Читать книгу Lola Montez: An Adventuress of the 'Forties - Edmund B. D'Auvergne - Страница 6

Table of Contents

A RUNAWAY MATCH

It was now fifteen years since Mrs. Craigie had visited England, and rather more than ten since she had seen her daughter. She had been made aware that Lola’s beauty far exceeded the promise of her childish years, and this she took care to make known to all the eligible bachelors of Bengal. The charms of the erstwhile pet of the 44th were eagerly discussed by men who had never seen her. Lonely writers in up-country stations brooded on her perfections, as advertised by Mrs. Craigie, and came to the conclusion that she was precisely the woman wanted to convert their secluded establishments into homes. It was difficult to get a wife of the plainest description in the India of William IV.’s day, and the competition for the hand of the unknown beauty oversea was proportionately keen. If marriage by proxy were recognised by English law Lola’s fate would have been sealed long before she was aware of it. From a worldly point of view the most desirable of these ardent suitors was Sir Abraham Lumley, whom our heroine unkindly describes as a rich and gouty old rascal of sixty years, and Judge of the Supreme Court in India. We see that in that rude age it was not the custom to speak of sexagenarians as in the prime of life. To the venerable magistrate Mrs. Craigie promised her daughter in marriage. Remembering the hard times she had gone through with her first husband, the penniless ensign, and forgetting, as we do when past thirty, how those hardships were lightened by love, she no doubt felt that she had acted extremely well by her daughter. Women’s ideas on the subject of marriage are usually absolutely conventional, and since unions between men of sixty and girls of eighteen are not condemned by the official exponents of religion, you would never have persuaded Mrs. Craigie that they were immoral. Outside the Decalogue (and the Police Regulations) all things are lawful. Well pleased with herself, the still handsome Anglo-Indian lady sailed for home in the early part of the year 1837, proposing to bring her daughter back with her to the bosom of Abraham.

She found Lola at Bath, whither she had been sent from Paris with Fanny Nicolls “to undergo the operation of what is properly called finishing their education.” I do not suppose the meeting between mother and daughter was especially cordial, considering the temperament of the former and the long period of separation, but Mrs. Craigie was delighted to find that report had nowise exaggerated the young girl’s charms. This was also the private opinion of Mr. Thomas James, a lieutenant in the 21st regiment of Native Infantry (Bengal), a young officer who had attached himself to Mrs. Craigie on the voyage and accompanied her to Bath. The mother thought him quite safe, as he had told her that he was betrothed, and had consulted her about his prospects, or, rather, the want of them. The married ladies of India have always been full of maternal solicitude for poor young subalterns, who frequently repay their kindness with touching devotion. It was probably the wish to be useful to his benefactress that had drawn Mr. James to Bath. Or it may have been that he wished to drink the waters, for I forgot to say that he had been ill during the voyage, and owed his recovery to Mrs. Craigie’s careful nursing.

Lola was staggered by the kindness and liberality of her mother. Visits to the milliner’s and the dressmaker’s succeeded each other with startling rapidity; jewellery, lingerie, all sorts of delightful things were showered upon her in bewildering profusion. Lieutenant James was kept on his legs all day, escorting the ladies to the modistes and running errands to Madame Jupon and Mademoiselle Euphrosine. At last the girl began to suspect that there must be some other motive for this excessive interest in her personal appearance than maternal fondness. She made bold one day (she tells us) to ask her mother what this was all about, and received for an answer that it did not concern her—that children should not be inquisitive, nor ask idle questions. (Lola is the only girl on record who protested that too much money was being spent on her wardrobe.) Her suspicions naturally increased tenfold. In her perplexity she sought information from the Lieutenant, of whose interest in her she had probably become conscious. Then she learnt the horrible truth. The wardrobe so fast accumulating was her trousseau, and she was the promised bride of a man in India old enough to be her grandfather. For a moment Lola was stunned. For a full-blooded, passionate girl of eighteen the prospect was hideous. We may be sure, too, that her informant did not understate the personal disadvantages of Sir Abraham Lumley. Neither did he neglect this favourable opportunity to declare his own passion for the proposed victim, and to press his suit. An interview with Mrs. Craigie followed.

“The little madcap cried and stormed alternately. The mother was determined—so was her child; the mother was inflexible—so was her child; and in the wildest language of defiance she told her that she never would be thus thrown alive into the jaws of death.

“Here, then, was one of those fatal family quarrels, where the child is forced to disobey parental authority, or to throw herself away into irredeemable wretchedness and ruin. It is certainly a fearful responsibility for a parent to assume of forcing a child to such alternatives. But the young Dolores sought the advice and assistance of her mother’s friend. …”

She was probably a little in love with that friend, who was a fine-looking fellow, about a dozen years older than herself, and who had certainly conceived a violent passion for her. The situation was conventionally romantic. The books of that time were full of distressed damsels being forced into hateful unions. Lola, it is safe to say, relished her new rôle of heroine not a little. So when her lover proposed a runaway match, she felt that she was bound to comply with the usual stage directions. After all, what could be more delightful?—an elopement in a post-chaise with a dashing young officer, an angry mamma in pursuit, and, happily, no angry papa, armed with pistols or horse-whip.

Away they went. Lola has left us no particulars of the flight. The runaways reappear, in the first month of Queen Victoria’s reign, in the girl’s native land, where she was placed under the protection of her lover’s family. “They had a great muss [sic] in trying to get married.” Lola was under age, and her mother’s consent was indispensable. James sent his sister to Bath to intercede with Mrs. Craigie. The lady was furious. Not only had her daughter upset her most cherished project, but had run off with her most devoted friend and admirer. Mrs. Craigie was a prey to the most mortifying reflections. No doubt she asked Miss James what had become of the young lady to whom her brother had declared he was affianced. She probably said some very unkind things about the Lieutenant. At last, however, “good sense so far prevailed as to make her see that nothing but evil and sorrow could come of her refusal, and she consented, but would neither be present at the wedding, nor send her blessing.” We are not told if she sent the voluminous trousseau, which had been the cause of all the mischief. She returned soon after, I gather, to India, to announce to the unfortunate Sir Abraham the collapse of his matrimonial scheme.

Miss James returned to Ireland with the necessary authority, and Thomas James, Lieutenant, and Maria Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, spinster, were made man and wife in County Meath on the 23rd July 1837. The bride’s reflections on this event are worth quoting:—

“So, in flying from that marriage with ghastly and gouty old age, the child lost her mother, and gained what proved to be only the outside shell of a husband, who had neither a brain which she could respect, nor a heart which it was possible for her to love. Runaway matches, like runaway horses, are almost sure to end in a smash up. My advice to all young girls who contemplate taking such a step is, that they had better hang or drown themselves just one hour before they start.”

This warning was obviously intended to counteract the dreadful example of the writer’s subsequent life and adventures, and to dissuade ambitious young ladies from following in her footsteps. Lola did not, of course, believe what she said. Even “when wild youth’s past” and the glamour of love has worn thin, no sensible woman could believe that she would have got much happiness out of life if it had been passed in wedlock with a man half a century her senior. Perhaps, however, Lola sadly reflected that if she had become Sir Abraham’s wife, she would probably have become his widow a very few years after.