"I dare say. I'm not to be taken in like that. Fine words butter no parsnips. While Lavinia's in the house I'll go bail I'll make her work. If she goes away I've got to pay someone in her place, haven't I? Twenty guineas is the very lowest I'll take, and if you was anything like the gentleman you look you'd make it double."
The haggling over such a matter and the coarse mercenary nature of the woman jarred upon the poet's sensitive soul. The plain fact that he hadn't got twenty guineas in the world could not be gainsaid. But he had rich friends. If he could only interest them in this protégée of his something might be done. And there were the "Fables."
"Twenty guineas," he repeated. "Well, I'll do my best. In two days' time, Mrs. Fenton, I will come and see you and most likely all will be settled to your satisfaction."
"Two days. Aye. No longer or maybe my price'll go up."
"I shall not fail. Now, Mrs. Fenton, before I go I'd like to see Lavinia once more."
"No, this business is between you an' me, mister. The hussy's naught to do with it. She'll have to behave herself while she's with me. That's all I have to say about her."
So Gay rose and walked out of the box feeling as though he'd been through a severe drubbing. He might have been sufficiently disheartened to shatter his castle in the air had he not seen Lavinia's big sorrowful eyes fixed upon him from the kitchen. He dared not disobey her mother's behest not to speak to her so he tried to smile encouragingly, and to intimate by his expression that all was going well. Whether he succeeded in so doing he was by no means sure.
On leaving the coffee house Gay walked towards Charing Cross and thence along the Haymarket to Piccadilly. His destination was Queensberry House to the north of Burlington Gardens. Here lived Gay's good friends the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, and indeed Gay himself, save when he was at Twickenham with Pope.
At dinner that evening Gay broached the subject of the phenomenal singer whom he had discovered in the streets of St. Giles and his scheme concerning her. The duke laughed at the poet's visions, but the duchess was fascinated. Anything of the unusual at once appealed to the warmhearted, impulsive, somewhat eccentric, lady. Her enthusiasm where she was interested always carried her away, and her impatience and energy would not let her rest until her object was accomplished.
"I would vastly like to hear Mr. Gay's pretty nightingale. You must bring her to-morrow. I am dying to see if she is really the wonder you pretend she is. You know that the best judge of a woman is another woman. A man is apt to be partial."