“Well, why should you not go?” said the brother-in-law; “I see no reason against it. There will be no hunting for some days, not a chance—the frost is a great deal too hard; we might go up for a couple of days, sleep at a hotel, writing beforehand for a box.”
MIDNIGHT CONSPIRACY
The idea smiled on our adventurous hostess, some of the company thought the scheme a mad one, and my dear mother tried to argue that it would never do, for if the master of the house, who was absent, came back the next day, and found his wife and guests flown without a word, he would be much displeased. But imprudence had the upper hand. The brother-in-law rang the bell, ordered a post-chaise and four, went to put on his warm travelling garments, and proceeded then and there on his road to London. The rest of the party were to start early next morning, and they would find relays of posters ordered at all the different stages, so as to avoid delay.
Then came the burning question, Was I to go? No!—for once my mother was inflexible, and I prayed and supplicated in vain. My brother and sister, happy beings! were to be of the party, and poor Mary left crying at home. I really do consider that of all the tributes paid to the talent of my dear friend Fanny Kemble, or rather I should say the combined talents of her and her incomparable father, few could be greater than that midnight conspiracy, and the manner in which it was carried out. Fortune favoured the travellers, for their return preceded that of the master of the house, and my mother was saved the task of mediation, which had been imposed upon her. Indeed I think, on the whole, Lord Southampton rather admired the spirit of adventure which had animated his wife and her guests, for he listened laughingly, and I disconsolately, to the rapturous praises and enthusiastic encomiums bestowed on the young débutante by the playgoers.
Although I have already complained of a bad memory for dates, yet there are some which are of sufficient importance to be remembered, such as the accession of William IV. in 1830. The news caused great excitement in our little household, and was indeed calculated in a great measure to change the tenor of our lives. My sister had for a long time been the chosen friend and associate of the Duke of Clarence’s beautiful daughters—I mean by Mrs Jordan the celebrated actress—and I must pause in my narrative to give some description of them.
The eldest, Lady de Lisle, had undoubted claims to good looks, but much less so than her sisters. Eliza, Countess of Erroll, was remarkable for her unusual colouring; she had auburn hair, with eyes of hazel brown to match. Augusta Kennedy Erskine, afterwards Lady Frederick Gordon, was a blonde, very graceful in demeanour, and playful in manner. On one occasion when, as a young girl, Augusta came into the room hastily, and made a little curtsey (for curtsies were not then obsolete), my governess, Miss Richardson, told me that she was a perfect likeness of her mother. Lady Mary Fox was more comely than strictly beautiful, but she had a captivating smile, and a voice whose tones were sufficiently musical, I should conjecture, to rival those of Mrs Jordan herself. The youngest was my sister’s greatest friend, Amelia, afterwards Lady Falkland, who might have passed for a Spaniard, for her hair was indeed raven black, an epithet so often misapplied; but Amelia’s dancing ringlets had a shade over them like the bloom on the feathers of that bird, and her eyes were soft liquid black. I remember seeing her in her wedding-dress (my sister was her bridesmaid), crowned with flowering myrtle, placed there by Queen Adelaide’s own hand—the bridal chaplet in Germany. But I have made a long digression, and must return to the first days of the reign of King William IV.
“CADDY” MAID OF HONOUR
Amelia Fitzclarence went to the Queen and asked her as a favour to appoint Caroline, or as she was always called, “Caddy” Boyle to be one of her maids of honour, upon which her Majesty replied, with a kiss, that she had already determined on that appointment, and that she had caused Caddy to be informed that she was the first chosen on the list.
It may easily be believed that this appointment occasioned great excitement in our family, and the salary of the maid of honour appeared in my eyes as a sum of fabulous riches, and my sister to have become suddenly a personage of great importance, for she had now a limited “Household” of her own.
About this time my mother hired a small house in Curzon Street, and I began to go out into society in good earnest, which I enjoyed very much, especially the Court balls, which lasted longer, and were, if I may be allowed to say so, in many respects less formal than those of a later period. I was an inveterate dancer, and the interval which elapsed between my stepping out of the carriage, getting off my cloak, and reaching the ball-room, appeared to me interminable.