The Ladies": A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty Part 15

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 m.u.f.fled 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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.

"a.s.suage your maternal fears, Madam." His lip was disdainful--he set her a world away. "All was as you could have wished. Permit the d.u.c.h.ess 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 pa.s.sed."

"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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 d.u.c.h.ess as the Magna Mater." "But," adds the veteran of Strawberry Hill, with what resignation he can muster, "my ideas were not adopted."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Maria Walpole, Countess of Waldegrave and her daughter Elizabeth Laura afterwards Countess of Waldegrave.]

V

The Walpole Beauty

[_From a packet of letters, written in the middle of the eighteenth century by Lady f.a.n.n.y 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 tr.i.m.m.i.n.g 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 fete 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?"