The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 178: what you’re looking at

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

qQm=redge © - 165 “ Begone, vile wretchess” exclaimed Mrs. Fits- herbert, starting from the mournfal reverie inte which she had fallen, and springing at the same time from the sofa, her whole frame quivering with indigna- tion, her cheeks glowing with the hue of crimson, and her eyés lighting up into the brightest fires. “ Be- gone, I say—and dare not to level your foul slander against me!” “ Hey-dey ! what does all this mean f cried Alicia. “Slander indeed! I suppose it’s no slander to say that you lived with the Prince as his concubine——" “And was bundled out neck and crop ‘other day,” observed the cokchman. * Like any cast-off slipper,” added the butler. “Oh! if I dared but proclaim the truth!” mur- mured the unhappy lady, flinging herself back upon the sofa and pressing her hands against her throbbing brows, as if she could thereby steady their violent pulsation. “Leave me—I beseech you to leave me! [If you will not obey my wish as a command, you will grant it as an act of mercy,” she said, in a more audible voice and with a manner expressive of urgent entreaty. . 4 Well, let us take ourselves off, Mr. Robinson,” said Alicia. “I’m sure I don’t know how I shall: ever get a place again, after being in the service of such a characterless demirep as this.” “ A harlot without even a pension!” observed the butler, in a tone of the deepest disgust: so that it is fair to suppose that Mrs. Fitsherbert would have ap- peared less blameable in his eyes had her name been foisted on the pension list, along with those of the Dukes of Grafton, St. Albans, Richmond, and Cleve- land, and other nobles who enjoy the hereditary right of plundering the Pablic Treasury simply because they are descended from some of the lascivicus wretches who prostituted their persons to that exe- crable monarch Charles the Second. * Ah! "tis a reg’lar break-up—a awful smash,” ob- served the coachman, volunteering the remark by way of appendix to the last oue which had fallen from the lips of the butler. “ There’s a many people will be ruined by this here woman’s fall,” he con- tinued, pointing to Mrs. Fitzherbert; “and some poor wictims of ereditors will go and drown or hang theirselves when they hears that everything has gone to pot and the lady herself laid up safe in lavendar. Bat that’s the way with them strumpets which gives theirselves the airs of Royalty for a time and then tumbles down into their natral sphere. What wexes me most of all, is to think that I ever put on that cussed wig and this truampery gew-gaw livery just to please the wanity of a creatur’ as will come down to be a reglar street-valker arter all.” “ Yes—and we shall yet see her picking oakum in Bridewell |” hysterically shrieked forth Miss Alicia as she bounced out of the room. “ Having no sentiment of respect left, and wonder- ing that I could ever have entertained any at all,” said the butler, “I not only echo the anticipation of the last speaker, but likewise confidently hope to see it speedily fulfilled.” “And now we may all take ourselves off, as thoroughly swindled and robbed as ever a set of poor hard-working devils was,” growled the coach- man. Bat Mrs, Fitsherbert’s ears caught not these vol- leys let off by the retiring enemy—for she had thinted ! | When she returned to consciousness she found herself lying upon the sofa, with Mr. Nathan Crimp bending over her and sprinkling water on her coun- tenance—while his man Jack held the basin into which the bailiff thrust his dirty Angers in order to awitch off the drops of the cooling element in the. most convenient manner. Hastily and somewhat haughtily thanking the two officers for theiy attention, Mrs. Fitsherbert begged them to grant her an hour’s grace ere they insisted on her rengoval to a lock-up house;—and this boon being accorded, she penned half-a-dosed letters to intimate friends, whose pecuniary succour she earnestly requested “to save her from a most painful difficulty.” But when she rang the bell for the purpose of despatching her servants with those missives, Mr. Nathan Crimp very candidly informed her that she need not expect any response to the summons, inas- mach as the domestics had one and all quitted the house while Mrs. Fitzherbert was lying in a state of unconsciousness. The lady’s checks flushed with indignation for a féw moments, and then became ghastly pale, as she bit her quivering lip: tears also. started forth upon her cheeks,—tears of mingled humiliation and rage—and not the first tears, either, which she had shed that morning! Yes—it was indeed true: every one of the servants had departed, with a previous intimation to Mr. Crimp that they should send for their boxes in the course of the day ;—and thus was Mrs. Fitzherbert’s . house as completely and as suddenly abandoned by all the dependants as if the plague had manifested itself in her own person. y Mr. Nathan Crimp now offered to take the letters. for Mrs. Fitzherbert and await the anawers at the houses where they were to be delivered; and to this proposal she was glad to assent. The bailifl’s fol- lower was however left behind to keep a strict watch upon the lady; and thus was the brilliant Mra Fitzherbert,—the wife of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales—the lately courted, worshipped, adored genius of the fashionable world,—thus was she, we say, deserted by her dependants and left to such care a3 a bailiff and his man might choose to take of her ! " é Gaui CHAPTER CLXVL THE LADY OF QUALITY'S ARISTOCRATIO ACQUAINT~ ANCES. Atrnoucn Mr. Nathan Crimp saw as plainly as possible that Mrs. Fitzherbert’s circumstances were in a very desperate condition, yet he was shrewd. enough to calculate that a lady who had oocupied. such an elevated position in the fashionable world — could net be utterly destitute of friends or denuded of resources ; and he therefore saw every chance of being well remunerated for any little services he might perform or any indulgences he might allow. . The instinct of rate teaches them to abandon 23 house which is on the point of falling; and thus did the selfishness of the menials prompt them to hurry away from the scene of the crashing fertanes of their mistress. This fact had certainly led Mr. Crimp to believe that the break-up with Mrs. Fits. - herbert was complete: bat still, as we have ob- served, he felt pretty certain ef recompense for ais own services, EE EE I (COU ® GqEa=Z=ten7yam onan (C DOO (CO