The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle

So saying, he fixed his eyes upon the duchess, who, while her face glowed with indignation, turning to her confidant, expressed herself in these words: “Upon my life! I believe there is actually some truth in what this old ruffian says; I have myself observed that young fellow eyeing me with a very particular stare.”—“It is not to be at all wondered at,” said her friend, “that a youth of his complexion should be sensible to the charms of your grace! but I dare say he would not presume to entertain any but the most honourable and respectful sentiments.”—“Respectful sentiments!” cried my lady, with a look of ineffable disdain; “if I thought the fellow had assurance enough to think of me in any shape, I protest I would forbid him my house. Upon my honour, such instances of audacity should induce persons of quality to keep your small gentry at a greater distance; for they are very apt to grow impudent, upon the least countenance or encouragement.”

Cadwallader, satisfied with this declaration, changed the subject of discourse, and next day communicated his discovery to his friend Pickle, who upon this occasion felt the most stinging sensations of mortified pride, and resolved to quit his prospect with a good grace. Nor did the execution of this self-denying scheme cost him one moment’s uneasiness; for his heart had never been interested in the pursuit, and his vanity triumphed in the thoughts of manifesting his indifference. Accordingly, the very next time he visited her grace, his behaviour was remarkably frank, sprightly and disengaged; and the subject of love being artfully introduced by the widow, who had been directed to sound his inclinations, he rallied the passion with great ease and severity and made no scruple of declaring himself heart-whole. Though the duchess had resented his supposed affection, she was now offended at his insensibility, and even signified her disgust, by observing, that perhaps his attention to his own qualifications screened him from the impression of all other objects.

While he enjoyed this sarcasm, the meaning of which he could plainly discern, the company was joined by a certain virtuoso, who had gained free access to all the great families of the land, by his noble talent of gossiping and buffoonery. He was now in the seventy-fifth year of his age; his birth was so obscure, that he scarce knew his father’s name; his education suitable to the dignity of his descent; his character publicly branded with homicide, profligacy, and breach of trust; yet this man, by the happy inheritance of impregnable effrontery, and a lucky prostitution of all principle in rendering himself subservient to the appetites of the great, had attained to an independency of fortune, as well as to such a particular share of favour among the quality, that, although he was well known to have pimped for three generations of the nobility, there was not a lady of fashion in the kingdom who scrupled to admit him to her toilette, or even to be squired by him in any place of public entertainment. Not but that this sage was occasionally useful to his fellow-creatures, by these connections with people of fortune; for he often undertook to solicit charity in behalf of distressed objects, with a view of embezzling one-half of the benefactions. It was an errand of this kind that now brought him to the house of her grace.

After having sat a few minutes, he told the company that he would favour them with a very proper opportunity to extend their benevolence, for the relief of a poor gentlewoman, who was reduced to the most abject misery, by the death of her husband, and just delivered of a couple of fine boys: they, moreover, understood from his information, that this object was daughter of a good family, who had renounced her in consequence of her marrying an ensign without a fortune; and even obstructed his promotion with all their influence and power; a circumstance of barbarity which had made such an impression upon his mind, as disordered his brain, and drove him to despair, in a fit of which he had made away with himself, leaving his wife, then big with child, to all the horrors of indigence and grief.

Various were the criticisms on this pathetic picture, which the old man drew with great expression. My lady duchess concluded that she must be a creature void of all feeling and reflection, who could survive such aggravated misery, therefore did not deserve to be relieved, except in the character of a common beggar; and was generous enough to offer a recommendation, by which she would be admitted into an infirmary, to which her grace was a subscriber; at the same time advising the solicitor to send the twins to the Foundling Hospital, where they could be carefully nursed and brought up, so as to become useful members to the commonwealth. Another lady, with all due deference to the opinion of the duchess, was free enough to blame the generosity of her grace, which would only serve to encourage children in disobedience to their parents, and might be the means not only of prolonging the distress of the wretched creature, but also of ruining the constitution of some young heir, perhaps the hope of a great family; for she did suppose that madam, when her month should be up, and her brats disposed of, would spread her attractions to the public, provided she could profit by her person, and, in the usual way, make a regular progress from St. James’s to Drury Lane. She apprehended, for these reasons, that their compassion would be most effectually shown, in leaving her to perish in her present necessity; and that the old gentleman would be unpardonable, should he persist in his endeavours to relieve her. A third member of this tender-hearted society, after having asked if the young woman was handsome, and being answered in the negative, allowed that there was a great deal of reason in what had been said by the honourable person who had spoke last; nevertheless, she humbly conceived her sentence would admit of some mitigation. “Let the bantlings,” said she, “be sent to the hospital, according to the advice of her grace, and a small collection be made for the present support of the mother; and, when her health is recovered, I will take her into my family, in quality of an upper servant, or medium between me and my woman; for, upon my life! I can’t endure to chide or give directions to a creature, who is, in point of birth and education, but one degree above the vulgar.”

This proposal met with universal approbation. The duchess, to her immortal honour, began the contribution with a crown; so that the rest of the company were obliged to restrict their liberality to half the sum, that her grace might not be affronted. And the proposer, demanding the poor woman’s name and place of abode, the old mediator could not help giving her ladyship a verbal direction, though he was extremely mortified, on more accounts than one, to find such an issue to his solicitation.

Peregrine, who, “though humorous as winter, had a tear for pity, and a hand open as day for melting charity,” was shocked at the nature and result of this ungenerous consultation. He contributed his half-crown, however, and, retiring from the company, betook himself to the lodgings of the forlorn lady in the straw, according to the direction he had heard. Upon inquiry, he understood that she was then visited by some charitable gentlewoman, who had sent for a nurse, and waited the return of the messenger; and he sent up his respects, desiring he might be permitted to see her, on pretence of having been intimate with her late husband.

Though the poor woman had never heard of his name, she did not think proper to deny his request; and he was conducted to a paltry chamber in the third story, where he found this unhappy widow sitting upon a truckle-bed, and suckling one of her infants, with the most piteous expression of anguish in her features, which were naturally regular and sweet, while the other was fondled on the knee of a person, whose attention was so much engrossed by her little charge, that, for the present, she could mind nothing else; and it was not till after the first compliments passed betwixt the hapless mother and our adventurer, that he perceived the stranger’s countenance, which inspired him with the highest esteem and admiration. He beheld all the graces of elegance and beauty, breathing sentiment and beneficence, and softened into the most enchanting tenderness of weeping sympathy. When he declared the cause of his visit, which was no other than the desire of befriending the distressed lady, to whom he presented a bank-note for twenty pounds, he was favoured with such a look of complacency by this amiable phantom, who might have been justly taken for an angel ministering to the necessities of mortals, that his whole soul was transported with love and veneration. Nor was this prepossession diminished by the information of the widow, who, after having manifested her gratitude in a flood of tears, told him, that the unknown object of his esteem was a person of honour, who having heard by accident of her deplorable situation, had immediately obeyed the dictates of her humanity, and come in person to relieve her distress; that she had not only generously supplied her with money for present sustenance, but also undertaken to provide a nurse for her babes, and even promised to favour her with protection, should she survive her present melancholy situation. To these articles of intelligence she added, that the name of her benefactress was the celebrated Lady —, to whose character the youth was no stranger, though he had never seen her person before. The killing edge of her charms was a little blunted by the accidents of time and fortune; but no man of taste and imagination, whose nerves were not quite chilled with the frost of age, could, even at that time, look upon her with impunity. And as Peregrine saw her attractions heightened by the tender office in which she was engaged, he was smitten with her beauty, and so ravished with her compassion, that he could not suppress his emotions, but applauded her benevolence with all the warmth of enthusiasm.

Her ladyship received his compliments with great politeness and affability. And the occasion on which they met being equally interesting to both, an acquaintance commenced between them, and they concerted measures for the benefit of the widow and her two children, one of whom our hero bespoke for his own godson; for Pickle was not so obscure in the beau monde, but that his fame had reached the ears of this lady, who, therefore, did not discourage his advances towards her friendship and esteem. All the particulars relating to their charge being adjusted, he attended her ladyship to her own house; and, by her conversation, had the pleasure of finding her understanding suitable to her other accomplishments. Nor had she any reason to think that our hero’s qualifications had been exaggerated by common report.

One of their adopted children died before it was baptized; so that their care concentred in the other, for whom they stood sponsors. Understanding that the old agent was becoming troublesome in his visits to the mother, to whom he now began to administer such counsel as shocked the delicacy of her virtue, they removed her into another lodging, where she would not be exposed to his machinations. In less than a month, our hero learned from a nobleman of his acquaintance, that the hoary pander had actually engaged to procure for him this poor afflicted gentlewoman; and, being frustrated in his intention, substituted in her room a nymph from the purlieus of Covent Garden, that made his lordship smart severely for the favours she bestowed.

Meanwhile, Peregrine cultivated his new acquaintance with all his art and assiduity, presuming, from the circumstances of her reputation and fate, as well as on the strength of his own merit, that, in time, he should be able to indulge that passion which had begun to glow within his breast. As her ladyship had undergone a vast variety of fortune and adventure, which he had heard indistinctly related, with numberless errors and misrepresentations, he was no sooner entitled, by the familiarity of communication, to ask such a favour, than he earnestly entreated her to entertain him with the particulars of her story; and, by dint of importunity, she was at length prevailed upon, in a select party, to gratify his curiosity, by the account given in the following chapter.

CHAPTER LXXXI

The Memoirs of a Lady of Quality.

“By the circumstances of the story which I am going to relate, you will be convinced of my candour, while you are informed of my indiscretion. You will be enabled, I hope, to perceive, that, howsoever my head may have erred, my heart hath always been uncorrupted, and that I have been unhappy, because I loved, and was a woman.

“I believe I need not observe, that I was the only child of a man of good fortune, who indulged me in my infancy with all the tenderness of paternal affection; and, when I was six years old, sent me to a private school, where I stayed till my age was doubled, and became such a favourite, that I was, even in those early days, carried to all the places of public diversion, the court itself not excepted, an indulgence that flattered my love of pleasure, to which I was naturally addicted, and encouraged those ideas of vanity and ambition which spring up so early in the human mind.

“I was lively and good-natured, my imagination apt to run riot, my heart liberal and disinterested, though I was so obstinately attached to my own opinions, that I could not well brook contradiction; and, in the whole of my disposition, resembled that of Henry V., as described by Shakespeare.

“In my thirteenth year I went to Bath, where I was first introduced into the world as a woman, having been entitled to that privilege by my person, which was remarkably tall for my years; and there my fancy was quite captivated by the variety of diversions in which I was continually engaged. Not that the parties were altogether new to me, but because I now found myself considered as a person of consequence, and surrounded by a crowd of admirers, who courted my acquaintance, and fed my vanity with praise and adulation. In short, whether or not I deserved their encomiums, I leave the world to judge; but my person was commended, and my talent in dancing met with universal applause. No wonder, then, that everything appeared joyous to a young creature, who was so void of experience and dissimulation, that she believed everybody’s heart as sincere as her own, and every object such as it appeared to be.

“Among the swains who sighed, or pretended to sigh for me, were two that bore a pretty equal share of my favour (it was too superficial to deserve the name of love). One of these was a forward youth of sixteen, extremely handsome, lively, and impudent. He attended in quality of page upon the Princess Amelia, who spent that season at Bath. The other was a Scotch nobleman turned of thirty, who was graced with a red ribbon, and danced particularly well, two qualifications of great weight with a girl of my age, whose heart was not deeply interested in the cause. Nevertheless, the page prevailed over this formidable rival; though our amour went no farther than a little flirting, and ceased entirely when I left the place.

“Next year, however, I revisited this agreeable scene, and passed my time in the same circle of amusements; in which, indeed, each season at Bath is exactly resembled by that which succeeds, allowing for the difference of company, which is continually varying. There I met with the same incense, and again had my favourite, who was a North Briton, and captain of foot, near forty years of age, and a little lame, an impediment which I did not discover, until it was pointed out by some of my companions, who rallied me upon my choice. He was always cheerful, and very amorous, had a good countenance, and an excellent understanding, possessed a great deal of art, and would have persuaded me to marry him, had I not been restrained by the authority of my father, whose consent was not to be obtained in favour of a man of his fortune.

“At the same time, many proposals of marriage were made to my parents; but as they came from people whom I did not like, I rejected them all, being determined to refuse every man who did not make his addresses to myself in person, because I had no notion of marrying for anything but love. Among these formal proposers was a Scottish earl, whose pretensions were broke off by some difference about settlements; and the son of an English baron, with whom my father was in treaty, when he carried me to town, on a visit to a young lady with whom I had been intimate from my infancy. She was just delivered of her first son, for whom we stood sponsors; so that this occasion detained us a whole month, during which I went to a ball at court, on the Queen’s birthday, and there, for the first time, felt what love and beauty were.

“The second son of Duke H—, who had just returned from his travels, was dancing with the princess royal, when a young lady came and desired me to go and see a stranger, whom all the world admired. Upon which I followed her into the circle, and observed this object of admiration. He was dressed in a coat of white cloth, faced with blue satin, embroidered with silver, of the same piece with his waistcoat; his fine hair hung down his back in ringlets below his waist; his hat was laced with silver, and garnished with a white feather; but his person beggared description. He was tall and graceful, neither corpulent nor meagre, his limbs finely proportioned, his countenance open and majestic, his eyes full of sweetness and vivacity, his teeth regular, and his pouting lips of the complexion of the damask rose. In short, he was formed for love, and inspired it wherever he appeared; nor was he a niggard of his talents, but liberally returned it, at least, what passed for such; for he had a flow of gallantry, for which many ladies of this land can vouch from their own experience. But he exclaimed against marriage, because he had, as yet, met with no woman to whose charms he would surrender his liberty, though a princess of France, and lady of the same rank in —, were said to be, at that time, enamoured of his person.

“I went home, totally engrossed by his idea, flattering myself that he had observed me with some attention; for I was young and new, and had the good fortune to attract the notice and approbation of the queen herself.

“Next day, being at the opera, I was agreeably surprised with the appearance of this amiable stranger, who no sooner saw me enter, than he approached so near to the place where I sat, that I overheard what he said to his companions; and was so happy as to find myself the object of his discourse, which abounded with rapturous expressions of love and admiration. I could not listen to these transports without emotion; my colour changed, my heart throbbed with unusual violence, and my eyes betrayed my inclination in sundry favourable glances, which he seemed to interpret aright, though he could not then avail himself of his success, so far as to communicate his sentiments by speech, because we were strangers to each other.

“I passed that night in the most anxious suspense, and several days elapsed before I saw him again. At length, however, being at court on a ball-night, and determined against dancing, I perceived him among the crowd, and, to my unspeakable joy, saw him advance, with my Lord P—, who introduced him to my acquaintance. He soon found means to alter my resolution, and I condescended to be his partner all the evening; during which he declared his passion in the most tender and persuasive terms that real love could dictate, or fruitful imagination invent.

“I believed his protestations, because I wished them true, and was an unexperienced girl of fifteen. I complied with his earnest request of being permitted to visit me, and even invited him to breakfast next morning; so that you may imagine (I speak to those that feel) I did not, that night, enjoy much repose. Such was the hurry and flutter of my spirits, that I rose at six to receive him at ten. I dressed myself in a new pink satin gown, and my best laced night-clothes, and was so animated by the occasion that, if ever I deserved a compliment upon my looks, it was my due at this meeting. The wished-for moment came that brought my lover to my view. I was overwhelmed with joy, modesty, and fear of I knew not what. We sat down to breakfast, but did not eat. He renewed his addresses with irresistible eloquence, and pressed me to accept of his hand without further hesitation. But to such a precipitate step I objected, as a measure repugnant to my decency, as well as to that duty which I owed to my father, whom I tenderly loved.

“Though I withstood this premature proposal, I did not attempt to disguise the situation of my thoughts; and thus commenced a tender correspondence, which was maintained by letters while I remained in the country, and carried on, when I was in town, by private interviews twice or thrice a week at the house of my milliner, where such endearments passed as refined and happy lovers know, and others can only guess. Truth and innocence prevailed on my side, while his heart was fraught with sincerity and love. Such frequent intercourse created an intimacy which I began to think dangerous, and therefore yielded to his repeated desire that we might be united for ever. Nay, I resolved to avoid him, until the day should be fixed, and very innocently, though not very wisely, told him my reason for this determination, which was no other than a consciousness of my incapacity to refuse him anything he should demand as a testimony of my love.

“The time was accordingly appointed, at the distance of a few days, during which I intended to have implored my father’s consent, though I had but faint hopes of obtaining it. But he was by some means or other apprised of our design, before I could prevail upon myself to make him acquainted with our purpose. I had danced with my lover at the ridotto on the preceding evening, and there perhaps our eyes betrayed us. Certain it is, several of Lord W—‘s relations, who disapproved of the match, came up and rallied him on his passion; Lord S—k, in particular, used this remarkable expression, ‘Nephew, as much love as you please, but no matrimony.’”

“Next day, the priest being prepared, and the bridegroom waiting for me at the appointed place, in all the transports of impatient expectation, I was, without any previous warning, carried into the country by my father, who took no notice of the intelligence he had received, but decoyed me into the coach on pretence of taking the air; and, when we had proceeded as far as Turnham Green, gave me to understand, that he would dine in that place.

“There was no remedy. I was obliged to bear my disappointment, though with an aching heart, and followed him up-stairs into an apartment, where he told me he was minutely informed of my matrimonial scheme. I did not attempt to disguise the truth, but assured him, while the tears gushed from my eyes, that my want of courage alone had hindered me from making him privy to my passion; though I owned, I should have married Lord W—, even though he had disapproved of my choice. I reminded him of the uneasy life I led at home, and frankly acknowledged, that I loved my admirer too well to live without him; though, if he would favour me with his consent, I would defer my intention, and punctually observe any day he would fix for our nuptials. Meanwhile I begged he would permit me to send a message to Lord W—, who was waiting in expectation of my coming, and might, without such notice, imagine I was playing the jilt. He granted this last request; in consequence of which I sent a letter to my lover, who, when he received it, had almost fainted away, believing I should be locked up in the country, and snatched for ever from his arms. Tortured with these apprehensions, he changed clothes immediately, and, taking horse, resolved to follow me whithersoever we should go.

“After dinner, we proceeded as far as Brentford, where we lay, intending to be at my father’s country house next night; and my admirer putting up at the same inn, practised every expedient his invention could suggest to procure an interview; but all his endeavours were unsuccessful, because I, who little dreamed of his being so near, had gone to bed upon our first arrival, overwhelmed with affliction and tears. In the morning I threw myself at my father’s feet, and conjured him, by all the ties of paternal affection, to indulge me with an opportunity of seeing my admirer once more, before I should be conveyed from his wishes. The melancholy condition in which I preferred this supplication, melted the tender heart of my parent, who yielded to my supplications, and carried me back to town for that purpose.