A Georgian Pageant

by Frank Frankfort Moore

And it really did not matter much that Maria Gunning spelt as vaguely as did Shakespere, or Shakspere, or Shakespeare, or Shakspear, or whatever he chose to write himself at the moment. Correctness of orthography is absolutely necessary for any young lady who wishes to be a success in the Postal Department, but Miss Gunning possessed some qualifications of infinitely greater importance in the estimation of the world. She was of good family and she was beautiful exceedingly. Moreover, she possessed the supreme grace of naturalness—the supreme grace and that which includes all other graces, which, like butterflies, hover over womankind, but seldom descend in a bevy upon any one of the race. She was as natural as a lily flower, and for the same reason. To be natural il came to her by Nature, and that was how she won the admiration of more people than the beauty of Helen of Troy brought to their death. She was not wise. But had she been wise she would never have left Ireland. She would have known that obscurity is the best friend that any young woman so beautiful as she was could have. She would have remained in Roscommon, and she would have been one of those women who are happy because they have no story. But, of course, had she been wise she would not have been natural, and so there her beauty goes by the board in a moment.

The Honourable Mrs. Gunning could not have been startled when the knowledge came to her that she was the mother of two girls of exceptional beauty. The same knowledge comes to every mother of two girls in the world, though this knowledge is sometimes withheld from the rest of the world; but even then the mother's faith is not shaken—except in regard to the eyesight of the rest of the world. Doubtless Mrs. Gunning thought much better of Ireland when she found that her judgment on the beauty of her daughters was shared by all the people who saw the girls. From the daily exclamation of wonder—the exaggerated expressions of appreciation uttered by a fervent peasantry—when the girls were seen in their own kitchen or on the roadside, the mother's ambition must have received a fresh stimulus. And given an ambitious mother, whose life has been one of contriving to do things that seem out of her power to accomplish, the achievement of her object is only a matter of time—provided that the father does not become an obstruction. Mrs. Gunning was not extravagant in her longings. Her Delectable Mountains were those which surround the City of Dublin. Her social ambitions did not extend beyond “The Castle.”

When the eldest of her three daughters was scarcely nineteen the aggregation of savings and credit—the latter predominant—seemed sufficient to justify the expedition. A house was taken in a fashionable street, close to the most splendid Mall in Europe, and furnished by some credulous tradesmen, and the social campaign was begun by a parade of the two girls and their mother. Alas! the young beauties attracted only too much attention. The inquiries as to their style and title were unfortunately not limited. In Dublin for generations the tradespeople have been accustomed to take an intelligent and quite intelligible interest in the aristocracy and beauty dwelling in their midst; and it took only a few days for the report to go round that the exquisite young ladies were the daughters of Mr. John Gunning, of Castle Coote.

This information meant much more to some of the least desirable of the inquirers than it did to the wealthy and well connected of the population; and among the least desirable of all were some tradesmen who for years had had decrees waiting to be executed against Mr. Gunning at a more convenient place for such services than Castle Coote. The result was that within a week the beauty of his daughters had made such a stir in Dublin that bailiffs were in the house and Mr. Gunning was out of it.

It is at this point in the history that the Troubadour unslings his lute, feeling the potentialities of Romance in the air; and, given the potentialities of Romance and the wandering minstrel, one may be sure that the atmosphere will resound with Romance. We are told on such high authority as is regarded quite satisfactory (by the Troubadour), that the weeping of the mother and the beautiful girls under the coarse stare of the bailiffs attracted the attention of a charming and sympathetic young actress who was taking the air in the street, and that, as might only be expected, she hastened to enter the house to offer consolation to those who were in trouble—this being unquestionably the mission which is most congenial to the spirit of the soubrette. On being at once informed of all by the communicative mother—the Troubadour is not such a fool as to lay down his lute to inquire if it was likely that a lady who possessed her full share of Irish pride would open her heart to a stranger and an actress—the young visitor showed her sympathy by laying herself open to prosecution and imprisonment through helping in a scheme to make away with all the valuables she could lay her hands on. But she went still further, and invited the young ladies to stay at her house so long as it suited them to do so.

We are told that this young actress was George Ann Bellamy, but the information comes from no better source than George Ann Bellamy herself, and the statements of this young person, made when she was no longer young or reputable, do not carry conviction to all hearers. Romance, however, like youth, will not be denied, though the accuracy of an actress may, and people have always been pleased to believe that Miss Bellamy and Mr. Thomas Sheridan, the much-harassed lessee of the Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin, were the means of obtaining for the Honourable Mrs. Gunning and her daughters the invitation to the ball at the Castle which resulted in the recognition of the girls' beauty by the great world of fashion. The suggestion that their aunt, Miss Bourke, or their uncle, Viscount Mayo, might have been quite as potent a factor in solving the problem of how the invitation to a ball given by the Viceroy to the people of Dublin came into the hands of the Miss Gunnings, may, however, be worth a moment's consideration.

At any rate, the success made by the girls upon this occasion was immediate. Before a day had passed all Dublin and Dublin Castle were talking of their beauty, and the splendid Mall was crowded with people anxious to catch a glimpse of the lovely pair when they took their walks abroad. Lady Caroline Petersham, the charming lady whose name figures frequently in Walpole's correspondence—it will be remembered that she was one of that delightful little supper party at Ranelagh which he describes—was in the entourage of the Viceroy, and quickly perceived the possibilities of social prestige accruing to the hostess who might be the means of introducing them to St. James's. There a new face meant a new sensation lasting sometimes well into a second month, and Lady Caroline had her ambitions as a hostess.