This half-disclosed objection, Sir John Vanburgh met with the observation, that though he “did not believe Lady Harriott would ever have a beautiful face, he could plainly see that it would prove a very agreeable one, which he thought infinitely more valuable, especially when he observed one thing in her—namely, a very good expression of countenance.” “In short,” added the skilful reasoner, “it was certain Lady Harriott’s figure would be good; and he would pawn all his skill in such matters, if in two years time the Lady Harriott would not be as much admired as any lady in town.”
Lord Clare did not in the least contradict what Sir John said, but allowed “that he might very possibly be right.” This conversation took place in January, 1714; and two years elapsed before the subject was formally resumed between the Duchess’s subservient friend, and his patron, Lord Clare. In the course of these two years, Lord Clare became Duke of Newcastle, and the Duchess of Marlborough’s anxiety to hail him as a relative was probably not diminished by that circumstance. The Duke, meantime, had seen no woman who exactly came up to his ideas of what his wife ought to be, in order that he might expect from her that domestic happiness to which he appears to have aspired. The idea of being connected with the Marlborough family, and the expectation of a considerable fortune if he connected himself with a member of that wealthy house, added to the constant representations of Sir John Vanburgh in favour of the alliance, maintained the desire, which the Duke had always in some degree cherished, of uniting himself with the Lady Harriott. At the same time, having made many observations upon the bad education given to ladies of rank in that day, the Duke felt, as he expressed to his friend Vanburgh, a much greater anxiety to find in his wife an intelligent and amiable friend and companion, than to carry away what would be commonly considered a prize, either of beauty or of fortune. But at length, weary of delay, he wrote to his friend Vanburgh that he had formed a resolution of marrying somewhere before the winter was over, and again entered upon the subject of Lady Harriott.[[240]]
This cessation of the treaty is explained by the Duchess of Marlborough, in the curious correspondence from which this narrative is taken. The original proposal, on her side, to Lord Clare, was to be so managed as to save him the pain of sending her grace a refusal, if he declined it: a negociation, with respect to fortune, was carried on between Vanburgh and a mutual friend of Lord Clare and of the Duchess.
As it might be expected, the treaty had gone on very smoothly, until the conversation turned upon money. Some “civil things about the alliance,” to use the Duchess’s phrase, had been said; but the dowry required to make the plain Lady Harriott saleable was no less a sum than forty thousand pounds. Upon this demand the Duchess had broken off the negociation, concluding, as she afterwards declared, that the Duke of Newcastle or his friends must think such a demand the most effectual way of breaking off the affair; “since,” as she added, “Lady Harriott was neither a ‘monster nor a citizen,’ and she had never heard of such a fortune in any other case, unless it were an only child.” Yet to show, as she states, that she was not mercenary, she had afterwards refused a most considerable offer for her granddaughter, where she could have had her own conditions. In such business-like and bartering terms did the custom of the day lead the Duchess to express herself upon a matter of no less importance than happiness, or unhappiness, the utmost bliss or the most hopeless misery.
Two years, therefore, had elapsed before anything more was done; and Lady Harriott, meantime, had been introduced by her grandmother into the fashionable circles of Bath; and that circumstance again aroused the apprehensions of the cautious Pelham Holles. Whether he dreaded that she would there have formed some acquaintance which might have produced an entanglement of the heart—whether he fancied that the influence which her grandmother exercised over her might induce the young lady to accept a desirable match when her affections were elsewhere bestowed; or whether he was merely desirous of ascertaining how far the scenes of dissipation had power to elicit foibles and failings in the young Lady Harriott—does not appear. From the strict inquiries which he anxiously and repeatedly made when the treaty was renewed, of her conduct at Bath, we must however conclude that the peer, in spite of his determination to marry before the winter was over, was not so indiscreet in his haste as to rush into bonds, unless he were well satisfied that they would produce a happy union. Such were his notions of the sex at this time, that, to use his own words to Vanburgh, he almost despaired of meeting with a woman whose ideas of conjugal duty would accord with his own expectations. Impressed with the difficulty of a choice, he earnestly and emphatically entreated Sir John Vanburgh to inform him if he knew anything of the lady, that could abate the extraordinary impression that he had received of her merits.
Sir John could add nothing disparaging to the high encomiums which he had passed on Lady Harriott, and a fresh negociation was accordingly entered upon with the Duchess, who expressed herself delighted with the renewal of a treaty which she had considered as finally abandoned. Sir John, meantime, was very zealous, and the affair proceeded flourishingly, and ended, eventually, in the marriage of Lady Harriott and the Duke of Newcastle.[[241]]
So far Vanburgh seems to have acted well his part of a friend and mediator; but he soon found that matchmaking was by no means the most desirable occupation in the world. Although he had, by successful arguments, brought the Duke of Newcastle “into the mind to marry Lady Harriott,” the Duchess appears to have acted towards him unhandsomely and ungratefully. It seems to have been her grace’s mode for avenging Sir John’s errors of taste and miscalculations at Blenheim, to remove her confidence from him in the nice affair which he had had her commands to bring about to another useful friend. Whilst the architect and his patroness were together at Bath and at Blenheim, she never mentioned a syllable of the projected marriage to him, but, by transferring the negociation to one Mr. Walter, implied that Vanburgh was no longer worthy of the trust she had reposed in him. It was not long before Vanburgh, indignant at her conduct, addressed to her grace a letter, explanatory but respectful, excepting when, in the conclusion, he declares that he should be surprised, but not sorry, to find that she had imposed her commands and entrusted her commission to some other person.[[242]]
The Duchess, in her reply to Sir John Vanburgh, entered distinctly into the whole process by which the match had been revived and perfected. She acknowledged her obligations to Sir John Vanburgh; she explained her conduct, if not satisfactorily, at least graciously; and concluded by declaring, “that if any third person should say that she had behaved ill to Sir John, she should be very sorry for it, and should be very ready even to ask his pardon.”[[243]]
Before this temperate letter reached him, Sir John Vanburgh, not to his credit, had sent a very abusive, coarse, and insolent epistle. It appears that he had discovered that the Duchess had devolved the completion of Blenheim into other hands. Under the excitement produced by this discovery, he gave vent to a torrent of invective, which seldom accompanies a good cause.
The Duchess, as it happened, received this singular ebullition from her former confidante before her own letter was despatched; whereupon she took up her pen, and, in the excess of her wrath, added a postscript; concluding in these words:—“Upon the receiving of that very insolent letter, upon the eighth of the same month, ’tis easy to imagine that I wished to have had the civility I expressed in the letter back again, and was very sorry that I had fouled my fingers in writing to such a fellow.”[[244]]