One morning I received a letter from Worcester, so blotted over from one end to the other, that it was scarcely legible, and some parts appeared actually to have been defaced by tears. Such an incoherent scrawl I never had known him nor anybody else write before! It was all over wives and angels, and eternal constancy, and eternal despair; with miseries and tortures without end. In short, it was out of all compass miserable, and out of all rules, or direct right angles, or parallel lines. All I could make out of this scrawl, as certain, was that Wellington, at the request of Worcester's father, who had made it without his son's knowledge, had appointed him his aide-de-camp, and that go he must; for there was no remedy, or it would be called cowardice if he hesitated. Nevertheless, he had sworn not to leave London unless he had been allowed to pass a whole fortnight entirely with me. This had been granted, and I was to expect him in two days after the receipt of his letter, which ended with earnest entreaties that I would promise to accompany him to the continent, and, lastly, his lordship informed me, that his father would arrive in London on the same morning with his letter, for the express purpose of attending a levée, and demanding a private audience of his present majesty, to beg permission for Worcester to leave his regiment and join the Duke of Wellington in Spain.
I knew not nor had ever suspected how much Worcester's loss would affect me until there was no remedy and my case desperate, for well I knew that I should never be permitted to follow up the army in Spain, even had I been disposed to make the attempt. I burst into a violent flood of tears.
It now struck me very forcibly that Worcester had deserved all my devoted attachment, and that I had not been half grateful enough to him. That he would lose his life in Spain I felt convinced, and that, since his regiment remained in England, I should have his blood on my head. What was to be done? My crimson velvet pelisse, trimmed with white fur, and also my white beaver hat, with the charming plume of feathers, were spread out in my dressing-room ready for Hyde Park, and conquests. And poor Worcester perhaps might soon be numbered with the dead, food for worms!
After a second flood of tears, on went the red pelisse and charming white hat, and in half an hour behold me standing at the Duke of Beaufort's street-door, awaiting the answer to my humble, single rap, with a little note in my hand, containing these few words, addressed to the duke.
"I earnestly entreat your Grace to permit me to speak a few words to you before you attend the levée this morning.
"Your most obedient, humble servant,
"HARRIETTE WILSON."
When his Grace's huge, fat porter opened the door I made a desperate effort to conceal my tears, which had been flowing in abundance ever since I had read poor Worcester's letter, just as if I had received his dying speech; and I delivered my little note, requesting to be allowed to wait for the duke's answer. The porter looked on me suspiciously: he seemed to be considering His Grace of Beaufort's moral character, as his eye glanced from my face downward, as though it had struck him as just possible that I might have come thus unattended, for the purpose of swearing a child against his noble master.
"Are you quite certain that it is the Duke himself you want to see, and not the young marquis?"
I assured him that I wished much either to see the duke, or to receive an answer to my note.
As the man again looked under my large beaver bonnet, I felt the tears gush into my eyes.
"His Grace shall have the note directly," said the porter, in a tone of compassion, observing how I was trembling, as I really half expected the Duke of Beaufort would order one or two of his tall footmen to put me on the other side of the door. I saw the porter give my note to a servant in livery, desiring him to take it to His Grace's valet.