Perdita

by Paula Byrne

  Harris was, in fact, an influential figure in Glamorganshire. He was the squire of two large estates, Tregunter and Trevecca, and was a Justice of the Peace. One of his brothers was Howel Harris, a well-known Methodist reformer. Possibly through his brother’s influence, the religious reformer Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, had established a seminary at Trevecca House for the training of ministers. Elizabeth Robinson was a convert to Lady Huntingdon’s ‘sect’, and sometimes took Mary with her to Trevecca. Squire Harris preferred the local church where he could throw his weight around and fine the rustics for swearing, even though ‘every third sentence he uttered was attended by an oath that made his hearers shudder’.14 Harris spent most of the days on his estate, riding his small Welsh pony, only appearing at meal times.

  Mary was thoroughly bored by her husband’s family. She quickly discovered that the real ruler of the household was Molly Edwards, the housekeeper. She heartily disliked her: ‘a more overbearing, vindictive spirit never inhabited the heart of mortal than that which pervaded the soul of the ill-natured Mrs Molly’.15 Miss Betsy and Mrs Molly were jealous of Mary, who supped ale with the squire and soon became his favourite: ‘They observed me with jealous eyes; they considered me as an interloper, whose manners attracted Mr Harris’s esteem, and who was likely to diminish their divided influence in the family.’16

  Mary often alienated other young women, who were left feeling dowdy and dull in her presence. She was naturally flirtatious and men were captivated by her charm, but she was perhaps less keen to cultivate the friendship of other women, if she did not think it worth her time. She noticed the ‘side-long glances’ of Miss Betsy and Mrs Molly when she entertained visitors who praised her ‘good looks, or taste in the choice of my dresses’. The women taunted her for acting like a duchess with her fine clothes and her accomplishments – ‘a good housewife had no occasion for harpsichords and books’.17 They reminded her that she had no money to support her fancy ways. But Mary did not care. She had her beauty and her elegance and her humour to protect her. When she went riding with Miss Betsy, she laughed at her odd appearance: ‘Miss Robinson rode on horseback in a camlet safe-guard, with a high-crowned bonnet. I wore a fashionable habit, and looked like something human.’18

  More disturbingly, Harris seemed to have fallen in love with her even though in his sixties he was old enough to be her grandfather. When he declared that he should ‘have liked me for a wife, had I not married Tom’, she decided it would be prudent to leave. She feared that ‘through the machinations of Miss Betsy and Mrs Molly I should lose the share I had gained in his affections’. Betsy and Molly were duly furious when the squire insisted upon accompanying Mary to Bristol: ‘he swore that he would see me safe across the Channel, whatever might be the consequences of his journey’.19

  In Bristol, meeting the charming Hester and getting a taste of her active social life, Harris decided to stay a while. Hester introduced him to her friends and he was invited to several dinner parties. Mary danced with him and, after he had supped his evening draught, she would sing to him. He was flattered by the attention and dropped hints to the effect that Tom would inherit the estate. He asked for advice on refurbishments for Tregunter House, and together they picked out smart marble chimney-pieces: ‘Choose them as you like them, Mrs Robinson, for they are all for you and Tom when I am no more.’20

  *He later changed his name to Hanway Hanway. He was related to philanthropist Jonas Hanway, who campaigned against boy chimney sweeps and was one of the first men to carry an umbrella.

  *He later changed his name to Hanway Hanway. He was related to philanthropist Jonas Hanway, who campaigned against boy chimney sweeps and was one of the first men to carry an umbrella.

  CHAPTER 4

  Infidelity

  The town still full of alluring scenes, faro tables, assemblies, to say nothing of Ranelagh, the opening beauties of Kensington, and the morning lounge of St James’s street.

  Mary Robinson, The Widow

  We are taught to cherish deceit, indifference, vanity, contempt, and scorn; we cannot bear neglect, because it awakens our self-love; we think not of the natural fickleness of man; but we tremble, lest the world should suppose, that a husband’s infidelity proceeds from our own want of attractions to hold him faithful.

  Mary Robinson, The False Friend

  As soon as Harris had left Bristol, the Robinsons set out for London. According to Mary, they adopted young George Darby and brought him up as their own, until he was old enough to be sent abroad to a merchant house, like his elder brother, John. Elated by the great expectations that Harris had held out for them, the Robinsons threw themselves into London life. The first step they took was to move to a newly built house in Hatton Garden, a location in the ‘city’ at the east end of London as opposed to the more fashionable ‘town’ (or ton) in the west end. Close to Smithfield Market and St Paul’s, the Hatton Garden district was home to newly prosperous merchants and Jewish moneylenders, jewellers, and lawyers – it was conveniently placed for the Inns of Court.

  The Robinsons furnished their new property lavishly and bought a phaeton, the modish open-top carriage that was the same kind of status symbol as a modern convertible. Thomas Robinson also got to know the local jewellers and silversmiths. He bought his wife an expensive watch, enamelled with musical trophies.

  From where did they get the money? In her Memoirs Mary claimed ignorance about her husband’s financial affairs and debts (which she always described as his debts rather than hers), but according to King she devised a scheme – played out by Robinson and a group of fellow swindlers – that involved raising ‘immense Quantities of Goods on the Credit of foreign Letters, which they had transmitted them for the Purpose, from Holland, Ostend and France’.1 Whatever the truth of this allegation, the handsome house in Hatton Garden would have been enough to persuade traders and lenders that the Robinsons’ credit was good.

  With a smart address, a flashy phaeton, and Mary’s dazzling good looks, they burst upon the social scene, determined to get themselves noticed. Mary knew how to use her sex appeal: ‘A new face, a young person dressed with peculiar but simple elegance, was sure to attract attention at places of public entertainment.’2 She describes her entrance into society as making her debut ‘in the broad hemisphere of fashionable folly’. She might have lost her chance to perform at Drury Lane, but she saw the metropolis as a great urban stage where she could still be a star.

  Her first stop was the pleasure gardens at Ranelagh. Pleasure gardens ranked high in London’s recreational activities, but the two most popular were those of Ranelagh in Chelsea and Vauxhall in Lambeth. Here, in the open air, people gathered to stroll, chat, and listen to music. By day they could walk amongst the grottoes, groves, and waterfalls, and by night look at the brilliant lights strewn in the trees, attend concerts, balls and masquerades, and see the fireworks. Ranelagh was the classier venue: at two shillings and sixpence, its entrance fee was more than twice that of raucous Vauxhall. It had Chinese buildings, temples, statues, a canal, and a bridge. It also boasted the rotunda, an enormous circular hall for concerts, ringed with fifty-two boxes. An orchestra played whilst the ladies and gentlemen strolled around the main floor. Regular concerts were held in the summer; the 8-year-old Mozart performed there in 1764. After the concert, one would sit and eat a light supper. It was a place to be noticed and to join the smart set. The royal princes were known to frequent the pleasure gardens with their aristocratic friends. Women of fashion promenaded the main walks to show off their latest gowns and hats, and to make a stir. Prostitutes, dressed in their finery, plied their trade in the wooded groves. In Fanny Burney’s novel Evelina, the innocent heroine mistakes the Ranelagh prostitutes for ladies of fashion and is herself mistaken for a whore when she wanders onto a wrong path.

  Mary chose her outfit carefully. She wore a simple Quaker-style, light brown silk dress, with close cuffs. Breaking with the convention of powdering her hair, she perched a plain round
cap and a white chip hat on her tumbling auburn locks. She wore no other accessories – no jewellery and no ornaments. She was simplicity itself. Never one to follow fashion slavishly, she had confidence in her individual style and panache. Needless to say, she cut a figure: all eyes were fixed upon her.

  The Robinsons’ next outing was to the indoor equivalent of Ranelagh, the Pantheon in Oxford Street. It had only opened a couple of years before, when it was described by Charles Burney as the ‘most elegant structure in Europe, if not on the globe’.3 In the main it was a musical venue, housing concerts, balls, masquerades, and dances. It also had a central rotunda where visitors could play cards or take supper on ordinary evenings. Tickets for masquerades were expensive and exclusive: by subscription only, at two guineas (the equivalent of about a hundred pounds in today’s money). Mary described it as ‘the most fashionable assemblage of the gay and the distinguished’. As though at court, visitors dressed formally in large hoops and towering headdresses. The women’s hair was raised high with padding and false hair, and then greased with pomade before being powdered. Mary spent hours preparing herself, wearing an exquisite gown of pink satin trimmed with sable, and arranging her suit of ‘rich and valuable point lace’, which was given by her mother. By this time, though, she really was pregnant: ‘my shape at that period required some arrangements, owing to the visible increase of my domestic solicitudes’.4

  Mary was overwhelmed by the Pantheon rotunda: ‘I never shall forget the impression which my mind received: the splendour of the scene, the dome illuminated with variegated lamps, the music, and the beauty of the women, seemed to present a circle of enchantment.’5 It was the women who made the strongest impact upon the impressionable young girl, four of them in particular: the celebrated beauty Lady Almeria Carpenter (‘the admiration of the men, and the envy of the women’6), the actress and singer Sophia Baddeley, Frances Manners the first Countess of Tyrconnel, and Anne Montgomery Marchioness Townshend. Mary was thrilled to be so close to the rich and famous. With a boldness that belies her self-image as a wide-eyed innocent, she took a seat opposite Anne Montgomery, who was flanked by two fashionable admirers. They looked at Mary and one turned to the other and asked ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Their fixed stare disconcerted me,’ wrote Mary in her Memoirs. ‘I rose, and, leaning on my husband’s arm, again mingled in the brilliant circle.’ One cannot help thinking that this little promenade also had the effect of showing off her frock to its best advantage. The gentlemen set off in pursuit, despite the presence of her husband. As she mingled in the crowd, they asked, ‘Who is that young lady in the pink dress trimmed with sable?’ ‘My manner and confusion plainly evinced that I was not accustomed to the gaze of impertinent high breeding,’ Mary says in the Memoirs, with due propriety, but even in this account written so long after the event – and after the accident that crippled her – one can still sense her pleasure in the power of her looks.7

  She noticed that the men were joined by a third party, whom she recognized as Robert Henley, the son of her godfather, the politician Lord Northington. The latter had died in 1772, so Henley now had the title Lord Northington himself. He approached her, ‘Miss Darby, or I am mistaken?’8 She informed him of her change in status and introduced him to her husband, and together they strolled round the rotunda and chatted. Northington asked after her father, and complimented her on her appearance, asking that he be permitted to call on her. A notorious rake and womanizer, he must have been surprised by the transformation of his late father’s lowly godchild Miss Darby into the lovely Mrs Robinson.

  Feeling faint with the heat of the rotunda, and fatigued with the promenading, Mary requested tea, but there was not a single seat available in the tearoom. She finally found a sofa near the door, but her husband refused to leave her for a moment, even to bring refreshments. Henley brought her a cup of tea and introduced his two friends, the gentlemen who had been flirting with the Marchioness Townshend before pursuing Mary around the room. They were cousins: Captain George Ayscough and Lord Lyttelton. Both had highly respected fathers: Ayscough senior had been Dean of Bristol Minster during the 1760s when Mary was growing up, while the elder Lyttelton was a distinguished politician and one of Mary’s favourite poets. The sons were not so virtuous: they, like young Northington, were notorious rakes. Lyttelton junior was known as ‘the wicked’ Lord, in contrast to his father, ‘the good’. Mary described him as ‘perhaps the most accomplished libertine that any age or country has produced’.9

  Robinson set off to find the carriage, giving Lyttelton another opportunity to ingratiate himself with Mary by offering the use of his own vehicle. She declined and returned home with her husband. The next morning, the three men called on Mary, whilst she was home alone (it was conventional once an introduction had been made at an evening party to call the next day to enquire after the lady’s health).

  Lyttelton was by far the most persistent of the three. In Mary’s version of events, she was entirely the victim of his unwanted attentions: ‘Lord Lyttelton was uniformly my aversion. His manners were overbearingly insolent, his language licentious, and his person slovenly even to a degree that was disgusting.’10 But her abhorrence did not prevent her from being drawn into his lordship’s circle. Lyttelton cultivated her husband’s friendship in order to gain access to her. He gave her presents, which she accepted – contrary to the advice of the conduct books on such matters. Among the gifts was the latest volume of poetry by the ‘bluestocking’ Anna Laetitia Barbauld. Lyttelton knew how to flatter Mary’s intellect as well as her beauty.

  Mary was beginning to write poetry herself at this time. Barbauld’s poems fired a spirit of emulation: ‘I read them with rapture; I thought them the most beautiful Poems I had ever seen, and considered the woman who could invent such poetry, as the most to be envied of human creatures.’ She added to her praise a wonderfully derogatory and deflating codicil: ‘Lord Lyttelton had some taste for poetical compositions, and wrote verses with considerable facility.’11

  Lyttelton introduced the couple to his wide acquaintance, cultivating Tom Robinson as a friend and companion. The Robinsons were beginning to rub shoulders with aristocrats, politicians, and actors. Mary met and was dazzled by the intelligent and cultivated Imperial Ambassador the Count de Belgeioso, but was less impressed by the rake Lord Valentia (who later eloped with a courtesan). One of the most controversial figures Mary met during this heady time was George Fitzgerald, an Irish libertine and duellist, known as ‘Fighting Fitzgerald’. Other new acquaintances included an Irish gamester called Captain O’Byrne and the actor William Brereton. The latter would subsequently share the stage with Perdita and marry her childhood friend Priscilla Hopkins.

  Lord Northington continued to call and some female friendships were also established – with Lady Julia Yea, a prominent figure in West Country society, and the talented and witty writer Catherine Parry. At a party hosted by Mrs Parry, Mary met the actress Fanny Abington and was captivated by her charm, beauty and exquisite dress sense. Mary began again to harbour dreams of acting.

  In the midst of all this socializing, Lyttelton was always at the couple’s side: Mary describes him as her cavaliere servante, a fashionable male companion, a sort of ‘mere Platonic cicisbeo – what every London wife is entitled to’, as Sheridan mockingly wrote in The School for Scandal. But Lyttelton wanted to be more than Mary’s friend and companion. He expected a payoff for the investment he had made in the Robinsons. When he realized that flattery was not the way to her bed, he tried a more perverse route: he insulted her in public and ‘affected great indifference’ in a vain attempt to excite her interest. He mocked her for being young and insipid and when she lost her temper he would apologize for making the ‘pretty child angry’. He would repeatedly call her ‘the child’ in public to humiliate her. He mocked her literary endeavours and her thwarted plans to play Cordelia at Drury Lane. His final resort was to get to her through her weak husband. He embarked upon a strategy of ruination and
bankruptcy for Robinson, taking him to gaming houses and brothels, ‘the haunts of profligate debasement’.12 They were seen often at the races, at Ascot and Epsom.

  Whilst Robinson led a riotous life, gambling, drinking, and womanizing with his aristocratic friends, his pregnant wife was left neglected and alone. She missed the counsel of her mother, who had repaired to Bristol with young George to help him recuperate from illness. Mary blamed Lyttelton for the change in her husband’s behaviour. In her Memoirs she said that she reacted by devoting her time to poetry, but this picture of her confined existence devoted to literary pursuits is contradicted by her own claim that ‘Dress, parties, adulation, occupied all my hours.’13

  As her pregnancy advanced in the summer of 1774 she felt resentful that she was being left alone without protection or companionship. One of the most pernicious effects of her husband’s neglect was the temptation opened up by her countless admirers. The ‘most dangerous’ rake was George Fitzgerald, whose ‘manners towards women were interesting and attentive’. He sympathized with her plight of being left without her husband, then proclaimed his devotion. Though ‘surrounded by temptation, and mortified by neglect’, Mary did not waver.14

  It was not long before the couple plunged into debt. For all her claims that she knew little about their financial affairs, Mary was quite aware that they were living beyond their means – though when she did make enquiries about their financial position, her husband assured her that they were well provided for. Lyttelton promised to procure advancement for his young friend, though Thomas was sceptical that he would do anything for them.