An old, impecunious nobleman lives with his family in his shambles of a country castle, and to make good his failed finances, means to marry off his eldest daughter to a wealthy but disreputable rake – who, on visiting to meet his intended, immediately exercises his roving eye. The trouble is, he also comes with a loaded past that reflects very luridly on his present and has a cynical family of his own.
Excerpt:
The use of black cloth for the fashioning of a suit of clothes, especially when the textile in question was of a silken crêpe, usually presupposed that the wearer was in full mourning, but it had then to be matched with the modish long waistcote and knee-breeches in the same fabric, mercifully looser and more comfortably fitting than the fashions of a decade ago. In this case, however, the latter two garments were unalike the coat, for they were made of figured paduasoy, also black, the brocading of the latter of a most exquisite kind and probably woven to order, which was about as costly a proceeding as could be in matters of dress. The choice of black for wear was favoured by the mercantile orders in large and dirty towns for obvious reasons, or among the rich for reasons of whim and eccentricity, as was the choice of greyish face powder instead of the white bismuth, but not applied as usual like a mask, but rubbed upon certain parts of the already lean physiognomy to highlight and sharpen its hard and regular features, for the lavish application of white and pink and red did not suit this face at all. A concession to the dictates of accepted accessories was made in the presence of a little taffeta patch on one cheekbone, while the dressing of one’s own hair was in compleat contrariness to the latest coiffures, which prescribed the use of exquisite wigs with a curled foretop, a pigeon’s wing or two at the ears, and a liberal use of powder and pomatum to make the hair look grey, whatever the wearer’s real hair colour, but if he used a wig, that mattered not for he would have been shaven bald – whereas the specimen under scrutiny had tresses the colour of the raven’s wing, and that was perhaps why he wore black clothes and made his countenance look dead. This sobriety was not of a puritanical kind; there was a flurry of Valenciennes lace to embellish the snow white linens, diamonds at the throat and in all buttons whether of waistcote or cote or the wide, turned back cuffs, and exquisite embroidery on all edges of cuff, hems and pocket flaps. There was even a muff of feathers, all dyed black, and black stockings worn under the breeches hem, with garters hidden, of course, unlike the modes half-a-generation ago.
This spectacle of morbid finery was sprawled upon the comfortable, bright, silken squabs of a carriage with a ‘cellar’ – or cellaret – beneath the seat, containing foods and wines and wares in which to fare upon them, with glass windows not just above the doors but at the side panels, and silken curtains to draw over them for privacy or to keep out any blazing rays of the sun. It was a vehicle that only the very rich could afford in which to be transported, as was apparent even from the outside, which was a neat shape, like an inverted isosceles trapezium but with very rounded corners so that at first sight it was akin to a broad oval. The whole was lacquered in black, with a coat of arms under a ducal crest upon the door panels. As with most heavier carriages of this type the cabin was fitted to the framework with leathern straps but this creation had springs too, which enabled the body to ride well as the wheels, all four of which took the toll of whatever the roads had to offer, and not all roads were good, nor the whole stretch of a roadway in good repair, for that matter depended upon the parish through which it passed, which was responsible for its upkeep. This vehicle managed all vicissitudes cast its way, for it was not just on ordinary great carriage, it was a berline, a thing which had reached England from the continent, and was the invention of a Provençal of Italian origin, one Philippe Chiesa, Chief Engineer to the late Elector of Brandenburg, and father of the present King of Prussia, Frederick II, so that it bore a name to honour the Prussian capital. This sort of vehicle had the virtue of being stable in all circumstances and well-balanced, thus best suited to country travel, even if the French were supposed to have adapted it for Town use, despite the fact that the French were involved in a diplomacy that would make the Prussian a belligerent enemy. Its adoption in this country was not sudden but its popularity was, for the Prussian monarch was an ally of the English King, George II, who was not English at all but Hanoverian born, but at least he could speak and work in English, unlike his father, who had been pejoratively been nicknamed ‘German George’. Indeed the dynasty was much despised for being so obscure that many peers claimed to have pedigrees that were superior to that of their own monarch, which was not difficult even in England after the Stuart kings.
One such was the dour supercilious entity in this equipage, with all its trappings of wealth and security, six horses to pull it, a cloud of armed outriders riding behind, and following, a cabriolet, or lighter smaller carriage, to carry valet and luggage. All the same, servantry apart, he was not alone, for he had two travelling companions to their own extreme mortification. One was a bluff, placid fellow who affected no splendour in his attire and looked that which he was, the practical but well-dressed country gentleman, for his clothes were of good quality, but the man in black made him feel uncomfortable and silly and worse, seemed to know it, which was a little too irritating to be ignored, but it had to be borne, albeit grudgingly, and with displayed disaffection, for despite the Great Law of Subordination and the fact that ‘every Englishman loved a lord’, a John Bull had no superior, all of which was inextricably self-contradictory. This displeasure was aggravated by the third presence in the cabin, which was that of a wizened, crumpled, withered, shrivelled example of male emaciation, burthened under a full-bottomed wig and boasting more wrinkles than a keg full of dried prunes imported from Guyenne. This creature, also clad in sombre black, and obnoxiously shrewd with it, delighted in annoying the countryman by sneering and peering at him, until brought to book with a single question by the man whom he served.
“Hickeringill, why stare you at Sir Robert, so?” demanded his master.
“My apologies, your grace, sir,” relented the scrawny one, with a bow to each person. Sir Robert shrugged and nervously adjusted the pearl in his throat ruffle.
“Why, you twitch more than a caper merchant (dancing master), my dear Orre,” commented his grace quizzically. “Whose dog is dead?”
“If only you were wearing red, my dear Irvin,” sighed Sir Robert Orre, “I’d ha’ been tempted to make response, but as times go, all I can do is pose a query. You go a-courting, so why are you clad in what, at first sight, appears to be deep mourning?”
“For that I’d need to dress wholly in wildebore,” dissented the Duke. “I happen to like to wear black; many people do, and not just in dirty Towns. Yet if you chuse to regard it as weeds, then do so by all means, for my poor bride’s sake, for by all accounts, she has the most terrible fate in store for her, and must marry the mixen for the sake of the muck (wed an undesirable person for money), and she must have me.”
“She has to, Duke. Her father’s finances and the size of his family behove her to agree, for the best he can give any of them is a Rochester portion (two torn smocks and what Nature gave).”
“Do you not feel a pang o’ conscience or two, having recommended her as a possible wife for me?”
“Possible wife? Mean you that you may not have her? That will finish the old man: he will be bound to leave the key under the doorstep (go bankrupt), and as for his offspring, well, taking their pedigrees to market will fetch them nothing.”
“Answer my question, Orre,” persisted the Duke.
“Truth be told, it was my cousin Mortlake chose you; you were not my idea, but I know the old man –,”
“Actually it was not cousin Mortlake, it was Louisa, who is so very fond of me as my sister that she would try and have me end my mouse-hunt (wencher) ways – or mend them, ’tis near as is fourpence to a groat.”
“It never ceases to amaze me that an elegant, fashionable, polished, suave and refined bene mort (beautiful woman) like her should ha’ chusen to wed a simple soul of a John Trot (country bumpkin) like my cousin with his bucolic ways and tastes. She might ha’ been expected to seduce a wealthy, gentle-born yokel, but to wed him?”
“I was convinced she was suffering from a temporary aberration when she announced her wish thus, and I even called her ‘Bess of Bedlam’, whereat she snuffed pepper roundly. I do not entirely approve of the match, but they have lasted together some seven years and thrice spawned a two-legged tympani (baby), with no deterioration between them apparent, but it is fair to anticipate that when he reaches middle-age he will grow dull and my sister Louisa is not going to suffer dullness in anyone. Nor am I, for that matter, even if dull wives are the best wives to be had, for there is no chance of living at the sign of the Queen’s Head (house where the wife rules) with them, or enduring a cat and dog life. By some accounts, my bride-to-be is a placid creature. Is she also dull?”
“Nay, but she is a most conventional country lass,” replied Orre.
“The stillroom and the physick border and her needlework and the spinet?”
“Not forgetting the saddle and learning the new poetry off by heart, as girls do when they starch their caps.”
“Split me! They starch their own caps in that house?” the Duke recoiled. “The black ox hath trod upon on all their feet (they know poverty), indeed.”
“She has a good singing voice and I have heard it. You sing, Duke, do you not? You could sing duets together,” proposed Sir Robert.
“Before or after we ha’ jumped the besom (gone through a mock marriage), linked and locked in marital mists?”
Exasperated, Sir Robert Orre pursed his lips and said nothing.
“Two and twenty years old, you said,” reminded his grace, and Hickeringill the secretary grinned and nodded.
“Not a giddy girl,” assured the Baronet, “for she is already a spinster.”
“The eldest of four sisters?”
“Don’t level your eye at any o’ t’ others, for they’re too young for you, with perhaps the exception of Lady Honoria, who is a notorious termagant and will lead apes in hell, sure as louse in bosom,” quoth Sir Robert, his allusion to parasites making the Duke wince. “All of nineteen, is her la’ ship, and the despair o’ the district. She’ll not be content to be your good and quiet wife, suffering your games and mistresses, and dutifully making you all the faces (having children) you need.”
