nevertheless he was in a sad quandary and here was his way out. He dropt on one knee like a courtier and kissed the fair hand, so loaded with jewels.
“O Dea certe!” he cried. “You come indeed a divine being to the rescue. I’ll away this moment and bring the chaste Diana to your feet. Indeed ’tis a modest girl, Madam, and I think you’ll not regret your kindness. Moreover, so many flies are after the honey pot that ’twill be an ease to my mind lest we have an affair like Bracegirdle’s with my Lord Mohun, of which there have been examples both before and since.”
He alluded to the infamous Lord Mohun’s attempt to abduct the beauteous Mrs. Bracegirdle. A circumstance very notorious in its day and known to both their Graces.
“Lord! You make me shudder, man!” says the Duchess, “No, but we won’t lose our Polly! I suppose you fear my Lord Baltimore. I heard from a sure hand he was buzzing about her. So, off, Mr. Gay, off! Lose not a moment. Sound my whistle, Bolton. I’ll give directions.”
Mr. Gay was off in a trice, and the Duke caught up the little gold whistle on the Buhl table and whistled softly till a small black page ran in,—the latest fancy of modish ladies, a droll little figure in turban and gold coat and girdle, grinning and saluting with head and hands.
“Call Mrs. Francis, Pompey,” says her Grace, and the imp bows to the ground and runs off helter-skelter.
Directions given, the lady turns to his Grace.
“Wait and see the arrival! I protest I’m vastly curious to see the fair cause of so much pother. ’Twas a prodigious strange circumstance I should hear of her father. And stranger still I should commence duenna—I that never heeded a prude in my life nor ever will! What say you to me in my new rôle, Sir?”
She pulled down the corners of her lovely mouth and rolled up her eyes sanctimoniously and made a face so droll, that he must laugh whether he would or no, and until Mr. Gay returned with his prize her Grace amused herself by preaching over the back of her chair an extreme outspoken sermon on the perils of the town and the best means to avoid them. ’Twas in the manner of the Right Reverend the Bishop of London and none the less droll for that. She was but at her Amen when the door opened and Mr. Gay re-entered followed by a shy figure in cloak and hood, the groom of the chambers preceding them scornful-eyed.
“Mr. Gay, your Grace, and Mrs. Lavinia Fenton.”
The Duchess curtseyed imperceptibly, ’tis so difficult to divest the mind of the prejudices of rank, and then came forward smiling to the shrinking girl—too terrified almost to remember her manners.
“You’ll pardon me Mrs. Beswick (Diana started back), and the liberty I take when I say I have the good fortune to know some matters relating to your respectable father and his gallantry that saved Mr. Francis Hyde’s life. His daughter hath not forgot that circumstance, I dare swear!”
’Twas kindly and graciously said, and Diana lifted an April face and curtseyed lower.
“Indeed, your Grace, I have not. I have the watch now. Is the gentleman of your Grace’s family?”
“So much so that I take it as a debt to be repaid to your father’s daughter, Madam. And I am now to request that in this unforeseen difficulty just arisen you’ll favour me with your company here for as long as is convenient to yourself.”
“But, Madam—Your Grace—The playhouse hours, the rehearsals! I’m overwhelmed with your goodness but know myself a very inconvenient guest.”
“That shall be my care, not yours, Mrs. Diana,” says the Duchess, laughing her charmingest. She laughed with a gusto, this lady, that carried all with her, and Diana looked at her, amazed and comforted by the condescension and obligingness of so great a person. She was bewildered indeed. To be rescued from all her perplexities and griefs, and carried off thus suddenly into what appeared to be a heaven of gentle voices and kind looks and beauty, was more like a dream than any waking occurrence in her short and somewhat sad life.
“I have no words—no none—with which to thank you, Madam, but indeed I vow that my conduct shall be answerable to my gratitude and that your Grace shall have no cause to regret your condescension.”
“Child, I look in your fair eyes and have no fear. I see in them the mirror of a candid soul!” cries the Duchess, too beautiful herself to disparage the beauty of others. This lady had the frankness of a man rather than the finesse of a woman and spoke her thoughts with a candour sometimes charming, sometimes embarrassing in a high degree, but always her own. She added now:
“And indeed your looks are such that you need a shepherdess to keep so pretty a lamb in the right pasture. There are wolves about, child, and some of them in sheep’s clothing. Doubtless you know this already?”
“Unfortunately, too well, Madam!” She said no more but there was a trouble in her face that spoke volumes as she stood patient by the table, waiting the Duchess’s pleasure. It was then for the first time that she became aware of a tall gentleman standing silent by the fireplace. A very splendid gentleman in brown and gold, and with a dark and melancholy face like the Stuart portraits at Hampton Court. It was not without the hidden sanction of the blood that his Grace resembled a fine Vandyke of that unfortunate family. Clothe him in armour and a falling lace collar, and his connection needed not trumpeting, but spoke for itself in long dark eyes and lips full of sensibility and tenderness. But that’s an old scandal.
Diana knew nothing of this, but as she looked upon him a strange romantic interest that surrounded him like a vapour, not to be expressed but visible, was perceptible to even her young untutored mind. Worded, it was nothing but this:
“Who may be this great gentleman who looks so proud and sad?”
Thought, it was a hundred things more and all inexpressible. He moved slightly forward, and the Duchess revolved majestic in her hoop.
“This is his Grace the Duke of Bolton, Mrs. Beswick. A great devotee to your charming profession. Rely on’t the secret of your name shall go no further than his Grace. He and I are sworn friends, and wherever ’tis possible to advance your interests he’ll second me.”
“I had the happiness to be presented to Mrs. Fenton in the green-room at Portugal Street, but sure she can’t remember one stranger among so many.”
She looked full at him. Certainly he could not complain that he saw not her face now. He thought it one of incomparable sweetness, lovely in feature and colour, but how should any man think otherwise? He drew a little nearer as if he would have willingly had her speak with him.
And at that moment two footmen flung the wings of the great door wide open, and the groom of the chambers announced:
“My Lady Fanny Armine. My Lord Baltimore.”