The Young Duchess; or, Memoirs of a Lady of Quality — page 182: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

= : samp CTL 168 courtship. I requested that the ceremony should be conducted with as little parade and pomp as possible; and it was therefore agreed that he should return in two or three days to Turin, that I should follow him in a week afterwards, and that the nuptials should be solemnized by his own chaplain at the Embassy. Let me pass over whatsoever reflections I made to myself during the interval; and let me proceed to state that everything was carried out according to agree- ment. I followed Lord Langport to Turin; and there, in as private a manner as possible, I became Lady Langport. On the Continent there is no departure of the happy couple to spend the honey- moon elsewhere; ‘and English people, when sojourning abroad, usually follow in this respect the custom of. the country where they may hap- pen to be. The wedding-day is generally passed in festivity with the members of the two families whom the ceremony has united, as well as with the most intimate friends of both. But as neither Lord Langport nor myself had any relations to invite, a dinner was given to a select few of his acquaintances, including of course the ladies who had officiated in my train at the bridal cere- mony. “The banquet was over—the guests had de- parted—it was eleven o’clock at night: Lord Langport and I found ourselves alone together in the splendidly-furnished saloon at the Embassy. He looked tenderly upon me; and then I said to him calmly and mildly, ‘ The moment has come when all dissimulation must cease. You have been already by an accident fully unmasked to me; and I can no longer help unmasking myself to you. You wanted money; and by this mar- riage you have obtained it. I wanted a title, and by the same means I have secured it. You vowed that whatsoever might be the nature of the mys- tery attaching itself to me, you would not esteem me the less; and I hold you to your promise. On the other hand I did mot pledge myself to esteem you just the same when the mask should fall from your countenance: but I will nevertheless act precisely as if I had made such a vow. When the word Jove was first mentioned between us, and when at Genoa we began to grow intimate, so that marriage might be naturally looked forward to as the result, I thought I was being wooed by an ho- nourable and upright man, and you thought you were wooing a young lady of beauty. I did not bargain for a ruined spendthrift; nor you for a withered hag in her forty-third year, but as shri- velled and wretched as if she were sixty. Yet these are the facts. You are that man: I am this woman. You have half my fortune, where- with to settle your debts, save your honour, and prevent yourself from being ignominiously recalled from your ambassadorial post: the remaining half will serve to produce a handsome income in ad- dition to your salary. So long as you treat me with friendship and brotherly kindness, the in- come so produced shall be entirely at your cwn disposal: the instant you treat me otherwise, I leave you, taking that income with me. There has been dissimulation on each side: we need not blame each other. There are also secrets on both sides, which perhaps neither will think it worth while to reveal. Husband and wife in the pre- sence of the world, brother and sister only in the privacy of our domestic life! Is all this a bargain ?” THE YOUNG DUCHESS; OR, MEMOIRS OF A LADY OF QUALITY. knew her in St. Petersburgh must: have remarked “T will not tell you how astounded, how bewil- dered Lord Langport looked when I first began to address him. Indeed, I would rather hurry over this scene, and bring my narrative to a conclusion with the least possible delay. - Lord Langport lis- tened in profound silence: he reflected when I had finished speaking ; ; and then he said, ‘ Yes, it isa bargain.’—‘ Good night,’ I answered ; and shaking him by the hand, I took a taper and proceeded to the bridal chamber. There I remained alone ; and he slept in another apartment. “Tt was almost immediately after our marriage that the two portraits which hang in the dining- room down stairs were painted at Turin. ‘As you may have observed, that portrait which is sup-~ posed to represent me, delineates my figure more slender than it seems now, and my cheeks fuller, Indeed my countenance still retained a marvellous plumpness, and it is only within the last four or five years that my cheeks have begun to sink. As for my figure, I gave it at the time when that portrait was painted, just such a symmetry— only slightly verging upon embonpoint — which Mildred would herself most probably have pos- sessed if she had been alive. Her figure was inclined to a luxurious fulness; and as all who this’ circumstance, I was naturally careful to keep it continuously in view. For was I not personat- ing my own daughter? Therefore, as year has succeeded year, and time has goné on, I have gra- dually given’ my own shape the appearance of a greater development ; so that if I now happen to meet any one who knew Mildred at St. Peters- burgh, the i impression to' be made might thus be expressed in words if we suppose the individual ejaculating to himself, ‘Ah! this is exactly the embonpoint at which Miss Malcolm always gave promise of arriving !’ ““My married life—if such I may term it—with Lord Langport, lasted only a couple of years ; and he went down into the tomb. We lived upon precisely the terms which I had specified on our bridal evening: he disposed of my income—he respected my secret—and he treated me with a sufficient degree of kindness. Of all his own former possessions, nothing but Hendon Court, with its petty domain, could be rescued from his creditors; and since his death I have for the most part resided here. I have grown weary of the Continent ; and have now no other wish than to end my days i in peace beneath this roof. If you feel inclined to ask me a certain question—namely, why I still maintain that cheat whereof I hava made you the confidant ?—you may read the an- swer in all the previous circumstances of my life. . Vanity is still my failing. It is not now that — vanity which makes me seek the admiration of the young; but it is the vanity which will not: permit me to expose myself to the world—to tell how much of my life has been a fraud and a lie —or to draw down upon my head the contempt and ridicule of the universe by avowing that I am not Mildred the daughter, but- neither mora nor less than that same perished Mildred’s mother !” COMO YN Wn) Colin