Jane and the Wandering Eye (8 page)

Pale winter light streamed through the clerestory windows. When last
I
had entered the Pump Room, I now recalled, the warmth of August had turned the dust motes to gold. I had been taking leave of a friend, before journeying south to Lyme.

“Jane!”

I shook myself from reverie, and espied Eliza hard by the pump attendant, a glass of water in her hand.

“Do not you mean to make a trial of the waters?” Eliza exclaimed.

“How can you think it possible, my dear?” I replied. “You forget the example of my Uncle Leigh-Perrot, and
his two glasses per day these twenty-odd years. Never has water done so little to improve a faulty constitution, or to cure a persistent gout. I shall place
my
faith in a daily constitutional. It may claim a decided advantage in scenic enjoyment, and cannot hope to impair the bowels.”
⁷

“Pshaw. Come and examine the book,” Eliza rejoined comfortably, as she turned back the pages of a calf-bound volume, in which the most recent visitors had inscribed their names and directions. “We must learn who is come to be gay in Bath. Mr. John Julius Angerstein and Mrs. Angerstein.
Well.
And so they have left their home in Blackheath, and abandoned the Princess of Wales to her scandalous beaux. The Honourable Matthew Small, Captain, Royal Navy. Well, we want none of
him
, do we? For a naval man torn from the sea cannot, I think, be very agreeable. Officers are always labouring under the influence of a wound, or a gouty manifestation. Mr. and Mrs. Jens Wolff. Capital! He is the Danish Consul, you know, and
she
is nothing short of a beauty. They lodge in Rivers Street. I have not seen Isabella Wolff this age!”

And so, as Eliza exclaimed and brooded, I allowed my mind once more to wander. My eyes I permitted to rove as well, in search of a nobleman of imposing aspect. I lacked Eliza’s knowledge of the Earl of Swithin’s past, but I had heard enough of that gentleman’s reputation to believe him stern and unyielding. His suit had driven Lady Desdemona Trowbridge from her home in London—had driven her, perhaps, into the arms of Mr. Richard Portal, who now lay dead. For what else but the
theatre manager’s impropriety towards the lady could have so excited her brother’s contempt?

“I beg your pardon, ma’am, but if I am not mistaken—are you not Mrs. Henry Austen?”

We turned—and observed a gentleman of some sixty years at least, and quite extraordinary in his aspect. He was short, and lithe, and fussily dressed, in a sky-blue jacket of sarcenet, a lavender silk waistcoat overlaid with bronze cherries, and light-coloured pantaloons well tucked into glowing Hessians. The stiff white points of his collar were so high as to disguise his ears, and render any effort at turning the head quite beyond his power; and the arrangement of his neckcloth must surely rival the Beau’s.
⁸
But all this would be as nothing—merely the trappings of a dandy more suited to a gentleman half his age—in comparison with the excessive ugliness of his features. The man resembled nothing so much as a baboon.

“Mr. Cosway, to be sure!” the little Comtesse cried, and extended her hand with every affectation of delight. “What felicity, in finding oneself not
entirely
without friends! How come you to leave St. James, my dear sir, in such a season?”

“A touch of the gout, Mrs. Austen, which I must for-fend—though I confess, with the end of the world so close upon us all, it hardly seems worth the trouble.”

“Indeed,” Eliza replied smoothly, with barely a flicker of an eyelid at the gentleman’s singularity of address. “One should meet any eventuality, extraordinary or commonplace, at the absolute pitch of health. But I
must
have the honour of acquainting you with my husband’s sister, Miss Austen. Jane—Mr. Richard Cosway, the principal painter to His Majesty the Prince of Wales.”

My senses were all alive; for though I may despise the Prince with every pore of my being, I am not so determined in dislike as to learn nothing of a gossip. In silence, I made Mr. Cosway a courtesy. The face, the figure, were comprehensible to me now, from several decades’ worth of caricatures in the papers.
This
was the extraordinary Cosway—whose cunning art at portraiture, particularly of a miniature kind, had swept the fashionable world; whose weekly salons in Pall Mall had been the sole entertainment worthy of fashionable attendance, throughout the past two decades; whose pretty little wife, full twenty years his junior, had so captivated the great with her accomplishments on the harp and at the easel. This was Richard Cosway, who followed Mesmer, and practised Animal Magnetism, and all manner of superstitious folly—now hard upon the brink of old age.
⁹
Trust my dear Eliza to claim acquaintance with every notable oddity in the kingdom!

“And have you any news of your delightful wife?” my sister was enquiring, with becoming solicitude. “Maria is quite a prisoner, I presume, in the Monster’s court?”

“Alas, I fear that she is—and it seems that any transport between England and the Continent is at a standstill. The outbreak of hostilities has overthrown my poor Maria’s labours entirely. She had embarked, as no doubt you know, upon a project of sketching the vast collection in Buonaparte’s Louvre, for the edification of mankind. And hers was so admirable a project—the Prince of Wales himself subscribed, my dear Mrs. Austen—but it has
come to naught. And so Mrs. Cosway has entirely quitted Paris.”
¹⁰

“But when is she likely to return? Can nothing be done for her present relief?”

Mr. Cosway hesitated. His eyes roved the room as if in search of acquaintance. “I may say that my wife is not without resources. She has made the best of her situation—and has gone to Lyons, for the purpose of founding a school for the education of young ladies in the Catholic faith. You know, of course, that she was born in Italy, and has always been a subject of Rome.”

“But of course,” Eliza replied dubiously. “And how long do you intend, sir, to dazzle Bath with your presence?”

“Not above three months, I assure you. I am bound for Brighton at Easter.”

“How delightful!” Eliza cried. “I long to visit Brighton! What schemes and dissipation—the chariot races on the shingle! The breakfasts out-of-doors! The fireworks and expeditions—the crush of the balls! How vast an acquaintance one must cultivate, too, in the Prince’s household train. The demands, I fear, are unending.”

“The amusements of Brighton are as nothing to
me
, who must suffer from the want of solitude that such a pleasure party demands; but I cannot
help
be a slave to the Prince,” Mr. Cosway observed, with a grotesque smile. “The decoration of the Pavilion, the maintenance of his collections—the imperative of Art!—are the foremost objects of my soul. My own poor daubs must be as
nothing. I have not the nature for self-interest, I own—I am all devotion to the people I love.”

“I am sure it does you very great credit, Mr. Cosway,” the Comtesse replied, with what I thought to be admirable forbearance. “We must hope to solicit your society a little, perhaps, while yet you remain in Bath.”

And with a bow and a flourish of his handsome grey melton hat, Mr. Richard Cosway left us.

“What a ridiculous fellow, to be sure,” Eliza told me, “though quite accomplished in his line.”

“How come you to be acquainted with him, Eliza?”

“My godfather, Mr. Hastings, sat to Cosway for a miniature some years past,” she said carelessly, “but I formed a true attachment to the enchanting Mrs. Cos-way. Maria had all of London at her feet, you know, in the ‘eighties. We met in France, I recollect, in ‘91 or ‘92—just after the birth of her little girl, whom she abandoned to her husband’s rearing.”
¹¹

“How very singular!”

“It was. He suffered from the conviction of Maria’s infidelity, and thought the child to be anyone’s but his own—and so she left him, for nearly four years.”

“Four years! And the child?”

“She fell dead of a fever not long after Maria’s return—in ‘96, or thereabouts.” My poor Eliza’s voice
must
tighten; for she knew what it was to lose an only child.

“I have always observed, Eliza, that those who seem to possess a life graced with distinction, and every comfort or happy mark of Fortune, may conceal in fact the deepest
sorrows,” I reflected. “How unhappy for the entire family!”

“Yes—but as Cosway can never survive a tragedy without turning it to account, he painted a portrait of the child on her deathbed, poignant in the extreme; and had Maria not forbidden it, he should have sold the engravings in the very streets! The man is the soul of self-promotion, Jane—has sunk art in the mire of commerce—and yet can protest that he is all selflessness and sacrifice! Were I shockingly ill-bred, I should laugh aloud! But it is of no consequence. Now his wife has deserted him, all his fashionable friends have quite thrown him over, I believe.”

“And yet the Prince appears to support him still.”

“The Prince! Yes, I believe he does. Whatever else Mr. Cosway may be—doomsayer, apocalypst, and practitioner of every kind of superstition—he is nonetheless possessed of the most exquisite taste in the arrangement of interiors, and is a connoisseur of the first rank. The Prince, they say, would be utterly lost without him, and should spend far more money to far less purpose than he already does.”

“Indeed,” I replied. “And how comes a mere painter to so elevated a place?”

Eliza did not scruple to abuse my stupidity. “Richard Cosway! A
mere
painter! Would you speak, my dear, of the great Cosway, who captured the likeness of Mrs. Fitzherbert, so that the Prince might wear it about his neck? The cunning miniaturist whose tokens in ivory are all the rage! Pray do not tell me you are ignorant of
this
, as of so much else in the fashionable world!”
¹²

We had commenced to pace about the room in company
with all of Bath, and I gave barely a moment to Eliza’s abuse, so intent was I upon glimpsing the Earl of Swithin.

“Jane! Are you attending?”

“I confess I care so little for the Prince and all his set, that I have never endeavoured to follow his example in anything, Eliza. This cannot seem so very wonderful, even to you.”

“But Cosway’s taste has set the mode of the age!” she protested. “He may look like a monkey, my dearest girl, but he is a cunning fellow, even brilliant in his way. Cosway would have it that every
objet d’art
, every fold of drapery, every touch of gilt in Carlton House is placed at his direction.
¹³
There can be few, I suppose, with so just a claim to having influenced fashion. In past years, of course, this was recognised—and barely a great name throughout the world failed to pay him homage, and seek his advice. But hardly anyone calls in Stratford Place, now that Maria has run away.”

“And yet he is such a figure!—Better suited to ride bareback at Astley’s, I should think, than to promenade in Bath!”
¹⁴

“Indeed he
does
pay too much attention to matters of dress,” Eliza conceded. She was vulnerable on the point, in having made her attire the primary occupation of her life these twenty years at least. “I learned only last month that he possesses no less than forty waistcoats.”

“It is fortunate, then, that he is much at Carlton House—where such profligacy may go unremarked.”

“But you must own, Jane, that the notion of capturing the likeness of an eye in oils is utterly singular. In this, at least, you must confess Cosway’s peculiar brilliance. For it was entirely his own invention, I believe.”

“The likeness of an
eye
? This has become his particular art?”

“Of course! He began it with Maria Fitzherbert. The Prince conceals the image of her eye in a golden locket, that he is said to wear next to his heart. Even
you
must be aware that such intimate likenesses of a
chère-amie
, when worn about the person, are the last word in fashion. Observe.” She unbuttoned her dark grey pelisse and drew forth a pendant chain. “I myself have taken to wearing an eye.”

“Eliza! You
would
not!”

The Comtesse shrugged with infinite grace. “It is no more than any lady of good society would undertake, I assure you. And isn’t it fetching? Though Richard Cos-way is much above my touch, I fancy that Engleheart is equally presentable.
¹⁵
I particularly admire the set of the brow. Quite a rogue, he must have been.”

“Who, pray?”

“The gentleman who sat for the miniature, of course!”

“Then you are wholly unacquainted with him?”

“Naturally!” she rejoined blithely. “Would you suspect me of an intrigue against your dearest brother?”

“But, Eliza—to wear such a token, is to suggest to the world that you carry a
tendre
for a lover! I wonder Henry can bear it!”

“It was Henry who made a present of it to me,” Eliza retorted equably. “And he thinks the notion very good fun, I do assure you.” Her expression of amusement faded, and I saw that her interest was already claimed by another. She seized my arm in pleasurable agitation. “There, Jane! By the Visitors’ Book! It is the Earl! But to whom does he speak with such urgency?”

I followed the direction of her eyes. “To Mr. Hugh Conyngham, Eliza—the principal actor of the Theatre Royal.”