Theresa Marchmont | Page 9

fine countenance, so graceful in every movement of her
person. But this was not all. Theresa possessed beyond other women
that retiring modesty of demeanour, that unsullied purity of look and
speech, which made her sufficiently remarkable in the midst of a
licentious court, and among companions whose levity at least equalled
their loveliness. On making more particular inquiries respecting her
family connexions, I found that they were strictly respectable, but of
the middle class of life; and that she had passed the period intervening
between the death of her father, General Marchmont, and her
appointment at court, in the family of an aged relative in the county of
Devon, by whom indeed she had been principally educated. It was at
the dying instigation of this, her last surviving friend and protector, that
her destitute situation had been represented to the king by the Lady
Wriothesly, to whose good offices she was indebted for her present
honourable station. Being however, as it were, friendless as well as
dowerless, and backed in my suit by the powerful assistance of the
king's approbation, I did not anticipate much opposition to my
pretensions to the hand of Miss Marchmont, which had now become
the object of my dearest ambition. I knew myself to be naturally
formed for domestic life; and while the disastrous position of public
affairs had obliged me to waste the days of my early youth in camps or
courts, and in exile from my own hereditary possessions, I resolved to
pass the evening of my life in the repose of a happy and well-ordered
home in my native country.
"To the vitiated taste of the gallants of the court, many of whom might
have proved powerful rivals, had they been so inclined, marriage had
no attractions. The acknowledged distaste of Charles for a matrimonial
life, and his avowed infidelities, sanctioned the disdain of his dissolute
companions for all the more holy and endearing ties of existence. I had
therefore little to fear from competition; indeed among the maids of
honour of the Queen, whose situation threw them into hourly scenes of
revelry and dissipation, Theresa Marchmont, who was universally

acknowledged to be the loveliest of the train, excited less than any
those attentions of idle gallantry, which however, sought and prized by
her livelier companions, are offensive to true modesty. I attributed this
flattering distinction to the respect ensured by the extreme _reténue_
and propriety of her manners, but I have had reason since to ascribe the
reserve of the courtiers to a less commendable motive. On occasion of a
masqued festival given by Her Majesty on her birth-day at Kew, the
king, in distributing the characters, allotted to Miss Marchmont that of
Diana. 'Your Majesty' said the Duchess of Grafton, 'has judiciously
assigned the part of the frigid goddess, to the only statue of snow
visible among us. _Mademoiselle se renchérit sur son petit air de
province, si glacial et si arrangé_,' continued she, turning to the Comt
de Gramont. 'Madam,' said the king, bowing respectfully to Theresa,
with all that captivating grace of address for which he was
distinguished, 'if every frozen statue were as lovely and attractive as
this, I should forget to wish for their animation; and become myself a
votary of the
"'Queen and huntress, chaste and fair!'
"'Ay,' whispered the Duke of Buckingham, 'even at the perilous risk of
being termed Charles, king and Lunatic.'
"This sobriquet of Diana had passed into a proverb; and such was
Theresa's character for coldness and reserve, that I attributed to her
temper of mind, the evident indifference with which she received my
attentions. Meeting her as I did, either in public assemblies, or in the
antechamber of the Queen among the other ladies in waiting, I had no
opportunity of making myself more particularly acquainted with her
sentiments and character. When I addressed her in the evening circle,
although she readily entered into conversation on general subjects, and
displayed powers of mind of no common order, yet, if I attempted to
introduce any topic, which might lead to a discussion of our mutual
situation, she relapsed into silence. At times her countenance became
so pensive, so touchingly sorrowful, that I could not help suspecting
she nourished some secret and hidden cause of grief; and once on
hinting this opinion to the king, who frequently in our familiar

intercourse rallied me on my passion for Theresa, and questioned me as
to the progress of my suit, he told me that Miss Marchmont's dejection
was generally attributed to her regret, for the loss of Lady Wriothesly,
the kind patroness who had first recommended her to his protection,
and by whose death, immediately before my return from Holland, she
had lost her only surviving friend. 'It remains to be proved,' added he,