The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 216: what you’re looking at

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

THE MYSTERIES. suous nature threw so delicious a gloss that the impression her appearance left upon the observer was that of a woman formed for love and pleasure and too indolent in her luxurious imagination to direct her thoughts to intrigues of any less tender character. | Her complexion was aclear olive, with a carnation tint of health upon the cheeks, which were plump and yet soft to the eye: the lips were of the brightcst scarlet and slightly pouting, bearing the appearance of a delicious fruit in its full ripeness and with a dew upon it;—the teeth were faultlessly even, all perfect in number, and white as ivory ;—the nose was aquiline and beautifully formed, with nostrils of the delicate red of the rose-leaf;—and the chin was sweetly rounded. The neck of this splendid creature was long and arching. A gradual slope formed the broad chest, whence the bosoms rose grandly like two globes of the lightest bronze with the pinky tint of warm, glowing, living flesh. The shoulders, plump and full, had likewise their beauteous slope; —and the arms were modelled in a symmetry that could not possibly be surpassed. Her hair, which was of darkest sable, had that gentle and scarcely perceptible undulation which denotes the fervour of the blood and the thirst for yoluptuous pleasures. A rich gloss was upon it, making an alternation of light and shade with the wavy surface that was of such velvet smoothness to the toach. Her eyes were black; and they shone, in their blueish liquid whites, beneath the jetty fringes which overhung them in silken length and thickness. Her hand was incomparably beautiful. The fin- gers were long and tapering; and the nails were of the fine almond shape, with the rosy tinge of vigorous health leaving the crescent, where they joined the flesh at the bottom, of pellucid whiteness. Beneath the transparent olive skin of the superb arms might be seen the faint blue tracery of the veins—those veins in which the blood ran hot and furious! Her foct and ankles were as faultless as her hands ; —and when she stood either in the dignity of her rank or in the grace of her womanhood, tho eye would wander with an inexpressible feeling of de- | light over the flowing outlines of that form which | gave just so much shapeliness to its drapery as to afford an idea of the rich contours and the sym- metrical length of limb that !t concealed. No— ‘not altogether concealed: for, according to the | fashion of the times, Lady Jersey wore her dress so low as to display at least all the upper half of her glowing bust, while her arms were entirely bare. This lady had avery kind and induJgent husband who entertained not the least objection to his wife ! being the known and all but acknowledged mistress . of the heir-apparent. Had this same Lord Jersey | found her out in an intrigoc with a lacquey or any ' other plebeian, he would instantaneously have thrust | her forth iu ignominy froin his abode, and appealed, ‘with all the energy of an outraged husband, to the | propes tribunals for a divorcee. But as it was to | Royalty that his spouse thus prostituted hersell; and as it was with the heir-apparent to the Lriiish | throne that she became an adulteress, his lordship _aetually looked upon the noble lady’s shame as a source of inuense honour to himself} { Again, hal Lady Jersey been only suspected of } ° ) 0 CEE iin AY a ae EE eee me ama CE qe (apo aap —_ -’- F 2 @e- wow. 208 an intrigue with a valet, she would have been ex- cluded from all decent society in a moment: but being the harlot of the Prince of Wales, she was courted, flattered, worshipped, and caressed, by all the members, male and female, of the wdtld of fashion. That she was as intriguing in other matters as she was in love, we may safely proclaim to be a fact; and that she was as dangerous as she was beautiful, and as designing as she was captivating, are truths known to all who are in the least ad- quainted with the history of the British Court. Such was the syren who was now waiting to sce the Prince, and who was lounging on a sofa in the drawing-room at Carlton House when his Royal Highness made his appearance on his return froth the billiard-table. “Well, what tidings, my sweet friend? de- manded the Prince impatiently, as hé snatched a kiss from Lady Jersey’s pouting lips. “Her Royal Highness the Princess Caroline -or Brunswick has just arrived in London,” responded the fair patrician, her words flowing in a voice of rich harmony but in the measured tone which an ill-concealed spite imparted to her utterance. “You have been with her—you have seen her— you have conversed with her,” said the Prince, his manner indicating a mixture of painful suspense and excitement. “You can now, then, tell ine everything—and yet I dread to ask you a sit.yle question! Oh! I am haunted with wretc!.ed, wretched presentiments concerning this marria,e! But in one word, my dear Frances—in one word tell me,” exclaimed the heir-apparent, with a strange abruptness of both voice and manner,—* is she a fit wife for me ”” The lady raised her countenance towards the Prince with an expression of mingled commise- ration and alarm; but we need hardly say that this was an air which she assumed in order to pique his curiosity the more acutely and render his sus- pense the more profoundly poignant—for she was a very serpent in the aptitude of duplicity, and her guile was the more dangerous because her winning and seductive manner invested it with all the se:n- blance of truth. Thus were her artifices rendered irresistibly insidious by the appearance of sincerity in which she clothed them; and not only was she an adept in disguising the most venomous senti- ments in the most honied language, but her dupes would drink in the pvison of her looks and fancy that it was a delicious talm which those eyes so full of seeming tenderness were pouring Into the heart ! Thus, when she now raised ber charining coun- tenance ina half symnpathising, half deprecating | manner towards the Prince, as she sate upun a voluptuous sofa, aud he stood in uervous trepida- tion before the fire,—aud when he saw that look into which she threw just enough pity to stiurtie him, and just enough apprchension to torture him with suspense,—it never for an instant struck him that all this wasa mere wicked affectation on the part of Lady Jersey. “My dearest friend,” he murmured, in a tore deeply agitated, “will you answer the question which I put to you :” “And that quo-tion 2” said Lady Jersey intcrro- gatively, as if she wished to wain time ere she gave @ TESpOUsa. GOH GOO SS