Chapter XLII
It was some time previous to the death of my sister, that I was induced by the advice of Mr. Brougham and Mr. Treslove to commence proceedings against the Duke of Beaufort for the recovery of the small annuity he had thought fit to deprive me of.
I have already related the circumstance of my having refused to marry Lord Worcester over and over again, solely to relieve the minds of his parents, and further went down to Oxford to implore Worcester, by all his future hopes of happiness, to pass his solemn word to the duke and duchess never to marry me; and it was only at my request he could be induced to promise to go abroad for one year, on condition that his father made me an allowance. This the duke gladly agreed to, and sent Worcester to me, accompanied by his attorney, to ask me what I required.
“Enough to pay for my board only,” was my reply. “Nor do I require bonds or signatures. The duke is a gentleman, and will take care that the person who has complied with all his wishes shall not come to want. Of that I am well satisfied.”
Robinson told me to fear nothing, and down I went into Devonshire, where I might have wanted bread, without obtaining a shilling or an answer to any one of my letters addressed to His Grace, had I not, after waiting four or five months, been obliged to threaten that I would join Worcester in Spain. This, and this only, brought a polite letter, enclosing two quarters of the promised allowance, from His Grace.
I should like to know if His Grace or his noble son will take upon them to deny any of these facts, or that he did not desire me to make my own terms if I would not marry Worcester? and for which, all the world are crying “Off! Off! Off!” to the Duke of Beaufort, just as if he were Kean the actor. At all events, the facts I am now proceeding to relate were public.
Neither Brougham nor Treslove could be induced to believe that, since the Duke of Beaufort had bestowed a small annuity on me for the purpose of separating me from Lord Worcester, it could ever be His Grace’s wish to rob me of that annuity, while the intent and purpose of it was fulfilled. I had indeed written a few lines to Lord Worcester, trusting to their humanity to forgive me for the exercise of mine; but, since my letter did not interrupt the object of the bond, which was to separate us, nobody would believe that the duke wished to throw on the world, me, who might have been his daughter, without the means of existence.
“The duke will prefer giving you fifty thousand pounds,” said the duke’s attorney to me.
My answer was, “Were I selfish, I would marry Worcester.”
To satisfy these incredulous gentlemen, I renewed my applications to His Grace; but they were unattended to, as before.
As the day of trial drew near, I expressed my astonishment to my legal advisers that they wished me to bring forward a case like this, which I must inevitably lose if Lord Worcester produced the letter I wrote to him, which was directly in the teeth of the conditions of the bond.
“Fear nothing,” was Brougham’s answer. “Lord Worcester cannot appear in it without irremediable disgrace and loss of character.”
“How can you imagine it possible,” asked Brougham, “that Lord Worcester, the man who for years together has sworn to make you his wife, can appear in evidence against you, for the purpose of leaving you destitute, and effectually robbing you of the trifling independence which you were gracious enough to be satisfied with, when you might have been Duchess of Beaufort?”
I was at last almost convinced that Lord Worcester could not act thus.
“If he does he ought to be ashamed of himself,” said Fred Bentinck, “and so I shall tell him. I always tell everybody exactly what I think of them, for my part.”
The day of trial arrived. Thee very hour approached, and Worcester had not obeyed his father’s peremptory summons to come up to town and attend as evidence against me. The duke, knowing there could be no other witness, was in a terrible fever of agitation, as my attorney told me.
Just at the last, when the furious duke had given up all hopes of his son, he, in a great fright, proposed to my attorney to pay him twelve hundred pounds, rather than stand the event of the trial alone, and Brougham had scarcely given his written consent to this compromise, which was immediately signed, when the most liberal, generous, high-minded, and noble Marquis of Worcester stepped out of his travelling carriage, and came driving towards the scene of action, with my poor, ill-fated letter in his hand. Such at least is my attorney’s account of the business. He may be referred to by the incredulous. I was not present.
Thus was I indebted to the duke’s fears of wanting a witness, or being hissed out of court, for the sum of twelve hundred pounds, which was handed to me as soon as I had accompanied the attorney to Westminster Hall and taken the following oath:
“THE KING’S BENCH,
“Between Harriette Wilson, Plt.
and
“His Grace the Duke of Beaufort, Deft.
“Harriette Wilson of
the above named
plaintiff, maketh oath, and saith that she hath, in the schedule hereunder written, set forth a full and true list of all the letters, papers, and writings in her possession, or power, written by the Marquis of Worcester to this deponent, and that she hath not retained or delivered to any person, any copies, or extracts of them, or any or either of them, save and except any extract that this deponent may have sent or delivered to the above defendant.”
And now good-bye, Beaufort.
I forgot to mention my having met with Lord Francis Conyngham, now Earl of Mount Charles, in Paris, with whose beauty I was much attracted. There was nothing national in his manner, nor, I think, in his character. He was perhaps rather cold; but amiable and truly unaffected. Such as he was, I remember he interested me very much. I did not fall in love with him, partly because he had the tremendous bad taste not to fall in love with me; but his ill health and his cough induced me to encourage somewhat of the tenderness of a mamma towards him; and I used to dream about his eyes, they were so very blue and beautiful.
I have often met the young Marquis of Graham too, who is not very popular, as I am told; but that is nothing to me.
Any fool may be popular: it is the easiest thing in the world.
Only be a good listener and praise everybody on the face of the earth, that is the whole fact.
However, Lord Graham is rather reserved; mais ne méprisez pas les personnes froides; elles ont leurs bons côtés. Lord Graham is very just, friendly, and strictly honourable, neither is he the stupid person many imagine him to be. For my own part, I like Lord Graham, and always have had reason to like him; and I am sure Beau Brummell would like him, because his clothes are uniformly so well made and in such good taste.
My readers will believe that my poor sister’s death affected me deeply, and my health suffered seriously from my anxiety and want of rest. About two days after I had seen my dear sister buried, Amy appeared to feel something like compassion for the weak state in which she found me. She suddenly took me in her arms, and told me she feared I should die, and then burst into a flood of tears, as she added that she knew well she had never been kind to me!
Everything was forgiven from my heart and soul at that moment; but Amy soon ran up a fresh score of offences, just in her usual way.
I cannot in justice help relating Sophia’s kind attention to her sister Fanny in her last moments. Not that there was merit in one sister loving another, who was too amiable ever to have made a single enemy in her life: one, whom the most cold-blooded and unfeeling could not but love: yet, still I am glad I can, with truth, affirm that Sophia did her duty in this instance, and Amy also, in the daytime. The night-watching devolved entirely on me; but whoever else might have watched poor Fanny I would never have quitted her.
From the hour of my sister’s death, my dearest mother’s health visibly declined, and exactly three months after Fanny had breathed her last, I followed my parent to her grave. From that period I was for more than two months confined to my room, and, generally, to my bed, with a violent liver complaint, or I know not what.
“It is liver,” said Doctor Bree, “and she must swallow plenty of mercury.”
“No such thing,” said Doctor Nevinson. “It is neither more nor less than over-excitement of the nerves, with too much anxiety, fatigue, and distress of mind.”
“All this has disordered her liver,” reiterated Doctor Bree, who has written a book on people’s livers.
“I won’t stand it,” said Doctor Nevinson; “and, before Harriette begins upon your mercury, I will call in Dr. Pemberton.”
“Never mind that cough, ma’am,” said Pemberton: “you may keep it till you are eighty, and it will be an amusement to you. It is only a nervous cough.”
However I continued very ill in spite of all these gentlemen could do for me.
When my spirits and health were at their very worst, I was informed that poor Julia was dying and wanted to see me. I could not refuse her request. Her features bore the fixed rigidity of death when I entered her room. Her complaint, like her late poor friend’s, was a disease of the heart, and there was no remedy.
She talked much of her dear Fanny, and said she had been certain from the first that she should soon follow her to the grave.
I insisted on writing to Napier, who was at Melton Mowbray.
“No! no!” said poor Julia. “If you will lend me your carriage, I am sure I shall be able to join him in a few days. I shall soon be better.”
I wrote notwithstanding, and Napier came to her, kneeled by her bedside, read the service of the dead, and then—and then he again read prayers to her. All this he afterwards told me himself.
“You must have killed her,” said I, “in so dreadfully weak a state as she was in.”
This conversation took place some weeks after her death.
“Nonsense,” replied Napier. “Why say such cruel unfeeling things to me? Upon my honour, there was no chance for poor, sweet, dear Julia, who was the image of death when I——”
“Oh Julia! Angel Julia! I cannot bear it!” he added, pulling his hair, and throwing the handsome pillows of my new sofa all about the room.
“Doucement! doucement! s’il vous plait,” I observed. “Julia was my friend, I regret her certainly; but my feelings are so deeply affected by the death of my adored mother, whom God knows how I have loved, that there is scarcely room in my heart for any other grief, and, at all events, I don’t quite see the use of your knocking my new sofa about.”
“Very true,” said Napier, suddenly jumping up; and, having wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, he began briskly to make fierce love to me.
“But Julia?” said I.
“Oh, Julia!” retorted he, banging another pillow on the ground, “I had her laid out in state, and wax candles were kept burning round her coffin for a fortnight: and I paid half of all her debts!”
“Suppose you had paid the whole?”
“Nonsense! They were very thankful for half.”
“And what is to become of her poor children?”
“A noble relative has taken one, and Lord Folkestone another, and Mrs. Armstrong is consulting me about the rest.”
There was nothing on earth, not even Fanny nor Lord Ponsonby, I ever loved, as I loved my mother. I do not dwell on the subject, nor on the manner of her death; because it is to me a very sacred one. No one, not even Amy, will call my affection for that beloved, that sainted parent, in question.
I am now about to return to Paris, from where I propose sending Stockdale this volume, or continuation of my Memoirs, provided you are all grateful and civil for the trouble I have already given myself; but I will pause now, at this period of my endeared parent’s death; for my habits and character became more serious and melancholy from that hour. Meyler’s sudden death too, which happened soon afterwards, certainly added much to those cold, desponding sensations, with which I was now often affected.
One night I dreamed that I saw my dearest mother standing at the top of a high hill or mountain: so high that her head seemed almost to touch the clouds, and her drapery was of such indefinite texture, that I doubted whether I saw a shadow or a real substance. She looked very pale and beautifully placid, as she pointed towards the heavens, fixing her eyes on my face.
I would have given half my existence when I awoke for such another dream! Having, in that hope, vainly courted sleep for several hours, my mind being deeply impressed with the subject, I sat down. I imagined the vision subjoined, with which I will for the present conclude, after wishing to all, a good night and pleasant dreams, and slumbers light.