I should judge it to be nearly three o’clock in the afternoon — a fashionable hour to promenade in the Park, whether by foot, horse, or carriage; and the parade was thronged with parties of young ladies in open carriages, Corinthians astride their showy hacks, and sedately strolling misses in the company of chaperones. There was also, I may add, a quantity of those persons commonly known as the Muslin Company: showy hacks of a different kind of animal, also intended for a gentleman’s pleasure. My mother should have called them Bold Pieces, and abhorred their display of charms; but the present age held such women in something like admiration, as might be divined from the euphemisms commonly applied to them: High Flyers, Fair Cyprians, Birds of Paradise, Snug Armfuls, Barques of Frailty, Demi-reps. These were not the common women of the streets, but mistresses of the highest order, who lived under the protection of a variety of swains to whom they offered a fidelity commensurate with the quantity of gold laid out to secure it. The dashing perch-phaeton Eliza had espied was certainly commanded by one of these: a golden-haired, ringleted creature of perhaps seventeen, who tooled the ribbons of a very fine pair of matched greys. The phaeton was of a sort usually driven by a gentleman rather than a lady; and this daring, coupled with the extraordinary cut of the girl’s habit, must draw the attention of every male eye.
“It does not do to stare, of course,” Eliza observed reprovingly, “when a gentleman of one’s acquaintance is in conversation with such a person; one ought to affect an interest in the opposite side of the parade. But do you think it possible, Jane, that we see before us poor Anne’s rival? The agent of all her fears? The girl is very lovely, I daresay — but barely out of the schoolroom!”
I did not immediately discern Comte Emmanuel-Louis d’Entraigues, who was supported by an ebony walking cane, his grey hair surmounted by a showy beaver. But an instant’s study revealed the elegant scholar of Barnes, Surrey: a man in his middle fifties, well-dressed but with something foreign in the cut of his coat; a figure once elegant and strong but now tending to corpulence; a Gallic beak of a nose and a pair of lips that might be judged either sensual or cruel. The hands alone were still very fine: untouched by labour or traffick with the world, accustomed to the handling of leather-bound volumes and objets d’art — such as the girl who now dimpled down at him, a confection of innocent beauty and knowing vice.
I studied the creature’s complexion of rose and cream, straight line of a nose, and wide sapphire eyes; there was breeding as well as beauty there, if one chose to find it, yet the girl would never be taken for other than an adventuress. Her carriage dress was too formed to her body, and the décolleté plunged as deep as a ball gown’s. A dark blue hussar’s cap was set at a raking angle over her brow, and guinea-gold curls clustered at the nape of her white neck. There was something familiar in her looks, tho’ she was entirely a stranger to me … and then I had it: in figure and countenance, she might have been Anne de St.-Huberti’s younger self.
“I cannot put a name to that little Bird of Paradise,” Eliza whispered, “but her companion is none other than Harriette Wilson, the most accomplished Cyprian in London. You will recollect the box at the Opera House — the Ponsonbys and Mr. Canning … ”
At that moment the Comte laughed in appreciation of some saucy remark; the girl in the phaeton lifted her whip carelessly over her horses’ backs; and the equipage surged forward. I am no judge of horsemanship, having never mastered the art — but the girl handled the ribbons well. Certainly Miss Wilson was in easy looks as the pair flashed by, upright and animated with two burning spots of colour in her cheeks; but it is not in the nature of a Cyprian to betray fear or doubt. Her style is bound up in confidence, she does not lay herself open to criticism or rebuke.
“I used to dash about myself in that way,” Eliza said wistfully. “I kept a neat little gig — a two-seater, Jane — and put Pug on the seat beside me. I daresay the equipage should be accounted unbearably dowdy now, but it was all the crack when I was a young widow, and had the leisure to consider of such things. I was used to take up a gentleman of my acquaintance for a delightful coze, and then set him down when another presented himself; one might spend an hour very agreeably in flirting about the Park. But Henry is so tiresome — he actually refuses to keep a carriage in London. To be setting up one’s stable is so very dear!”
It was a fair description of Harriette Wilson’s way of life, I thought — the taking up and setting down of gentlemen — but one cannot tool round the Park forever and ever. Age advances. Younger women appear to attract the gentlemen’s eye. One finds oneself no longer the driver, but the companion — grateful to be offered a place even in a rival’s perch-phaeton. I supposed this was, in a sense, Anne de St.-Huberti’s fate — she who had been both performer and mistress in her salad days; but having achieved a measure of respectability, was it remarkable that she remained at her husband’s side?
“Would not it be preferable for the d’Entraigueses to part,” I suggested doubtfully, “than for your friend to endure the Comte’s vicious propensities?”
“Lord, no,” Eliza countered. “You must know, Jane, that gentlemen will have their amusements. You are not a married lady, and indeed it is highly improper in me to be telling you this — but in the general way men are not formed for the marriage vow. I do not speak of your brother, mind. Henry is a jewel past price, for all he is so pinch-penny as regards horses. But my mother was wont to observe: Eliza, so long as your husband treats you with tenderness, you have no business nosing into his affairs. The Muslin Company are of a piece, you know, with their gambling debts — their clubs — their cockfighting and sport— We cannot be expected to understand it.”
Advice in this vein from Eliza’s mamma — the late Philadelphia Hancock — was not to be lightly put aside; she was commonly believed to have formed a liaison while in India with so exalted a personage as Warren Hastings, the former Governor-General of Bengal, who had settled a fortune on Eliza. Indeed, my cousin was generally assumed to be Hastings’s natural daughter. Such easy habits of intimacy among the Great went unmentioned in the Steventon parsonage of my childhood; unquestionably, Eliza was more conversant with the habits of the ton than I should ever be.
“If the Comte has actually demanded a divorce, however …?”
“—Then he has flouted every rule of a gentleman’s conduct,” she replied indignantly, “and that will be the Frenchman in him, I daresay. One may offer a woman carte blanche, Jane — one may indulge in every kind of ruinous expence … bestow high-bred cattle and equipages of the first stare … the lease of a quiet little house in a good part of Town … but one does not marry a Cyprian. If d’Entraigues cannot be brought to understand this, then we must assist poor Anne, as we did this morning, to provide against the dreaded future. Lord! — He is upon us, Jane — school your countenance to welcome!”
“La petite Elis-a!” cried the Comte d’Entraigues, his arms opened wide and the ebony stick dangling; “comme c’est beau d’encontre mes amies!”
I curtseyed at his bow; allowed him to kiss my gloved hand; and resigned myself to an interval of conversation entirely in the French. But my thoughts were running along different lines. If the Comte could violate every rule, why could not Jane? The old roué had done nothing to attach my loyalty.
“What a very charming young woman you were speaking with just now, Comte,” I said with an air of benign vacancy. “An accomplished one too! Such an air of dash! And such command of the reins! I was quite overpowered. Pray tell me her name — I long to know it.”