A Georgian Pageant

by Frank Frankfort Moore

The Irishman found it necessary to fall back upon the seductive tongue of his country for words of endearment to bestow upon her. He called her “Sheila,” “a cushla machree,” “mavourneen,” and also “aroon.” But when Miss Read returned to the studio they were still discussing a purely artistic point in connection with the portrait.

Of course now that O'Brien knew the secret of the miniature there was no reason that Miss Read could see why he and Lady Susan should not meet at her studio. To do her justice, neither could her ladyship perceive why they should not come together at this place. They came every day, and every day Lady Susan begged that Miss Read would allow her to rest in her ante-room after the fatigue of the sitting. She rested in that room, and in the company of O'Brien, until at last Miss Read became frightened; and one day told her friend Lord Cathcart something of her fears. Lord Cathcart, in his turn, told Lord Ilchester. His lordship was furious, but cautious.

He wanted evidence of his daughter's infatuation. He got it the next morning, for he insisted on seeing a letter which arrived for Lady Susan, addressed in the handwriting of Lady Sarah. This letter turned out to be from O'Brien, and Susan confessed that her father's surmise was correct—all the letters which she had recently received in Lady Sarah's hand had come from O'Brien.

Her father was foolish enough to grant her permission to say farewell to her lover, and thus the two were allowed to come together once more. They had a long talk, in the course of which O'Brien communicated to her a secret of the theatre, which was that Mr. Garrick and Mr. Colman were engaged in the construction of a comedy to be called The Clandestine Marriage, and that Mr. Garrick told him that he, O'Brien, was to play the part of the lover—the gentleman who had married the lady in secret.

Lady Susan parted from her lover, not in tears, but in laughter.

The conclusion of the story is told by Horace Walpole, writing to Lord Hertford.

“You will have heard of the sad misfortune that has happened to Lord Ilchester by his daughter's marriage with O'Brien, the actor,” wrote Walpole; and then went on to tell how Lady Susan had made her confession to her father, vowing to have nothing more to do with her lover if she were but permitted to bid him good-bye. “You will be amazed,” continued Walpole, “even this was granted. The parting scene happened the beginning of the week. On Friday she came of age, and on Saturday morning—instead of being under lock and key in the country—walked downstairs, took her footman, said she was going to breakfast with Lady Sarah, but would call at Miss Read's; in the street pretended to recollect a particular cap in which she was to be drawn, sent the footman back for it, whipped into a hackney chair, was married at Covent Garden Church, and set out for Mr. O'Brien's villa at Dunstable.”

Unlike many other alliances of a similar type, this marriage turned out a happy one. O'Brien was induced to leave the stage and to depart with his wife for America. He obtained a grant of some forty thousand acres in the province of New York, and had he retained this property and taken the right side during the Revolution his descendants would to-day be the richest people in the world. A few years later he was given a good appointment in Bermuda; and finally, in 1770, he was made Receiver-General of the County of Dorset, and became popular as a country squire. He died in 1815, and Lady Susan survived him by twelve years.

It was Lady Sarah who had made the imprudent marriage. She submitted to the cruelties of her husband for fourteen years, and on her leaving his roof he obtained a divorce.

In 1781, nineteen years after her first marriage, she wedded the Hon. George Napier, and became the mother of three of the greatest Englishmen of the nineteenth century. She lived until she was eighty. Her friend Lady Susan followed her to the grave a year later, at the age of eighty-four.