John Leech, His Life and Work Volume I Part 11

"We'll put this in your hat, alongside the c.o.c.k's feathers."

I now quote my author: "The fair lady leant towards him, and as he adjusted it becomingly in her hat, looking at her bewitching eyes, her lovely face, and feeling the sweet fragrance of her breath, a something shot through Mr. Sponge's pull-devil pull-baker coat, his corduroy waistcoat, his Eureka shirt, angola vest, and penetrated to the very c.o.c.kles of his heart. He gave her such a series of smacking kisses as startled her horse and astonished a poacher who happened to be hid in the adjoining hedge."

On the return of the happy pair Lucy rushes to her sister with the good news. Lady Scattercash was delighted, because "Mr. Sponge was such a nice man, _and so rich_! She was sure he was rich--couldn't hunt if he wasn't. Would advise Lucy to have a good settlement, in case he broke his neck." On further inquiry, however, her ladyship had good reason to suspect that a red coat and two or three hunters were not satisfactory proofs of wealth; and in reply to one who knew, she retorted, "Well, never mind, if he has nothing, she has nothing, and nothing can be nicer." With the conviction that nothing could be nicer, "Lady Scattercash warmly espoused Mr. Sponge's cause," the consequence being his instalment in splendid quarters at Nonsuch House, where he made himself thoroughly at home. "It was very soon 'my hounds,' 'my horses,'

and 'my whips,' etc., being untroubled by his total inability to keep the angel who had ridden herself into his affections, for he made no doubt that something would turn up." If it were not for the introduction of a delightful drawing by Leech, I should take no note of a "Steeplechase," in which Mr. Sponge comes before us for the last time.

This function is not a favourite with Mr. Surtees, nor is it looked upon without much anxiety by Miss Lucy. "She has made Mr. Sponge a white silk jacket to ride in, and a cap of the same colour. Altogether, he is a great swell, and very like a bridegroom," says the author.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

If this drawing suffered in the hands of the wood-engraver, it must have been beyond imagination beautiful, for, as it is, it shows us Leech in his full strength. Nothing, it seems to me, could surpa.s.s the figure of Lucy, whose expression of loving fear for the safety of the bold Sponge is shown to us in one of the prettiest faces conceivable. Sponge himself is no less successfully rendered as he smiles rea.s.suringly at his beloved.

The race--admirably described by the author--is run, and won by Mr.

Sponge. "And now for the hero and heroine of our tale. The Sponges--for our friend married Lucy shortly after the steeplechase--stayed at Nonsuch House till the bailiffs walked in. Sir Harry then bolted to Boulogne, where he afterwards died. Being at length starved out of Nonsuch House,"

says the historian, "he--Sponge--arrived at his old quarters, the Bantam, in Bond Street, where he turned his attention very seriously to providing for Lucy and the little Sponge, who had now issued its prospectus. He thought over all the ways and means of making money without capital....

Professional steeplechasing Lucy decried, declaring she would rather return to her flag exercises at Astley's as soon as she was able than have her dear Sponge risking his neck that way. Our friend at length began to fear fortune-making was not so easy as he thought; indeed he was soon sure of it." Something had to be done; "accordingly, after due consultation with Lucy, he invested his all in fitting up and decorating the splendid establishment in Jermyn Street, St. James's, now known as the SPONGE CIGAR AND BETTING ROOMS, where n.o.blemen, gentlemen, and officers in the Household troops may be accommodated with loans on their personal security to any amount." We see by Mr. Sponge's last advertis.e.m.e.nt that he has 116,000 to lend at 3 per cent.

CHAPTER VIII.

"THE MARCHIONESS OF BRINVILLIERS," BY ALBERT SMITH.

"December 20, 1844.

"MY DEAR SIR,

"Here we are at the 20th of the month, and I have only four pages of Smith's new story--no incident. Really, it is too much to expect that I can throw myself at a moment's notice into the seventeenth century, with all its difficulties of costume, etc., etc. What am I to do? There is a great want of system somewhere. I received a note from Mr. Marsh last night, stating for the first time that there would be _two_ ill.u.s.trations to 'The Marchioness of Brinvilliers,' and also urging me to be very early with the plates, it being Christmas and all that! But, as I said before, I have not the matter to ill.u.s.trate. _What am I to do?_ Added to all this, I must be engaged one day in the early part of next week on the melancholy occasion of the funeral of a poor little sister of mine. Pray, my dear sir, do what you can to expedite matters, and

"Believe me, "Yours faithfully, "JOHN LEECH.

"---- MORGAN, ESQ."

The above is one of the many letters that might be quoted to show the aggravating delays and difficulties under which so much of Leech's work was produced. I take Mr. Morgan to have been one of the officials of Mr.

Richard Bentley's establishment, whose patience must have been sorely tried again and again by the pranks of that _genus irritabile_, the writer. Judging from the humorous character of Albert Smith's "Ledbury"

and other works, one is hardly prepared for the horrors that make us shudder over the pages of "The Marchioness of Brinvilliers"--horrors in which the writer seems to revel with a zest as keen as that he takes in the fun and frolic of Ledbury.

The "shilling shocker" of the present day is a mild production indeed, in comparison with the history of the poisoner and adulteress, Brinvilliers, in which "on horror's head horrors acc.u.mulate." The authors of the modern productions are, for the most part, inventors of the blood-and-murder scenes that adorn their books. Not so Mr. Albert Smith, whose pages describe but too truly the career of the most notorious of the many criminals that flourished in the most profligate period of French history. Louis XIV. set an example in debauchery to his subjects which the highest of them eagerly followed; but the most fearful factor of this terrible time was poison, by which the possessors of estates who "lagged superfluous on the scene" were made to give place to greedy heirs; husbands, inconveniently in the way, were put out of it by their wives, whose affections had been disposed of elsewhere; state officers, whose positions were desired by aspirants unwilling to wait for them, were struck by sudden and mysterious illness, speedily followed by death, for which the faculty of the time could in no way account.

Marie, Marchioness of Brinvilliers, lived with her husband in the Rue des Cordeliers in Paris. The Marquis was a man of easy morals, and the Marchioness was a woman of still easier morals, for she had many lovers; she also amused her leisure hours by the study of the nature and properties of a great variety of deadly poisons; thinking, no doubt, as she was of a jealous disposition, that the time might arrive when her knowledge would be useful in depriving her lover of the temptation which had led him to forget his duty to her. The Marchioness was a very beautiful woman; she had eyes of a tender blue; her complexion was of dazzling whiteness, with cheeks of a delicate carnation; her expression was angelic, and she wore her hair of pale gold in bushy ringlets, in obedience to the fashion of the time. We first become acquainted with the Marchioness under painful circ.u.mstances, for she made--and kept--an appointment with one lover without being sufficiently careful to disguise her doings from another. That other was the Chevalier Gaudin de Sainte-Croix, who proceeded to the lodgings of his rival, M. Camille Theria.

"'The Marchioness of Brinvilliers is here, I believe,' said Gaudin to the grisette at the door. 'Will you tell her she is wanted on pressing business?'

"The Marchioness appeared. A stifled scream of fear and surprise, yet sufficiently intense to show her emotion at the sight of Gaudin, broke from her lips as she recognised him. But she immediately recovered her impa.s.sibility of features--that wonderful calmness and innocent expression which afterwards was so severely put to the proof without being shaken--and she asked, with apparent unconcern:

"'Well, monsieur, what do you want with me?'

"'Marie!' exclaimed Gaudin, 'let me ask your business here at this hour'

(it was rather late) 'unattended, and in the apartment of a scholar of the Hotel Dieu?'

"'You are mad, Sainte-Croix,' said the Marchioness. 'Am I to be accountable to you for all my actions? M. Theria is not here, and I came to see his wife on my own affairs.'

"'Liar!' cried Gaudin."

The lady had not told the truth, for M. Theria had no wife, and he was so near by that he heard the angry voice of M. Sainte-Croix, who so convinced the Marchioness of her perfidy that "in an instant the accustomed firmness of the Marchioness deserted her, and she fell upon her knees at his feet on the cold, damp floor of the landing."

In this powerful etching nothing could surpa.s.s the beauty of the face and figure of the Marchioness; she exactly realizes our ideal. But the Chevalier, though full of pa.s.sion, is, to my mind, verging on the theatrical.

Finding that her entreaties to the Chevalier to "go away" have no effect, she threatens suicide.

"There is but one resource left," she says, as she "springs up from her position of supplication."

"Where are you going?" asked Sainte-Croix, as she rushed to the top of the flight of stairs.

"Hinder me not!" returned Marie. "To the river!"

But before she could reach the river--to which she would no doubt have given a very wide berth--she fainted, or pretended to faint, in the courtyard at the bottom of the staircase. Here the pair were overtaken by M. Theria.

"A few hot and hurried words pa.s.sed on either side, and the next instant their swords were drawn and crossed. The fight was short, and ended in Sainte-Croix thrusting his rapier completely through the fleshy part of the sword-arm of the student, whose weapon fell to the ground.

"'I have it!' cried Camille. 'A peace, monsieur! I have it!' he continued, smiling, as he felt that his wound, though slight, was too serious to have been received in so unworthy a cause.

"As he was speaking, Marie opened her eyes and looked around. But the instant she saw the two rivals, she shuddered convulsively, and again relapsed into insensibility.

"'She is a clever actress,' continued Camille, smiling.

"'We have each been duped,' answered Gaudin.

"'She will play me no longer. As far as I am concerned,' said Theria, 'you are welcome to all her affections, and I shall reckon you as one of my best friends for your visit this evening.'"

The visit was destined to have an unexpected end, however, for the attention of the Guet Royal, or night-guard, had been called to the clashing of swords.

"Some young men, who had come up with the guard as they were returning from their orgies, pressed forward with curiosity to ascertain the cause of the tumult. But from one of them a fearful cry of surprise was heard as he recognised the persons before him. Sainte-Croix raised his eyes, and found himself face to face with Antoine, Marquis of Brinvilliers!"

The late combatants threw dust in the eyes of the lady's husband cleverly enough by pretending that Sainte-Croix had rescued her from the unwelcome attentions of Theria, who had mistaken her in the uncertain light for a lady with whom he had an appointment. The cloak which the Marchioness wore, together with the darkness of the night, had prevented his discovering that she was not the person he expected until her cries had brought in Sainte-Croix, who was pa.s.sing, as he said himself, "to his lodgings in the Rue des Bernardins."

The lady went home with her husband, and Sainte-Croix retired to his lodgings, there to meditate on the perfidy of his mistress. The Chevalier de Sainte-Croix was even more learned in poisons, and less scrupulous in the use of them, than his mistress; and in his first gusts of pa.s.sion, on discovering her treachery, he was inclined--in the hate of her that took temporary possession of him--to subject her to their effect; but reflection produced demoniacal results. She should be spared to kill those who ought to be near and dear to her!

"'I will be her bane--her curse!' he exclaimed. 'I will be her bad angel!... And I will triumph over that besotted fool, her husband,' etc.

"He opened a small, iron-clamped box, and brought from it a small packet, carefully sealed, and a phial of clear, colourless fluid.

"'I have it! It is here--the source, not of life, but of death!'

"Almost as he speaks, he is summoned by the _femme de chambre_ of the Marchioness to an interview at her residence at her father's house, the Hotel d'Aubray. The Chevalier found the enchantress in studied disarray.

She might have been made up after one of Guido's Magdalens," says the author, "so beautiful were her rounded shoulders, so dishevelled her light hair," etc.

The lovers were speedily reconciled, but the lady had an important communication to make--no less than the discovery of their intimacy by her husband, whom she felt sure had revealed the fact to her father, M.