I had a real tenderness and sisterly affection for Worcester at that time. I should otherwise have been the most ungrateful, callous, and inhuman creature breathing; and I really was about to make a very tender, warm, and suitable reply; but, at that critical moment, the woman brought in a large platter of ill-dressed veal cutlets and bacon, followed by the Duc de Guiche and the fat Lord Arthur Hill.
After our sumptuous dinner, Lord Arthur proposed our driving over to Portsmouth to see the play.
We went accordingly, and having hired a large stage-box, and seated ourselves in due form, all the sailors in the gallery began hissing and pelting us with oranges, and made such an astonishing noise that, out of compassion for ourselves as well as the rest of the audience, we were obliged to leave the theatre before the first act was over, and we were followed by a whole gang of tars on our way to the inn. They called us Mounseers, German moustache rascals, and Frenchmen.
I know not whether the sailors objected to the dress of dragoons in general, as being a German costume, or whether it was our French Duc de Guiche, who had caused all the mischief. However that may be, His Grace of Beaufort, having got hold of the story from the newspapers probably, declared, with his usual liberality towards me, that the English tars at Portsmouth could not endure the idea of my not being legally married to Worcester; want of chastity being held in utter abhorrence among the crews of our royal navy, as a sin they have no idea of, and one which is never by any chance practised by them.
In short, the duke would not seem to entertain the slightest doubt that the whole audience, nay, the whole town, had been thrown into confusion and alarm by the appearance of so wicked a sinner as myself in so chaste a seaport.
The world indeed believed me a lawfully wedded wife; and even the duke himself suspected that I was privately married; but then my certificate ought to have been forwarded to the governor of Portsmouth before I presumed to enter the town, and then I should have been permitted to have witnessed the performance in peace and quietness.
Not to digress too long, being all four hissed out of Portsmouth with much éclat, we returned to our humble village looking rather wise at each other, and, for the next two months or thereabouts that we remained in that part of the world, we confined ourselves to quarters parce que les plaisirs du village valaient, pour le moins, ceux, dont on nous régalaient à la ville.
His Grace of Beaufort at last obtained leave for Worcester to join him at Badminton, and being, as he said, rendered perfectly miserable every hour that his son continued within the magic circle of my spells, he wrote to insist on Worcester joining him in a few days.
Worcester, when he read these commands from his father, looked as if he had received his death-warrant. He was indeed completely wretched. For my part, I also felt very melancholy and dull, under the idea that, somehow or other, His Grace was determined to separate us. I had become habituated to Worcester's society and Worcester's attentions, and was beginning to feel a very lively friendship for him. Such friendships are often more lasting and better than love; and then I knew well that I should not again meet with half such kindness and devotion from any other man, for I never in my life yet heard of one, young or old, who was so eternally aux petits soins, and paid a woman the unremitting attention which I received from Worcester up to the last hour of our continuing together.
I cannot however say that I was sorry to exchange this miserable, muddy village for my comfortable house in town. Not but Lord Arthur Hill had something comical about his manner, which I thought amusing enough; yet there was no real fun nor humour in the Duc de Guiche, although he often laughed in much the same stiff and unnatural style as his shirt collars. He was not remarkably popular either with soldiers or officers, although he is undoubtedly a very handsome gentlemanlike Frenchman, and, as I have always heard, and been inclined to believe, a very brave one too. He was rather severe with the men and, I fancy, ill-tempered, and he was a decided fop, as I think I have before mentioned.