Part 19 (2/2)

Such was the fascination of their beauty that, it is said, the sisters were one day drugged by a party of licentious admirers, whose guests they had innocently consented to be, and were actually being carried away by their ravishers when Sheridan, who had got wind of the plot, appeared on the scene with a number of stout-armed friends, and effected their rescue.

But even Dublin was no suitable market for such peerless beauties, Mrs Gunning decided. Through her they had the blood of the Plantagenets in their veins; and no man less than a Duke or an Earl--certainly not an Irish squire or impoverished lord--was a fitting match for her daughters. And so to England and London they were carried, flushed with their conquests, leaving broken hearts behind them, and heralded across the Channel by many a sonnet singing their beauty.

But, although each was equally fair, the sisters were by no means alike in their charms. Maria, all gladness and mirth, was a sprightly brunette, in whose laughing glances shone the fires of a pleasure-seeking soul; while Elizabeth, the younger, with soft blue eyes and dark golden hair, although infinitely more placid, was no less radiant than her das.h.i.+ng sister.

”Each was,” to quote another description, ”divinely tall, with a figure of perfect symmetry, and a grace of dignity enhanced by the proud poise of the small Grecian head.

Faultless also were the rounded arms and the hands, with their long, slender tapering fingers.”

All the portraits of Elizabeth reveal the same dainty disdainful lips in the shape of a Cupid's bow, the long, slender nose, the half-drooping lids and lashes. In colouring there was the same delicacy. A soft, ivory pallor shone in her face, a flush of pink warmed her cheeks, there was a gleam of gold as the sunbeams touched her light brown hair.

Such, in the cold medium of type, were the two Irish sisters who took London by storm, and who ”made more noise than any of their predecessors since the days of Helen,” in the summer of 1751. Their conquest was immediate, electrifying. London raved about the new beauties; they were the theme of every tongue, from the Court to the meanest coffee-house.

Even Grub Street rubbed its eyes in amazement at the wonderful vision, and ransacked its dictionaries for superlatives; and the poets, with one accord, struck their lyres to a new inspiration.

Whenever the sisters took their walks abroad ”they were beset by a curious mult.i.tude, the press being once so great that one of the sisters fainted away and had to be carried home in her chair; while on another occasion their beaux were compelled to draw swords to rescue them from the mob.” When, too, they once went to Vauxhall Gardens, they found themselves the centre of a mob of eight thousand spectators, struggling to catch a glimpse of their lovely faces or to touch the ”hem of their garments.”

When, in alarm, they sought refuge in a neighbouring box, the door was at once besieged by jostling, clamorous thousands, who were only kept at bay by the sword-points of their escort. And when, one day, they visited Hampton Court, the housekeeper showed the company who were ”lionising”

the place into the room where they were sitting, instead of into the apartment known as the ”Beauty Room,” with the significant remark, ”_These_ are the beauties, gentlemen.”

With such universal and embarra.s.sing homage, it is no wonder that all the gallants in town, from the rakish Duke of c.u.mberland downwards, were at the feet of the fair sisters, or that they had the refusal of many a coronet before they had been many weeks in London. Each sister counted her n.o.ble lovers by the score, and each soon capitulated to a favoured wooer.

Among Maria's most ardent suitors was the Earl of Coventry, ”a grave young lord” of handsome person and courtly graces, who had singled himself out from them all by the ardour of his wooing; and to him Maria gave her hand. One March day in 1752, the world of fas.h.i.+on was thrown into a high state of excitement by reading the following announcement:--

”On Thursday evening the Earl of Coventry was married to Miss Maria Gunning, a lady possessed of that exquisite beauty and of those accomplishments which will add Grace and Dignity to the highest station. As soon as the ceremony was over they set out for Lord Ashburnham's seat at Charlton, in Kent, to consummate their nuptials.”

Of Lady Coventry, who seems to have been as vain and foolish as she was beautiful, many amusing stories are told. So annoyed was her ladys.h.i.+p by the crowds that still followed her when she took the air in St James's Park that she appealed to the King for an escort of soldiers, a favour which was readily granted to ”the most beautiful woman in England,”

Thus, on one occasion, we are told,

”from eight to ten o'clock in the evening, a strange procession paraded the crowded avenues, obliging everyone to make way and exciting universal laughter. In front marched two sergeants with their halberds, then tripped the self-conscious Lady Coventry, attended by her husband and an ardent admirer, the amorous Earl of Pembroke, while twelve soldiers of the guard followed in the rear!”

One day, so runs another story which ill.u.s.trates her ladys.h.i.+p's lack of discretion, she was talking to King George II., who in spite of his age, was a great admirer of beauty, and especially of my Lady Coventry. ”Are you not sorry,” His Majesty enquired, ”that there are to be no more masquerades?” ”Indeed, no,” was the answer. ”I am quite weary of them and of all London sights. There is only one left that I am really anxious to see, and that is a _coronation_!” This unflattering wish she was not destined to realise; for King George survived the foolish beauty by a fortnight.

Lady Coventry had no greater admirer of her own charms than herself. She spent her days wors.h.i.+pping at the shrine of her loveliness, and embellished nature with every device of art. She squandered fortunes in adorning it with the most costly jewellery and dresses, of one of which the following story is told. One day she exhibited to George Selwyn a wonderful costume which she was going to wear at an approaching fete.

The dress was a miracle of blue silk, richly brocaded with silver spots of the size of a s.h.i.+lling. ”And how do you think I shall look in it, Mr Selwyn?” she archly asked. ”Why,” he replied, ”you will look like change for a guinea.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARIA, COUNTESS OF COVENTRY]

Mrs Delany draws a remarkable picture of my lady at this culminating period of her vanity.

”Yesterday after chapel,” she writes, ”the d.u.c.h.ess brought home Lady Coventry to feast me--and a feast she was! She is a fine figure and vastly handsome, notwithstanding a silly look sometimes about the month; she has a thousand airs, but with a sort of innocence that diverts one! Her dress was a black silk sack, made for a large hoop, which she wore without any, and it trailed a yard on the ground. She had on a cobweb-laced handkerchief, a pink satin long cloak, lined with ermine mixed with squirrel-skins. On her head a French cap that just covered the top of her head, of blond, and stood in the form of a b.u.t.terfly with wings not quite extended; frilled sort of lappets crossed under her chin, and tied with pink and green ribbon--a head-dress that would have charmed a shepherd! She had a thousand dimples and prettinesses in her cheeks, her eyes a little drooping at the corners, but fine for all that.”

Such vanities may be pardoned in a woman so lovely and so spoiled by Fortune, especially as her reign was fated to be as brief as it was splendid. She was, perhaps, too fair a flower to be allowed to bloom long in the garden of this world. Before she had been long a bride consumption sowed its deadly seeds in her; and she drained the cup of pleasure with the fatal sword hanging over her head. She knew she was doomed, that all the medical skill in the world could not save her; and, with characteristic courage, she determined to enjoy life to its last dregs.

She saw her beauty fade daily, and pathetically tried to conceal its decay by powders and paints. She grew daily weaker; but, with a brave smile, held her place in the vortex of gaiety. Even when the inevitable end was near she insisted on attending the trial of Lord Ferrers for the murder of his steward. As Horace Walpole says,

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