"To keep up your breeches, my lord, when you put papers there which you never find and which you look for at the bottom of one pocket, then at the bottom of another, like an eel at the bottom of a fish-pond. I am always afraid that some misfortune will happen to your breeches!"
And when Addington (the duchess's son still) had had the fancy to have himself created Lord Raleigh, she had conceived a pretty caricature. Her uncle, Pitt, played the part of Queen Elizabeth, dancing a minuet with his nose in the air; Addington, as Sir Walter Raleigh, made his obeisance; and the King wore the costume of a Court jester! Pitt, after indulging in roars of laughter over this description, had despatched a dozen emissaries to all parts of London to secure, no matter at what cost, the famous caricature, which only existed in Lady Hester's imagination. And there was no Lord Raleigh!
And the delicious scenes in which she caused the entire Court to pass in review, those scenes of which she was at once author, actor and costumer. With her the talent of imitation amounted wellnigh to genius. She mimicked the women who were the leaders of the fashionable world, or who had been its leaders, such as the Duchess of Devonshire: "Fu! Fu! Fuh! what shall I do, my dear. Oh, dear! how frightened I am!" She mimicked the duchess's visit to the Foreign Office to demand back a note which she had sent to someone there. Perceiving a shabby little clerk, she said to him:
"Would you be so good, sir, as to have the kindness to give me back that note? I am sure that you are such a perfect gentleman!..."
Then, turning towards the person who had accompanied her, the duchess exclaimed:
"What fine eyes! Don't you think so? He is a handsome man, is he not?" Just as if the staff of the Foreign Office did not understand French!
Lady Hester made game also of the sentimental couples dear to Kotzebue. With her hand on her heart, rolling her blue eyes, she aped the amorous transports of the newly married, representing in a second tableau, not less successful, the mistresses of the one and the lovers of the other.
And the pleasant evenings when she was alone with William Pitt. The logs blazed joyously. The lamps were low. What wonderful hours, for ever fled, she had passed thus during nearly three years!...
She heard William Pitt's clear voice. He was complaining of Canning, so elusive, so unstable, so false. Lady Hester protested mildly.
"Perhaps he is thus merely in appearance, uncle," said she, "and only sacrifices his opinions ostensibly in order to strengthen your reputation."