Jane and The Wandering Eye

Chapter 3 The Tiger Rampant

12 December 1804, cont.

I AWOKE THIS MORNING RATHER LATER THAN IS MY WONT, being entirely overset by the events of last evening and the weariness of my return from Laura Place. Thus I made my way to the breakfast-room in every expectation of finding it quite deserted. But here presentiment failed me — for at the sound of my step upon the threshold, the assembled Austens each turned a countenance suffused with false innocence. From their eager looks it was apparent that word of the murder had preceded me.

“Well, my love!” my mother cried, waving her napkin with some animation, “make haste! Make haste! We have been expecting you this quarter-hour. I will not be satisfied until I have heard it from your own lips. A lovers’ quarrel, so Mr. Austen’s paper says, but with theatre people, it might have been as much a joke as anything. There is no accounting for an actor’s taste.”

“Although in this instance,” I observed, as I pulled back my chair, “it is the manager who is dead.”

“There, now!” My mother rapped the table triumphantly. “And so we cannot hope ever to learn the truth of the matter from him. All dispute is at an end. But I cannot be entirely mute upon the subject, Jane. I cannot turn so blind an eye to the comportment of my youngest daughter. How you can find diversion in such a business—”

“Diversion, ma’am?”

“You have a decided predilection for violence, my dear, and if the habit does not alter, no respectable gentleman will consider you twice. Only reflect,” she admonished, with a pointed gesture from her butter knife — “you are not growing any younger, Jane.”

“Nor are we any of us.”

“Jane, dear, let me pour out your chocolate,” said my sister Cassandra, reaching hastily for my cup.

“Tea, rather — for my head does ache dreadfully.”

“Gentlemen of discernment,” my mother continued, warming to her subject, “cannot bear a young lady’s being too familiar with blood. I have always held that a girl should know as little of blood as possible, even if she be mad for hunting. When the fox is killed, it behooves a lady to be busy about her mount, or on the brink of a pretty observation regarding the landscape’s picturesqueness. So I believe, and so our James agrees — and he hunts with the Vyne[14], you know, and must be treated to refinement in such matters on every occasion. Blood, and torn flesh, may only be termed vulgar. Are not you of my opinion, Mr. Austen? Was it not very bad of Jane to have remained in such a place, once the knives were got out?”

“Oh, there cannot be two opinions on the subject, my love,” my father replied with a satiric eye. “A knife will always be vulgar, particularly in the drawing-room. The kitchens and the dining-parlour are its proper province; but when it seeks to climb so high as a Duchess’s salon — even a Dowager Duchess’s — we may consider ourselves on the point of revolution.”

“Dear madam,” I intervened, “be assured that I quitted Laura Place as soon as it was possible to do so. The general flight of guests rendered chairs remarkably scarce, and it was a full hour before Henry could obtain a suitable conveyance — a chaise summoned from his inn — which would set Madam Lefroy down in Russell Street before returning to Green Park Buildings. We hastened home as swiftly as our means allowed. Do but pity poor Henry and Eliza, who faced a longer journey still to their rooms at the White Hart, before finding the mercy of their beds. They cannot have arrived before four o’clock.”

“Well,” my mother said with some asperity, “since the matter is past all repair — the vulgarity endured — you might favour us with a report of the affair.”

“Was Lord Kinsfell truly taken up for murder?” Cassandra enquired. So the papers had printed that much.

“He was,” I replied sadly, “the knife having fallen from his grasp before an hundred witnesses. The manager of the Theatre Royal, one Richard Portal, lay bleeding at Kinsfell’s feet, all life extinguished. The knife point found his heart. Or so said Dr. Gibbs, who examined the body. He is the Dowager Duchess’s physician, and was present last evening at Her Grace’s invitation, in the guise of a Moor.”

“But is it likely that the Marquis of Kinsfell would stoop so low as to murder a common actor?” My father was all amazement.

I sipped at my tea and found that it was grown disappointingly cold. The virtuous Austens had lingered long over the cloth in expectation of my intelligence.

“Mr. Portal was hardly a common actor, Father. He has had the management of the company since Mrs. Siddons’s day, and has won the respect of all in Bath. It is at Portal’s direction and expense that the new theatre in Beauford Square is being built.[15] Mr. Portal was possessed of high spirits and considerable address — a tolerably handsome gentleman, in the flood tide of life. I may hardly credit the notion of his murder, much less Lord Kinsfell’s guilt; but I must suppose that the magistrate, Mr. Elliot, will very soon find the matter out.”

“You presume no such thing,” my father retorted testily. “You abhor justices with a passion, as I very well know. ‘They seek only to make a case against some unfortunate innocents, while the true culprit goes free.’ Is not that a quotation, my dear Jane, from one of your very own letters? A letter written from Scargrave Manor?”

“I will not pretend to an unalloyed admiration for English justice,” I ventured, “but I may, perhaps, have spoken then too warmly. I do not abhor such respectable gentlemen as Sir William Reynolds.[16] Nor may I assume that Mr. Elliot is entirely incapable. Mr. Elliot is a singular fellow, assuredly — both gross in his humours and repulsive in his person — but a shrewd and cunning intellect nonetheless.”

“If Lord Kinsfell was found with the knife,” Cassandra innocently observed, “what doubt can possibly exist? Does his lordship deny the murder?”

“Naturally!” I said, with more attention to my plate than it deserved. “He should be a fool to do otherwise, whether he be guilty or no.”

“Though he uttered a falsehood? Such wickedness!”

It is remarkable, indeed, to spend all of one’s life in the company of a lady so thoroughly good as Cassandra. Never mind that a falsehood, at such a juncture, should be as nothing to the shedding of blood — the slightest misstep is capable of causing my sister pain. It is well, perhaps, that the untimely demise of her beloved intended should have left her pining in the single state. The vicissitudes of marriage — with that frailest of creatures, a man—should certainly have been the death of her.

“Lord Kinsfell insists that in the very midst of Hugh Conyngham’s declamation — a passage from Macbeth — he was overcome with an excess of heat and spirits, and intended to seek his bedchamber by passing through the little anteroom at one side of the main party. Upon throwing open the double doors, he observed Mr. Portal in his Harlequin dress, prone upon the floor with a most hideous blade protruding from his breast. Kinsfell gave a shout, and leapt to Portal’s side; he felt for a pulse, and then effected the removal of the knife; but was swiftly overpowered by two stout fellows convinced of his dangerous intent. It was only then that I observed him myself.”

“And this Portal? Had you remarked his figure before?”

“I had.” The memory of Lord Kinsfell’s bitter words to Richard Portal brought a frown to my countenance. I pushed aside my cup of cooling tea and toyed hopelessly with a piece of bread. Cook had allowed it to grow stale again.

“And did he betray any morbid sensibility?” Cassandra enquired.

“Of what, my dear?”

“Of his impending death! Did he comport himself as might a marked man?”

“Indeed, Cassandra, I might fancy you to have indulged too much the taste for horrid novels! Portal seemed no more marked than any eligible gentleman at a rout full of ladies!” I hesitated, uncertain how much to divulge. “I did observe him to dance with Lady Desdemona Trowbridge, Lord Kinsfell’s sister, and somewhat later, he treated the better part of the company to a scene of some belligerence.”

“On the point of blows, was he? And with whom?” my father asked.

“With Lord Kinsfell, I regret to say.”

He touched his napkin to his lips, eyes averted.

“An actor! Well!” my mother cried, as though picking up a thread of conversation quite lost long ago. “They are always coming to blows, with swords or pistols or ruffians for hire. One sees it constantly in Orchard Street—Hamlet is nothing but a brawl, though it pretends to treat of adultery. I never leave the theatre without feeling I have been pummelled from one end to the other.”

“But did Kinsfell perceive no one else in the room?” my father enquired.

“He did not. He persists in believing the murderer exited by the anteroom window, which stood open at Portal’s discovery.” I gazed soberly at the Reverend Austen’s lined and kindly face. In three-and-seventy years, my father had seen much of the evil men may do, though from so retired a vantage as a Hampshire parsonage. “But Lord Kinsfell’s assurances are open to doubt, Father. Not one of the chairmen assembled in the street below admitted to having observed a similar flight; and if they had, the man should certainly have been taken. The drop from window to pavement, moreover, must be full thirty feet. For any to attempt the ground — in darkness and in haste — is madness. The man should surely have broken a leg.”

“But you forget the heavy snow, my child. If there were a drift to break the fall—”

“The Dowager’s footmen were assiduous in sweeping the pavement, for the accommodation of her guests,” I replied wearily. “It seems unlikely that anyone quitted the house in so heedless a manner.”

A brief silence fell over the breakfast table, and I saw once more in memory the Duchess’s horror as Kinsfell was led away. But for Lady Desdemona, I believe Eugenie Wilborough should have sunk to a heap on the floor, her seventy years quite suddenly writ upon her face.

“Some toast, my dear? Or perhaps a muffin?”

“I believe I shall walk out, Mamma.” I thrust my chair from the table. “A breath of air will do my head a world of good.”

DESPITE THE HEAVY FALL OF SNOW LAST E’EN, THE SUN HAD consented to shine, with a brilliance that dazzled the eyes. I found that my own poor orbs, much weakened from years of plying my needle and pen in the indifferent light of a sitting-room candle, could barely sustain the force of the light, and so kept them fixed upon the paving-stones. Here the snow had begun to melt, and the water ran in rivulets along the gutter. In my cumbersome pattens, I picked my way around the puddles, clicking and clattering in company with every young lady so stout as to venture out-of-doors. Sydney Gardens should be impassable on such a day; my accustomed walk along the verge of the canal must be foresworn for drier weather. And so I ignored the roads leading down towards the river; and determined upon the much shorter distance through Queen Square, in the direction of Edgars Buildings.

Edgars Buildings are fine, respectable establishments, offering lodgings for respectable families who come to Bath yearly in the pursuit of health and marriageable young men. They comprise as well, on their ground floors, a group of respectable shops — and in one of these, I had remarked a very fetching demi-turban of apricot sarcenet, adorned with ostrich feathers, such as one might wear with a gown of the same fashionable shade. I had just such a gown in view — indeed, had one as yet in pieces, at a formidable mantua-maker renowned in all of Bath for her artistry.[17] My peach silk confection, so clearly suited to a Duchess’s rout, or a night at the theatre, or a concert in the Upper Rooms — a gown that should be utterly too fine for my usual diversion of Aunt Leigh-Perrot’s insipid card parties — should be the sole spoil of recent misadventure. Not two months ago, I had purchased the stuff from smugglers in Lyme. By such small sacrifice of Miss Austen’s judgement and integrity was a vicious murderer apprehended; and I may confess to no great unwillingness to revel in the gain.

With very little fuss, and only the negligible discomfort occasioned by over-hasty coachmen and their great splashing beasts, I soon achieved Edgars Buildings. My enquiry as to the cost of such a thing as an apricot demi-turban, arranged cunningly with plumes, was the matter of but a moment; and the acknowledgement that it should be too dear for my purse, required but another. I turned away, lost in contemplation of how a similar headdress might be contrived, through the remnants of my own cut-up silk, and the loan of my sister Eliza’s feathers — when a loud hallooing from the street brought my attention to bear.

Outriders, in a gorgeous livery of black and gold, with Bengal caps and tassels; postilions, mounted on the wheelers[18], similarly arrayed; and the coach-and-four, magnificent and sleek, the horses as black as night. A spirited team, chuffing and tossing their heads as they turned down Milsom Street — bound, no doubt, for the Bear or the White Hart. I strained to make out the coat of arms on the coach’s door — but it was unknown to me. Certainly not the Wilborough device; and so the conveyance could hardly hold Lord Harold. That the Gentleman Rogue was posting towards Bath, however, upon the early morning receipt of an express from his mother, I little doubted. Perhaps in the company of his brother, the Duke.

“The Devil’s own cub,” muttered a gentleman not three paces away. He stood similarly arrested on the pavement, his eyes following the careening coach.

“Who is it, guv’nor?” cried a small boy, skipping and bouncing with excitement.

The gentleman turned angrily away, as though offended, and strode briskly towards Gay Street. His small persecutor kept pace, dodging the vicious stab of a walking stick with effortless grace. “Come on, now! Tell us who ‘tis, guv’nor! Ol’ Prinny, maybe? Or the Queen?”

“The Earl of Swithin, you unfortunate cull,” his quarry spat out, “and now I suggest you take yourself off. Swithin’s hardly the sort to throw you a penny for carting his dunnage. He’s more likely to eat you for breakfast.”

The urchin chortled, doffed his cap, and sped off in the direction of Cheap Street.

After a pause for consideration, I sedately did the same.

MY SISTER ELIZA WAS FIRMLY ENSCONCED IN A SUITE OF rooms at the White Hart; her maid, Manon, and her little dog, Pug, comprising fully half of her establishment, while the remainder — bedchambers for herself and Henry, with a sitting-room in between — might all be taken as Eliza’s to rule, so little evidence of my brother could I find. Such an apportionment of space at the White Hart must be very dear, and I wondered at the expense, and at my brother’s having failed to take lodgings in some retired square. The Henry Austens intended a visit to Bath of some three or four weeks, and it was unusual in such cases to remain more than a few days at the coaching inns. But Eliza, though accustomed to luxury, is singularly careless about convention — the result, perhaps, of her itinerant childhood. She moved with her mother, my aunt, from India to England and thence to Europe — fixing, at last, in the environs of Versailles. Even in London, Eliza is rarely at rest; she has occasioned the removal of my brother’s household several times already, and fully intends to continue the practice as long as a suitable establishment should offer.

Even her grave, I suspect, will be a temporary domicile.

“My dear Jane!” she cried now, throwing aside her netting and smoothing her hair. “And are you quite recovered from the Duchess’s rout? I am on the very point of venturing to the Pump Room. You will accompany me?”

She was dressed today in bottle-green silk, far too fine for morning wear, with small puffed sleeves and a plunging neck. A large green stone glittered on her finger.

“Is that an emerald I see, Eliza?”

“Oh, pooh,” she cried, “it is nothing of the sort. A tourmaline merely — a gift from my godfather, Mr. Hastings. We met with him only last week. You will never guess, Jane, who has come to the inn.”

“The Earl of Swithin?”

“The Earl of Swithin! How did you know? You will have seen the coach, I suspect, with its device of the snarling tiger. The Swithin fortune was made in India, you understand — my mother was intimate with his, Lady Swithin being one of the few who did not reproach Mamma for the attentions of Mr. Hastings — and the tiger was ever their device. I should know the coat of arms anywhere. He is a very fine-looking young man. Though not too young. I should put him at thirty.”[19]

“Eliza,” I said, in a tone of mock reproof. “You will not flirt in the very midst of an inn. Have a care!”

My sister shrugged her lovely shoulders. “I only hung about the stairway for a time, the better to observe his ascent; and I may fairly say that nothing should induce me now to trade a coaching inn for hired lodgings, be they ever so grand, and in Camden Place!”

“You may be certain that Lord Swithin will do so.”

“Then we must hasten away, my dear, if we are to have a glimpse of him! I heard him charge his manservant to await his return from the Pump Room!”

It is the Pump Room, in truth — situated only steps from the White Hart — that makes the inn so convenient to Eliza; she is forever looking into the place, to meet with her acquaintance, or to spy upon those who are newly arrived. My rented lodgings in a retired square should be insupportably dull for the little Comtesse; and I understood my brother Henry the better. A bored Eliza is a petulant Eliza — a complaining and a declining Eliza, who fancies herself miserable with all manner of mysterious ailments. She should never last a fortnight in retirement.

IT IS MANY MONTHS SINCE I LAST ENTERED THE PUMP ROOM — for being little inclined myself to the waters, I could find no purpose in an errand to that part of town, beyond an idle promenading about the lofty-ceilinged room. That the better part of Bath was engaged in that very pursuit, I immediately observed upon the present occasion; a hum of discourse rose above the clatter of pattens and half-boots, as a gaily-dressed Christmas crowd trod the bare planks of the floor.

Pale winter light streamed through the clerestory windows. When last I had entered the Pump Room, I now recalled, the warmth of August had turned the dust motes to gold. I had been taking leave of a friend, before journeying south to Lyme.

“Jane!”

I shook myself from reverie, and espied Eliza hard by the pump attendant, a glass of water in her hand.

“Do not you mean to make a trial of the waters?” Eliza exclaimed.

“How can you think it possible, my dear?” I replied. “You forget the example of my Uncle Leigh-Perrot, and his two glasses per day these twenty-odd years. Never has water done so little to improve a faulty constitution, or to cure a persistent gout. I shall place my faith in a daily constitutional. It may claim a decided advantage in scenic enjoyment, and cannot hope to impair the bowels.”[20]

“Pshaw. Come and examine the book,” Eliza rejoined comfortably, as she turned back the pages of a calf-bound volume, in which the most recent visitors had inscribed their names and directions. “We must learn who is come to be gay in Bath. Mr. John Julius Angerstein and Mrs. Angerstein. Well. And so they have left their home in Blackheath, and abandoned the Princess of Wales to her scandalous beaux. The Honourable Matthew Small, Captain, Royal Navy. Well, we want none of him, do we? For a naval man torn from the sea cannot, I think, be very agreeable. Officers are always labouring under the influence of a wound, or a gouty manifestation. Mr. and Mrs. Jens Wolff. Capital! He is the Danish Consul, you know, and she is nothing short of a beauty. They lodge in Rivers Street. I have not seen Isabella Wolff this age!”

And so, as Eliza exclaimed and brooded, I allowed my mind once more to wander. My eyes I permitted to rove as well, in search of a nobleman of imposing aspect. I lacked Eliza’s knowledge of the Earl of Swithin’s past, but I had heard enough of that gentleman’s reputation to believe him stern and unyielding. His suit had driven Lady Desdemona Trowbridge from her home in London — had driven her, perhaps, into the arms of Mr. Richard Portal, who now lay dead. For what else but the theatre manager’s impropriety towards the lady could have so excited her brother’s contempt?

“I beg your pardon, ma’am, but if I am not mistaken — are you not Mrs. Henry Austen?”

We turned — and observed a gentleman of some sixty years at least, and quite extraordinary in his aspect. He was short, and lithe, and fussily dressed, in a sky-blue jacket of sarcenet, a lavender silk waistcoat overlaid with bronze cherries, and light-coloured pantaloons well tucked into glowing Hessians. The stiff white points of his collar were so high as to disguise his ears, and render any effort at turning the head quite beyond his power; and the arrangement of his neckcloth must surely rival the Beau’s.[21] But all this would be as nothing — merely the trappings of a dandy more suited to a gentleman half his age — in comparison with the excessive ugliness of his features. The man resembled nothing so much as a baboon.

“Mr. Cosway, to be sure!” the little Comtesse cried, and extended her hand with every affectation of delight. “What felicity, in finding oneself not entirely without friends! How come you to leave St. James, my dear sir, in such a season?”

“A touch of the gout, Mrs. Austen, which I must for-fend — though I confess, with the end of the world so close upon us all, it hardly seems worth the trouble.”

“Indeed,” Eliza replied smoothly, with barely a flicker of an eyelid at the gentleman’s singularity of address. “One should meet any eventuality, extraordinary or commonplace, at the absolute pitch of health. But I must have the honour of acquainting you with my husband’s sister, Miss Austen. Jane — Mr. Richard Cosway, the principal painter to His Majesty the Prince of Wales.”

My senses were all alive; for though I may despise the Prince with every pore of my being, I am not so determined in dislike as to learn nothing of a gossip. In silence, I made Mr. Cosway a courtesy. The face, the figure, were comprehensible to me now, from several decades’ worth of caricatures in the papers. This was the extraordinary Cosway — whose cunning art at portraiture, particularly of a miniature kind, had swept the fashionable world; whose weekly salons in Pall Mall had been the sole entertainment worthy of fashionable attendance, throughout the past two decades; whose pretty little wife, full twenty years his junior, had so captivated the great with her accomplishments on the harp and at the easel. This was Richard Cosway, who followed Mesmer, and practised Animal Magnetism, and all manner of superstitious folly — now hard upon the brink of old age.[22] Trust my dear Eliza to claim acquaintance with every notable oddity in the kingdom!

“And have you any news of your delightful wife?” my sister was enquiring, with becoming solicitude. “Maria is quite a prisoner, I presume, in the Monster’s court?”

“Alas, I fear that she is — and it seems that any transport between England and the Continent is at a standstill. The outbreak of hostilities has overthrown my poor Maria’s labours entirely. She had embarked, as no doubt you know, upon a project of sketching the vast collection in Buonaparte’s Louvre, for the edification of mankind. And hers was so admirable a project — the Prince of Wales himself subscribed, my dear Mrs. Austen — but it has come to naught. And so Mrs. Cosway has entirely quitted Paris.”[23]

“But when is she likely to return? Can nothing be done for her present relief?”

Mr. Cosway hesitated. His eyes roved the room as if in search of acquaintance. “I may say that my wife is not without resources. She has made the best of her situation — and has gone to Lyons, for the purpose of founding a school for the education of young ladies in the Catholic faith. You know, of course, that she was born in Italy, and has always been a subject of Rome.”

“But of course,” Eliza replied dubiously. “And how long do you intend, sir, to dazzle Bath with your presence?”

“Not above three months, I assure you. I am bound for Brighton at Easter.”

“How delightful!” Eliza cried. “I long to visit Brighton! What schemes and dissipation — the chariot races on the shingle! The breakfasts out-of-doors! The fireworks and expeditions — the crush of the balls! How vast an acquaintance one must cultivate, too, in the Prince’s household train. The demands, I fear, are unending.”

“The amusements of Brighton are as nothing to me, who must suffer from the want of solitude that such a pleasure party demands; but I cannot help be a slave to the Prince,” Mr. Cosway observed, with a grotesque smile. “The decoration of the Pavilion, the maintenance of his collections — the imperative of Art! — are the foremost objects of my soul. My own poor daubs must be as nothing. I have not the nature for self-interest, I own — I am all devotion to the people I love.”

“I am sure it does you very great credit, Mr. Cosway,” the Comtesse replied, with what I thought to be admirable forbearance. “We must hope to solicit your society a little, perhaps, while yet you remain in Bath.”

And with a bow and a flourish of his handsome grey melton hat, Mr. Richard Cosway left us.

“What a ridiculous fellow, to be sure,” Eliza told me, “though quite accomplished in his line.”

“How come you to be acquainted with him, Eliza?”

“My godfather, Mr. Hastings, sat to Cosway for a miniature some years past,” she said carelessly, “but I formed a true attachment to the enchanting Mrs. Cos-way. Maria had all of London at her feet, you know, in the ‘eighties. We met in France, I recollect, in ‘91 or ‘92—just after the birth of her little girl, whom she abandoned to her husband’s rearing.”[24]

“How very singular!”

“It was. He suffered from the conviction of Maria’s infidelity, and thought the child to be anyone’s but his own — and so she left him, for nearly four years.”

“Four years! And the child?”

“She fell dead of a fever not long after Maria’s return — in ‘96, or thereabouts.” My poor Eliza’s voice must tighten; for she knew what it was to lose an only child.

“I have always observed, Eliza, that those who seem to possess a life graced with distinction, and every comfort or happy mark of Fortune, may conceal in fact the deepest sorrows,” I reflected. “How unhappy for the entire family!”

“Yes — but as Cosway can never survive a tragedy without turning it to account, he painted a portrait of the child on her deathbed, poignant in the extreme; and had Maria not forbidden it, he should have sold the engravings in the very streets! The man is the soul of self-promotion, Jane — has sunk art in the mire of commerce — and yet can protest that he is all selflessness and sacrifice! Were I shockingly ill-bred, I should laugh aloud! But it is of no consequence. Now his wife has deserted him, all his fashionable friends have quite thrown him over, I believe.”

“And yet the Prince appears to support him still.”

“The Prince! Yes, I believe he does. Whatever else Mr. Cosway may be — doomsayer, apocalypst, and practitioner of every kind of superstition — he is nonetheless possessed of the most exquisite taste in the arrangement of interiors, and is a connoisseur of the first rank. The Prince, they say, would be utterly lost without him, and should spend far more money to far less purpose than he already does.”

“Indeed,” I replied. “And how comes a mere painter to so elevated a place?”

Eliza did not scruple to abuse my stupidity. “Richard Cosway! A mere painter! Would you speak, my dear, of the great Cosway, who captured the likeness of Mrs. Fitzherbert, so that the Prince might wear it about his neck? The cunning miniaturist whose tokens in ivory are all the rage! Pray do not tell me you are ignorant of this, as of so much else in the fashionable world!”[25]

We had commenced to pace about the room in company with all of Bath, and I gave barely a moment to Eliza’s abuse, so intent was I upon glimpsing the Earl of Swithin.

“Jane! Are you attending?”

“I confess I care so little for the Prince and all his set, that I have never endeavoured to follow his example in anything, Eliza. This cannot seem so very wonderful, even to you.”

“But Cosway’s taste has set the mode of the age!” she protested. “He may look like a monkey, my dearest girl, but he is a cunning fellow, even brilliant in his way. Cosway would have it that every objet d’art, every fold of drapery, every touch of gilt in Carlton House is placed at his direction.[26] There can be few, I suppose, with so just a claim to having influenced fashion. In past years, of course, this was recognised — and barely a great name throughout the world failed to pay him homage, and seek his advice. But hardly anyone calls in Stratford Place, now that Maria has run away.”

“And yet he is such a figure! — Better suited to ride bareback at Astley’s, I should think, than to promenade in Bath!”[27]

“Indeed he does pay too much attention to matters of dress,” Eliza conceded. She was vulnerable on the point, in having made her attire the primary occupation of her life these twenty years at least. “I learned only last month that he possesses no less than forty waistcoats.”

“It is fortunate, then, that he is much at Carlton House — where such profligacy may go unremarked.”

“But you must own, Jane, that the notion of capturing the likeness of an eye in oils is utterly singular. In this, at least, you must confess Cosway’s peculiar brilliance. For it was entirely his own invention, I believe.”

“The likeness of an eye? This has become his particular art?”

“Of course! He began it with Maria Fitzherbert. The Prince conceals the image of her eye in a golden locket, that he is said to wear next to his heart. Even you must be aware that such intimate likenesses of a chère-amie, when worn about the person, are the last word in fashion. Observe.” She unbuttoned her dark grey pelisse and drew forth a pendant chain. “I myself have taken to wearing an eye.”

“Eliza! You would not!”

The Comtesse shrugged with infinite grace. “It is no more than any lady of good society would undertake, I assure you. And isn’t it fetching? Though Richard Cos-way is much above my touch, I fancy that Engleheart is equally presentable.[28] I particularly admire the set of the brow. Quite a rogue, he must have been.”

“Who, pray?”

“The gentleman who sat for the miniature, of course!”

“Then you are wholly unacquainted with him?”

“Naturally!” she rejoined blithely. “Would you suspect me of an intrigue against your dearest brother?”

“But, Eliza — to wear such a token, is to suggest to the world that you carry a tendre for a lover! I wonder Henry can bear it!”

“It was Henry who made a present of it to me,” Eliza retorted equably. “And he thinks the notion very good fun, I do assure you.” Her expression of amusement faded, and I saw that her interest was already claimed by another. She seized my arm in pleasurable agitation. “There, Jane! By the Visitors’ Book! It is the Earl! But to whom does he speak with such urgency?”

I followed the direction of her eyes. “To Mr. Hugh Conyngham, Eliza — the principal actor of the Theatre Royal.”