T'other Maria,--Coventry,--in golden flowers on a silver ground, looked like the Queen of Sheba; and were not our Monarch anything but a Solomon, I would not say but--A full stop to all naughtiness! But I must tell you her last faux pas, for you know, child, she's as stupid as she's pretty. She told the King lately that she was surfeited with sights. There was but one left she could long to see. What, think you, it was?--why, a coronation!
The old man took it with good humour; but Queen Bess had made a divorce between her lovely head and shoulders for less.
Well, into the midst of this prodigious assemblage, with Uncle Horry quaking inwardly and making as though Walpole nieces were presented every day, comes the fair Waldegrave, gliding like a swan, perfectly easy and genteel, in a silver gauze with knots of silver ribbon and diamonds not so bright as her eyes. I dare swear not a man there but envied my Lord Waldegrave, and many might envy the beauty her husband--a good plain man, grave and handsome. But the bride! She swam up to His Majesty, like Venus floating on clouds, and her curtsey and hand-kissing perfect. Who shall talk of blood in future, when a milliner's daughter can thus distinguish herself in the finest company in Europe? 'Tis true 'tis mixed with the Walpole vintage; but when all's said and done, who were the Walpoles? If you get behind the coarse, drinking Squire Western of a father, you stumble up against Lord Mayors and what not! So 'tis a world's wonder, and there I leave it.
As for Maria Coventry--do but figure her! I saw her pale under her rouge when the bride entered, and her eyes shot sparks of fire, like an angry goddess. Could they have destroyed, we had seen her rival a heap of ashes like the princess of the Arabian Nights. I tendered her my smelling-bottle, but she dashed it from her, and then, smiling in the prettiest manner in the world, says to my Lord Hardwicke:--
"'Tis said women are jealous of each other's good looks, my Lord, but 'tis not so with me. I am vastly pleased with my Lady Waldegrave's appearance. 'Tis far beyond what was to be expected of her parentage. She looks vastly agreeable, and I hope she will favour me with her company."
'Twas cleverer than I supposed her, and sure enough she did nothing but court the bride, and now the two beauties go about to the sights and routs together and are the top figures in town, and all the world feasts its eyes upon two such works of nature--and Art it must be added, so far as Maria Coventry is concerned; she is two inches deep in white lead, and the doctors have warned her 'twill be the death of her. Kitty, I found my first gray hair yesterday. 'Tis my swan song. I am done with the beaux and the toasts and the fripperies. When I spoke to Harry Conway at the Court, his eyes were so fixed on Lady Waldegrave that he heard me not till I had spoke three times. Get thee to a nunnery, Fanny! I shall now insensibly drop into a spectatress. What care I! To ninety-nine women life ends with their looks, but I will be the hundredth, and laugh till I die!
Why, Kitty, your appetite for news grows by what it feeds on. Sure you are the horseleech's true daughter, crying, "Give, give!" You say I told you not of Charlotte Walpole's marriage. Sure, I did. Maria married her sister well--to young Lord Huntingtower, my Lord Dysart's son. 'Tis a girl of good sense. She loved him not, nor yet pretended to, but says she to Maria:--
"If I was nineteen, I would not marry him. I would refuse point-blank. But I am two-and-twenty, and though 'tis true some people say I am handsome, 'tis not all who think so. I believe the truth is, I am like to be large and heavy and go off soon. 'Tis dangerous to refuse so good a match. Therefore tell him, sister, I accept."
And 'twas done. I had this from Maria herself, who took it for an instance of commendable good sense; but I know not--somehow I would have a girl less of a Jew with her charms. Anyhow, stout or no, she will be my Lady Countess Dysart when his father dies; and now sure, there are no more worlds left for the Walpole girls to conquer. Their doting Uncle Horry could never predict such success. The eldest girl's husband is now Bishop of Exeter.
Poor Maria Coventry is dead--the most lovely woman in England, setting aside only t' other Maria. 'Twas from usage of white lead, Kitty, and tell that to all the little fools you know! It devoured her skin, and she grew so hideous, that at the last she would not permit the doctors to see her ruined face, but would put out her hand between the curtains to have her pulse took. She was but twenty-seven years of age.