The Duchess. Amanda Foreman
a manner that pleased, realised my projects, and gained me friends wherever I have been.13
A wish to be loved and approved, and a manner that pleased: it was an irresistible combination to Georgiana. Bess’s desire to serve her new friend was greater than anything Georgiana had ever encountered before. Both the Devonshires were also deeply moved by her misfortunes. ‘If you see Lady Bristol,’ wrote Georgiana to her mother, ‘I wish you would say as from yourself that the D and I are very happy in seeing a great deal of Lady Erne and Lady Eliz., for that strange man Lord Bristol is, I have a notion, acting the strangest of parts by Lady Eliz and we thought perhaps if it was known we saw something of them it might make him ashamed of not doing something for her.’14
It never occurred to Georgiana that Bess’s untiring enthusiasm for her company might be inspired by her own poverty. The idea that her generosity made Bess a de facto paid companion never entered her mind. Bess was good with the Duke, too; indeed he appeared to like her almost as much, and Georgiana congratulated herself on discovering such a perfect friend. Bess realized that both Georgiana and the Duke were lonely – Georgiana obviously so, but the Duke suffered no less in his own way. Since Charlotte Spencer’s death he had been without steady female companionship. Georgiana was too caught up in her own life, and too much in awe of him to take the place of Charlotte. Bess could see that they both needed a confidante, a role that she was very happy to play, although it required her to act two quite different parts: with the Duke she was submissive and flirtatious; with Georgiana she was passionate and sensitive. Almost everyone except the Devonshires saw through Bess immediately. Much later James Hare gently tried to explain to Georgiana what all their friends had thought for many years. ‘I agree with you in every word you say of Ly Elizabeth, there cannot be a warmer, steadier, more disinterested friend: [but] she shews, perhaps, too great a distrust in her natural graces, for I never will be brought to say that she is not affected, tho’ I allow it is the most pardonable sort of affectation I ever met with, and is become quite natural.’15
The seventh of June was Georgiana’s twenty-fifth birthday and Lady Spencer used the occasion to denounce her daughter’s mode of living. ‘In your dangerous path of life you have almost unavoidably amassed a great deal of useless trash – gathered weeds instead of flowers,’ she wrote sternly. ‘You live so constantly in public you cannot live for your own soul.’16 The harshness of the letter stunned Georgiana, who replied that on her ‘nervous days’ she cried whenever she thought about it: ‘When the 7th of June gave you a Daughter, wild, unworthy, careless as she is, and of course, a cause of many fears, many troubles to you, yet it gave her to you, with a heart that longs and dares too, to think it shall make it up to you.’17 The following week she repeated her promise, pleading, ‘I could write it in my blood Dearest M.’18
Feeling hurt and rejected, Georgiana turned to the sympathetic and understanding Bess for comfort. She could confide in her new friend as she had done with Mary Graham, and without any of the inconvenience – Bess had no husband or home to call her away; there was no question of them being parted. The news that Bess had accompanied Georgiana and the Duke to Plympton camp for the annual military review alarmed Lady Spencer. She had no illusions about Bess, but she was astonished that both Georgiana and the Duke had fallen under her spell. She gathered from her daughter’s letters that the three were inseparable, sharing Plympton House together, passing their evenings reading Shakespeare aloud. Bess never seemed to leave Georgiana alone, nor was there any facet of Georgiana’s life closed off to her. Little realizing its bad effect, Bess wrote on Georgiana’s letters to Lady Spencer, addressing her as if she were an old friend and adding postscripts about her daughter’s health and good behaviour. Sometimes she wrote almost the whole body of the letter on the excuse that her friend was too tired to write. She was always deferential, but her familiarity with Georgiana grated on Lady Spencer. Her tone revealed a person desperate to make a permanent home for herself.
The harmonious threesome remained at Plympton until the end of September, when Bess developed a bad cough. Georgiana complained she was being very annoying, loudly insisting one minute that she was perfectly all right, and the next admitting to a troublesome cough for the past two years, ‘tho’ she considers all this very ridiculous, and says she is only a little nervous’.19 Georgiana became anxious and full of self-doubt. On 30 September she wrote, ‘I did not go out as I was sulky and uneasy and locked myself up all morning.’20 She admitted she was taking sedatives again which made her groggy and prevented her from receiving friends.21
Georgiana blamed her unhappiness on her infertility.
You accepted Zyllia [she wrote to Lady Spencer, referring to a play she had written about a girl who discovers that her best friend is her mother], and therefore I am going to open the foolish nonsense of my heart, to my friend – I am discontented with myself – I feel a sentiment something like uneasiness and envy at the accounts I receive of Lady George [Cavendish] and her grossesse. I did not mind it at all at first, but now that it draws near its event I feel a sensation at it that I hate myself for, and yet nobody can form more sincere and heartfelt vows than I do for her well-being – I should not feel this if it did not appear to me that there was a possibility of my being so, I am convinc’d could I master the lying in bed, could I lead a strengthening kind of life, and have a calm heart and mind for some time together that it would succeed – and strong as my wishes and persuasions are, so weak am I that I yield to things that hurt me, with my eyes open – you must direct and save me Dst M, for you only can.22
There were other worries: her debts for one. On 19 October Lady Spencer told her that she had paid some money on her behalf to a Mr Hicks, who had seemed quite shifty.
In short [she wrote, somewhat alarmed by the meeting], I suspect some mischief or other - that you have bespoke more things than you can possibly pay for and have given him things of value in exchange. If this is the case I wish you would let me enquire into the particulars, for I am afraid you are often much impos’d upon – at all events I beg you will never part with Jewells. I have often told you they are not your own and should be look’d upon as things only entrusted to your care – do not pass over this article without answering.23
Georgiana was, as usual, mired in debt, but it was not the only reason for her distress. The envy she felt towards Lady George had a much closer object.
The ease with which Bess had made herself the centre of attention during her illness had been a revelation to Georgiana. She deeply resented the Duke’s behaviour over her and had suffered pangs of jealousy when he earnestly discussed Bess’s health with the doctors. Conveniently, Georgiana then fell ill herself. It had the desired effect of turning Bess’s attention back to her and she wrote contentedly, ‘I was bad with my head but as I have already told you, I was so well nursed by the Duke and Ly Eliz that there was quite a comfort in being ill.’24 The crisis was over, and Bess was once more her special friend. Yet she was unable to rid herself of the suspicion that Bess was not quite all that she seemed. She tried to explain her feelings to Lady Spencer in a long letter on 29 October:
You will not suspect me of overdeep penetration, but I very often have, more than you would imagine, amus’d myself with observing the characters of those around me. I do not know if this is a good occupation, it is not least a negative one for it does neither good nor harm to myself or anybody else. It has happened to me with people who have influence over me, to have perfectly seized the reason of their wishing me to do some one thing or other which I did not like to do, and that tho’ they did not disclose their real motive, I have been saying to myself all