Part 3 (1/2)
Lady Jersey had no more ardent admirer than Byron, whose muse was inspired to many a flight in honour of
”The grace of mien, The eye that gladdens and the brow serene; The glossy darkness of that cl.u.s.tering hair, Which shades, yet shows that forehead more than fair.”
And among her army of guests the Countess moved like a Queen, who could stoop to frivolity without losing a shred of dignity. Surely never was such superabundant energy enshrined in a form so beautiful and stately.
”Shall I tell you what Lady Jersey is like?” wrote Creevey. ”She is like one of her numerous gold and silver d.i.c.ky-birds that are in all the showrooms of this house.
She begins to sing at eleven o'clock, and, with the interval of the hour when she retires to her cage to rest, she sings till twelve at night without a moment's interruption. She changes her feathers for dinner, and her plumage both morning and evening is the most beautiful I ever saw.”
She seemed indeed incapable of fatigue. Tongue and body alike never seemed to rest, from rising to going to bed.
”She is really wonderful,” says Lady Granville; ”and how she can stand the life she leads is still more wonderful.
She sees everybody in her own house, and calls on everybody in theirs. She is all over Paris, and at all the _campagnes_ within ten miles, and in all _pet.i.tes soirees_. She begins the day with a dancing-master at nine o'clock, and never rests till midnight.... At ten o'clock yesterday morning she called for me, and we never stopped to take breath till eleven o'clock at night, when she set me down here more dead than alive, she going to end the day with the Hollands!”
A life that would have killed nine women out of ten seemed powerless to touch her. When far advanced in the sixties she was acknowledged to be still one of the most beautiful women in England, retaining to an amazing degree the bloom and freshness of youth. And when she appeared at a fancy-dress ball arrayed as a Sultana, in a robe of sky-blue with coral embroideries and a turban of gold and white, she was by universal consent acclaimed as the most beautiful woman there. It may interest my lady readers to learn that she attributed her perpetual youth to the use of gruel as a subst.i.tute for soap and water.
Although Lady Jersey had admirers by the hundred among the most fascinating men in Europe, no breath of scandal ever touched her fair fame. Indeed, she carried her virtue to the verge of prudery, and repelled with a freezing coldness the slightest approach to familiarity.
So prudish was she that on one occasion she declined to share a carriage alone with Lord John Russell, one of the least physically attractive of men, and begged General Alava to accompany them. ”Diable!” laughed the General, ”you must be very little sure of yourself if you are afraid to be alone with little Lord John!”
She was merciless to any of her lady friends who lapsed from virtue, or in any way, however slight, offended the proprieties. But the vials of her fiercest anger were reserved for her mother-in-law, the Dowager-Countess, whose shameless intrigue with the Prince Regent scandalised the world in an age of lax morals; and the outraged Princess Caroline had no more valiant champion. She not only declined to have anything to say to her husband's mother, she carried her disapproval to the extent of refusing point blank to appear at Court. So furious was the Regent at this slight that ”the dotard with corrupted eye and withered heart,” as Byron calls him, had her portrait removed from the Palace Gallery of Beauties, and returned to its owner.
A few days later, however, the Countess had her revenge. At a party in Cavendish Square she was walking along a corridor with Samuel Rogers when she saw the Regent coming towards them. As he approached he drew himself to his full height, and pa.s.sed with an insolent and disdainful stare, which Lady Jersey returned with a look even more cold and contemptuous. Then, with a toss of her proud head, she turned to Rogers and laughingly said, ”I did that well, didn't I?”
It was, perhaps, as Queen and Autocrat of ”Almack's” that Lady Jersey won her chief fame--Almack's, that most exclusive and aristocratic club in Berkeley Street, Piccadilly, the members.h.i.+p of which was the supreme hall-mark of the world of fas.h.i.+on. No rank, however exalted, no riches, however great, were a pa.s.sport to this innermost social circle, over which Lady Jersey reigned like a beautiful despot.
Scores of the smartest officers of the Guards, men of rank and fas.h.i.+on, and pets of West End drawing-rooms, clamoured or cajoled for admission to this jealously-guarded temple, but its doors only opened to receive, at the most, half a dozen of them. Even such social autocrats as Her Grace of Bedford and Lady Harrington were coldly turned away from the doors by the male members of the club; while the ladies shut them in the face of Lord March and Brook Boothby, to the amazed disgust of these men of fas.h.i.+on and conquest--for, by the rules of the club, male members were selected by the ladies, and _vice versa_. But beyond all doubt the destinies of candidates were in the hands of the half dozen Lady Patronesses who formed the Committee of the club--Princess Esterhazy, Princess von Lieven, Ladies Jersey, Sefton and Cowper, and Mrs Drummond Burrell; and of these my Lady Jersey was the only one who really counted.
”Three-fourths even of the n.o.bility,” says a writer in the _New Monthly Magazine_, ”knock in vain for admission.
Into this _sanctum sanctorum_, of course, the sons of commerce never think of intruding; and yet into the very 'blue chamber,' in the absence of the six necromancers, have the votaries of trade contrived to intrude themselves.”
”Many diplomatic arts,” writes Captain Gronow, ”much _finesse_, and a host of intrigues were set in motion to get an invitation to Almack's. Very often persons whose rank and fortunes ent.i.tled them to the _entree_ anywhere, were excluded by the cliqueism of the Lady patronesses; for the female government of Almack's was a despotism, and subject to all the caprice of despotic rule. It is needless to say that, like every other despotism, it was not innocent of abuses.”
The fair ladies who ruled supreme over this little dancing and gossiping world issued a solemn proclamation that no gentleman should appear at the a.s.semblies without being dressed in knee-breeches, white cravat, and _chapeau bras._ On one occasion, the Duke of Wellington was about to ascend the staircase of the ballroom, dressed in black trousers, when the vigilant Mr Willis, the guardian of the establishment, stepped forward and said, ”Your Grace cannot be admitted in trousers,” whereupon the Duke, who had a great respect for orders and regulations, quietly walked away.
Another inflexible rule of the club was that no one should be admitted after eleven o'clock; and it was a breach of this regulation that once overwhelmed the Duke of Wellington with humiliation. One evening, the Duke, who had promised to meet Lady Mornington at Almack's, presented himself for admission. ”Lady Jersey,” announced an attendant, ”the Duke of Wellington is at the door, and desires to be admitted.” ”What o'clock is it?” she asked. ”Seven minutes after eleven, your Ladys.h.i.+p.” She paused for a moment, and then said with emphasis and distinctness, ”Give my compliments--Lady Jersey's compliments--to the Duke of Wellington, and say that she is very glad that the first enforcement of the rule of exclusion is such that, hereafter, no one can complain of its application. He cannot be admitted.” And the Duke, whom even Napoleon with all his legions had been powerless to turn back, was compelled to retreat before the capricious will of a woman.
Such an autocrat was this ”Queen of Almack's.”
”While her colleagues were debating,” says the author of the ”Key to Almack's,” ”she decided. Hers was the master-spirit that ruled the whole machine; hers the eloquent tongue that could both persuade and command. And she was never idle. Her restless eye pried into everything; she set the world to rights; her influence was resistless, her determination uncontrollable.”
”Treat people like fools, and they will wors.h.i.+p you,” was her favourite maxim. And as Bryon, her intimate friend, once said, ”She was the veriest tyrant that ever governed Fas.h.i.+on's fools, and compelled them to shake their cap and bells as she willed.”
It was at Almack's, it is interesting to recall, that Lady Jersey first introduced the quadrille from Paris.
”I recollect,” says Captain Gronow, ”the persons who formed the first quadrille that was ever danced there.
They were Lady Jersey, Lady Harriet Buller, Lady Susan Ryder, and Miss Montgomery; the men being the Count St Aldegonde, Mr Montgomery, and Charles Standisti.”
It was at Almack's, too, that she introduced the waltz, which so shocked the proprieties even in that easy-going age.