Love Romances of the Aristocracy Part 16

The rest of Emilia's strange life-story can be told in few words. After a few years of peaceful and happy life in the hospitable farmhouse, she married the farmer's only son, an honest and worthy young fellow who loved her dearly. She became the mother of many children, who in their humble life knew nothing of their high-placed cousins, the Dukes and Earls of another world than theirs.

When, in process of time, her husband died--many of her children had died young, the rest were far from prosperous--Mrs Lauder retired to spend her last days in a small cottage at St Ninian's, near Stirling, where for a time she lived in the utmost poverty. Then, when her life was almost flickering out in dest.i.tution, a few of her great relatives condescended to acknowledge her existence. The Earls of Galloway and Dunmore, the Duke of Hamilton, and Mrs Stewart Mackenzie combined to provide her with an annuity of 100; and, thus secure against want, the old lady contrived to spin out the thread of her days a few years longer. Thus died, at the advanced age of eighty-five, eating the bread of charity, the woman who had in her veins the blood of Scotland's greatest men and her fairest women.

CHAPTER XVIII

A n.o.bLE VAGABOND

The circle of the British Peerage has included many "vagabonds," some of whom have worn coronets in our own day; but it is doubtful whether any one of them all has had the _wanderl.u.s.t_ in his veins to the same degree as Edward Wortley Montagu, whose adventurous life was ignominiously ended by a partridge-bone more than a century and a quarter ago.

It would have been strange if this blue-blooded "rolling-stone" had been a normal man, since he had for mother that most wayward and eccentric woman, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who dazzled England by her beauty and brilliant intellect, and amused it by her oddities in the days of the first two Georges. This grandson of the Duke of Kingston, and great-grandson of the first Earl of Sandwich was "his mother's boy"--with much of his mother's physical and mental charms, and more than her eccentricities, as his story abundantly proves.

As a child of three he accompanied his parents to Constantinople, where his father, the Hon. Sydney Montagu, was sent as our Amba.s.sador; and there he won a place in history at a very early age as the first English child to be inoculated for the small-pox. Probably, too, it was his boyish life in Turkey that inoculated him with the pa.s.sion for all things Eastern, that so largely influenced his later life.

His adventures began when his parents returned to London, and the boy was sent as a pupil to Westminster. It was not long before he rebelled against the discipline and trammels of school-boy life; and one day he threw down his Euclid and Caesar and vanished as completely as if the earth had swallowed him. Every street, court, and alley was searched in vain for the truant; advertis.e.m.e.nts and handbills offering a reward for his recovery were equally futile. Not a trace of the runaway was to be found anywhere.

One day, a good twelve months after his family had concluded that the lad was dead, or, at least, lost for ever, Mr Foster, a friend of his father, chanced to be in Blackwall when he heard a familiar voice crying fish. "That is the voice of young Montagu," he exclaimed, and promptly despatched his servant to bring the boy to him. The fish-seller innocently came back, his basket of plaice and flounders on his head, and was at once recognised by Mr Foster as the truant son of Lady Mary.

For a time he denied his ident.i.ty with the utmost coolness; then, seeing that denial was useless, he flung away his basket and took to his heels.

It was not, however, difficult to trace him; he was tracked to his master's shop, where it was found that he had been a model apprentice and fish-hawker for a year; and he was induced to return to his parents and to school. Thus ignominiously ended Edward's first adventure, the precursor of a hundred others.

He had, however, only been back at his books a few months when he vanished again--this time as apprentice on a vessel bound to Oporto, the captain of which, a Quaker, treated the lad with all kindness and consideration. Arrived at Portugal he ran away again, and, tramping into the interior, begging food and shelter on the way, he found work in the vineyards, where for two years or more he shared the life of the peasants. One day, as good or ill luck would have it, he was ordered to drive some a.s.ses to the nearest seaport, where he was recognised both by the English Consul and his old friend, the Quaker; and once more the prodigal was induced to return to his father's roof.

For a time he proved a model student, to the surprise and delight of his parents; but once more "hope told a flattering tale." For the third time he disappeared, and was soon on his way to the Mediterranean as a sailor working before the mast, and ideally happy in his vagabond life. This time his father's patience was quite exhausted. He refused to trouble any more about his prodigal son, declaring that "he had made his bed and must lie on it."

Mr Foster, however, the rescuer from the fish-basket, was of another mind. He went in chase of the fugitive, ran him to earth, and brought him again triumphantly home, submissive but unrepentant. It was quite clear that the boy would never settle down to the humdrum life of home and school, and, with his father's permission, Mr Foster took the restless youth for a long visit to the West Indies, where it seemed that at last he was cured of his pa.s.sion for straying. A few years later we find him back in England, a model of stability, a student and a scholar, who, in 1747, blossomed into a knight of the s.h.i.+re for the County of Huntingdon. The rolling-stone had come to rest at last, and had actually developed into a pillar of the State!

But this eminently respectable chapter in Montagu's chequered life was destined to be a short one. He soon found himself so uncomfortably deep in debt that he vanished again--this time to escape from his creditors.

He turned up smiling in Paris, where the sedate legislator blossomed into the gambler and _roue_, dividing his time between the seductive poles of the gaming-table and fair women.

His course of dissipation, however, received a sudden and severe check one Sunday morning in the autumn of 1751, when he was rudely disturbed by the entry of a _posse_ of officials into his room, armed with a warrant for his imprisonment.

"On Sunday, the 31st of October 1751," Mr Montagu records, "when it was near one in the morning, as I was undressed and going to bed, I heard a person enter my room; and upon turning round and seeing a man I did not know, I asked him calmly _what he wanted_? His answer was that _I must put on my clothes._ I began to expostulate upon the motive of his apparition, when a commissary instantly entered the room with a pretty numerous attendance, and told me with great gravity that he was come, by virtue of a warrant for my imprisonment, to carry me to the Grand Chatelet. I requested him again and again to inform me of the crime laid to my charge; but all his answer was, that _I must follow him_. I begged him to give me leave to write to Lord Albemarle, the English Amba.s.sador, promising to obey the warrant if his Excellency was not pleased to answer for my forthcoming.

But the Commissary refused me the use of pen and ink, though he consented that I should send a verbal message to his Excellency, telling me at the same time that he would not wait the return of the messenger, because his orders were to carry me instantly to prison. As resistance under such circ.u.mstances must have been unavailable, and might have been blameable, I obeyed the warrant by following the Commissary, after ordering one of my domestics to inform my Lord Albemarle of the treatment I underwent.

"I was carried to the Chatelet, where the jailors, hardened by their profession, and brutal for their profit, fastened upon me as upon one of those guilty objects whom they lock up to be reserved for public punishment; and though neither my looks nor my behaviour betrayed the least symptom of guilt, yet I was treated as a condemned criminal. I was thrown into prison, and committed to a set of wretches who bore no character of humanity but its form. My residence--to speak in the jail dialect--was in the SECRET, which is no other than the dungeon of the prison, where all the furniture was a wretched mattress and a crazy chair. The weather was cold, and I called for a fire; but I was told I could have none. I was thirsty, and called for some wine and water, or even a draught of water by itself, but was denied it. All the favour I could obtain was a promise to be waited on in the morning; and then was left by myself under a hundred locks and bolts, with a bit of candle, after finding that the words of my jailors were few, their orders peremptory, and their favours unattainable.

"I continued in this dismal dungeon till the 2nd of November, entirely ignorant of the crime I was accused of; but at nine in the morning of that day, I was carried before a magistrate, where I underwent an examination by which I understood the heads of the charge against me, and which I answered in a manner that ought to have cleared my own innocence."

The story of the charge and trial is a long one; but it can be briefly outlined as follows:--It seems that one, Abraham Paya, a Jew, who, disguised as "Mr Roberts," was staying with a Miss Rose who was not his wedded wife, accused Montagu and two of his friends, Mr Taafe and Lord Southwell, of making him drunk as a preliminary to inveigling him into play and winning 870 louis d'or from him.

As the Jew, whom his losses had sobered, refused to pay, Montagu and his a.s.sociates had compelled him by violence and threats to give them drafts for the sums owing to them. Then, knowing that payment would be refused, "Roberts" shook the dust of Paris off his feet, turned his back on lady and creditors alike, and ran away to Lyons. Whereupon, so said the complainant, Montagu and his fellow-thieves had ransacked his baggage (which he had foolishly left behind him), and appropriated all his money and jewels, to the value of many thousands of livres.

To quote Mr Montagu again, the latter part of the charge was that Mr Taafe

"smashed all the trunks, portmanteaus and drawers belonging to the complainant, from whence he took out in one bag 400 louis d'or, and out of another, to the value of 300 louis d'or in French and Portuguese silver; from another bag, 1200 livres in crown pieces, a pair of brilliant diamond buckles, for which the complainant paid 8020 livres to the Sieur Pierre; his own picture set around with diamonds to the amount of 1200 livres ...

laces to the amount of 3000 livres, seven or eight women's robes; two brilliant diamond rings, several gold snuff-boxes, a travelling-chest containing his plate and china, and divers other effects, all of which Mr Taafe (one of Montagu's co-defendants) packed up in one box, and, by the help of his footman, carried in a coach to his own apartment. That afterwards Mr Taafe carried Miss Rose and her sister in another coach to his lodgings, where they remained three days, and then sent them to London, under the care of one of his friends."

Fortunately for Montagu, the verdict of the Court was in his favour; and, after such an unpleasant experience, he was glad to return to England, where, such an adept at quick-changing was he, that we soon find him a full-blown Member of Parliament for Bossinery, lightening his legislative labours by writing a learned treatise on the rise and fall of ancient Republics. Was there ever such a man? Duke's grandson, fish-hawker, common sailor, peasant, _roue_, gambler, Member of Parliament, scholar--all _roles_ came equally easily to him; and many more just as varied were to follow. It was while thus wearing the halo of learning and high respectability that his father died, leaving him a substantial income, and a large estate in Yorks.h.i.+re to his eldest son, if he should have one. And now we find him leaving his law-making and cultivating letters and science in Italy, further enriched by the guinea which was all his mother, Lady Mary, condescended to leave her vagrant son. The rest--an enormous property--went to his sister, the Countess of Bute.

From Italy he went on a long tour through the East, where he seems to have played the _role_ of Lothario very effectually. At Alexandria (to give only one of his love adventures) he lost his fickle heart to the beautiful wife of the Danish Amba.s.sador, whom, under various pretences, he induced to leave the coast clear by getting him to go to Holland. The husband thus safely out of the way, Montagu proceeded to dispose of him.

He showed the lady a letter from Holland giving sad details of his sudden death, and consoled the bereaved "widow" so well that she consented to reward him with her hand and to accompany him to Syria.

By the time the dead husband had returned to life Montagu was already weary of honeymooning, and was thankful to make his escape to Italy, free to woo, and, if necessary, to wed again.

We next find this human chameleon at Venice, wearing a beard down to his waist, sleeping on the ground, eating rice and drinking water, and recounting his adventures to all who cared to hear them. He was an Armenian, and played the part to perfection--until he wearied of it, and found another to play. At this time he wrote:

"I have been a labourer in the fields of Switzerland and Holland, and have not disdained the humble profession of postillion and ploughman. I was a _pet.i.t maitre_ at Paris, and an abbe at Rome. I put on, at Hamburg, the Lutheran ruff, and with a triple chin and a formal countenance I dealt about me the word of G.o.d so as to excite the envy of the clergy. My fate was similar to that of a guinea, which at one time is in the hands of a Queen, and at another is in the fob of a greasy Israelite."

From land to land he wandered, a.s.suming a fresh character in each, and thoroughly enjoying them all. During a two years' residence at Venice he was visited by the Duke of Hamilton and a Dr Moore, the latter of whom gives the following entertaining account of the visit.

"He met us," Dr Moore writes, "at the stairhead, and led us through some apartments furnished in the Venetian manner, into an inner room quite in a different style.

There were no chairs, but he desired us to seat ourselves on a sofa, while he placed himself on a cus.h.i.+on on the floor, with his legs crossed, in the Turkish fas.h.i.+on. A young black slave sate by him; and a venerable old man with a long beard served us with coffee. After this collation, some aromatic gums were brought and burnt in a little silver vessel. Mr Montagu held his nose over the steam for some minutes, and snuffed up the perfume with peculiar satisfaction; he afterwards endeavoured to collect the smoke with his hands, spreading and rubbing it carefully along his beard, which hung in h.o.a.ry ringlets to his girdle. This manner of perfuming the beard seems more cleanly, and rather an improvement upon that used by the Jews in ancient times.

"We had a great conversation with this venerable-looking person, who is, to the last degree, acute, communicative, and entertaining, and in whose discourse and manners are blended the vivacity of a Frenchman with the gravity of a Turk. We found him, however, wonderfully prejudiced in favour of the Turkish characters and manners, which he thinks infinitely preferable to the European, or those of any other nation. He describes the Turks in general as a people of great sense and integrity; the most hospitable, generous, and the happiest of mankind. He talks of returning as soon as possible to Egypt, which he paints as a perfect paradise. Though Mr Montagu hardly ever stirs abroad, he returned the Duke's visit, and as we were not provided with cus.h.i.+ons, he sate, while he stayed, upon a sofa with his legs under him, as he had done at his own house. This posture, by long habit, has become the most agreeable to him, and he insists upon its being by far the most natural and convenient; but, indeed, he seems to cherish the same opinion with regard to all customs which prevail among the Turks."

It was during this interview that Mr Montagu declared: "I have never once been guilty of a small folly in the whole course of my life"--probably making the mental reservation that all his follies had been great ones. Thus this singular sprig of n.o.bility drifted through his kaleidoscopic life, changing his religion as lightly as he changed from priest to ploughman, or from debauchee to Armenian storyteller.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing he ever did was the publication of the following advertis.e.m.e.nt, the object of which was evidently to secure the large Yorks.h.i.+re estate devised by his father to any son he might have:

"MATRIMONY.--A gentleman who hath filled two succeeding seats in Parliament, is near sixty years of age, lives in great splendour and hospitality, and from whom a considerable estate must pa.s.s if he dies without issue, hath no objection to marry any lady, provided the party be of genteel birth, polished manners, and about to become a mother. Letters directed to ---- Brecknock, Esq., at Wills's Coffeehouse, facing the Admiralty, will be honoured with due attention, secrecy, and every possible mark of respect."

At this time Montagu was the father of three children--two sons (one a black boy of thirteen, who was his favourite companion) and a daughter; but they all lacked the sanction of the altar.

A lady answering these delicate requirements was actually found, and Montagu would probably have graduated as a respectable husband and father of another man's child had not his vagabond career been cut tragically short. One day, when he was dining at Padua with Romney, the famous artist, a partridge-bone lodged in the old man's throat, and refused to budge. He was suffocating; his face grew purple--almost black. In terrified haste a priest was summoned to administer the last consolations of religion; but the dying man would have none of him. When he was asked in what faith he wished to leave the world, he gasped, "A good Mussulman, I hope." A few moments later Edward Wortley Montagu, who had played more parts on the world's stage than almost any other man who ever lived, was a corpse. This grandson of a Duke had begun his life of adventure as a fish-hawker, and ended it as "a good Mussulman."

CHAPTER XIX

FOOTLIGHTS AND CORONETS

Ever since that tough old soldier Charles, first Earl of Monmouth and third Earl of Peterborough, hauled down his flag before the battery of Anastasia Robinson's charms, and made a Countess of his victor, a coronet has dazzled the eyes of many an actress with its rainbow allurement, and has proved the pa.s.sport by which she has stepped from the stage to the gilded circle which environs the throne.

The hero of the Peninsula and the terror of the French was an old man, with one foot in the grave, when the "nightingale" of the London theatres brought him to his gouty knees; but so resolute was he to give her his name that, to make a.s.surance doubly sure, he faced the altar twice with her, before starting on his honeymoon journey across the Channel.

Pope, who was a friend of the amorous Earl, draws a pathetic picture of him in the latter unromantic days of his romance. During a visit to Bevis Mount, near Southampton, the poet writes:

"I found my Lord Peterborough on his couch, where he gave me an account of the excessive sufferings he had pa.s.sed through, with a weak voice, but spirited. He next told me he had ended his domestic affairs through such difficulties from the law that gave him as much torment of mind as his distemper had done of body, to do right to the person to whom he had obligations beyond expression (Anastasia Robinson). That he had found it necessary not only to declare his marriage to all his relations, but since the person who married them was dead, to re-marry her in the church at Bristol, before witnesses. He talks of getting toward Lyons; but undoubtedly he can never travel but to the sea-sh.o.r.e. I pity the poor woman who has to share in all he suffers, and who can, in no one thing, persuade him to spare himself."

Pope, however, understated the Earl's vigour or his indomitable spirit; for he not only succeeded in getting to the sea-sh.o.r.e, but as far as Lisbon, where he died in the following October, but a few months after his second nuptials. My Lady Peterborough and Monmouth lived to see many more years, and by her dignity and sweetness to win as much approval in the Peerage as in the lowlier sphere of the stage.

Anastasia Robinson was the first star of the stage to wear a coronet, but where she led the way, there were many dainty feet eager to follow; and, curiously enough, it was Gay's famous _Beggar's Opera_ that pointed the way to three of them.