The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson, Volumes One and Two. Harriette Wilson
was my reply.
"You are mad!" said Fred Bentinck.
"And you are monstrous top-heavy! and madness being often light-headedness, I wish you would go mad too."
"Apropos, Mr. Brummell," said I turning to him. "I have never yet had time to acknowledge your effusion; and I have the less regret on that score, because I learned from Fanny to-day that you are false-hearted."
"Julia and I," said Brummell, "are very old friends, you know."
"True," said I, "which, I suppose, accounts for her preference of Horace Beckford."
Brummell's pride appeared to take alarm as he inquired if Julia really admired Horace.
"I know nothing whatever about it," answered I, "except that I saw them both at the window together to-day."
Brummell seized his hat.
"Take Fred Bentinck with you," said I.
"Come Fred," said Brummell; "but you have not heard what the Duke of York says of you."
"I can guess," replied Fred, trying to make his goodnatured face severe and cross.
"Oh! he has accused you to your face, I see," reiterated Brummell.
"So much the better," said Fred Bentinck, "a man cannot be too virtuous."
"Talking of virtue," I remarked to Fred, "really that brother Charles of yours made himself rather too ridiculous by writing those letters to Lady Abdy about his intention to die, in case she continued cruel."
"I have no more patience with Charles Bentinck than you have," said Frederick, "particularly with his bringing Lady Abdy to my brother's house. I told him he ought to be ashamed of himself."
"I do not know anything about that, I only allude to the folly of a strong young man like Charles Bentinck, sitting down to his muffins and eggs in a state of perfect health, and, with his mouth crammed full of both, calling for half a sheet of paper to write to Lady Abdy, that he was, at that present writing, about to die! and therefore took up his pen, to request her to be kind to his daughter Georgiana when he should be no more!"
"I do not set up for a remarkably clever fellow," Fred Bentinck observed; "but if I had made such a fool of myself as Charles did in that business, I would blow my brains out!"
"You are helping him out of it nicely," Brummell observed to Fred Bentinck.
"I have no patience with people who expose themselves," continued Fred Bentinck; "because it is in everybody's power to be silent: and, as to love-letters, a man has no excuse for writing them."
"There's no wisdom below the girdle, some philosopher said in old times," I remarked.
"I wish I could break you of that dreadful habit of making such indecent allusions, Harriette!" said Fred Bentinck.
"I never make them to any one but you."
"I'll give you ten pounds if you will let me burn this book," said Bentinck, taking up Fanblas.
"In the meantime," I continued, "you seem to be glancing your eye over it with something like satisfaction, for a man, such as the Duke of York describes, of unblemished reputation for chastity! But, to revert to your brother's dying, with the hot muffins in his mouth, for Lady Abdy. Would not a man, who really and seriously had made up his mind to die for love, have written a little note and, after sealing it with a death's head or something of that kind, have hidden it somewhere, to be delivered when he should be defunct—instead of talking of death, like Shakespeare's
'——certain Lord, neat and trimly dress'd,
Fresh as a bridegroom and his chin new reap'd.'"
"Thank God," said Fred Bentinck, laughing, "I shall never be in love!"
"Why you adore me, and have done so for the last twelvemonth," said I; "but I want you to transfer your love to a friend of mine."
"Do Fred," said Brummell, taking up his hat, "moderate your passion if possible, and be sure to burn those leather breeches of yours."
"I want you," continued I, after Brummell had left us, "I want you to fall in love with Julia Johnstone."
"She is a fine woman," answered Fred Bentinck; "only I am so afraid she should love me in return; and if you, Julia, or any woman were to love me, I should be sick directly."
"How do you know?" I asked; "who on earth ever tried you that way?"
"Why, there was a woman six years ago," said Frederick, "who certainly did love me."
"How very extraordinary!" I remarked.
"At least," continued Bentinck, "she gave me such proofs as no man could doubt, and I assure you I was never so sick, or so disgusted, in my whole life; and so I am now whenever I happen to meet her."
"Fiez vous à moi, donc," said I, "for here you shall ever find safety."
"I know it," answered Bentinck, "and that is why I like you."
He now recollected his intention of visiting the Duchess of York, and took his leave.
Lord Ponsonby and myself met every evening, for more than a week. We were never tired of conversing with each other. His humour exactly suited mine. In short, though I have been called agreeable all my life, I am convinced that I was never half so pleasant or so witty as in Ponsonby's society. We seldom contrived to separate before five or six o'clock in the morning, and Ponsonby generally came to me as soon as it was dark. Nor did we always wait for the evening to see each other, though respect for Lady Ponsonby made us ever, by mutual consent, avoid all risk of wounding her feelings; therefore, almost every day after dinner we met in the park by appointment, not to speak but only to look at each other.
One morning, being greatly struck with the beauty of a young lady who drove by me in a very elegant little carriage, while I was expecting to see Lord Ponsonby, I inquired of the gentleman who was walking with me if he knew who she was! It was the man well known in the fashionable world by the appellation of Poodle Byng, the title of Poodle having been bestowed on him owing to his very curly white locks, in defence of which he always declared that his head was the original from which all the young men and their barbers took base copies.
"It is," answered Poodle, "that most lovely creature, Lady Fanny Ponsonby, whom we are all sighing and dying for."
She was indeed very lovely, and did not appear to be more than eighteen. I considered her with respect and admiration, unmixed with jealousy. This was not the rose; but she had dwelled with it. I thought that she resembled Lord Ponsonby, and I felt that I could have loved her dearly. "Thank heaven," thought I, "this beautiful girl appears quite calm and happy; therefore I have done her no harm."
In the evening I was eager to praise her to her husband. "She possesses all the beauty of the Jerseys," said I to him; "and what a pretty little foot!" This I had observed as she got out of her carriage in Curzon-street.
"How very odd!" Ponsonby remarked,
"What is odd?"
"Why, I do believe you like Fanny!"
"Be sure of it then," I answered. "I like her as much as I should dislike any woman who did not love you dearly. Listen to me, Ponsonby," I continued, taking his hand, and speaking with steady firmness. "All my religion is from my heart, and not from books. If ever our intimacy is discovered so as to disturb her peace of mind, on that day we must separate for ever. I can but die, and God, I hope, will have mercy on me, very soon after our separation, if ever it should be found necessary; but we are not monsters! therefore we will never indulge in selfish enjoyment at the expense of misery to any one of our fellow creatures, much less one who depends on you for all her happiness."
"And she is very happy, thank God," said Ponsonby, "and I would rather forfeit my life than destroy her peace."
"Be firm in that I entreat you,"