“Your notion has considerable merit, Cosway,” Lord Harold replied, rising to his feet, “and I believe I shall avail myself of it. I shall call for the portrait in exactly one hour, and receive from your hands the coloured sketch, along with a letter of explanation intended for your wife — and may I ask, my good sir, whether His Majesty’s Government might offer any favour to the lady in return? Papers of safe conduct for a voyage to England, perhaps?”

“I shall extend the offer to her with pleasure and gratitude,” Mr. Cosway said; but a sadness suffused his ugly countenance, and I did not believe that his Maria should find safe conduct necessary. “It is much to think that she shall have news of home with all despatch! I have been sadly vexed by the trials of the foreign post — and so we serve each other a turn, my lord. I shall expect you in an hour!”

He rang for the footman, and bowed us to the door; and I departed Camden Place with a heightened respect for Mr. Richard Cosway. For any man may possess a heart, and the most wounded sensibility, though he parade like a peacock and grin like a monkey.

Chapter 6

Lovers Vows

13 December 1804, cont.

THE MORNING WAS WELL ADVANCED WHEN WE QUITTED Camden Place. I had arranged to return to Madame Le-Blanc’s for a final fitting before dinner — Lord Harold must wait upon Cosway in an hour’s time — and the theatre beckoned for the evening’s investigation. No visit to Laura Place, with the intention of thoroughly searching the panelled door’s passage, was accordingly possible; and so we parted in the Lansdowne Road with hasty protestations of goodwill and thanks on either side.

Madame LeBlanc had worked wonders on my peach silk in the interval. I observed myself as one transformed by a faery godmother — and in some little exultation, tripped my distance home in time for dinner. I availed myself of an hour at its conclusion, to record these thoughts in my little book; and at six o’clock exactly, when I had commenced to fret, a messenger appeared at Green Park Buildings, with Madame LeBlanc’s glorious box beneath his arm. I tore at the wrappings quite heedless of decorum, and unveiled the gown to the Austens’ wondering eyes.

“It is very bad of you, I declare,” my mother cried, as she saw me pink with pleasure at the lovely drape of stuff. “You have spent this quarter’s pin money entire, I daresay, Jane, and will be playing the pauper for months on end. And so you are off — and without a thought for the rest of your dear family! You were always a headstrong, selfish girl! I am certain Cassandra would never behave in a like manner. Had you shewn a more becoming consideration, and pressed Lord Harold for the invitation, we might have gone as well. The Wilborough box undoubtedly holds eight. Who is Jane, that the Duchess must so distinguish her? I confess, I should never be easy in the enjoyment of a pleasure denied to others; but my character has always been remarked for its delicacy.”

“Lord Harold, indeed?” my father exclaimed, with a roguish look. “And have you made a conquest, my dear? He is a very fine fellow, I declare — though perhaps a trifle lacking in conversation. I cannot remember that I have ever heard anything of him that does not disconcert — he is a sad reprobate, in the world’s estimation, and fully fifteen years your senior — but I recollect you are an avowed intimate of old Mr. Evelyn, so perhaps there is nothing very shocking in this.”[44]

“Indeed, Father, I owe Lord Harold no greater gratitude than the preservation of my beloved Isobel, as I think you know,” I replied. “Were it not for his efforts, she should surely have hanged; and a lifetime of recompense, in the attending of plays in the Wilborough box, might not be taken amiss.”

“—if it were in fact your Isobel who danced attendance.” My father’s amusement reigned unabated; but his gaze was searching when it met my own. He knew a little of my Lyme adventures — enough to have feared for my safety, tho’ not so much as to comprehend Lord Harold’s involvement in that scheme as well; and it was possible that he had formed a suspicion of the present intrigue. The murder at Laura Place was so much talked of, on the streets and in the papers, that my sudden intimacy with the family would excite an understanding far less brilliant than my father’s. I hastened to turn the tide of conversation, lest it drown me entirely.

“I would not have gone for the world, indeed, but that I felt this obligation. And there is Henry to think of.”

“Henry?” my mother enquired.

“Henry,” I said firmly. “He has great hopes of the Wilborough fortune. He has performed some little service on Lord Harold’s behalf, in the financial line, and an improvement in my acquaintance with the entire family might further Henry’s interest.”

“Oh, in that case, you had much better go,” my mother cried. “Eliza is such a sad, heedless housekeeper — so extravagant in her ways — and poor Henry has never had much of a head for business. Only do not be saying so to the Duchess, I beg, Jane. You must do for your brother what you can. For I very much fear that if you do not, our Henry may end with skulking in the Savoy, or running for Parliament. And we cannot have politicians in the family. They have so little conversation, being given to incessant speeches, that they induce my head to ache dreadfully.”[45]

And with this obscure remark, my mother hastened away, to see to the brushing of my gloves.

AT SEVEN EXACTLY THE WILBOROUGH CARRIAGES ARRIVED — one a chariot-and-four, which contained the Duchess, her niece, and her companion, Miss Wren; and the other, a curricle, with Lord Harold at the reins. The Gentleman Rogue himself descended in pursuit of me; and his appearance was at once so elegant and daring, in his fashionable black pantaloons and coat, that my father’s expression of gravity increased. My mother was all but overcome; and my sister, after the briefest of introductions, retired forthwith to her room.

Were it not for the gravity of circumstances surrounding the Trowbridge family, I should have been entirely gay; but an oppression of feeling could not be overcome. Lord Harold, tho’ possessed of admirable qualities, might never be said to move in a high flow of spirits. He was grave, and I was contained; and so we made our progress to the theatre, with a few sentences only exchanged on either side. I ventured to enquire whether Mr. Cosway had fulfilled his commission, and learned to my satisfaction that Lord Harold waited but for the receipt of certain necessary papers, to be fetched from London by an express, before sending the packet to Portsmouth.

The first play was to be Kotzebue’s Lovers’ Vows, with Miss Conyngham in the role of Agatha; her brother was to play at Frederick.[46] The public taste for German sentiment, first fed some years previous by Mrs. Siddons and her brother Kemble in The Stranger, reigns unabated in Bath; but I must confess to a preference for Sheridan’s comedies, or for Shakespeare’s work, so elevated in its expression and refined in its feeling. There is a maudlin note in Kotzebue that borders on vulgarity; an artificiality of speech and an excessive display of sentiment that I cannot like. My taste in theatre had gone unsolicited, however — and the purpose of the evening’s entertainment being so far above the enjoyment of the play, that I determined to express only gratification, and turn my energies from the stage to the probing of Lady Desdemona.

Orchard Street was entirely blocked with traffic, and the Wilborough equipages spent a tedious interval in attempting the entrance.