Lord Tavistock and Lord Portman both wrote to the papers in defence of their wives, the former denying that Lady Tavistock had taken any part in the Flora Hastings trouble; the latter asserting that Lady Portman did, on that painful occasion, neither more nor less than her duty towards the Court, towards Lady Flora Hastings herself, and towards the people of England, to whom, while in waiting upon her Sovereign, she was constitutionally responsible. Lord Portman, however, went further than this, if newspaper correspondents are to be believed. On the 3rd of April he took the chair when the Guardians of the Blandford district dined together; and on his wife’s health being drunk he in his reply alluded to Lady Flora Hastings, saying that the conduct of Lady Portman required no vindication, as a few months would testify.
With such hardness as this around her, one understands that the Queen may also have grown somewhat hard; yet even if Lady Portman did not credit the doctors’ certificate, the Queen could not have ignored it. It is only possible to think that she did not understand what the results of her own inaction must be; yet from the beginning there were many who would have echoed Greville’s biting comment on the affair had they heard it:—
“It is certain that the Court is plunged in shame and mortification at the exposure, that the Palace is full of bickerings and heart-burning, while the whole proceeding is looked upon by society at large as to the last degree disgusting and disgraceful. It is really an exemplification of the saying that kings and valets are made of the refuse clay of creation; for though such things sometimes happen in the servants’ hall, and housekeepers charge stillroom and kitchen maids with frailty, they are unprecedented and unheard-of in good society, and among people in high or even in respectable stations. It is inconceivable how Melbourne can have permitted this disgraceful and mischievous scandal, which cannot fail to lower the character of the Court in the eyes of the world. There may be objections to Melbourne’s extraordinary domiciliation in the Palace, but the compensation ought to be found in his good sense and experience preventing the possibility of such tricasseries as these.”
In June, Lady Flora suffered from what was regarded as a bilious fever, from which she seemed to be recovering; but it returned, and the vomiting weakened her so much that her physician—Dr. Chambers—suggested that some relatives should come to stay with her at the Palace. So her sister, Lady Sophia, went, and was there until all was over; and so filled with bitterness was she at the treatment given to Lady Flora that she would not have a bed prepared for her, but rested when necessary on the sofa.
Lady Portman was said to be in great distress of mind during the last illness of her victim, but it was not sufficient to prevent her from amusing herself in the gay world, and she seems to have made some remarks which aggravated the injury which she had done. Lady Selina Henry, another sister, wrote while Flora was ill:—“In a letter from Sophia to me there is a speech of Lady Portman’s repeated so gross that she must be a beast; Flora says, ‘As for Ladies Tavistock and Portman, I can never open my lips to them again.’ I think she knows this horror that Lady Portman has said.”
LADY PORTMAN
Lady Tavistock seems to have felt some compunction in having interfered, for the day before Flora died her doctor received the following clumsy and ineffective note from Lord Tavistock:—
“Spring Gardens, July 4th, 1839.
“Dear Dr. Chambers,—If you see a favourable opportunity, Lady Tavistock wishes much you would say a kind word for her to Lady F. Hastings, towards whom she has not only never harboured an unkindly thought, but has been deeply interested in her well-being. She has been greatly distressed by the cruel and unfounded attacks that have so long been made upon her in some newspapers, and it would afford her pleasure to be able to convey a message of kindness to your patient, if you think it could be done without disturbing her; but you will, of course, exercise your own judgment and discretion about naming the subject to her.—Yours truly, Tavistock.”